I’m an old gamer. Very old. And I have these pre-conceived notions of what a Mage is supposed to be based on very old D&D rules and what not. So when I play a mage in Skyrim it is always a pure mage. No armor no real weapons (just staff or dagger) and spells for everything (really miss my Open spell, a mage using lockpicks is just wrong).

It’s the same for my other characters also. When I play a warrior, it is pretty straight forward, heavy armor, weapons, no spells at all. When playing a rogue it is light armor, daggers and bows, poisons.

So I have never actually played anything I would define as a battle mage. To be honest I do not really know how to define one, let alone play one. But I am looking for something different to do and I want to give it a shot.

So some help in this area would be how do you actually do it? Is there no spell casting penalties for wearing armor and trying to cast spells? How does the mage armor spells work? What is the point of wearing armor if I am still standing back and casting spells? If I am in melee, then what is the point in having spells? I am just kind of clueless as to how to make this setup work.

Thanks.

I think you're going to get alot of different responses here. Everyone has a different concept of what a battlemage is, therefore there is no right or wrong way to do it. My take on it has always been charging into battle wearing heavy armor and wielding a one handed weapon and a destruction spell in the other hand. I would also tend to think that you'd have to take enchanting early on so you can apply the magika and magika regen buffs on your equipment.

I second what Diviner said. My battlemages have always been 1 handed, destruction, conjuration based. Typically I summon whatever I feel is appropriate for what I'm doing, use ranged spells as I'm closing on melee and then use my handed in combo with an appropriate destruction spell. It's very much whatever you want it to be. I tend to think in terms of a Mage who's had training as a Warrior vs the other way around. He/she hasn't been able to fully train in Alteration magic so the can't rely on cloth with magical armor enhancement. He also doesn't have the metal capacity required for illusion spells so he needs melee combat training to handle melee threats. At least that's how I've approached it in the past. I use light armor and Heavy armor just seems to cumbersome and I prefer agility over tanking.

I don't know if you RP at all but that can play a major roll in your character as well. My characters are often handicapped by the story I've given them but with this game it just forces you to find alternate options. (for example a right handed character that lost his right eye so he can't use ranged weapons or single target destruction spells)

Wear enchanted armor, blow your magicka wad casting destruction spells and conjuring summons, charge into melee with a weapon

Well what's so great about robes then? Why would any mage even bother wearing them if enchanted armor give better buffs plus AR?

Thats why I said get your enchanting up to 100 as quickly as possible. Take the 5/5 and everything up the middle of the enchanting tree. Then focus on adding enchantments on reducing your destruction cost. At least thats what I'd do if I was playing a battlemage. But yeah I forgot about conjuration. You can do that too.

I'd say a Battle Mage uses magic at a distance to improve his chances of winning, and then when he is out of mana or the enemy closes in, he switches to melee.

My class, which I like to define as Soldier, wears heavy armor and uses bows from a distance. Bows is his priority, but I switch to melee+shield when the enemy closes in.

Its just that everyone has a different outlook on how a mage should be played. Usually I stick with robes early on, then aquire the arch mage robes and use that until my enchanting level is high enough to add the necessary buffs, then I switch to armor. But Im sticking with a robe mage on my current playthrough.

A mage uses robes, period. Skyrim is the first noobified game in the TES series because in past games wearing armor practically ruined your spellcasting abilities (spells were less effective and would most times not cast correctly).

To me, a mage is a cloth-wearing spell-flinging glass cannon. Gandalf wouldn't be Gandalf if he was clad in clunky armor, lol.

A battle-mage probably used some form of armor, yes, but the main goal with being a mage is to avoid being hit. You're not a real mage if you use armor, IMO, and if you rely on enchantments to nullify spell cost.

until you have 100 enchanting and all the perks the magicka, magicka regen, and cost reduction of the pre enchanted robes found in the game are vastly better than anything you can find or put onto armor.

why wouldn't a real Mage use cost reduction? All of the pre enchanted Mage robes have cost reduction. I might agree if you are talking about people that put zero points into magicka and then do enchanting and cost reduction. But if you put all points into magicka and also use cost reduction I don't think that excludes you from being a real Mage.

Well that was kind of where I was coming from. I feel the same way and noted that even in the prior TES games wearing armor and casting spells often meant spell failure (does Skyrim even have that?).

Anyway this build brings to question which stats to raise while leveling. If I know I will be making items to reduce Magicka cost, then raising Magicka is pointless. If I know I'll be getting the Perk to make Heavy armor weightless, then Stamina is pointless. I guess all points to health then ... unless I make some item that regenerates my health .... oh bother.

Perhaps if I play it as basically a heavy armored warrior who just uses magic as his ranged attack instead of bows. ... ... but bow can be so wicked ... especially with the right perks. Are there any spells that will let me one-shoot someone with a sneak attack?

I didn't say anything about normal cost reduction, but to NULLIFY the cost of spells by putting four 25% reduction enchantments is pretty lame.

^^This right here. As a mage the best robes in the game are hands down

In addition to not getting hit, the goal of every mage is to:

#1 not run out of magika

#2 have the fastest magika regen you can have

You need all that magika early on, thats the point. Say you do a cost reduction so it costs 0 to cast any level destruction spell, that frees up your magika pool to use conjuration, restoration or whatever.

I agree with the previois poster.

1. Magicka management is crucial. Obviously you cannot summon tons of atronachs (if you're conjuration oriented), while flinging spells and putting up wards. Lower levels will be a slight pain in the backside but if you play them right, you'll have no real issues.

2. Avoid getting hit at all times.

I'll add this:

3. Don't just rely on destruction. I don't look at destruction as the only means of offense for a mage. I think of a mage as both offensive and passive. I am almost always conjuration-oriented, but I use all schools regardless. I also use alchemy because even if alchemy in skyrim is a stealth skill, I mean come on, which mage doesn't use alchemy?

I never have figured out how to use Wards, or Mage Armor. How do those work and what's required to make them useful?

Mage armor is basically a buff for your "flesh" spells which fall under the alteration tree. They only work if wearing robes only, no armor of any kind. Wards are magic shields that you cast to protect yourself from the magic of other mages and dragon attacks. There are so many ways to play a mage. I always invest in all the schools of magic as I like to be well rounded.

I kind of agree. Usually when I do a mage with enchanting I end up reducing destruction cost to zero but rely on magicka and magicka regen for all of the other schools since they are not really cast rapidly one after the other. I still invest all points into magickla and none into health or staminsa.

Wards have the potential of being extremely good but I've yet to learn how to properly utilize them.

That is exactly what i do. Destruction is the only school that you really span one spell after another and really benefits from zero cost. Spells from the other schools are less frequently cast and allow your magicka to regen between castings. I usually go for zero destruction cost and then magicka and magicka regen for all the other schools.

Mage armor stacks with regular armor it just works alot better with no armor and the mage armor perks.

With a fully perked mage armor, you get 300 AR when casting ebonyflesh. That's really all a true mage needs.

Same here.

I didnt think it worked with regular armor.