Skyrim SE Build: Magebreaker

Intoduction: This build is meant to be the antithesis of a mage in Skyrim. Designed specifically to hunt down pesky mages and send them to Oblivion. This build boasts high magic resistance and physical defense, though physical defense is secondary and not as essential as the magic defense. This build will effectively render the warrior's greatest weakness a non-issue.

Race: Although a Nord would be a perfect lore choice war a mage-hating warrior, I have chosen a Breton for this build. The Breton boasts a 25% resistance to all magic and a racial power, Dragonskin, that gives you a 50% chance to absorb all of the effects of a spell for 1 minute. As you can guess, these racial abilities are invaluable to a build like this

Standing Stone: Early in the game, you should choose the Warrior Stone so that your main skills level faster. Later, however, you should choose the Atronach Stone. This stone will give you 50 more magicka (which doesn't matter to you), a decreased magicka regen (which also doesn't affect you), but what you most want from this stone is the 50% magicka absorption. This in combination with the Dragonskin ability will will make you 100% resistant to magic for 1 minute.

Sills: The major skills of this build are Block, Alteration, and Enchanting. Minor skills are One-Handed, Heavy Armor, and Smithing.

Perks: For Block you should take: 5/5 Shield Wall (increases the effectiveness of your shield), Deflect Arrows (arrows will do no damage if they hit the shield), Elemental Protection (block 50% of magic damage), Shield Runner (move faster with shield raised), Shield Charge (sprint with shield raised to knock over enemies). Quick Reflexes (blocking during an enemies power attack slows time) is a nice perk that is completely unnecessary. Mages won't be using power attacks, but it's up to you whether or not you want to take this perk.
     Alteration may not make much sense for a mage-hater, but you will want to level this for the magic resistance perks. Take Novice Alteration up to Expert Alteration (reduce magicka cost for repective spell class), however these are just bridge skill to get to the ones you really want. Take 3/3 Magic Resistance (blocks 20% of a spell) so that your collective spell resistance with your racial passive is 45%. Take the Atronach perk at Alteration lvl 100 for an extra 30% magicka absorption. In combination with the Atronach Stone, you will have an 80% chance to completely negate a spell.
     I like leveling enchanting for all my builds, but it isn't necessary for this one. If you do end up leveling enchanting get Enchanter 5/5 (enchantments are 100% stronger), Insightful Enchanter (skill enchantments are 25% better), Corpus Enchanter (health, magicka, and stamina enchantments are 25% better), and if you really want to push yourself over into the god-tier, get the Extra Effect perk (add a second enchantment to your gear).
     For One-Handed take: 5/5 Armsman (100% more damage), Fighting Stance (power attacks cost 25% less stamina), and Savage Strike (standing power attacks do 25% more damage and might decapitate). This build uses a mace because that fits the name Magebreaker better, but I don't think that Bone Breaker is a necessary perk at all. This perk will ignore 75% of armor for maces, but mages don't typically wear armor, so this will be useless for that. However, if you want that perk for fighting other non-mage enemies, go for it.
     For Heavy Armor take: 5/5 Juggernaut (100% more armor rating), Well Fitted (25% increase if wearing all heavy armor), Tower of Strength (just a bridge perk), and Matching Set (25% increase if wearing all of the same type of armor).
     Smithing is a little more complicated. This one is completely dependent on how much you care about aesthetics. Dwarven armor will look the best with your shield (which I will explain later), but has far from the best armor rating. I personally use Ebony because it can easily reach the armor cap and doesn't require me to spend perks into Daedric or Dragon Bone Smithing. It is ultimately up to you. You can get dwarven armor raised to the armor cap with enchanting, but it is harder. At any rate, just take the perks up to the level of armor you intend to use. Also take Arcane Enchanter (allows for smithing of enchanted items)

Guilds: Before you do anything else in the game after the tutorial, do the companions quest line. It will get you access to the Shield of Ysgramor which will get you by until you get the shield you want. It has magic resistance, so it is very good for this build.
     You will want to have nothing to do with the College of Winterhold as they are all mages. If you don't mind getting a bounty, it might be fitting for the character to go to the College and massacre the mages, but it's up to you. I didn't do this because I personally chose to play a more virtuous character.
     As for any other guilds, it is completely dependent on how you want to roll play your character. I chose to play a good character, so I chose to destroy the Dark Brotherhood and didn't join the Thieves Guild. The Civil War quest line will completely depend on your own ideologies. I felt like a Breton would be more likely to join the Imperials, so that's what I did. Again, though, this is up to you.
     Make sure to do the Book of Love quests for the extra 15%  magic resistance it gives you. After this, you should have 60% magic resistance.

Gear: Your choice of heavy armor will depend on how much you value aesthetics. I personally recommend either Dwarven or Ebony. The former for visual appeal and the latter for actual defense. If you want to use mods, the Hedge Knight armor looks great and has a high armor rating, too.


Weapon: I chose to use a mace for the weapon. It seemed to fit the name Magebreaker a lot better than a sword or axe. There are several choices for this. If you aren't running the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, Ebony has an advantage over Daedric because it will do the same damage, but is also lighter so it will swing faster. Dragon Bone will technically do the most damage, but it also weighs more. I don't think the minuscule amount of extra damage it does over Ebony or Daedric is worth the extra weight and slower swing speed. The best mace, however is the Stalhrim Mace. Despite looking like it was designed by a mentally challenged monkey, it's base damage is on par with daedric, while also being lighter. It also has a unique effect that gives any frost enchantments a 25% boost.

As for the shield, it is the bread and butter of this build. It is the Spellbreaker. You can get this shield from doing the daedric quests The Only Cure. It has one of the highest base armor ratings of any shield in the game, although it doesn't benefit from any smithing perk so it can't be double improved. However, that isn't the point of the build. The main reason we want this shield is because it also generates a ward that blocks spell up to 50 pts of damage.

Enchantments:
     Head: Fortify Destruction 25%, Waterbreathing
     Hands: Fortify One-Handed, Fortify Heavy Armor
     Feet: Fortify One-Handed, Fortify Stamina Regen
     Body: Fortify Destruction 25%, Fortify Health
     Necklace: Fortify One-Handed, Fortify Destruction 25%
     Ring: Fortify One-Handed, Fortify Destruction 25%
     Weapon: Chaos Damage, Absorb/Damage Magicka

     It may seem a little strange to have fortify destruction on this character, but if you can get 100% reduction to destruction spell cost it will also apply to your enchantment meaning that you will never have to recharge it with a soul gem.
     As for the weapon enchantments, Chaos Damage is possibly the best damage enchantment in the game. It has a 50% change of doing fire, frost, or shock damage. That doesn't sound all that great until you realize that it is possible for all 3 effects to hit at the same time. Also it counts as a frost enchantment so it benefits from the Stalhrim's 25% boost. For your second enchantment get either drain magicka or damage magicka (whichever one is stronger), you will need to make sure those pesky mages can't cast spells.

Attributes: Finally you will want to distribute your attribute points evenly between health and stamina until you get to about 250 stamina and then dump the rest into health.