Hey,

I am about to reroll and new character and thinking about using a sneak Archer. However I like to play really hard (Master), I also play on PC so I have mods that increase difficulty. Due to this sometimes you can't one-hit kill so illusion may help.

I want to use Illusion to supplement my character but it looks like it will be too overpowered. I've seen youtube videos and it seems to remove all challenge from the game, especially Muffle and Invisibility. I don't like being overpowered because I know I've won and there is little point carrying on.

1. What are your thoughts on illusion? Balanced or overpowered?

2. Also do you think it matches the role of thief (lore-friendly)?

Muffle and invisibility is not OP, you can still be detected easily with it if your sneak skill is not high enough, as for the others it is powerful yes, especially if you're dual cast but it has high magicka cost.

And it's not that strange that a thief would use magic.

No Illusion magic is not overpowered.

Harmony and the master spells are overpowered, it affects everyone within 50 feet of you.

It has very high magicka cost though. Unless you use enchanting that is.

illusion is overpowered if you want it to be. I have a mage character that's a master at illusion spells but I only use rage, fear and rally for J'Zargo and I use them because I can't get hit. one shot and I die. Of course if you are an assassin you can use a calm spell and then walk up to the enemy and backstab him, so some might consider that overpowered.

"Is Illusion magic overpowered?"

What?! Don't you be giving ideas to Bethesda. ( )

We've already lost Night-Eye, Silence, Charm and the true Invisibility spell (now it's just watered down Chameleon with an incorrect name), don't you be suggesting more "improvements"...

And no, it isn't over powered. While the Illusion school is powerful, you have to be very good at it in order for you to have that power. Master spells don't come easily and to get Illusion high enough to be effective all the way through the levels, you have to stick pretty much to it. If you treat it like a secondary skill, you'll level up quicker than the spells do. The sudden rush of power that you get in Illusion comes because you've worked hard for it.

And lore wise, read The Cake and the Diamond (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Cake_and_the_Diamond) for your answer. It's perfect for a thief.

No it's not overpowered. Illusion is one of the few schools were most of the spells are hit or miss. That is either they work and work very well, or you might as well be trying to slap a deathclaw with a butterfly.
Illusion isn't for everyone, but if you put the time and perks into it I find you can have a grand ol' ball with it. Still preffer destruction though.. just something about blasting a dragon out of the sky and reducing it to a pile of ash that never gets old

Nor does calming it while it gets attacked by enraged deer...

Is illusion overpowered? Depends on your skill level and the opponents that you're facing. At lower levels and against dragons, it doesn't stand out very much, but higher up, oh boy. At higher levels it can be game breaking. Draugr Deathlord too hard for you? Make him fight all of his friends in a death match and then you can kill the winner! Or just calm him and keep on walking by. Briarheart stole your lunch money? See who has the last laugh when the whole forsworn camp comes to beat his skull in. You can make almost any enemy do your bidding, and those that you can't you'll have the ability to sneak past.

Best school of magic IMO. It keeps scaling as long as your enemies do!

Oh dear god yes please don't use that word or they'll pull the very thing they're kind of infamous for: "Oh noez someone is actually smart enough to find -some game feature here- useful! We must remove it immediately!"*

Illusion was actually the one magic school that seemed completely buggering useless to me in its Skyrim incarnation.

*Edit: I am exaggerating, but only a little.

I thought Dragons were immune to all Illusion spells?

Topics like this crack me up. After putting all that time and perks into a skill, would you prefer it to be worthless?

- Master level Illusion spells are useless. Dual cast expert ones can affect higher leveled targets.

People who say it's not overpowered have no idea what they're talking about. Calm go into sneak behind the enemy, sneak attack, calm, go behind the enemy, sneak attack. Repeat until enemy dead. Fear anything away from you indefinitely. Calm everything you cross paths with and walk through a dungeon without killing anything. Use Frenzy to make every enemy in a group die except one. Use the calm, attack, trick to kill the remaining one. There are so many ways to abuse illusion and it totally allows you to do that. Yea I get that it is a player choice. Certainly you can use restraint to make it somewhat ok. I never use the calm spell like that but it doesn't change the fact that it is overpowered. There should be cooldowns on such spells to prevent them being spammed or once an enemy is attacked they should not be able to be calmed any more. Unfortunately they have absolutely no control on these spells making them completely imbalanced and so powerful that you should never be hit by anything in the game especially combined with a high sneak skill.

Speaking of sneak, with a 100 sneak skill (very easy to get) I can muffle and go invisibie (indifinitely I might add) and sneak through an entire dungeon without even being detected once. How the hell is that not overpowered? Yea don't try to tell me illusion isn't overpowered. I have a lvl 50 illusion conjuration mage with around 200 hours and I know exactly what they are capable of.

Just.....stop. Don't give Bethesda anymore ideas on how to [censored] the magic up further. Please.

There is a cooldown. It's called your mana supply. Want a cooldown? Don't enchant any fortify illusion gear and see how fast your magic runs out.