Class choice for Nord 'frost' warrior?

Faulgor · May 2015

I've been trying to build a 'classic' Nord, but it's a bit difficult. With classic I mean that he/she should follow TES' idea of an archetypical Nord, which seems as follows:

- Use of 2h blade/blunt weapons (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim)
- Use of 1h/s aka blocking as secondary (Oblivion, Skyrim)
- Use of heavy and/or medium armor (Morrowind, Oblivion)
- Use of Frost magic (Thunder Fist:Morrowind, Nordic Frost:Oblivion)
- Use of shield spells (Woad:Morrowind, Woad:Oblivion)

Biggest problem is obviously the lack of frost spells, which can only be used with a frost staff (which is out of the question) and the Ice Comet ultimate. If I'm not missing anything, that would be the ultimate of choice. The good thing is it will scale with stamina/weapon power, so we won't have to go hybrid.
Shielding is much easier to get, but brings us to the topic of class choice. There are Sun Shield, Hardened Ward and Obsidian Shield, as well as Brawler from the 2h skill line (which is a given) and Bone Shield from the Undaunted skill line. Sun Shield and Bone Shield both scale with Health and seem like the best choices, so this shouldn't matter too much for class choice. So with mainly using weapon (2h) and guild (ice comet, bone shield) skills, the main focus for class choice should be on the passives.

Templar
- Piercing Spear: +10% Crit damage (requires slotting an Aedric Spear skill, though)
- Spear Wall: +15% block amount (requires slotting an Aedric Spear skill, though)
- Balanced Warrior: +6% Weapon Damage

Sorcerer
- Unholy Knowledge: -5% skill cost
- Power Stone: -15% Ultimate cost
- Daedric Protection: +20% health recovery (requires slotting a summoning skill, though)

Dragon Knight
- Iron Skin: -10% block amount
- Elder Dragon: +5% health recovery per Draconic Power skill
- Battle Roar: H/M/S gain on ultimate use

Nightblade
- Refreshing Shadows: +30% stamina recovery

The best Templar bonus is a simple +6% bonus to weapon damage, the other passives are too conditional - but could be circumvented with using Sun Shield instead of Bone Shield.
The cost reductions for Sorcerers are great for resource management, and would make it much easier to use Ice Comet consistently (especially with additional ultimate cost reduction gear). Daedric Protection is a great synergy with Nords' racial bonus to health recovery (+30%) which can lead to absurd recovery rates. However, this would probably mean using Hardened Ward over Bone Shield, which lasts longer but scales with magicka for potentially less shield value (I'll have to check the numbers).
Dragon Knights offer some useful defensive passives, but nothing for offense. Elder Dragon is also worse than Daedric Protection. Not my favourite choice.
Nightblades offer very little, but what they do is quite amazing - +30% stamina recovery is incredibly useful for stamina-focused builds, even more so together with Werewolf bonuses. The fear skill is also very close to the Nord power "Battle Cry" from Skyrim, which fits very well into this build's theme.

All things considered, I'd prefer Sorcerer or Nightblade for this build. Both of which have no reliable self-heal, but that can be mitigated with Rally and high health recovery. What do you think?

Gyudan · May 2015

I think a Templar would fit better. Nightblades aren't really close to your nord fighter archetype.

Bodycounter · May 2015

The best archetype fighter as a Nord would be the Dragonknight. The only problem is it's use of flame abilities without any frost options. But: No class has any frost abilities, as far as i know. The Dragonknight can leap into people and use earth elemental shields, everything around him is pretty fitting the "nordic archetype" in my opinion.

On top of that: Using fire abilites while being natural beefy against frost attacks isn't bad logic wise.

aisriyth_ESO · May 2015

I vote for Sorcerer. While it may have some problems, I view a Nord Sorc has kind of like a Thane from DAoC. While not frosty its definitely vikingy.

Faulgor · May 2015

I can see why you would pick one class over another because of its "archetype", but I'm really mostly talking about passive bonuses here, as this build will mainly use weapon and guild skills.

For now I have chosen Sorcerer, but will probably stick with Bone Shield and thus forfeit the +20% health recovery bonus from Daedric Protection. But the overall cost reduction seemed most useful, and they promised yet unannounced new features for stamina Sorcerers in the next content update, so it will potentially only get better.

C0pp3rhead · May 2015

Frost Warrior? My advice:

Don't.

PKMN12 · May 2015

you can't be a Frost-based warrior character. You can be lightning, fire, and for some reason earth (Even though it has not really been a TES element in any other game, but whatever), but no ice.

the ONLY ice abilities in the game are from the destro staff when it is an ice staff, that is it.

F7sus4 · May 2015

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

Frost Warrior? My advice:
Don't.

You heard him? If not, then please do.

newtinmpls · May 2015

I agree with your choice of sorc; the closest thing to a self-heal there is a combo of critical surge and elemental ring (I can't recall what it morphs to, but one of the choices bosts the heal/critical thing up).

Jitterbug · May 2015

PKMN12 wrote: »

you can't be a Frost-based warrior character. You can be lightning, fire, and for some reason earth (Even though it has not really been a TES element in any other game, but whatever), but no ice.

the ONLY ice abilities in the game are from the destro staff when it is an ice staff, that is it.

Yeah it's a shame.

Pretty much the entire Ardent Flame line would be cool with frost morphs. Frost Breath, Frost Whip. Would be awesome.

Mivryna · May 2015

Sorc definitely seems like a great choice. While its main element is lightning, you could say it's simply part of the storm.