Let me preface with the fact that thus far I love the game overall, am a PC elitist, I've only had 1 crash in a full day of playing 2 characters, dislike greatly some of the interface changes (and no hotkeys for the pc, at least that I can find, so I hate the "Favorites" system). Some of the story lines and huge lore changes I disagree with/vehemently don't like, some I love, but that's for another thread.

A pure mage is not a viable character in Skyrim.

The magic system in Skyrim is abysmal. Unlike melee, where even with no stamina and no ability to do power moves, you can still swing your weapon. With no magicka, you can't do anything as a mage except run.
The spell costs are not even high, they are stupendously stupidly high.
Beyond the fact that cloth has no armor value and enchanting stinks as bad as it did in Oblivion (yeah, the ability to put one buff on a piece of armor..yay), which makes pure mages take a horrible beating compared to a character even in light armor. A mage will be out of magicka right after the fight starts, and carrying around 200 magicka potions is not a viable means of trying to go on as a mage character.

Finally, removing spellcrafting from the game just adds insult to injury to those of us who wanted to play a mage, Bethesda. You could have made a vastly improved spellcrafting system (even though the one in Oblivion was pretty good as it was, especially after adding the Supreme Magicka mod) but instead, you pretty much guaranteed no one will be able to play a mage in Skyrim, and if they even decided to suffer through some how (god mode for the win I guess) why bother when, without spellcrafting, the magic system is boring by default.

Oh yeah, on top of all that, thanks for putting in all the little stories about npc mages researching this spell or creating that spell. Seems the npcs can do it, but the players can't.

Can't wait til mods start rolling out to change all this mage abuse. However, it would be a helluva lot better Bethesda, if you put out a patch to add spellcrafting and reduce the grossly high magicka costs of simple spells, let alone the higher end spells. Evidently some "savant" at Bethesda thought a mage could actually kill 5 bad guys when only able to cast enough spells that can actually kill ONE bad guy. Better yet, I want someone at Bethesda to make a mage, use only the spells in the game, and just try to kill a giant and his pet mammoth on your own. Let me know how that works out for ya...

By the way, to reiterate, I'm talking about "pure" mages here, not battlemages.

To end, no I'm not nerd raging, no I'm not frothing at the mouth (any more than normal) no I'm not even shrieking a little bit. This was my discovery of creating a mage and trying to play him, and subsequently deleting his worthless carcass.

I disagree. I find magic very improved over previous installments.

To the point that instead of never making a pure mage, my main character is a pure mage. It's very easy, if you use your spells correctly.

ITT: Wizards thinking Destruction is the only school of magic

You're a Pure Mage. Use everything you have.

I am pure mage, and I don't have a lot of hard time (I play on expert difficulty), but I wish expert or master spells would roll in sooner.

I agree with the OP so far. At least in Oblivion I had access to an early invisibility spell that could save my backside. Have not found one yet but have not been to the mage training city.

I dont know how your playing the game but the way i am im a very powerful mage with being able to charge my magic or combine it with another to get a double effect makes you pretty powerful and robes can have more than one enchantment ya know. The spell cost are petty good and anyway they all go down by half once you get the perk and once you get a good % of regeneration things become much more easier.

LOL Ok, ok, explain how, in what universe, the magic system is possibly improved? You have less spells that cost more magicka than ever to cast and no spellcrafting at all, so go ahead and explain that, if you would

Eh? I find magic quite useful and I'm looking forward to do a full mage. I'm not even a super mage with my assassin, but I can cast 4 ice spells with a single magicka bar and 2 of them will make the opponents have so little HP a dagger slash will kill them. And the spells travel through all enemies in my way. Quite useful when I enter a room and get seen, shoot away all 4 uses I have and the room is cleared. And as I said, I'm rolling destruction in addition to archery and daggers, and I think magic is very powerful. (I OHKO with a stealth attack with daggers and my bow deals very big damage, but the spells really clear a room and bunch of enemies faster than any weapon I'm using).

Translation: I can't one shot dragons with fireball. Bethesda..please fix your broken magic system.

It's more fun, first of all.

If you know what the hell you're doing, it's vastly more powerful than melee. If you actually play like a mage, it's one of the most enjoyable classes and systems in any game.

You can't just run in, guns blazing, and expect to win. Unless you're on Novice or Apprentice, you're going to get torn apart. Because, to get the extremely powerful use of Magicka, you had to sacrifice armor. Or not, if you so choose. You can wear Heavy Armor and be a mage as much as you want, and it'll work.

What I see from you is you put on robes and tried to be a mage as if you were playing Oblivion, which doesn't work. You have to play it smart, and use every School of Magic to it's full potential. Using just Destruction is a quick way to get yourself killed unless you know what the hell you're doing and bring several health potions.

Your argument about magicka running out to fast is laughable, at best. I rarely run out of magicka, and it recovers quickly if I do. I don't know how you got in such a bad system, but I know it's not the games error, because it works perfectly for me.

have you tried staves? they would help you out alot I think, I'm a dual weilder who uses destruction healing axes and maces and my spells do just fine. The enemy weaknesses to certain elements could be improved but other than that I'm not having too much trouble.

Clearly he just feels let down that he cannot play as a Mage as he intends in an RPG apparently and i quote "The Legendary freedom of choice -unless you're a mage lol-

OP didn't even mention Dragons but since he is on the PC he is lucky and could probably find a mod whereas I and others who feel the same could not. Please read peoples posts in future since you just make yourself look childish.

1. Pull up Favorites menu
2. Mouse-over the skill/weapon/spell you want to hotkey
3. Hit the hotkey (1-8) to assign it
4. Profit

This is in the Manual, page 7.

I am playing on Master difficulty and as a pure altmer mage. I have found that being a pure mage is extremely good and have no trouble fighting almost any enemies. I have only increased my health once and my stamina once, and that was at the beginning, now I allocate all my points to magika. It is useful to use dragon shouts when you are low on magika and I wear all robes that allow me to gain magika faster; I can even cast an alteration spell that gives me 120 armor rating so that my mage is a lot less killable.

tl;dr You are probably doing it wrong.

P.S. - Do altmers have weakness to magika in this game? as far as I can tell they do not.

Pure mage (nord) here, too. Currently i'm using mainly fire atronarch + fireball and it pretty much kills anything non-bosslike before my magicka runs out.

/edit: playing on expert difficulty.

I am enjoying Skyrim, but I miss the custom spell making and enchantment altars. The magic system in Skyrim does have some useful and interesting new features but they do not replace the ability for mages to personalize their game play by crafting spells. I never really wanted it as an entry level feature, and would have preferred that the capability be awarded after graduating, or at least attaining a specific ranking in the college of winterhold. I knew the capability was removed going in, but was hoping the skill trees, perks and other new aspects would compensate. At this point, I am hopeful Beth would consider a new wizards tower dlc, that includes the traditional spellmaking/enchantment altars. I would still require graduation, or a certain mage ranking in the game to use these features in the dlc.

^This.

Magic costs are not that high, and there are a variety of spells available. Pure mage is a very viable class; possibly moreso than pure warrior in regards to dragons.

Can't you use staves?

It's terrible. You shouldn't be forced to take perks in conjuration as a mage in order to be viable.

It would be like making every other character take Two-Handed. Bethesda [censored] up hardcoe.

Everyone here saying they have "powerful" mages are likely playing on the lowest difficulty and haven't even reached level 15 yet. Mages both do less damage and can take less damage before dying than thieves or warriors. There's supposed to be a trade-off here. Squishy-as-hell mages are supposed to do high DPS. If they're balanced right, they shouldn't NEED a companion to soak damage. Even MMOs understand this...Mage vs Warlock/Summoner, two different things. Both should be viable. In Skyrim, only one of them is.

Actually what SKyrim has forced me to do is actually untilize all my spells.

I almost never used calm, frenzy, or rally spells. Sheild spells alwayts felt arbitrary in Oblivion, (they were useful in Morrowind though), but now I'm really hacing to think of all spells.

Calm is actually extremely useful for getting out of hairy situations. the ward spells are quite useful as well if you act quick enough to put it up. Summons are also your best friend.

like others have said you have to use all schools of magic.

the outrageously high cost for spells is countering the fact that you can cast all of them at lvl 1. There's a reason why those perks exist that reduce the cost of spells as you get powerful.

you do have to be clever. Also alchemy is your best friend as potions that increase speech/other schools of magic or utility skills are very useful.

I find that the thinking in Skyrim is a bit more tolkenish rather than D&Dish. The idea that your a "mage" and he is a "bard" and that guy over their is a "Warrior" is all very sort of class / role based thinking that really doesn't have a place in Skyrim. In the same way Ghandalf would whoop your ass with a staff or Anwen would slice you up with a sword, mages aren't really just mages. Skyrim character mechanic seems to be geared towards players sort of building a character with more flexibility than "Im a mage, I never swing anything.. period". If your a mage, great... that doesn't mean you have to exclude the use of a dagger with a few skills behind it to give it some umphf, or a mace to bonk a guy to buy you some time.

I think its fine that players want to challenge themselves and try to play the game without magic, or without learning to use a bow or something, but expect that to be a greater challenge than if you simply embrace the game mechanic as a whole and diversivy as the game is sort of designed for you to do.

I'm playing pure mage on the hardest difficulty and am shocked at how amazingly powerful it is.

Paralyze for anything,
Mage Ward
Fire on undead
Electricity staggers for mages
Armor shields you can just pop and switch to another spell
Restoration barely drains magicka
The Charm spell thingy you can do from sneak

Be sure to stay stocked with magicka/health potions along with their regen counterparts.
Also, constanly use line of sight and be cautious.

I'm level 18 and have taken 2 health and the rest magicka. My mage is awesome right now and I am shocked that anyone would say that they're weak. Perhaps you just weren't cut out to play a mage.

I mean, as a pure mage, your options should probably be either blow everything up with one massive spell or run the hell away.

In my opinion mages are the sorts of characters who are truly glass cannons, and need someone to protect them, or else they will get hacked to bits.

Pure mage = stock up on potions

I've never conjured anything and I play on the hardest difficulty and am level 18 at the moment and have gotten through some incredibly difficult encounters. I do have a follower though. It's another mage...