Skyrim Ebony Mail Effect Mod
Hilke Mcnally
The Ebony Mail is an artifact created by the Daedric Prince Boethiah. It is heavy armor and enchanted with a muffle effect as well as a unique area effect that inflicts 5 points of poison damage per second on nearby opponents. It can be improved with an ebony ingot. It is awarded to you by Boethiah for completing the quest Boethiah's Calling.
In appearance, the Ebony Mail is not too different from ordinary ebony armor, aside from the absence of shoulder pauldrons, a black chainmail texture replacing the cloth areas, and minor color changes. The most unique feature of the Ebony Mail is its "poison cloak" enchantment, which activates when the wearer is sneaking or when an enemy is nearby. While active, the armor gives off a black/green-colored smoke and all parts of the wearer (including weapons but not hair and facial hair) appear a shadowy black. Most hostile creatures or NPCs affected by the poison cloak will take on a similar silhouetted appearance.
This started out as at least two or three different concepts, then somehow melded into a single one. One of the main ideas was to explore damage over time (DoT), often neglected in favor of raw power. But no one ever said anything about multiple sources of DoT, which is what the build does. Regretfully, I don't have much in the way of lore for this one. I was thinking of elemental forces gaining sentience and needing armor that "contained" their elemental bodies but I'm unsure of how that fits TES. I guess a more generic evil-doer template will do :/
Races: Orc or Breton. Orcs have access to Berserker Rage, which has great synergy with the Elemental Fury Shout. While there's no shortage of good Heavy Armor early on, they also have free access to Orc Strongholds, and Malacath's quest right at the start.
Stone: Atronach, Apprentice or Lord. Atronach's 50 points to magicka and 50% to spell absorption is one of the most useful abilities in TES, and making up for the 50% penalty to regen is almost child's play.
The Apprentice Stone, however, doubles magicka regeneration at the expense of 100% weakness to it. I've seen it being even more dismissed than Two-Weapon expertise Perks, which is saying something. Enchanting gear with 100% magicka regeneration solves the issue, though double the regen for the chance to die unexpectedly against higher level mages might be a steep price for some.
Two-Handed:With Battleaxes, and three points into Limbsplitter, we begin our first step into the joyous world of damage over time with its bleeding effect. I also chose Battleaxes because, while slower than Greatswords, they're faster than Warhammers (if one disregards The Longhammer, of course).
Heavy Armor:As the name suggests, there's ebony afoot and the Scourge makes use of it. Specifically, the Ebony Mail not only Muffles users, its poisonous area of effect (5 poison points per second) is actually larger than it seems at first and activates during combat, not just when sneaking.
Destruction:Flames of nearly all kinds, but above all Flame Cloak. Fire damage on contact *and* over time (a percentage on hit, plus the remaining over a set number of seconds), and Dual Casting extends the range.
Alteration:Mainly for the Atronach and Magic Resistance Perks. However, Transmute doubles as a skill increase and source of income (and Jewelery provides enchantment pieces), Equilibrium converts health into magicka, and Dragonhide negates 80% of all physical damage for thirty seconds. Not totally useless!
Enchanting:Depending on your starting Stone, and the degree to which you want to take DoT, it might be wise to invest in Destruction cost reduction, magicka regen and assorted Fire enchantments on your weapons. Plus, weapon recharging.
Alchemy:During the first test run of this build, I used an Orc for the Berserker Rage + Elemental Fury combo. Since enchanted weapons do not benefit from the Shout, I carried a spare unenchanted Ebony Battleaxe. Note that, while enchanted weapons do not benefit from Elemental Fury, poisoned weapons do. In this case, Weakness to Fire or Weakness to Poison further improved the damage ratio of the character when he used Flame Cloaks and the Ebony Mail after a single, poisoned strike. Still, it's more of an optional path if you have Perks and time to spare.
Block:Actually... I dabbled in it with this build, for the purposes of disarming. If you manage to disarm several enemies while DoT effects are active, the result is seeing them waste time going for their weapons while receiving damage. Highly situational but fun.
Spells:
Destruction: Flames, Firebolt, Fire Rune, Fireball, Flame Cloak, Incinerate, Wall of Flames, Firestorm. The whole BBQ. Each has different uses, further discussed below in Special Abilities.
I should also add that the build does not consider the Matching Set Perk, since Ebony Mail isn't counted as Heavy Armor by the game. Because of this, I'd suggest going with the Dragon Priest mask Nahkriin (found on Skulfdan, grants +50 Magicka, -20% Restoration and Destruction Magicka cost; it fits the build surprisingly well). Alternatively, take Morokei instead (found on Labyrinthian, grants +100% Magicka Regeneration) but remember it's Light Armor and is only meant to be taken if you're really suffering with Stone penalties.
2) Also, the Wuuthrad, because its effect (deadly to Elves) does not count as an enchantment (and it can be enchanted again, twice with Extra Effect, while retaining the original effect). Only downside is that it's situational, being more suited to quests like Missing in Action and Diplomatic Immunity.
For weapon enchantments I suggest health/magicka/stamina Drain, Fire damage and/or Paralysis. For armor enchantments, Magicka regen, Fortify Destruction and Alteration and Spell Cost reduction are the best choices.
Note: Since Smithing, Restoration and Illusion will gradually stop growing, consider alternatives such as Block (two-handed weapons aren't as good as shields, but still provide some utility: Shield Wall 1, Power Bash, Deadly Bash, Disarming Bash) and Alchemy (continuing from the previous example to poison enemies with Fire and Poison weaknesses: Alchemist 1, Alchemy 2, Alchemy 3, Physician, Poisoner). If you feel like taking Poison Perks, consider using them with the Two-Handed Sweep. A single poison effect can hit multiple enemies in front of you with a single sweeping attack, leaving more than one target vulnerable to an effect of your choice. Otherwise, consider just taking Warmaster to paralyze targets instead of poisoning them.
Firewalker
Dual cast Flames or Flame Wall over the ground + Become Ethereal + draw enemies into the burning area
Situational: draw enemies near flammable pools in dungeons, burn the pools and become ethereal
To do: revise Perk placement (can probably optimize it further) and add pictures (as soon as possible, promise).Pictures added, click on them for full size. My PC isn't the best so apologies for the quality of some of them :/
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