...for no other reason than to be able to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Epc8LuMu2A&feature=related

Obviously a mage, I'm thinking high elf with atronach so I can get the most magicka in the game, any other suggestions? I've never really played a mage before but I want to be able to do this so badly I will do anything for it.

Edit: I'm on the xbox so I can't use the console for this.

Three words when your character′s done: enchanting, spellmaking and alchemy

I know, but does anyone have any tips on how to actually be a mage and at what level I should attempt this? Maybe I'll make my majors Alchemy, Restoration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, and Alteration, that way all seven of my magical skills start at 30 and level up quickly because they are both my major and my specialization skills, am I right? Also is playing a mage fun? Any strategies on how to play a mage? Any help at all would be appreciated.

I don′t know what lvl you should be at, but obviously you have to do all the recommendation stuff to gain access to the university. Can′t give you much more than that I′m afraid. You don′t have to do anything special to be a mage other than the things I listed. You know what to do in order to get maximum magicka from the start. The rest is just enchantments, spells and potions to raise it

Yes, playing a mage is fun. Basically the thing that still feels fresh even after almost four years.
Also, picking those skills as majors should help quite a bit

I'm going to do the Mage's Guild recommendations as soon as I'm out of the sewers, is it possible because I remember I had to kill some zombies or something. And where the hell am I supposed to get grand souls to enchant my clothes, weapons, etc.?

As far as I know you can do them right out of the sewers. Grand Soul Gems are available in magic shops around Cyrodiil such as The Mystic Emporium at the market district in the Imperial City. And of course as random loot.
If you mean to collect grand souls in gems yourself, creatures that have them are ogres, minotaur lords and goblins. There may be others too, I can′t remember now

Those aren't gonna spawn for a while I think :unsure: I guess I'll have to settle for those lesser enchanted items until I'm a high enough level to get the good ones.

You don′t have to settle for lesser ones, just buy grand ones in the shops

There's a handful of empty grand soul gems placed in merchant's inventories from the beginning of the game (for instance, Calindil has one) but the empty ones don't spawn in shop inventories or loot until level 12. The full ones don't spawn until level 15. I haven't checked, but I would assume that the one in Calindil's inventory is physically in his shop (that's generally the case with things that aren't on the leveled lists yet but are consistently in shop inventories), so if you wanted and could get away with it, you could steal it.

There are three of them in a locked display case in the Arch-mage's lobby at the AU. So far as I know, breaking into that case does count as stealing, but it's easy enough to go in at night when nobody's there and take them. IIRC, two are filled and one is empty.

Creatures with grand souls don't start showing up until later levels (generally level 16 at the very minimum), so the only way to fill a grand soul gem before that is to convert it into a black soul gem and fill it with an NPC soul. All filled black soul gems are grand.

Moving back a ways-- a mage with the stock mage class (all seven skills as majors and magic specialization) works out fine. I would suggest dropping one intelligence skill and one willpower skill to minors (alchemy and alteration work well) and replacing them with slow-moving or unused skills, in part so that you've got skills to train for bonuses (since you can get as many minor skill increases as you want without moving any closer to leveling up, so it's handy to have at least one minor skill per attribute in case you need the bonus points but aren't ready to level up yet) and in part because alchemy in particular can increase far too quickly, and thus level you up far too quickly, if it's a major. It's possible to build a mage with only a couple of magic skills (one major per attribute, for instance, or a combination of slow-moving majors and unused majors) and that can work out better in the long run, but it's not really necessary and it's more of a strategy for a patient player planning a long-term character, and this doesn't sound like either one.

Playing a mage is great fun, but it can be a bit of a challenge. You can put him in armor and give him a weapon, but if you want to focus on magic, I'd generally suggest against that. Heavy armor's handy for the first few levels (if it's a minor) since experience in it will give you endurance bonuses, but in order to use it effectively, you have to wear it all the time and you have to spend a fair amount of time getting hit, and pretty quickly your mage could turn into a melee fighter with some magic skills. And no matter how great your skill in the armor is, just wearing it will diminish spell effectiveness, which can be a problem when your spells are pretty weak to begin with (and is also a problem late in the game). It can be rough before you get into the AU, since, unless you happen on some enchanted clothing or are wearing armor, you're going to have 0 AR, but as soon as you get into the AU, you can start enchanting clothing with shield or elemental shield and end up with just as high an AR (or even higher) than whatever you'd get from armor at the same level. So you can either wear armor until you get into the AU, if you can survive using less effective spells, or you can just go for it without armor, but in either case, once you get into the AU, there's absolutely no reason to wear armor (other than roleplay).

So surviving early on requires some strategy and some planning-- you have to learn the strategies of your opponents so that you can time attacks well-- move in, get off a spell, then move back out of range before you get hit, and you have to have a lot of potions, since you will get hit anyway, and when you do, it will hurt a lot. You can use a certain amount of ranged magic, but spells on-target are considerably more expensive in terms of magicka than on-touch, so you get a lot less "bang for the buck," and since you'll be burning through magicka faster, you'll have to have a lot of restore magicka potions. Practice conjuration and illusion to keep enemies at bay-- to make them fight your summons instead of you or to make them fight each other (command or frenzy) or simply to lose track of you (inviso/chameleon). All give you a chance to rest and heal and recharge your magicka or to attack without retaliation at least a time or two.

And yes-- there's a recommendation quest that involves zombies (and another that involves marauders) and both can be quite a challenge for an unarmored mage with generally weak spells. Move slowly, sneak as much as possible so you don't get surprised, draw opponents off one at a time so that you don't get mobbed and carry lots of potions.

Once you get into the AU and can start enchanting clothing and making custom spells, you're well on your way to godliness, and by about the time you hit level 20 or so, nothing's going to be able to hurt you and you're going to be dealing out incredible amounts of damage with just a flick of the wrist.

Wow did you write that out right now or do you have a speech prepared in note pad already? :laugh: Ok so I think I'll take Alchemy and Mysticism out of my major skill set and replace it with block and hand-to-hand just because I've never used it before and it seems like a fun skill to train. I'll definitely enchant some regular clothes with the highest level shield or elemental shield I can, whichever one is cheaper. At 17 I'll try to get those elemental shield transcendent sigil stones so I can get 25% shield on all my clothes, 85 dr is going to be ftw. I also need to know a way to train restoration quickly so that I can achieve my dream of running (or jumping) across Cyrodiil in 5 minutes. And where can I get those fortify skill spells anyway I've never seen one before.

at the AU create a restoration spell that requires one point of magica to cast

find something to weigh down the cast button on your keyboard and then go find a book to read

I'm on the xbox =/ I guess I could switch to TV and keep rapidly clicking RB.

Wrote it on the spot. That was pretty typical for me, and actually I've written much longer posts. It's a bad habit.

There are no fortify skill spells. The way to get it is to get the greater power from a doomstone that grants some sort of fortify skill. For instance, the Tower stone, on the shore of Lake Rumare south of the Waterfront, grants the power The Master's Hand, which fortifies Armorer. Just having that spell available to you gives you access to all of the fortify skill effects at the spellmaking and enchanting altars.

When I get access to a spellmaking altar, I like to do one simple custom fortify skill spell right off, just because some of the doomstone powers do not include fortify skill, but as soon as I make that one spell, I'll have access to fortify skill for the rest of the game anyway.

On one of my recent characters, I went to do a fortify skill spell only to discover that I didn't have access to the effect (I had the Cheater's Nip from the Thief Stone as a greater power, which doesn't include fortify skill), so I just swam across to the Tower Stone, picked up that greater power, swam back to the AU and made a quick fortify skill spell to lock it into my spellbook. Then later, when I happened to pass by the Thief Stone again, I picked up Cheater's Nip again.

What would be the point, you will instantly die? I have a few acrobat characters but without a high endurance you die because of a bug that doesnt take into account your acrobatic skill when you fall and take damage. Oblivion should of kept the slow down spells.