Concept:
Most of my builds are meant to be played on slightly higher difficulties, but usually not the absolute highest difficulty from start to finish. So after designing the Shadow Strider to be playable on legendary from the character creation screen onward, I tried going through my old builds to see if any could be adapted for this purpose. The Ritualist was an easy fit...but that left me with an assassin and an archer but no warrior (I'm not planning a pure mage because all three characters use magic extensively).
The other two builds left destruction and armor spells up for grabs, so I wanted make a Spellsword. Unfortunately, everything I read online said that melee characters on the highest difficulty pretty much NEED to use followers to distract enemies (and that's the guys who carry a shield instead of a spell)...which I found pretty cowardly for a warrior.
Instead I set out to make my own build that could survive fighting hordes of legendary baddies alone. Even so, it's still kind of a Dark Souls style gameplay in that you'll need to save often and try some of the tougher fights a few different times. While certainly beatable, a lot of enemies will have you dying quite a few times before you learn how they fight and come up with an appropriate strategy.
Background:
You are N'Gasta, one of the greatest necromancer's of the second era. You served Mannimarco, and by some accounts were second only to him in power. As a Sload, the dark arts were deeply ingrained into your culture. This meant masters like yourself were not only proficient in conjuration magic, but could often amplify these spells to great affect.
You were capable of such spells, like the Soul Snare you cast to trap the wayward souls of anyone that died at any time on the entire island of Stros M'Kai. Ironically, upon your own death in the island, it was this very spell that cast your essence into the Soul Carin instead of reaching a more permeant afterlife.
Your unique circumstance, combined with your proven loyalty is what lead Mannimarco to free you of your imprisonment in the third era, when he became a god as a result of the Warp in the West. You have since sat patiently at his side as he cultivated his small pocket of Oblivion and attempted to gain influence on Nirn.
This is where you have been working on amplifying your existing powers in the same way that Soul Snare did. You are now capable of casting the "Corpse Possession" spell from Oblivion that grants you complete control of an Undead Thrall raised on Nirn. This breakthrough combined with the current political climate of Skyrim has granted you the perfect opportunity to attempt to gain your master the favor of the living.
Build:
Race - Dunmer
While any race would fit the roleplay, I honestly found no way around having to use Ancestors Wrath against certain enemies since your early-game attacks do less damage than they can regenerate.
Standing Stone - The Tower Stone/Lord Stone
Use the Tower Stone ability to grab Chillrend without having to pick any locks (see Tips/Tricks). After that, the Lord Stone will serve you best.
Magic/Health/Stamina - 0/2/1
Even though Spellbashing doesn't consume stamina, don't underestimate the importance of being able to stagger with power attacks as well.
Skills - Heavy Armor, One Handed, Enchanting, Destruction, Alteration
Just your typical spellsword. Despite the RP, you have no Conjuration ability because you ARE the zombie.
Powers - Ancestors Wrath
This is a great way to counteract the slow but persistent healing that a few tougher enemies have (like Master Vampire's drain attack or A Frost Trolls regen ability). Save it for those encounters.
Abilities - Dragonborn Frost, Force Without Effort
Paralyze perks and enchantments function as a knockdown so they're affected by Force Without Effort.
Shouts - Unrelenting Force/Clear Skies, Ice Form/Frost Breath, Fire Breath
To cut down on long cooldowns, you should favor clear skies when outdoors and Frost Breath after getting DB Frost. Fire Breath helps ground flying frost dragons, but won't stagger or paralyze so wasting a cooldown on it can leave you wide open...only use it when you won't be leaving yourself vulnerable.
Spells - Dragonhide, Frost Rune
The Frost Runes ability to do high damage while slowing enemies will be advantageous in battle and also help you train destruction while still using your staff as your primary magic attack. Use it as often as you can.
Weapons - Chillrend/Stalhrim Sword, Staff of Chain Lightning
Chillrend's use count is not affected by fortifying any school of magic so enchant a sword of paralyze as soon as you can. Once you have Extra Effect, chaos damage makes for a great secondary effect on Stalhrim Swords.
Armor/Jewellery - Nordic Carved Armor Set, Imperial Helmet (Closed), Any Ring, Any Necklace
Your first equipment set should Fortify Destruction for your Staff. Once you trade in Chillrend for a player-crafted sword of paralyze and start needing stronger armor spells, then you should begin Fortifying Alteration as well.
Perks:
Heavy Armor - You have a choice: start training Heavy Armor early or not at all (and the latter is NOT recommended). Do odd jobs and fight easy enemies for a bit before jumping into any major quests/questlines. You can dodge, but without your staff of chain lightning you can't interrupt attacks, so don't risk facing anything strong enough to OHKO you.
One Handed - One handed will gain experience quickly on legendary. High DPS is great, but make sure to balance it with your other skills so that enemies don't out level your defenses.
Enchanting - It'll be a while before you need to craft your own weapons, but the frequency with which you have to recharge them will level enchanting quickly. Get the armor perks first, you won't need the elemental perks until after obtaining Extra Effect.
Destruction - You'll need a decent Destruction skill before you can purchase chain lightning for your staff...which you're going to want to have before facing anything that can OHKO you. You can do so by fast training destruction if you like, but that leaves Heavy Armor unleveled and turns most of the game into things that can can OHKO you (making it really hard to find enemies to train your Heavy Armor skill on later).
Alteration - Alteration is very important for this build. Not only do armor spells often make the difference between dying in one hit and hanging on by a sliver of health, but the magic resistance perks will do the same at no cost to your mana.
Special Tactics:
Spellbashing
The impact perk is built right into the Staff of Chain Lightning. It causes more damage than unperked shield bashing, can stagger multiple enemies at once and will even do so at range. However, it takes a moment to charge first so trying to interrupt an opponent's attacks takes timing. Save Unrelenting Force for countering quick attacks that require faster reaction speed. You can swing your sword once while readying your staff, but power attacks or consecutive normal attacks will stop it from charging.
Cadaveric Spasm
If you crouch while wielding a One-Handed weapon in your offhand and a spell in your main, it will remove the weapons attack animation. This allows you to attack lightning fast (in a twitchy, spasming way corpses often do). There's still a timing to it, as rapidly spamming the attack button results in a slow power attack, defeating the purpose. Plus, your limited speed while crouching makes it unwise to use this ability against groups or even a single mobile foe. However, it's a great way to optimize your DPS on a paralyzed enemy while they're down.
Neuronic Impulse
In the same stance as Cadaveric Spasms, your offhand weapon seems to be able to interrupt the charging animation of your spells as well. With the right timing, you can double cast spells by tapping LH then RH again in quick succession after releasing a spell. It can be tricky to pull off, and crouching can leave you vulnerable so it's only recommended as a long distance strategy. Especially since, even if it fails the initial attack will land and stagger your foes, buying you time to get out of crouching and engage.
Roleplay/Restrictions:
Resurrection - Much like Dark Souls, the body you see on screen is already dead and therefore unable to really be killed again, just defeated. This fits well into gameplay because you'll generally die a few times before figuring out how to defeat some tougher opponents. Save often, learn from your mistakes and revert to a previous save after dying. Unlike Dark Souls, the roleplay is that doing so isn't a resilient undead warrior who won't stay dead, but rather a frustrated necromancer resurrecting their thrall to try again.
Gaining Favor - The point of this endeavor is to encourage the hero worship of your thrall. A corrupt form of worship that, while not as powerful as prayers and offerings, is the first step towards aiding your master in taking his rightful place amongst the other Daedric Lords as Talos did the Aedra. This means that you will often choose the noble path, but remember that it's just a show...and you have no qualms being self serving when no one is watching.
Sload Greed - To expand on what "self serving" means, not only would this character take an any means necissary approach to good deeds but would commit various petty crimes so long as his reputation is not at stake. N'Gasta's Sload greed did not leave him after he died. He may no longer have use for earthly possessions, but the compulsion to acquire and hoard wealth is still there.
Tips/Tricks:
Staff Enchanter - Talvas' Ash Guardian will wreck you on legendary, so it's best to avoid fighting it. It only shows up once you've spoken with Neloth though, so you can put that off as long as possible. When you arrive at Tel Mithryn talk only to Varona and then leave, after this her body will be just west of Tel Mithryn. Run like hell past the Ash Spawns to discover the body before going to speak with Neloth. This is when the Ash Guardian shows up, so fast travel to Raven Rock immediately upon exiting the mushroom. Recruit Drovis and make sure you already have three heart stones because you're going to have to run like hell again when you get back to Tel Mithryn. Get inside, enchant a Staff of Chain Lightning and then get the hell out of there.
Riftwood Manor - You can backdoor Riftwood Manor to get Chillrend before starting the appropriate quest (just follow the steps in the video provided). There are two bandits inside that, together, can be quite tough at low levels. Unlike the Ash Guardian, the tight quarters and multiple enemies makes it pretty hard to just give them the slip. However, strategic use of your staff's stagger effect and well timed dodging will turn the tables strongly in your favor. Once obtained, Chillrend will be your only paralyze enchantment up until level 22 so take good care of it.
Doubling Spells - The timing of the Neuronic Impulse strategy is very tricky, and it can be hard to tell if you did right with the lingering animation of shock attacks. If you get close to pulling it off you'll sometimes raise you hand twice but with nothing coming out the second time. Practice your timing with Ice Spear so you can easily see the septate projectiles. Even once you've nailed it out of battle, doing so while fighting can still be very difficult. It makes for a great opener though, successfully pulling it off several times in a row easily stunlocks and cuts your mana/charge use literally in half.
Concept:
Most of my builds are meant to be played on slightly higher difficulties, but usually not the absolute highest difficulty from start to finish. So after designing the Shadow Strider to be playable on legendary from the character creation screen onward, I tried going through my old builds to see if any could be adapted for this purpose. The Ritualist was an easy fit...but that left me with an assassin and an archer but no warrior (I'm not planning a pure mage because all three characters use magic extensively).
The other two builds left destruction and armor spells up for grabs, so I wanted make a Spellsword. Unfortunately, everything I read online said that melee characters on the highest difficulty pretty much NEED to use followers to distract enemies (and that's the guys who carry a shield instead of a spell)...which I found pretty cowardly for a warrior.
Instead I set out to make my own build that could survive fighting hordes of legendary baddies alone. Even so, it's still kind of a Dark Souls style gameplay in that you'll need to save often and try some of the tougher fights a few different times. While certainly beatable, a lot of enemies will have you dying quite a few times before you learn how they fight and come up with an appropriate strategy.
Background:
You are N'Gasta, one of the greatest necromancer's of the second era. You served Mannimarco, and by some accounts were second only to him in power. As a Sload, the dark arts were deeply ingrained into your culture. This meant masters like yourself were not only proficient in conjuration magic, but could often amplify these spells to great affect.
You were capable of such spells, like the Soul Snare you cast to trap the wayward souls of anyone that died at any time on the entire island of Stros M'Kai. Ironically, upon your own death in the island, it was this very spell that cast your essence into the Soul Carin instead of reaching a more permeant afterlife.
Your unique circumstance, combined with your proven loyalty is what lead Mannimarco to free you of your imprisonment in the third era, when he became a god as a result of the Warp in the West. You have since sat patiently at his side as he cultivated his small pocket of Oblivion and attempted to gain influence on Nirn.
This is where you have been working on amplifying your existing powers in the same way that Soul Snare did. You are now capable of casting the "Corpse Possession" spell from Oblivion that grants you complete control of an Undead Thrall raised on Nirn. This breakthrough combined with the current political climate of Skyrim has granted you the perfect opportunity to attempt to gain your master the favor of the living.
Build:
Race - Dunmer
While any race would fit the roleplay, I honestly found no way around having to use Ancestors Wrath against certain enemies since your early-game attacks do less damage than they can regenerate.
Standing Stone - The Tower Stone/Lord Stone
Use the Tower Stone ability to grab Chillrend without having to pick any locks (see Tips/Tricks). After that, the Lord Stone will serve you best.
Magic/Health/Stamina - 0/2/1
Even though Spellbashing doesn't consume stamina, don't underestimate the importance of being able to stagger with power attacks as well.
Skills - Heavy Armor, One Handed, Enchanting, Destruction, Alteration
Just your typical spellsword. Despite the RP, you have no Conjuration ability because you ARE the zombie.
Powers - Ancestors Wrath
This is a great way to counteract the slow but persistent healing that a few tougher enemies have (like Master Vampire's drain attack or A Frost Trolls regen ability). Save it for those encounters.
Abilities - Dragonborn Frost, Force Without Effort
Paralyze perks and enchantments function as a knockdown so they're affected by Force Without Effort.
Shouts - Unrelenting Force/Clear Skies, Ice Form/Frost Breath, Fire Breath
To cut down on long cooldowns, you should favor clear skies when outdoors and Frost Breath after getting DB Frost. Fire Breath helps ground flying frost dragons, but won't stagger or paralyze so wasting a cooldown on it can leave you wide open...only use it when you won't be leaving yourself vulnerable.
Spells - Dragonhide, Frost Rune
The Frost Runes ability to do high damage while slowing enemies will be advantageous in battle and also help you train destruction while still using your staff as your primary magic attack. Use it as often as you can.
Weapons - Chillrend/Stalhrim Sword, Staff of Chain Lightning
Chillrend's use count is not affected by fortifying any school of magic so enchant a sword of paralyze as soon as you can. Once you have Extra Effect, chaos damage makes for a great secondary effect on Stalhrim Swords.
Armor/Jewellery - Nordic Carved Armor Set, Imperial Helmet (Closed), Any Ring, Any Necklace
Your first equipment set should Fortify Destruction for your Staff. Once you trade in Chillrend for a player-crafted sword of paralyze and start needing stronger armor spells, then you should begin Fortifying Alteration as well.
Perks:
Heavy Armor - You have a choice: start training Heavy Armor early or not at all (and the latter is NOT recommended). Do odd jobs and fight easy enemies for a bit before jumping into any major quests/questlines. You can dodge, but without your staff of chain lightning you can't interrupt attacks, so don't risk facing anything strong enough to OHKO you.
One Handed - One handed will gain experience quickly on legendary. High DPS is great, but make sure to balance it with your other skills so that enemies don't out level your defenses.
Enchanting - It'll be a while before you need to craft your own weapons, but the frequency with which you have to recharge them will level enchanting quickly. Get the armor perks first, you won't need the elemental perks until after obtaining Extra Effect.
Destruction - You'll need a decent Destruction skill before you can purchase chain lightning for your staff...which you're going to want to have before facing anything that can OHKO you. You can do so by fast training destruction if you like, but that leaves Heavy Armor unleveled and turns most of the game into things that can can OHKO you (making it really hard to find enemies to train your Heavy Armor skill on later).
Alteration - Alteration is very important for this build. Not only do armor spells often make the difference between dying in one hit and hanging on by a sliver of health, but the magic resistance perks will do the same at no cost to your mana.
Special Tactics:
Spellbashing
The impact perk is built right into the Staff of Chain Lightning. It causes more damage than unperked shield bashing, can stagger multiple enemies at once and will even do so at range. However, it takes a moment to charge first so trying to interrupt an opponent's attacks takes timing. Save Unrelenting Force for countering quick attacks that require faster reaction speed. You can swing your sword once while readying your staff, but power attacks or consecutive normal attacks will stop it from charging.
Cadaveric Spasm
If you crouch while wielding a One-Handed weapon in your offhand and a spell in your main, it will remove the weapons attack animation. This allows you to attack lightning fast (in a twitchy, spasming way corpses often do). There's still a timing to it, as rapidly spamming the attack button results in a slow power attack, defeating the purpose. Plus, your limited speed while crouching makes it unwise to use this ability against groups or even a single mobile foe. However, it's a great way to optimize your DPS on a paralyzed enemy while they're down.
Neuronic Impulse
In the same stance as Cadaveric Spasms, your offhand weapon seems to be able to interrupt the charging animation of your spells as well. With the right timing, you can double cast spells by tapping LH then RH again in quick succession after releasing a spell. It can be tricky to pull off, and crouching can leave you vulnerable so it's only recommended as a long distance strategy. Especially since, even if it fails the initial attack will land and stagger your foes, buying you time to get out of crouching and engage.
Roleplay/Restrictions:
Resurrection - Much like Dark Souls, the body you see on screen is already dead and therefore unable to really be killed again, just defeated. This fits well into gameplay because you'll generally die a few times before figuring out how to defeat some tougher opponents. Save often, learn from your mistakes and revert to a previous save after dying. Unlike Dark Souls, the roleplay is that doing so isn't a resilient undead warrior who won't stay dead, but rather a frustrated necromancer resurrecting their thrall to try again.
Gaining Favor - The point of this endeavor is to encourage the hero worship of your thrall. A corrupt form of worship that, while not as powerful as prayers and offerings, is the first step towards aiding your master in taking his rightful place amongst the other Daedric Lords as Talos did the Aedra. This means that you will often choose the noble path, but remember that it's just a show...and you have no qualms being self serving when no one is watching.
Sload Greed - To expand on what "self serving" means, not only would this character take an any means necissary approach to good deeds but would commit various petty crimes so long as his reputation is not at stake. N'Gasta's Sload greed did not leave him after he died. He may no longer have use for earthly possessions, but the compulsion to acquire and hoard wealth is still there.
Tips/Tricks:
Staff Enchanter - Talvas' Ash Guardian will wreck you on legendary, so it's best to avoid fighting it. It only shows up once you've spoken with Neloth though, so you can put that off as long as possible. When you arrive at Tel Mithryn talk only to Varona and then leave, after this her body will be just west of Tel Mithryn. Run like hell past the Ash Spawns to discover the body before going to speak with Neloth. This is when the Ash Guardian shows up, so fast travel to Raven Rock immediately upon exiting the mushroom. Recruit Drovis and make sure you already have three heart stones because you're going to have to run like hell again when you get back to Tel Mithryn. Get inside, enchant a Staff of Chain Lightning and then get the hell out of there.
Riftwood Manor - You can backdoor Riftwood Manor to get Chillrend before starting the appropriate quest (just follow the steps in the video provided). There are two bandits inside that, together, can be quite tough at low levels. Unlike the Ash Guardian, the tight quarters and multiple enemies makes it pretty hard to just give them the slip. However, strategic use of your staff's stagger effect and well timed dodging will turn the tables strongly in your favor. Once obtained, Chillrend will be your only paralyze enchantment up until level 22 so take good care of it.
Doubling Spells - The timing of the Neuronic Impulse strategy is very tricky, and it can be hard to tell if you did right with the lingering animation of shock attacks. If you get close to pulling it off you'll sometimes raise you hand twice but with nothing coming out the second time. Practice your timing with Ice Spear so you can easily see the septate projectiles. Even once you've nailed it out of battle, doing so while fighting can still be very difficult. It makes for a great opener though, successfully pulling it off several times in a row easily stunlocks and cuts your mana/charge use literally in half.
