I'm at level 10 with a High Elf. I'm focusing him on being a one hand blade master, i.e. sword + spell and duel wielding blade/axes master who is decent in magic. I'm playing on master difficulty with a heavy focus on heavy armor for protection because I'm not using shields. So I'm wondering what kind of magic he should be skilled in for this kind of roleplay. So far I've been doing destruction magic with a blade, but I want to know all my options before focusing on a path of magic to be decent at. Any tips would be appreciative.

Alteration magic. The oak flesh, iron flesh, and ebonyflesh are life savers.
I play a Breton who focuses on one hand and destruction with light armor and alteration has been my best friend so far

I've been using alteration to change iron to gold, but I'm not familiar with what it does to enemies. What does it do?

I'm sitting at level 33 with virtually the same setup it sounds like (except I'm an orc) and I have to say I'm kind of regretting Destruction. Just hit 50 in Destruction and am underwhelmed by the new ranks of the attack spells. The cloak spells are interesting, but really I'd rather just have my points back and either go down the block line, or put them somewhere else and either dual wield or keep heal in the offhand, which is how I have to mostly play as is.

If you go the Heavyarmor-way (and therefor don′t go the Nightblade aka Stealth-Spellsword-Approach), Alteration and Restoration are a Must.

If you go Nightblade, use Restoration and Destruction (get the improved destruction mod ASAP, otherwise Destruction won′t be viable) instead, combined with Sneak and Lightarmor/1h.

However, don′t use (double-casted) Illusion (Frenzy!!!...) or Conjuration, since both make the game [censored] boring and easy like hell even on Master.

I've noticed that a lot of people are complaining about desctruction being a bit weak, so that's why I am very hesitant to use any perk focus on destruction. So far I'm just experimenting until I can figure out what school of magic to commit to.

Can you talk more about what alteration does to enemies? I've never used it before. I'm not doing pure mage guy, pretty much doing a blademaster who is decent in magic.

It doesn't do anything to enemy's. Well not those three. They act as armor. Right now I have ebonyflesh set and it give me a 100 points of armor for 90 seconds. Definitely helps me when I need the added bonus against the tougher enemies. Also I have a paralyze spell that paralyzes most target for 15 seconds. Give me the boost to get away and heal or to just kill them while they are helpless

Sounds like Alteration is the way to go since I'm not using any blocking whatsoever...i.e. duel-blading----one hand/magic.

Alteration has been my personal favorite so far. Definitely very underrated in this game imo

Is destruction viable in combination with alteration, or would I be better off mastering one school of magic?

I use both. People say that destruction is underpowered but I still have fun with it. Set my ebonyflesh before battle. A few shots of my destruction magic and then some hits with my blade and I make it out of most battles with little damage. Then again I play on adept and not master.

Thanks for the help guys. I think I will do a perk focus on alteration, I can invest points into stamina instead of hp and do more wicked blade kills. I'll probably do experimenting with destruction but not take any of the perks for it.




That really svcks. I know how that feels. My first character made it to level 50 and I wasted sooo many perks that really weren't necessary, but I was playing adept so it didn;t matter. But now I am playing master with no fast travel, so I have to be focused on my character more.

As I said, get the Improved Destruction mod. Without it, Destruction won′t be viable in Endgame, if you play the lorewise Nightblade with one hand always holding a sword (aka no Doublecasting aka no Stagger perk) even earlier.