Dragonhide costs a ridiculous amount of magicka and has an incredibly short duration.
Also, as the master spell, it gains no benefit from Mage Armor, but in fact if it were used would make Mage Armor perk a waste.

Then we've got Ebonyflesh. Not as high a cost with a somewhat more sane duration, but even with 3/3 mage armor it's less than half the reduction of what heavy or light armor can give.


Basically what alteration does is spend an excess of magicka to get inferior and/or short duration versions of armor, without any particular upsides to speak of. And it's an annoyance having to recast so frequently compared to the always active reduction of armor.




Can anyone argue that the skill is fine as is?

I know this isn't a very good argument because with smithing you can achieve the armor cap with light or heavy very easy, but the whole point of being a mage with no armor is that you're not as durable as someone in heavy platemail armor. You move faster and (are supposed to) deal more damage at range. "Glass cannon" as the common term has come to be.

The problem is that alteration isn't more viable in ways beyond armor spells. You get ___flesh, light, detect, paralyze, telekinesis, and some other misc spells that are really just 'for fun' spells. So really, alteration is just armor buffs and paralyze as far as "things that truly make or break the school of alteration" goes.

Bringing back levitate, slowfall, jump, water walking, open, and elemental shields would fix it nicely.

Another problem is that you don't even move faster when unarmored, so bringing up mobility is really a null point. In fact, light armor with wind walker perk gives you increased mobility over someone who's unarmored. But really, even if sprinting cost less stamina with unarmored, it'd still be pretty bad 'cause the speed that matters most by far is the default run speed. If unarmored were 100%, light armor 90%, heavy 80% or something like that, unarmored could actually be seen as worth consideration for archers and mages.

I was thinking about this last night. There really should be an Unarmoured skill with its own perks, I think. There should also be a few changes made to Light Armour.

I think the Unarmoured skill tree should have, as its first perk, a 5-ranked "Spell damage/effectiveness is increased by 20/40/60/80/100% when wearing no armour" perk. It could also have different branches for different specifications of Unarmoured - one for magic resistance, one for extra movement speed, one perhaps for teleportation while sneaking, one for extra glass cannon damage (each 3-ranked, like the weapon-specific perks in 1-hand and 2-hand weapons).

Light armour's first perk shouldn't be "Light armour affords 20-100% more protection." It should be "Chance to dodge attacks is increased by 20/25/30/35/40%." There could be a 3-ranked perk elsewhere in the tree for damage resistance.

Just a few thoughts, which clearly need refinement. Food for thought/potential mods, perhaps?

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that I also believe the heaviness of armour should affect your spells' effectiveness. Robes (not necessarily all clothing) should have an innate +20% spell effectiveness bonus; Light armour should have normal spell effectiveness; Heavy armour should have -20%. Otherwise there's no point in wearing anything other than Heavy Armour as a mage.

I personally wouldn't want them to include passive dodging again. I don't think it really needs to be a skill, it just has to have some benefit to consider over armor. Spell based protections should be a factor, but unfortunately mage armor doesn't really succeed in being competitive with armor in any way currently. Armor reducing spell effectiveness could be fine if they didn't overdo it. I think robes should hold more powerful enchants than armors.

The paralysis spells are the only saving grace in this school although there're other crowd control alternatives in the much better illusion school. Besides, if you're a Breton with the Atronach or the Lord Stone you can do without the spell absorption or magic resist perks and there's no real incentive not to wear any armor.

I have no trouble with the magicka cost personally, but having to recast every 60 seconds is an extreme annoyance.

The only alteration spell I have ever used in TES is the healing spell you start with in every game since Morrowind.

Skyrim's works the best, IMO; it bascially just transfers your magicka to your health bar. I see no need to get anything more powerful, personally.

I think that the protection from the *.flesh spells could be improved. The Mage Armour bonuses are OK. The Master spell is a bit gimped -- too high Magicka cost, low protection and short duration. I would not want the Alteration spells to be on par with either of the armour types as I accept that being a Mage means that I am more vulnerable than a Warrior. I would like some utility spells brought back into the game too.

I'm slightly more concerned that the Magic Resistance perks that I have chosen have been nullified by patch 1.2. -- I can't remember if they are in Restoration or Alteration

This, it should be between 180 and 300 seconds, or constantly passive with a small chunk of the magic bar lost ala dragon age, but the cost isn't terrible because magic refills so fast when not in combat, and you should be buffing before combat

I think you're thinking of restoration, not alteration.

I'd like to say it was fine, but I can't. It is nice to have for that pure mage thing, but it really does svck. I actually don't think a single magic school is fine, some may be broken in the other direction but none of them are working well IMO.

Oh.. Uh... yeah. Oops XD

In that case: I never use alteration. Ever. Night eye? I have a torch. Open? I have lockpicks. Erm... What else can alteration do? *looks it up*

Detect life? I have ears (and a compass that shows my enemies). Feather? I have potions that do that. Paralyze? I have poisons that do that. Waterbreathing? Again, potions. Or enchantments. Though, I can hold my breath for a really long time anyway.

anyone who is familiar with Dragon Age will know what i mean when i say i wish the armor spells like ebony flesh had a "maintain value". it is annoying to cast and recast an armor spell ever 60 sec especially when the magic regen is broken in combat and mages using destruction have a hard enough time as it is to keep magic up after drinking 80 magic potions.

Its just there to take the edge off of attacks, though its probably much better just to don some heavy armor and enchant it with resist magic or something.

I like the idea of wards much better, although they could amp them up too.

I'm not a massive fan on the magic in Skyrim I must say, I always though that a magic in general should be high reward and high investment skillset with great power and flexibility at the expense of magicka but obviously that wouldn't really be viable in Skyrim since your Magicka pool regenerates so quickly. I too also get annoyed with having to keep constantly casting shield spells on myself and I think the spell would benefit from simply allowing the caster to negate a predefined amount of damage before being dispelled after the damage limit on the spell has been reached, though would that slightly conflict with ward spells? I don't know since I don't really use ward at all.

Edit. Beaten to the punch by lazyatheist

Alteration is basically totally pointless and full of cantrips and what not that you could easily do without.

Until you get a 15 second paralyze that works on all but the most powerful bosses, including even Draugh Overlords. Then it is suddenly ridiculously OP but at least you can't accuse it of being a cantrip anymore!

Interesting idea--although I think that at this point the last thing mages need is another limitation. We're the most vulnerable. We are the most hampered by resource management. We have the most busywork. We're least likely to find fun and useful loot (from what I've seen so far). Destruction is not competitive with weapon skills. We've lost a lot of the spells that made us special and magey. We've paid the price in spades. What I'm not seeing is the payoff. I'd really like to hear someone from Bethesda to explain their vision for the archetype and whether it's playing as intended.

That is a very good idea. I also find the recast frequency of the flesh spells annoying.

Now that I have paralyze, I am enjoying that spell in the alteration tree. The only other spell that I am finding useful is the Detect Life/Detect dead spells. Since I have to be careful how I approach battles as as a mage, those spells are life savers for me.

Wards should have been an Alteration spell IMO.

Maybe some elemental resistance spells in Alteration would help too. And maybe elemental weakness spells to inflict on your foes.

What about the Dragonhide spell?

If dual cast it stops 80% of damage for 66 seconds. Not that bad, albeit really expensive

Um yeah and it has a obscenely short duration with the added benefit of reminding you alteration focused folks that you wasted perks in the armor skin perks.

But I haven't wasted them yet! I'm saving myself for Dragonskin

Well you can just wear armor and have 80% physical damage mitigation up all the time.

Those were destruction spells in the past, and I'd prefer they returned to destruction. The opportunity to cast debuffs would actually improve destruction greatly. The spells would do more damage, and it would solve the problem of casters needing to perk multiple elements while melee can choose among swords, axes, and maces without having to worry about sword-resistant enemies. Part of why I think we're so perk-starved.