Well you guys never had the joy of creating your spells and you can't miss what you never had. (I read that it is your first TES tell me if i'm wrong)

LMAO

I have 100 in enchanting, 100 in destruction, 100 in alteration, 100 in conjuring (level 48 mage)

lets me tell u this, I can own 10 dragons and an army of deadra without breaking a sweet and btw my alchemy is 85 now

I conjure 2 storm golems then i fire my lighting death ray of doom and [censored] just vaporizes everywhere.

as long as I don't get hit with arrows or melee I'm safe (got 2 shotted by a frigging falmer arrow EVEN with dragon armor spell on )

so my mage is a glass canon that shots nukes

Built your character wrong.

For most classes in Skyrim, building your class wrong means Master-difficulty has been accidentally broken and the game is too easy.

My smith/enchanter/one-hander broke the game at level 27.
My conjurer/archer broke the game at level 10; Bound bow beats every other bow in the game by lightyears unless you pick up smithing and enchantment and make a better bow.

My destro-mage was brokenly useless at level 17, and reading on the forums, only exploits can improve her to the point of usefulness.
In D&D, she's a elemental, necromancy and alteration-caster.
(Death-spells, elemental damage and slow, haste, transmute effects -- not summoning).
I even perked into armor with her to keep her alive.

Destruction is not good without the -100% casting cost exploit.
I call it an exploit, because "free ulimited magicka" doesn't make much sense.
Considering some spells cost 1400 mana, 0 spell cost...

I just can't help imagining the items with the enchantments glowing red and melting after 4 seconds of supplying infinite mana to the caster at the rate of 1400 mana per second.

I lived without a % reduction for a long time (excepting the robes) because I mistakenly thought regen was a better option. Then lived with a partial % reduction until level 35 or so, and finally bothered with a 100% reduction when enchanting hit 100.

Call it what you want, it's a game mechanic.

Started with Daggerfall. Magic never felt "fun", only exploitative and rendering pretty much everything else pointless. Spell creation didn't help, because all magic felt useless (and overpowered wrt utility) at the same time, unless you dove into spell creation in all its exploitative glory (absorb fireball thrown into wall anyone? I've since matured as a gamer though).

Spell creation was broken.

This is what I'm thinking about doing

:D

Let me guess you say it was broken because you chose to have extremely powerful spells. It added options to us magic users. I did not create extremely powerful effects for all of my characters. I only did that for a few, I made spells based off how I wanted my character for a roleplaying perspective. Skyrims system is limited and lackluster without the additional spell types we have lost and with the lost of spell creation, the backbone of the magic system in TES.

Nice idea. Really. Shame they didn't also design a menu system that actually makes such a playstyle viable. As it is, combat for a caster using multiple spells is horrendous, with constant freezing of time and menu trawling. In short, turn-based combat. Totally blows any immersion. In fact I rate it one of the worst interface designs in video game history. I deleted my Mage at level 12 and restarted with an Archer, it was so bad.

Paralyze. It succeeds on most enemies regardless of level.

You can then proceed to
1. throw a triple fire/frost/shock wall
2. soultrap them
3. train your one-handed
4. or best of all, roll them down a hill

My favourites are to invisible + muffle before running in to cast mass paralyze and then set the whole place on fire.

Did you try using the favorite hotkey system? It still svcks but you can definitely pull off multiple spells without stopping the game.

(remains silent)....

whispers, not everyone laughs out loud, some people ltt... laugh to themselves

i had trouble with mage, having played other elder games i am used to lots of spells and spell options. aka oblivions enemies explode spell... ahh the memories...

what i don't understand, given todd's penchant for visceral warfare, where is the invert zombie bomb spell?

After playing through once with a Spellsword I thought it'd be fun to do a full on Mage. RIght now at level 10 I'm not real thrilled about it. I don't know, I'm using the various types of magic in conjunction with one another. So combat wise I hold my own well enough, haven't died once so far. Tried going pure Destruction but that fizzled fast, just not strong enough to stand by itself. Just find it weird you really have to use Conjuration everytime you get in a fight, I get the point of having a meatshield and all but still. Its just not as engrossing as melee was, probably because of the endless favorites menu trolling i have to do (console) bogs down the whole process. I'm going to finish the College questline and start something else. Sadly magic will never be more than secondary for me.

My Highlight

IMHO playing a pure mage in skyrim has been a very rewarding experience.I My character does not use, swords, bows, poisons, or armor. I if a staff is catalogued as a weapon, then I occasionaly use a summoning staff. When I'm fully prepared for battle I'm afraid I broke the game. Between summons, fire enchanted mercenaries , fire cloak, fire rune and and the well placed fireball I feel like a master of fire magic. I think the skyrim mage is a deep character. A mage must be a master of many trades if he wants to be an absolute beast in the battlefield, but once mage is fully developed is an extremely rewarding experience.

I think that playing a mage that is a master of just 1 out of 5 schools of magic is at a well deserved disadvantage in the context of the lore of the game. I can understand wanting to have a big bleeping gun that kills everything in sight but that would also take away from the complexity of the leveling system.

I usually can't play mage past level 20 because destruction is so weak. The only option is using the 100% reduction cost. I perfer thief archers.

Now that I started a pure Mage playthrough, I think it's awesome.

Cheers