There was this one main Necromancer in this dungeon that was totally pwning my spellsword. I was mainly mage powers and only a small amount of one handed and stamina boosts so my sword arm was just for when I run out of magic.

So me and another conjurer companion and my wardog gets our asses handed to us... time after time.

Then I lost my temper!

So when the save game loads I just ran at the main necro woman screaming my head off and just started whaling on her ass with an ebony sword that had no enchantments on it. I knew I was going to die (I just needed to blow off some steam)... so why the hell did she fall over dead in less than 30 seconds? I was like WTF?

So I look at my destruction spells up in the late 70's, My conjuring in the 60's and my one handed in the low 40's and wonder what the hell is going on. I should have got killed surrounded by Draugr Scourges and a Necro throwing ice spells like crazy. But I was just going mental with the sword. WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM... not even power attacks... just continuous normal attacks.

Also I had earlier tried using a guardian circle scroll but it takes sooooooooooooooooooooo darn long to cast and doesn't last very long that I pretty much think that scrolls should get a buff in the patch at the very least. Shorter cast time or longer effect considering that it's a one shot deal. Maybe 180 seconds for the guardian as all it does is stop the dead entering the circle. I just wish you could cast salt in a circle to keep the dead out heh.

With magic, enemies rarely get close enough to even hit me. Melee requires you to get into the thick of it. I think magic is just fine, it just requires a different mind set.

Warrior - RUN IN AND KILL! KILL! KILL!
Mage - Dance around and kite, kite, kite.


Seems fine to me.

Being a mage is tough business. I play on Master myself, but I'm getting along.

P.S. I work on healing Lydia when I'm low on magic

Interesting. Maybe they had some kind of magic resistance. Maybe they had a weakness to non magical weapons. I mainly use spells, but carry a couple of dwarven swords for the easy kills. I'll try to remember this if the old reliable destruction spells let me down.

Why don't you have impact? Enemies can't cast when staggered. They can't even hold onto their cast. They have to start over.

Yes, impact is very useful for that. Even dragons can't use their fire breath

I think the OP is more bewildered at the fact that his lowest leveled offensive skill that requires no thought or resources to use is more effective than the skills he's invested in, that have some drawbacks.

Just like the rest of us.

I've done my share of kiting in the past and a lot of the time I use the dungeon traps to kill the really bad ones. Some of those kills are so satisfying.... like those wall of spikes things that splatter you to a wall. This one time the Deathlord or whatever it was was pwning me solid and I ran to the pressure plate and just dodged the arrows he fired at me... then when he nearly got me I ran over the plate, he followed and WHAM... wall of spikes to the face. Wall resets and guy falls forward... onto the plate.... WHAM... repeat until dead. I couldn't stop laughing for ages. Then my stupid companion walked onto another pressure plate and kept doing it herself... and the poison darts that plate triggered killed her. Never knew that could happen. Of course because I was laughing so much at the deathlord I had forgotten to save...

Generally though, kiting the real baddies is hard because their attacks literally chomp through your health. Without a load of potions you are as good as dead. That Necro I mentioned just kept healing herself from her infinite magic well.

Word.... Destruction needs a real buff or clothes need +% damage enchantments....

Magic VS. Magic fights are always tricky because your enemy will have wards/enchantments in place to negate that. Your barbarian charge probably caused the necromancer to stagger and try to gain distance, but he couldn't before you took him down.

My mage is an untouchable murdering machine in his low 30's

My warrior in Orcish/Dwarven armor gets murdered by a cave boss with a 2-hander in 2 swings (WHILE BLOCKING)....at 12.

My rogue just 1-shots everyone with his bow.

In my experience, melee svcks.

I think once they figure out how to stop enchantments from being exploited they should add in a +% for destruction.

Magic users usually stop firing magic and back up if you run at them or draw a dagger, that is why warriors have an advantage in close combat. The problem is usually getting to them, unless you're using the etheral shout.

You talking about the dual wield spell + impact = stagger opponent? Yup... Got that... had it for ages. Problem is that dual wielding eats through magic like nuts. I'd love to use spells like Fireball but more than half the time it kills my dog and/or companion. Hell, my companion has killed my dog and my horse using the good spells (this time it was Ice Storm that killed my horse from under me).

I just think that the destruction spells are seriously understrength. For example I ice spiked a fire mage in the face and all it took off him was a minute sliver. He did the same to me (even though he was supposed to be a fire mage) and loads of my health vanished. I was wearing light glass armour... he was wearing... a hooded robe. Balance Fail Alert!

Basically I think that identical spells should do identical damage. If an Apprentice Mage throws an Ice Spike at me it should do the same amount of damage if I cast the spell at him while I was apprentice level. That doesn't seem to be happening now. It's like someone replace our spells with paintballs heh. Something just doesn't feel right is all I'm saying. Hell, I can whomp a Dragon with the firebolt spell... Throw the same spell at a man in a dress robe and it's like it's super armoured against my spells yet when I loot the dead body it's nothing of the sort.

Problem is the mob around you that is trying to stop you getting to the Necro. I had to reload and do it again when my companion killed herself... and I took the necro down just the same. I should find that save and record a video of it. You have to be very fast to kill the Necro and it doesn't matter about the dead around you because when the Necro drops they drop too,

I think that speed is the key. I was going to add enchantment to my sword but I think I am going to leave off now... I'm also going to use that shout that increases non-enchanted weapons. That should help a lot.

It wont work in all cases but when a single Necro is controlling a mob of Draugr then the secret is to take the Necro down FAST and ignore the Draugr... maybe leave them to your companions.

Magic seems significantly weaker than melee or especially archery.

My first character followed the same style that I have played in MW and Oblivion, sneak, archery, one-h, and lock picking being my main focus...basic rogue type. I can pretty much one shot any enemy while in stealth...especially special casters that don't wear armor. I also don't rely on dungeon loot and do a lot of my own gear with enchanting and smithing.

I really wanted to try magic though and decided to go to the Winterhold early on in the adventure. These guys svck...big time. I can't go anywhere without a follower since I either go down in a hail of arrow fire, enemy spells or some bandit with a 2-h weapon turning me into paste. You seem to run out of magicka before most enemies go down and then you are hosed!

So yeah...archery, then melee when they figure out where you are...that's the way I'm going.

This is a well known issue with Skyrim and a guy on the nexus site has a mod that sorta fixes it to a point. He reduced the cost to cast all spells and increase the damage they do. I installed it and found it to be way better but still not as effective as bows. Right now my favorite character is my Orc wearing Heavy armor and using a bow. I shoot them with the bow until they get close and if they are not dead I whack them with a 2hander. Most mobs die in 2 arrows though without using stealth.

What might have helped is if they had made enchantments that increase spell damage. They have enchantments that allow you to do extra melee and archery damage so why just magicka reduction for the various schools? I don't get their thinking, unless they purposely wanted magic to be weak.