The Elemental Thrall spells are master-level Conjuration spells that summon Flame Thrall, Frost Thrall, or Storm Thrall to aid in combat. When cast, Storm Thrall permanently summons a storm atronach, which will follow and defend its master until banished, killed, or turned. These spells can be purchased from various sources, including alteration spells, Tome, Magicka Base Cost, and Skill XP.
A frost thrall is better against fire, while a storm thrall is less effective but not as vulnerable to a frost giant. Illusion spells can be used to alter enemy behaviors, making them great for crowd control. Frost Thrall is a Master-level Conjuration spell that permanently summons a Thrall with ice elements to fight for the caster.
For those who already have the Flame Thrall, Frost Thrall, and Frost Thrall spells, they are not really permanent. However, there are “Conjure Frost Atronach” and “Frost Thrall” spells available, and no frost giants are present in the game. These spells can be acquired from conjuration trainers.
In conclusion, the Elemental Thrall spells are master-level Conjuration spells that summon Flame Thrall, Frost Thrall, or Storm Thrall to aid in combat. They can be used to alter enemy behaviors and raise zombie spells, but they are not permanent spells. Players should consider their preferences when choosing their thrall and the potency perk of these spells.
📹 Skyrim: *MASTER SPELLS* How to get all Thrall Spells (Unique Spells #3) | Conjuration
Hey what is up guys it’s Mike here today I’m going to show you how to get all th spells in Skyrim so what these spells do is they …
📹 Skyrim – Who is The STRONGEST Dead Thrall and Who to Choose?
In our latest Elder Scrolls V Skyrim video we take a look at the strongest potential dead thrall companions for a necromancer …
I don’t know if I have a favorite dead thrall, but I did do something interesting once that kind of broke the game. I used a calm spell on a bandit and killed him, then raised him as a thrall. I visited Whiterun a bit later and a courier approached with a letter of inheritance… from the dead bandit. I thought, “That’s pretty cool”, chuckled, pocketed the gold and went on my way. Sometime later that thrall died and I raised him again and later I visited Windhelm. Another courier, another letter of inheritance. Apparently I glitched it where it recognized the bandit thrall as my friend and every time he died, I got a letter with gold.
My favorite is definitely Malkoran. Not only is it fun to watch him fight his own shade, but every time he dies another shade is created. Which means as long as you have muffle and invisibility you got an army of wraiths clearing out camps. I know what your thinking though, all those shades will be hostile though, well with enough investment in illusion or restoration they are non threat as you can turn or calm them.
The first thing I think when I want to revive a corpse is “damn, I wish those blue ash piles would despawn on their own.” Luckily, Dead Thrall (the most powerful necromancy spell) doesn’t have that problem. It’s late game fix, but I’m still grateful. Honestly, I don’t know why I’ve never revived Ulfric. I always save the Civil War for last, so I could use Dead Thrall by then, And having a famous and powerful War Lord like him by my side striking horror into the hearts of my enemies would feel amazing. Just imagine the looks on a bunch of Stormcloak holdouts when the man they revered and know to be dead comes strolling up to them and murderizing them. That sounds amazing and I’m gonna do that from now on, regardless of this article’s outcome. The best undead slave is a dead undead vampire… Confusing.
I’d be interested to find out how Minorne from the Dawnguard quest where you find Florentius fairs as a thrall. I’ve had her as my thrall for ages and she never seems to go down. She spams healing and thunderbolt and is quite aggressive. Also, I’ve found that instead of Bandit Chief, Reaver Lords are a bit more versatile as they are essentially bandit chiefs who can chuck spells too.
Kornalus from Harmugstahl. It’s especially hilarious when he shouts his battle cry of “What? No! Get back in your cage!” My current character is walking around accompanied by Third Emissary Rulindil from the Thalmor Embassy. I robbed the place of absolutely everything, which was beyond my character’s carrying capacity – but then I recruited some help for that. The spell should have been named Zombie Porter. Just the other day while I was working the forge, Rulindil croaked out the words “Release me…” half commanding, half pleading. Oh no. Not yet. You are still paying for your crimes.
This one’s timed well for me. I’m 51 levels into a magic-heavy playthrough right now, and my approach to combat is completely different now that I can turn things on each other both before and after they’ve died. Aetherial Crown + Ritual Stone: also turning out to be a ton of fun. Edit: I’ve also converted the Heljarchen cellar into a morgue, but my only “collected” thrall there right now (and the first NPC I used Dead Thrall in across all of my playthroughs) is Orchendor. Perhaps I should pick up Sild next, I’ve never fought him as a Conjuration mage.
i know this is over a year late but whatever i might as well inform you guys of these 2 also potential followers. At lvl 41 kill Arch-Curate Vyrthur and dead thrall him he will be at lvl 49 so you need to be a vampire with necromage in order to do so. He is in my eyes the strongest goddamn thrall in the game and i believe that is because i put him against every enemy i can think of and he won the 1v1 including the ebony goddamn warrior, while he is 32 levels below him! He gets augumented frost and shock x2 which makes his spells do more damage than the volkihar vampires and will always at the start of combat summon a frost atronach and cast a unique version of flesh spell that gives him 300 more armor rating on top of his 117 on his base armor so if you improve his armor he will hit the physical damage mitigation cap. He has a unique more powerful version of vampiric drain that also slows and steals stamina which makes him kit all melee fighters endlessly which is how he beat the ebony warrior 23 times out of 40 tries. This is now the best part, will use Auriel’s shield when given to him (cut content by bethesda) including the burst on the bash attack. The other thrall is ingjard and she should be gotten at exactly at your level 50 when she is the most powerful since she levels exactly as the player she will be level 50 too, now the unique thing about her she spawns with an enchanced crossbow at that level that has 50% armor penetration and she has 100 levels in archery,heavy armor,one handed and block which is why she is a really strong archer/warrior thrall.
I usually go with Uthgerd the unbroken, and the guy you help get revenge with on that dark elf necromancer in the crypt by Valtheim Towers. However, I also follow the skyrim archives Rise of the Fallen build by putting them into the Blades first, then bringing them out to be murdered by me later on. So they both have Blades armor and weapons and all that.
I use Orchendor and Yamarz together. They compliment each other nicely. Pro Tip for Necromancers: Sort your bodies. Keep dead thralls you like in the basement of the house in Solitude. Keep your vampires, necromancers, and ones you don’t care for in the Haunted House in Markarth. Why? Vampires and Necromancers, when kept in storage, can glitch sometimes and auto-rezz themselves. You’ll walk in, and they are alive and resurrecting other bodies nearby. Chaos ensues. When it’s over, they’ve turned many of your dead thralls into piles of ash.
In Oblivion I used 4 unkillable followers. First two are Martin and jauffre. When they ask for you to escort them to cloud ruler temple. They will follow you everywhere you go until you arrive at CRT. Next one is in the skingrad mages guild quest…..I think. He had been practicing magic in a cave and was trapped in the cave. After rescuing him and exiting the cave. When asked choose to escort him back to skingrad. He will now follow you until you enter skingrad. The last one I can’t recall the specifics. It’s one of the early fighters guild quest. I’m sure like the rest you will have the escort back choice after the mission. Like I said none of these characters can be killed. If damaged enough they drop to one knee for a brief time. Then rise and fight again. It should be noted that you will no longer be able to finish main, fighters guild, or mages guild quest without losing a follower. But they have proven to be handy in closing Oblivion gates. Along with clearing out caves.
19:20 so basically, 2 bandit cheifs to mow things down, and since there would be two they would survive pretty well cause they kill so fast, and I could bring my favorite pet (being a reikling from dlc) and then my favorite follower (being lydia) and have a 5 man team mowing down dungeons?? or one bandit chief and one acient vampire now that i’ve listened to that point of the article
There was an old build that someone came up with on an old website way back when. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, basically your ran around with two thralls and a companion each being a particular horseman and what I used then was the Champion of Boethia and Yamarz. Was an awesome build to play when young me first got around to trying Skyrim builds.
Best Thralls: Bandit Chief (mace+shield): he has all mace perks that ignores armor and most other one-handed perks, he also has a special 1.5x damage multiplier perk (you can check on UESP wiki). He tanks and deals heaps of damage, problem is when he decides do block the whole time… Forsworn Ravager (dual wielder): this guy just rushes in combat and spins around killing everything, he also has most one handed perks (even dual wielding ones) and the damage multiplier perk I mentioned above. He deals more damage than the bandit chief, spends no time blocking and will not use a bow unless you give him one (don’t do it), but he’s is not as tanky and will die quite a lot if overpowered in numbers. This is where you assist him by focusing the same targets he’s spinning at. Pyromancers: just pure aggression and they wield the best element in the game (fire). They also cast strong healing spells on themselves. Best mage thralls I’ve ever had. Vampires: the article says it all, but I still prefer Pyromancers.
I have been collecting and testing thralls, however the Master Cultist from my end does dual cast Chain Lightning and shred opponents, the Conjuration ones seem slow on the offensive and if the summon dies, they don’t call for another. Dremora Warlocks do good at a constant flow of destruction and if you can tjrall at least a Kynreeve they boast a flame cloak too.
Two big thing that this article missed is how to keep your dead thralls from disappearing and which thralls moan like zombies in your ears none stop. I have a house full of corpses. The secret is to put an item marked permanent into the thralls inventory. There are lots of such items but my favorite ones and the easiest ones to get are the ”letters from a friend” that give you shout locations that arrive by the running courier and the ”bounty” notes that you get from asking inn keeps for work. This way you can have all the thralls in this article stacked away in one of your houses ready to use without fear that they will de-spawn over time. As for the moaning thralls, vampires are a good bet to be the ones with dialogue and not moan. Also the reaver bosses from Solstheim don’t moan, but are worst than the Skyrim bandit bosses. The bandit bosses moan though so pick your poison.
On my 4th playthrough, I have tried almost everyone except Vex. Used a mod to make Brynjolf a follower and he blew my mind! Gave him some good weapons like I gave to the others and it’s not even a contest! He’s fast, responsive, relentless and when I’m with him I don’t get a scratch! He slaughters everything including dragons in about 10 seconds usually. I just go about my plundering without a care and let him take care of the enemies. He sees the enemies before they even show up to me. I love him. Everyone else is a disappointment.
My friend and I have been building up characters to duel in Skyrim Together once it’s released. He’s been building a paladin with Dawnbreaker and I’ve been building a necromancer. I already knew Volkihars were the way to go but I think I might sub one out for Malkoran just so he’s got a new shade to fight every time Malkoran dies.
Probably nobody will ever read this, but i’ve had really good results with morag tong assassins. They make good use of a war axe and heavy shield combo, come with built in fire resist so you only need two enchants to make em all around resistant, they keep their dialog instead of groaning, and they rarely use invisibility to escape combat at low health. Oh, and they literally always use a conjuration staff at the beginning of a fight.
I recently started playing Skyrim again so I’m very late but honestly use the Dremora Markynaz. I don’t know all the other methods to get him I also don’t know if you can but when you do the mission for the black star. You will have daedric mages protecting the main dude you can kill them and revive one and they are really powerful. They can kill dragons by themselves and drag ur deathlords but when they get ganged up and have no escape from it they die. It’s death is pretty rare to me.
I used to always turn 2 Draugr Death OverLords In to my thralls.. Bc they can shout frost, fus ro da and disarm shouts that i kno of, which the frost one turns them into a popsicle.. And i love that they can shout even if its only a few ones. But normally now i at least get 1 Draugr for shouting, which is a huge plus if you give them good armor and weapons the extra shouters are a must have if you want good thralls.. and then i make maybe another strong frost mage that likes to use conjuring a frost atronach to be a tank, which helps immensely or an archer that can cover from a distance with a great bow and special arrows.., my Thralls change depending on what my actual follower is proficient at.. Ya kno to just even everything out.. Lol
I like northwatch guards. I make them dual wield (thralls will dual wield as long as at least one of the weapons is a forsworn weapon) with weapons enchanted with chaos damage and absorb health. I also enchant the body piece and helmet with fortify destruction so it takes longer for the charge on their weapons to be consumed.
As some others say resurrected vampires randomly turn against you if unreliability is negative feature then they should not be nr 1. Have you tried Bandit Marauder archers? I don’t know how they behave as thralls but when they’re alive they do some ridiculus crazy damage with their bows. Btw building a character around dead thrall isn’t worth imo because 1. they get lost randomly and 2. there are areas where they can’t follow you, like apocripha as I remember.
Before Hearthfire existed I used the Kill Children mod to kill that one girl in Whiterun and then I used Dead Thrall and the twin summon thing to kill a rabbit so I had my daughter and her pet rabbit following me around the game. Then after doing almost every quest in the game I was in some random dungeon and the spell ran out. Yep.
When i did simillar build few years ago i was using combination of bandit chiefs as my melee tanks with Sild the warlock as my main dps mage support. He just spams aoe fire spells really quickly and run backwards so he kills pretty much anything before they have a chance to kill him. This combo was super useful in bandit camps against alot of enemies, giant camps and easily cleared out any vampire cave without any problems.
Step 1) Find a decently aggressive character/NPC that can’t go above level 40 and avoids magic. Step 2) Use the Alchemy glitch to boost your enchanting Skill Step 3) Give those characters super-health, weapons, magic, etc. via their equipment. Step 4) Strip down to your underwear, use the become etherial shout/turn invisible, and laugh maniacally as everything vaguely threatening you come across dies without having to so much as look at them.
I know I’m late, but after rewatching this I’m honestly surprised none of the higher level Cultists from Solstheim were mentioned. Master Cultists cap at 36 with 767 health, 383 Magicka, and 25 Stamina. They have a decent spell pool with perks to boot. Summons Lurkers too. Worth a mention if you ever come back to this topic.
You mentioned that weakling Sulla, but not Umana. She can also shield bash with perfect timing and if you leave Targe of the blooded in her possession that also boosts her damage output. She wears a set of steel plate armour without helmet so that you can look at her pretty face 🙂 Nortwatch keep Thalmor archer is also an option for those who wish to have an archer dead thrall since they might be equipped in full glass armour set. and Chief Yamarz has over 1000 health only if you choose to kill the giant instead of him. The Caller if also an interesting option, she can teleport (more effectively than Orchendor in my experience), uses shock spells and summons a storm atronach, but only one (that’s a shame because I read somewhere that she has a twin souls perk).
During a recent replay I had a reanimated bandit but the dialogue glitched and instead of the usual moaning and groaning, the dead bandit used all the bandit idle dialogue. I got really sad because he kept talking about one last haul to retire to a private island, how his girl didn’t wait for him, and begging for a hit of skooma. 🙁
Didnt look into northwatch thralls? Complete with full set of glass armor to loot and enchant and they come in archer or spell sword categories. Personally I have a northwatch archer, bandit chief, dawnguard dog and serena. Give dead thrall stabes to serena and the northwatch archer = 6 npc characters fighting. Dont even get me started on ritual stone!
You guys should consider making an updated version of this list post anniversary update. The Boneworm Helm and Zombie Dog pet + Necromage vampire pushes the dead thrall cap from 40 to 78 on undead enemies. Nightmaster vampire bosses at level 65 have over 1200 health 500 magika and 350 stamina without enchantments. That’s similar stats to Arch Curate Vyrthur you fight in Dawnguard at his max level of 75, and they will doo doo on anyone on the original list. You can also thrall Vyrthur at his max if you use all the boosts I mentioned before. He will bully most enemies on legendary, including the NPCs on this list. I haven’t tested who’s better between the two, but Vyrthur and level 65 Nightmaster Vampires are objectively the best thralls in the game assuming you don’t use restoration loop. If you do use resto loop then Ulfric with a billion health will just shout everyone off mountains forever. CHRIST IS KING
This is very informative and accurate article. I’ve ran some tests of my own and it’s pretty much identical to the results showcased in this article. I thought that Orchendor would perform better, but like you said, him using Frostbite nonstop when enemies get onto him in melee, is what makes him perform weaker in some situations than you’d expect. I still like to use named characters as thralls even if they are not the best, just for fun, but I absolutely agree that Volkihar vampire, Bandit Chief/ Siv and Ancient vampire are basically top 3 thralls.
100th comment! this article is necromancer approved. I once had the reaver lord who wields stormfang follow me for a good while. he was ok. though I heard “once knew a girl with hair of gold. I called her fair she called me bold” way to many times. lol I also had two dremora once they were good in battle but their ai must have been stupid because they didn’t follow me very effectively. I had to keep a constant eye on them in every dungeon because sometimes I’d look back and they wouldn’t be there or I’d only have one of them with me. big pain in the backside. honestly I just wish I could raise the ebony warrior. this level restriction stuff on spells is plum stupid. it’s as if they didnt actually intend the player to get to a high level.
Do Dead Thralls persist permanently if I res other npcs or leave them dead for a long time? Like, in a fight, could I rez an enemy and lost the dead thrall, finish the fight with the new lesser zombie, let it expire, and then reanimate the dead thrall? Or is it the case that once you get your dead thrall, you basically never rez anything else other than the thrall when it dies?
I would totally download a mod that made undead more aggressive by tweaking their AI. What this would mean is warriors would charge in without any self regard to bash and smash their way to victory, mages would cast flesh and conjuration spells if they have access to them then spam spells, and archers well they properly keep their distance and shoot like an archer should. Additionally, if any of them have access to healing spells they are likely to use them when low on health till they either don’t need healing or run out of magic which would give those squishy mages some additional bulk to play with.
I’ve had amazing good fights with volkihar vamps at level 80 when they’re luckily capped low enough for me to thrall them. Had a master vampire as successful and it took awhile for them to get stuck ever. They usually died by attacking each other by accident and with serana it was a nuisance to keep them alive. I’d have to smack her down and leave a cell for her to cool down or reanimate. But since I’m at lvl 107 now. I think I can only go as far as an ancient vampire variant. Even with crazy conjuring levels, I was out of luck
I really Sebastian Lort the best. For me he always summons a Storm Atronach and then uses lightning spells. I summon my Potent storm Atronach and use lightning spells as well. Us on the back line and the 2 up front work the best against a mob of enemies but really anywhere. The lightning spells don’t harm the storm Atronach so they wont turn on us if we hit them. And with my enchanted daedric armor, i have 100% reduced destruction costs and some reduction in summoning costs. So I never run out of spells and i can use the highest ones.
The Cultis Adept (Dragon Born DLC) was an amazing revive it fought very skilled staying in the back casting shock spells while if getting close switching he also summons Seekers as soon as you meet Miirak and healing with fast healing is enough mine lasted about a month before dying and the throughout I’d check it’s health to see it hasn’t lost any it was always at half meaning no damage was focused on him. Just letting you know.
My current Thralls are Ghunzul from Cragged Tusk Keep and Chief Yamarz, Ghunzul is basically a battleaxe wielding Orc bandit chief, and yall know Yamarz, people say Yamarz isn’t so strong but mine will enchanted gear and weapons, even without going overboard, on Master, is wrecking whole enemy camps on his own like a one man army, all you have to do is give him Chaos and Absorb Stamina on a Dragonbone Sword and Spellbreaker (and the usual enchantments for their armor) and he’ll tear through everybody easily
In my experience, the best combination is a master vampire and one of stronger dremora. I’ve found that the master vampire will rush forward to support the, much weaker, dremora in most fights. The pair’s only kryptonite is dragons, in one instance with a blood dragon the dremora was barbequed and literally minutes later the vampire was tossed around and flung into the air.
I also did some test back in the days and fosworn ravagers with dual wielding and enchanted + smithed armor + enchanted and smithed dragon swords with life drain and and paralyze are the best of all, they are 100% aggressive, will never die and do the highest damage! Vampires are better if you don’t smite and enchant…. if you do though, fosworn ravagers are insane!
You know, I thought I knew what my favorite thralls were, as I’d done a little research and discovered a lot of hype over the forsworn ravagers and discovered they also summon frost atronachs. This would have been thematically perfect in many different respects for one of my builds that otherwise would have just used a pair of frost thralls. Looking back a little more closely I’ve found there are different types of ravager and only the spellcaster one would be able to cast frost atronach, at the expense of the other stats that are likely the reason the ravagers were hyped to begin with. At the end of the day I suppose it may not matter. Two thralls that can summon atronachs is still two atronachs plus additional thralls on top. Does anyone have any suggestions for better dead thralls that can still summon frost atronachs? Not that conjuration is meant to be the pillar of the build but out of curiosity, would there happen to be any thrall-capable NPCs with some combination of atromancy, elemental potency and twin souls? Doubtful, I’m sure it’d be easier to find information on them if there were.
WARNING: Dead Thrall is actually really impractical for stealth builds. Thralls do not crouch with you – which is great if you need a distraction, but not so great when you need to slip by unnoticed or are trying to pickpocket the enemy. I even used muffle and invisibility other through console commands, but there really is just no way to properly stealthify a thrall. My sneakromancer is disappoint. Also, I tried resurrecting Mercer Frey for his insane attack speed, but he’s immune :C
Personally, I found that Celan and Isran make good thralls. Celan’s an absolute beast with Shields and Axes, while Isran plows through undead enemies with any weapon in combination with Stendarr’s Aura. It’s also a pretty big middle finger to the Dawnguard if you join the vampires. In terms of mage-thralls, I’d have to pick Malkoran simply because he drops a fucking reskinned Dragon Priest in the middle of the field upon each of his many, many deaths. You can hide from it and resurrect Malkoran, your enemies can’t hide.
Just re-watched thus article again and I’ve seen some other thralls that are commendable Naris The Wicked is almost identical to Sild the Warlock, they use adept and expert fire spells with adept level flesh spells and healing spells And the two mages I mentioned are commendable with a sheild and sword backup for when they get cornered by melee fighters And with anniversary edition the champion of boeithah will and can act like a bandit chief so it’s not a bad option but there is better And yes with the over powered necromage set up you can resurrect a nightlord and nightmaster vampire which if you’ve all seen are the ancient and volkurhar vampires on a God like level But that’s just my opinion and I thought I’d help out with some other thralls for people to try
Reaver Lord is the best if you don’t play as a vampire. They have a decent melee weapon. They spam mid to high tier destruction spells. They also can use healing spells. I’m not sure if their healing spells actually works on them anymore. Definitely better than a bandit chief, even if said chief is wearing daedric armor from creation club
For me pure magic casters are too weak as thralls. At level 81+, with a fully smithed and enchanted set, magic simply cannot keep up with 1h weapons and archery. Also melee characters will use any bows that you give them if they are at a distance. The criteria for a good thrall for me are: 1. Have smithable and enchantable armor, enough to reached the soft armor cap. Shoes and accessories are particularly important as they can be enchanted for resist magc/elements. Thralls can’t die too quickly or they won’t be useful in combat. 2. Has a max level of 40 or 48 for vampires. 3. Prefers to use melee/archery over magic or, if a magic user, will at least switch to melee at close range. For me Orchendar (as well as the other mages), despite of how tanky he is, is too weak. His heavy preference for magic limits his damage far too much. IMO, the best thralls are Chief Yamarz, Legate Rikke, Bandit Chief and Volkhair Vampire. Volkhair Vampire is the only magic user here, not because magic is good, but because it has a good AI that allows it to switch to melee often. Yamarz because he is very tanky, Rikke as a tankier Bandit Chief and Bandit Chief for its aggressive AI.
Path of Sorcery’s Conjuration perk tree is amazing for necromancer playthroughs, even if you don’t like reanimating dead! I just harvest bones, make skeletons, and give them gear and they wear it. There’s even a perk to give them simple commands or call them to my location. They’re like followers but you can make many of them and different types as well.
Honestly – while they are powerful, I’ve found vampire thralls to be stupidly finicky. They have a nasty tendency to stop dead on their tracks after loading and turn hostile in any case of friendly fire damage – which can pretty deadly… to you, especially if your vampire thrall runs around with enchanted and smithed up gear and decides to go against you in the middle of combat. On top of that, their combat AI seems to change quite drastically when resurrected. They no longer seem to charge as aggressively into melee. Instead, they often keep their distance at all costs and use melee weapons only when completely pinned. Basically – they turn into your standard issue elemental mages, spamming lightning and frost spells and drain health when in range. They barely ever resurrect on their own. Higher level vampires are also very trigger happy with area of effect spells, which is a double edged sword. As hilarious as it is, the novelty of seeing your thralls in-fighting after every major fight quickly turns into major annoyance. That said – this pretty much leaves bandit chiefs as the reliable option for expendable thralls. Well, you may also go for mods that increase level of stuff you can resurrect and that allows you to play around with whole equipment – in such case use hold guards, because they are badass in that role. From vanilla stuff – Thalmor soldiers are also nice – they often spawn with decent and consistent sets of armour (hey, aesthetics still matter) and come with healing spells they sometimes use.
This article’s old, but can’t say that I didn’t just sit here and admire the amount of detail. It’s hard not to appreciate the versatility of Skyrim where not only can you play in so many different ways, but you can play in so many different ways to such minute detail that it just staggers with the amount of options and replayability…that all before even thinking about mods!!!
Yup, Volkihar are the best. Another honorable mention is Kornalus as he’s a permanent corpse and really aggressive. Orchendor is sadly overhyped so I disagree there, Sild and Kornalus performed better on average. The other super honorable is Aranea Ienith of all people! Her stats suck at lvl 30 max but she is flat out amazing otherwise. She summons, and knows Icy Spear and Thunderbolt! She was the best mage sniper I’ve seen in the game. Basically, her AI is top notch! She can basically beat any non-Orchendor mage cuz of Summoner Gambit. Even when I did a duel with her vs my non-enchanting vampire lvl 50 Argonian Spellsword she dang near whooped my ass cuz of her Thunderbolt usage and sniper style AI.
Esses death trhall de master.conjuration não podem.conjurar atronachs tempestades..apenas os sacerdotes Dragão….esse teu jogo tem mod que tira bugs…esse mod acaba estragando muitas partes do game e sai do original…pra mim o melhor skyrim foi ate o legendary…o especial edition fico muito na cara que fizeram pra ganhar dinheiro.
Have you tried the Thalmor agents because at higher levels they will spawn with glass equipment, and they can cast spells. Simply go to the fortress at the north of skyrim near where you take the boat to castle volkihar, and kill a few of them to resurrect then simply smith up and enchant their gear. Depending on their AI when they are resurrected they could be very powerful.
keep in mind bandit chiefs still have 400 or more health so if you upgrade their armor to get to the 567 armor cap give them a shield and dragon bone weapon along with enchanting their armor to max out their magic resistances then they will tear through most enemies and be tanky as hell doing it in fact having two bandit chiefs as your dead thralls may just be one of the best set ups possible also I found greater success using them with absorb health and stamina enchanted dragon bone weapons over max damage stalreim weapons
I know that if you as a player become a vampire in Skyrim, you retain your previous racial abilities, meaning that a vampire’s weakness to fire can be mitigated through Dunmeri fire resistance or Breton magic resistance. NPC vampires, though, have “vampire” as their race iirc. So does that mean that if you do come across a Dunmeri ancient vampire, it won’t have Dunmeri fire resistance? Do ancient vampires even come in Dunmeri variants? I know lesser vampires do…
Out of all the articles I’d love to see a remake of, it’d be this one. Years after this article came out, I keep coming back and perusal knowing this has led to some of the coolest moments I’ve had while playing using Necromancy. While I cannot speak to the potential of creation club content’s effects on the Dead Thrall and what becomes available after the level 50 limit, I do know that there are some techniques not mentioned in this article that I’d absolutely adore seeing another take on. It would be cool seeing mods like Floating Damage, a tracker of health/magika/stamina for test duels, an arena that allows ranged thralls to have a chance to fight at different ranges/levels while not being stuck in close ranged with melees (while still letting the pure melee fighters run up and duke it out), and a showcase of the data to the points being made here. One of the biggest is how you can give Dead Thralls some of the many Conjuration staves so that warriors can use a staff without ruining their aggressive AI, and give them something more consistent then something like the Volkihar Vampire’s use of Revenant which is quite situational (as is their drain). I pick Frost Atronach because of their ability to harm enemy stamina and stagger lock with their ground smash which is fantastic for your sword n’ board thralls while Storm Atronachs are the better, they don’t do their explosive nearly enough or even melee enough. Like Orchendor, they’re great for dragons though. It must be said that Orchendor losing out here might be due to the fact that he is an amazing Sanguine Rose staff wielder alongside the high damage Miraak’s Staff as a Thrall with stall.
If you want a Bandit Chief with a name look no futher than Rigel Strong-Arm of that faux house Pinewatch. That woman is a beast when she’s undead. I raised her took her to another Bandit camp and she fucking slaughtered everyone. I took off her armor ahem and upgrade it and Enchanted it gave her an upgraded Daedric sheild and Dragonbone axe. She was pretty much invincible, I gave her enchantments resistances to magic and the element she is a Nord So I didn’t have to worry about frost magic much. She at least 15,000 points of health when I killed her(It was on Legendary), with Dark Souls and enchantments I gave her, she had at least 100,000 by then. I experimented further and currently, I have an unstoppable undead monster who easily kills anything she glares at even ME. Her weapon does 300 base damage and is enchanted to drain health and damage magic by 500 points per hit, yeah I definetly went a little overboard with her. But, sereiously I still highly recomend her she also never dissapears when killed, unlike other Bandit Chiefs, try her out(That sounds weird) and let me know your Necromantic experiences(damn this got weird).
One thing to consider for your dead thrall is Cicero as he has a max level of 40 a 100 in one handed and sneak with high light armor and he retains the same AI not to mention being a follower you can give him equipment before you kill him so he will have access to whatever equipment you want and you can get an infinite supply of Cicero’s outfit which is the only outfit in the game that has a fortify one handed enchantment on the chest piece meaning it is necessary for getting the strongest attack in the game which is over 510,000 damage and that is without glitches unless you consider necromage vampire to be a glitch
From my experience in Necromancy… Bandit chiefs with a two handed weapon are typically quite good, but their constant moaning can get annoying. Wizard masters of destruction and conjuration can be quite useful, using fireballs and even summoning more creatures to fight on your behalf. However, moaning is still a problem. The dremora can be useful, and instead of moaning, they’ll use their original voice lines. My recommendation is to defeat one of the fireball dremora in the Azure’s Star quest, as two of them can be quite destructive. Ancient vampires use powerful magic, can resurrect the dead, and whisper to themselves about eating people, so they aren’t too annoying. Briarhearts will often either be duel wielders or destruction magic users, they are also naturally silent. Having one of each can be useful.
I had a mod that puts soul trapped NPC’s into the Soul Cairn. I soul trapped the Priest of Azura’s soul and trapped her inside her own deity’s artifact. I used dead thrall on the priest and took her all the way into the Soul Cairn. I found the priest’s soul and murdered her dead, reanimated corpse in front of her.
I’ve found that the thralls that keep their speech chips are best. Wyndelius Gatharian. The elf who uses the philter of the phantom & can be found in bleak falls barrow keeps his speech & appears as a ghost. He also, uses magic &, if equipped with appropriate weapons ( drainheart drainspell weapons from labyrinthian ). Is quite a useful thrall follower.
My favorites are orchender, Arch Curate Vyrthur, malkoran, cicero, and Ulfric Stormcloak. I ussually have cicero and ulfric, but vyrthur is the strongest IMO. I also enchant their gear with hp using the fortify restoration glitch so that they dont die. That way i dont lose them when they outlevel my ability to use dead thrall on them. Unfortunately, just leaving certain caves will kill dead thralls for no reason. Even stranger is that it often only effects 1 of your 2 thralls. So one will die, and the other will be fine. It always kills the older thrall, no idea why.