Mage problem with the max difficulty

[reptail012]

I have a magician altmer, Level 19, with 50 of destruction, enchanting 60.

I do not know how the hell to get on with this character. I have great difficulty to kill enemies that go beyond the level 8. For example, in the mission where you have to go into the lair of followers of a female red guard. Here in this place I have problems to kill certain enemies, because often I end up mana.

Wearing a robe -12% destruction mana cost and 50% regeneration, +30 magicka cap, and amulet -3% spell cost. In total I have 280 mana and 170 life.

I just do not know what to do.

Edited March 4, 2013 by reptail012

[Concept83]

You need mods. Bethesda absolutely underpowered Mage's in this game and all you can rely on on higher levels is stun spamming once you get the impact perk. A mage build is the weakest build in Skyrim. There are a bunch of Mage mods (I have one, but don't download it, I'm releasing a big update really soon). Find ones that will allow your magic to level as you spend perks in the destruction tree. That's all you can do at this point.

[Mavkiel]

You do need to really think about how you level up your character. A mage that levels enchanting fast, is going to be in serious trouble. (Think about it, all the enemies dont care if you gained those levels in an actual combat skill, or a trade, so your dealing with highler level critters)

 

Destruction is easily the worst skill to pick for killing people. With the stagger perk, it can be highly useful for buying yourself some distance, but your better off with any other school. If your hell bent on using destruction you need to get ahold of items that reduce the spell cost. A hat/ring makes a world of distance.

 

If your more flexable, illusion is actually very powerful. I have cleared out many a room by casting fury at a long distance in stealth. Calm is also nice for lowering the amount of critters you need to deal with at any one time.

 

Conjuration - If you want to lean on this you could beat the entire game using this one skill.

 

*shrugs* Anyhow I'd put that enchanting skill of yours to work and make a hat and ring to lower the cost of whatever skill you use the most.

Edited March 5, 2013 by Mavkiel

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

What you need is the Fortify Destruction potion. Use the lightning attack so you don't have to lead targets and let the potion provide the punch. (You really have to plant a garden for this to be feasible; Glowing Mushroom + Nightshade does the trick). The great thing about Destruct potions is you don't have to worry about delivery. There's no messy arrows, no chance of missing and wasting a poison, etc. Just quaff the Destruct potion then do what you normally do.

 

Pure mage is tough, but the reward is having your hands free. A pure mage can keep his hands at his sides while rummaging around and it's very quick to raise them, cast something, then lower them again. It's too convenient for me to play any other way.

[imperium999]

1) Almost every mage you encounter in the game has a backup melee weapon, usually a dagger of some sort. Use that Enchanting of 60 to make yourself a nice dagger with a fire enchantment. It's saved my butt many many times.

 

2) Get yourself a staff for when you're out of mana.

 

3) Lydia is your tank-friend. Give her a greatsword and watch her go to town. Much of the time, my mage is really just assisting Lydia during a fight.

 

4) Level up your alchemy so you're never out of health or mana potions. Making potions is so cheap, it's almost cheating...

[ilikecheese1337]

Get Apocalypse Spell Package, Phenderix Magic Evolved and Better Magic. Use dual-cast Shock Orb (from Apocalypse) as an opener (massive damage to full-health targets) and finish off enemies with Phenderix spells. Congratulations, you have gone from one of the weakest to one of the strongest builds.

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Imperium999's right about having a backup, and I would add that paralysis poison is an excellent addition to that backup. If things have gotten hairy enough for you to pull out a dagger you might as well go all the way.

 

Alteration paralysis is even better; it works on draughr including the really tough ones.

[haydon111]

I have a level 82 mage and I found mages to be good only in the mid levels 30-50ish on master diffculty.At the start like you I never had any mana and had to have followers deal most of the damage wile I hid like a coward(boring).Mid range after maxing enchanting and having 0mana cost to destruction and healing spells I was a killing machine.After that as mage spells do not scale in any way my damage was so low most creatures laughed at me and even bandits one shot me with arrows no matter what I did......So yeah basicaly to be viable as a mage you have to mod. Edited March 8, 2013 by haydon111

[Tamujiin]

Mages have a very low amount of spells vanilla, an alternate route from some of these nice folks advice is, get a mod that adds a lot more variety to spells.

Apocalypse spells, is one, midas magic another. I got a LEVEL 97 toon, when i get bored with a sword i switch to spells, ONLY because i got so many i dont know what they do :P ( only lvl 97 because of levelers tower, its my mod testing toon, i use it to figure out bad save fixes and stuff ).

Edited March 8, 2013 by Tamujiin

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

@haydon111: Have you tried Fortify Destruct potions?