Love the game, nice difficulty, but now after 100+ hours on my first mage character (see avvy) my mage has been retired. Meaning I deleted her. Sad I know, but I'm OCD about only having one character going at a time. Now I'm starting a new character on Master difficulty and would like some general input on the build.

Race: Argonian
Preferred Standing Stone: The Ritual OR The Lord OR The Atronach
Perks Used: 80

SMITHING
Steel Smithing
Elven Smithing
Advanced Armors
Glass Smithing
Arcane Blacksmith
Dwarven Smithing
Orcish Smithing
Ebony Smithing
Daedric Smithing

BLOCK
Shield Wall (5)
Power Bash
Deadly Bash
Deflect Arrows
Elemental Protection

ONE-HANDED
Armsman (5)
Bladesman (3)
Fighting Stance
Critical Charge
Savage Strike
Paralyzing Strike

LIGHT ARMOR
Agile Defender (5)
Custom Fit
Matching Set
Unhindered
Wind Walker

ALCHEMY
Alchemist (5)
Physician
Benefactor

DESTRUCTION
Novice Destruction
Apprentice Destruction
Adept Destruction
Expert Destruction
Augmented Flames (2)
Augmented Frost (2)
Augmented Shock (2)
Deep Freeze

RESTORATION
Novice Restoration
Apprentice Restoration
Adept Restoration
Regeneration
Respite
Recovery (2)

ALTERATION
Novice Alteration
Apprentice Alteration
Adept Alteration
Expert Alteration
Magic Resistance (3)
Atronach

ENCHANTING
Enchanter (5)
Insightful Enchanter
Corpus Enchanter
Extra Effect

Points of Contention: On the Destruction side it may be redundant to have Augmented Flames / Frost / Shock all at once. I'm undecided on Flames because the bonus damage is great against draugr, but other than that the visual qualities of hurled fireballs is the only attachment to flame. Frost Cloak and Shock Cloak are obvious on a melee unit IMO since the stamina drain on melee units and the magicka drain on mage units gives a definite edge. But to hell with draugr who use magic, they make me sadface.

No interest in abusing the alchemy -> enchant -> alchemy dealie, so alchemy is mostly to make potions that fuel spellcasting, strengthen Destruction potency (great for passive Cloak spells) or the occasional poison... the poison is quite tempting since Master difficulty mages can be a right pain, and paralyzing a Forsworn Briarheart or the like would shift the battle right quick.

Lastly, race is Argonian because Histskin is a Godsend. 'Nuff said.

Opinions? Views? If 3 perks are removed along the way I can do 3 perks into Pickpocket for Extra Pockets, but that's more a matter of convenience.

Edit #2: went all the way to Glass on the Light Armor side of Smithing because aesthetically I love glass armor's appearance, especially since the color scheme works wonderfully with argonians. I also like elven and I know that either way I could fortify smithing enough to crank elven to the armor cap, but it's a matter of preference to the appearance of glass really. I know, silly.

I am currently playing master/spellsword, Ill edit this post later and post up training plan.

... well, I guess he really did mean later. Here I've been waiting for him to add stuff. Boo. Any thoughts in the meantime from other forum-goers?

Any perk that increases regeneration (magicka, stamin) is not worth it because the regeneration in combat is slowed down very much.
You will still need a potion even with these perks.

Try to stay away from frost spells (automatons are immune and nords are 50% resistant)

Bladesman is not worth it (crits count of base dmg so you won't really notice it)
Paralysing strike is only 15% chance, which means when you need it it won't activate.

Someone said block value perk does not do anything. Not sure.
Take the shield charge perk instead. Disarming bash is much moire reliable than back strike, and don't forget quick reflexes to block that power attack.

Also think about purity (alchemy) to remove negative effects.
Get a staff and get impact in destruction, staffs benefit from this perk.


One handed: -4 (bladesman, paralyze)
Destruction: -3 frost, +2 impact +1 disintegrate = 0
Restoration: -2 recovery
Block: -4 block value, +3 disarming bash, shield charge, quick reflexes = -1
Alchemy: +3 (up to purity)

That is a total of -4 perks against your list.
You can now take hack and slash if you don't mind axes or fill block value if it gets fixed.

Read on some post here that the shield wall perk doesn't actually do anything. That every shield regardless of the perk blocks the same amount.

http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=0000000000000000001000000000111000000000000000100002100000001110100001101013111003500011100100001111100000000100000110000000000531100000051110100051000100000000051111111

I might be going for something like this depending on whether or not Spellbreaker is effected by the Ward Absorb perk. Kind of a Knight Mage / Mage assassin build. Mage Armor still takes effect even with a shield equipped which might make it possible to hit the armor cap, and if not there is always Dragonhides 80% DR

Any perks in block are totally wasted, after you hit the armor cap a hide shield is just as good as a daedric or nearly as good. Unless you want the magic resist from holding up a shield, dont bother.

Not even for the offensive abilities? Knockdown, Bash damage + stagger and the Disarm?

I know the in-combat regen is dampened in general but the difference is very noticable if you stack regen bonuses. Take me at my word that magicka regen bonuses give you an effectively much larger pool of magicka for prolonged conflicts, granting more healing / ice spikes / fireballs / whatnot. I could have the perk benefit and +120% or more from equipment (+40% each from cuirass / ring / amulet) granting a great deal of regen. Regen is even more noticeable when you have a nice magicka pool as the rate of regen seems determined not by points but by percentage of total pool, so a character with 300 magicka will regen more points in ten seconds than a character with 100 magicka.

+50% Stamina Regen from the Light Armor perk is one that I'm undecided on since venison stew or the like lets me have an ample stamina pool of bashes and power attacks in prolonged conflict, but the bonus stamina regen could be nice in closing distance on archer units rapidly and the like. Either way it is 50/50 for me for the stamina regen.

I don't care too much about automatons being immune but the nordic resistance is problematic. I will take that under advisemant.

Seriously? So criticals are off of base sword damage? So for instance with me having 5 armsman and a highly-enhanced blade I'll only deal the base weapon damage (7-16 or whatever) in bonus damage? I hope I misunderstand you, because that would svck.

It depends on how I apply it. I wouldn't go about fishing for a paralyze when I'm about to be executed, but if it is a preferred power attack in close quarters the paralysis could be nice. I'll consider it.

Block effectiveness perks are broken? Dammit. Disarming bash it is, and now I doubt paralyzing strike all the more. Quick Reflexes more seems a thing for if I'm sleepy and playing for some reason so the game says, "Dangit wake up you're about to get brained by a mace!"

Considering it, once I get a better grasp of where the nice alchemical effects for destruction and some regens are I'll make a decision.

Staves... benefit from Impact? What? I don't understand. Impact's benefit at least in the game menu is for overcharged destruction spells. You're telling me a staff of fireball single-wielded will stagger an enemy that a hand-cast fireball will not with Impact perked? That's... bizarre.

have you considered taking a few points off destruction magic and placing it in cojuration to get he bound weapon perk even if its only up to double damage this way your bladesmen perk wont be wasted as the bound swords base damage will be the base Deadric sword damage DOUBLED for your crits
if you equip your bound sword with ONLY the double damage perk and check the damage rating it will list it as Base damage

i have heard that all your other perks also count as only Base Damage as strictly speaking a bound sword doesnt have an actual base damage if this turns out to be correct then a bound sword is absolutely the way to go (also frees up space for loot and if you ever become disarmed its only a spell away)

Keep Shouts in mind, see if there's anything you can save a perk on. The disarming Shout doesn't have that much cooldown, though noticeable.

Bound weapons aren't that good.

Improving weapons via smithing goes a long way to increasing their dmg.
By investing in smithing it won't be long since you can make and improve weapons beyond bound sword.

At lvl 55, and 55 conjuration, 85 one handed my bound sword does 26 dmg (perk would increase this by 40% to 36).
Any other weapon improved by smithing does more. A lot more.

Bound sword is not upgradable, I think it only takes dwemer / elven weapon to match its quality (with smithing ofc)

I think quick reflexes is great. It slows them down, but your shield bash animation stays normal speed. That means you end up interrupting a lot more power attacks than you would otherwise. One of my favourite perks.