Im doing a master / expert difficulty playthrough of the game atm with a Breton mage. Firstly I decided to pick up the Agent of Mara buff for an extra permanent 15% resist magic and then activated the Atronach stone for +50% magic absorption.

First I was thinking about using the Lord Stone for an extra 25% magic resistance, but 50% spell absorption is too much better, and the 50% reduced magicka regeneration is an insignificant price to pay for 50% absorption, plus you also get +50 Magicka.

In these videos my Breton has 50% magic resistance (25% Breton, 15% agent of mara, 10% from alteration perk), and 50% permanent absorption from atronach, as well as the ability to cast Dragonskin once a day on top for a minute of full magic immunity and unlimited magicka regeneration vs spell casters. The results are simply so cheesy that people who are clueless about Bretons and Magic resistance / absorption think that this is cheating. (quite a lot of people btw because Bretons seem to be the least popular class even though they are irrefutably the most powerful for their racial bonus and power), but it is 100% achievable with hardly any effort in any game of Skyrim:

Entering the mage filled fort:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNMef-p84ao

Playing with and abusing enemy casters to level up (long vid):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKbDB08mNYQ

Boss fight at the end, far too easy because its a spell caster too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFKE4A-NGd4

Its complete immunity to master difficulty spellcasters, plus infinite magicka, though master level warrior type enemies are a complete pain and difficult to handle, I normally just try to ignore those or temporarily drop the difficulty to adept if I am struggling even on Expert.

Yep, it's pretty awesome. My own breton has 70% magic resistance and 80% absorb as base.
I still have to equip some elemental resistance rings/necks/boots when I meet arch mages and volkihar master vampires tho.

Im currently on 60% magic resistance as I used Tolfdir to train my Alteration to 50. I'll keep on doing that as long as I can get enough gold all the way up to 100.

With all of the Alteration perks I'll have 70% magic resistance and 80% absorption too. Add a 15% resistance equip on top and you reach the 85% cap.

I need to work on getting the dragonhide spell too to deal with physical damage, Alteration seems to be the most important school IMO for master difficulty.

The main reason I am trying this is because I made a video of easily owning Morokai with a Breton mage when the game first came out, and still keep on getting comments that I must have cheated or used console commands and hacks to make it that easy. Nope, I just had a Breton with 45 resistance and Dragonskin on my very first playthrough, but I stopped playing at around level 21 due to getting bored and have only just started a new game again.

I'm going pure mage, with Destuction, Restoration, Alteration, Enchanting and bits of Alchemy + Illusion. I dont use Conjuration because I want to fight things alone. In Oblivion the only use I had for conjuration was for summoning sparring partners to train my skills on, now all I have to do is find an enemy mage on master difficulty

Yes, magic resistance is good. I wasn't playing a Breton, but I had Mara's Agent, Lord Stone, one or two of the magic resistance perks of Alteration, and I could stand in the frost breath of an Elder Dragon without feeling a lot of pain. On Expert difficulty and with only 184 health, too.

I think it's turning the game too easy though.

I've gotten up to labyrinthian now with 60% inherent spell resistance, a +10% spell resist necklace, and several spell and shock resist potions, Morokei will be fun

This was the case in oblivion was well. Simply play as a breton (50% magic resistance) and then beat the main-quest at a somewhat high level. You get a ring with 50% magic resistance on it. Combined to 100%. Tada.

Magic resistance in Skyrim is capped to 85% though, but its very easy to get that much. Playing a Breton however you can do it easily without the Lord stone, and can use Atronach stone instead.

Also the dragonskin power is the most amazing thing, combine it with the atronach stone and you have 100% for 60s, enough for most caster bosses in the game.

I was just fighting morokei on master diff and recording it, and was plummeting him with fireball in one hand, and fast healing in the other ... I nearly beat him and then he got pushed into a wall from a fireball's blast radius lol.

So now I have to fight him again.

Sorry to be dense but how do you measure the percentages you quote for any given player ?

Its just a total. Each individual resist / absorb number is a percentage, and different numbers for the same thing add together.

So in the example on a Breton, you can get:

25 resist (Breton)
15 resist (Mara)
(up to) 30 resist (Alteration perks)

= 70% magic resistance. Resistance is capped at 85% max, so all you need on top of that to cap it on a Breton is a +15 resist equip or potions. Non Bretons can also use the Lord stone which gives another 25 resistance, but this is useless for a Breton because Atronach is too much better.

Spell absorption is much harder to obtain, and cant be found from spells, potions or equips (at least Im sure it cant be found on these is Skyrim). The only sources of absorption are:

Atronach stone - +50 spell absorption, +50 magicka, -50% magicka regen
Atronach perk in Alteration - +30 spell absorption
Dragonskin Breton power - +50 spell absorption

Spell absorption isnt capped, and can reach 100 points. From the above you can see that the easiest way to achieve this is temporarily with the Breton power. Another way thats achievable on all characters is with Atronach stone and perk (80%), plus the Necromage perk and becoming a vampire. Necromage applies its +25% bonus to spells and spell like affects that affect you, so it gives you an extra 25% of 80 absorption = 20, 80 + 20 absorption = permanent 100% spell absorption.

Spell absorption is hugely powerful not only because it completely negates all spell damage, but because it also adds the absorbed spells magicka cost to your blue bar. When fighting enemy mages, even with just 50% absorption you can keep your mana filled up with the spells that your absorption blocks.

Magic resistance is still important if you fail an absorption check, but if you decide to become a vampire with necromage to gain 100% absorption, magic resistance is no longer useful as every spell cast on you will be absorbed.

Getting to 100 Alteation, becoming a Vampire and taking necromage and atronach perks takes a while to do though, and up this Bretons simply make the most 'bullet proof' class in the game when fighting mages up to the highest difficulty. Physical enemies are still tough, but theres a spell in alteration that reduces pysical damage you take by 80%.

However if you plan to play a necromage vampire, its best in the long run to make a High Elf due to having +50 magicka, and eventually being able to gain 100% spell absorption anyway.

As a necrovamp, the 50% from the stone is increased to 62% and the perk (which stacks) is increased from 30 to 37, resulting in 100% atronach, immunity against all magic/poison etc.

Also I believe the magic resist cap isn't 85%, it just stacks in a way that can't exceed 85%, if you can get 100% resist on one item you will be immune to magic.

I think the stone+racial power combo isn't to overpowering as you can only use it one a day, the other two methods just take the fun out of the game, for me anyway.

If you're going that far you're probably going to have 0% gear as well, meaning that extra 50 mana is similarly worthless.

However if you plan to play a necromage vampire, its best in the long run to make a High Elf due to having +50 magicka, and eventually being able to gain 100% spell absorption anyway.

If you're going vampire necromage, you'd be better off with an Orc or Argonian. The orc's daily ability to lower your difficulty by two steps is always good; and I now have to wonder whether Histskin would be affected by necromage (not that it matters; x10 or x12.5 to your heal-rate, it still scales with Health.)

So.. do you even use any kind've 1H Weapon? Or a backup 2H?

Or just straight up Magic with that Heavy Armor? Oh and btw, nice way to almost fool me and think you're playing on an X360.. I knew something was up when you switched spells without even going to the Favorites.

You're really tempting me to do the same thing...

What issues occur with Conjuration due to the Atronauch Stone and/or perk in the Alteration tree?

Well, that's great OP. My Breton is a light armor/archer and squishies pose basically no threat whatsoever.

What issues occur with Conjuration due to the Atronauch Stone and/or perk in the Alteration tree?

Your atronach, dremora, and familiar spells have to pass your absorb chance to be successfully cast. Necromancy, bound weapons, and other spells aren't affected. If they fail, they at least refund your magicka.

Depends what character you play, for any of the magic using ones I'd say Altmer is the preferred. The Altmer racial power is boosted by necromage, so I imagine the Argonians is too.

Depends what character you play, for any of the magic using ones I'd say Altmer is the preferred. The Altmer racial power is boosted by necromage, so I imagine the Argonians is too.

I'd say Altmer and Breton both become no-racial races too quickly after you get the necromage setup, unless you choose to neglect enchanting. Three normally 25% gears made after Necromage are a total of 93.75% - close enough to full negation. That's without the improved alchemy / enchanting loop, which is even better since alchemy double-dips the Necromage buff...

That's not cool. I was looking forward to working up the Alteration tree with my new character but not anymore. I'll just steer clear of that one.

My mage uses the archmages robes (18% for all schools) then two items of 25-29% (boosted x1.25) for destruction, then some other fortify magic enchantments. I never have 100% reduction (max is 90% for dest) so the extra magicka is always helpful. Racial powers are useful too, insane magicka regen for 60 (90) seconds.

I hope they fix that someday along with the Elemental Potency bug that breaks summoning staves. I have been avoiding both because of these bugs.

It's really pointless overkill. Anyone can shrug off magic damage with just 2 resist magic enchanted items and the Agent of Mara buff.

How seriously does it gimp magicka regeneration? Against non magic casting enemies, your tank will run dry pretty fast.

It is only 50% less. That 50% can be offset by a single enchantment slot. The benefits of NOT getting Fus Roh Dah into the ground and pin cushioned by 300 damage ebony arrows, or disarmed and losing your weapon on cracks in the ground, far outweighs the disadvantages.

If you're on the PC, the Unofficial Skyrim Patch fixes both of these issues.