for my two septims.... regarding comments on Illusion, actually it can be extremely useful almost the whole game. if you rush around to to do the MG quest, or use some add on to give spell making, you can essentially have access to custom spells anywhere from level 1-4. Heading to Chorrol first, which can start you on the MQ if desired, and start the MG will allow you to purchase the low level command spells, which will work pretty well at low level until you get spell making. Then you can simply make a custom command spell just a few levels higher than yours of effect, with just a few secs 4-5 duration. once cast most enemies will continue to fight until they are dead or kill all the other enemies around, especially if you cast it and then get away from them, but stay in the same cell. the shorter duration allows you to raise the effect and cost way, way, way less then 30 secs, which is unnecessary anyway.

This thread has given me the inspiration I need to start a pure mage. I've never played one. I've always used magic to compliment melee or stealth characters.

I use Race Balancing Project, as well as L.A.M.E. and Supreme Magicka, so some of the tips and tricks won't apply, but the basics will be the same. A pure mage, wearing only cloth and perhaps carrying only a staff, is a tempting character for me. I've been looking for something new, something that isn't necessarily about wiping out evil bad guys with sword or bow right from the start.

A pure mage will take time and thought, and will likely progress slowly. I like this. A thinking man's character. Thanks for the inspiration, everyone. I have much to contemplate.

L.A.M.E opens up even more magic goodness some of the combos / tricks I have been able to open up with this mod are unbelievable.
So my advice with having this mod is experiment and go wild.

Well, you seem to have a misunderstanding about the efficacy of stacking Restoration Absorb spells. Absorb + Illusion (any of the following: Calm, Invisibility, Chameleon 100%, Demoralize) does much more damage than elemental magic, that's all. I know because I have tried them both many many times on max difficulty, and it is much faster and safer to eliminate enemies with Absorb.

For the record, I do not melee. However, to use the most efficient magic (Absorb) you have to get into melee range, so that's where Illusion comes into play. I still do not melee, however; just magic at melee range, never using any type of weapon or hand to hand. However, not ONLY melee range, either, because I put a 10-15 foot AoE so that anything coming with my "aura" is trapped... and dead.

Obviously, I also use elemental magic from time to time just for fun. It just isn't as effective, that's all. If nothing else, there are too many enemies with resistance to one form of element or another, whereas direct drain/damage to health, fatigue, and/or magic avoids any of that problem.

Clannfears require level 75 Conjuration. That is high level summoning. Of course, ANY skill can be deadly at level 5 if you train it to 75 by power leveling. As I originally stated, I was not considering such a power leveling approach, but merely evaluating the schools of magic based on what they can do.

That being said, Conjuration in Morrowind was extremely powerful, unlike Oblivion. Why? Because you could summon multiple creatures, very simple. This meant that Conjuration could indeed be as powerful as AoE magic such as Absorb, elemental Destruction magic, and other types. However, in Oblivion, that was nerfed, thus making it a very weak school relative to the other possibilities.

As far as the AI, it has nothing to do with me doing damage. Obviously, when I conjure something, I am not dealing damage. On the contrary, I am usually running away to leave my summons deal with the problem... except that that does not work because the AI simply ignores the summons and comes for me, just as it should do as far as logical combat is concerned (unless I turn invisible, of course, which I do later on by making my own summoning spells). Again, though, it takes summons extremely long to kill almost anything compared to how fast I can do it myself with Absorb (fastest) or elemental/drain health (slower, but sometimes useful or fun). If I recall correctly, the AI determines the greatest threat. Obviously, the conjurer of a summons is a greater threat than the summons itself in the vast majority of cases. If you face groups of 3-5 enemies, one of them might possibly take on your sole summons, but that really doesn't help much, nor does it change what I've said about the relative power of AoE stuff, particularly Absorb + Illusion + Destruction WrM (the latter simply continually increases the damage from Absorb).

Obviously, what others have stated about using Fortify Int + Magicka applies, as does using Destruction WtM along with it. This is what makes the spells so powerful.

Let me offer another example, and with a reminder that I am on max difficulty (lower difficulty allows you to get away with other strategies, even conjuring summons).

I just went through the Kvatch gate with my newest character at level 17, as usual. Illusion is around the 50s, I think. Destruction and Restoration are almost maxed now, although they were not a couple levels ago and they really only need to be perhaps 60-70 for what I report to happen. I went through various enemy daedra, of course,but most common were Spider Daedra... about 30 of them, according to the stock of ingredients I wound up with when done. I was able to stand right in the middle of a group of three or four Spider Daedra and simply watch them die. They could do nothing... nothing at all. Now, if anyone can perform the same safe elimination of such a group while preventing the enemy from ever being capable of doing anything at all to save themselves (and do it at level 17 and the skill levels I mentioned) but do it by using Conjuration, even maxed out at 100, I'd love to see it. (on max difficulty, that is) However, I would say that I'd see a conjurer become spider food very quickly. Or at least take a very long time to get rid of all the spider daedra.

^^^^ This... That's the only way to reliably get the AI to focus on summons rather than chase after the conjurer.

But more fun is casting Chameleon 100% of a Flame Atronach and watch her rip apart enemies.

Oh... one more thing about why Illusion is superior to Conjuration. Command Creature/Humanoid causes the enemy to behave the same as a summons. However, the spells work on ANY foe, not just what the game allows with Conjuration. In addition, Conjuration will place a summons maybe 6 ft in front of you. However, Command Creature/Humanoid can be cast on targets 60 feet away. They will respond by coming to you as your helper (assuming they do not get attack right off the bat). Very effective at paring down groups of enemies. Or you can do this and simply eliminate them by absorbing, recharging using their energy, etc. I have Commanded various foes as I ran from the IC all the way down to Leyawiin, and I was doing it at about level 6 or 7. The helpers cleared out anything we ran into (and there's a lot of encounters on that trip!) It was much faster that way (because I wasn't in the AU yet, of course, and couldn't make my own spells).

your doing wrong it or your AI is glitching in some way

I did the Peryite quest over the weekend at max diff with a 35% chameleon [ring of khajit] and no use of stealth

Not once did I get in to a direct fight, but still cleared everything in my way

Wether illusion is better is not an issue to me, your peculiar description of the games AI is what's puzzling

Again with some magic mods they level summons with you making them more of a threat via damage and strength, which I now find that my summons are targeted first 9 out of ten times.
Also as AiTenshi has said now a few times keeping your level low will make high skill level summons more of a threat.
As for chameleon it lowers the distance enemies spot you, so I may be wrong with this even not sneaking the A.I is going to prefer a "visable" target.
Due to spotting it first and not changing targets untill killed.

Damn I sound blithe and snippy here, appologies if I offend this is just may view of things from my personnal experiences in game.

If there are mods involved I think its more likely to be some overhaul that improves enemy AI

It's just one of those damn annoying discrepencies that make you wonder just what is up

AiTenshi1 is usually has the games particulars down well

I don't think any ones getting actually offended

There is no way Absorb can do more damage to a target than elemental magic thrown at a target that is affected by both Weakness to Magic and Weakness to element.

Of course Absorb Health does have the advantage that it heals you at the same time that you're doing damage. And if you manage to hit multiple enemies with one AoE the healing can be very powerful (as you show in your example about Kvatch). So yes, it might be safer. But the raw damage output of stacked elemental spells is unrivaled.

After 3 castings of 100% Weakness to Magicka and 100% Weakness to element your target will have 1100% Weakness to Magicka and 1100% Weakness to element, so any damage you do will be multiplied by 144 (a Snowball spell will do 1440 Frost Damage, a spell with 100 magnitude would instantly kill Mehrunes Dagon). And two spells will already give 600% Weakness to both Magic and element which will multiply any elemental damage you do by 49. Note: you need two different weakness spells with identical effects and you need to alternate between them to get this effect. If you just cast the same weakness spell three times you'd only give your target 500% Weakness to Magicka and 500% Weakness to element (and two casts would give only 300% weaknesses).



I never said anything about melee combat. The only mention of melee was that my mages don't want to get into their foe's melee reach. Meaning they stay at a distance that is long enough that their enemies can't reach them with melee attacks.



Most curious. When I hosted the Deadliest Warrior competion we found Conjuration to be overpowered because the AI always went after the summon, as can be seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZjv_JlYAOQ.



Can you elaborate on the exact mechanic on how one fortifies Intelligence or Magicka to insane amounts? As far as I know the magnitude of a spell is still limited to 100 so you'd have to make half a dozen or more spells and cast them one after another. And then recast them when the duration expires. Unless there is something I'm missing this simply sounds to tedious for my preference.

And for the record, you have convinced me that Restoration is an effective skill for killing enemies, I just personally prefer to blast things from a distance. Maybe the main reason why people don't use Restoration offensively is in the name. It's just more natural to use a skill called Restoration for healing and a skill called Destruction for killing.

getting magika to insane amounts. yes. you have to create fortify intelligence with fortify magika spells. each is given a different name or number. they are fired off in sequence each one boosting the overall magika level. as soon as you fire the first, it begins using up some of its duration, so it makes sense to create each subsequent spell with 5 sec less duration. each spell adds, i think, about 300 magika to your initial magika stat. so six spells give around 2000 magika. ok, it IS a bit tedious charging up your char prior to a really big spell launch, but unless you are playing on pc its the only way to do it. need i say, you can add loads of magika if you wear everything you can find or make with magika and/or intelligents enchantments. hope that helps....Rick

gotta love the internet where any one innocuous statement inevitably erupts into a heated argument! LOL but thanks for your input guys i've continued on with Nilos Terandas the mage

Hey, it gave me inspiration to start the pure mage I'm currently playing. Great tips and advice in this thread.

I was not attempting to make our postings into an argument. I was only clarifying how the game operates, that's all.




Well, I am reporting on what happens when I play, and I have played thousands of hours testing the game mechanics repeatedly with different approaches. Note that I have stated that I do use WtM with Absorb. Yes, it is far more effective at damage dealing than elemental blasts. Why? Because you do not have any worries about 1) resistances to elements and 2) missing the target. The only problem you ever have is with reflect spells. Even absorption of spells doesn't matter because it just takes longer. But the stacking of WtM on the Absorb effects is deadly because the effects continue to do more and more damage each casting. Your math is right, I think, but you are not addressing the other issues of actual gameplay such as missing targets with ranged combat, resistances to elements, and being interrupted by enemy attacks (and perhaps others I have not mentioned). The approach I've mentioned eliminates all of those possible problems, and the result is more effective overall. It isn't the only way, of course, and your way certainly works, too. I never said it didn't. I simply pointed out that using the Absorb approach is more efficient and reliable, and does more damage in actual gameplay. Note that Absorb includes both Magicka and Fatigue, not just Health (I create spells that do all three at once)

Note that I have also stated I do use ranged blasting and, in fact, I prefer to do that as far as my character personalities are concerned. Unfortunately, the game does not really cooperate in many instances. For example, if you are going through Oblivion caves or other types of indoor areas, it is seldom possible to avoid being in melee range. Even if you manage to do so at the start of an encounter, groups of enemies coordinate their attacks and some will close on you. It just isn't worth the bother and potential problems, and using Absorb (Health + Magicka + Fatigue) and Weakness to Magic eliminates the enemies far, far faster than any blasting with elements can do.

Again, I have done it both ways, and this is what I have experienced in my games with my characters.



Note that I agreed, too. However, actual gameplay frequently prevents us from dictating that that is what we are allowed to do.



Well, not in my game, unless I turn invisible. That is the only way to reliably force the AI to focus on the summons. It's not like I'm making it up, you know? I'd love it if this was not the case, but it is. The only exception has been in indoors settings where my Conjuration was at max and I summoned Storm Atronachs that blocked the passage. In such a case, the AI had no choice but to deal with the summons first. Then again, I could also turn invisible, so it was a matter of choice of how to eliminate things.

I do not do video capturing due to copyright concerns and my own personal choice to adhere to such restrictions.

I should add one thing, although I would not think it would be true. You use the arena as an example, but I never use the arena and am only speaking of actual gameplay in the gameworld. It is possible that arena encounters might behave differently due to the setup. I have no idea. As I said, I would not think so, but I can only report how the AI behaves in actual gameplay in the world (i.e., through Cyrodiil's environments as well as in Oblivion gates).

One othet thought occurs to me. You seem to power level. I have specifically stated that I am not talking about someone who power levels their characters, but only about playing and developing through more or less normally paced progression. In other words, you do not have conjurers with Flame Atronachs at level 3 or Clannfears at level 5. That is power leveling and is not part of my consideration. If I were to add it, I would simply say to do the same thing with the schools I talk about (Illusion, Restoration, Destruction) and you'd have an equivalent but more efficient method, in my view and experience.

This is important because, as I think I mentioned someplace in this thread or elsewhere, the AI seems to evaluate threat level. If you are a low level character summoning a high level creature, obviously the AI homes in on the summons because it is the higher threat. However, this will never happen unless you deliberately power level Conjuration and go out and buy those high level summons spells. If you develop through a normal pace, it is your character who will always be the greater threat and thus the target of the AI. This may be why we have different experiences. However, more importantly, it also demonstrates why Conjuration is not inherently overpowered by any means and, in fact, is weak compared to other schools. The only way to get the summons to be the target would be to turn invisible (as I've said) or to do this type of power leveling so that your summons is actually more powerful/higher level than you are (and thus a greater threat and the target of the AI).

As an example, this video shows a Headless Zombie. That's a high level summons, pretty much (Journeyman, skill 50, minimum). If you get to that level at low levels (below level 10, for example) then it is likely that the AI will (rightly) evaluate the summoned headless zombie as a higher threat than you. However, this is not inherent to Conjuration as a school and only applies if you power level the skill in order to summon creatures beyond your level. In contrast, Illusion allows you to Command Creature with the same effect but for ANY creature. Same with humanoid (which you cannot summon at all). Yes, you have to keep casting it because it costs more (for commanding high levels, anyway) but that also means that whatever you have commanded will be at least your level and very likely higher, which means enemies home in on the commanded helper as the greatest threat, not you.




The process described by one reply about making multiple spells is one way to create a large magicka pool but that is not what I was refering to at all. In fact, that idea works as far as making a large pool but casting a single powerful spell is not at all efficient in Oblivion. I have tested this and this is what I learned. Basically, there's very little point in creating a large temp pool of magicka and casting a single major spell because the overall impact on foes is simply not worth it compared to another approach.

Instead, you spell chain. Or spam, if you prefer. You use Fortify Magicka and/or Fortify Intelligence to create custom spells with other effects PLUS a temp pool that is used as the pool from which the spell is cast. As long as your total spell casting cost is half or less of the temp pool amount, you can cast indefinitely.

Maximum for the two Fortify effects is 100, so total max size of the temp pool is 300. This allows custom spells that cost a max of 150 to be cast indefinitely. It is very easy to make very powerful spells that cost 150 or less, especially when using inexpensive effects such as Invisibility. I have made custom spells that allow me to continually cast huge boosts to my strength to carry loot, large damage for elemental attacks, huge damage from Absorb effects and Drain effects, etc.

Of course, knowing how to heal things also means knowing how to hurt them. And Destruction isn't automatically destroying in a literal sense. As Delphine Jend points out, it's important to "understand the creative uses of Destruction magic." Of course, she also adds that "blowing up things can be ever so much fun!"

This is a very interesting discussion. May I ask if you play a more or less vanilla game?

For melee oriented characters the level progression seems to be frustrating at high levels with a preponderance of Daedric armored bandits (at least that's my understanding since I've always used OOO in my own games after my first partial play through) but with magic, that may not be a factor. I've had a few mages but I've always fallen into the trap of depending on weapon back-up which invariably becomes a weapon dependency. This is making me consider a completely non-weapon character.

Are you implying I don't udnerstand how the game operates? :stare:

Just joking!

Well, mostly joking anyway.

I pride myself in knowing how the game mechanics work so anytime someone presents me with information that conflicts with my knowledge the thread is bound to develop into a long discussion. Another thing is that I usually take things extremely literally. So maybe when you said that Absorb Health is more damaging you meant that it's more effective? I can accept that. But I took that statement in the literal sense that an Absorb Health will do more damage than an elemental spell, which is simply not true.

And for ther record, if you apply both Weakness to Magic and Weakness to element it doesn't matter whether the target has any elemental resistance because the weakness will overrride it.




The arena has nothing to do with it. Those were just two NPCs with 100 Aggression placed near each other, no scripting involved.




I actually don't power level much becase I find it boring. The only skills I'd ever power level are Alchemy and Conjuration because they increase so quickly. Conjuration increases 2x as fast as Illusion, 5x as fast as Destruction, and 12.5x as fast as Restoration. So to get the same skill increases that I'd get from power leveling Conjuration for 5 minutes I'd have to power level Restoration for more than an hour. That's what really makes Conjuration the best magic skill for power leveling.




I see. I knew about spell chaining, but it never occured to me that I could also use Fortify Intelligence with the same effect as Fortify Magickaso I thought that the Magicka limit for whatever you wish to cast over and over was only 50.

When you can make custom spells, create some that are enemy specific. Then, when you fight that enemy, use the spell created specifically for it. In example, my PC's use:

Weaken Warrior: Drain (or Damage) Strength + Disentetrate Armor or Weapon (and/or Weakness to Normal Weapons) + some type of damage
Magebane: Drain (or Damage) Magicka + Damage Fatigue + Damage + possibly silence or weakness to Magic
Daedra or Dremora: Weakness to Shock (to capitalize on their inherent weakness + major shock damage
Ogres: Weakness to Poison (to capitalize on their inherent weakness) + Damage Strength and then I poison my blade.
Lich: Weakness to Magic + Silence + Weakness to Fire (to capitalize...) + Fire Damage
Archers: Ranged Damage Agility + Drain Speed + damage of some kind
Zombies: Weakness to Fire + Light + Fire Damage + Turn Undead
Etc.

Summing it up, being a mage at the beginning is pretty challenging and can almost seem not worth it.

Once you hit level's 22-30 magic becomes completely broken. You can use magic to take out an enormous amounts of people.

Again, I have to state that I do not find being a mage at the beginning to be particularly challenging. That being said, it depends on build and development, as well as roleplaying/play style.

As for when magic becomes overpowering... well, once you get into the AU and start making custom spells, that's about it. At that point, you can make yourself almost invincible, even with the early restrictions due to cost and not having maxed skills. However, by level 17, you actually are invincible. Whenever you get Invisibility, that's pretty much it. You have to choose not to use it, or use it improperly, if you want to actually be in danger.

And I am on max difficulty, too. Normal difficulty would be pointless as you'd just walk through anything and everything as a mage.

It still matters, but the Weakness to Element adds a weakness that the target didn't have. This is a way to get around immunities, of course.

However, that's moot if you do not or cannot hit the target for any reason, and that is the normal encounter in the game. It's much easier use Absorb. That's also why the damage for Absorb is higher in actual gameplay. Not as far as pure math, mind you, but in actual encounters in the game, which include all sorts of issues you did not address (and are not addressed on the wiki).

You could use elemental attacks as Touch spells, but again, you have to be concerned about resistances/immunities as well as other issues such as environment, enemy movements, etc. Of course, you can add effects like Calm or Paralyze or Invisibility to elemental attacks just as you can to Absorb. However, I simply find Absorb more effective.

Perhaps one thing to consider is character builds and developments. Using Absorb adds another use for Restoration. Restoration already gets used constantly for healing, as well as fortification of skills and abilities. That's why it levels quickly IF it is used as widely as it can be. Destruction is the same - it has far more application than simply elemental attacks (or weaklnesses, for that matter). I think that's why the different leveling rates exist. I used to think that Restoration leveled slowly. I even made it a major skill to try to counter that. However, I have discovered that it levels very quickly as a minor skill, unspecialized, if all of its capabilities and uses are accessed. Earlier when I played (perhaps a year or two ago, and earlier) I didn't understand all the uses for it. Now I do, and the problem/issue has been solved. I'm just trying to share that with the community so that others don't waste effort like I did.



I was offering some possible reasons for the differences, that's all. I am stating that what you see in that video is NOT what actually occurs in encounters in my game. I cannot tell you what happens in the Arena in my game since I never go there. I could go there and test it, but I never bother with the Arena as it doesn't fit my characters' personalities, so I really don't want to bother. In my encounters, enemies ignore the conjure/summons and chase me. That's it.




Like the wiki, you leave out all the other issues related to frequency of use and how they impact leveling of skills. Pure math does not tell anyone how fast skills level in the game, or what skill levels the fastest when they are actually trying to level. Regardless, you have just explained that you power level Conjuration, and that may be why your experience does not match the actual game encounters that I see and experience. Of course, I may try power leveling it sometime. I have maxed it before and used summons, but I have found Conjuration to be incredibly weak compared to Illusion + Restoration + Destruction, and that's why I stopped using it. I have tried many strategies to test the mechanics of the game and anolyze the balance, or lack thereof. That's all I do, really. I do that far more than I actually play through games. I'm sure my approach is boring and not fun for many people, but it's fun for me, anyway.





Umm... you have just said earlier that you pride yourself on understandng the game mechanics and yet admit that you never understood this fundamental concept of how to create spell chains? I'm confused because that sort of contradicts yourself, you know? Please understand that I am not trying to offend so that may not come out well in an online forum, but I am pointing out that this is a very fundamental aspect of using magic in the game. Without this concept, magic is very low powered, even with Fortify Magicka (except perhaps if you use Constant Enchantments or lots of potions, but that's the same concept, anyway, especially the latter since it is temporary).

The wiki had an excellent and extensive page for this mechanic until recently (it seems to have moved or perhaps is being edited, or perhaps I just cannot find it now). The wiki still has another page that explains how to chain damage and weakness effects using spell stacking, but it's not too much of a stretch to add temporary boosts of magicka from the two fortify spells to such logic.

Fortify Attribute (Intelligence or others such as Strength) costs more to cast, so the standard practice is to Fortify Magicka 100 (max) and then use Fortify Intelligence as needed and at whatever level for each specific spell. This works from early levels onward (even Apprenctice level in various schools, as long as you are Apprentice in Restoration). Note that I believe that Fortify Intelligence needs to come first (before Fortify Magicka) in order to proper impact the spell, but I never tested it... I always put Fort Int and then Fort Magicka, myself.

The only downside of spell chaining is that your magicka drops to zero once you stop casting, of course. However, this is usually not a problem because 1) everything is dead, anyway and 2) you can either wait for recharge (high Willpower... this is my normal choice) or gulp a couple potions of Restore Magicka.

There's one other thing that we haven't mentioned, but that is (or was) also on the wiki. When making custom spells, you can make a spell fall into a school of your choice so that you can cast it even if the effect you really want is in a different school. This happens because custom spell schools are determined by the most costly element in the spell. For example, I may have a good Restoration (50 or more) but lag behind in Illusion (25). However, I can still make a custom spell with an Illusion effect I want, but use a costly Restoration effect to force the spell to land in the Restoration school (Resist Magic is a good choice as it is a costly Restoration effect). Of course, you still have to have the total magicka to cast the spell, but that's also where the fortify temp pool can come into play and be useful.

In any event... I think we've talked this thread to death, so I'll leave everything at that. To each their own as far as play preference, okay?

Sorry AiTenshi I thought this was of quite a lot of use, and did not want people to miss it due to not reading your entire post.
This aspect of spellmaking is of both practical and roleplay use, my last character a dunmer was not schooled in conjuration but I wished him to be able to summon an ancestor spirit anytime..
So I tagged the effect to an alteration shield spell and came up with one, hence both roleplay and gameplay advantage.

Regarding the little debate here on the effectiveness of Restoration vs Destruction. Either can be very good. I have used Restoration focused characters, with Illusion and without, and they are very powerful when using complex absorb compound effects, and it is very fun and effective. However, for outright killing efficiency as in amount of time it takes me to dispatch enemies, which is what I use for a measure because either way I will kill them, I have to give the nod to Destruction, mixed with Illusion, in either case. This two spell combo works on every thing.

spell one
Weakness to Magicka 100 for 3 secs (10 radius if desired) on touch
Inviso 3 secs

Spell two
Elemental damage effect - x pts for 6-9 secs (10' radius optional) - depends on Destruction skill and cost.
Inviso 6 secs on self. gives enough time to line up on another target.
the weakness will counter resistance pretty quickly if you cast the first spell a few times, so you can even easily kill a Storm Atronach with Shock Damage.

a similar type spell with Absorb health + magicka and inviso will also work, but the destruction route seems to work a bit faster for what it's worth.

I think if one wanted to spec in one or the other one could just choose to do so at the expense of the other one and be fine either way.