Just as the title indicates I am looking for opinions on the magic mods that are cutting about?

Which one is the best/most balanced to use? Most stable? etc...

I'm far from unbiased, but I rather think my work on http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17353 bears mentioning!

Beyond that? I'd recommend Apocalypse. Midas Magic adds far too many things for me that aren't of use, and Phenderix is... not really all that good, in my opinion.

I thought that Revenge of Colette was like an add on mod rather than a rebalancing mod?

Sorry, I couldn't discern specifically what you wanted from the opening post.

It is both of those things, however; it aims to rebalance by adding and combining with rather than by actually modifying the source game, or creating things that are superpowerful and just don't need the basic spells.

Not looking for super powers.

If I wanted that I would download Midas Magic. lol.

Just after ideas on which magic mod is a good reasonable balanced mod for magic, so that magic isn't so underwhelming. I was using Balanced Magic but it says in the comments that it breaks the Magic Killmoves for some reason.

Like I said... I don't to fix via superpowers. ^_~

A lot of people like ACE, I haven't tried it out myself.

ACE?

ACE ("Athyra's Comprehensive Enhancements") does not change the magic system, unless you count the Enchanting skill. Athyra recommends "Empowered Magic" as a good magic balancing overhaul to use alongside ACE.

Here is my opinion after using any of these mods...

I think the most "balanced" magic overhaul mod is "http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4374", which is also the most underrated of these mods IMO. I like this mod because it is the simplest and the resulting changes don't end up feeling overpowered.

Another good one is "http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11139", which is fairly popular. This one is more complicated than Better Magic. It changes the core spells, and the way in which magic damage is calculated. It won't be quite as compatible with other mods. But the author has added some really fun and interesting perks to many of the magic skill trees. In my opinion though, this one is over-powered. Your spells end up becoming really powerful as you level up, and you are still able to decrease your casting cost quite a bit to cast often. In the late game, enemy mages are still powerful and tough to fight, but non-mages tend to become fodder.

I would love to see "Better Magic" make more interesting changes to the perk tree the way that Empowered Magic does, then I'd have the best of both worlds. Also keep in mind that there are other mods out there which just fix individual schools of magic, such as Destruction, which are especially wonky in the vanilla game.

I'm using midas magic, mighty magic (formaly known as deadly dragons spells), and apocalypse spell package. IMO mighty magic is a tad bit overpowered unless you have mods that increase the dificulty (ASIS, Deadly Dragons) but very interesting nonetheless.

My favorite for a long time was Balanced Magic. It makes a lot of well thought out changes, but some people didn't like it because it was a full overhaul, rather than a tweak. It hasn't been updated in a while, and mysty had started on a new beta that depended on a fair amount of scripting, but has been MIA. I still think it's great-in the running for the best magic mod--but I'm not sure if it will have problems after the last few patches.

Better Magic seemed to be the favorite for people who wanted smaller, simpler changes--sometimes used in conjunction with Tejon's Spell Scaling Solution (tsss). I tried this for a while, but not long enough to have a solid opinion. It's still being updated.

I'm currently trying out Empowered Magic. It seems good, it's still being updated, but I haven't played enough to give an opinion.

I haven't tried The Revenge of Collette yet, but I think it adds some entirely new powers aimed at warriors (or mage hybrids), as well as some tweaks to 2 magic schools, so for me it doesn't fit in the same category as the other mods I mentioned. It looks like it's worth giving a try, though, but maybe in conjunction with one of the other mods.

I've been using http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11139 and http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=17670, which both modify perks and skill trees, but surprisingly work just fine together. In addition to that I'm using quite a few mods that add new spells, without affecting the mechanics or perk trees, such as http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=54586711, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=19158, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=16781, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=17178. Also, if you are adding a lot of new spells to the game, I highly recommend http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1382842-wiprel-asispise-successor-thread-5/, which looks at all the spell mods you have and assigns new spells to NPCs to use against you. This combination has been completely stable for me with no crashes and I haven't had to use Wrye Bash yet.

The only problem I've found with Empowered Magic so far is that when you get the Nightmare perk, your illusion spells start causing damage over time to enemies, which is a fun concept; however, the damage is too high and as a result you end up killing everything with fear spells. I think it could work very well if the damage was much lower.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2275

Balanced Magic

It's up to three schools right now - working on four and five simultaneously, too.

It seems to me that spell packs like Revenge of Colette and Apocolypse Spells balance magic by giving you creative new ways to deal with your oponents, rather than just moving numbers around. I'm still early on the playthrough of my first non-vanilla mage, but that's my hope.

@AstralFire - noted, thanks. I'll definitely be checking out your mod in the future, but I just started with EmpoweredMagic a few days ago, and I don't think RoC fits with this particular pure mage character.

It depends on how you define balance and magic.

My disagreement is pretty much semantic, but I think that if someone is talking "Skryim magic system" they're generally saying "the 5 schools of magic in Skyrim". If you're unsatisfied with the design or implementation of those schools of magic, adding additional content doesn't fix the core problem (i.e. you could add an entirely new system that is great, but that's depreciating/diluting the original system, not fixing it).

My argument about balance is along the same lines. The numbers (hidden or listed) ARE the magic system. Changing the equation can potentially fix the problem, but adding new equations doesn't address that (directly). It's like building a perfect new road alongside an existing road full of potholes. The new road may suit your needs, but it doesn't change the fact that driving on the old road svcks.

But it sounds like AstralFire is working on that, anyway....

Given the risk of hijacking the topic, we may want to make a new thread for this should we continue - but there's a difference between what Apocalypse and Revenge of Colette do and what some of the other spell mods do. (I haven't looked at Midas Magic closely.) Just adding new spells to balance can end up being simply "I equip the new spells and not the old spells," but the reason EnaiSialon and myself spend so much time figuring out the most strange coding shenanigans is to try to get the vanilla and the addon spells to really interact with each other.

A simple 'add more spells' addon is that 'new road next to a road full of potholes' anology, which is a good one. The more complicated addons are more like, "add bypasses and new exits to reduce congestion in the most trafficked areas, while still leaving the core of the road integral to the transportation network."

I prefer this solution because I feel it makes for more interesting and varied gameplay, and also because it allows the player to grow from their knowledge of the base game, rather than having to replace it.

The third option, 'repair the road', is a valid strategy for addressing balance, as long as you think the core system is inherently interesting, or to continue the anology, if you think the repaired road on its basic design is sufficient to handle the traffic.

Still think the best out there is http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13166 .

Technically it is not a magic overhaul mod, but an overall aoverhaul (does that make sense at all?). For me, though, the changes in http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9286 are just about perfect.

spray ------- 8 ------- 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24 / 28 ------- 8 / 9 / 11 / 12 / 14 / 16 ------- 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16

apprentice missile ---- 25 ------- 12 / 18 / 24 /30 / 36 / 42 ------- 25 / 25 / 33 / 38 / 44 / 50 ------- 25 / 31 / 37 / 44 / 50

rune ------- 50 ------- 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 ------- 30 / 35 / 40 / 46 / 52 / 60 ------- 30 / 37 / 45 / 53 / 60

adept area missile 40 ------- 18 / 27 / 36 / 45 / 54 / 63 ------- 40 / 46 / 53 / 61 / 70 / 80 ------- 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80

cloak ------- 8 ------- 5 / 7 / 9 / 11 / 13 / 15 ------- 8 / 9 / 11 / 12 / 14 / 16 ------- 5 / 6 / 8 / 10 + 15% vulnerability

expert missile ---- 60 ------- 24 / 36 / 48 / 60 / 72 / 84 ------- 60 / 69 / 79 / 91 / 105 / 120 ------- 75 / 94 / 112 / 129 / 150

wall ------- 8 ------- 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 ------- 8 / 9 / 11 / 12 / 14 / 16 ------- 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16

Comparison of vanilla - balanced magic - better magic - empowered magic
This is before augmented perks

Balanced magic has the highest raw damage spray and rune spells but doesn't change them in any other way.
Helps with regeneration a bit. Augmented perks are at 50%. Enchants still lowers mana cost.

Better magic has a higher raw damage output on spells before augmented perks but because they are 30% spells up to expert end up only a bit stronger than Balanced.
Expert spells are still 20% stronger than balanced.
It changes execution perks as well. Author recommends using a secondary mod which changes enchants to magnitude and potions to mana reduction.

Empowered magic has the highest raw damage plus enchants that increase magnitude.
Since it doesn't reduce the costs you will probably need to alter expert and lower spells to win.

Shield spells in Balanced provide extra protection for each armor piece you are not wearing ex. Oakflesh 40-70 which makes them great when just starting out. Because they scale in this way, mage armor perks are completely changed to effect cost and magnitude of all schools a bit.
Ebonyflesh ends up having 300 armor on a 270 sec duration with stability and dragonhide 670 same duration.


Better magic shield spells depend on mage armor perks which increase magnitude, duration but also give passive armor. This means when you get the first rank of the perk Oakflesh jumps from base 40 to 130 and continues to scale to 270. Ebonyflesh ends up at 250 - 350 - 450 depending on points spent and dragonhide up to 600.
Durations scale also with perks up to 120 sec plus mage armor up to (3x) 360 plus stability (1.5) 540 sec if I didn't make a mistake.


Empowered magic shields are increased double with scaling plus 50% per rank mage armor perks. Oakflesh starts at base 40 and with a single rank of mage armor at skill 30 it will be 78. Ebonyflesh caps out at 350 and dragonhide is 50% damage reduction plus some regeneration stacking with armors..
Armors last 5 minutes from start but drain magicka with each hit.

I'm not sure balanced does anything to illusion, restoration and conjuration at all..
It was a great mod that stopped being updated.

Better magic scales restoration up to 2.0 in magnitude and illusion and conjuration in duration. Also fixes some master spells.

Empowered makes the most changes. Spells scale up to 2.0 in magnitude, up to 30 levels or in duration.
Restoration undead spells changed in function.
Conjuration weapons scale up to base deadric and last base 5 min.
Illusion spells can be resisted.


Overall Balanced is still good but restricted to destruction and alteration for the most part.
Better magic is perk heavier but provides more benefits for your effort.

Empowered is the biggest overhaul with alteration and restoration probably perfectly balanced and useful.
Conjuration is better with some drastic Illusion changes which you may not like and I can't speak of destruction's balance of damage and cost.

I have decided ultimately to settle on Better Magic by sushisquid.

The reason isn't that I think that other mods aren't good or anything. Empowered Magic looks great, and Balanced Magic I was already using. I decided on Better Magic cos I have used sushisquid's mods before, I know he is a diligent modder, and is pretty good as supporting his mods.

I might download Revenge of Colette once I have had a proper shot with BM loaded.

I was looking forward to Midas Magic (loved the OB version) but it seems to have been dropped. So Revenge of Colette seems like a good alternative, if a little less Pure Mage focussed than MM would have been.

Try http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13166 before you decide anything.

Hi,

What's the current opinion on a favoured magic mod for balanced gameplay? I've been using balanced magic for a while and would like to know others thoughts.

Az

I'm using http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11139 at the moment. I don't think there's currently a specific magic balancing mod that's significantly more popular than others right now.