I've heard from the Destruction, Restoration, Conjuration, and, of course (my being one), Illusion fans, but how specifically do you Alteration mages feel about Skyrim's take on Alteration? You don't have to be pure Alterationists, but I'd like to get a bit of a bigger scope on this interesting school.

Some questions for example would be:

What do you want more of?

What's missing?

What do you like?

Can one be a pure Alterationist?

What spurred me to make this thread was some snooping on UESP. I saw that the Ash Shell spell was cheaper than normal paralysis yet a bit restrained, marking progression in a very useful (yet stolen... ) skill.

Please enlighten me and others on your experience with this clever craft.

I've never really used alteration too much. But I'm using it exclusively on my current war priest character. Really if nothing else, for the spell absorption and atronachs perks.

The feels...

If telekinesis was as awesome as the vampire grip spell then I'd use it tons more.

As it is though....I never use it.

No Teleportation does not make up for being able to freeze an entire Room of Bandits to experiment slowly on

While it's defiantly weaker then previous versions, i think that Alteration is the strongest of the schools.

How would that work? Paralyze your foes and use Telekinesis to bounce baskets off their heads?

The paralyze spells hold up really well on master and legendary since they are not effected by the damage reductions

It has a ton of utility. Light sources, transmutation, telekinesis, armor spells, paralysis, equilibrium. It just has so much variety.

The paralyze spell is one of the most useful spells in the game, and if you're going pure mage or sticking to lore and not using any armor then the magical protection spells are pretty effective

You can't really be a "pure" Alteration caster, but in my opinion, Alteration is an essential support school for a mage. It's too useful to not use.

They were kind of useless spells, but in Oblivion you could open locks with Alteration. I suppose it's just nostalgia but I really miss being able to do that. I'd like to know how a 'pure Alterationist' build would turn out.

All right, smart aleck. I'll work it out.

One can be a pure conjurationist, illusionist, and perhaps restorationist. Alteration too could have players who want only to be alterationists.

Conjurationists use their conjurations to support them, illusionists use the enemies themselves against one another, and restorationists have undead spells as well as a poison spell. So while restorationists could get by with their few spells, it would be more likely that they would need a follower just as would an alterationist, which makes sense as Restoration is made to help the player and, by extension, allies.This is, as you see, much like Conjuration, only Conjuration has followers built-in.

Alteration would have levels of paralysis, considering Dragonborn, to work with. I'm not saying it would be the easiest thing in the world. One would almost act like a general. As for the telekinesis, I suppose someone could try, but it would be humorous. Four objects max can be picked up, so it would only take of a chunk of the enemies' health. Then again, one object thrown does take off about 2% of an enemy's health. Maybe it could work.

Are there any who have tried this sort of Restoration-like Alteration play-through? It does sound interesting.

Detect life comes in handy while I'm sneaking and the Flesh/Hide spells come in handy but other than that Alteration feels lack lustre to me. I'm not really sure what I would expect from it but maybe something along the lines of altering the land? Spikes from the ground? Turning the ground into a liquid? Changing lighting conditions in a cave? Manipulating the weather?

I'm not really that creative but, "The School of Alteration involves the manipulation of the physical world and its natural properties." doesn't sound like paralyse that paralyse this.

Buy iron

Turn it into silver

Turn it into gold

Make some bling

Enchant it

make dat coin

Want to know what it misses? Open spells.

I only use alteration to temporarily strengthen my armor for conflict situations and my smithing skills have'nt achieved a satisfactory level so far as in building up the total skills for a particular playthrough I'm engaged in, that is as long as the potential confilct is forseen. This is mainly because I only play as Nord based warriors, can't relate to any other classes in this game.

Only play on Expert or Master difficulty settings with no followers or enchantments, this is a bit of my "roleplaying", the only time a follower can't be avoided is doing DG questline, then you kind of can't avoid Serana.

Alteration feels great. My 2nd favorite school behind Destruction. The Detect and Flesh spells are beyond useful, and paralysis is fun when you have enough magicka to use it

Disagree with the uselessness, but I'd love to see a lock-spell. Would make a lot more sense. Why the hell would my mage know how to pick Expert locks, let alone carry picks?

Disclaimer: Oblivion player.

I miss the way Alteration used to be. I miss the Feather, Open (lock), and Water Walking spells. I guess I am glad they kept some of the Mysticism spells and put them in Alteration. I am not sure why they moved Paralyze from Illusion to Alteration (in Skyrim) because it seemed to me like it was more of a mind thing and fit better with Illusion.

I don't use pure Alteration, but Mysticism and Alteration have always been favourites of mine. I've used it as my main school before, but I don't see how using just Alteration could work.

I like this post. I like it very much.

The Tower Stone power grants access to less than or equal to expert locks, but I do see the annoyance as it's more of a found and not acquired skill (not to mention a once-a-day).

When they are simply standing stones. I rather go for an Atronauch stone, over the Tower Stone. The Tower Stone is quite literally as useless as The Steed Stone. Why waste a perfectly good standing stone resisting or increasing something, to open doors or carry more?

Role completion, perhaps? If I were an Alterationist, I'd want the one spell that would elude me.