Im curious before I invest the time to create this character. WOULD THIS MAGE BUILD WORK???

Im trying to make a stealth assassin mage


http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=00000000000000000011111011111111211100000011111002100111101111101111021010131111135000111000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000511111000110010011101




Race: High elf or breton, cant decide, with my perks woudl a breton be immune to magic???

Armor: Robes, gloves, boots, Mabye mage armor???? If light armor would be better let me know!!! This is an area of confusion for me!!!

Weapon: Icy magic and constructs

First things first, do not restrict yourself to only use frost spells - use a combination
of fire, frost and lightning to deal with enemies.

if you want to play a "stealth" mage you probably want sneak and illusion, invisibility by itself isn't that great without a good sneak. it doesn't work like oblivion's.


so possibly replace conjuration with stealth, since with conjures you probably won't even need to play stealthy as they destroy everything and take all mob aggro.


also spells get no sneak attack, so i'm not sure the point of the build unless you're just trying to have fun - which is fine.

I don't think you can score critical hits or bonus sneak damage though with magic can you?

Also you will need the silent spell illusion perk else one fire ball will give you away to everyone.

You'll find that you don't get to use prep spells at all in the midgame. If you want sneak attacks you'll have to be pretty damn far away to mage armor / bind / anything of the sort.

You look similar to the first build I tried. Realize you'll be focusing extremely heavily on 1h/sneak/illusion/resto until you get silent casting. I didn't find it much fun, maybe you'll have better luck.

And what the guy said is right, if you only have 1 element of destro perked there will be whole dungeons you just can't use destro in. It's pretty tiring.

Oh right, and no 1h? I think you're assuming that you can sneak attack with magic. I don't think it's possible.

nope. honestly one of the illusion perks should have allowed this, wtb a mod for this asap.


If you want a stealth "mage" like build that truly benefits from Stealth you'll have to simply replace Destruction with Archery and get some points into sneak, since invis by itself isn't enough anyways.

Yes it won't be a pure mage anymore, but now you'll actually have a reason to be stealthy. You can spam sneak criticals with invis/shadow-warrior while your summons absolutely destroy/tank everything. Very powerful build.

I am not assuming magic sneak attack! This is a build for fun

Im realy curious about the best course of action regarding Armor or armor spells. Cant decide what would be best since I will be a master enchanter etc.

Arch mages robes with enchanted boots, circlet , gloves, ring, and amulet would be godly, BUT id have to use mage armor or I would DIE
I dont know if I should use dragonscale armor, fully upgraded, and enchant it myself? Very conflicted in the choice


Booheads, I maxed out sneak an lockpicking as well. I can make a suit of armor or gloves to help with pickpocketing if need be

The Creeper, I know that perk is awesome! Thats partly where I got the idea for this build!

I could even go heavy armor and get Boethiahs ebony mail and the heavy armor weighs nothing perk.... Cant decide what would be best

Choosing a race best suited for magic isn't all that important if your planning to (ab)use the enchantment system but if I had to choose, Breton's 25% magic resist trumps High Elf's 50 extra points of magicka.

I'm confused by mage armor also. Heavy armor has a perk that makes it weightless and reduces the noise which makes it sound like the perk in Oblivion where you can stealth and cast spells in any heavy armor without any penalty to either but I cannot be totally sure if this is the same.

Fun builds are where its at anyway. Good luck. :thumbsup:

In your proposed build: if you properly utilize summons and frenzy/calm/fear, ebony and dragon armor spells from alteration are more than enough. Its a question of wether you want to recast an armor buff and save perks, or invest in heavy armor. Also remember you'll need to enchant that heavy gear to let you cast more/magicka/regen etc.

Stealth mage can work. Just choose your weapon of choice, magic of choice, and get some potions going. In fact, you could probably just put 5 points in Alchy and go through the entire game without spending a single perk on anything else.

I play an Orc with 7 points in Conjuration (take the far left path up to Twin Souls, one point in Mystic Binding and Soul Stealer), 11 points in Archery (left path) to get my Bow damage up, slow-down time effect when aiming and chance to paralyze; 2 points in Two-Hand weapons to get the 25% stamina reduction, Sneak maxed to 100, but no perk points in it (not necessary IMO for an archer/mage); also, 6 points in Smithing (heavy armor route up to Dragon for a set of Light Dragon Scale and a Set of Heavy Daedric), 8 points in Enchanting to be able to double enchant an item, 5 points in Alchemy to make 100% stronger potions, and that's it. Only need to be level 40 to achieve this.

Basically, you can sneak like a rogue when necessary & assassinate with arrow crits, conjure a 2H axe and don some draedic armor if you like, or some combination involving double Atronachs tanking for you. Gives a lot of play style freedom, but I would set your difficulty up to Expert or Master or you will just roll everything without a challenge.

The first post would be the no armor variant.


This is the heavy armor version

http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=00000000000000000011111011111111211100000011111002100111001110100100021000000000005000111001111100000511111110000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000511110000110010011103

Would use ebony mail for awesome factor and stealth enchantment


Here is the light armor one

http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=00000000000000000011111011111111211100000011111002100111001110100100021000000000005000111001111100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000511111511110000110010011105

Would use dragonscale armor, fully upgraded



So which of the three builds would look and function best for an ice mage??? thanks all for the help!!! This is invaluable

Why, though? A physical sneak attack does extra damage because the target has no chance to raise up their arms and get into a defensive position, thus being extra vulnerable. Against a magic attack you can't really defend by holding up your hands/etc. The only thing someone could do is throw up a magic shield, but casting from stealth prevents that. So in a way, the Quiet Casting perk in Illusion allows for the equivalent of a physical sneak attack.

Mostly for more build possibilities and synergy. Destro lacks scaling and synergy compared to any other damage type, and it would have been nice.

The alteration spell that mitigates 80% of damage is AS GOOD as reaching the armor cap. And the armor cap plus that dragon skin spell do not stack. Just roll cloth bro no need to use armor.

Not sure why you'd go stealth-mage other than for role-playing purposes, you can't get a sneak multiplier from magic. Makes no sense not to use a physical weapon.

Thanks for adding nothing ^

Also OP, Shock will be best I think to focus on over frost, nothing has shock resist native to it really. Lots of things have frost resist though.

Thanks integra88!!! Helped alot


Yes this is for rp Muzzy

Based on feedback I have modifyed the build

Will use the ebony mail to further improve stealth


http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=00000000000000000011111011101111211100000011111000021111101110100100021000000000005000111001000011110511111000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000511111111110010011101


Input? I think this will work well!!!

I'm having a lot of fun with a sneak and frenzy/mayhem combination approach to almost everything, but it takes a lot of patience to pull off. And one-hand or archery is much more effective than Destruction in a stealth mage.

BTW thanks integra88!!! I looked through my guide and most common foes are partialy or totaly resistant to frost....


Bethesda realy messed that up imho