Hello everyone,

I've recently bought Oblivion GOTY for PC. I tried a warrior type and liked it well enough, but one of the biggest draws for me was making a mage. Now I've read a LOT about mages, about efficient leveling, about ways to level various skills, but I still have some questions and need some advice to anyone whose made a mage character and how you dealt with the early stuff.

First thing I notice is that you can only have 1 spell active at a single time. I know you can hotkey them, which works, but is a bit awkward, especially in the heat of battle trying to remember which spells are on which hotkeys. How do you guys handle this? Do you just pause in the middle of the action to switch spells? I was thinking maybe it might be easier to do it that way, and just keep a few of my most-used spells on hotkeys.

Also, is it really necessary to level efficiently? If I just start a default "Mage" toon will I be totally gimp in 10 levels?

Do mages ever get "too" powerful? I want my mage to be a powerhouse no doubt, but I don't want to be able to ransack entire cities with a single spell... ya know what, on second thought maybe that wouldn't be so bad

That's all I can think of offhand right now. Any other advice is more than welcome and most appreciated, and thank you all for taking the time to read this and respond.

I usually just use one spell for the entire battle, or have my most powerful ones on hotkey.

Well, there are ways to efficient level, which I know nothing about, and there are mods to get rid of that (OOO, FCOM, etc.) So, you or older forumers will know more about that than me. Personally, I've played pure mage without ooo, fcom or other mods, and never was gimped, simply because of how my toon uses magic.

And mages can be too powerful, but it is very hard because as a pure mage, you will generally have low health. although spell absorption, reflect damage, and elemental shields can easily circumvent that. I suggest that you utilize alchemy though. restore magicka potions are very useful no matter what your birthsign.

Hotkeys are the way to go in the heat of battle. It allows you to be very flexible and adjust to whatever situation arises.
Do try to learn the system- it is easy once you get the hang of it. I use it to remove add glow / nighteye rings and switch between drain health, conjuration and potions.

Sure, the mage does become powerful, just because it is so simple to raise your Intelligence & magicka.
If you feel the game is too easy, just run into a goblin lair at high level and take on the boss enemies- they always scale at a crazy rate!

And dont forget that the difficulty slider can be adjusted.

What I do to remember what each hotkey is for is write it all down on a post it note and tape it to the bottom of my monitor. That way a quick glance is all I need. I also keep the same basic setup for all my characters. For example, 1 is always a heal, 5 is always a ranged attack, 3 is always a touch spell, etc...

I played as a custom battlemage and found it pretty effective on the default difficulty, seemed definitely more effective than my brother with his high level bow pin cushioning enemies. If you're on your first run through I would not recommend using efficient leveling as it is time consuming especially later on. It would most likely be best to do it on a second playthrough after you thoroughly know the ins and outs of all your favourite skills, because you can end up with very good characters.

Restoration is extremely useful, healing is a life saver, especially for mages, because they tend to have plenty of magicka and not a large amount of health. Destruction spells are great because they can give you the upper hand against melee guys, doing significant damage while taking none. Conjuration is good if you choose the right summons, I would avoid spider daedra, unless you want a summon that lets you take all the blows. Alteration is useful if you do not want to invest in an armour skill alteration would be a good choice due to its protect spells offering decent protection compared to available armour at the same level, and it also has useful lock picking spells (if you don't get the skeleton key) and walk on water, water breathing and lighten spells. Mysticism I don't think is as good, but it has telekineses, and soul trap. Also alchemy is not too useful too have as a major skill, as it effects your leveling and therefore enemy difficulties, and you can make potions pretty well even without it as a major skill.
I would recommend investing in one form of weapon, to be able to fend off creatures effectively, if you were to do so I would recommend blade over blunt, as blade seems to have more unique super weapons like the umbra, dusk/dawn fang, ebony blade, sword of the crusader, goldbrand. Otherwise I honestly don't know the benefits of blade or blunt over one another. Also, the mages guild gives a few good very magicka efficient spells, and when you are accepted into the arcane university you get a good charge efficient stave. The problem is that the rewards are leveled to when you first receive them, so you must trade off greater effectiveness later with effectiveness now. Also if you are creating your own spells know that putting 50 heal one second takes more mana than say 20 heal for three seconds despite the greater healing of the second, this works with destruction spells also. I played on xbox so I figured out a way of remembering my hotkeys on the d pad, I would put on target spells on up (they fly forward), guard spells on left (they have a picture of a shield which is on the left hand) healing on down (pointing towards me). I know it sounds stupid but it worked so maybe you could do something similar on the pc.

Mages are difficult to play effectively, but with practice they utterly pwn everything.

A tip to add to the brilliant advice above, don't get trapped into thinking Destruction is the only school you can use to deal damage. Illusion, for example has Calm and Frenzy spells. Restoration has Absorb [insert attribute/health/magicka here]. Conjuration, obviously.

You dont have to level l efficiently with any type if you use alchemy whihc is a mage skill anyway. Use it a lot by gathering up ingrediants in Mages guild garden and stock piling potions. At higher levels you can buff yourself into a monster.

the first four hot keys are the best for in the moment switching. Two and three mostly. 1 is paralyze, five is either magic potion or health potion. If i use conjuration four is my clannfear,

Mages can become extreamly powerful, but not one spell to kill an entire town, more like four or five jklol.

Leveling efficiently is overrated. That's because the attributes aren't even that important compared to skill levels. If you want to have a powerful character the important thing to do is to strongly specialize in a small number of fighting related skills. For example you could take the premade mage class and then only cast spells from Destruction, Restoration, and Illusion.

Another option is semi-underleveling. That is you make a custom class with 3 skills that you will be using a lot, 3 skills that you will never use, and 1 skill that you will sometimes use. An example class for a mage would be:

1. Destruction
2. Restoration
3. Illusion
4. Mysticism
5. Speechcraft
6. Marksman
7. Blunt

In this example Destruction, Restoration, and illusion are skills that you use a lot. Mysticism is the skill that you use sometimes, but you'd generally prefer to use it's effects as enchantments than as spells. Speechcraft, Marksman, and Blunt are skills that you'll simply never use and their purpose is to keep your level low.

Fixed

The problem with Alchemy is that relying on it doesn't suit my playstyle. I prefer to save potions for emergencies.

Each to his own, I just find that I can find ways to solve about any problems I run into with it because it has so many effects.

Efficient leveling really isn't as important for a mage, from my experience. It can be good to advance Endurance efficiently for the first few levels, since that will help your health. But the "mage" attributes are easy to level up quickly, and there's not much advantage to being efficient about it.

Well if you want a pure mage then take the default mage setup, and definently focus on conjuration and illusion, as they are fun and great in battle, illusion with chameleon, paralyze, calm, frenzy, and conjuration to summon liches and storms later on. i didn't efficient level and i was fine, i wasn't much overpowered and i was level 14, but if you max out you int and wil and master some skills you will be pretty invincible, in the heat of a battle hotkey your spells and try to remember where you set them. bliviongate:

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the default Mage class. Of the major skills in that class, the only one that levels really fast is Alchemy, so I wouldn't worry about efficient leveling at all.

As has been previously stated, it's probably best to concentrate on no more than three main schools.

On the "one spell at a time" thing, when you have gained access to the Arcane University, you will be able to create custom combination spells, to combine effects that you'd like to use together.

Thanks so much for all the info and advice, you guys have been extremely helpful. I am going to try this out and see how it goes.

I would put emphasis on Illusion spells. At apprentice level (25-50) you can cast a command animal or command humanoid spell for 30-50ish mana 5 levels for 10 seconds. Which is enough, if used wisely, to let your enemies kill each other off. It's a lot safer than Frenzy, since it will simply make it's target attack who ever is nearest.

With a command spell, if an enemy sees your thrall, it will attack it, and often continue to attack once the spell wears off. Making your thrall easy pickings when he is the only one left standing.

By the time the fighting is done, your mana should have regenerated most of the cost of the spell too, so a huge mana pool isn't as important for an illusion mage.

Also command is good for 1 on 1 combat, as it gives you two or three free hits before your thrall attacks you his 'ally'

Hi, Ordin. Welcome to the forums.

Here are a few of my suggestions.

- Choose the Mage class and birth sign of The Mage.
- Work your way through all the Mage's Guild quests
- Determine what skills are most effective for your play style
- Train your skills whenever possible
- Enchant weapons and items for any situation. (Ex. A hood with waterbreathing, shoes with waterwalking or feather, gauntlets that fortify strength or blade, etc.)
- Keep good weapons (I find the best ones are the ones I make myself) http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4909/tesforumsarchmage1.png
- Make your own spells, and continue to increase your skills so that you may use more powerful spells. Ex. a spell I made: http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/1060/tesforumsarchmage2.png
- I like and use several spells for different situations. Spells like Spectral Form and Heal Legendary Wounds are very useful.

There's a ton more I could say, but it's really how you play and what you want out of your character that counts. I personally prefer a very strong, agile, fast Mage that can outrun horses and go head to head with giant creatures, among other things.

Well in one of the mage's guild recommendation quests you get buoyancy, a water breathing spell that seems to cost less to cast than the mana regained while using it. So I generally whip that out if I need to swim much, instead of carrying an enchantment, but I do agree with carrying items with the other effects you suggested, because sometimes it's easier to have an enchantment than use spells repetitively.

Also note: If you are going to use enchanted weapons I would recommend the Azura's star and/or the umbra, to make it much easier to keep your weapons charged. Or you could use dawnfang/duskfang which auto recharge after time. Also I recommend never enchanting with non-grand soul gem's, otherwise it is a waste if you are going to make an enchant make it good by getting a grand soul, or it may soon feel not effective enough, and you can only enchant any item once. Grand souls are also a good way to create armour better than would usually be available for your level, although they still have the same defence rating, it can be great to add attribute or skill boosts.