I am trying to pick up this game again at what looks like the fourth time now. Every other time I have played dual wield heavy armor and got bored by around 20 as everything just seemed to drop dead. I want to try spells and sword play now, but after some reading it looks like I may be setting myself up for dissappointment again.

After doing some reading it looks like frost does half to 0 damage to everything in the game besides flame atronachs?

Stamina damage also seems to have proven absolutely worthless as 1 stamina allows for power attacks?

This puts a serious damper already on my characters theme.

I haven't been able to confirm yet but does armor choice make your casting damage weaker?

On one hand spell sword/spell has been a lot harder than holding down both triggers and watching entire rooms get smashed to pieces by maces on the other hand I feel really weak so far. Frostbite does not stop things from sprinting to me full force, and ice spike is not all that special itself.

I guess the higher spells prove to be much more enjoyable?

Spells also stop scaling after the 50% damage perk correct?

I was really looking forward to a frost based spell sword but it looks like frost already tiny damage will almosy always be halved, stamina damage is a pointless, and frost spell aren't really spectacular to begin with. Ice spikes can't impale people to the floor etc.

I really wish skyrim had some of the things that made fall out geat like the limb cripple mechanic or the fatigue status effect that makes a huge impat how fights turn out and gives different weapons ways to shine.

Are there mods I should get to make make the spell casting experience more enjoyable?

1. Most of the characters are nords, which makes them resistant to frost. It still slows them down though, which can be useful and on things other than nords it works fine. You are right though, even increasing stamina is borderline pointless, just use vegtable soup

2. Armor does nothing to spellcasting, which makes robes pointless once you get your enchanting at a decent number other than for a challenge

3. the Master level destruction spells are garbage, though the expert level frost spell is fun.

4. yup, for whatever reason they nerfed magic damage bigtime in Skyrim

Your plan can still work, even with vanilla stuff, use Frost magic to slow enemies down, then slice and dice them with your weapon.

As for mods http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4374/? is genius and is what i use and it works great for destruction magic especially.

Thanks for the fast reply. Playing frost just makes me feel like a crackpot trying to sell sand in a desert though =\ I don't get why it was added it everything seems to be pushing against it. I'll take a look at the mod. I am staying on expert as I don't like handicapping myself any further hopefully with a few more hours in I can get to some form of playstyle I enjoy.

same thing with fire magic in Oblivion or morrowind though. Using fire magic when most of the MQ enemies were Daedra, who were resistant to fire, was never exactly the smartest thing. Morrowind was filled with Dunmer, who all had 75% resist to fire, making fre magic in that game useless.

You'd think if the someone was focusing on an elemnt that was resisted everywhere they would find different ways around the problem instead of just giving up and using another element. Other games have had casters that really focused on one school gain extra penetration or secondary effects to the elemnt to make it still worthwhile to use. I just find it off putting that spell list is added to almost useless. Like even if it was tweaked to be a CC instead of damage dealer do to the nature of resist in skyrim. Mages are supposed to be smart you would think somone who spent all their time using a certain elemnt would find ways to adapt instead of go "well now I'm in skyrim better switch to fire."

As PKMN12 said, it still slows 'em down. I wouldn't specialize in it, though: if you want to specialize in one type of elemental damage, it should be shock because very few things can resist it.



That really only applies to you as the player, although if you really want to see immediate effects of stamina damage, you'll have to use homemade poisons rather than frost spells or enchantments, as some NPCs have substantial stamina reserves. As an alchemist, you can brew potions and poisons with much higher effects than those you find, enchant or buy.


No.


There are many on the Nexus. I only have direct experience of Better Magic. I swear by it, but then I only wanted a couple of minor tweaks to the magic system. If you're looking for something more comprehensive, you'll have to try one of the others, but I can't give you any personal recommendations.

(I'd link to the mod I mentioned, but the Nexus seems to be in one of its frequent down periods!)

well, actually that IS forward thinking, very few mages in the TES universe would actually stick to a single magic type.

That nexus mod site has a lot of good stuff on it I am still torn between choosing the better magic mod or the empowered magic mod they both look very fun and just what I'm looking for. I am leaning more towards empowered becuase it has some neat ice spell utility thrown in and it has you sacrifice resistance for better resist in your core element. That sounds very thematic to me. Also the first blood mod that lets you get a sneak attack bonus on missle based spells sounds perfect. I always woundered why I was never rewarded for lining up a head shot with my ice spike on an unaware opponent. Now I can spear my enemies brain and see some atual pay off from it lol. Thanksfor all the help I never looked at mods before but this looks like it will be what I need got for the game to be more enjoyable for me.

Why are you playing on Expert?

Turn the difficulty down if you're not having fun.