How to effectively play as a mage

[oldspice2625]

I love you Hand of Bane... wanna get married? Lol... I keed, I keed. :)

 

Though I already suspected something like that could be produced, both at the same time will deffinately help, and be cheap too.

[OblivionTakeme]

The life of a pure mage is tough at the beginning, and sadly it's nearly impossible to use nothing but magic in Skyrim. However, don't fret! I'm level 29 and I'm killing dragons with nothing but destruction spells.

I'll tell you what i did at the beginning but be warn, I just use Destruction in the magical arts, and I also use one handed and Alchemy. I am also playing on expert(one level down from master).

 

The first thing i did? Join the College of Winterhold. There is tons of great items for sale in the college that are not sold anywhere else. However, the greatest thing you can get is the items from the main mage quest. After I beat it, i had an Amulet that increases your Magicka by 50, A Hood ( counts as Light armor though) that increases your Magicka regain by 100% and the Arch-Mage Robes. These Robes are a god send for early mages because of it's effect.

# 15% reduction on all spells cast

# +50 Magicka

# 100% extra Magicka regeneration

 

Wearing all these items Will get you a 200% increase in Magicka regain, +!00 Magicka and 15% reduction on any spell you may cast. Be warn though, The quest is short, but the last two dungeons are tough. I recommend you bring a follower, so they can take the damage while you hid behind them (More on that later)

 

Do the minor quests. They are typically either fetch quests or delivery boy kind. One time all i had to do was deliver a note to a guy in whiterun, and i got 600 gold for it.

 

When you Dungeon dive, be it one room or five levels, take every item that can get you any bit of gold. Trust me, it may seem stupid to take an item that's worth only 80 septims, but after you pick up 8 of the same thing, you will have quite the bit of gold. And Also, this is where the followers true usefulness comes in. Let's say you weigh 290 and your max weight you can carry is 300. But you found a sword with a really cool enchantment and worth quite the bit of gold, but it's 13 lbs. Talk to your follower and ask to trade items, where you can put anything that you have in your inventory (except quest items). They don't get Encumbered so you can make your follower hold 500 Battleaxes and they will still be able to fight normally. When the time comes to sell your items to a shop ( I recommend General shops like Belthor(Sp) goods in whiterun Or bits and pieces in Solitude) just simply take back your stuff from the follower. (be warn though, If you follower dies and was holding a lot of stuff, you may not be able to pick it all up again) . If the General goods run out of money, simply visit the other stores. I know for a fact the Alchemy stores will buy any Dragon bones and Scales you may have. Blacksmiths have a ton of gold you can take advantage of and sell all weapons and armor too. and if you can't find a place to sell your stuff, just wait two days and the general good store will be restocked with gold.

 

Know what spells to use and when. It's simple, but can save tons of Magicka. Undead, especially vampires are weak to fire spells and damage. Warriors will run and attack slower if hit with a freezing spell. Mages And Dragons will lose precious Magicka if you hit them with lighting. If one spell isn't working well against your opponent, then try a different spell.

 

Also, if you have a follower, and your enemy tries to attack you, simply run towards your follower, without attacking it. The Follower will lock on to the enemy and the enemy will focus instead on your follower. Also, Give your FOllower a good set of armor and weapons so they can tank better.

 

That's it for now, but i'll post more later.

[Matth85]

Conjuration.

- Get to 100.

- Dual summon the dadreic lords.

- Watch them deal insane damage.

- Re-summon them when if they die.

 

Destruction might suck, but Conjuration is overpowered. Now you can lob fireballs from behind, doing no damage, but still feel overpowered.

 

Cheers

[Euclid]

Pure mage is rather tricky to play at low level because, as you've mentioned, your spells do little damage and drain your mana fast.

 

As it has been recommended already use flames or sparks, dual on tougher opponents, while moving backwards.

 

Join the mage circle as soon as possible and improve your skills. Complete the quest series to be come archmage is another option because the archmage robe has very useful stats. Later on, once you've reach master level, there is a better robe.

 

At medium level playing a destruction mage is real fun. You will one-shot almost everything. However, once you reach master level and/or using master/expert spells the mana regen becomes a problem again.

 

Level up enchanting by disenchanting items or replenish staffs with lower soul gems. Also enchating any item with lower sould gems works fine. Goal is to enchant gloves, ring and necklace to provide lower spell costs and increased mana regen. You can boost the effectiveness of your enchants further by using enchanter potions (there are a few that last 60 secs).

 

Playing a destruction mage at higher level becomes increasingly difficult because the damage of your spells does not increase with your level. If a melee mob gets too close he may one-shot you.

 

Switch to heavy armor (at least gloves & boots). During some quest you will be able to loot Daedric boots & gloves. Level up smithing to improve their armor rating.

 

During tough fights use shouts to your advantage.

 

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

Cheers Euclid

Edited November 25, 2011 by Euclid

[Iv000]

I've been playing a (mostly) pure mage, with a bit of stealthy backstabbing on expert difficulty.

It's not that hard really, you just have to use more then one magic skill tree.

Destruction for offense, restoration for defense, and conjuration for the suicidal burning/exploding wolves.

 

I've seen people complain that it's really hard to play a pure mage in Skyrim, and that it was easier in Oblivion.

I disagree, in Oblivion magic was extremely weak, and felt like a toothpick, while in Skyrim it feels a lot more powerful and you need to put some thinking into magic rather then just spam buttons.

(Use Ice magic to slow down melee enemies and lower their stamina, Electricity to reduce the enemy mage's magicka and fire for dealing the most damage. Use conjuration to make the enemies focus on your summon, use wards to shield yourself from enemy spells, and use oakflesh to add to your armor rating)

[swallow1106]

Starting mage was hard until you can stun/stagger lock mobs. There are occasions where I had to pick up a shield and sword and swing around/bashing around until I gate some Magika back or play hide and seek around an obstacle.. Money become less an issue real quick as majority of the mage quest take you to fighting mage type mobs that drops relatively expensive robes. I found myself save/load a lot more on my mage character than my warrior character and some fight a summoned elemental or 2 can turn things around (namely azure star quest). Just keep in mind when you are holding down any trigger button to cast you are not regening any magicka, so don't be stupid like my friend who played a mage like an archer and wonder why he is always OOM. Spells like Flame also applies DOT, you can pulse fire and let dots take its full tick before you reapply. DO NOT WEAR any armor (no leather etc) Movement speed on just robe/cloth can let you run away faster in most situation. You can back strife kite with ice spell easily if you have no armor on.

 

So far @lvl 20 I found my mage having easier time killing a lot more stuffs than my warrior when he was lvl 20, however if you carelessly wander into a room with 2-3 mobs as mage you will be dead in an instant.

[NephilimNexus]

Some tips:

 

1) You don't have to wear regular clothes. Yes, many types of robes have big bonuses to magic regeneration, but you could - and should - just learn those enchantments and then reapply them to actual armor. There is no penalty to magic use in the game for wearing armor, even Daedric plate, thus no real excuse not to do so.

 

2) Get a follower, preferably an "essential" one (if you don't mind a little cheating, you can make any follower essential via the console), and use that follower as your "tank." You can get Faendal as a follower right in Riverwood at level 1 simply by doing a stupid easy task for him (deliver a letter to a girl in the same town). He's a Bosmer archer, not a tank, but hey free follower, right? Load them in heavy armor, a good bow and let them take the aggro for you. In practice, that means opening up with a long range sniping spell, letting your follower intercept the bad guy as they run toward you, and then flanking around to finish them off with your own spells.

 

3) Transmutation is a an absurd money generation spell, so get it as soon as you can. Why? It turns iron ore into gold ore in two passes. Most shops will sell you iron ore for under 10 septims a piece. Turn two of them into two gold ores, then smelt into one gold ingot and then smith that ingot into a pair of gold rings worth 75 each. Oh, and jewelry crafting levels up your blacksmith fast, which will come in handy for better outfitting your tank (above).

 

4) If you want to rapidly boost your enchantment skill (and you do), then do the Azura's Star quest ASAP (you can usually start it just by asking random people about rumors and they'll point you in the right direction). Next get yourself some kind of offensive staff once you have the star & go crazy with the Soultrap spell. Spot a target, soultrap spell, then kill them with the staff spells, and then immediately recharge you staff with the star. Why? Because recharging items counts towards boosting your enchantment skill. You've just created your own perpetual experience point loop.

 

5) If you want to learn archery fast (Why? I don't know?) you can exploit Faendal (above) very easily, as he happens to be an archery trainer. First recruit him (easy) and then have him train you. When you check his inventory, the gold you just paid for your training will show up in his inventory and you can just take it right back - no pickpocketing needed! You can easily turn 500 septims into a level 8 character with 50 archery before you ever even leave Riverwood. This has nothing to do with magic, but I'd just thought I'd throw that in there.

 

6) You don't have to dual-cast anything. Often times you'll find that having a different spell in each hand is preferable, and you can still cast them both at once. There is nothing stopping you from using Flame in one hand and Frostbite in the other, for instance. This is especially important when Wards come into play, because you can attack and defend at the same time. Or heal, whichever.

 

7) Start with the Mage Stone but later on you might want to switch to the Apprentice Stone, provided that you can compensate for the magic vulnerability with the appropriate magic resistance enchantments in your armor.

 

8) You can actually put a spell in one hand and a shield in the other, if you don't want to spend magic points on Wards. This may work for you, or it may not, but it's worth considering. Shield bashing can be a real life saver.

 

9) Since your not going to be spending Stamina on swinging swords around, there is no reason not to burn it on running the frack away when you magic runs out & you need a breather to recharge.

 

10) Remember that you can give stuff to your follower/tank, even things that you yourself don't need. Things like flaming swords, shock bows and combat buff enchantments. Hint hint. Do this well enough and combat becomes more a spectator sport.

[NephilimNexus]

A couple more tips:

 

11) You can have a follower and a Conjuration pet at the same time. Get the right perk and you can have a follower and two Conjuration pets at the same time. See "spectator sport," above.

 

12) There are some magic perks that are, IMHO, useless. For instance, the fire perk that makes enemies flee when low on hitpoints. Problem is that all enemies already flee when low on hitpoints, regardless of how they are injured. Thus, redundant. There is a shock perk that disintegrates kills into ash piles. While this is an nice throwback to our beloved Alien Blaster, in reality this gains you nothing except the possible advantage that an enemy necromancy can't resurrect them. Then again, neither can you so it cuts both ways. So I don't see the point of that one, either. Illusion's Silent Casting really only matters if you have a high enough Sneak rating to make it matter, and even then NPCs will usually quickly detect the light from your spells, even if they can't hear them. Again, not needed unless you're really dedicated to playing a stealth character.

 

13) If you are playing (or adding) stealth into your build, you can very quickly and easily max out the Pickpocket tree (via Quicksave and Quickload). Though it will take a lot of perks to get there, with a full tree you can actually steal the armor & weapons right off an enemy if they don't detect you - and since you probably have an Invisibility spell, yeah, they won't detect you. This makes the ensuing fight against your now totally unarmed, buck-naked foe lean heavily in your favor.

 

14) If you do find yourself pressed into a swordfight, why would you not be using a conjured daedric weapon? I mean, really, think about it? Carrying actual weapons is just dead weight that could better used for valuable loot.

Edited November 26, 2011 by NephilimNexus

[IxionInc]

14) If you do find yourself pressed into a swordfight, why would you not be using a conjured daedric weapon? I mean, really, think about it? Carrying actual weapons is just dead weight that could better used for valuable loot.

Not to mention that Bound Weapons are freaking amazing.

Blue fiery demon sword that has no weight nor presence in my inventory? Sounds good to me!

Edited November 26, 2011 by IxionInc

[digitalsoda]

Hey it's my turn to give tips:

 

 

1) Go Illusion. You can spam muffle anywhere and everywhere (like in town) to get it high pretty fast, and then bam! Invisibility, frenzy, calm, all the good spells along with Silent Casting. Grats you're now a ninja assassin mage that even stealth based thievs should envy.

You don't really need Conjuration with this school, anything anyone ever summons can be controlled by you. Any daedra or undead will work for you, and any companion you do have gets a huge boost from spells like rally and courage.

 

2) Breton is the superior mage race, forget Altmer; their 50 extra magicka is a joke and only covers a fraction of a spells cost later on. A Bretons passive ability to their magic resistance and absorption ability is really underrated and becomes almost overpowering against other mages and casters if you take Alteration. Not to mention it increases your armor spells to a very respectable degree.

 

3) Alteration is so good if your Breton. (Mass) Paralyze is a great spell and compliments the Illusion school. You can also boost a Bretons innate magic resistance to 55% in this tree. Another school that's easy to raise (can do it in town) thanks to spells like mage/candle light and telekinesis spells.

 

4) Lightening is the best element, and probably the only one you will need to use as well. It is entirely possible to beat the game without even running into a Storm Antioch, which doesn't even matter because you took Illusion and that school ends up spanking them hard. Beyond that, it the majority of the lightening line are instant; no travel time so if it's in your crosshairs it's staggered until it dies. Just fantastic with the Silent Casting perk from Illusion.

 

5) Get enchanting and put some magicka reduction costs on your gear. With max enchanting it is entirely possible to have magicka free spells in two schools without investing in perks, further obsoleting the Altmer.

Edited November 26, 2011 by digitalsoda