Hey everyone. I'm planning out a necromancer build, and I need a little bit of help. I want to take perks in these skills for sure

Conjuration (everything but dual cast and bound weapon perks)
Restoration (necromage/recovery/adept.. not a primary school more utility)
Destruction (frost/shock for damage because I will not use weapons aside from a dagger stealth kill here and there)
Enchanting

I need help deciding whether I should invest in illusion or alteration for my last school of magic. I won't be wearing traditional armor so alteration appeals to me (also for the paralyze spells and detect life/dead spells). However, I think illusion could be interesting because I could control my enemies (much like curses from the Diablo 2 necromancer if anyone played that). I'm leaning towards alteration only because I plan to use illusion on my assassin (illusion/sneak/archer/onehand/smithing), but I don't mind using illusion for the necromancer if it would 'fit' better. Thanks for your help and any suggestions!

Casting a paralysis spell would be good for a necromancer, so I don't know how much alteration you want to get into but that's a thought.

That's my conundrum . I'm going to go heavy into alteration OR illusion, but not both. I think I'm leaning more towards alteration, but I just wanted to field some opinions to see if anyone had experience.

Skyrim isn't a strategy game... do what feels right and you'll be fine. There no reason to sweat over a build like there is in other games.

Illusion ceases to be useful at higher levels unless you invest heavily in perks, whereas you can use a bit of alteration with a much lesser investment. So if you decide on a change later, makes more sense to invest in illusion, then take a few spare perks in alteration if you think you are missing out.

I prefer Illusion. Do it right and you have much less use for alteration. Plus it costs far less magicka.

Also, aspect of terror perk at 50 Illusion give a fire damage bonus. I feel this is important because it doubles flame spell damage which makes it strong enough for support use without having to develop destruction. If you're to spend resources on destruction then it's not so important.

dont think you need illusion, its main job is to keep enemies away from you (fear, fury) but thats the same thing conjuration do (summon) so imo go alteration

Generally I only mix destruction with an Attronach build since you can prevent collateral damage this way.

I am doing a necro next, and the build will be

Conjuration -> Necro perks, only summons dead
Alteration -> Armor perks, magic resistance perks
Restoration -> Necromage, Recovery and Avoid Death
Enchanting -> Defences
Alchemy -> Poisons
Uses a dagger to deliver poisons and soul trap black souls, goal is to forge an ebony dagger into a daedric dagger using conjuration

Beware that the Elemental Potency perk breaks summoning staves, so if you take it your Sanguine Rose and other summoning staves won't work. For a necromancer, I would consider not taking that perk.

Eh? Guess I hadn't heard about that bug... does it mean you can't use the staves at all, or is there some other issue?

If you're on PC, the unofficial patch fixes that.

Hm... Well always he destruction staves since a good amount of your magicka will be used up on reanimating dead stuff.

Also, "Always keep your magical weapons charged."

You cannot use summoning staves. Other staves like destruction staves work just fine, but summoning staves just won't work.

This is what the UESP says:

• "Summoning staves (e.g., Staff of Fire Atronach, Staff of the Storm Atronach, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Sanguine_Rose) won't work if you have the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Elemental_Potency perk."

I am on PS3. I wish Bethesda would make it offical and fix it for everyone.

That is why I give summoning staves to me followers.

I have not gotten to 100 yet with my summoning character although I am close. My plan is to go up the necromancer side of the tree to get twin souls. Sure my Dremora Lords could be 50% stronger with Elemental Potency, but how much do you really need 50% stronger Dremora Lords? Even the regular old garden variety of Dremora Lords seem pretty darned tough.

And Atromancy seems like a bit of a wasted perk once you get the thrall spells. So that saves me some perks and gives me the flexibility to have twin zombie thralls or twin Dremora Lord thralls and still use summoning staves if I want to.

I see where you are going at but I personally prefer Dremora Lords over Zombies thus my conjuration perks are on that side. Also, there are NO Dremora Lord Thralls.

Before you ask, "Zombies" creeps me out in Skyrim.. It is just how they are talking... Makes me feel bad..

No Dremora Lord Thralls? That svcks! Thanks for pointing that out though. Do you know if there is a difference (and if so how much) in the strength of the Dremora you can summon with the sanguine staff and the Dremora Lord you get with the spell? I looked on the UESP but could not find anything definitive.

So thats why my sanguine rose did not work!

This. Why not use both Illusion AND Alteration to their fullest?

Sanquine Rose's Dremora is leveled. It's from Churl to Valkynaz. The spell always summons a Dremora Lord. Also, give the staff to your follower so s/he can summon a Dremora while you summon 1-2 Dremora Lords. That is what I recommon doing.

Thanks. Do you know if the level of the sanguine staff is locked when you acquire it, or does it go up in level with the player? Also, I thought I saw on another thread where you had two followers at the same time? Was I misreading that, or is there a trick I don't know about for multiple followers?

There is a glitch where you can get one Follower and One Dark Brotherhood Follower. I have Derkeethus and Cicero since they are essential. Idk how it happened either so don't ask me. I just went to do a DBH quest and talked to Cicero then notice the "Follow Me" thing was White and not Dark Grey, like it should've been.