Love this game! Just started playing a few weeks ago and had never played a TES game before. I could not take another MMO after 10 years playing EQ, WoW, Rift and SWTOR so a friend reccomended this game. I found these forums and really enjoy reading them on a daily basis.

I play on PC and have all three DLC's. After starting and killing off probably a dozen characters, I have finally settled on playing an Orc warrior for my first playthrough and I am playing at Adept level. I do not want to do any crafting with this character.

Skardd is now level 23 with perks in 1H, Block, Heavy Armor and Restoration. He generally uses Dawnbreaker (really like the effects) and am working on the Companions questline to get the shield then get Targe of the Blooded. He also has the Saguine Rose and generally pops out a Lord if more than 2 enemies are fighting.

I feel he needs to add another damage skill. I was thinking Destruction for cloaks or Conjuration to summon ranged assistance. What are your thoughts?

I too like playing with the Dawnbreaker and have the Sanguine Rose Dremora on hand for when things get hectic. I love his roar, "I honour my Lord by destroying you!".

Beware of relying on conjuring up too many friends unless/until you have the Twin Souls perk because I think that you can only have one summon working at once - and the Sanguine Rose Dremora counts as a summon. I had my Dremora alongside me and conjured up a familar, only to see my Dremora disappear in a puff of smoke.

If you're not far enough up the Conjuration perk tree to get Twin Souls, then some destruction spells may be the way to go for you.

Have fun

I'm glad to hear that your enjoying the game.

I suggest using Destruction Magic if what your looking for is ranged assistance. The only reason I could see a warrior wanting to use Conjuration would be so they could have more friendly fighters helping them in a battle. If what your really wanting to get into magic for is because you need help with dealing with ranged targets I honestly would suggest going with Archery over Destruction and Conjuration. Solely because at your level (lvl 23) you would have to re-spec your whole build by adding points to Magicka instead of Stamina and Health which are really important to a Warrior class especially one like yours because you need the Stamina for bashing, blocking, and power attacks, not to mention with Heavy Armor your Stamina drains faster. But if you really want to use magic, use Destruction in one hand and a shield in the other or if your far enough away use Dual-Casting. I also suggest using Ice spells to drain opponents Stamina and Electric spells to drain enemy mages Magicka allowing you to close in and finish them. I hope this helps thank you.

I did not think I would have to re-spec but just take points in Magic as I level from this point until I reached around 200 then back into health. I have one save with a steel bp with Destruction, one save with a dwarf bp with Conjuration and one save with a steel bp with Illusion. All at 17% save magic cost. My issue is not lack of ranged, I use a bow just have not perked into it. My thinking Conjuration or Destruction was:

Conjuration - get Twin Souls perk to cast 2 ranged friendly behind me before I rush into the fight to tank. Cast a storm atronach in the middle of some casters maybe.

Destruction - cast a fire cloak on myself before the fight then switch out shield and spell casting as I fought. Also perking into Augment Flames would inrease damage of cloak & Dawnbreak?

I generally do not take a companion with me, they are always getting in the way.

Orcs are natural blacksmiths. I would seriously consider smithing just to be able to have access to the best weapons armor in the game. Not to mention to be able to improve enchanted weapons/armor (arcane smithing perk). Think of how awesome Dawnbreaker would be if it had a Legendary status.

I'm glad you are enjoying the game, but for a warrior build why bother using staves or destruction? A simple bow/crossbow would compliment your warrior build better IMO. Personally I don't like mixing character skills between the classes too much but to each his own.