I'm leveling a mage, my second char. My first was a nord warrior, got him to 40, this is an altmer mage.
Im running OOM very fast despite putting every level up towards magicka, and my lightning bolt duel casted with the lightning +dmg perk not killing things before I go OOM.
Help? Currently lvl 9.

Easiest way to solve this problem is to level up your enchanting. When you get it to 100 skill you can make your spells from 2 schools absolutely free, but even before you get there you can make a few items with fortify destruction that will really help you.

Alchemy can sort you out! Mana regen potions are a thing of goodness.

Lightning is the most mana inefficient damage type. Fire is the most mana efficient and does bonus damage.

Fortify destruction is quite cheap but should quell your mana woes. 25% fortify destruction on 4 items will mean free destruction spells.

get the perks that half magick cost , the main spells you use need half magick cost . makes a big diffrence. My mana has been fine outside the big battles now and then without using the cheesy OP trade skills.

Is it a big bonus to play a High Elf?

Because Breton is my favorite race, but I′m having mana problems since the beginning and am now level 10.

You're only level 9. Keep climbing the levels and things will even out, especially as you gain new perks and use less and less of your total magic pool for each spell.

It does help a bit in the beginning, but eventually your spells will be free to cast so the bonus from high elf won't matter.

Don't do this, waste of perks. Go with the enchanting route, much better. It's what it's there for.

How about a solution that doesn't include game exploits hmm?

With my mage I've been using the low level flame spell, fully perked of course, to destroy many enemies. I of course back up and dont let them hit me if possible. I can even kill frost trolls with it.

I dont think that you need to use the top level damage spell at least at the lower levels. I'm playing on adept and I'm near level 20 now with most of my perks in the destruction tree

:D

So simply using the enchanting skill is suddenly an exploit now?

The crafting skills are game breakers

:D

They are if you use them to buff each other. They are fine if you don't use any of the +enchanting/smithing potions or +smithing/alchemy enchants

Pretty sure stacking fortify [magic school] and ending up having 'free casting' for 2 schools was not intended.

Says you. Its actually the only way to make a mage playable at high levels/difficulties in this game. Plus the devs would have to be incredibly stupid to not realize that 25% reduction could be put on 4 different pieces of gear. They obviously knew it was possible and intended it to be so.

Its not like you have to stack alchemy and enchanting buffs to get to the 25%. That's the base number with 100 skill and a grand soul gem.

Additive stacking of reduced mana cost is stupid. Telling somebody that that's the proper way to play mage is just wrong.

Restore Magicka Potions aren't too hard to make, even are pretty cheap to buy the ingredients for, and you can use an unlimited number at once.

Currently its the only way to play a mage that's not incredibly frustrating (constantly waiting for mana regen) or just plain boring (watching your summons kill everything while you twiddle your thumbs).

Use a Bound Bow from conjuration and you'll have damage which scales to your level unlike destruction spells, exact same ability to hit at range and unlimited ammo that you could have with destruction and almost minimal downside. Low mana requirements means you can invest in health and stamina, you also get summons to front line for you with conjuration. Heck, you may even decide to invest in the archery tree some for even more damage output and sneak for x3 damage sneak attacks. Nothing like one shot sneak attacking a mammoth with a conjured weapon.

To the OP ... I tried several different destro mage builds for solo master. The 6th or so one I play right now is simply :

* Use destro as often as possible. You want to level up with that, not with crafting or anything else.
* Main schools of magic - destro, resto. You want reduced magicka cost, higher dmg and heals etc.
* Survivability - beforementioned resto, alteration, illusion is possible, conjuration is very strong. I do resto, alteration and block.

The way to not run OOM in fights. Dont cast all the time. When you are casting, you are not regenerating any mana ... do small bursts. For melee you use fire/frost. For mages you use lightning till they pull out their daggers or die. Also there are fights you play to burst enemies down and there are fights you play for sustain. Example frost wolf you want to burst. Dragon you want to sustain.

I am not sure what levels are you talking about, not the levels OP is talking about. Maybe when you are lvl 40, have finished most of the game ... then it's time to go nuts with enchanting. Having to work with your mana limitations is part of mage gameplay.


Only downside of this is that for that spell you need 50 conjuration and only one mage vendor has it. Not something you can do from the start.

They sure didn't realize how overpowered 100% chameleon would be...

If you want to learn to work with your mana limitations simply keep your enchanting skill around the same level as your destruction skill. You don't need to jump right up to 100% reduction. Just getting a few pieces with 10-15% reduction will help a ton. The only options right now for mages are reduce the cost of your spells or drink tons of potions since currently mana regen in combat is pretty much worthless. Unless of course you like running in circles for minutes at a time to regen your mana...