i'm playing my first illusion spells these days. I have good killing capability in destruction and One handed, and I want to augment it with illusion skills.

I'm casting Calm on bandits, and they desist - but then what ? Do I use the time to do a power hit ? After 30 seconds thay are going to just come round so I need to just kill them anyway.

Also Fury. So often the bandit or whatever that i hit with fury just keeps coming straight at me.

A little advice pleas on how to be clever illusionist .

Use frenzy spells while hidden to get eneies to attack each other.

Use calm to either avoid confrontation entirely. It's very useful against critters like bears and saber cats, since they're very strong but have a low numeric level.

It depends on the situation, Illusion is by far my favorite Magic tree. I play a stealthy vampiric mage that backstabs.

Using illusion can greatly help, if I am caught in combat while trying to sneak up on an enemy, I use calm, then reset the fight and open up with a near instant kill backstab.

Calm -> Sneak -> Backstab.

Absurdly overpowered (and I hate that term).

Roleplay potential. Check and mate, amiright?

So, with frenzy it's best to be hidden. Calm , good for setting up the backstab. It's a lot of fun doing these spells.

I just thought of another one for calm ; to give time to imbibe a potion. I don't lie taking potions in split second combat because it seems lame. With calm you can have a moment to choose a potion and drink it, then go into combat.

I used calm spells to walk over-encumbered from Mor Khazgur to Markarth past two sabre cats and a dozen Forsworn.

With frenzy make sure there is more then one and stay in sneak. Usually when frenzy they attack the nearest.

Use calm on assassins. Then don't like it. Also with calm us it on giants if you being attack by one.

i did the last college of winterhold mission where im supposed to get the staff just like that, from start to finnish. Did not kill anyone just casted calm on every enemy. Even the final boss was unable to resist the calm effect when dual casted.

Casting a calm on enemy will take you out of the battle mode and gives you the ability to refill your manapool much faster than normally. All so the above mentioned Calm - sneak - backstab works like a charm.

Good point ! I'll definitely use that.

Calm is basically a "sit down!" button. I usually the pick their pockets right before I power attack them from behind. The fury spell is only usefull to use on groups, otherwise they will just turn the attention to you.

Calm is good if you're facing multiple enemies as it takes one (or more, depending on how many times you cast it) enemy out of the fight.

Pretty much. It's a way to play the game if one wants to be as non-killing as possible.

Otherwise, every other tree serves the player much better, particularly Alteration. Paralyze kicks total ass over Calm. Faced with with three powerful opponents you can paralyze all three and get to hacking or blasting while they lay on the ground. Attack someone you've calmed and they're right back to fighting again.

The only reason I ever upped my Illusion perks was to get to Silent Casting. That was like 30 levels ago. I haven't touched the Illusion tree since.

If you want to power-level illusion, cast the calm type spells on a group of chickens.

In my Skyrim, the chooks at the end of Dragonbridge glow in the dark from all the magic I cast onto them.

Frenzy is only useful if you have the Silent Casting perk, as you need to be hidden for it to be worth a damn. Calm is for when you can't keep up the fight and want a getaway or if you want to get some free hits, as you said

Calm with Animage and Hypnotic Gaze is incredibly powerful, perhaps even too powerful. A level 10 character with backstab as well, can easily dispatch high-level beasts with use of Calm and backstabs.

Calm is also great for closing the distance on those pesky wizards, not to mention it's crowd control potential. Considering that Frenzy and it's specific perk, Rage, are relatively high-level, calm and Hypnotic gaze provide a great bridge for Nightblades, Illusionists and mages in general, for dealing with tricky situations, especially if you play on Master like myself.

I always thought of my Calm spells as the equivalent of going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa... Let's talk about this!"

Great for crowd control if you are suddenly the center of a lot of unwanted attention. One thing I enjoy doing with Fury or Frenzy is casting it and then summoning an Atronach or Dremora (via staff usually if you have one). This will usually keep the heat off your PC if you are detected, but also whittle down hitpoints of the surviving bad guy. Depends on your playstyle.

Calm-->sneak-->backstab attack which does insane damage

Fury is used out of the shadows, so the enemies kill each other. Works out nice with Necromancy.

If you encounter a tough opponent(like a boss), cast Fear on him. He won′t be able to resist.

I got another good one, Ice Wraiths. It slows them right down so you can line up a good flame shot.

Hitting them with Calm seems to be easier than hitting them with anything else.

Since this thread I've started putting Calm as my default left hand/defensive setting.

I was playing around in a dungeon the other day with a Mace that caused the Undead to flee, probably an Illusion Spell Effect. Anyway, it was real hard to finish the battle as the Drauger Deathlord kept running back and forth throwing his hands up in the air as Lydia and I took apart his compatriots. It almost reminded me of what C3PO would do running around going "Oh Dear oh dear" I was busting a got the whole time.

When the battle was over, he was cowering the corner.

calm gives you time to pass by if youre tired of fighting low order creatures like mudcrabs and wolves.

they'll probably stick around though and cause trouble if you don't move a good distance away

use fear on single enemies. follow them and then use fury when theres a group.

I use Calm a lot when I'm out exploring and just don't feel like battling the 50th wolf or bear or sabrecat I've seen during my travels. On my last game session I had just picked up the Fear spell and was eager to try it out.

I was walking from Dawnstar to Ustengrav with my mage character when I came across a snowy sabrecat laying in the road ahead. Didn't feel like wasting time and potions fighting it, so I hit it with a Calm spell so I could run past it and get out of range. I was just about clear of it when I saw a Khajiit caravan walking down the road right toward the cat; not wanting any of them to get mauled, I decided to tag along with them and help them get past the sabrecat if I needed to. I figured this was my chance to try out Fear, so I equipped it, and sure enough the Calm spell had ended and the sabrecat starts charging at the Khajiit, so I hit him with Fear.

That damned cat took off running with all three Khajiit, Lydia and Meeko in hot pursuit. I start running after them all as fast as I can, across half the map (at least it seemed like it) listening to the sounds of the battle raging ahead. The mob would catch up to the cat and start banging away on it until it could escape and keep on running away. They'd catch up and start fighting again - this must have happened two or three times. I finally catch up to it with just a sliver of health left and put it out of its misery with a Firebolt.

So much for my quiet little stroll through the snow.