Ha ha. I have been reading the threads about magic being underpowered and thinking... I love blowing things up with my fireballs. But in the past few battles, I've found myself feeling less and less powerful.

Two snow bears rushing me? Fireballs barely dent their thick fur. I pull out the giant sword or even my fire dagger... stab stab stab, and I can kill. I even got a cool kill shot impaling one of the bears with my sword.

I have found myself trading my robes for my ebony armor to win these big battles.

I'm really trying hard to play a mage, but man... when I can dagger someone more effectively than blow them up? That's just silly.

maybe you just don't like being a mage and you should start a new character then. It isn' for everyone. I make a new character every 3 or so days. I just love to mix things up. That is where I get my fun. All that matters is you have fun

Oh, I agree... and I am having fun, so I don't want to quit or anything. I am just pointing out that i finally see what people are saying.

Welcome to Skyrim's magic system, where any mage that has the ludicrous aspirations of using destruction to actually do anything is a noob, failure and one that doesn't understand the mage class at all - all that according to some of the posters here.
Or, in other words, yes, you stumbled upon the fact that destruction spells do not level up along with your character (and tbh even the expert level spells are pretty lousy on damage, even with the +50%dmg perks) and your mage's destruction-abilities become more and more useless as you level up.

The two normally suggested solutions on this forum for this are l2p and haha roll a warrior.
The two normally suggested solutions that actually aren't insulting (thanks again, other forumites - you know who you are) are to either rethink the mage-playstyle completely, and use it as more a support/management class, letting either the summons or the enemies themselves do nearly all of the damage while you use conjuration & illusion, or a suggestion is to get the 4x -26% destruction cost enchants on your gear, so you get infinite destruction spells. It doesn't help the damage or dps one bit, but at least now you don't have to chug 10 mana potions just to take out one bear.

Oakflesh is good for bears, seriously, and you can try double wielding fire. I know they have lots of HP but you can usually do it by moving around...good lu ck

If you're carrying a giant sword...you're not playing as a mage.
If you're wearing Ebony Armor...you're not playing as a mage.
If you're picking locks...you're not playing as a mage.
If you take ANY perks outside of the blue area of the sky leveling menu...you get the idea.

Are you dual-casting? Are you using Impact? Do you have enchanted robes/armor that give you some sort of magicka or destro boost?

Honestly, as I climb levels I find it easier and easier to tear down enemies with destruction. As long as I have the defense to survive the attack, destro works pretty well. You just need to make sure that you're using perks and enchantments that boost your damage output and lower your magicka consumption.

because magic doesnt solve everything neither does using a sword or a bow.

How else is a mage going to unlock things? There aren't any unlock spells in Skyrim. Unless you're being sarcastic, that is.

It's a lot better than morrowind where every enemy had extreme spell reflect. You would kill yourself hundreds of times as a mage.

hehe, agreed. I respect fellow mages staying with the core, that is no armor above cloth, no weapons aside from staffs, etc etc etc.

It's funny to read "other" mages supposedly playing on Master difficulty state it's easy for them when they are Pulling with Fireballs to soften the enemy up, tanking the enemy in Heavy Plate when they get close and finishing it off with a 2h axe, sorry but that is not a mage, you are just a jack of all trades toon, and that's okay but stop calling yourself a mage, hah

To the OP, if you want to play as a pure mage, you need to buff yourself up with Oak Flesh or anything that increases Armor. I do realize it's not the easiest thing to do since there is no visible Buff timer on your main UI and the fact the buffs only last 60 seconds so it becomes a chore more than anything.

My pure mage character doesn't pick locks...even for 'after boss' dungeon treasure...ever.
(Well once at the very beginning to get the robes & spark book visible from the cage @ Helgen...but it didn't level me & haven't picked since.)
The way I figure it...a pure mage wouldn't be so concerned with dungeon looting & plundering for treasure anyway.
I'll do all that when i play a thief build later.

Oh...and the only weapon i've used besides a staff was a dagger back at helgen...again only once.
The only reason i bring it up is because my first character did a little of everything as i came across it but 'trying' to stick to mage - it didn't work out very well.
It's a good way to get underpowered in everything....so i started over as pure mage and it plays much better this way.

Well, you've done a good job of defining YOUR style of RP. Glad you enjoy it. My mage does pck locks, but she wears only robes and she uses daggers (as does the game) and a bow for shooting at flying dragons. However, one must be careful that their arrows don't land on a guard.... but the guards really don't like it when you use a shout. Try it near town and see what you get. Sometimes one wants to be more precise than you can be with a spell.

Interesting ideas and thread. Just remember, one person's role play isn't necessarily a suit that fits everyone.

Not me i play the "Pure Mage" in all the other games i play where the rules dictate to you "you are caster you will wear only cloth amor(except clerics your allowed to wear full plate cause your special) you can only use staffs and wonds and daggers.

Nope not me, not this game

I am BATTLEMAGE Dont hate me or say im not a pure mage because i looked at cloth then looked at plate steel and thought ....Hmm i think just maybe this plate armor will give me just a little more protection. LOL

And i want everything in that dungeon im a greedy mage and want everything. Daedric armor isnt cheap you know. lol

(all in good fun)

To even do anything with only magic I had to increase the regen rate of it so I didn't have to wait hours for it to regenerate and got a few extra spells.
Now using magic seems powerful, try Lightning Storm. You need a high Destruction then get the quest from the college.

It has nothing to do with not liking Mages and everything to do with Destruction in this game. It's pretty obvious Bethesda royally screwed up (again).



Name one instance where a sword or bow won't work. Unless you're strictly speaking in "RP". The way this game is designed, sword/bow is probably the most efficient playstyle.

LOL picture this Riften+one dragon that lands in the middle of the town and all gaurds in town out fighting it+ 1 stupid mage that does a double Ice storm on said dragon

not pretty at all lol

Ive been playing mage and find just by moving around i rarely even get hit before i kill everything. And if you add in high enchanting on armor to reduce magic cost you can have fun just blasting the crap out of everyone infinitely. Incredibly fun imo.

Correct..that's my style of play & it's not for everyone. The game was designed to you to choose how you play.....but was also designed to nerf your character if you go jack of all trades.
You can easily see this in the level up menu - the sky is divided into 3 colors - blue for mage skills - red for warrior - green for stealth...if you mix it up too much you're character will end up weak.
Remember that a 'Jack of all Trades' is also a 'Master of none"'

Destruction magic is messed up, unfortunately. Pretty problematic considering destruction is a mages weapon. =s

Conjuration/Illusion are great. Use them.

Cast whatever summon you can, calm one of the two bears as said summon kills the other and throw some destruction spells at it if you like and then defeat the second when it's done. Also be sure to dual cast with the impact perk if you're using destruction, stagger makes it much better overall.

I said above once you get the enchants it becomes even more incredibly easy. Also...why would you play a game like this to be efficient o.O. That seems to be your main problem right there.

i dunno what all this "mage is useless" nonsense is about. conjuring is probably the most powerful thing in the game.

Do you read? Can you? We have said time and time again that MAGES are not useless. DESTRUCTION is useless. And seeing as how destruction's only purpose it to blow stuff up, and right now it just blows, there is a problem.