The title tells it all: MAGIC IS OVERPOWERED. This can bee seen also in small levels, but when you are near level 40 it turns out really overpowered. Common mages you meat on your travels can shoot a single fireball which kills you even you have your fully 350+ points of health. Or which is more common a mage can shoot ice bolts in really fast rate and even you have your nordic resist frost ability every bolt takes 1/5 of your health. It's really hard even to get close enough to mage to swing your axe on his face. Your armor does nothing to stop magic and there's no weapon, creature or dragon in the game which can deal as much damage in one hit as destruction spells. This of course makes game hard enough and life interesting but it still gives feeling that magic is overpowered.

Craft some magic resistance jewels.

There's a lot of people complaining the exact opposite, that magic is underpowered.

You people can't have it both ways.

There is a difference between NPC mages and player mages.

If you read the OP you'll see hes talking about enemy mages.

And I agree as a melee character those constant ice spikes that SLOW YOU DOWN while the mage is moving backwards away from you makes me want to throw pencils or something.

I don't agree that they are overpowered, I mean that they are how strong the player as a mage should be.

That would be a good idea but first I have to find one with magic resistance effect to learn it's secrets. I have used this long Lord's stone, but what it gives for magic resistance feels like nothing.

Yes they can when NPC spell damage scales and yours doesn't.

Player magic is very underpowered where as NPC magic is the opposite.

They are freaking MAGES! What do you expect?



So stop swinging axe and use your bow.



Use enchanted armour. There is also nice "blocking" perk which gives your shield ability to negate 50% of destructive magic.

It's a good thing that NPC mages doesn't have the perk "Impact" coz if they did, they'd spam you to death. That is of course if you don't die on their first attempt. :rofl:

On a side note: Players (mages) are like assasins. Who hits first, kills first. Just that mages can't 1 hit most enemies but you can pin them down by dual casting destruction magic with the perk "Impact" which will stagger them and what more if you have the "Paralyze" skill which lasts 15 seconds. :rofl:

Mage players can learn a lot about effective use of magic in combat by paying attention to how NPC mages use magic in combat.

Yes crafting a magic resistance amulet or ring would be useful, but not with the current game version (patch 1.2?). Since I updated my game some days ago even my flame atronach doesn't have its fire immunity anymore and I lost my all magic resistances too (Breton race bonus and 34 % frost resistance enchant). I wish I could be able to downgrade to an earlier version because I'm also getting crashes way too often now.

I think NPC mages are fine, but if you're on 1.2, then your resistances are broke so they seem overpowered. At least that's what I'm dealing with right now.

PC mages Destruction could use a little boost I think.

Exactly... Maybe if we all noticed that npc spells scaled in damage, they would magically start scaling for player mages too. .

Nothing less and nothing more. I like them because they are challenging enough, but I use companion because of them - sometimes I need him to stand between me and mage.


I like to use my bow, but I won't use it when I have an undead army on my face.


Good point, but I haven't found any object with resist magic effect. Also it's really hard to use a shield with battle axe - I have to first find a spell which gives you third hand as constant effect.

This. It's only overpowered when someone else is using it, apparently. A high-level mage can hurt me pretty fast. I can empty my mana bar and not come close.

If there is undead army on your heels then one mage makes no diference If you really mean "army". And you did something wrong to get in to such situation in the first place.


There are several ways to combat magic in the game:

-sneak: if you can kill mage before he sees you. Sneaking combined with archery makes wonders. You can shot, hide and repeat lot of powerful enemies. Just keep your companion somewhere where he can not give you away or charge bravely while you try to hide in the shadow.

-potions/alchemy: potions can give you resistances to magic.

-poisons/alchemy: there are poisons which damage magicaka.

-magic: there are spells which protect against magic or damage magicka on target.

-enchanted weapons and armour: there are enchantments which protect against magic or which damage magicka on target.

You can of course combine them out: dip your arrows in magicka damaging poison while sneaking on your mage having helmet of resist fire on your head.

It comes down to your character build. In this kind of game, very specialised characters does not last long.

Definitely agree, the player character is not strong enough but enemy mages are over powered. It will be awhile before you see that change, it will probably have to be fixed by the modding community. Mages in Skyrim need to be able to swing an ax or blade too. I'm playing as an Altmer but she'll be doing conjuration, anchanting, restoration and destruction magic because and running away and also looking for the Atronach stone.

Mage vs Mage is very annoying....

they can two shot you, but you'll waste your entire magicka bar just to put a dent in them. You cannot play a mage like how NPCs do, it is just impossible.

OP AI mages make my life as a necromancer that much more fun. Why should I play a mage when i can resurrect a mage that does about 10x the damage!?

Or just give my follower two Staff of Fireballs. That was amusing.

Don't play the mage's game by chasing them around. Stay behind cover and force them to come to you.

I see one of these topics talking about how mages svck and magic is underpowered and then I see another saying the opposite!

I'm like a rudderless boat adrift in a sea of confusion! Which threads should I believe??

Funny, I think the opposite.

The people saying Mages are underpowered are the ones who have played lvl40 Destruction mages.

The people saying they are overpowered as the ones that only have lvl20 Destruction mages, or have only versed them in battle.

Actually, the ones saying they're overpowered are the ones that have read the thread. You should try it sometime.