What's with all the shouting?

If Skyrim didn't satisfy your need to shout (in a video game because that sort of behavior is frowned upon irl) then this is the guide for you!

A build guide sort of. Look, I'm not guaranteeing this will be viable in PvP or even carry you to endgame, but there's some interesting interactions with stuff you might not have thought of, so take a look.

Roar Medallion

Dropped by the boss at the end of the mining tunnel in Limgrave (beware of dragon)

+15% damage

Highland Axe

Found on a corpse in the dining hall of Stormveil Castle (beware of the leggy boi)

+10% damage

Choose your flavor of "Rawr xD"

Below is a list of all the ashes of war that let you roar and where to find them:

--War Cry (sold by Bernahl at Warmaster's Shack)
--Barbaric Roar (kill scarab near the Ravine-Veiled Village site of grace)
--Braggart's Roar (kill the guy selling prawn at the prawn shack in Liurnia)
--Shriek of Milos (unique to Sword of Milos, wielded by Dung Eater--murder him too)
--Beast's Roar (reward from Beast Cleric for 4 Deathroots)
--Troll's Roar (found on top of a rock in the Mountaintop of Giants near Church of Repose)
--Regal Roar (unique to Godfrey's Axe, super late-game)

The Roar Medallion affects all of these, including any heavy (R2) attacks made while the buff is active.

Axe Talisman

"Enhances charge attacks." It means charged R2s

+10% damage

This is where it gets interesting

All of these buffs stack so long as you roar and then charge your R2

At first, I thought that the roar medallion only affected things like the Troll's Roar where you shoot a projectile from your mouth, but turns out it affects a lot more than just that.

In addition to the ashes of war I listed above, it also enhances various breath-based attacks. In case you really miss playing Skyrim, you can name your character Dovahkin and pretend the Dragon Communion incantations are dragon shouts (again, it's only the breath-based incantations, which is basically all of them except Dragonmaw and Dragonclaw).

Additionally, the Highland Axe buffs pretty much everything the Roar Medallion does, and you get the bonus so long as it's equipped. I recommend you wear it on your back by equipping it to your left hand and then two-handing your main weapon. This let's you use pretty much whatever weapon you want so long as it lets you swap the ash of war with a roar skill. Alternatively, you could power stance axes.

Spiked Cracked Tear

Found at the minor Erdtree in Mistwood

Functions like the Axe Talisman providing a buff to charged attacks

This is one half of your Flask of Wondrous Physick. Do what you will with the other half, although I recommend you use either the Greenburst Crystal Tear (stamina recovery) or Thorny Cracked Tear (boosts consecutive attacks). More on that later.

Stonebarb miiiiight be good, but I cannot recommend it. It makes it easier to stagger enemies and break their guard. This build is pretty unga bunga and since we're using R2 heavy attacks might as well lean into that. However, unlike most crystal tears, this buff lasts only 30s and you need to beat one of the toughest Putrid Avatars in the game to get it. If that doesn't scare you, fire is super-effective and it can be cheesed with Catch Flame at low level

Later is now. I meant now.

I recommeded a couple of crystal tears for your Wondrous Physick, and here's why:

First, I already explained the Spiky Cracked Tear.

Second, stamina management is the name of the game. Stamina is everything. You need to understand that that funny green bar is more important than the red one. Stamina regen is nice, especially if you picked Braggart's Roar since it has it's own stamina regen buff and all of those stack. Together you'll get an extra 25/s (base regen appears to be 40/s, so think of it as a 50% boost)

For frame of reference at 30 endurance you'll have 130 stamina total, which means it'll take about 3 seconds to recover all your stamina. You probably don't have 30 endurance. Realistically, you probably only have like 15 or 105 stamina, which is still about 3 seconds for a full recovery. So what's the difference? Well, it'll only take about 2 seconds with the extra 25/s and that extra second could save your life.

You can even put on the Green Turtle Talisman or eat pickled turtle neck for more stamina per second.

Third, damage is pretty important too, which is why I recommended the Thorny Cracked Tear. This one boosts the damage of consecutive attacks, but it's niche. War Cry and Barbaric Roar have slightly different animations for their charged R2s, but both are functionally identical in that they incorporate some funny running/jumping attacks that body your enemy. These have a lot of active frames and every little hit is counted as it's own attack dealing light damage, which gives a stacking damage bonus if your Thorny buff is active.

Lastly, there's a use case for what I recommend using, but it's ultimately up to you. You might see better results using the elemental buffs if you pair them with the same element dragon breath, knowing the boss is weak to that element.

Other Talismans

Winged Sword Insignia & Rotten Winged Sword Insignia (boosts consecutive attacks): same logic as the Thorny Cracked Tear.

You have to finish a stupidly long questline to get Rotten. Instead, I recommend you kill Millicent after the Godskin fight at the Windmills (which saves you the latter half of her quest).

Warrior Jar Shard & Shard of Alexander (boosts skills): whaddaya know these are all skills, but this talisman only works on the projectile launching kinds roars unlike the Axe Talisman and Roar Medallion.

You have to finish another stupidly long questline to get the better version, so just kill Alexander when you first meet him.

Carian Filigreed Crest: lowers the cost of skills by 25%
Again, these are all skills. While most of them cost 10 or 16 FP, Shriek of Milos costs 30 FP. Regardless of your choice in skills, this will help.

Erdtree's Favor: HP, Stamina, Equip Load--everything you need!

Godfrey Icon: DOES NOT WORK WITH ANY SKILLS MENTIONED IN THIS GUIDE
It's worth pointing out that this particular talisman only buffs charged SPELLS and SKILLS and none of the roar skills can be charged.

This might be confusing since I already talked about charged heavy attacks and how the Axe Talisman/Spiky Cracked Tear enhance charged R2s but the game logic makes a distinction between charged SKILLS and charged ATTACKS.

A charged attack is when you press and hold the R2 to charge up your heavy, and a charged skill is when you press and hold L2 to charge up your weapon skill/ash of war.

This same logic is applied to spells, and while you might be thinking "I hold the button down to cast fire breath longer so that counts" you're wrong. Holding down the button increases the duration, but not the damage. This talisman only works if charging increases the damage.

In other words, the only thing that matters is the button you press. Anytime the game says "charge(d) attacks" it's referring to holding down the R2 button. Anytime it says "charged skills" it's referring to holding down the L2 button.

And in the case of spells, it's referring to all sorceries which read "charging enhances potency" and incantions that, uhh, well, it's weird. Look, it doesn't work with breath based spells, and I've spent way too much time trying to explain how a thing works when it's not even part of this build, ok? OK.

Old Lord's Talisman: ALSO DOES NOT WORK
This increases the duration of spells. Ashes of War =/= spells. Therefore, it won't make our roar buffs last longer. Rant done.

End note: you only really need the Roar Medallion. That leaves you three open slots. The Axe Talisman is ultimately optional as it's usefulness depends on how often you charge your heavy attacks. Rather than suggest a bunch of generic talismans that are universally good on any build, I encourage you to play around and use what you enjoy.

Note on weapon and other buffs

The roars that change your heavy attacks count as weapon buffs (except Shriek of Milos which is actually a debuff on the enemy). This means you can't buff your weapon with anything else (such as greases).

However, you can still have a body and an aura buff active. So get good use out of Flame Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow!

Mother of all dragons!

Shriek of Milos is what's known as a "Power Shred" debuff and the only other one of this type worth mentioning is Greyoll's Roar.

That's right, bonus round! Time to introduce the secret last-second roar!

Weighing in at a whopping 50FP, Greyoll's Roar is a double-wide incantation taking up 2 memory slots, and it requires 28 Faith as well as 17 Arcane--but is it worth it? No. You will get better results out of Shriek of Milos.

However, if you're that hardcore about roleplaying as the Dovahkin, I think this is the perfect fit.

Closing thoughts

This build obviously lends itself to Strength and Faith, the dragon incantations require a bit of Arcane as well, and some of the roars buff physical damage so you might want to focus on Bestial incantations too. For this reason I recommend starting Hero.

However, don't let this stop you from experimenting with other builds!
Remember, the Highland Axe doesn't have to be your main weapon. You can put a roar on the Guts sword so you can swing it around like the coarse lump of iron it is! Or maybe you could level intelligence, give your roar the cold affinity, and inflict frostbite by shouting...! Actually I'm not sure if projectiles carry status, but I do know of at least one axe that has bleed so you could do a bleed/frost powerstance build.

[Enclave]

How can I be getting zis vork done wit all de shouting? Control de shouting?

[Blerrger19]

Thanks!

[Delusifer]

Very cool build idea, and very well made guide! I also appreciate the small ramblings of game mechanics I'd never questioned in all my hours, thanks!