I personally found it very hard to play as a mage in oblivion without the aid of a sword or bow. Has anyone heard or expecting what the deal is gonna be with this. Will we generally have to use one hand for sword and the other for magic? or do you think we will be able to play through with duel magic? Also I would like to know if you will be able to duel weild different spells for example ice in your left hand and fire in the other. Or will you have to use both hands to do the same spell.

no in OB it was tuff but in skyrim it seem like it will be a breeze once you have the spells. maybe a high magika use defense spell in one hand (to time like a shield) and a good offensive spell (flame thrower)

I found it easy to play a pure mage, but a little boring. I prefer to use both styles and will continue to do so in Skyrim.

I think the problem with those people who were not able to play a pure mage was that they didn't realize that you have to modify your play style. You couldn't bullrush a group of baddies like a warrior would. You had to play it safe and take out dudes one by one. Sometimes, sneak skills helped a lot, at least until you had become much more powerful. Once you a high power mage, you could pretty much decimate an entire room in a matter of seconds. High level AOE fireball spells could obliterate rooms of dudes (and scatter everything else), and you could follow up with massively powerful lightning spells. What was that lightning spell that you could learn on the top of that mountain? Try using that on someone. Amazing results.

Well, I have more of an issue in the way that I don't think a mage fits the role of Dragonborn very well at all. But I'm still making one as my first character. My skills will be Alteration, Restoration, Illusion, Destruction, Enchanting, One Handed and maybe Alchemy (which is now stealth).

Gandalf style because it looks epic

I'll probably use dual magic to nuke baddies at range then swich to my claymore and chop them in half :flamethrower:

with the new magic system I think playing a pure mage will be VERY VERY interesting

My two main characters will be my Bosmeri Archer and my Breton Elemental... My Elemental is most likely going to use a ward in one hand, and an aggressive offensive spell in the other... But either way, he'll be a pure mage... No arms nor armor... :tongue:

Not use magic at all. Hate magic. Hate mages. Hate TES idea of how magic works in their world.

You sound like Zevran....

You don't care for the extensive knowledge or the scholarly ways of the mage? :shakehead:

As you can see the magic in skyrim has been overhauled and rethinked which i think is a good thing, however it looks slightly OP and i think using magic will be the opposite of oblivion's hardness it will in fact be a walk in the park, when considering how fast that formidable dragon priest experienced it's demise.

I will be playing as an Altmer mage, who wears only robes, and I will use a powerful lightning spell in one hand and a shield spell in the other.

You have to keep in mind that the demo was played in "God" mode... Otherwise known as "Todd" mode... :tongue: The character's stats were boosted beyond belief... But, I honestly think that there will be a nice balance between all three of the main play styles...

Of course not! He prefers stupid phrases and dumb wand movements, followed by spells with no use but humor.

I'll be taking a mixed approach. It has more to do with character concept than what works better.

Magic will be something my character grows into, tho he will always have his trusty katana for those times he wants to get close and personal. :toughninja:

I totally agree, in Oblivion I always used magic, but I seemed like I always needed my sword too. I am hoping I can dual weild spells because then I would use a defense spell and like shock or fire.

I never equipped a single weapon or piece of armor in Oblivion. I thought it was pretty easy.

I got that mountaintop spell later on. My Breton couldn't cast it since it was leveled beyond the magicka cap. Pretty irritating.

It looks much more combat freindly as you can use each spell 3 diferent ways and weild in two hands the thing that maid the mage tedious to me was trying to switch spells during combat probably not a problem on a pc but wasnt easy in combat on a controler i frequently hit the wrong spell due to the hotkey system casting spells like ease burden in a fight .Im looking forward to trying it out.drop a trap when a guy is comming he gets to close flamethrower and you still have long range fireball easy to access is a winner in my book

Primarily Dual weilding, with a long sword hotkeyed just in case push comes to shove from a direction I am not comfortable with, if you understand me.

Just as stealth needs sneak and warriors need Armor, Mages need conjuration. Summon something large like an Atronach in a hallway, use heal other to keep it alive, shield spells for him, and use ranged attacks. If you need to block summon a shield + dagger, then dispell it after. Thats how I played in oblivion. Sometimes I would use a summoned weapon to apply a poison. Magic is versatile, its generally not very effective to just spam destruction spells.

That was the worst spell the differnt leveled versions were the 1st (3551 base) 2nd (1386) and 6th (715) most magicka consuming and you could create custom spells with 1/2 - 1/3 the magicka cost.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveled_Spells#Finger_of_the_Mountain (blue is custom spell cost red is fingers of the mountain cost)

I find the new enchantment system intriguing. I also think the shield spell is an improvement and should make fights between magic users more interesting than they were before. If I like how the game comes out, I might try playing first with a combination of a shield spell and an enchanted weapon of some sort (like a staff or sword).