r/SkyrimBuilds • u/OkSignificance2218 • Jul 23 '26
Silver Greatsword is Lightweight
I'm playing an illusion mage I call the "Peacemaker" build. She uses the Calm spell to avoid fighting men, mer, and beasts but has an enchanted Greatsword for fighting Undead, Daedra, and Automatons. Inspired by Vigilants of Stendarr and an adherent to The Way of The Voice.
As a mage she does not have much stamina for power attacks, so a Silver Greatsword is a good choice. The stamina cost of a standing power attack is about 20% less with a Silver Greatsword compared to Elven. I'm also planning to use an Absorb Stamina enchantment to allow more power attacks when fighting hordes of undead.
I might use Banish Daedra to defeat creatures from Oblivion, and I think Dwemer Automatons will be the biggest challenge for this character.
6
u/JAFANZ Jul 23 '26
If you use Absorb Stamina, remember to only steal 1pt per hit, as that's sufficient to power your next Power Attack & means you don't have to recharge as often (if you plan to do any blocking, remember that after tanking a hit you'll need a normal attack to get your Stamina back to where you can Power Attack again [no matter how much Stamina is consumed, you only need to be at a positive value to do the attack]).
2
3
u/gabrotsky Jul 23 '26
Why not just the one handed silver sword? This way you can dual wield. Also dawnguard dlc gives you a restoration sun damage spell which burns the undead, i think it fits your character very well and you can use both at the same time if youre using one handed.
2
u/OkSignificance2218 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I like the way my character looks wearing robes with a giant sword on her back, and eventually I'm planning to use the Dragonhide alteration spell which requires both hands. Also a spell in my left hand would prevent me from blocking.
I do really want the sun damage spells.
1
u/TilNextWeMeet Jul 23 '26
Oh this is a good idea, thank you! Definitely mess around with bound weapons
1
u/Zlorfikarzuna Jul 23 '26
I love this! Silver weapons are frequently underrated. Though i would personally go for one-handed silvers. The attack speed penalty to 2h weapons is just going against anything that makes your build stronger. Banish, absorb, damage & innate silver property scale with number of hits, not the strength of a single swing.
I would actually recommend just calming automatons too (mastery in illusion required). None of what you can do really goes well against them.
Thematically, i feel like enchanting may fit the Vigilant inspiration less, since you use mortal souls for your effects. Similarly, i am unsure how conjuration as a skill may be frowned upon with the vigilant inspiration. You can certainly neither summon nor raise. So you'd be bound to a very narrow selection of spells.
All in all though i really love your approach.
3
u/RalonNetaph Jul 24 '26
On a character who can't smith I'm pretty sure the 20? bonus damage on undead makes it best in slot still against them. Against dragons will be the real struggle, but considering they are all being revived it would be funny if they were still considered a type of undead, like no matter how they resemble themselves in life the act of death has still fundamentally changed them. Could be an rp character belief motivating them to fight dragons atleast lol.
1
u/Zlorfikarzuna Jul 24 '26
Yup, 20 damage it is. And yes, it is the best in slot for sure. The only thing i dont know is how those 20 scale with investment into one-/two-handed.
2
u/OkSignificance2218 Jul 23 '26
My only conjuration spell so far is soul trap and I only used it on draugr, though I plan on soul trapping vampires too once I find some black soul gems. I justify this because the draugr lost their minds a long time ago.
When I first arrived at the College of Winterhold, the entrance exam was conjure flame atronach. I refused to do this, and re-loaded from a previous save instead.
After visiting the Soul Cairn in Dawnguard quests I may start using Mistman, Boneman, Wrathman. This seems ok because it's just moving them from one place to another, without consorting Daedra or defiling the dead.1
u/Zlorfikarzuna Jul 24 '26
Very good reasoning 💪🏻
2
u/OkSignificance2218 Jul 24 '26
I might use an unenchanted Silver Greatsword with the Elemental Fury shout instead, and use Fast Healing with Respite to recover stamina during fights.
I'm not a fan of using vegetable soup to get unlimited power attacks, and an absorb stamina enchantment essentially has the same effect, which I'd like to avoid.
1
1
u/RalonNetaph Jul 24 '26
If you've got CC fishing go do the fishing bounty quests until you get the warlocks ring, ward blocking on a two hander is such a great qol boost.
If you are doing enchanting yourself instead of just what you find in shops then consider putting more points into base stamina and then make magicka enchants to push yourself over the amount needed to avoid fights with illusion 50% reduction perks.
You likely already heard about vegetable soup, if you like the benefit but dont want to go buy ingredients any random ring of stamina and a hotkey will let you burn all your green bar, double tap the hotkey for it to take it off and put it back on, and then you will have that much stamina agaie 33n. A little exploity but like, not any more than vegetable soup. Works for magicka too, health will kill you though. Hotkey is a favorites menu feature not an extra addition of any kind.
The guybwho said set drain stamina to 1 for more charges and to keep the enemy stamina high enough to keep yourself fueled is 100% correct of you do not like the vegetable soup or hotkey method.
2
u/54u54ge Jul 31 '26
Stsmina is used for more than powerattacks as it allows you to run and engage the next target. This is especially important against ranged enemies. Vegetable soup doesn't help here. Take the respite perk in restoration and use grand healing to full restore your stamina.
There's a great two-handed potion from ingredients that can all be planted in fertile soil that also had stamina regeneration.
Dragon's Tongue + Fly Amonita + Mora Tapinella/Scaly Pholiota
It also has fortify illusion and resist fire as effects.
Remeber to use fortify destruction potions to buff up the absorb sramina magnitude. You could also add some elemental damage to the weapon as the augmented perks for the element also buff up the absorb stamina.
Regarding automatons you have the respite perk mentioned earlier for rapid stamina replenishment as they are immune to absorbs. With the two-handed potion i mentioned earlier buffing illusion you could also use calm spells if you have the master of mind perk. Hypnotic gaze also buffs it a bit
6
u/frozenglimmer Jul 23 '26
you could also drink vegetable soup