tried wards early on, seemed really mana hungry, doesn't seem good to use with destruction (if you are playing that way) as it eats up your mana as well, am I wrong or looking at it the wrong way at all?

Oh man, no! Mages can actually have a very decent amount of armor! What you gotta do is pick up the "Mage armor" perk in Alteration. It's a 3/3 perk that multiplies the armor score of skills like Stoneskin/Oakheart by 2,2.5 and 3 (I think).

What the effectively means is by level 10ish you can have 120 armor by using Stoneskin, more than my equivelently equiped Heavy Armor wearing alt had (albeit no perks in heavy armor )

because the corpse will have still its power e.g. if you reanimate a Bandit Chief normal bandits wont have a chance and they are using the armor and weapons they have in their inventory. so if you are like me a necromancer type you will just give give them powerful armor and weapons and then reanimate them. besides at master level you can reanimate someone or something permanently and with the perk you can have even two. In theory that means you can have two giants following you permanently. i think thats powerful enough.

When I began the game, I was hoping for a similar experience that Oblivion offered. Loads and loads of spells, some of which are blatantly pointless but fun to use.

Mysticism, the school that was cut out, was largely about that. Pointless, but fun! Telekinesis for example was in it.

But another thing that was fun is that you always had something to work for. It was a nice challenge to fill your library with all kinds of magical effects, and it was fun to puzzle together intricate spells made up of brilliant effect combos. Spells grew stronger as you did, and you practically never had to say goodbye to any kind of effect because it was too weak. You could simply craft a stronger version.

The new magic system is downright miserable. Spell tomes are fine, but Alteration, as far as I can tell, contains five spells. I know there's supposed to be more, but there's no known way of getting them. Tolfdir at the college still offers only candlelight, magelight, oakflesh and stoneflesh, and I was extremely lucky to find Equilibrium lying around in a dungeon. I've trained Alteration over and over again, but no new spells show up anywhere. It's the same for Illusion and Restoration. Destruction is a bit better, although the first three spells in all three elements are copies of each other, and then there's the cloaks which are also copies, leaving only one unique spell for each of them. (Chain Lightning bounces only if the two targets are hugging by the way)

There is no growth in magic. It just stops. It plain ends after about five hours, when you have found all spells.

On top of that, the shape and power are bound together. Which means that even if you love the Flames spell, you're gonna have to give it up because eventually, it will stop working for you. Not to mention the perceived risk of Illusion's spells which are likely to stop functioning altogether.

This system has an immense amount of issues and weaknesses, and the old system should have been used. Magic in Skyrim might be more visually pleasing, but it is weak and stale.

I pray to the nine divines that Silverbullet will get his hands on Skyrim and will make another Midas Magic mod. That was without a doubt my favorite Oblivion mod.

I find that using Wards just before an enemy casts a spell costs less mana then healing up after being hit. It's important to remember that you cannot start the ward during their spellcasting.

Also, have you picked up defensive perks like Mage Armor, and the magic resistance one in restoration? Those were huge lifesavers for me. The less damage you take, the less mana you spend.

Im going necromancer now!

Not true. Altmer make me angry. Plus wouldn't you rather have 25% resistance to magic permantly, rather than 50 points of extra magic at the beginning? Bretons as mages, FTW.

I started as a mage lvl'd to lvl 8 and now rerolled to assassin. For me mage get quite repeatedly with spells not enough variation when you kill someone.

Being a single player game my aim for an RPG is to experience the most I can with a character. If available I always go battle mage, magic and melee, what's not to like? In this game the bow is a great sniper weapon, so that and sneak are also on the list for an even more rounded character. Some may say jack of all and no mastery for you. Since it's single player I'm not competing against anyone, so I rather have the whole spectrum open in my game play arsenal. This game does a decent job at battle mag'ing. The UI is in the way of making it totally epic.

The more I think of how I would fix it would be to have unlimited weapon sets that I could make and sort the order, hot key up to 10. But also have a toggle for the mouse wheel, so I can go into that mode where I can spin that wheel and change to any weapon set I setup immediately. Too many options I want to use and I'm not a fan of pausing and fighting, I like the whole experience of the battle live. This would really up the battle gameplay for me quite a bit.

ok, so it's technique on my part with the wards, so damage prevention is the key to your success, and it sounds as if you recommend the mage armor perk, I was unsure if it would compensate for not wearing armor.

What spells did they remove from TESIV? I have the game but haven't installed it yet. I'm assuming levitation and teleportation are not included yet again, right?

All conjuration, except for the Atronachs and the familiar, has been removed. All armor conjuration has been removed. I think there's also no conjured bow, but I'm not sure.

What is the max you can conjour at once 2? And to get that it's a ways up the skill tree. I find summoning in Skyrim to just one or two, very limiting. Another RPG very similar to TES allows a lot, like a dozen or more if you build it up. That's summoning!

glass cannon ftw! all points from leveling up went into magic at level 20 and around 360 mana with about 260% magic regen and 17% off for all spells. just wear elven boots and gloves and i'm killing everything. its awesome.

Teleport and Levitation are not in, no.

From what I've seen, the only things that got removed were due to mechanical reasons.. That is, there is no equipment endurance anymore, so things like disintegrate armour/weapon are no longer needed. Same with Stat spells, since stats are gone.


Aside from that, I can't think of any off the top of my head that are outright gone.

Incorrectomundo.

it totally does, I'm level 15 and am walking around with 160 armor rating. (no armor)

Feathering is gone, and it is needed now more than ever. Burdening is gone too, but I never used that. Waterwalking has vanished, which was useless but fun. Nightvision. Chameleon. All Fortify spells. Charm (or was that Midas Magic?). Telekinesis is supposedly still in there, but I haven't found it yet. And like I already mentioned, armor conjuration and most of normal conjuration. Spell reflection. Drain Health. (or is that a vampire only ability?) Silence too. And command.

Lots of stuff has gone missing, most of which has a place in the game.

I have heard of armor conjuration, weapon conjuration (used it myself), and daedra were still in...

How?!

Please!

The problem I had with mage is it seems poorly balanced for master difficulty. No matter what spell combinations you use you run out of magicka long before anything remotely tough will die. Your initial flames might as well be spraying the enemy with a water pistol for all the damage it does and the next level of spells does not compare to a good weapon. It became a case of not casting anything just so I could regen enough to resummon my minion after it died each time so I would not get 2 shot. Killing like this works just about but is slow and not remotely fun. I suspect it gets easier later on but it's extremely painful in the low levels.

Playing as a rogue or warrior type was far easier on master.

I've just started my mage.

UESP lists no armor conjuration, but it does list one Daedric Conjure. Dremora Lord.

There also happens to be a Command Daedra spell which I must've overlooked, but the only time I ever saw a Daedra so far is when my Wabbajack had turned a dragon priest into one.

I think the majority of people are either doing it wrong, or haven't bought enough spells. I'm level 11 and I can kill Frost Trolls, ''bosses'' and even a giant. I know it may seem obvious to some but always keep the gear your get from doing the Winterhold quest line. If you don't know the Winterhold is a mage college which will help you improve greatly.

Kid is genius.

Except the final quest of the College involves fighting a monster that

1) Turns whatever you summon against you.
2) Summons a storm Atronach
3) Uses Lightning, constantly draining your mana
4) Boasts impressive HP

What exactly where they thinking when they gave lightning Magicka sapping qualities? It doesn't even work on NPCs, only on the player.