How do you effectively play a mage?

[Losse]

I know you can have 8 hot key with the favorites? assuming you put a potion on one, maybe a dragon shout on one, that would leave 6.

 

Do people just run around with 6 hot keyed spells or what?

 

I see tons of spells but am wondering, before i try a mage, if its a pain in the booty to switch to all these spells?

[Euclid]

Shouts do not work for me when put on fav -> hot key. Maybe I miss something.

 

However, I got heavy fire, ice and frost one keys 1-3, then light ones on 4-6, and that works quite nice. Most "normal" mobs can be burned down with the light spells. For the tougher (also dragon) or ranged mob it's easy and fast to switch to two of 1-3.

 

I rarely use shield spells and conjure weapons only for the final blow to fill a soul gem.

 

Cheers Euklid

[Losse]

I kind of get the feeling that more detailed spell management is probably not needed unless you play harder modes.

[Beriallord]

My first character was a Destruction/Conjuration mage, no weapons. And you really need to max out enchanting, and get 4 pieces of equipment with -25% cost, which means you cast spells for 0 MP. I got it worked in to do free casts for Destruction and Conjuration.

 

Later on even your best destruction spells, Incinerate, Thunder Bolt, Ice lance are going to start doing crap damage, for the amount of bar it costs to dual cast them. But the same enemy that takes 3 dual cast incinerates to drop get pwned 1hko by my 2handed warrior with a power attack. This is why it is absolutely necessary to make your destruction spells free cast, because you will run out of mana at some point otherwise. In fact if you do this, you don't need to put a single level in magicka, and should just dump it all in health. And you also don't need to waste any perks on the half cost for specific skill levels.

 

The first thing I noticed with a mage, was how difficult it was to deal with other mages, because they spam ward and take no damage from your costly cast destruction spells, and when you run out and your enemy is still standing unscathed, it makes your build feel rather worthless. Conjuration pets help with the aggro, and with 100, you can summon 2 dremora lords, and they take out the enemy mages in 1 or 2 hits, If you are a squishy mage, you better get some pets, or you wont win some fights.

 

Also, don't perk the atronachs, Dremora Lords are way better.

 

I only got 4 spells on my favorite with my mage, Dremora lords, Incinerate, Thunder bolt, Lightning storm. Don't use Ice because I didn't perk the damage for it. And you are fine with 2 elements.

 

I recommend a High Elf for mage, because of the once a day ability, it boosts magicka regen considerably, and allows you to win a few fights early on that would otherwise be impossible.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Beriallord

[Losse]

Excellent response Beriallord, that is some good info and telling info for the state of the game. Definately some more challenging issues with mage. But fun :)