I rolled a Battle-Mage as well. I find myself always using my 1h weapon in the right hand and every school of magic in the left hand, depending on the situation. I am an Argonian and have beastform as well as hit skin(great, dunno why I haven't heard anything about it). I use heavy armor and its perks. I have a lot of different options to choose from. However I still need potions many times. The game plays relatively balanced to me except for smithing. I can already make Dragon armor but I choose not to use it.

hello all, I've decided to have my first post be on this topic. I chose to be a mage for my first elder scrolls game and heres what i've come to realize.

1. High level spells cost too much magic
2. destruction in one hand at high level svcks
3. duel wielding destruction spells with stun perk is insane, but miss all the time if enemy is right in front of your face(have to switch to a sword)
4. bound weapons become useless later in the game because real weapons can be upgraded to 100+ damage where a bound weapons cant. only good use now is soul traping
5. My storm thrall is way too weak for the magic he costs
6. Mage clothes svck. every single cool hood or robe is enchanted. if you want unlimited magic your very restricted on what to wear. only one color un-enchanted mage hood (tan). only one un-enchanted college robe color(expert colors). cant put circlets on hooded blue or black robes but can on other enchanted hooded robes(now thats just mean)
7. Wards dont last long enough

my thoughts on improvement

1. make destruction stronger or cost less magic
2. fix where duel wielding destruction wiffs on up close enemies
3. make bound weapons upgradable like real weapons
4. make thralls stronger or cost less magic(same as destruction)
5. need more UN - ENCHANTED hoods and robes! waaaaaaay more!
6. make wards last longer

I think mages are very good. there not underpowered but lack a little compared warriors in some cases

The solution would be that destruction should level with you so you can use the old spells even when you are a high level..
And we also need tons of new spells to keep magic interesting..

No [censored]. You said USE it. I went one farther, and said you dont even have to use it.

That's more to do with stealth being overpowered than enemy mages being underpowered. Their destruction spells are actually somewhat dangerous. I've never been one shotted by any regular melee types, but i have been one shotted by mages. If you get the jump on them and close the gap, they die. Let them get into position behind enemy tanks and you die (or waste a few healing potions).

After playing a mage for some time, I really see no reason why they didn't include it... the spell system is still really simple, it just looks better. Spell making would have made it a lot more interesting.

Summary:

OP started thread wanting to discuss destruction but didn't do that thing I just said.

Because Mages are overpowered even without destruction thread backfired in his face.

Lesson learned to specify destruction if you want to talk about just destruction.

I have only recently had my first painfully frustrating play around with magic. Not with a proper mage built from the start, but with my current warrior type, so i'm guessing that low skill levels might have something to do with how it turned out.

I'd run out of healing potions at the end of a dungeon and, after several attempts, couldn't quite beat the boss with the health i had, so i chose to use the small stash of scrolls that i'd picked up along the way. A few things became immediately apparent.

Inability to wield a weapon while casting magic removes both defensive and (when the casting fails) counter offensive options, which in this encounter left me dead right quickly before i could even ready another scroll. (Oblivion actually got something right and Beth remove it in Skyrim - Oh the irony!)

The second thing i noticed was that after i'd actually finished waving my hands around pathetically while the boss man took big, scary strides towards me, i couldn't actually look left or right (only up and down). Of course, where i was now looking is not where the boss man was, and without the ability to adjust the aim, the time spent readying the scroll to fire was about as much time as he needed to cover the distance and kill me.

Another reload and the cheese tactics start. I get him to chase me back to a long, narrow, straight corridor, turn around, line him up and start waving my hands around again. This time i noticed exactly how annoying the stupid head bobbing camera is, waving the view all over the place while hands flail around in every other direction. Of course, even though boss man was still on the same line he was on before i started readying the scroll, *i* was now no longer looking along the same line i was on when i'd started casting the stupid scroll! Another death and...

..Another reload. Summons this time, elemental atronachs which, after several more attempts, either ponced around and let the boss man sidestep them on his way to get me; dikeed around in my line of fire preventing me from firing my offensive scrolls; didn't appear at all if the spot they were aimed at was now the spot where boss man had advanced to, or just plain died in one or two shots without dealing damage or serving as any sort of useful distraction at all.

Summons out the window and back to plan A (with a small twist). Back down the long corridor, i score a lucky hit on boss man with a Bane of Undead scroll. I then follow him around until he reaches a dead end and stands still. Only then, USING A RANGED SCROLL AT POINT BLANK ON A MOTIONLESS TARGET, did i score a hit with a decent offensive scroll.

The punchline? Even after all that sodding about, the scrolls only knock about 30% off of boss man's health... If that amount hadn't just been enough to allow me to kill him in a straight melee, i don't really know what i'd have done next, but i know that this little story might have had a few choicer words at the end of it...

Now, i know that a few unusual factors are in play here. Firstly, my guy was a straight up warrior type with a dash of bow skill on the side and it was the first time i'd really done anything with magic in Skyrim, so i have to wonder if the magic might have gone better with a proper mage build and more familiarity with the magic system. Secondly, i was using scrolls rather than spells, so i have to wonder if scrolls are tied to a corresponding spell school (which were still at low level with this character) or if they are just gimped in Skyrim and useless to all types (which would be rather dumb considering they've always been the emergency magic for non-magic characters). Thirdly, i have to assume that the inabilty to aim left or right after readying a scroll is a bug. It HAS to be a bug...

Either way and anyway, all things considered in my own little escapade together with what i'm hearing about the rest of the magic system is making me anxious about starting my own mage character. Which is a shame, because it has traditionally been the character type i've used for my major playthroughs in TES games.

''Normal'' Mages are useless.


Mages pimped out in 0 spellcost gear are demi gods whom just spam a single spell as they literally wipe the entire dungeon clean without breaking a sweat.



If you want a fun, golden middle road for mages, I recommend downloading some mods to balance them out xD

Yep. Magic along with every other bloody thing. Let the TES mod hunting begin anew!

I disagree. Mage enemies are always a lot harder and high level ones are simply impossible to defeat, to the point where I have to lower the difficulty.

For those creating a character, I admit that a pure mage is hard at first but at level 30ish you're pretty much unstopabble with the right perks and equipement.

I tried mage, and it felt extremely weak, not only in terms of survivability, but also in terms of damage.

Where my other characters can basically one-shot trash mobs with a 2H weapon, the mage has to use multiple, dualcasted, spells to kill even simple mobs.

I would expect a dual-cast firebolt to do same amount of damage as a 2H iron/steel axe would. Absolutely not the case though.

Not to mention the axe can be swung even when out of stamina, but once you are out of magicka you are screwed. Which means you need to use other bandaid options such as resorting to a staff, or worse, a melee weapon, just to stay alive.

The weird part is... when I play my melee characters I find mages to be the toughest ones to fight. I dunno how many times I went into a dungeon, one-shot almost everything down there with my 2H axe... then comes some mage mob and basically blows me away in 2 hits with icespikes.

Spells seriously need to be beefed up in Skyrim to make them useful in comparison to the two huge drawbacks there are as a mage...

1) Magicka runs out really fast (even with the perks in the proper trees, and 100-125% magicka regen robes).
2) Once magicka is gone you can't do anything.

When I play a mage I expect a glass-cannon approach. Doing loads of damage (especially if you spec towards destruction/conjuration), but dying fast when taking hits.

In Skyrim though, mage is not a glass cannon... it's more like a wet noodle.

Among all my friends who played Skyrim thus far, I don't know one that enjoyed mage. Most called it quits on the mage character before getting to level 25-30. And I don't blame them, since I quit my own mage as well before that.

Try doing the quest in Whiterun where you have to go get the sap for the tree in the middle of Whiterun (for the Kynareth priest). You have to go get a dagger called Nettlebane. The point here is not the quest though, but the amount of damage the Hagraven witch does with the fireballs she flings in your face on that quest. THAT is how the spells should work.

But no, in Skyrim the mage takes a backrow seat and becomes useless.

As far as I am concerned in current state, there are no mages in Skyrim. Magic is a supplement to your main playstyle. E.g. I play a heavy armor, mace+shield paladin type character, using Restoration for wards and healing myself and my companions. Also have Illusion as a supplement for my thief to trick enemies or move unnoticed.

Skyrim magic, a sidedish for melee's.

I played a pure mage focusing on destruction and liked it till later in the game. Higher level D spells cost to much and don't do enough damage.

And I have PROOF that D spells are vastly overpriced for what they do. Look at the 'base cost' of any atronach spell, then look at the base cost of the spells an atronach uses. Every atronach comes with an elemental cloak spell that is always on. The cloak spells you cast on yourself cost more than the atronach spells of the same element.

So I can have an elemental damage spell that hurts anyone near me.

OR for less magic I can have a personal servant tossing spells everywhere with their own health who also has the same cloak spell and can get close to the enemy to use it without endangering me?

Hard decision right......


Now my new character is a battlemage, focusing in conjuration. Exact opposite feel to the game, everything is too easy.

Yeah, console players are why I'm dealing with this craptacular PC UI, so... not a whole lot of sympathy from my end.

I liked Mages much better in Oblivion. I use destruction at a distance to drain some health, and then once they are close enough they get my blade. What svcks now compared to Oblivion, is that magic is too weak in Skyrim. I end up having to rely more heavily on my sword than my magic, and that's not the way I want to play. Mages definitely need a buff in the next patch, and so do spells.

My biggest problem with the magic skill trees in Skyrim (at least when it comes to combat) is that at any given tier of character level — let's say there are five tiers, roughly 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, and 41-51+ — the lower-tier spells are far too ineffective, and you need to use the latest and greatest spells to perform adequately. That ends up being a few spells per school, and they can no longer be customized. In addition, you have to heavily invest into most magic trees perk-wise for them to remain effective throughout the game.

Whereas with One-Handed, I have only four perks (3 +20% damage perks and the -25% power attack stamina use perk), yet my character who's level 40 absolutely demolishes non-boss enemies with dual-wielding power attacks. I don't have any Smithing perks either, only a few Enchanting perks, and neither is up to skill level 100 yet. I'm not wearing any +One-Handed damage gear.

Magic trees fail (for combat purposes) because unlike other combat skills, you can't dabble. You have to buy a lot of perks, use the latest spells, and also usually wear plenty of -magicka cost gear. This is true of Destruction, it's true of Conjuration, and it's DEFINITELY true of Illusion.

I'd say with the right combination of items, spells, perks, and guardian stones mages become overpowered. But each to his own. I think a lot of people when they say mage mean "I use the fireball spell exclusively for everything." In which case, yeah, mages svck balls.

If you read the entirety of this thread and other threads you'd realize that saying "mages can be op." and "some skills in the game are lacking." are two entirely different things.

As you seem to have guessed, I didn't read anything but the OP.

Illusion is plenty strong, but poorly implemented. This is a level-scaling game in which level 40 characters loot Illusion staves that only work on level 10 enemies. Without buying almost every perk in the tree, your own spells won't work on level-scaled enemies. This new skill and perk system is supposed to allow people to develop their characters naturally and hybridize as desired, but that's impossible with the way most magic trees are set up. If a player's character reaches level 30 and they decide they want to start using Illusion, they'll have to spend every single perk from levels 31-40 on it, and only then will Illusion spells start being effective.

Conjuration is also strong — and a bit better than Illusion as far as being forced to spray perks at it to make it not svck — but not by a whole lot. And as for the third offensive magic skill, at the very least, Destruction's damage needs to start scaling up right around level 40... possibly even earlier.

I'm not saying it's unplayable. It is playable. But it severely limits hybrid characters, and there's not nearly as much variety anymore as there was with Spell Making.

1) what's the thread and poll title? Because it sure is not destruction.
2) see the edit to the post you quoted
3) I double checked OP - no real mention of destro there either.

LOLZORZ You got that right :rofl:

If it wasn't for that iPad inspiration and gamepad concerns, the UI would have been a lot better. I mean, sheet, Oblivion's vanilla UI is way more PC friendly, and this is talking about a UI so not PC friendly they have an entire UI overhaul mod to replace it.

Bethesda's way of implementing magicka cost reduction is ridiculous. At high level, it becomes 100% free cast, but during your journey to that high level, you need to invest some points to magicka to be able to do so. So, after 20 levels or so, all that magicka investment suddenly becomes a very bad deal :confused:

No, not really. If you change the novice spells to level up with you, you'd also have to change the magicka cost to level up as well, also should re-level the spell from novice to apprentice etc. also - which would screw up the perks - so that would need to be fixed as well. ...oh and don't forget to change the prices of the spell tomes as your leveling.

The new system has removed a lot of spell effects that was useful.

It butchered our choices with lack of spell creation.

Destruction and Alteration are underpowered severely. The only truly useful spells is the flesh spells in alteration and paralysis.

Not sure what all the complaining is about, but my 57 mage with dual dremora lords with lydia plus free destruction spells kick the [censored] out of everything. It's not about using just one school - that's like saying warriors 1h or thieves bows are underpowered because they don't have perks in heavy armor/light armor/sneak. Use all schools and its fine.