Mage characters?

[Lehcar]

Can anyone give me some advice on playing with a pure or mostly magic character? :(

 

I'm especially bad at aiming offensive spells. Their targeting seems off; they don't go exactly where the crosshair is pointing.

 

I also basically know zero strategy for surviving on magic. All my characters so far have been Bosmer archers. :(

Edited July 6, 2011 by Lehcar

[crudius]

Can anyone give me some advice on playing with a pure or mostly magic character? :(

 

I'm especially bad at aiming offensive spells. Their targeting seems off; they don't go exactly where the crosshair is pointing.

 

I also basically know zero strategy for surviving on magic. All my characters so far have been Bosmer archers. :(

 

Why not dabble with a Battlemage/spell sword kind of char? least you can fall back on combat skills. I use a custom build with sword/marksmen/destruction/restoration/illusion.....swap any magic skills for purpose,the only problem i find with being relient on magic is the enemy is on top of you before you have sorted your spells out (hence using marksmen or sword).

 

Also, try something that improves hotkeys.....i use one that allows multi casting spells...so you can cast like, 3 spells with one key stroke. So i can cast two destruction spells followed by a soul grasp...or multiple healing spells in battle.Also, better weapon management, bow and arrows equipt at same time and so on.

 

EDIT*** thanks Trey

 

Yes, a better stack example......weakness to fire/fireball/soul grasp

Edited July 6, 2011 by crudius

[Trey5511]

Simple answer, for early-mid game: Conjuration, and Invisibility.

 

Clannfears in particular are, in my experience, very strong summons that you can get fairly early if you take the time to train up your conjuration(spam that summon skeleton spell you get from the start whenever you are running through the wilderness, in town, etc).

 

Move slowly, let your summons do the work for you. If you need, find a nice spot away from the action(or use invisibility), cast a summon, wait for the timer to run out or the summon to get killed, summon another, repeat till you win. Take advantage of weaker mobs to train your other skills, or use cheap target-self spells.

 

For a destruction based character, the easiest way to win is Weakness to Magic.

 

Regarding aiming issues, the best answer is to just give the spell an area effect. Giving it the minimum area value is pretty cheap and a decent help for aiming.

 

 

In general, surviving is about not pushing your magicka too far. If you can take down one enemy before you need to regen, then try and fight one enemy at a time. Kill one, then cast invisiblity and run away. Repeat. Also, don't use inefficient spells:in my experience, it is better to use a pair of Weakness to Magic 100% for 3 seconds, and then a meager journeyman shock spell or something instead of trying to nuke things with Finger of the Mountain, for example. If a destruction spell is costly, trying the same effect over a longer duration(or more weakness to magic).

 

Restoration is nice and all but I dont think I ever managed to get it past journeyman last time I played a mage. My philosophy is don't get hit and you don't need heals:hide in invisibility behind your summons, or kill stuff as fast as possible with destruction.

 

Spam your cheap spells while in town to get your skills up if you're willing. I suggest illusion first for invisibility, which is journeyman. Conjuring up to expert for good summons.

 

Tl;dr:invisibility+summons, or weakness to magic + destruction magic is the trick to killing. Invisibility is great for survival in general.

 

 

 

 

Of course, I imagine this isn't the most popular way to play a mage, but I had fun with it.

Edited July 7, 2011 by Trey5511

[InAComaDial999]

Pretty much agree with Trey5511. I'm playing a pure mage right now (custom class, see below), currently at level 17. My combat magic strategy is to use Conjuration a lot, and to make custom Destruction spells using the spellmaking altar. You can make your own Destruction spells that are a lot more effective than any you can buy. Spells that combine fire,frost, and shock damage in one spell rather than just a single effect cost less mana to cast (i.e. 20 fire / 20 frost / 20 shock costs less than a 60 fire damage, but does the same total damage). Likewise spells with a smaller damage magnitude but a 2 or 3 second duration will do more total damage for the same casting cost than spells which do all their damage at once (i.e. 20 points with a 3 second duration costs less than a 60 point spell, but does the same total damage). So, I always have 2 Destruction spells hot-keyed: a ranged one with the 3 elemental effects, a 3-second duration, and area effect, which helps with the aiming problem; and then a touch-ranged one with no area effect for when things get up close and personal.

 

Also, Illusion magic is extremely helpful, especially against multiple opponents. Invisibility and Shadow are good for sneaking, Turn Undead and Demoralize are really good for thinning out crowds if you get mobbed, and Command Creature / Command Humanoid basically turn enemies into temporary allies.

 

I never wear armor and I don't rely on weapons to cause damage as such. However I always carry a weapon for blocking, and a one-handed weapon enchanted with Soul Trap or Drain Magicka can be really handy. I train up my Heavy Armor and Armorer skills so that I can raise my Endurance, and sometimes my Blunt or Hand to Hand so I can raise my Strength (needed for encumbrance).

 

I also don't recommend playing any of the stock classes, due to their leveling issues. The class I'm playing now is this:

Class: Enchantress

Specialization: Magic

Favored Attributes: Intelligence, Personality

Major Skills:

- Blade

- Alchemy

- Conjuration

- Alteration

- Destruction

- Mercantile

- Speechcraft

 

 

The main design feature of the class is that it has two of the three skills governed by Intelligence, Wisdom, and Personality as majors, leaving Mysticism, Restoration, and Illusion as minor skills so that I can have additional skill increases on those attributes.

[Faceshifter]

In my experience, summons take far too long to take down an enemy and the enemy never targets my summonn, only when he can kill it in one hit.

For the bad aiming, Weak Fireball (from Skingrad recommandation) is the way to roll! It is really the best spell untill you can create your own target-area spells.

Also, take Breton or High Elf, it's old school, but the Magicka boost permits spamming spells.

If you have experience with Bosmer archers, try to sneak till you see an enemy and carefully place the first spell, it should be your strongest. Then, select Weak Fireball and spam away until he is near. You can aim it at his feet, it can miss a few fee. When he gets close, Cold Touch him.

This tactic is basic for low level mages. You can get some magic experience from it and find your own way from there. ;)

[bben46]

Save a lot. If you get into a situation where you are outnumbered or just overmatched, run to the nearest city and the guards will help out. You should be able to outrun almost everything. Be sure to get out of sneak and to put away any weapon so you can run faster. Keep casting your heal spell if they are hitting you with arrows or magic. If you can't cast heal, have some healing potions to keep you alive until you get into the city. If whatever was chasing you manages to kill some guards, you can loot their gear and sell it to buy more potions or better spells.

[eric31415]

I love playing pure mages, but i feel your pain. Early on it can be very difficult to survive. Hell, iv'e been killed by rats. But i have developed a very effective (and amusing) combat strategy.

First, stealth is king. Getting the drop on your enemies is absolutely essential when your close-quarters combat skills leave something to be desired. Invisibility is fine, but it wears off.

When you first see an enemy, hit 'em with your favorite ranged destruction spells. Keep at him, if he gets close, use a spell from Telekinetic Mastery to knock him back to a safe range and repeat. Great fun in Oblivion planes, where you can throw daedra into the lava, or drag them off of the other side of a tower and watch them fall. This tactic also works great with archery-based characters.

 

As people mentioned above, Enhanced Hotkeys is vital when playing a mage, unless you actually like scrolling through menus looking for your next spell.

 

To add some much needed variety to your spell list, try Midas Magic. One of the best mods EVER.

 

I also like making things more interesting (and realistic) by selecting the Atronach birthsign. You can't regenerate magica, but this makes you rely heavily on your alchemy skill (and Ayelid wells). Again, it is tough at low levels, but that 50% spell absorbtion really comes in handy later.

 

Tip for increasing individual magic abilities; i'll use illusion as an example. Create a spell using ALL of your known illusion spells, but at one second duration each. Name it "Illusion 101". Spam the hell out of it, recharge magica, spam again ad nauseaum.

 

Also; aim a little above your intended target for most spells.

 

One last note; my first time through this game as a mage i got frustrated from dying all the time, so i used console commands to raise all my base stats by 20 - 50 pts. each. Especially intellegence and wisdom. Sure, i invented all kinds of backstory to justify my actions; but my advice is this ; Don't do this. By the time you hit level 20, the game will get pretty boring, but you'll be so far in that you'll feel obligated to finish. Again, don't do it.

 

Don't sacrifice your principals, and stay true to the magic. You'll do alright in the end.

Edited July 7, 2011 by eric31415

[Balakirev]

Without slighting the advice of others, I would suggest one of the best things a pure mage can do is focus on Alchemy. It's easy to raise, you never fail at it, and you have a huge number of ingredients for free when you join the Mage Guild. While you don't get much to start with for selling potions back, as time goes on the amount greatly increases. Plus, you can use the money earned to buy better alchemy equipment, making your potions more powerful and lasting. Then you can duplicate spell effects that would take a long, long time to learn--and also not bother about spending magicka to do so.

 

Consider checking out some mods, too, such as Supreme Magicka. This lets you tailor how powerful or weak mage abilities are, how experience is derived from some, etc. You can make magic stronger--both for you and your enemies!--control how many summons a mage has at various levels of skill, etc.

[rinoaff33]

Quite a few good tips have been covered in this topic, but here's some more:

 

1. Use alteration and get used to cycling buffs (for the sake of user friendliness, it may be worth consolidating spells and weakening them to give them a longer duration and to save hotkey space, plus making it easier to refresh in combat). The Shield spells give a substantial amount of armor (and resistance, if you use the elemental kind). As a note, the non-elemental Shield doesn't give any bonuses aside from armor but it costs less magicka.

1a. Use conjuration and illusion, as has been stated. It is EXTREMELY useful to have a big meat shield in front of you to take the hits. However, don't get a summon that takes your entire magicka bar. Some good spells that are underused in particular are Frenzy (causes enemies to fight each other; also does not count as a crime, so you can even make guards fight each other without being blamed - this can be particularly useful in Sanguine's quest to get the guards off your tail), Turn Undead/Demoralize (causes enemy to run away, and for the former, it's doubly useful, as a necromancer won't resummon a zombie/skeleton/evil undead thing/etc. that's still alive [you know what I mean] but running in terror), and Invisibility (of course). Another decently useful spell is Convalescence (aka Heal Other), so you can keep friendly NPCs alive for longer (it's not really worth using on conjured creatures since you can just resummon). Some resistance spells are also handy, especially if you're a high elf/use The Apprentice.

2a. I would like to mention that UI mods for casting may be in order, because, often, you'll have multiple useful spells for combat but no room on your hotkeys to put them (unless that's just me). My usual hotkey setup is:

1 - Heal spell

2 - Ranged attack spell

3 - Touch spell (they're very useful despite putting you in harm's way, as they hit substantially harder than target spells)

4 - Summon or buff spell

5 - Summon or buff spell

6 - Misc. useful skill or equipment (On my rogue, this is the button for my sword, but on my caster, it is Lull [a cheap, touch-range silence])

7 - Misc. useful skill or equipment

8 - Torch or glow staff

3. Training up by spamming spells (like conjuring a creature and killing it repeatedly) may increase your magic skills fast, but if you're playing vanilla Oblivion (or don't use gameplay/leveling overhauls) the enemies will quickly overpower you with the level scaling, since you'll be neglecting minor skills (admittedly not as important to a caster, although you'll still need some for the health provided by Endurance), gear (you may not use actual armor, but you'll still need to find or make enchanted clothes and weapons/staffs), spells, etc. Plus, it's just plain cheap.

4. Level alchemy as a minor skill, since it's pretty easy overall and doesn't pertain directly to combat. It is, however, incredibly useful, although the extra weight caused by hefting around alchemy gear and ingredients can be a pain for a, shall we say, non-athletically-minded caster (on that note, why is everyone in Oblivion perfectly fit?).

5. There are many unusual spell combos on the Wiki and the Unofficial pages (some are kind of cheap/abuse the system, though, like draining your skills temporarily in order to buy training for dirt cheap prices, a "glitch" that was also in Morrowind).

6. Mods: Using Supreme Magic or Midas Magic (I personally use the former, the latter is apparently not compatible with OOO and I have no desire to fiddle with mods at this point after many recent hours of modifying/bug fixing) will greatly improve your spellcasting experience. For races, I personally have a caster who is of the Cute Elf race (don't laugh, I hate the name too, although I like the characters it allows in terms of appearance), which has racials that grant +75 mana (a fair bit, not sure if it's higher than the High Elf one) and damage reflection (somewhat useful, but not as much to a caster where you shouldn't get hit as much) at a cost of weakness to fire and shock. They also have a Charm Greater Power. Their improved skills also relate to stealth and magic for the most part (and they have very few points in Personality, which is good, because it's a fairly pointless attribute - I can reach 70 disposition at 20 Personality and 25 Speechcraft).

6a. If you're using non-modded (or, you know, male) races, stick to Breton or High Elf. Your birthsign should either be The Mage or The Apprentice. The former is safer, but the latter is risky with a high bonus.

7. Don't be afraid to chug potions and use scrolls unless you'd REALLY rather sell it (or if it's useless, like a scroll that casts Flare...). Also, Welkynd Stones are surprisingly useful for restoring magicka, but you're likely better off selling them for the gold unless you're in a pinch.

8. Be very careful with Area spells. They cost slightly more magicka, making wasted shots more painful, plus they can accidentally hit allies, including your conjured creatures.

9. When going through dungeons, don't run through as faster as you can. It's better to sneak (you can sneak-run, it stills helps a lot) to avoid pulling the entire dungeon's worth of monsters to you. Also, make sure your health and magicka are pretty much full before picking a fight.

10. Pure caster may seem appealing, but you're likely to be better off getting a few non-magic skills. A weapon/armor type can be useful, because that way you can use conjured gear (which is a. powerful; b. weightless; and c. awesome), but it is up to you.

10a. Here's a rundown on the rest of the skills: Mercantile gives money (and is hard to level), but isn't a combat skill in the slightest - this one's up to you. Sneak is great, but can be replaced by buff spells/invisibility/chameleon. Marksman is redundant if you have Destruction. Hand to hand is...lacking. Block is fairly pointless if you aren't going to be in melee a lot. Athletics and acrobatics are pretty pointless as major skills (athletics/acrobatics taking a while to level? stop abusing fast travel!). Security is pointless unless you are bad at the lockpicking mini-game or you have OOO (you have to have enough skill to activate lockpicking on Hard and Very Hard non-door locks in OOO, much to my chagrin...); of course, Alteration can also open locks, but you'll miss out on Average, Hard, and Very Hard locks until you increase your skill a LOT (requires Master for Very Hard!). Armorer is a great skill to have unless you don't use armor or weapons (excluding conjured gear obviously), making it useless to a pure caster. Mysticism is a magic skill, but, honestly, it's pretty crappy as a major skill, especially since you can get Soul Trap at a Novice level (unless you use mods that give it some useful spells). Speechcraft is utterly useless, doubly so if you have Illusion skill; you won't be needing a huge +5 personality boost per level anyway.

11. Lastly, remember that Oblivion is a game. Have fun! It's not an MMORPG, where you have to min/max in order to be competitive. It's not a PvP first-person shooter where you need reflexes like a tiger and the only rule is "win." It's a wide open singleplayer game - you're not pigeonholed into any particular class, quest line, or set of mods. You could choose to create your own particular character and ignore all of the suggestions we've made if you wanted.

 

Edit: Wow, it took me so long to post that some of what I said is completely redundant with what some of the above posters said.

 

I love playing pure mages, but i feel your pain. Early on it can be very difficult to survive. Hell, iv'e been killed by rats.

 

What??? I didn't even know that was doable...you didn't just use Flare or even your fists? I think the worst death I've ever had in The Elder Scrolls is being killed by a Scrib in Morrowind because I started the fight with very little health and I got paralyzed (and yes, they can chain-cast that crap)...

 

More edit: I forgot to mention about the resist spells: You will need the various types of them during the Mages' Guild quests. Resist, reflect, absorb, and maybe dispel will be of great help against those annoying necromancers (especially the final boss...he can even kill himself on his own spells due to his very high damage/very low health if you reflect him).

 

Even more edit: Good tips for alteration:

1. You can put water walking on your horse. Seriously, I had to look that one up to figure it out.

2. The Jewel of the Rumare from the old fisherman in front of the Imperial City (lives in the house across from the inn by the bridge) is a water breathing ring, so you don't need to bother learning the water breathing spell if you've got that.

 

Sum mo' edit: Wanted to add that I'm currently playing as a min/maxed character (excluding the race, which is custom and I chose it 'cuz I like the race), and it's really not as fun as a more experimental build. It's the typical uber-paladin combat build (who, at level 2, is about twice as strong as my level 22 rogue - seriously, I'm carving through OOO like it's nothing now, not to mention that I seem to be getting much better luck with loot). I'm getting the impression that I only bear the character so I can eventually get enough gold to buy an eyecandy set (using iron right now - would love to get a full Dwemer set, that's some cool armor [excluding the helmet unfortunately]).

 

On that note, why are paladins so overpowered in every RPG? Note that I'm mainly saying this from my experiences in Diablo II, Baldur's Gate/Dungeons and Dragons in general, and World of Warcraft (ESPECIALLY the latter...bloody Blood Elf Blood Knights...)

Edited July 7, 2011 by rinoaff33

[crudius]

 

11. Lastly, remember that Oblivion is a game. Have fun! It's not an MMORPG, where you have to min/max in order to be competitive. It's not a PvP first-person shooter where you need reflexes like a tiger and the only rule is "win." It's a wide open singleplayer game - you're not pigeonholed into any particular class, quest line, or set of mods. You could choose to create your own particular character and ignore all of the suggestions we've made if you wanted.

 

Edit: Wow, it took me so long to post that some of what I said is completely redundant with what some of the above posters said.

 

Number 11......always worth remembering :)