Mages: No Armor vs. Light vs. Heavy ??

[pastafrola]

I tried after reading the last few post (with console help) to reach the armor cap.

 

 

Daedric set (with shield):

 

*Heavy armor lv100 (no perks)

*Smithing lv100 (no perks)

*Fortify smithing 150% (four enchanted pieces with +25% and a +50% potion)

 

332 Armor rating +50 from the lord stone: 382 Total

 

 

Then you need 2 ranks of Juggernaut perk and Well fitted you will hit the cap (590/567, 505 without shield.)

 

Without the lord stone you will need another rank of Juggernaut and you get 610 AR (520, no shield)

 

 

The cost of all this would be 6 perk points of the enchanting tree and 3 or 4 perk points of the heavy armor tree.

Edited January 24, 2012 by pastafrola

[SneakyHat]

I would suggest Alteration/Destruction using Midas Magic 0.7 (or whatever it is anyway) which give you access to low damage Alteration spells, ability to shape shift, summon new summons, throw enemies around with altered spell version of FUS RO DAH etc. Then go Heavy Armour for defense and level up to get Conditioned for no moving cost, Fists of Steel, also mean you have melee damage with not worry about carrying wep's pretty good right? Also you can enchant stuff to 100% spell reduc if you want a all powerful mage :P

[BrknSoul]

With the aid of enchanting (fortify smithing) and pre-made enchanting and smithing potions, and of course the appropriate armor perks, you can reach the armor cap with any style or type of armor in the game, even hide and iron armor. All without even using a shield.

 

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armor_Rating#Armor_Cap

[enjelsama]

Depends what difficulty you play on to.

On lowest setting, you can wear clothing intill lv35+ or so with 100-150hp, before enemies can 1shot (or instant execution) you. (Some Boss with 2hands can get you around lv 20, but with wards and stuff your ok)

 

My current Mage has 180hp, 100 stam and rest pooled into magic.. lets just say when a Ancient Dragon lands.. i better not be near front, or it will 99% of the time.. eat me then toss me. >_<

 

I find on normal difficulty, robe with light armor gloves and boots works fine for abit. But i need around 300health, if i happen to be caught with out a ward or defense spell up. Its lights out pretty fast.

 

I tried heavy armor path, but i hate popping potions for stam, or wasting more then 10 levels into it. (healing spell helps abit.. but intill a decent hot key mod comes out. The faves menu can go bleep itself... =p

[Rooker75]

Ebonyflesh only provides 42.3% of damage reduction, provided that this is coupled with 3/3 Mage Armor. If not, it only provides 14.1% reduction. This might be useful for lesser minions, Dragonhide (and a quick couple of mana potions) can turn the fight in your favour when going up against bosses.

Dragonhide just takes too long to cast, it can be interrupted with a stagger or shout and it takes most of your magicka to do it, although it just occurred to me you could shout Become Ethereal first. I didn't think to try that on my last character. Even then, it still only lasts half as long as Ebonyflesh, which you can cast on top of regular armor to boost your armor rating near or above the cap.

 

But without the perks in the armor tree and smithing, even with enchanting and alchemy I don't think you'll reach armor cap using physical armor.

If you take 3 perks to advanced armors and save up or create smithing potions and enchantment-enhanced smithing gear, you can make steel-plated armor and improve it way beyond "Legendary." Or just two perks and use Elven, but that's light armor. And if you're leveling/perking Alteration (I do, for Atronach and the magic resists), you can afford to dualcast Ebonyflesh and have it last a good three minutes, so that's an extra +100 armor (or +300 with perks, but that's probably wasteful). Wait, that last bit wouldn't work.

 

Not to mention, if you're caught by surprise by a dragon swooping down out of nowhere, a high-level archer taking potshots or a sabre cat charging up behind you, you're not taking the first hit with zero armor and fumbling around with your hotkeys. I've been unexpectedly instapwned a few times like that.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Rooker75

[chanchan05]

But without the perks in the armor tree and smithing, even with enchanting and alchemy I don't think you'll reach armor cap using physical armor.

If you take 3 perks to advanced armors and save up or create smithing potions and enchantment-enhanced smithing gear, you can make steel-plated armor and improve it way beyond "Legendary." Or just two perks and use Elven, but that's light armor. And if you're leveling/perking Alteration (I do, for Atronach and the magic resists), you can afford to dualcast Ebonyflesh and have it last a good three minutes, so that's an extra +100 armor (or +300 with perks, but that's probably wasteful).

 

Not to mention, if you're caught by surprise by a dragon swooping down out of nowhere, a high-level archer taking potshots or a sabre cat charging up behind you, you're not taking the first hit with zero armor and fumbling around with your hotkeys. I've been unexpectedly instapwned a few times like that.

 

I'm actually debating between using an armor or not on my next mage as well, but wouldn't the problem be you'll be spreading your perks pretty thin rather early? With perks at the armor tree and smithing tree as well apart from the Mage trees needed to make decent armor? Or would you save those perks for later?

[Rooker75]

I'm actually debating between using an armor or not on my next mage as well, but wouldn't the problem be you'll be spreading your perks pretty thin rather early? With perks at the armor tree and smithing tree as well apart from the Mage trees needed to make decent armor? Or would you save those perks for later?

 

Well, I would probably start out armorless anyway, just because of the bonuses from the various mage robes. Until you level up whatever types of magic you're using, magicka management is a real pain early on and the enchanted robes definitely help. It's later on, once you get Enchanting leveled up, that you can afford to switch to armor. You can just cast your favorite enchantments on the armor and throw out the robes altogether.

 

It's at that point that having put any perks into Mage Armor will have been wasted. Put those three into Smithing instead (Steel > Elven > Steel plated). Or two perks to get to Elven, but I don't know if Elven armor can reach the armor cap.

 

Then you go and powerlevel Smithing by switching to the Warrior Stone, sleeping in a bed and building a bajillion iron daggers. It levels up absurdly fast. So fast that I honestly think they broke it, but that's the game they gave us.

 

You'll probably have better armor at this point than ebonyflesh. If you want to get to the armor cap, you'll have to spend a few perks in Heavy (or Light) Armor, but you can ignore Master Alteration (and maybe Expert Alteration), so that's not too bad. And you can still cast Ebonyflesh on top of the armor for an extra +100. Once you're at that level, you should be able to spend the Magicka, even without the Expert Alteration perk.

 

That's what I'm planning to do next time. We'll see how that theorycrafting works out.

[chanchan05]

I was thinking that too, if it was practicality. But it seems role playing wins out for me, so no armor this time. LOL. It would feel odd to be a mage dressed in armor and all that, but has no weapon, even a knife, but no destruction spells and kills you using summoned swords. You can figgin buy/make armor buy can't buy/make a sword? @_@ LOL.