So. I made my new Dunmer into a mage. I always underestimated mages when I was warrior and I realized the reason why my warrior did so well was based on alteration, restoration and enchanting. So I decided. What if I went full mage?

Decided I was bored with melee completely and it was the reason why I kept starting over. Wanted something new. Yes! yes! So, I researched how to max out alteration, restoration, conjuration, enchanting, and illusion easily. Magic is the easiest and fastest thing to max out based on casting certain spells. Destruction just goes up naturally as you use it on other targets, svcks I couldn't max it out faster but its on expert.

To me. Alteration and restoration is over powered when you're up against other mages. You either block or aborb their spells and Dragonhide is a god send against warriors and bandit types.

I actually really like alteration spells. Does anyone else use a mage?

Yes, I'm playing a pure destruction mage without conjuration or illusion cause I think that relying on 'passive' magic is lame. Alteration is not too useful for my build. I use restoration, alchemy and enchanting as side skills. Nothing more.

Level 25 now and very powerful. Already have expert destruction, completed college of winterhold robes and I'm strong enough to handle almost everything on Solstheim. Playing on expert too.

I became careful with careful planning, maybe a bit of powerplaying. No dumb destruction zero-costing or using aspect of terror/fortify restoration+ahzidal/dukaan/zahkriisos to get ridiculous damage. Running steadfast ward+staff of incineration(made at Neloth's staff enchanter) currently so I can level restoration(for ward absorb, recovery 2/2 and necromage, but without vampirism) and then I'll switch to spellbreaker+destruction spell of choice.

I found that wards are fairly useful but when you're running a ward and throwing fireballs you burn through magicka too quickly. I fixed this by using a staff, and later I'll replace the ward instead.

Mages are indeed awesome. I tend to limit them to two main schools of magic with casual use of the other schools. Conjuration and Illusion is a favorite. Restoration with Illusion (plus follower) is another. And of course Destruction with Alteration, I love the mild-looking fellow who strolls in and explodes all the bad guys hopefully before his mage armor expires. Good fun. Enjoy your mage!

If you don't use alteration or armor, how are you not killed in one or two hits on Expert. I'd think you'd need some armor of that sort- whether mage armor or regular armor.

I completely deny magic damage. As for physical damage, yes, I go down quickly. That's part of the build, to be a glass cannon.

FYI, mage armor is really weak, even with mage armor 3/3 and ebonyflesh. 300 armor rating is not even 50% damage resistance.

My current character is a sneaky mage. Being Altmer, she uses Illusion and conjuration primarily, with a medium investment in alteration. Fact is she thinks relying on destruction is kinda lame... She wears Ancient Nordic rags with a fortify health enchantment on them, and an AR of 0. When thinking she's up against a dangerous opponent, she'll use stoneflesh, but prefers to simply hide (often using invisibility) except when attacking. She does have the Alteration first level of Mage Armor and 10% Magic resistance, along with the Lord Stone.

She's level 27, playing on Master. Her favorite means of attack is Bound Bow with a summoned flame atronach for distraction.

Meh - not a big help, but the Lord Stone grants another 50 points of armor rating....

Mage armor is a bit stronger with necromage vampire, but in neither case is it equivalent to regular armor. I read on the wikia that you could get Spellbreaker up to 100 armor with smithing, so i'll work on that once I get my smithing up. Necromage vampire will increase it from 300 to 437 which is a bit better, but still a significant way from the armor cap.

I've been going strictly Destruction/Alteration with a few perks added to Restoration. I've got minmimal perk investment in Conjuration and Illusion in this playthrough, and I just added my first crafting perk with Steel Smithing at level 33.

I just finished the Spellbreaker quest to get the shield for the first time. The elven mage Orchendar is a real challenge as he tops magic resistance. I think I did more damage with my frost atronachs and lighting axe than i did with magic.

Not if you're using Dragonhide. It ignores 80% of all physical damage and lasts for 60 seconds. Its one of the best spells to use. Just build up your mana pool seeing as its a master skill.

It's a hugely unpopular thing around here to say you like magic in Skyrim. But I do. I could never get into magic in Morrowind or Oblivion. I don't know why. I tried several times and Mages just didn't "click" with me. It wasn't until I tired one in Skyrim that I felt I understood what all the fuss over magic was about. I played two of the, and, to my surprise, loved both of them. They are just about my favorite types of characters to play in this game now.

After my conversion, I went back and tried a Mage in Oblivion. I found that I liked playing a Mage a lot more in that game now that I understood what it was all about. But I still prefer playing a Mage in Skyrim.

It lasts for 30 seconds.

And I'm not going to invest that much into alteration when my destruction is 76 and my alteration 25 or so. I don't use that skill and I won't.

It actually lasts for 45 seconds with stability, and I'm uncertain as to whether it's duration is effected by dual casting.

This can be extended with the Stability perk, dual casting the spell (yes, you can actually dual cast Dragonhide), Necromage Vampirism and fortify alteration potions.

With Stability, a dual casted Dragonhide will last for 99 seconds, but it costs a ton of magicka. Getting some fortify alteration gear is must if you plan on using it IMO. The Become Ethereal shout also helps as it takes some time to cast it (as with all Master spells).

Actually. If you want to max out Alteration. Just get Waterbreating, go stand in a river and spam off the spell until you've maxed out Alteration. Other magic skills like Conjuration? Just hit a dead body with soul cap. You'll go from level 15 to 90 in ten minutues. No lie.

Do you really need all that much though? My current warrior build is 357 armour rating and quite honestly I don't really need much more.

I heard from someone on here that the armor rate stays at 500 no matter how high you smith your armor. It just reads that way even though you might have an over all armor rating of 1,000 or 600. It still reads in the game as 500. So knowing that, I'm satisfied with Ebonyflesh or Dragonhide.

Getting the skill maxed is not a problem... I have my ways.

But it'll push my character up a few levels, and push the world up a few levels, and I don't want that. It also feels kinda cheap. I see wearing clothes as part of the mage build.

The armor cap is actually 667 if you're not wearing any armor at all. However, as each piece of armor grants a hidden 25 AR bonus, it will be 542 for a character who is wearing a full set of armor including a shield.

Also as AR increases protection http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:SR-graph-Armor_and_Durability.png, meaning that the difference between 300 AR and 667 AR is much larger than you would think.

Source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armor#Armor_Rating

Been playing mages long enough to dismiss more than half of the magic-related posts, whether I participate in the discussions, or not

Started a 'pure mage' character a couple weeks ago - my first ever fully magic using character in Skyrim.

Been having fun and getting a lot of help from nice people here on the forums. Nice to know there are other mages out there too

Mages are super-fun! I'm starting a new character (re-iteration #3 of my Redguard Bard) and am seriously considering going full out Mage, instead of my usual 1-handed/archery, 1 spell build. I've already decided against using sneak at all as I'm tired of the snarky shopkeepers' comments.

I think I may forgo Illusion (though Invisibility can be fun), this time around, with Conjuration and Destruction is a must. Using light armor, but may change to clothing. Alteration could come in handy if I do. Just made level 7 so no big change-over needed

Mages are cool. I just wish the vanilla Alteration worked like it works in "Invested Magic" = you do not have to keep recasting alteration spells every few seconds. Instead, you cast one and it lasts effectively all day, but at the cost of "investing" 10 to 20% of your total magicka pool into keep it active.

Apart from that one factor, which I find slowly svcks the fun out of playing a mage without Invested Magic (which unfortunately does not seem to work with Perkus Maximus, my favored perk overhaul mod), I find vanilla magic perfectly acceptable. Some of the stuff in some of the gigantor magic mods is cool, but too much of it is WAAYY OP, making what is already a mid-to-high level OP role into an uber OP role.

You will eventually once foes get their archery skill up. I remember being twoshot with a Draugr Deathlord that was equipped with a Ebony bow and arrows when I had 437 armor up. I've put more points into health with my current mage.That was with a level 43 mage though-almost all the draugr ended up being deathlords. That was a very long dungeon.

Anthropoid, I agree about the Alteration (or many other school's spells) spells. One drawback I have with mages is so many spells, so few quickslots. I end up slotting my main ones for fights, but otherwise it is cast spell - enter favorites - change spell - cast new spell - enter favorites - change spell - cast spell - repeat a few more times for the spells are wearing off and need to be recast. You get your skin spell up, summon your minion, maybe become muffled, maybe summon a weapon if so inclined and a few steps later, you need to refresh everything again. Or... You can wait until battle is imminent and waste all your magicka casting your "base spells."

I'd like to see a "tweak" to the Skyrim system where spells last until dispelled, but take away from a character's magicka regeneration. Conjuration (summons), Illusion (muffle/invisibility), and Alteration would benefit greatly, I think. You may be running around with half your magicka pool, but at least you are not constantly going into your favorites menu every few steps

Bug. It's fixed by the Unofficial Skyrim Patch. I ran some calculations and the end damage for NPC bow users was being multiplied by the intended value twice (i.e., squared).

Interestingly the player's damage increase from the Overdraw perks doesn't seem to exhibit this behavior, so that was left alone.

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So in essence y'all want sustained spells like in Dragon Age?