Archer or Mage?

[EriezEU]

I do apologise if this has already been asked, but I'd just like to get my own feedback on the subject.

 

I've been playing Skyrim for a while, restarting the game quite a lot. I always have my mind set on something, get to a certain point of the game and then think I should have gone a different route.

 

For example, playing the intro as an archer, then restarting as I think mage would be more enjoyable.

 

I will most definitely like to be either a mage or an archer, but I find it really difficult to choose, though I'd like to only pick one.

 

I enjoy both, yet I haven't learnt much about the mage route. With archer, I know about most of the equipment, so deciding on mage would allow me to learn new things.

 

What do you think? Have you enjoyed being an archer or mage? What should I choose?

 

Thank you for reading, feedback would be very much appreciated.

Edited August 7, 2013 by EriezEU

[BourbonDingo]

I always consider vanilla Skyrim Mages to be fairly underpowered, at least when considering destruction magic. And, if you are anything like me, that is what you are considering.

 

I might be biased, however, considering how much I enjoy playing sneaky archers.

[IsharaMeradin]

I played more of an archer in my game. Tho I did use sword and shield for up close fighting. I tended to dabble with mage stuff at the beginning. I refused to equip a plain boring shield (i.e. no enchantments) so I'd usually have a fire spell equipped.

 

Archery in my mind is easier to start than being a mage because you can pickup up any bow and any arrow and be fairly effective whereas with a mage you have to find and learn spells not to mention level the associated skill before you can use some of those spells.

 

As far as what YOU should choose, just play the game. It will come naturally. If the character is leaning towards archery, let them do that. If you really want to try a mage, go for it.

 

I always got stuck in the same thing no matter what I started out trying. I've always gravitated towards a ranger/archer type character no matter the game, so it's no surprise that my character would end up doing that despite starting out with dual wield flame spells.

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

The "signature move" of mages is Paralysis (and Impact for paralysis-immune, e.g. mammoths, dragons, vampires).

 

If you want a more aggressive build you'll want to add Alchemy to the mix for the dreaded Fortify Destruction potion. The "signature move" of the Warlock (if you want to call the mage / alchemist that) is the "Elemental Cloak on Steroids", which can wipe out entire armies in under a minute. Large swathes of dungeons can be cleared if they're compact and 3-dimensional enough. At the very least you can wipe out adjacent rooms by standing close to a wall, and you can move around and the effect moves with you, so you can sweep the floors with it too.

 

Maximizing all 3 crafting trees and building overpowered 1-hit-kill weapons puts mages out of the competition for 1-on-1 battles, but mages can shoot through walls, whether with Cloaks or Ice Storm. I'd give up weapons before I'd give up spells. ("Out of the competition" means paralyze-and-burn instead of 1-hit-kill, so you're still pretty darn powerful. It just takes you longer to get the job done.)

 

Muffle, Invisibility, and the much-loved Fortify Sneak potion can help with stealth for a non-stealth-focused character. The boot slot has no mage skills available for enchanting, so you could throw some Fortify Sneak on those as well.

[arkayyy]

I have played archer and mage they are both really good choices I would say you cant go wrong with whatever you choose

[flowmarine]

I'm playing a conjurer-type character riight now. At first it is fairly simple - using atronachs as tanks you can simply stay in sneak while they clear dungeons. But at the point atronachs start dying from a single arrow, so you have to master either different magic school or weapons. And now it comes another branch of perks with bound weapons - more effective than destruction magic and also influenced by their own perk trees. The only problem is you can't improve and enchant them but with a few perks and high enough skills they are more than enough for conjurer.

 

The best thing is when you master conjuration school, you can raise two permanent and powerful minions. You can choose some high-level draugrs of forsworn briar-hearts and they will also conjure their own atronachs and now you have your own small squad.

Edited August 8, 2013 by flowmarine

[fifteenspades]

Vanilla Mage is pretty easy, just use conjuration+destruction with some alteration+enchant and depending on your difficulty you can use alchemy

If you get Impact you become OP ( i never get impact for that reason ).

 

Atm with mods i am a Healer mage. 2-3 followers and i only focus on keeping them alive/ buffing them with illusion skills. and reanimating corpses of people they kill.

 

Vanilla archer is also pretty easy any difficulty, because the AI of Vanilla skyrim is so bad most of the time mods just get stuck and you can light them up. or hide behind a wall so you can avoid arrows/spells/etc and still be able to fire.

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Dremora Lords don't as a general rule get 1-hit-killed by anyone but you. If your atronachs aren't cutting it go for the smack-talking death-demon. You won't be disappointed.

[masterpoe]

that's an easy question ....with soulmaster's mods the dred bow and archery improved using the silver arrow diamond coted arrows(note the coted spelling)altho that's not his

 

i edited them in tessedit so that i have 6500 yards max range-> 999 damage per arrow and a bow thats somewhere between 750 and 950 damage by itself.

 

with these tweaks i can take out targets the length of a football field ...even twice that and the NPC is real small about the height of a keyboard key.

i also made batch files to instantly have all archery perks the minute i start a new game.... As a DRAGONBORN Supreme Archer should have.

i also have a bat file set up to make me enchanter 100 so that my damage goes up 1000 %. playerenchantobject (clothing or armor ) 7a0fe 7a0fe

[Lord Garon]

Nothing in the "rules" about a mage not being a good archer. I mean, you can conjure a bow, after all.

 

There's just something about adventuring around Skyrim with nothing but the clothes on your back and a few coins in your pocket. Literally, that's all. Only a mage can do that. Or would want to. On Adept or Expert, you can lay waste with the best of em. On Master and Legendary, well, you might want to invest some time on lower difficulty levels first. Go for the mage, I say. My favorite character types.