Russelcoight

Yeah lightning spells completely shut me down. Again , not saying its difficult to deal with , just boring. I will stand there and just tank the lightning , pull out a 2 handed greatsword and just cut them down. The reason i don't like it is because its going into a completely different field. When i play a warrior , i can do every encounter without needing to cast spells , or pull out a different set of armor / weapons. Same with assassin. If I can bombard at range I have plenty of time to blast away and recharge, it's when you have to melee, and you will have to, at the same time, there are spells to cover that, making mages probably the least boring because they are the most versatile and you have to make sure to plan and don't rush in. You do just have to melee, you can't always snipe, that much is true. Maybe what needs to be done is a powerful cast on touch destruction spell to make people who limit their play style to a narrower mage field than what is available: ie summons: I don't think I would be very effective without them. My point is only using destruction and not summons is your own self imposed limitation not one of mages. Not using and recharging staffs is your own self imposed limitation not one of mages. You are just making it difficult without them. There are options. The problem is solely relying on your magicka bar to be in any way effective both offensive or defensive. In a boss battle I run out, but because scrolls, my staff collection, potions, summons, and hell even a companion, I can still cover myself. You can't tell me a dungeon full of dragur won't be enough to fill your staffs and have some recharges left over. Well its true what you are saying , i am imposing self limitations by not using summons. But its because i feel summons are worse than any other play style in the game. I enjoy killing stuff , its like 1/2 the game. Letting an automated ai (who happens to be incredibly strong) do the brunt of the work just doesn't seem fun. With the other tree's , most of them are viable (and more fun) without relying on anthers school. For example , as a warrior i can go the entire game just using shield and 1 hand weapon. Or if i wanted , i could go the entire game using a two handed weapon. Its even possible to play with heavy armor & gauntlet damage perk and go bare handed if thats what you want . and whilst this might seem like it is less dynamic , it actually allows you to play much more open and creatively than you do with a mage. With mages it seems like you have to play a certain way , and that way relies on conjuration tree. It would be like picking a warrior , but being forced to lvl into 2 handed weapons no matter your play style (sword/shield , hand to hand , paladin , juggernaut ect). Perhaps i should have clarified what i meant by "pure caster". I mean a pure destruction caster. This isn't to say other perk tree's shouldn't supplement a destruction player , but they should never dictate the play style. I can successfully run blacksmithing Or alchemy , Or enchanting on a warrior , no drama's whatsoever...... Hell i can even run stealth , illusion or archery and still be an effective warrior. They are so versitile (assassins as well) , its just a disappointment me for me to go from warrior to mage and have to take a step back from that level of freedom in play style / build. Any way thanks for all your replies. I think ultimately you were trying to help. But ive decided to just reroll my Orc warrior. Much more exciting , though i will eagerly await some combat mods to make it even more interesting (and perhaps some day make mage more fun for me).

What? you don't want to bombard spells at range....you don't want to tank with wards and bound weapons.... I'm confused, what exactly do you want to be doing as a mage then? your argument is invalid :tongue: I think you still somehow miss the point. We want to bomb enemies at range , yeah. But we are running oom after a couple spells , despite doing everything i can think of (read op) to prevent it. The idea of the post was to see if other players had similar problems (turns out a few have) , and if there was a way to help stop ooming. You keep saying "oh just use summons and bound weapons" , we say that we don't want to sit behind an imba Ai summoning that does most the work for us, we say that using bound weapons is the same as playing a warrior , you go in and melee stuff. Its an elder scrolls game , there's usually many different ways to play. Cept in skyrim , it seems every way to play the mage is boring / dull. Its not about throwing bolts of ice , fire and lightning out. Its about abusing poor ai , abusing powerful yet mundane summons and falling back on the same thing every other playstyle does (melee). As for invalid argument , if you want to get caught up on semantics , so be it , im not engaging. Well as much as i appreciate the fact all the posts about this are bumping my thread. I have to say , its kinda derailing it at the same time. Why we talking about lvl cap in this thread anyway l0l.

Use wards, all that oak flesh will do is increase your AR, and if you AR is low from wearing robes, it's still low after that. The lesser ward should prevent all damage from an ice wolf. It's better to not be taking damage at all imo. And you just watch it get dropped by your summon.. Granted the wards do work best at ranged combat, the fact is you do have to brawl in this game... What sold me on that was when I encountered a master necromancer, the ice spell he would cast would 1 shot me when I was like level 25 and 30% frost resist potion going on, The lesser ward had me in the game after like 6 restarts... I ender up just charging him and smacking him with a bound weapon and the ward going to negate his spells. you have to tank, like you said running away is not always an option. There are plenty of options on how to do that. But i think you are missing his point , much like my original point. We are not having difficulty beating the game. Its not really that hard. What we are saying is , its no fun to watch your overpowered summon auto kill stuff while you sit there gobsmacked and oom. Its not fun to play a caster , but end up "brawling" regardless. Its not fun to sit around or run away because you are oom. Assassins and Warriors don't have to play like that. Ill admit , mashing attack button isn't very interesting really but its better than anything the mage class has. This is in stark contrast to most mages in games , most mages in the oblivion series and it even betrays its own potential. We have these awesome spells , some that need to be aimed. Yet ultimately we end up using the same lame strategies (summon /afk , run in and melee despite being a caster) because ooming is too much of a problem. On the other hand , im not entirely sure things would be balanced if mages had unlimited mana. Infact i think it would be equally imba. So im not sure there is a simple fix. Probably going to need an overhaul mod.

Ahhhh yes ill try this now. thanks!

Eh i played an Orc Warrior first and i have to say game was SO incredibly easy mode. But not just easy , probably more fun than caster even though it shouldn't be since melee has zero depth (i used to play oblivion with melee combat mods , made it waaay better , limb damage ect). But tbh my issue isn't with difficulty , i picked up restoration perks as well and im finding healing to be incredibly imba and effective use of mana (complete opposite to offensive magic), as i said , even with cloth armor and all points into magic i can still defeat most enemies with a sword plus a little bit of healing. Game is actually fairly easy. The problem i have is that even though ive dedicated so much towards to magic route , i still don't feel like a caster. I throw like 4 lightning bolts out and im oom. Regen is slower in combat so i sit there and wait for it to regen. I can run , i can hide , i can sit on a ledge that melee cant reach , i can dodge arrows for 3 mins. Regardless , im better off simply walking in with a sword as opposed to waiting out my mana in bordem. Which leds me to ask the grand question , WHY even bother with magic in this game? I signed up for a caster because it looked interesting. And when i first saw ice bolt projectiles dig into people , i got excited. But as it turns out im perm oom , my best spell is the first spell i started with , and overall im better off just using a bow and arrow or sword and a bit of restoration magic as far as effectiveness goes. So yeah i guess the obvious solution is to just play like a paladin. Though im still very very very disappointed that i can't be a pure caster without drudging through boring game play (e.g waiting for mana to regen all time).

Im wondering if its possible to be a pure caster in this game. I say this because atm im having massive mana problems. I have necro robes atm which give 75% more regen. I have put almost all my level points into magicka. I have enchanted some of my off bits with more regen. I have a helm that gives plus magicka. I have picked up the 1/2 mana cost perks where relevant. I even speced into Restoration to grab the 25%/50% extra regen perk. After much much reluctance , i even grabbed the sign that gives double regen at cost of taking double magic damage None of it seems to matter. Any fight that doesn't involve 3 shooting a single enemy i run oom. Then i am forced to either use my bow or sword (which works just as well anyway) or camp in a spot where the ai can't attack me and wait 3 hours for my mana to slowly regen. I just don't understand it. I picked up Alchemy just so i can make 2010012 mana pots that i need to chain chug just to do anything. Its getting to the point where i feel im better of just using a mace because its quicker and more reliable that way. I should note that ironically , using the most basic spells (i.e flames that you start with) will put out more damage per mana and is therefore more effective for me than using advanced spells like ice spike or lighting bolt. IS anyone else having these problems? is their a strategy i can use to improve this abysmal system? *Edit Has been a lot of discussion , seems some players get around this by using summons to do the brunt of the work. Others have mentioned the College quest lines give some fairly decent regen armor as rewards. Are there any other known strategies?