What is your favorite Character build and why?

[Festus]

Well friends here I am again.  Its time for me to build another character for high end hunting.  There are many quests that I cannot complete.  I would say as much as 80 percent of the quests have an end game that is quite impossible with my character builds.

Currently I have two hunting characters.

The Scotts woman:  120 Anatomy, 120 tactics, 120 heal, 120 maces, 120 parry, 110 bushido, 106 chivalry, 100 meditation (set to go down), 60 hiding (set to go up)

Festus:  120 Anatomy, 120 tactics, 120 archery, 120 focus, 80 bushido, 80 chivalry, 120 heal, 100 hiding, 100 magery, 120 med, 120 music, 120 provoke

Both of the above characters are at 150 each stat and with the armor and jewelry have 70 in all resists. Neither character uses anything with sockets yet.  Im still to poor. hehe

Time for another toon building:
What is your favorite build?
Why is it your favorite build?
What skills should i start with?

and for your time in answering me I give you a Great Holliday Wish and if your lucky Ill show ya all a pic of the IRL Santa.  Jelly belly and all.  After i figure out how to put a pic on either an avitar or on this page or something.  Or someone gives me another option to post a pic of the great santa. Honest he's real.

[Cypress]

Both of your builds look good although incomplete.

The Scotts woman:  
120 Anatomy
120 tactics
120 heal
120 maces Personally I'd go swords for a warrior, but it's up to you
120 parry
120 bushido raise because bushido is that good
100-115 chivalry lowered or raised... 115 is nice but as warrior it doesn't make a huge difference from 100 I'd say
120 meditation Not *needed* but can be useful if you don't leech a lot all the time
0 hiding You're a warrior. What are you hiding from? hehe (can be put in if you really want )
120 discordance Why not Great for increasing damage you do to them and decreasing what they do to you!
120 music can't disco without it!
5-20 magery comes in handy for create food and little stuff like that... and what else ya gonna do with 5 points? lol

Festus:
120 Anatomy
120 heal
120 tactics
120 archery
0 focus there's more important skills I'd say
120 med
120 music
120 provoke
120 discordance why not increase your damage even more while decreasing their damage to you?
0 hiding hiding if by itself I'd just leave out in favor of discordance since you already have music and provoke
60 magery lowered to make room for more important stuff
80 bushido
100 chivalry raised because Chiv is that awesome, and dispell evil is good for damage avoidance

Now even with all these skills, you still need base stats (without jewelry and such) to be 150 and then you still could use some stat boosting via jewelry and artifacts. Sockets aren't *needed* to go to some "end-game" places but they make it easier.  With this skill set on your archer, if you were quick and careful, you could fight in some Fel places even with only base stats although I'd still recommend boosting at least little. You can see me in game for more details

Yes, I can tell that you seem to like hiding, but if you're just using hiding by itself, I'd recommend getting enough magery for using the mage spell for invisibility instead (I don't think it has the fail chance either hehe) and leaving the skill point room for more important stuff.

Alternate warrior build:  
120 Anatomy
120 tactics
120 heal
120 swords
120 parry
120 bushido
100-115 chivalry
120 meditation
120 lumberjacking
120 archery -  why not!
5-20 magery

Alternate warrior build 2:  
120 Anatomy
120 tactics
120 heal
120 swords
120 lumberjacking
120 parry
120 bushido
100-115 chivalry
120 music
120 discordance
5-20 magery

Hope this helps!
~ Admin Cypress

[Cypress]

Oh, and I'm not sure I have a *favorite* build. I've made some wild and crazy looking stuff myself and enjoyed it lol. I've also made some super strong stuff and enjoyed it... it all just depends on your play style as to what your favorite is These days I guess lean more toward the wild and crazy and the strategic than the out-right powerhouse hehe.

And, as to what you should start with, if you plan on using barding skills, I think maybe start with 100 in provoke and discordance if you get both, or if u just get one of them then I'd think music and whichever other skill you choose. If you don't get barding skills, then I'd maybe start with healing and anatomy both at 100. The other skills should be easy to raise, although I'm not sure about lumberjacking. Lumberjacking might be a little bit of a pain to raise; anyone want to weigh in on that?

[Jharnul]

My favorite build had, for a long time, been related to my favorite profession, blacksmithy. It involved being able to mine all my metal, craft basic tools (tongs and shovels), smith (of course), and being able to defend myself if I was attacked. That was in those old OSI days. Then the golems came. I rose my tinkering to make the metal guardians myself, and dropped a bit of my combat skills. I also replaced my magery with some chivalry, which in addition to allowing travel, aided even more to fight and cure myself from poison and  curses.

The higher skill cap of SH allowed interesting options for gatherers, notably to build "polygatherers" that could still hold their own in all but the toughest combats. It also allowed to take the idea of the "golem principle", and apply it to the new paradigm. With all those skill points, I was able to build myself an able animal tamer, and retain my gathering and crafting skills. I just got the idea when I came back to SH, so the build is not complete yet, especially since my playing has been very scarce lately, but here is what I have in mind:

Taming 120, Animal Lore 120, Veterinary 120 (these 3 skills maxed allow for more pets in the stable, in addition from the obvious advantages)
Mining 120, Blacksmithy 120, tinkering 90, Item ID 100, Arms Lore 100 (This character is also my socketer/augmenter for roleplay reasons)
Magery 100, (to cast invisibility and mark runes without fail, as well as some healing and utility spells)
Wrestling 100, Parry 110 (for defense).

This is not a build intended for maximum efficiency, but mainly for RP and gathering. While it won't take on the higher end beasts, depending on the pet(s) I take with me I can mine wherever I please with some peace of mind, while my dragon takes care of whatever is trying to disrupt my work. The main reason I love this build is I can do everything with it! Ok not everything, but I gather resources, craft, and do some decent monster hunting all with the same character. I find myself getting bored when all I do is hunting, so when this happens, I go for some mining or I fill BODs or I look for valorite spots. I can even look and mark spots in the bottom of dungeons, or go strip mining/paragon hunting in Ilsh, or even explore and drain ore from Fel.

For my main "high-end" hunter, I use a pretty standard warrior template, maxing anatomy, bushido, chivalry, focus, healing, parry and tactics. For choice of weapon skill, sword and mace are both good, but most use swords. I use both . I added lockpicking for added fun and augment hunting (dungeon chest give out the most augment from what I've seen), but 100 necro for vampiric embrace would give this build even more survivability.

While it is totally up to you, I don't think you really need to make a third character for hunting, unless you do something different enough because you really enjoy hunting. Otherwise it's just dividing your valuable time to develop more similar characters, which is a bit of a waste. If it were me I would got for a tamer probably, as you don't have one yet. But modifying the chars you already have should be enough to finish those nasty (in a good way ) quests. Cypress gave you some very good ideas for modifications, except for dropping focus. I am a sucker for stam and stam regen, so I never drop focus from my warriors, but it's just my style.

Just remember that a good skillset does not replace prudence and tactical ability, so practice will make you better at using your character's various assets.

As for socketing, don't be afraid to start slow, with one or two augments in an equipment piece that is already socketed or that you socketed only once or twice on it. No need to aim the full socket suit just yet, but a few more HP or points of DEX can go a long way to help you gather the funds to socket more and buy more augments.

Have a nice Holiday yourself if we don't see each other in game (I'll try to log in, but it's been difficult lately).

[Malik]

Here are the builds I have... there open to suggestion also Cypress hehe. Not all my characters have reached the desired skill level outlined below. Malik I think is my only 100% complete character.
Malik-Druid/tamer:                Bruenor-Tank:                      Chip-Crafter:              Jarlaxle-T/Hunter:                Vaylen-Theif:
Magery - 120                       Healing -120                        Archery - 120             Cartography - 100                Lockpicking - 100
Evaluate intelligence-120       Anatomy - 120                     Meditation -120           Lockpicking - 100                 Stealing - 120
Meditation - 120                   Tactics -120                        Magery - 120              Magery - 120                      Stealth - 120
Resist spells -120                  Swordsmanship -120             Blacksmith -120           Meditation - 120                  Hiding - 100
Macefighting - 120                Lumberjacking - 100              Mining - 120                Bushido - 120                      Detect hidden - 100
Animal Taming - 120              Bushido -120                        Tailoring -120              Parrying - 120                     Magery - 100
Animal lore - 120                   Chivalry - 115                      Carpentry - 120            Healing - 120                      Evaluate int - 100
Veterinary -120                    Parrying -120                        Tinkering - 120            Anatomy - 100                    Meditation - 120
Musicanship -120                  Meditation - 120                    Alchemy - 120             Swordsmanship - 100           Necromancy - 120
Peacemaking - 120                Resist Spells -120                  Cooking - 120              Resist spells - 100                Spirit Speak - 120
                                          Magery - 25                                                          Fishing - 100                      Archery - 100

[Cypress]

Resisting spells... I forgot that. It's something I almost always left off, but it can be useful especially these days against monsters that know how to throw out a curse hehe.

[Cypress]

Oh also btw, the reason I drop focus is because I use meditation for mana regen as it should be faster than focus for that I believe, and I use chiv DF for stamina regen It does have a set back of -DCI but you can offset that.

[Malik]

I've always been partial to resist spells... don't know why but I've always wanted to have it on as many characters as i can lol. Maybe i just hate other casters hehe

[Festus]

you  all gave me a lot to think about and for that i thank you.

Cypress: What is the music for in this build.
If its for discordance as I think it is, I have  never used disco and know nothing about it.  How does discord work? What are its effects?
Alternate warrior build 2: 
120 Anatomy
120 tactics
120 heal
120 swords
120 lumberjacking
120 parry
120 bushido
100-115 chivalry
120 music
120 discordance
5-20 magery

[Cypress]

Music is indeed for discordance which works like this:
You choose an instrument you want to use by playing it (dbl-clicking it)
You then use the discord skill directly (use it from the skills menu or via a hotkey)
You target the monster you want to discord (it doesn't work against players that I know of)
If you are successful the monster should become weaker by losing a percentage of its skills, stats, and I think resistances as well.
The effect should last for a while or until you die, move out of range, or are not visible (out of line of sight I think).

Weaker monsters normally means less damage to you and more damage to them hehe!