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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoF9HUvYPKs If you wish, please enjoy this background music whilst viewing this build.

The Oath of Stendarr binds paladins to protect mortal beings from the predations of evil creatures in any form, whether a werewolf stalking a forest, a serial killer terrorizing a city or a vile necromancer biding his time in a crypt. Whilst not a member of the Vigilants of Stendarr, commonality of their goals and ours, makes allies of this well intentioned if short sighted and under trained group. The paladin is as merciless to their enemies as they are compassionate to the innocent. Paladins who take Stendarr's oath must be ever ready to protect themselves, their allies and any innocents from harm. Conversely, paladins are ruthless hunters of daedra, focusing on martial prowess and spells that further augment that prowess.

Anything can be a paladin, I always prefer to be a human. For this particular incarnation, I've chosen an Imperial which really helps with stamina management early to mid game and the starting stats are ideal. But you can really suit yourself, if you're interested in the meta, Breton magical resistance and absorption or Nordic elemental resistance are attributes that remain useful all game long. Whilst they're fantastic after a few levels, be aware that Bretons as one of the less durable races, make for a tougher start.

Stat Spread - Detailed explanation given below

Major Skills - Restoration, Heavy armour, Alteration

Minor Skills - Block, One handed, Speech

Standing Stone - Mage to start, Attronach once master restoration is reached

A holy bastion of defence, little can outlast the paladin, so little can defeat him or her. All the endurance of a heavily armoured juggernaut, but with a dual cast healing aura replenishing us at all times and access to self healing spells when needed. The paladin's survivability is staggering and their sun damage second to none.

Eventually the end game goal is to have the master level 'powerful healing aura' spell, dual cast and ticking on our hero at all times, and that is no small achievement. By the time your reach this level, damage alone can no longer kill you, only heavy burst damage can defeat Stendarr's champion. You'll be able to pick your moment to attack from behind your shield and outlast the most durable opponent or bullrush the glass canons to the ground, taking them apart before they can recover. The undead tremble at our mastery of sun damage and we can even stand toe to toe with a dragon.

More minor versions of healing aura are available at novice and adept level, which are a useful and essential augment at lower levels. All healing aura spells provide some level of posion resistance when dual cast. Coupled with what you gain via making your body stronger, you'll quickly be finding poison wielding enemies easy to manage. Our restoration powers are further strengthened through the destruction of vampiric fiends in Stendarr's name (see Immersive Divine Blessings) and healing is augmented with the Sailors Repose passive bonus once it's obtained.

When faced with the vile undead, we can rely on both our impressive combat skills and sun damage spells, making us an even more efficient servant of the divines. Draugr will quickly become trivial and even the dreaded dragon priests of legend will find themselves falling at our hands.

A moderate investment into the alteration tree, allows access to flesh spells to give you even more durability (precast before combat) but the real boon is the magic resistance perks and elemental shell spells.

Keep to your oath and do Stendarr's will. I've included a link to Immersive Divine Blessings covering exactly what Stendarr expects and how to obtain his valuable boons. This is a lawful good character so joining the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild is of course completely out of the question. Show mercy to the weak, slay the heretics and unbelievers where you find them. The light may have mercy on their souls, but we have none to spare.

All ranks of healing aura, ranks of self healing (fast healing, close wounds), banish daedra, sun damage variants (ranged, touch and cloak. The expert level 'sunfire grasp' and the adept level 'radiant sunbeam are truly devastating). If you wish to use turn undead spells, feel free but I never saw a need for them. A paladin does not use poison spells.

Alteration flesh spells, elemental shell spells, transmute muscles can also be useful for that extra bit of HP when encountering tougher enemies, it also boosts carry weight

Restoration - Mastery perks up to and including master, this is our most important skill, since powerful healing aura is the lynchpin of the build. Benefactors insight (dual casting perk), Improved healing, respite, divine light ranks. You may wish to eventually take Mysticism.

Heavy Armour - Up to Combat Meditation on the left and Fortitude on the right. In the very early game, I'd suggest focusing on movement perks before 'combat casting'. But eventually we need to be as proficient as possible in both it's arcane and martial usage. Since heavy armour is known to be restrictive at low levels, you may wish to combine with lighter attire until you can move comfortably in a full set, particularly if you've chosen one of the less physically gifted races.

Alteration - Elemental shell spells and access to the magic resistance perks are our main interest here. The draw back of shell spells is, only one may be active at once. As such, you may wish to push on to the 'Spell Armour' perk in the late game. I took Empowered Alterations (dual casting perk) too, since it not only improves the duration of elemental shells, but also the magnitude. The grace of Stendarr (see IDB) and our expertise in heavy armour allows us to comfortably get ourselves over the 1,000 armour soft cap. But access to flesh spells is useful in the earlier game, as is access to the 'Knock' spell and it's lesser variant. Whilst you'll quickly find yourself able to smash open most chests, no amount of strength can overcome a locked metal chest or door. Please note, I didn't begin spend perks in alteration until around level 15.

One Handed - Everything that allows you to hit harder and faster, one handed is essentially our only outgoing damage (unless our target is undead) so don't neglect it, whilst it's a minor skill, I invested in basic usage early. I focussed on maces for the living and dragons. I found little need to to perk into swords specifically. A silver Vigilant sword with sun spells was more than enough for draugr.

Blocking - Experienced blocking, elemental protection.

Speech - Haggling and merchant is plenty to allow us to see some reasonable return on surplus items and gather funds to spend on custom weapons and items in the late game.

Call upon the protection of the Aedra with the Become Ethereal shout to remove yourself from danger, granting you vital seconds to allow your healing aura to replenish you, to directly heal yourself uninterrupted or to ready a dual cast Sunfire Grasp on an ebony vampire or dragon priest, ending it's unlife without fear of it's deadly offense or concern for it's regenerative abilities.

Main quest, dragons aren't just coming back, they're coming back to life. It's our duty to put an end to this wickedness, or it will be the unmaking of the realm of Mundus.

Dawnguard, we tolerate this whore of Molag Bal, only because we must for to slay her is to leave the people of Skyrim to the whims of the Volkihar, but this abomination is not our friend. Had I not caught a glimpse of what it carried, this creature would have shared the fate of every other wight and vampire in Dimhollow. (Each Dawnguard main quest completed augments restoration spell magnitude by 5% to a maximum of 75%).

Frostflow Abyss - Lay an innocent soul to rest and gain the sailor's repose passive ability (+10% healing)

Daedric quests where we have a chance to subvert the will of the evil Daedric Princes (see IDB).

Anything where we have a chance to rid the world of the undead scourge, The Forsworn heretics, daedra or those that consort with them, as it serves to deepen our connection to almighty Stendarr (see IDB for details on Stendarr's augmented blessings for clearing Forsworn and vampire locations)

Powerful healing aura is a prohibitively expensive spell to cast. A large part of this build is getting to a point where we're able to dual cast it. There's no reason the spell ever needs to be cast whilst wearing heavy armour. It's an out of combat self buff that lasts for hours, you'll likely only need to cast it once per in game day. Carrying around some robes and a set of enchanted jewellery specifically to change into for casting this spell is to be expected. The actual cost of a dual cast will depend on the enchanted items you have at your disposal, but 400 mana is a good rough figure to work to although it's possible to get it even lower. 400 mana may sound a lot, but it's very reachable when you consider that you'll be switching over to the attronach stone which is +250 mana. Clearing the vampire lairs mentioned in IDB will also make casting cheaper, up to a maximum of 33%. Once you have the Attronach stone, the adept level restoration spell, Gnosis allows you to easily refill mana between fights by swapping your health and mana per centages, your health will then quickly refill itself. This is not an exploit, this is intelligent character building. Only a build that has heavily focused restoration mastery yet does not rely exclusively on it for outgoing damage could make this combination work. It's a powerful combination, but you've more than earned it.

Balancing the stats of a heavy armour caster can be perturbing. It feels unfair, especially to newer players to not give an idea of how to progress. As such the stat spread can't be represented by the usual x:y:z format, instead it's whatever you need to be able to dual cast powerful healing aura out of combat with your enchanted gear:1:0 You shouldn't need any further magicka investment after that. By the end game the respite perk will mean that powerful healing aura is replenishing our stamina too and the fortitude perk in heavy armour provides a large stamina boost, as such I poured almost every single stat investment into health to protect us from strong bursts of damage.

Bear in mind that this was an imperial character, if you choose a race with lower starting stamina, you may wish to invest since the respite perk requires restoration 75, so it's a while away. The same goes if your race starts with very little magic. However remember that Stendarr grants extra health and stamina for clearing Forsworn locations.

"Resolve the weaknesses of your heart, obey the laws of your providence, yield to the goodness that surrounds you, grant silence to those who betray it, bring wrath upon those who will destroy, inspire love of the righteous law, vest in yourself the mercy of Stendarr. Put your faith in the light"

The Immersive Divine Blessings mod, see the Stendarr drop down for full details of Stendarr's greater blessing, around which the build works.

Have fun - Mally 😘

An elf raised by a tribe of Reachmen in the mountains of High Rock, you’ve come east to Skyrim to investigate Forsworn activity in Markarth. You bring with you a unique brand of Reach magic long-forgotten in these parts: geomancy. Will you turn your back on their crusade, stay your hand and step aside, or join them in bloody conquest?

I’ve played some strong builds in Requiem, but in a game where unavoidable magic damage is the endgame killer, nothing comes close to the power of having 100% spell absorption and being able to shrug off any and all magic. Combine this with the damage potential of expert/master destruction and you have a truly unstoppable character!

Race: Altmer

Standing Stone: Atronach

Blessing: Julianos

Stat Spread: Honestly, any spread between health and stamina could work. (You get plenty of magicka from your stone and blessing.) I went all in health, but if you find you’re having trouble with stamina early on, you can put some points there. 2:1 H:S may be a good balance.

Destruction: This will be your main source of magic damage throughout the game, and we specialize in geomancy, which is very strong against lightly armored enemies but is resisted by armor*. You’ll want to get the main line perks, rune mastery**, and all the geomancy perks. I also took fire as a secondary element (no perks) to help deal with the undead.

One-handed: For fighting heavily armored enemies, you’ll keep a mace around for maximum AP. Get the main perks, mace focus, and armed spellcasting. Late game this will start to drop off in usefulness compared to destruction, but the Mace of Molag Bal is always good to have around for the magicka absorb enchantment.

Alteration: I didn’t perk or use anything from Alteration until I was level 20 or so, but you’ll want to put skill points here every chance you can so you can hit 100 Alteration at level 32. (This also has the side effect of prolonging the early-mid game because you’re putting half your skill points into something you’re not using.) Later on, you’ll have all the utility spells like Ebonyflesh, Transmute Muscles, and Featherfalling that make this tree so powerful. Unlike every other character, don’t bother taking the Magic Resistance perks here, you don’t need them.

Evasion: Less important than the first three, but drop some skill points and perks here when you can, more damage and better spell and stamina costs never hurts.

Drunken Combat: Not a skill but you’ll want to put one perk in this as soon as you can. Since the Atronach negates the benefits of food buffs, you really want the health and flat stamina regen that alcohol and this perk gives you.

This build plays like a standard spellsword with a mace in one hand and a spell in the other, and the combination of skills makes for a very versatile build which has an answer to almost anything. The Altmer/Atronach combo is really strong since the race gets a flat 1 magicka/second which isn’t affected by the lack of regen from the standing stone, and you should aim to get the Savior’s Hide or some other Daedric artifact as soon as you can to bump that up to 2 magicka/second.

Geomancy lets you one-shot most bandit archers from afar with a dual-cast Boulder, neutralizing a major threat to light armored characters in the early game. Against heavy armor bandits, let them come to you and engage them in melee with your mace. If you want, you can pick up a shield for safety so you can block and do other fancy things, but I don’t think it’s necessary to perk or skill block, you won’t be using it later on.

I reached level 50 destruction and one-handed at around level 18, which gets you AoE spells and the sprinting power attack. Stalagmite is the earth equivalent of Fireball, and it’s one of my favorite spells in the game just from looks alone. At this point, bandit and draugr should be no challenge at all. Falmer and Dwemer dungeons are good mid-game content to help you level faster; avoid mage lairs for now. Dragons are risky but you can try if you’re good at dodging their breath/ball attacks and have lots of resistance potions. If you do, Marked for Death is a good shout to master first since it reduces enemy armor and thus makes earth spells more effective.

Level 32, the earliest you can get level 100 alteration, is the turning point for this build. Put three perks in metamagic, activate Overpowered Spell, and then take the Magical Absorption perk. This perk normally gives you 30% spell absorb, but it gets boosted by metamagic and your Altmer racial spellpower to 40% instead. Adding on 50% from the Atronach and 10% from Julianos means that you will have 100% spell absorption and thus are almost immune to magic. (I say almost because the Drain Vitality shout ignores absorbs, that’s the one thing you still have to dodge.) At this point, you’ve won the game, you can go anywhere you want and complete anything you want.

My endgame spells included Stalagmite as bread-and-butter damage, Fireshock/Firenova against the undead, and Marked for Death + Greater Earth Rune** as a boss killer (with metamagic on, it does over 2000 damage single casted and almost 5000 dual-cast!)

* One thing to note is that in the version of Expanded Grimoire included in Serenity 1.6, enemies with too much (> 800) armor don’t resist earth spells properly. The intention seems to be for every 10 points of armor to give 1% resistance up to a cap of 80% at 800, similar to physical damage, and while the scaling portion works, enemies above the cap take the full amount of damage. This includes things like Dwarven centurions, Slighted, and Alduin. If you don’t want to take advantage of this bug, it’s completely viable to fight them in melee with perked out 1H, or just make sure to hit them with Marked for Death first.

** In 1.7, greater runes are being removed, so skip Rune Mastery. You’ll probably use MfD + the expert touch spell instead, but I’m not sure because I haven’t tested it.

The Forsworn Conspiracy: Your initial investigations bring you in way over your head, and eventually land you in prison face to face with the Forsworn king himself. You know you’re not strong enough to take him on, so you have no choice but to help him and his crew escape, watching as they cut a bloody swath through the city of Markarth. Side with Madanach and claim the Armor of the Old Gods as your starting gear. Then flee the city – you’re free to go wherever you wish at this point!

Ill Met By Moonlight: Hircine is one of the primary spirits worshipped by the Reachman tribes, and when you’re asked to partake in a great hunt in his name, you gladly oblige. Follow the Hunt-Father’s will and slay Sinding for the Savior’s Hide.

The House of Horrors: Rumors of Daedra worship in Markarth lead you to pair up with a Vigilant of Stendarr to investigate. Soon you find yourself under the gaze of Molag Bal himself. Though you know him as an unfriendly spirit of torment, the power of the mace he offers is too tempting to ignore. Start this quest as soon as you hit level 20 and are comfortable with killing Tyranus. Make sure you have >50% magic resistance!

College of Winterhold Questline: You join the College to hone your magical skills to their maximum as you find yourself dealing with greater and greater threats. You should join the College and clear Saarthal as soon as you can, as that opens up the opportunity for favor quests with your fellow students (which helps further power up your Julianos blessing). Fellglow may have to wait for a while though…

Main Questline: In your travels, you will come across the destroyed fort of Helgen. The events that ensue will take you all across the province, from the highest snowy peaks to the deepest reaches underneath, and all the way to the Nordic afterlife to save Tamriel from a world-ending threat. The end goal, of course, is to complete the main quest and kill Alduin. Good luck!

“The Hist are sentient trees, and we are connected to them. They are many and they are one, all attached at the root, and we, too, are joined to that root. Some say we were created by the Hist, to see for them the world where they cannot walk. They can call us or send us away. When we are named, we take of the sap of the Hist, and we are changed—sometimes a little, sometimes very much.”

Race: Saxheel (Argonian)

Standing stone: The Mage

Skills: One-Handed, Alteration, Heavy Armour, Block, Speech, Restoration

Stat Spread: 2-1-1 This build needs a bit of everything. One-handed damage scales equally off of stamina and health, and infusions require a reasonable bank of magicka.

Most Argonians prefer light armour and guerilla warfare, a tactic much suited to the marshes of their homeland. When more traditional warfare is required, the Saxheel have Shellbacks. Heavy armour and a thick shield makes these Argonians formidable, while their Hist magic drains the life from any foe who gets too close.

The Shellback is a regenerative juggernaut. Attacks that make it past our shield are mitigated by our heavy armour and naturally protective scales, while wounds are quickly healed by sapping the life from our enemies.

Our versatile use of magic is channelled through our weapon with infusions, or surrounds us with cloak spells. For almost all enemies, we can drain their life force with Absorb Health, healing ourselves while harming them. Corrosion spells weaken armour and damage Automatons, sun spells burn the undead and poison spells cripple dragons.

The lack of range is the Shellback’s biggest weakness, as all our offense comes through melee attacks or proximity. Although the natural speed of an Argonian allows us to close the gap, and high Magic Resistance keeps us protected while we do.

One Handed

• Weapon Mastery (2/2)
• Penetrating Strikes
• War Axe Focus (3/3)
• Powerful Strike

I’ve chosen War Axes as they are versatile, and don’t have a significant drawback against certain enemies like Maces or Swords, meaning we only need to perk one weapon focus, and don’t need to carry two weapons. Also, as we’re using infusions, we are not bothered by the lack of unique War Axes. Flurry (2/2), Powerful Charge, and Stunning Charge are a bonus.

Alteration

• Novice Alteration
• Apprentice Alteration
• Adept Alteration
• Magic Resistance (3/3)
• Stability
• Hemomancer (2/2)

We primarily will be using Infusion and Cloak spells. Infusions require Apprentice Alteration to reduce magicka cost, and are unaffected by any other perks. Their damage scales directly off of Alteration’s level. For this reason, we don’t need to invest in Hemomancer until we’ve unlocked Adept Alteration, providing us with Absorb Health Cloak. There are many more perks that we could make use of, such as Magical Absorption and the rest of the Hemomancer line, but the above perks are necessary, so prioritise these and other skills. Empowered Alterations is useful for dual casting Knock spells, although this is magicka-heavy while armoured.

Heavy Armor

• Combat Casting
• Combat Training
• Relentless Onslaught
• Combat Trance

Levelling Heavy Armour up to 25 and grabbing the first four perks early means we remove a lot of its drawbacks quickly. After that, we want to keep it in line with our Alteration level up to 50, to unlock Combat Trance to allow us to cast our cloak spells without penalties. Going further along the right side of the perk tree provides more elemental resistance on top of other bonuses, but is not necessary. If you do wish to cast spells above Adept level, you’ll need to invest in Heavy Armor further.

Block

• Improved Blocking
• Experienced Blocking
• Strong Grip
• Elemental Protection

The first three perks make our blocking much more effective, while Elemental Protection gives us a passive 25% buff to all elemental resistances, going up to 50% while blocking. This, coupled with Magic Resistance perks, elemental Shell spells and perks from Heavy Armour gives us a lot of resistances against magic damage.

Speech Speech gives us better buying and selling prices, meaning more gold to invest in gear and training. Haggling is really the only perk we need, though Silver Tongue is also useful if you fancy it. Raising Speech past 50 is too demanding on skill points to be worth it.

Restoration

• Novice Restoration
• Apprentice Restoration
• Focused Mind

Restoration gets a minor mention. We really don’t need much of it, as our healing will be coming from our Absorb Health cloak and Infusion, but it does come in handy to heal up in the early game, and against Dwemer Automatons which are immune to Absorb Health. Early on, Sun Infusion is good against the undead before our Alteration outscales it (this is about 42 Alteration vs 25 Restoration).

Below you'll find a bit of lore-based information to help inform your choices during a playthrough.

Hist Soul

Saxheels worship the Hist, whom their souls are bound to. The relationship is symbiotic, the Hist help the Argonians, and the Argonians help the Hist. The sap of a Hist tree is the blood, essence and soul of a Saxheel, and when they die, they will return to the sap. Seek out Hist sap to strengthen yourself, and maintain your connection to the Hist.

Tribes

There are countless tribes throughout Black Marsh, each with their own identities and quirks. This Shellback hails from the Wasseek-haleel (bright-throat) tribe.

“By and large, the tribe is composed of cheerful artisans who have enjoyed a fruitful relationship with both outsiders and deep-swamp Argonians. The Bright-Throats are famous for their rich music and dance tradition, as well as their preternatural talent as merchants, diplomats, and woodcarvers.”

Culture Clash

Saxheels are easily the most unique race in Tamriel, owing to their relationship with the Hist. Those that leave their homeland prefer to assimilate into the culture of their new lands. Because of this, Argonians are the least understood, and often most misunderstood of the races. Even Argonians born outside of the Black Marsh struggle to understand native Saxheel, and are considered Lukiul - outsiders.

Sithis

Sithis is revered by the Saxheel, and seen as a force of necessary change, and not evil. Those born under the Shadow are sent to serve the Dark Brotherhood. Divines “Like most of our people, I do not 'worship' entities of a so-called divine nature, and don't understand the feelings and behavior of those who do.”

Saxheel do not recognise the Tamrielic divines, and only the most assimilated Argonians would worship them.

Daedra

Argonians do not "taint their language with words for abominations from Oblivion". While there are tribes that do worship Daedra, Saxheel society at large detests them.

Lycanthropy and Vampirism both pledge your soul to a being other than the Hist, and so should be avoided.

Personally, I begin by levelling Heavy Armour, Block and One Handed to 25. This gives a solid base to fight early game content, before levelling the remaining skills to 25 to flesh the build out.

As a Saxheel, you have 100% poison resistance, making Falmer much easier prey and a good source of easy exp.

Argonian heads, covered in horns and feathers, are not suited for the helmets of Men and Mer. I find the Falkreath Crown, craftable by blacksmiths with Honed Metal, is a great alternative.

Lighter weapons use less stamina. A glass war axe has around 10 points of damage less than an ebony one (untempered), but is half the weight, making more efficient use of our stamina.

With the Aetherial Crown, the Atronach Stone can be used to temporarily boost magicka to cast more demanding spells, such as dual-casted Cloak or Knock spells.

As always, if you wish please enjoy the provided background music whilst reading the build. Since we have 2 paths to consider, we also have 2 separate musical pieces.

The Path of Conquest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y0w1LHZHVM

The Path of Purification https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYKUeZQbMF0

Suggested Race: This can work with absolutely anything so you're free to follow your heart. For my own playthrough I chose a Nord swearing the Oath of Conquest. Redguards specializing in greatsword use are also worthy contenders for either path.

Standing Stone: Mage

Major Skills: Two Handed, Evasion, Restoration

Minor Skills: Alteration, Block, Enchanting

Fast paced, highly mobile and able to inflict heavy damage with your two handed weapon of choice. Defence is augmented through strong healing aura, self healing, use of flesh spells, blocking and dodging. I often find myself forcing fights into open spaces to fully take advantage of my mobility in a way that can be more difficult in tight corridors etc. Make those heavily armoured tanks chase you about and wear themselves out before engaging toe to toe.

Oath of Conquest

The conquest crusader swears their oath to Talos, vowing to end the civil war and quiet the disharmony between the people of Skyrim. (See Immersive Divine Blessings linked below). Talos is neither vain nor jealous and doesn't mind which side you fight for, only that you bring resolution. In turn Talos will grant you increasing martial might and mastery of the Thu'um as he sees his will done and your oath fulfilled. This is the more aggressive option of the two paths, the conquest crusader packs an impressive punch, and relies on lightening reflexes to remain safe from harm. Conquest crusaders may start with an amulet of Talos ((player.additem 000CC846 1))

Signature ability: Righteous Fury - Activate your combat reflexes ability to unleash your blows with lightening speed and perfect precision when needed to finish a foe before they have chance to retaliate.

Oath of Purification

Swear yourself to mighty Stendarr, set yourself against vampires, daedra and their heretical followers wherever you find them and subvert the will of the wicked Daedric Princes. Anything the Purification Crusader lacks in raw power compared to their conquest counterpart, is more than adequately countered by their defense. This is an evasion build, with no shield, but with Stendarr's favour (see IDB linked below) their durability can compete with even the most heavily armoured shield user. When coupled with their augmented restoration, few can withstand a barrage of powerful blows from an agent of divine purity who refuses to relent. Purification crusaders may start with an amulet of Stendarr ((player.additem 000CC844 1))

Signature Combination: Divine Intervention - Call upon the Aedra with the become ethereal shout to remove yourself from harm long enough to allow your healing aura to save you, heal yourself or ready a powerful dual cast sunlight spell without concern for incoming damage.

Two-Handed - Eventually you'll want everything in here that corresponds to your chosen weapon, if you're a conquest crusader this is your main priority. The question is really which weapon you wish to specialize in. I chose axes which served well as a middle ground for both slashing damage and armour penetration. You may wish to specialize in more than one weapon, simply be aware that it's demanding on your perks to do so, but perfectly possible. If you choose Redguard, sword focus is enough for all purposes. 75 as minimum to maximize weapon specialization.

Evasion - Dodge, Windrunner which now gives 10% extra movment speed and 50 stamina, Combat Reflexes serves as an on command, 30 second time slow, at the cost of 100 stamina. Both paths can benefit, but I would say it's essential for the path of conquest since they rely more on avoidance and simply killing before they're killed whereas the path of purification leads to augmented armour and block skill, making purity crusaders more durable. 75 as minimum for windrunner and combat reflexes. Resist the temptation to take athletics unless you can't get by without it, as the stamina regeneration will be rendered obselete by 'respite'. Be aware that each perk in the evasion tree now now reduces elemental damage taken by just short of 2% (not displayed in secondary attributes).

Restoration - Up to adept mastery for strong healing aura, benefactor's insight for dual casting of the healing aura and over to respite so the healing auras replenish your stamina. 75 as minimum for respite. Expert restoration is optional. You may wish to take Divine Light ranks later, if you plan on facing vampires.

Alteration - Apprentice alteration, Magic Resistance rank 2. This can all be reached at 50. I didn't touch alteration at all until around about level 15. Going further is absolutely an option in the later game.

Block - Improved blocking, Experienced blocking. Useful to either path but purity crusaders get additional blocking ability from Stendarr.

Enchanting - This can wait until later in the game when the build has taken shape, and is used to augment your damage, improve your stats and lower casting costs. Most of the truly appealing evasion armour is locked behind the thieves guild or requires daedric alliegence. As pillars of righteousness, we rely on the blessings of our path and enchanting instead. At level 22, I had yet to touch this tree, this build is a rather perk hungry and there are higher priorities, this is an option for the late game to further augment as needed.

Shout Focus - This feat is located within the speech tree but isn't directly linked to it. I recommend this in the late game, particularly if you choose the path of conquest. Coupled with the favour of Talos and perhaps a Greybeard hood, the conquest crusader will have access to powerful shouting abilities, very regularly. These feats have no skill prerequisites, save that your character be at least 1,15 and 30 for each rank.

Healing Aura and it's stronger, adept level variant. Fast healing. The various sun damage spells available. Knock is our lockpick when a weapon blow won't do. Flesh spells and the elemental shell spells.

The mage stone, a novice hood and novice robes of restoration were enough to allow a Nord to dual cast 'strong healing aura' without any additional magicka investment, so you shouldn't need to touch that at all. The conquest crusader obtains so much additional stamina and melee damage through dedication to Talos that at level 20, I'd only invested in health at level up. 0/1/0 I would recommend doing the same for the purification crusader to obtain a reasonable health pool and split some into stamina after that point. 0/1/0 before 20. 0/2/1 after 20. Two handed damage scales far better with stamina than with health, but you don't do any damage at all when you're dead.

Early game tip; In preaparation for Bleakfalls Barrow, since silver, two handed weapons are hard to come by without craftsmanship, I took a trip to Fort Dawnguard, Durak was happy to have my join, and allow me access to a dawnguard battle axe from the weapon rack.

Choose your path and light guide you, crusader.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/90691