Hi again,

I'm trying to make sense of illusion.

Let's see...

we have to perks with low requirements:

Animage (20) Illusion spells now work on higher level animals.
Kindred mage (40) All Illusion spells work on higher level people.

And then we have 3 more perks with higher requirements and that are more specific:

Hypnotic Gaze (30) Calm spells now work on higher level opponents. Cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage.
Aspect of Terror (50) Fear spells work on higher level opponents. Cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage.
Rage (70) Frenzy spells work on higher level opponents. Cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage.

I don't understand how the bottom three interact with the top two. If kindred mage states that ALL illusion spells work on higher level people then how are hypnotic gaze, rage etc useful? What do they add??

Anybody?

Can you update the way they are linked..
These are really nice, but without that, not much planning can be done

Kindred Mage may only increase the level of affected target to about 40, with Aspect of Terror being required to cast fear spells on level 41-50 NPCs and Rage being required to cast Frenzy on them if that makes sense. I've obviously just made up these numbers to demonstrate my point.

Indeed... I'm assuming wards are like magical buffs? I'm not 100% sure what that means, but I guess it means if you put an anti-damage spell on, and then get hit with a spell, your magicka will be recharged. That sounds extremely useful, and a nice bit of synergy between Alteration and Restoration. Luckily I was planning on specialising pretty heavily on both with my pure mage


I'm not 100% sure myself, without knowing specific numbers. All I can suggest is that the phrase "cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage" is quite telling - say Kindred Mage allows Illusion spells to affect enemies 5 levels higher than otherwise, and Hypnotic Gaze allows Calm spells to affect enemies 10 levels higher than otherwise, I guess if you have both perks, your Illusion spells will work on enemies 15 levels higher than otherwise.

It is a bit confusing without knowing how spell effectiveness works - we've not seen descriptions of any Illusion spells yet, so we don't know details of any "max level affected" spells.

Still need to know how they branch of course, otherwise planning is still going to be vague. The Alteration and Restoration perks do make me want to be more magical than I was planning however. Maybe no Block for me

I've pretty much already decided not to perk Block, at least not much. I'll still use it, but as I'm planning on using a 2-handed axe instead of axe + shield, I figure I might as well spend my perks elsewhere. I'll still have good damage mitigation with an un-perked Block skill of 100, especially if I put just a few into Shield Wall (blocking 25% more effective, 5 ranks).

I've counted up what's on the wiki:

Alteration-14
Conjuration-16
Destruction-17
Enchanting-9
Illusion-13
Restoration-13
Magic-82

Archery-8
Block-13
Heavy Armor-11
One-Handed-21
Smithing-19
Two-Handed-19
Combat-91

Alchemy-12
Light Armor-10
Lockpicking-11
Pickpocket-12
Sneak-14
Speech-13
Stealth-72

Total-245

I think there are supposed to be 280. My guess is that if the list is (near) complete, there are quite a few multi-rank perks that aren't identified as such yet.

Either way, when I look for my "favorite" 50, I'm hitting the number way too quickly

Edit** Information is out of date; Archery ranks were added and the total for Archery skills is up to 16

mm...that makes sense. Thanks Sammu!

The three perks which make me want to go with block have not been laid out yet. These are: Elemental Protection, Riposte and Deflect Arrows. I love passive defensive abilities, so depending on how these turn out I will either go heavy armour tank of fire-raining mage.

Ward spells increase armor ( like oakflesh from alteration ) and give you a special shield that absorbs damage from spells.
Example:
Lesser Ward (weakest spell) : 40 armor bonus + 40 points of spells damage absorbed

Indeed - we've not seen what Riposte actually does yet, have we. Maybe it's an auto-parry effect, equivalent to the auto-slow-down-time Block perk - Quick Reflexes.


Aha, marvellous. That's quite pleasing, because I was planning on using that sort of spell anyway with my mage, so I'll definitely invest in that Ward Absorb perk.

Also, your avatar is adorable.

How exactly does 3 ranks work for that?

I guess it'll go:

Rank 1 - 100% stronger
Rank 2 - 200% stronger
Rank 3 - 300% stronger

Or maybe:

Rank 1 - 100% stronger
Rank 2 - 150% stronger
Rank 3 - 200% stronger

Either way, it makes robes a very viable option.

Alteration and restoration are fundamental for an armourless mage - they look awesome, but it means my one handed might have to take a back seat

Pure mage here we come!

Is it just me or are there some perks still missing?

Restoration : 12 perks on UESP wiki but there are 14 on the tree
Alteration : 10 perks on UESP wiki but there are 13 on the tree

Thank you, good thing you mentioned that, I need to go out with this monster before it wets the floor again
Oh Skyrim....so addictive....no time to......anything else

[censored]

This has really thrown the cat among the pigeons. They weren't kidding when they said it pays to specialise

There's hardly anything that I think I can do without in either Restoration or Alteration. I think my one-handed specialisation will just have to take a back seat.

Disappointing. I could do with another 25 perks really...

Some are ranked - Restoration has 13, alteration has 14

It's the best kind of disappointment, isn't it - where there's too many awesome perks and you're spoilt for choice

No, no I mean when you look at the trees themselves ( 3 part demo or UESP wiki ) you can count the number of 'stars' ( different perks ) connected by lines in the trees.

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. I've counted the stars too (which, incidentally, I think have changed over the versions) and they appear to broadly tally with the latest

Enchanting definitely isn't on UESP (in an accurate manner) yet

I dont think some of these skill requirements are correct. For instance,in the Destruction perk list: "Rune Master"-Place runes 5x farther away (SKILL REQ 40) ???

40 seems a little low to me and it's called "rune MASTER",.....does anyone else think that is wrong?

And if not,then what is the final perk for Destruction? "Master Destruction"-Cast master level spells for 50% less magicka? That's not too exciting for a final perk IMO.

I don't agree with your logic at all

Placing a rune 5x further? Not exactly game changing is it? I don't see why you'd need a high skill for that.

Some of the skills lend themselves to big bonus at the end. For destruction it's the finishers really - you could have a X% chance of killing anyone with a destruction spell, but it strikes me that it would be over powered.

Okay,you don't agree with the "rune master" logic that's fine. But what about the having "Master Destruction" as the final perk? Do you agree that is kinda lame and that something is obviously missing?

Considering Alteration's final perk is "Atronach"-Absorb 30% of the magicka of any spells that hit you.

OR

Conjuration's final perk is "Twin Souls"-You can have two atronachs or reanimated zombies

DO you get that logic,or are you too slow?

Chill out mate, what was that about? I'm allowed to disagree with you, don't take it so personally! Why resort to insults rather than debating a point properly?

The thing with Alternation and Restoration are they represent in some respect, collectively, genuine alternatives to wearing armour. They need to have that kind of major perk at the top of the tree

Think about destruction though - a ranged attack that could recharge quickly, but (for example) had a 15% of killing someone (like a bow does) would be too overpowered. Imaigine using the flame thrower spell that had that? It would absolutely destroy people.

The other thing to note is that there are several high powered perks e.g. increased damage for fire, frost and shock. You could already have boosted spells by the time you reach master, and having reached 100, all of a sudden you get access to new Master level spells that were previously unavailable - which I can only assume are pretty devastating.

So having reached 100, your mega-master level spells only cost 50% of the base cost, and are 50% more powerful - that sounds pretty good to me.

I agree that there's no specific "you've reached the max on destruction, have the keys to a mega bonus" type perk, but generally it seems to be a very, very powerful skill to have, absent any further bonuses. Just my opinion.

Note the lack of insult at the end of my post

It's the way you disagreed with me. You could have just said "I disagree"and then state why.....but no,you had to say "I dont agree with your logic at all".
Maybe you did'nt mean for it to sound harsh but when I read it that's how it sounded.

As far as the final perks go,I dont think it should matter what particular skill we are talking about.I think if you work your way up to the top of the perk list,that final perk should be something more exciting than "Master Destruction"-Cast master level perks for 50% less magicka.

You disagree with that,ok that's fine but I bet more people would agree with me in wanting a more unique and exciting perk at the top of the list.