Yes, I know I have to summon it in combat .... which is what I do - at the beginning of every battle. My conjuration is 38 and seems to be crawling forward. I'm level 21 and in dire need of a heavier hitter. I am loathe to train it up.

Have people found this to be their experience?

My Conjuration increased faster than all my other skills. With my Battlemage it was the first skill to max out by a considerable margin. I rarely, however, used actual summons but instead used the Conjured Sword as my primary weapon. My conjuration skill seemed to increase by simply holding the weapon in my hand.

^this

Conjured sword is cheap, you cast it often, you always use it in combat and it's really strong at the beginning.

It seems you really get the expeirience while in battle, so you cant just cast summons over and over in a safe room somewhere to level up conjuration. I was watching a vid where a guy had a bound sword out, a minute later he was in battle and his conjuration leveled up without him casting another sword.

yeah your not using all of your skills in conjuration. Reanimate and bound weapons help a lot. If your feeling really cheap just keep soul trapping a dead body.

Yep, Conjured Sword, I'm level 30 with a Conjuration of 90 and I only occasionally use pets.

Conjuring a couple swords will level you up. As soon as I started using bound weaponry my conjuration skill went up much faster, and once i was able to conjure dremora lords it went light speed. Conjuration progression, like so many of the other skills is busted.

Again, you have to be in the vicinity of enemies for bound weaponry to give you xp, and conjured creatures must enter combat to give you xp. Even so, atronachs give you very little conjuration advancement.

Heh, it's a bit of a downer for people who want to roleplay summoners who don't use bound weapons .

My Breton battlemage uses summons and destruction magic - but when his magic's run out and his back's to the wall, a solid mace and heavy armour are his last-ditch defence. So I guess he'll never get all that good at summoning .

:D

Yep, bound weapons vastly increase your conjuration faster then pets.

At first I was excited by a certain explosive pet spell that cannot be bought, turns out your kamikazi pet still does not level conjuration as fast as bound weapons.

You don't even really need to exploit the bound weapons to level quickly, but if you need a few quick points in conjuration.... in combat, cast the bound weapon, sheath it, and recast it... up to level 40ish, 2 bound weapon casts will increase your conjuration skill.... then 3, then 4 etc....

It levels pretty quickly for me, and the only conjuration spell I use is soul trap