First things first, I'll be playing on adept, unless things get too easy, which I don't think they will.

I have played mages with conjuration and illusion, and both make the game too ez mode and therefore too boring for me. So I'm trying to come up with a pure mage build that is more challenging, but not totally impossible.

Basically I'll be maxing out destruction, alteration, and restoration. However, I'll also be putting points into the conjuration tree purely for necromancy. I know necromancy is nowhere near as powerful as just conjuring up stuff, but I'm hoping that will make it more of a fun challenge.

Basically my resurrected zombies will act as enough of a distraction for my enemies so that destruction remains somewhat viable. Hoping to be robe only and buff up with alteration.

Thoughts? Thanks!

At lower levels necromancy is alot of fun,but it can be challengeing to keep reanimates going.

At higher levels once you get the dead thrall perk it's probably even more powerfull than just conjering.

My thoughts about necromancer characters is to play them as neromancers and not destruction mages,simply because you will get good at one or the other and forget about the one you didn't get good at.

Don't underestimate the powers of necromancy so quickly. Conjuration is one of the easiest skills to enhance, so you will be able to use more powerful reanimation spells sooner in the game. Trust me, keep practicing Conjuration and you'll be using the "Dead Thrall" spell in no time!

In addition, if you don't wish to devote all of your time to Conjuration, you could become a "Necromage". This is a dark mage who dabbles in more than one school of magic, including necromancy.

Expert makes things interesting for us mages, its when our damage decreases and we start seeing some really low hits on enemies due to difficulty + resists.


Conjuration. Great Tree that allows for Permanent follower(s) when maxed. Perked it allows you to have two Dead Thralls/Atronocs/Daedra. Personally I don't perk this tree because I find having two permanent dead thralls overpowered. One can also be pretty damn OP at times.

Restoration. Amazing Tree regardless of Class. Respite allows us to not have to increase Stamina for more... Stamina. 80 levels just focusing on Health + Magicka? Pure Mage FTW! Ward Absorb makes fighting other mages, and Dragons an abo[censored]e Joke at times. This coupled with the extremely low cost after a while, and the increase in Armour (80 for Greater, gives us mages an Armour cap of 430 with Mage Armour + Lord Stone.) Necromage makes fighting undead a Joke. It also allows your Vampire mage to be Overpowered, Adding a 25% Bonus to any spell he casts on himself. Duration and Effect is increased by 1/4th. Magicka Recovery can be so/so 1 perk for 25% for the next perk in the tree could be worth it. 2 perks for a free 50% boost can be nice, but it's not amazing due to the low recoveries in combat. Avoid Death can be your personal Oh [censored]! button that you never have to press, automatically does it for you =]

Alteration. This tree can be anybodies friend. Mages (Pure mages, Heavy/Light armour can rot! You bleedin' Wannabes.) this is their best friend. The only (See above quotations.) Possible way for a "Pure" robe wearing mage to achieve a decent armour rating. Ebony Flesh + Mage Armor (3) = 300 Armour. Add this to the Lord Stone and the Wards from Restoration and we can achieve a good damage resist %. Couple this with Necromage and we have even more of a resist! (Haven't tried that perk out myself yet.) Magic Resist and Atronach Perk make Dragons and Mages much easier than before. Atronach is nice in that it can help more than any abysmal magicka regen.

Destruction. I loved this skill once upon a time. Nowadays it's a complete joke. I found that the only spells (without 100% cost reduction, I never use it.) worth casting, even with the augmented damage perks from the other two elements, was fire. Incinerate coupled with the damage perks, + 15 Damage from Aspect of terror does the most damage of any other spell, except trashy flame blast. The master level spells are also just terrible. The amount of time required to cast these makes them completely useless at the higher difficulties.

The only perks that make Destruction viable at higher levels/difficulties is definitely the Dual-Cast + Impact perks. This is the only way you can compensate for your decreased damage and weak attacks. Chain Staggering your opponent. (Feels like cheating sometimes to me.) Even though it doesn't work all of the time. You will run into enemies with higher fire resists couple this with Master Difficulty and the fact that we do only 50% of our meager damage there, I find myself eating dirt a lot. Even with 860+ Mana I find myself out of mana almost constantly, and this is using 60-64% reduction in Destruction Costs.

Destruction is best used at those lower levels, after it's maxed and around level 35-40. You will really start to notice just how little damage you do once comparing your spells to NPC Spells.

I'm doing a build with focus on Destruction. I'm allowing myself Restoration and Alchemy, but no alteration or enchanting or any other school of magic. I saw a thread about a limited build like this couple of days ago. This kind of focused build makes the game to play out at very low level. I will probably finish the main quest and college of winterhold quest and not go over level 20.

I'm level 10 now it's going relatively smoothly, now that I have impact. I was dying a lot to fights against mages but it's much better now that I have Atronach stone. Most fights are about managing magicka consumption and keeping them short. That means I use Flames on toughest enemies. Otherwise I'd go through my entire supply of magicka potions in one fight. I've come to appreciate how magicka efficient concentration spells are. It's a lot more efficient than advertised. You need to hit them with tiny puff of flames or short burst of frost and it will continue to do the damage for another second after you hit them.

Most powerful artifact I have now is Gauldur Amulet fragment, which gives me 30 magicka. I'm thinking of getting 2 other pieces to make the full amulet. I'm always looking for moonsugar and Eidar cheese wheel to make Elsweyr fondue.

Level 10, Destruction 45, Restoration 31, Alchemy 16. Magicka 280, Health 150.

thank you everyone for your input. gives me a lot to think about.

I've never played a mage in this game, but I got Dead Thrall on my Assassin chick just for the hell of it to raise NPCs that are asses and none of the higher level NPCs I've Dead Thralled have ever been killed so it's not a punk spell. FWIW I was past LVL 50 so the enemies would've been maxed out.

Why not try a vampire mage it would be a hard but it would keep the game from getting boring