I finally have had enough magicka to cast flame cloak on my battlemage and it is awesome. I wish it did more damage though but it looks really cool. What do you guys think of it?

Yeah, they're pretty neat. Personally, I don't use them too often if I can help it on my Mage as I'm not a fan of allowing enemies get too close to me. However, my Flame Atronach does use Flame Cloak I believe as a passive ability and that alone whittles down an enemies health pretty darn quick!

makes me want to try and make a build around that. Like dual wield swords and cloak spells or something. I thought about trying a hand to hand build with cloak spells earlier

That'd actually be quite a cool idea actually. You'd be a literal whirlwind of death!

i made a build with the perk calculator but it has archery because i want to try it and see why everyone likes it so much
http://skyrimcalculator.com/#79621
and ive never tried runes either

its nice at first but doesn't do a lot of damage later in the game and you don't want enemies to get that close to u at later levels.

But if it did more damage I'd use it more. Just another example of how magic needs a buff in this game.

Too bad the cloak spells don't scale.

Anyone try and use frost cloak to slow enemies down when they get close?

Exactly. Wanted to use it for a Battlemage type of character, but seems kind of useless later. Just like other magic that they went on about prior to release that don't have uses later in the game like flamethrowers and runes. I mean really, how much work would it have been to add novice, apprentice, adept, expert, and master versions of these in game? Same visual effect different numbers.

Lower your difficulty, problem solved. But it would be nice if spells scaled as flamethrower would be a lot bigger at level 100 than at level 1.

I hope to use cloak spells for my current character which is pretty off of the beaten path - she holds down spray destruction magic in one hand and bashes people with a mace or bound weapon in the other, so a cloak would just be a third source of continual damage. (preferably frost to drop fatigue).

How is it "problem soleved" when my point had nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with Bethesda touting their new spell system prior to release and then half the spell system useless later in the game? They talked about Runes and flamethrowers (which there is only one level so doesn't do much late game) and cloaks (again only one level so you can't use early or late game). You get a single target ranged spell at apprentice, but not another one until expert. The adept ranged is AOE so situational. Why not have lower and higher level AOE or Single target for the appropriate situation? Same for cloaks, flamethrowers, runes, walls, etc....

A thought. And I'm not a numbers cruncher here, but I was wondering if it would have been better to have damage/duration/effectiveness increase with the -cost perks. Like for destruction you would have:

Novice perk: Novice spells cost half as much
Apprentice: Apprentice spells cost half as much. And Novice spells base damage increases by 50%.
Adept: 1/2 cost adept spells, +50% base damage apprentice spells, +75% base damage novice spells.
Expert: 1/2 cost expert spells, +50% base damage adept, +75% base damage apprentice, +100% base damage novice spells.
Master: 1/2 cost master spells, +50% base damage expert spells, +75% base damage adept spells, +100% base damage apprentice spells, +125% base damage novice spells.

Maybe the % would have to be different, but at least there would be some scaling to lower level spells and would work with the +% damage elemental perks too.

For other schools they would be handled like the Fortify potions like increased durations or something.

Again, just a thought, but it seems without even a limited version of spellmaking the new spell system is lacking.

"Lower your difficulty' is the lamest excuse ever offered for imbalances.

All magic damage needs changed - not sure why Bethesda refuses to do so.

J

I never use them, they seem great if your a warrior type, but apart from that i dont allow enemys to get close to me~

Anybody ever use a cloak and Ebony Mail combo?How does it work out at higher levels?

This idea should be taken out for a nice dinner and given jewelry.

I like lightning cloak.

With the disintegrate perk I only have to wound things and it will take care of finishing them off.

I find the lighting/fire cloaks really nice for exploring nord tombs for two reasons, one I can hear the zot effect long before I see any undead moving around the corner or activating behind me and two all the lessor undead simply drop with no action on my part.

I have had good success using these with my light armor battle mage. I put a shield in one hand and a spell in another. Can you just stand there and let them take out opponents, well some but I don't consider them a main damager source. I like lightning for casters and flame for everything else. I am level 38 they still do decent damage for me.

I tried, they didn't seem to both work at the same time. It looked like the elemental cloak took over when it was in effect. Not 100% sure though.