Mage type character in Master difficulty

[dragonalumni]

Without using the alchemy/enchant "optimizing" one school of magic can be reduced to zero cost. I consider this fair play. Consider that it takes 5 pieces of gear to get something to that level and all the other useful enchants you could have, for example a warrior could have 160% bonus damage! Besides this your still paying for all your other schools of magic, pets, buffs and crowd control and probably healing. It's very easy to get out of mana.

[Matth85]

Without using the alchemy/enchant "optimizing" one school of magic can be reduced to zero cost.

DId you just say you consider lobbing infinite expert level destruction spell fair play? ... You won't ever need your other school with it.

 

It might be easy to get, but it breaks the fun out of being a mage. Why do people even find it fun not having to think? ... It's beyond me.

[teklanika]

To the previous guy talking about Illusion:

 

It does NOT stop working at level 40+. In fact, I've got mine to work past level 60. You simply dual-cast the spell, and if that isn't enough, drink an Illusion boosting potion---they go up to 50% of a boost.

 

To OP:

 

Check out Balanced Magic on the Nexus. It makes destruction spells scale so it's viable on Master difficulty.

Edited January 3, 2012 by teklanika

[rpger30]

I think a major issue that is never discussed is simply your magicka pool itself. DPS as a percentage of enemy health has fallen off dramatically for my high level mage, yes. However, spells are still powerful enough to get the job done.

 

The endpoint of this is then an empty magicka pool. Some people consider achieving 75-100% spell cost reduction in one school to be game-breaking. I guess I could see how they would think this.

 

It would lead to your character using that school exclusively and just barreling through hordes of enemies quickly. This would be like a warrior dual wielding 250+ damage 1h weapons while being at the armor and resist caps.

 

What if you could achieve a more moderate reduction in multiple schools though? And a rate of magicka regen not normally possible? The current enchanting system isn't really set up to allow this though. I see this as a rather foolish oversight, so I've used resto-looping to make my +enchanting potions.

 

People can look down upon this if they wish, but I've used it to create a balanced set of gear. I have something like -35% in all five schools of magic, along with a few other decent enchantments (including magicka regen). I am able to play a decently powerful and durable pure mage without resorting to stunlocking to kill all of my opponents.

 

Some would say that we should be forced to occasionally use melee weapons to fill in the gaps, but other specializations have no such restriction. A warrior doesn't require magicka or even shouts to be powerful. A thief can be quite powerful with enchanting being his only school of magic.

 

So for now, until there is a mod to comprehensively overhaul the magic system, I will continue to use mild resto-looping to make powerful but balanced gear.

[Faivon]

Thanks for the tips! You guys are awesome~!

 

@teklanika : I avoid all sorts of mods currently. Trying to explore vanilla Skyrim to its fullest but thanks for the highlight, I already bookmarked it ;)

 

So...to sum it up, it's near to impossible to play as pure destruction-based (means full damage output to destruction) and of course some other spell school in master difficulty beyond level 40 as the spell damage doesn't scale which is pretty shuck and we don't have option to create our own spell just like Oblivion or Morrowind. Thanks for all the tips~ And as for zero cost magicka, I think it depends on the actual difficulty. I mean, if the battle seems impossible, it's okay to equip zero cost magicka to win the "impossible" battle or maybe there's an alternate way to win the battle. Even at Expert difficulty, I find some crazy mage one-hit kill me with the ice spell. I have to chug lots of ice resist potions to repel that. Bummer.

 

But yes, Alchemy helps too in a way. I'd be sure to take that~ I haven't play around much with conjuration much but let's see if I buff my atronachs with restoration spells.

[Matth85]

So...to sum it up, it's near to impossible to play as pure destruction-based (means full damage output to destruction) and of course some other spell school in master difficulty beyond level 40 as the spell damage doesn't scale which is pretty shuck and we don't have option to create our own spell just like Oblivion or Morrowind. Thanks for all the tips~ And as for zero cost magicka, I think it depends on the actual difficulty. I mean, if the battle seems impossible, it's okay to equip zero cost magicka to win the "impossible" battle or maybe there's an alternate way to win the battle. Even at Expert difficulty, I find some crazy mage one-hit kill me with the ice spell. I have to chug lots of ice resist potions to repel that. Bummer.

 

Not quite true. It is very possible to play a destruction based mage, but not if you play with a streamline mindset of "New spell, must use!". Frankly, I used my firebolt, or whatever, untill about 70 destruction, at which I was high enough level to juggle fireballs. I didn't touch expert level spells before 90, up towards 100, destruction and level 50ish. Then I enchanted some gear with 25% less destruction cost, more mana regen and more magicka in general. That meant I was able to take down dragos at level 40.

 

Another great tip, which really makes it easier, is to use staffs. Basically a decent staff in your hand can turn your "out of mana" time to almost zero. Just have a few soul gems ready at all times. You can always keep damage.

 

I find some crazy mage one-hit kill me with the ice spell

A bandit marauder at 40ish deals 200 points of damage per spells, 2-shotting anything. That's why I reccomended being a Breton, and get deep into Alteration. That is a 55% right there, then there is a stone that gives you what, 25-30% more? You then hit 80-85%, which is the cap. 80% of 200 is 40 damage.

 

I also want to note 1 thing:

And as for zero cost magicka, I think it depends on the actual difficulty. I mean, if the battle seems impossible, it's okay to equip zero cost magicka to win the "impossible" battle or maybe there's an alternate way to win the battle

There is no time in a game you need cheating. You might as well use the kill console command. Generally, if something is too hard, you run, you kite or you turn down the difficulty.

Lobbing infinite expert level spells is as fair as "Killallactors", or simply "kill". Why play on master if that is the way to play? It is beyond me. Rather go down to casual and 1-shot everything without cheating.

 

Lastly, I reccomend you try it out. A mage is fun if you are into a challenge. If you want it to be more fair, and fun, you play a Battlemage. Juggling your mana and Stamina to get maximal damage. It's fun!

[TimF]

Thanks for the tips! You guys are awesome~!

 

@teklanika : I avoid all sorts of mods currently. Trying to explore vanilla Skyrim to its fullest but thanks for the highlight, I already bookmarked it ;)

 

So...to sum it up, it's near to impossible to play as pure destruction-based (means full damage output to destruction) and of course some other spell school in master difficulty beyond level 40 as the spell damage doesn't scale which is pretty shuck and we don't have option to create our own spell just like Oblivion or Morrowind. Thanks for all the tips~ And as for zero cost magicka, I think it depends on the actual difficulty. I mean, if the battle seems impossible, it's okay to equip zero cost magicka to win the "impossible" battle or maybe there's an alternate way to win the battle. Even at Expert difficulty, I find some crazy mage one-hit kill me with the ice spell. I have to chug lots of ice resist potions to repel that. Bummer.

 

But yes, Alchemy helps too in a way. I'd be sure to take that~ I haven't play around much with conjuration much but let's see if I buff my atronachs with restoration spells.

 

 

There is also a way of playing with a pure mage esp. on master. Minlevelling: don't distribute a single skillpoint in a skill you won't be using extensively. I'm easily staying below 40 with my 100 destruction-conjuration-alteration-enchantment mage.

 

p.s. The alchemy is useless with conjuration: it simply increases duration, and you're going to have it permanent anyway.

Edited January 4, 2012 by TimF

[PR4Y]

Having played through as a Mage that retired at level 44... I'll share some advice: (Keep in mind I haven't read all the comments, so if any of my advice has already been shared, sorry!)

 

 

 

1. Pure destruction simply does NOT work, specifically at higher levels (40+).

2. Start out focusing mainly on Destruction until level 15ish, putting 1/1/0 into your attributes (1 magicka 1 health per 2 levels)

3. Illusion is VERY useful in the mid tier levels (20-35) and should be a secondary focus along with conjuration.

4. Pump ALL points into magicka until level 22-25 and then start focusing on purely health.

5. I ended up with about 400 magicka and the rest health... after you get some godly -% cost gear for Destruction, you only need to worry about magicka for your secondary schools.

6. Get the Equilibrium spell early on, as it will help in situations with a lot of mobs and not enough Magicka to go around. (Balance your Equilibrium spell with Resto spells)

7. Ward spells can be very effective going up against other Mages, so don't forget to put some perks into the Alteration tree.

8. Perk points into Restoration early on pay for themselves very quickly.

9. The Ward perk that absorbs spell damage and turns it into magicka is AWESOME.

10. Start out using whatever Robes you can find for -% Cost enchants, +Magicka enchants, +Regen enchants... but eventually you will need to focus on Heavy / Light armor to be able to compete at level 20+ on master difficulty. (I chose Light Armor because of realism weight restraints I impose on my roleplaying)

 

 

That's all I can really think of for now, but I hope it helps!

[Nobody09]

I have to aggree with pry44.

You can't do pure destruction on master difficulty. The only way to stay ahead of the curve is to only allow destruction armor skill and conjuration to go up.

You can boost destruction a bunch by taking illusion to 50 and the middle track on illusion at 50 unlocks a perk which adds 10 damage to fire skill. But it adds so many levels that you don't get a return on investment. If you play the game to level destruction which your forced to do without cheats you will be forced to raise all kinds of speechcraft and 1h and 2 hand and stuff you don't need. Without cheats your forced to breton or raising alteration to 30 to get some magic resistance which does next to nothing. Alteration at 50 gives you 10 percent more which would work if you haven't gotten 3 levels getting it.

Conjuration won't go up just summoning. You can play for 40 hours and destroy 40 dungeons and you won't get 40 conjuration skill which by the time you get it your flame atronach will be next to useless getting killed in 2 hits. So you're forced to cheat for training or cheat by soul trapping a corpse or just pestering wolves and mudcrabs with soultrapping.

Destruction won't level to 40 easily. Because at 40 skill it starts staggering oponents perk or not. Only weak ones and on master difficulty you only get about 1 weak one out of ever 4 in every dungeon. Destruction however once you get past past the insane xp requirements of 20 to 40 starts rising like crazy. You still are going to have to cheat. Mana regen is based on your pool. In other words if you have 300 mana and a summon costs 200 mana you're not going to fill up your pool at all in combat. If you have 300 mana and you only use 50 mana to summon your pool will rise about 8 times faster. In other words the lower you get your mana the more your mana regen is going to wreek.

 

 

Without cheating on master diffulty and without money cheats you're going to have to spend about a hour and half brawling either summoning sword during the brawl in left hand and using right hand to heal yourself. But even if you do that with 40 armor skill and the 3 lowest light armor or heavy armor perks and not cheating on smthing to make your armor epic. You might as well be naked.

 

Without cheating to get your destruction cost down enough to make it work you are going to need a set of light armor legion gauntlets that reduce destruction. The chances of the game dropping it to you are abysmal and you'll have to console them in. You can't enchant reduce destruction into gauntlets but the game has imperial bracers of destruction 000b9739.

 

I think the game is called I win and nothing you do changes that. You're going to be making snow victims which are like snow angels only with stiff body havok physics.

 

Oh and wards are useless. The barely budge restoration skill and it's hard to get restoration to 30 without training it in a fire pit or some nonsence. The only time they really work well is if you get slammed into a dungeon with a fireballer or a ice mage 10 levels above you and your follower is either toasted immediately by the fireballer or in the case of a ice mage they are frosted and take 3 slo mo steps and go to bow. In that case you have to ward block for them. And your job simply becomes.... warding. Which you can't run fast enough to protect your follower from a fireballer because they will usually want to charge and go mellee. If they can take two fireballs you can save them from one. Ice mage you just sit right next to them and pop a ward up at every ice missile incoming while follower plinks them to death. But problem is it really on works with ice mages. Because those nasties usually have help in the dungeon and will summon and you're follower will immediately keep banging away on the summon. Instead of going after the bad guy.

 

Either way you're going to go through so many mana potions and health potions you'll be forced to cheat up a batch of decent mana restore potions or cheat up your armor or cheat up your enchanting or cheat up a perk or cheat up some money. Sooner or later some way some how you'll cheat. Be it going through 20 potions in 3 minutes and getting sick of running to town or whatever.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Nobody09

[Cyrotek]

Played a full destruction mage on master till around lvl 40.

 

Its only hard at the beginning till you get some magicka regeneration.

 

If you want the "lamermode" skill only destruction and enchanting to 100 (enchanting as soon as possible, destruction comes fast enough after that) and enchant yourself 4 items with -25% cost on destructionspells. Have fun spamming dualspells with 100% staggeringchance. There isnt any NPC ingame that got some sort of stagger immunity as far as i remember. The only things that can kill you are a bunch of bandits or a mage that onehits you.

 

But its pretty boring, reskilled to something else soon after.

 

Oh, and i woud recommend to start and finish the mages academy quest as soon as possible. Its pretty easy except of the endboss (no, not the crazy guy, that isnt a endboss at all -_-). You will get some powerfull magicka reggen stuff. Just get a strong companion and equip him or her with some magic defence.

 

I personally trained blacksmithing (didnt powerlvled it) from the start too, so i coud equip a companion soon with dwarfen stuff. She actually twohittet ... everything. On Master. Except dragons and high hitpoints stuff, of course.

I put most of my lvl up points into Health (You will need it ...) and lvled mostly Destruction, Enchanting and Blacksmithing with a bit Summoning and Restoration. Thats it.

Was enough in Vanilla on Master from 1 to ~40. Of course i used Light Armor as soon as i coud enchant it with usefull enchants.

 

The only problem is, that you will die a lot early on (later not, dont know why so many people got problems there, staggering lightings while kiting ftw) and you later end up with too low mana to use high lvl spells of other schools.

 

edit: Oh, and i played a Argonian. Min/maxing in Vanilla? Really?

 

edit2: Btw, using enchanting to get 2 spellschools to zero manacost isnt cheating or anything. Its boring as hell, yes, but cheating? It isnt even abusing the game mechanics.

Also you shoud consider that mages scale somewhat poorly. I reskilled into sword & board melee fighter (coudnt reskill magicka, so i endet up with low health and stamina) and withhout using alchemy i kill everything with like 2 hits on master at lvl 50 while they cant really hurt me. The only problem are dragons, but iam using the deadly dragons mod.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Cyrotek