Vamp Lord builds.

What do you think the best possible Vampire Lord build is?

I have been trying to think of one for awhile, but I still need a few questions answered. Like, do perks like Recovery, Avoid Death, Magic Resistance, etc still work while you are a VL?

If yes, then I would assume that Novice Destruction would affect the Vampiric Drain spell?

Obviously you will want a high Magicka stat, and most likely Health too unless you want to deal damage from a distance, but the Vampire Lord is pretty docile when you actualy play, being as the spells are extremely weak, at least they were to me at level 81. Plus you will want the Vampiric amulets and rings for a bit of a boost. So what I would do is create an all Mage character with 2/1 ration, where Magicka gets 2 and Health 1, ergo every 3 points would be split like that, and go from there however you please. Also the Melee damage on the VL is alot more effective, so possibly some stamina. It really boils down to your personal taste.

Really? That much magic into it?

400(including the extra 100 M from that one amulet) has seemed to be a good amount of magic to work around with.

My guy was a stealth build. (One handed, Sneak, Archery, all maxed) It worked out eh... okay. But i'd definately go with magic, and/or Archery.

Yes, the Vampiric Grip spell takes a boat load of Magicka.

Perks like Recovery and Magic Resistance do stack with the Vampire Lord. Not to mention with both Recovery Perks, the Vampire Lord Perk Blood Healing, and the Ring of the Erudite, you can practically spam the Drain Life Spell as much as you like. At level 49 as a Vampire Lord, I defeated Krosis and an Elder Dragon pretty easily on Master. If you ask me, the Vampire Lords are ridiculously overpowered.

I'm floating on the idea of a melee based character becoming a VL but I'm realizing that it may not be the best route. Max out Block, Heavy Armor, and One Handed with the Bladesman perk and just the bases along with maxed out Speech, Smith, and Enchanting. It leaves little room for perking any spells however I'm assuming the only spells you'll ever need are the ones that you access in VL form. I'd appreciate some notes.

I recently did a melee oriented VL character and I will say that I prefer that route over a stealth vampire any day of the week, month, or year. Metal, I would not advise utilizing the Bladesman perk if you're going to go into Smithing (and Enchanting for that matter). Critical damage is 50% of the total base damage of a weapon.

eg. A Glass Sword that has the base damage of 12 would only do 6 extra points of damage when taking the Bladesman perk.

I will ask though, what would you be using Enchanting for?

With my Nord Lycan I have a set build of maxing out all of two handed, all of heavy armor, all of smithing, speech, and enchanting, and maxing out block only in the bash section. The reason for the enchanting is to give heavy armored builds more flexibility. Buff up your armor to your specs and you have a super tank on your hands. I figured that for any warrior melee class it's a real must if you aren't going to take foes from a distance, especially mages. Enchanting your armor accordingly could mean life or death I have found. And considering I want a melee based VL who will have a weakness to fire? Yeah, enchanting will be a good cover all on the armor just to avoid that extra burn damage. I want to try to incorporate my enchanting idea with my light armored guys but I keep running into battles between perks. As for the VL I was also thinking maybe a little destruction magic? Though I'm not too sure. And as for the Magicak Health and Stamina I was thinking maybe a 3/2/1 ratio. Though maybe a 3/2/2 would be more prudent.

Maxing out all of Two-Handed, including the weapon specific perks? Out of the three for the 2H skill tree, the Skullcrusher perk is the only one I would even consider spending in. The Limbsplitter perk is more like a permanent lingering damage health poison that hardly does any DoT at all in higher levels. Considering how slow Battleaxes are, I would rather make a build that utilizes that DoT with dual-wielding axes. Unless you're planning on utilizing Hand to Hand combat with your build, I would waste two perks just to get Conditioning. That can easily be replaced with the Steed Stone as it removes the weight of any armor you wear and the speed penalty.

Why would you max smithing if you used Heavy Armor? It would make more sense to focus on the Heavy Armor smithing perks. The only reason I could see you going on the left is if you prefer the aesthetic of the Steel Plate Armor or some of the DLC exclusive armors (Chitin Heavy, Falmer Hardened/Heavy, Dawnguard Heavy, Nordic Carved). I think Speech is more than capable of replacing Enchanting as you can buy pre-enchanted gear from a Blacksmith. As for your Vampire Lord melee build, you can easily overcome the Fire Weakness problem if you go with a Dunmer and one of the new elemental Dragon Priest masks that allows you to resist 50% Fire Damage.

If I were to run these two different characters, here's what I would choose to spend perks in based on the fact that you want to run a super tank.

Nord Lycan: http://skyrimcalculator.com/284367
VL Melee: http://skyrimcalculator.com/284370

If you would like to talk more about setting up a build, feel free to PM me so that we don't de-rail this thread that was dead for almost a year.