Playing my Mage right now, and am still loving it!

Currently playing a sneaky illusion khajiit who uses bound bow and sword. Most fun I've had with skyrim yet and I even turned off the HUD and using no fast travel or waiting for the first time ever. I want this playthrough to last longer than most others.

Magic is great fun as long as its not destruction.

My favourite magic is Destruction which svcks.

Unfortunately I don't think this is something mods can fix. OK, to a certain extent sure, talented people like Midas can add interesting new spells. The problem though is more to the core of the game design, being the 1-hand 2-hand combat system.

There is just really not much you can do with a spell in one hand and spell or weapon in the other hand. Not without shuffling through menus and waiting for this game's version of the "global cooldown" animations when changing spells.

Speaking for myself, I have grown accustom to the complexity and rewarding synergy of "spell rotations" in the MMO genre. The ability to cast one type of fire spell, have it put an X-sec fire debuff on the enemy, then blast them with a heavier fire spell that gets amplified by the debuff. That is just a simple example.

How about dots? There are essentially no dots in this game whatsoever. I cannot imagine creating much variety in a role playing mage type without dots! (Weapon poisons do NOT count!) How about rain of fire/ice? How about dots that damage, dots that slow, and what of when the enemies get close?

I'd love to be able to frost nova a group of them to the ground for X seconds to allow me to get distance, without having to shuffle through menus. Or a shadow blast, or any other similar large-cone AOE which also seem to be absent.

To a certain extent these challenges could be overcome by creating new spells. It doesn’t require any skill with the CS to make a DoT, or even a nova spell that temporarily reduces stamina and thus movement to zero. The problem is the menu shuffle.

When only two spells can be active at a time, it is difficult to see how to avoid a boring rotation with this class of character.

Of course I suppose you could say it's just the genre. It is definitely better than magic systems in past ES games, minus spellmaking...

I built an Altimer Mage specializing in Destruction. At the lower levels until I got my Detsruction skills perked up, he got killed a lot when confronted by multiple enemies. So when I came across some steel plate armor, I put him in it and used my meager smithing skill to improve it and enchanted it after disenchanting some robes. He was now a "Battlemage." As he leveled up he became very powerful which was good as he carried no weapons. He was almost indestructible...and unfortunately BORING.

Although, taking on a Blood Dragon without so much as an iron dagger had it's moments. I deleted him anyway.

My favorite character is a "Jack of All Trades" Dunmer.

I disagree completely - admittedly Niamh is not a pure mage in any sense of the phrase whatsoever - but playing a mage in any capacity is a lot of fun and actually you have think about what you are doing a a lot more.
Same as anything though, you get out what you are prepared to put in.

Bull [censored], destruction isn't weak. 3-4 dual cast incinerates will kill a deathlord on master. Why say such vague wrong comments if you have no idea.

I find the assassin type character to be the most boring, shield 1h warrior and pure mage being the most exciting IMO.

Watching Deathlords running round like they are on really bad acid : master level Restoration never gets boring for me.

I use everything except conjuration and, imho of course, much more interesting than sneak/snipe, sneak/snipe, or block/bash/hit/hit, block/bash/hit/hit. For me. And yes I know I am simplifying and exaggerating.

I personally think one of the things that kills the fun of the mage cast is how its handled. I mean the mage is fun. VERY fun (compares to morrowind and oblivions boring animations and effects) but the real problem with us lies with one crucial element. Staves.

Yep thats it IMO. Staves are one of the coolest feature in skyrim and yet they are useless to any mage that hasn't maxed out their skill. This is because Staves DO NOT level our skills and as such thereis no point in using that badass 'wall of' staff you found until your maxed in destruction, or else you would lose your exp gain. I tried using a staff for a while, and it made me feel like a total badass with a spell in one hand and a staff in the other. Then I realized I hadn't gained a destruction level and forevor and I had to put my fun toy away in favor of progressing.

I would also argue that all the best mage gear is gained through the mages guild questline, so there is no point in playing past that as you will never find anything better.

The mod's author nickname is "xilverbullet". Midas is just part of the name of the mod...

sheeesh CRAFT them yourself , tailored made items specially for your use , and higher your lvl the better they are

I intend to use mods that enable me to avoid the MQ (by means of locking it out) and probably the use of CK to make towns and villages more believable in size, population and by factoring in quests/activities.

I agree 100% with you, though. Skyrim will always be Skyrim compared to the nature of Oblivion. Though I prefer the combat mechanics, the game lacks the overall immersion. Not necessarily because it was "dumbed down," but because it was developed with the mainstream in mind.


I'm a huge fan of ARMA: OA, too, so I'm looking forward to the ACE Mod and things of that nature too. (Dedicated combat taxi, here.)

The build is mostly for savoring some tasty Oblivion and Skyrim mods, though. Things along the line of expanded towns, deeper dialogue (voiced over or not), deeper quests, deeper action and of course, deeper content.

(We've all seen modded Oblivion and graphically speaking, it can look just as up-to-date as Skyrim does.)

Thank you I know how crafting works. The mask and the robes are arguably the best in the game (unless you are one of the people who would prefer making custom 'full destruction' robes I suppose) and enchanting and is so easily levelable we end up having insane magicka regen and reduced cost in no time. The point I am trying to make is that besides the few trinkets you get in the mages guild questline you never find any gear FOR mage builds. Its not like we can just find a daedric item to upgrade like a warrior or stealth character does. Thus the arguement for staffs. If they were more common and could level our magic skills they use that would add a much needed 'weapon' element to mage builds in the sense of upgrading. Otherwise they jsust end up sitting in my house all day until I can max the skill they use out so I don't have to worry about wasting valuavle exp gain.

Playing as a pure mage gets pretty dull. With my custom enchanted robes, finding loot that is actually useful to me is a chore. And because i have crap for carrying capacity i cant even bring the expensive stuff to sell. Playing as a battlemage or nightblade on the other hand is fun and balanced. I can cast thunderbolt or chain lightning for crowd control, use chillrend for most of my damage and use close wounds when my health gets low. Víola!

It's due to Skyrim's lack of guilds and guild quests. Morrowind had 2 guilds for "pure" mages: lots of quests, building your own stronghold, rising in the ranks... Ah good old days.

I find it considerably LESS boring than any other archetype. Stealth build get old when you 1- or 2-shot everything. Sword and Board is the most fluid and engaging warrior build, and even that gets old. Magic has more variety than the others. Not much, but still more.

Well....

Since I'm at level 34 destruction, 32 blocking, 28 heavy armor. Wearing Dwarven armor with Steel Boots, Gauntlets, and helm. All of which are enchanted...


...and I STILL get my ass kicked. Then yes. Statistically, Mages svck in this game. Bethesda is not good at doing... whatever they were doing when they implemented that.

I disagree completely with the OP.

For me a mage is clearly the most diverse and interesting type of character to play. I am actually surprised by the OP.

For a warrior you basically hit things with a weapon, usually some big heavy thing. For steath, you sneak and sneak and sneak, and sometime hit with a dagger or bow (I know archery is a warrior skill now but still).

But with a mage there are so many different spells and skills to use. Conjuration, Invisibility, Fear, Frenzy, Stealth (muffle), etc etc etc. I cannot see how that can be remotely considered boring. It seems by far to be the most complex character to play.



With due respect, I believe this is completely wrong.

Unless you believe that mage=destruction which it doesn't

But it could be that you do, since destruction is the only magic skill you mention. There is far, far more to magic than crude destruction spells.

You are not a pure mage, you are...something else. Not sure what. Battlemage, spellsword maybe.

Spellsword, but regardless. The only thing that disturbs me is that even WITH the armor I have, I get my ass kicked. I wouldn't be surprised if a goat could kill me.

Umm... it's a roleplaying game, so roleplaying a character is actually playing the game naturally.

Also, playing a warrior is actually pretty boring compared to a pure mage, especially since the AI cheats constantly. I mean, hack'n'slash is called that for a reason. A pure Destruction mage, for example, does not normally allow stuff to get into melee range. Same with stealth characters. Such roleplays are based on strategy and thinking, not wading into melee and hacking anything that moves.

I'm playing as Hatsune Miku right now (with my own extended version of the mod) so I'm playing the warrior with her negi melee attacks. It tons of fun playing her, of course, but the melee fighting is horribly boring compared to archery or magic.

Of course, magic was far better with spellmaking so that characters could be unique, but that's another issue that Beth needs to address.

As for content, well... Beth games are not about quests, but some people focus on that and wind up disappointed. Beth games are about playing an alternate identity and exploration of the world.

Nope, I'm never bored of playing a mage in this game. I get so much variety from it that it never gets dull for me.

Any advice or what you do? My first mage managed to last me over 100 hours but with this one I can't make it past 20.

I roleplay, I search for magical artifacts, I use skill I've never really used. My current mage is specializing in Alteration and is searching for magical artifacts to learn more about them (disenchanting them if he can). He continues this throughout the college questline.

For me the worst part of being a mage isn't even the lack of spellmaking but the horrific implementation of hotkeys and the favorites menu. I play on PS3 and therefore I am stuck with two hotkeys. Seriously svcks to try and get into a nice mix of spells to get through a battle when I constantly gotta pause the action just to switch spells.

In OB I would have at least 5/8 directions dedicated to spells for combat and the action never had to stop for me to switch them. The hotkeys in Skyrim are so broken that in order to switch using the hotkeys you basically can trade out two spells. But it can take several extra presses as the spell goes from R-L hands and so if you're just trying to get a restore health into your left it can be like three hotkey presses, then your ONE destruction spell needs another press to get back into right hand.

Sheesh.. no fun at all. I don't get the favorites menu. If we love the 'A' in Skyrim why slow it down into a crawl by pausing to a slow, composited menu to show selections?

Because of this I haven't gotten past 12 hours with my mage. I took him straight to college and through the MG questline and I was like "[censored], its over already?" Remember how awesome the MG questline in oblivion was? First an apprentice, then do stuff all over the place. etc etc..

And we won't even get into Morrowind. I think finding the damned mushrooms for whatsherface in Balmora took me longer than the whole Skyrim quest line

I am already reaching again to replay OB or FONV instead of Skyrim. Once you do all the main quest lines changing your character to re-do them is really not as much fun. I'm also replaying MW and its awesome becuase it has been so long since I played that lots of stuff is forgotten and fun again or epically nostalgic. Man just the table of faction dispositions for MW is jaw dropping. And Skyrim's role-playing is progress from this?