Hi all, I need your advice on mages...I want to play the typical Altmer or Breton Mage (I've not played as a mage yet, unless you count some fiddling with the magic system)...

So I have some questions:

How many schools to focus on? I really want to do all 5+enchanting but feel this will gimp my character as he'll have no focus.Or can I pull that off?

Do I need to pick one 'sort' of destruction spell? Ice, fire, shock, to be effective?

I have heard it said to invest in stats this way:

Never stop investing in magicka. Invest in health to around 300-400 hp. Don't invest in stamina.

Also, what is better, 50+ magicka for Altmer, or 25% magic resistance for Breton? Because that magicka bonus is pretty juicy but I have heard people saying that high level mages never run out of magicka.

Thanks so much for your advice!

I personally like to use multiple schools when i play a mage. I think my first playthrough it was easy to get involved with every magic type but once i started creating certain character types thanks to the skyrim blog character creation page, id pick my magic schools accordingly to the character im playing as. I prefer the breton over the altmer simply because i only like playing human races. The bretons magic resistance is pretty sweet and will really come in handy at later levels when youre facing more powerful enemies.
I would do a 3-1 ratio with magika and health, then once your health reaches 200-250 dump everything else into magika. Thats your lifeline, you never want to run out.

Thanks for your good advice!

Is 250 really enough HP to avoid one hit deaths on higher difficulties?

So what would you recommend? 3 schools+enchanting?

Illusion and Conjuration are the most effective schools, but Illusion requires amost every Perk in the Illusion Skill Tree.

type Destruction in Search for many peoples opinions in many threads. IMO Destruction is a powerful support School to backup Summons.

I like Shock, but Pyromancy is cheaper and more efficient.

I do not put any points into Health or Stamina on a pure Mage, I also play Mages on lower difficulties than Warriors or Hybrids.

As Bradleyh said, Illusion and Conjuration are the most powerful schools. If it's your first time as a mage, then definately look into Conjuration. The summons/raised body will distract the enemy in addition to dealing some damage while you stand back and do other things.

What makes illusion so great? It is worth more investment than alteration for sure?

Because my potential build was:

Destruction, Conjuration, Enchanting, Alteration with a perk point or 2 in Illusion and Restoration.

Should I swap Alteration for Illusion?

My past mages have usually invested in Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, and Enchanting. I recently (maybe 2 months ago now) tried Conjuration and Illusion. Very powerful.

Around 200-250 Health is good.

As for race, that's all up you. Altmer get bonuses to all schools while Bretons get resistance to all magic. I guess it depends on the long run.

Illusion is great cause you basically control the mind of your enemies. Nothing more satisfying than sitting back backing watching a group of bandits destroy each other.

Great advice guys thanks! Do people really use the restoration school for anything other than healing?

I havent done it myself yet, just what i've read on here...but there is the necromage perk in the resto tree. If you are a vampire then your spells cast on yourself are 25% more effective and last 50% longer.

EDIT: on a side note, i only play on apprentice difficulty on my mage who is level 30. Since it's so easy i end up having little use for resto heals and wards. So at level 31 i only have about 30-33 points in resto. I dont know if a harder difficulty would make me more dependent on wards. But at my difficulty, resto is the slowest tree to level. The others get leveled pretty easily cause i use muffle, oakflesh and i summon as much as i can (getting ready for Frost Atronach).

I mainly use it for healing, but wards come in handy.

I went with 3, restoration, conjuration and destruction together with enchanting and had the best of all my play throughs.

The turn undead restoration spells are great against draugr. Once you get circle of protection its cool to see the dead approach you, enter the circle then run away. The options are limitless when playing as a mage. So many ways to dispose of your enemies.

There are some sweet perks like increasing your magicka regeneration and of course, Avoid Death, instantly healing you when your health is too low.

Thats one I've never tried. Think I might if I have perks to burn.

If you read about the Fortify Destruction enchant or others, you'll see that you will not really need to amp your magicka that much. Put most of it in health so at mid levels, when wearing robes, you are not one-hit by everything.

I've never used Illusion. Are there limits on the max level of opponent you can affect with those spells?

Conjuration is fun. Don't miss out on that.

Destruction at the standard difficulty will work fine for you. Turn the difficulty up and you might be disappointed.

My current mage on Legendary is Conjuration, Destruction, Alchemy, and Enchanting, all at maximum. I am slowly bringing up Alteration too. I will probably bring up smithing to make better armor since at Legendary you can get one-hit by arrows. I never bothered with the others.

The thing with Illusion is its all or nothing. Meaning you need an Illusion level of 100 and every perk for it to be most effective. But in my opinion, when maxed out, there isn't any other skill tree thats more deadly. Nothing like going into a draugr infested dungeon and watching deathlords duke it out with each other.

My current mage is investing in every magic school except Conjuration. However it should be noted I'm using illusion only for Muffle, and the Quiet Casting Perk. Though I will on occasion use high level Fury spells to make assassinating someone easier.

His basic Build is Destruction, Heavy Armor, Alchemy, Speech, Alteration, Restoration, Illusion, Smithing, Enchanting. (listed in order of importance to put perks in)

However it should be noted I have 2 mods that help. 1 is a Destruction mod from the Steam Workshop that makes Destruction no longer useless by making it so when you take the Novice - Master Destruction reduction perks in addition to reducing the magicka costs of those ranks it ups the damage for all levels by 20%. And it adds an enchant to the game that can be unenchanted that also adds to the damage of Destruction spells. Unfortunately sometime ago either Steam or the author pulled it from the Workshop. So I can not link it. Sorry.

The other mod is from the Nexus. That makes any spells that have a time limit and affect the player (Muffle, Armor Spells, Candlelight, Cloak spells, etc.) have an option via a power to be permananet at the cost of magicka regen tanking to near nil. And each time the timer reaches 0 they get recast for no magicka cost but they still help out with leveling there respective schools. I use it so as to not have to recast Armor spells 3+ times during a fight, never worry about light in a dark dungeon (I use a realistic lighting mod), and to make sure Muffle never runs out when doing DB quests.

Here is that mod. http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13450/?

Although, if you go with the cost reduction route, you only need 5 perks (right up the center) to get Mayhem and Master of the Mind. That's all I ever use except for an occasional Muffle.

On the subject of Conjuration, Unless you're definitely going for 100 skill and Twin Souls, or you need to RP a Necro, it may not be worth it since you can get staves of Storm Atronach easily at low levels. Getting to 25 for Soul Trap is all I usually bother with.

Thats a good point about the cost reduction. Ive never really thought about cost reducing Illusion. Usually when I do it, its for Destruction.

The thing I realized about illusion is that, despite being the most powerful school in my opinion, it has some definite weaknesses that you have to plan around.

• For the bad guys to go after each other, they have to be relatively close and there have to be two of them. This is not always the case in dungeons/forts/crypts etc.
• Until you get the Master of the Mind perk (illusion at 90!) you're in trouble against Dwemer automatons and undead
• There's always that last guy left standing

So how will you deal with these situations? I used stealth and archery for my build but maybe a pure mage can use destruction magic or conjuration.

250 health is barely enough - will you wear armor? What level difficulty are you playing? My current armored Orc who uses a two-handed weapon was getting one (or two) shoted by Falmer spell casters. That's on Master difficulty, AC maxed and 40% magic resistance.

I am on adept but will be bumping up the difficulty at later levels. And no, I won't be wearing armor so I think a larger investment in health will be necessary. Great advice tho guys! I am doing a zero fast-travel MQ run-through with my 1H warrior/alchemist atm and will be playing with my mage when I don't feel like questing.

Keep it coming!

No armor, eh? You'll have to invest in Alteration for the Mage Armor perks and cost reduction around the various 'skin' spells. Do-able but you'll need that range attack. Stealth is probably your friend as well. I think you'll have to be patient with this build 'cause it's squishy.

If you do use Illusion, youre going to have to perk out the entire tree. Thats how you get spells to effect higher enemies. And anything thats not mortal.

The ultimate mage truly only needs Conjuration, Illusion, and possibly Alteration.