Maybe because when you break it down by Perk points, it weights it to where being a Mage takes a considerable amount more of Perk point investment than a Melee character. As an Archer, I do not have to choose to put points into anything else. The same goes for Two-Hand and One-Hand. Blocking is sometimes also used, so at most you might need to invest in two Perk trees. To say it is almost mandatory for a character to have to invest in 2+ Perk trees to be viable in Magic is silly.

If Perks did not exist, there would be no issue however. Since they chose to split the Perk trees per school, well now, now you got yourself a problem.

Magic should be the HARDEST combat system to learn and master. It should take getting up to an extremely high level before even a fireball spell is useful in combat. As a level 1 mage, you should be able to light a candle from across the room only 50% of the time. As you progress to level, 30 you can do some moderate damage ad you have enough tricks so that you can chip away at most enemies.

The same slow progression would happen for ALL branches of magic. You start with only parlor tricks, but by level 30, you are doing things that make you seem powerful. By level 50, you are sort of a scary SOB. And, at level above 50 you have a "One Bad Mother ___ucker" stamped on your wallet.

The concept of a mage should be you start weak and only become strong at very high levels. Between levels 1 and 17 you are useless at fighting without a blade or blunt...and even with a weapon you are useless because you are not strong enough to do much damage. Playing a mage should mean staying in towns and on busy well-protected roads until level 30, or hiring an armed escort to help you until you learn your craft. And until you are level 35 you might as well not even enter a dungeon by yourself.

It that sounds "un-flattering & weak" well GOOD. Being a mage should be about thinking how you could play when you are so weak, defenseless and lack any physical prowess. That should be the game play, "How can I get anything done when I'm a weak, bookish, milk-drinker!?" The answer is getting other to do the fighting and being a mastermind of keeping yourself out of danger while getting what you want!

The game play of a mage is keeping enemies far away, disappearing when they get too close and conjuring helpers to take the focus off yourself. If a warrior or assassin gets the drop on you are DEAD...it is over...one hit with a blade by a level 50 warrior or assassin should cut you magical head off you withered frail shoulders. However, if you see them first you are a match for them. If they are resistant to three types of magic...well you had better try the magics they are no resistant too very quickly!!!

Perhaps the OP would like to provide some specific ways by which conjuration can be made more interesting?

And not by increasing the number of summons because at the end of the day you will simply use the most powerful one anyway.

The summons list is boring, I can say that much.

Being a necromancer is my most fun playthrough. Creating a zombie vampire and then using ritual stone right after you caused mayhem never gets old.

Feel more attachment to your Conjurations. Be able to modify the abilities they have. Be able to control the actions they take better with a true Pet Command system. Having certain Conjurations out would do certain unique things if invested. The fact of the matter is that the Perks in this game are not utilized properly. There is a LOT that can be done to make Conjuration more engaging and interesting. Take other games where you can summon or conjure: Magicians, Necros, and Enchanters from EQ1. Warlocks from WoW. Golems, Skeletons, or Reanimations from Diablo. There are so many examples of things that "could" have been borrowed or improved upon to make a better Conjuration system.

Conjuration just needs more creatures to get the best amount of fun with the least amount of work. More creatures to handle more situations to add more tactics to the game.

What will probably never happen but would be quite sensational would be control over your pets and allowing you to move them where you want, make them attack what you want, etc.

Conjuration is a life saver on master difficulty. Sometimes mage armor doesn't cut it and you don't have enough time to cast dragonhide.

Basically some of my conjuration strategies:

Sneak knife up some people, make them zombies and use them as meatshields for the tougher foes deeper within.

Cast mayhem, create zombies from the fallen foes and then use ritual stone to turn all the corpses on the toughest foe.

For ancient dragons: Dragonrend, duel-cast dremora, and then cast lightning storm.

Conjuration is the mage's version of blocking along with wards. If your constantly casting duel-dremora lords 24/7, that doesn't mean there is something with conjuration, it just means your playing like a dumb-ass.

my conjuration destruction mage was my shortest playthrough. i've tried to like magic, i've attempted multiple times, but it just doesn't do it for me. neither does melee combat. both are mediocre at best. most satisfying playthrough was a stealth archer (though once sneak gets too high, it became very boring as well). love the world of skyrim, hate the combat.

Ideas for making conjuration more fun:

Corpse Explosion - cast it on a corpse to blow it up, causing heavy AoE damage. Stolen from Diablo 2.
Shadow Gate - conjures a gate to a pocket plane, which is in essence a player home with alchemy and enchanting tables.
Conjure Mead - make it happen Beth.

Just the opposite for me since we can raise dead now, and not just humanoid dead. Though I do wish we could summon more creatures.

Magic in the game is mostly boring they removed all of the fun spells and spellmaking.

Looking for fun as a mage? Skyrim is the last place you'd want to look, besides visuals.

i Agee in most games magic is fun complicated and rewarding at high levels skyrim is pretty much the opposite

Agree that they could have given special abilities to the summons when you take certain perks. 50% more powerful is too vague and not quite exciting compare to special skills.

For example, fire elementals could have 50% chance of rebirth upon been killed. Frost elementals could be more powerful at start but gets weaker and SMALLER as their health depletes. Lightning elementals could teleport like a boss. And finally instead of daemora lords, maybe they should have blood golem/elements as the final elemental summon which absorbs health with their attacks and upgrades allows them to transfer health to their caster if he has taken damage.

As for the summoning of necros and warlocks, no. Summoning of humans with intelligence and binding them to your will is clearly a deity level skill. In theory, there should be no reason a random conjurer NPC can't summon YOU and force you to fight and die for them if that is the case.

I think there aren't enough things to conjure.... actually there is a lack of spells in all schools actually

I just wish silent casting perk in the Illusion spell tree and the duel cast perk were swapped. I've been contemplating over my assassin later on not having any weapons but instead summons the dagger(s) or bow as necessary. Does elemental fury work on summoned weapons? Since they are technically not enchanted.

Corpse explosion is a LOT of work, given that they had not implemented fallout's bloody mess and requires new visuals for every creature type in the game.

However there is a skill called summon flaming familiar which can be expanded on and works close enough to corpse explosion. I am just waiting for a mod to recreate Stark's Bankai using that.

Shadow gate is equal to mark and recall, which was axed for allowing players to break some quest sequences and add a whole new dimension of headache to quest design.

I never try conjuration before and currently trying to use it on my new character and I think is awesome! I also like it when everything dead in 10 seconds before me:)

I did not mean that you could summon necros or warlocks, but that they could have looked at games like EQ1, WoW, or Diablo that had these classes and how they treated Pet classes and summons. Being able to Soul Link with your summon, steal your summon's HP/Magicka, summoning a skeletal army etc. It is quite astounding just how shallow the Magic system is in Skyrim when Magic is one of the easiest things to do correctly! Instead, they give us uninteresting Perks that give value increases insteading of altering gameplay or introducing new spells/skills per perk investment.

Totally agreed, I don't like when I have to go in Dwarven Ruin and have to fight my way against all the falmer and those darn machines by simply smashing at it, I like to have a lot *friendlies* around that can kill !

god this comment makes me feel old.

I think the bound weapons are pretty cool, but more of them could of been put in, along with armor. Perhaps some perks to strengthen the bound line of spells. Oblivion IMO takes the prize when it comes to magic. Being able to craft your own spell that cast all the bound armors plus weapon of choice in one spell was truly kick ass feeling. And imagine if that were possible in this game with the rad ghostly visage look to bound weapons and armor... Man that alone would make me want to play a mage. Also I think summoning liches was pretty cool, though I think some more truly unique creatures, something like pit deamons from BGII would be sweet as hell.

Want a game that did Conjured items / weapons right it was AC2. Asheron's Call 2 Enchanter was how Conjure Weapons / Armor should have worked. The Conjured Weapons would fight for you leaving your hands free to cast, and the conjured armor was insanely powerful. I am not sure what the purpose of conjuring weapons that already exist and function the same is exactly, especially when you have to invest Perks in melee skills to up it further! If you are conjuring, the likely hood you need your hand(s) free to cast is pretty great. Conjured Weapons eliminate that :\

I enjoy mine. I usually summon 1 deadra lord, and one Atronach and then dual bound swords and join the battle.

I suppose a pure conjurer would get rather dull and I found dual Deadra lords to be OP. So I go Conjuration, One Handed, Heavy Armor, then various perking all over the place.

This system still holds difficulty on Master as your one Deadra lord can't tank everything, so my character is still open for attacks while fire/storm Atronachs add supporting fire.

As well as a viable build. I am playing a rogue wizard (i kind of idealized a character from Baldur's Gate called Imoen) character who dual wields bound swords (the only spell i use from conjuration actually) and it's just so epic. I don't like the summons to do all the work for me, i prefer to go in and fight my way through, but that's me!