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Character Build: The Paralytic Mage

Tags: #Race:Nord  #Character Build Juggernaut  #Character Build Sorcerer  #Character Build Alchemist  #Rank:Recognized  #Dragonborn1721  #Character Build Defender 
  • April 30, 2016

    The Paralytic Mage is a Battlemage designed purely to take down enemies using Passive Damage, Paralyze and the occasional Shield Bash. Outside of these three combat mechanics, it does nothing to inflict damage on it's opponents, utilizing powerful potions, scrolls and perks in order to boost it's combat prowess to an unbelievable level. 

    Level: 45

    Difficulty Tested: Expert

    Grinding Needed: Low-Medium

    Focus: Gameplay

    Race: Nord

    A Nord suits this build's purpose in terms of visual appearance and more importantly has a very useful ability in regards to Battlecry. By forcing all enemies in the area to flee, Battlecry is actually an immensely useful power for a character that otherwise has no Illusion magic to back him up.

    Skills: Destruction, Block, Alteration, and Alchemy 

    • Destruction is the skill that makes a fair bit of this character fall together. It isn't Fireballs, or Ice Storms that make this character powerful but a combination of Cloaks. Generally Ice or Shock Cloaks are used but a more important, more useful spell is the Whirlwind Cloak which knocks enemies away from the Paralytic Mage giving you more room to work with.
    • Alteration is the other key skill to this character's offense, well the defense is the offence. Flesh Spells are actually the lesser concern here because what we're focusing on is, wait for it. The Paralyze Spell is our key to making this character a little more interesting then your normal Mage. Paralyze is straight up the main spell used for this character. 
    • Alchemy is generally just used to increase the power of our spells, or the duration. It is a supporting skill but very much one that is critical to this build. 
    • Block takes on a more physically defensive role that makes running Heavy Armour perks unnecessary. Combined with a couple of really cool Shields this build actually makes full use of nearly every aspect of the Block tree.

    Minor Skills: Heavy Armour

    • Heavy Armour is an unperked skill but one that is still used. Alteration and Block make us physically defensive enough but there is a key item that comes under this skill and all of our gear is Heavy. If you want to take the build upto level 50 then taking Juggernaut is an option. 

    Body: Ebony Mail

    • The Ebony Mail is a perfect piece of armour for this character. Adding a unique Poison Cloak when in stealth mode it simply means we can start stacking Cloaks to a rather extreme and fun level. Not to mention it is a strong piece of armour by itself. 

    Arms: Ebony Gauntlets

    Legs: Ebony Boots

    Shields: Dawnguard Rune ShieldSpellbreaker and Auriel's Shield

    • Dawnguard Rune Shield is mostly used against undead to add a powerful, third alternate Cloak (rather then Ebony Mail) to the character's arsenal. When combined with Flame Cloaks and Jzargo's Flame Cloaks (tbc) can be a very powerful answer to undead that would be immune to your Paralyze Spell.
    • Spellbreaker is really only used against Mages. Nothing much to say but it is a powerful shield, considering that we run Elemental Protection along with it so that taking Magic Damage becomes much easier.
    • Auriel's Shield is the main Shield for combat. Being able to blast enemies back, or staggering them is very useful for getting a quick breather during combat. 

    Weapons: Staff of Paralysis (Early Game)

    • The Staff of Paralysis is best found in Snapleg Cave, at any level. It can be picked up during the early game, before your alteration has reached the level it needs. 

    The Marksman's Flame (Fortify Archery 95% and Resist Fire 72%):

    Dragon's Tongue/Ash Creep Cluster + Elves Ear + Juniper Berries

    Remedy of Respite (Fortify Restoration 119% and Restore 149 Stamina):

    Pearl + Small Pearl +Yellow Mountain Flower

    Alteration Elixir (Fortify Alteration 95% and Restore 149 Magicka):

    Grass Pod + River Betty +Mora Tapinella

    Tonic of Destructive Force (Fortify Destruction 119% and Fortify Health by 95 points):

    Glowing Mushroom, Nightshade and Wheat

    Magicka Overload (Fortify Magicka Regen 119%, Restore 149 Magicka and Fortify Magicka, 1192 points for 5 seconds):

    Dwarven Oil, Salmon Roe and Red Mountain Flower

    Using Hearthfire:

    Hearthfire is an amazingly useful tool for this character to become truly powerful, well when I say that it actually just makes gathering a few items much more useful. By using Winstad Manor we actually can get respawning samples of two of the most rare items listed here. Small Pearls and Pearls, this is done by simply creating an Alchemy Laboratory (which we will use anyway).

    Using the Fish Hatchery also gives us access to an easy supply of Salmon Roe and easier River Betty. Next let's more onto yet another part of your new home which will make Alchemy so much easier. The Greenhouse has the potential to have most of our other ingredients ready for harvest.

    Creep Cluster, Red Mountain Flowers, Wheat, Mora Tapinella,Juniper Berries, Grass Pods, Glowing Mushrooms and Nightshade can all be planted in that Garden. That is the majority of all ingredients being much easier to get from the comfort of your home. 

    The only reason to leave is to get Dwarven Oil, Elves Ear and Yellow Mountain Flower. Not bad if you ask me.

    Flame Cloak: 

    Flame Cloak is pretty much the most basic of the three Cloaks. It has a pretty basic secondary effect (fear) but does a fair bit more damage due to the taper effects that Fire Damage is known for. Hopefully this will be the first of the three Cloaks that is picked up and it's generally the most efficient (Highest Damage for Least Magicka) 

    Frost Cloak:

    Frost Cloak is actually a bit more interesting then Flame Cloak. It has a chance to Paralyze enemies once you pick up the Deep Freeze perk, this is both useful and thematic, however we already do Paralyze most enemies and Frost is weak to a lot of the enemies that resist Paralysis (and a lot of enemies in general). Honestly this is the last choice because it just isn't as powerful or useful as the other two Cloaks.

    Storm Cloak:

    Probably the most useful of the three cloaks. Very few enemies actually resist Shock Effects which makes it a good general Cloak. The ability to disintegrate enemies once the perk by the same name is picked up could come in quite handy for ending fights just a little quicker. 

    Damage: 

    All Cloaks have increased range when paired with the Augmented Perks and Fortify Destruction Potions but also have their range boosted by Dual Casting. This means that the Cloaks will be doing about 26 damage/second so Cloaks will probably be the only spells used here. 

    Paralyze: 

    Paralyze has a number of effects that can boost it's duration, until it becomes quite literally the most powerful spell in our arsenal. First let's go with the basics, Stability and Dual Casting, together this results in a simple massive duration of 33 seconds (10*2.2*1.5). With our Potion of Alteration, we can boost that by another 92% which gives us around 65 seconds of paralysis. But wait there's more...Shalidor's Insights can improve the Duration even more, giving us a total of 96.525 seconds of Paralysis. 

    Nearly 100 seconds of helplessness for a grand total of well about 184 Magicka (not bad, but not great either). With a Cloak, that's 26 damage multiplied by 100 seconds is, well 2600 damage over the duration of the paralysis spell. But if we add on the 8 damage from the Ebony Mail, and we've got another 800 damage for the total duration. That's a combined total of 3400 damage.

    Now, this build is very much a mid-late game build. You can't really use Cloaks or Paralysis to their fullest potential until then, and even then not every fight will involve boosting them fully. Generally, a Dual Cast Cloak and a couple of non-boosted  Paralyze spells are plenty for a battle, you'll rarely need to boost it to get that full 3400 damage. But during the early game we have a bit of a problem. The Paralyzing part is easy enough, you can pick up the Staff from as early as level 1, but the passive Cloaks are a real problem.

    What I did was quite simple...Use a follower. If they're dishing out the damage for you, you can stick to a Staff and Shield combination to cripple enemies and stagger them if your Staff runs out of charge. Picking someone like Mjoll or Uthgerd would be desirable, getting a heavy hitter to deal large amounts of damage to downed enemies. 

    Combat during the late game is quite simple. Fire up a Dual Cloak, swap over to Paralyze and one of your three Shields and simply stay alive while dishing out that massive passive damage. Generally I'd recommend dropping into Stealth mode as well, just to get that secondary effect from the Ebony Mail.

    Archers are probably the easiest to fight, in fact I'd even recommend not using Paralyze on them. Because of our Block perks, it's far too easy to simply deflect the arrows, rather than stopping them from shooting at you all together. Rushing towards them with a Frost or Flame Cloak activated and then using Auriel's Shield (for the knockback) will generally deal with Archers quickly and painlessly.

    Warriors are the largest threat, their powerful attacks (especially if using Two-Handed weapons) can pretty much finish you off on harder difficulties, and they generally have more health than other enemies. The Frost Cloak would be my choice, sapping them of their Stamina simply makes you more mobile, and I'd use Auriel's Shield along with that. Paralyzing them is a must for every encounter. 

    Mages are fairly easy. Paralyze doesn't really work that well on them to be honest, their wards can easily block them, so Shock Cloaks are your number one friend along with Spellbreaker. Combined, the two can quite quickly sap their Magicka without you taking any damage, and when they do burst the Ward, you've got Elemental Protection to whether the storm a little. 

    Undead are a bit different. Stronger warrior-type undead are quite difficult, even with the combined assault of Flame Cloaks and the Dawnguard Rune Shield. The others are generally easy, but you should keep in mind that a fair few different types are completely immune to Paralyze, you'll get a nice stagger out of it, but it won't usually Paralyze them. However, the damage output should still be enough to take most Undead out relatively easily.

    Dragons are...well honestly impossible to deal with easily. Their breaths would require the Spellbreaker, but that opens you up more to their ridiculous melee attacks. I'd never recommend fighting them 1 on 1, so if you need to fight a Dragon, bring along a companion that can distract them. If your by yourself...Abuse the terrain, find somewhere to load up a massively powerful Cloak with long range, but where they can't hit you and just wait them out. 

    Boosted Paralysis: Alteration Elixir, Shalidors Insights (Alteration) and Dual Cast Paralyze

    This move is all there is the entire defensive arsenal of the Paralytic Mage, stopping nearly any enemy in their tracks for a very, very long time. 

    Cloaked in Death: Ebony Mail, Potion of Destructive Force and Dual Cast Flame Cloak 

    A simple move, I can combine two cloaks to form a massive shroud of death that very few enemies can even think of living through. 

    The Gods Wrath: Secret of Arcana, Boosted Paralysis x enemy count, Cloaked in Death, Become Ethereal

    Even Gods shall fear this power, being able to completely dismantle the defenses of entire hoards of foes and then destroy them with a powerful combination of Fire and Poison. Boasting the power to get through all but the most powerful of Magical Defenses. 

    Note: The Gods Wrath can also be powered by Shock or Frost if needed, and against Undead can even become even more powerful, dealing powerful Holy Damage as well. 

    The Roleplay or this build is mostly up to the individual player. I didn't really focus on that aspect of the character, preferring to focus purely on the Gameplay, making sure that I provided the correct information, and creating a fun and relatively fluid character. I played him as a mostly peaceful man...He didn't directly attack enemies after level 10, instead preferring to play a 'defensive game', now the hardest thing to was justify why I only used Cloaks for damage...Walls, Runes and hell the basic Flames spell are all more powerful in the long run, but I really wanted a Cloak based character. So my justification is this, defensive character, who doesn't directly attack enemies.

    However, if you wanted to, this character could just as easily be an incredibly evil character. Torturing his enemies with his slow burning spells...It's really up to you in the end.

    Quests were a really tricky thing, so ultimately I only recommend the ones that you need to play the character. 

    • Explore Winstad Manor - Staff of Paralysis (Easy early-mid game Paralysis)
    • Dawnguard - Dawnguard Rune Shield and Auriel's Shield (Evil Justification harder)
    • Boethiah's Calling - Ebony Mail (Good Justification harder)
    • The Only Cure - Spellbreaker
    • Become Thane of Hjaalmarch - Windstad Manor
    • Black Books - Secret of Arcana
    • Dragonborn Questline 

    First off I'd like to thank everyone in the Workshop. This has been by far my most popular build there, and all credit goes to those who were interested enough in the build to leave a comment (even if about half were just about changing the name ) Teccam and Relycs get an additional thank you for their help with the Tips and Tricks portion of the build, which would be dead wrong without the two of them.

    I have to say, it's a relief to finally get this out of the Workshop. I posted this nearly an entire year ago now, and it sat there without me working on it for about half of that, but continued interested helped me finally kick my own ass into shape.  

    Feel free to leave any recommendations and don't forget to check out my other builds using the Dragonborn1721 tag. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the build.

  • Member
    April 30, 2016
    Yay :D.
  • April 30, 2016

    Well it only took me 10 months to get this out of the Workshop  So a yay might be appropriate now that it's finally out.

    Thanks for the like and as I said your help with the Tips and Tricks stuff  Relycs, it's really appreciated 

  • Member
    April 30, 2016
    Glad to see this one up and finished. Great work DB. :)
  • Member
    April 30, 2016
    No problem, but I didn't really help, your maths were right. :P
  • April 30, 2016

    Thanks E, it's a relief to have it out finally 

  • Member
    April 30, 2016

    You spelled portion wrong in your thanks 

    You also spelled pick wrong when talking about deep freeze and frost cloaks.

    But if ed add on not sure what you mean here when adding up the damage you do to paralyzed enemies.

    Nice build.

  • April 30, 2016

    You did help with the Cloaks a bit, my math was off a point there, and I kind of screwed up the explanation. Plus backing my maths up was just as helpful. 

  • April 30, 2016

    I can live with three errors, I think that's some kind of personal record honestly 

    Thank you mighty Fool for your words of wisdom, even if you pointed out my greatest flaw (well...maybe linking stuff, I fixed that too)  Oh and I suppose thank you for the like 

  • Member
    April 30, 2016

    There may be more but the neighbors are drunkenly singing and someone thought it would be a good idea to give them a mic attached to one of those big speakers, so it's a little hard to think.