Am i the only one who started as Breton just because I loved being a mage in oblivion?

It's too difficult being a mage because the vanilla magic is unbalanced in comparison to the melee in this game. As mage you have to spend points on magicka but if you do so you'll be 2 hit k0ed by the point you reach lvl 10, even after i found out that enchantment is essential and that you shouldn't spend your points on magicka because it can be decreased by 100% and you can just put all of your points on health instead, after i found out about that i made a new build aiming to get 100 smithing and enchanting and only spend points on health. Even after I mastered all magic skills I was around level 30 and almost non of the skills were usefull with the exeption of destruction spells. The master spells are impossible to use seeing as you get staggered before you can ever execute them. I eventually started over as a Redguard being melee based, only training one/two handed/block/heavy armor/smith/enchant to 100 during this time I found out that melee is way more powerfull than magicka. When you are maxed as melee you can deal over 200 damage with a single slash of an one handed sword and than I didn't even calculate the enchantments on the weapons in. If the master spells were just like any other spells, without the useless and way to long to execute animations, and you could make your own spells just like in oblivion the game would be more balanced seeing as trying to become a Magic specialist it's a lot more difficult than to be a tank warrior who can take anything. Oh btw Heavy armor is useless seeing as the roof to the defence you can have is 567 (80% damage reduction) and you can easly reach that with light armor, light armor is also easier and faster to move in and it's also better for sneaking.

I just look at magic like this-
Skyrim is Nord land. Nord dont much like magic. magic is crap in Skyrim.... unless you know how to combine different schools of Magic.

Mages are overpowered in Skyrim, exactly like they were in Oblivion and in Morrowind...

Do you even know what a hack n slash game is?

Heavenly Sword, God of War, Skyrim hardly fits those types.

"Magic is crap unless you don't utilize all the magic!"

Seems fairly obvious. Try playing a 2 handed warrior on Master with no armor perks or archery. All classes need more than 1 tree to be successful.

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Yes, ENEMY mages are usually extremely difficult, way more difficult than enemy bandits or armored melee enemies. However magic is really underpowered compared with weapons. I agree with Phoenix on that. I have actually found a way to use the Master spells more effectively though. I use enchanting so that I can still wear armor, plus have perks that power up my magic, and I have really high sneak skill, so I usually just sneak into a group of enemies and set off a Fire Storm. Works really well because its a one time attack, unlike the lightning master spell, which you have to keep up for gradual damage, and gets interrupted really easily.

Nord no like magic. Nord like mighty axe.

Magic isn't all that bad anyways :/

http://minus.com/m2aMWAgcFnA5I this guy must be using some unknown magic.

Ysgramor is the Chuck Norris of the Elder Scrolls. The fork holds the soup for it fears for it's own life if it does otherwise.

Poor soup.

Agreed.

I've tried playing a mage once before. It was extremely overpowered, I could walk into a group of over 10 people and come out unscathed. And that's on Legendary.

either your fighting under level people, or you know something I don't about the magic system. I'm guessing you were fighting under level enemies? there are no enchantments that make destruction magic do more damage, so I don't see how you could make it any stronger than the default damage it goes to after upgrading the few pitiful perks you get.

Are you only using Destruction?

Conjuration and Illusion compliment a Mage very well.

Yep conjuration and illusion can be seriously overpowered,but they fit a mage perfectly.

I don't use just destruction, I use Illusion, Conjuration and Alteration too.

There are enchantments that make your magic deal more damage. Magic is incredibly powerful and once you realise that like warriors you can't rely on just one skillset (destruction), then understand how to get them working for you, the sky is the limit.

Furthermore, if you really want to squeeze the most juice out of the orange, look into becoming a Vampire Necromage. Seek out someone like Merari, who if I recall correctly, is rather knowledgeable on that particular subject.

As I said in another thread but slightly different wording.

Course mages are fine if you find stun locking enemies with generic spells fun. (Yes I am acting bitter)

I didn't play Oblivion; but I started with a Breton anyway because magic resistance seemed cool.

I'm currently playing with a mod that lets you play with race and gender differences, as well as conversions of the Oblivion classes; even at 60 starting health(!) I'm not getting two-shot by too many things. What ARE doing it are enemies I know to be high level.

"None of the skills were useful except for destruction spells" suggests to me that you're doing it wrong. Consider these:

-Conjuration: Even the lowly Familiar (which Bretons start with!) can distract opponents, helping you keep the range open; and a simple flame atronach or raise dead can give you somewhat more durable and threatening friends.

-Illusion: Yes, you have to perk it; but a dual-cast, raged, kindred-maged Fury (the NOVICE fury-type spell) can hit level 60 people, for less magicka than you expend sneezing.

-Alteration: Mostly useful for extra boosts to your armour rating, meaning you die less.

-Restoration: The Necromage perk makes nearly all your spells better when used against the undead. If you have Dawnguard, you can also get variants of Firebolt, Fireball, and Flame Aura that only affect undead, which means you can avoid friendly fire against living allies and summoned atronachs.

Master spells aren't always useless; you just have to be very smart about how to use them, and choosy about which ones to use.

And yes, magic is more difficult than melee most of the time. It's a refreshing change of pace, to be sure!

I've never heard of an enchantment that raises magic damage. Only the Fortify Destruction, illusion, etc. I will say that I have barely skimmed the surface of Dragonborn and Dawnguard yet. If there are new things to uncover there that enhance your magic, I'll have to look into that.

Stunlock is not a requirement to playing a successful mage.

I disagree - I find magic hideously overpowered in this game, especially if you put perks into other trees like Alteration and Conjuration alongside Destruction. Destruction aside, all of the trees level up ridiculously quickly: Illusion will level nearly every time you cast Muffle; Alteration will level quickly with [item]flesh spells and Waterbreathing; Restoration will level if you heal something, anything successfully; and Conjuration is not only ridiculously easy to exploit (just cast a Bound [weapon] spell in enemy vicinity repeatedly), but is massively overpowered in terms of damage output and use. My friends and I like to call Dremora Lords "problem-solvers" because everything will just die around them, and with how quickly Conjuration levels, you can totally get to that point relatively early in the game.

The only thing keeping mages from becoming so overpowered that they break the game is that all of the trees draw upon the same pool of magicka, which makes working in all five trees a bit difficult until later in the game.

Well, the dull combat is a hack and slash, but that's nothing new to TES.

Illusion and Conjuration have toppled Destruction's spot as the go-to school of magic.

It's sad that their own gods facepalm at how dunderheaded the Nords are, but the Nords wouldn't be Nords if they weren't of questionable intelligence.

That said, if TES VI is set in High Rock or Summerset, I'll be using this argument if melee combat is borked.

In TES VI, Alteration category will go the way of the dodo as Mysticism did before it, with the armor spells going to Restoration, the light and paralysis spells going back to Illusion, and Detect Life/Unlife, Water-Breathing, and Telekinesis spells going the way of the dodo with the Unlock, Water-Walking, and Elemental Resist spells.

My prediction.