Im making a telvanni wizard and have no idea what im doing. But anyway, i heard they use staves and to be honest I have never really used them. Mostly because of the whole soul gem thing is very bothersome.

Ideas/tips?

Elaborate.

Pretty simple really. Equip in either hand(or dual weild)..point at target and fire. They act like spells do. If its a stream spell like flames then hold down the attack button. If its a charge spell like fire bolt hold down the button and realease like youre casting the spell.
Ohh and soul gems are only used to recharge them like any enchanted weapon.

finding soul gems then filling them, but you have to figure out which souls goes in what. Then you have to have a method of souls trapping them, easiest way is probably the spell. Then again i'm just not used to it.

Far as finding soul gems goes you can usually grab a few filled ones off of court mage vendors and sometimes general stores.

I belive that petty and common soul gems can hold sould from skeevers, wolves, mudcrabs...weaker enemies like that. Greater and Grand gems would be saber cats and such. Black gems are for humans. I'm not an expert at all on them but thats basically how they seem to work.

Wiki link to a guide for souls by creature.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Souls

As already noted, all NPCs have black souls, so you have to use black soul gems if you're going to soul trap them. Black souls are the same as grand souls as far as size is concerned.

Worth remembering that if you have the DB DLC that you can create staves.

Also if you fill a gem with the wrong size soul you can just drop it and pick it up again and it will now be empty.

Azura's Star (re-fillable soul gem) is nice to have, if you don't mind doing the quest to get it.
I tend to use whatever staves I find, and give extra ones to my followers. You'd be surprised who will use a staff. I tend to use them mainly when I run out of magic because I am not sure if they increase your skills or not.

Hmm, did you have to spell usage as "use-age"? I thought this was a weird thread about Staves using age tips. Like the staves actually...apply....anti-ageing cream or what have you.

Annoying things is you need to recharge them all the time, and they dont unequip as fast as spells (so you cant like BOO soul trap and quickly switch to flames).

But yea, azura's star will help lots. I suggest getting the black one, there are lots of bandits and random npcs you can meet on the road, especially if you have some immersive patrol mod. Lots of civil war dudes and dawnguard factions.

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I cannot recommend this thread highly enough: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1312501-the-way-of-the-artificer/?fromsearch=1

Read the section on Staffs.

If you feel uneasy using staves, your character can still use http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Scrolls.

Whoa, really? Now I can finally make a Mage that works for me

Get the Black Star, it only stores 1 soul at a time but it can be any size soul from any living thing, even black souls from humans/humanoids.

As for stave usage, they're all pretty weak so maybe as a left handed backup but they're only good as wall art imo.

I though the Black Star only took humanoid souls?

I thinks it's a bug as it accepts all souls...my Orc pairs it with Molags mace for unending power

Another thing I'd like to add about staves, is it's possible to get the special looking silver destruction staff which:

I prefer using staFFs as melee weapons.

If you carry a range of different sized soul gems, the souls you trap do automatically go into the right sized gem. And as noted, if you don't have one of the right size for the enemy just soul trapped, it will go into the next largest - this can be a waste but you can drop the mismatched soul gem and pick it up to clear it.

I also find using the soul trap spell awkward - timing it right so that the enemy dies soon enough and not getting killed yourself. I found it more useable if if I've summoned an atronach, or have a follower. I prefer soul trap weapons, but if you are a Mage you might not use weapons.

If you have a follower you could try giving them a soul trap enchanted weapon and a bunch of soul gems. I did this with Serena and she did a fantastic job of filling soul gems. It is often at then end of a fight that she gets out of magika and she will then use the soul trapped weapon. Worked a treat!

The NPCs don't have black souls. The gems are black, but the souls aren't.

I found a sword of fiery soul trap at a very low level on one of my character.

In my opinion any weapon (melee or ranged) with an enchant like this (____y soul trap) are the easiest and most efficient way of trapping souls. Just disenchant the weapon and apply it to anything you want and see what i mean.

The "soul trap" enchantment is the primary enchantment and the "fiery" is the secondary. What this means is that you can put it on the lowest setting possible when enchanting (resulting in a ridiculous amount of hits in one charge) and have a weapon with an enchantment that looks like "will trap an enemies soul if the target is killed in 1 second, and inflicts 12 damage of fire". With any impact weapon that doesn't cause bleeding or damage over time (IE: most melee weapons, bows, and so on) you only need the "1 second" enchant because it applies with every hit you make, so on your final attack, you trap the soul.

on my character that dual wielded maces with these enchantments I had too many soul gems to count.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Souls,_Black_and_White

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Black_Star_(item))

They usually refer to the souls as either Black or White... I am not a Lore buff... is this a miss-understanding of whoever wrote these articles?

I usually get Azura's star, and go for the Black version. This way you can get Grand Souls out the wazoo earlier in the game. Each NPC results in the Black Star being filled with a Grand soul.

Soul gems are all over the game, very easy to find in Skyrim. They are even sold my Merchants in this game.

The soul will go into the gem it is supposed to go into, or the next size larger if you don't have the right size.

Soul Trap spells last long enough that you can cast or use an item that has the spell, and the trapping will take care of itself.