Alteration spells are only usable with heavy speccing into the Alteration perks - you need the 50% reduced magicka perks, and extra duration and effectiveness. The +10 magic resistance, and +30 spell absorption perks are the best parts of the alteration tree though, definitely extremely useful for Bretons.

I think 8 points with mid level shield spells should suffice, assuming you couple it with shield enchants

I thought they get a bonus to conjuration?
Looking at the differences with each race, altmer gets 50 pts of magicka to start, and bretons get a 25% resistance to magicka. So basically it's really not that big of a deal what you pick this time around.
Bretons have a decent defense, but I still love it
Altmers have a 5 level boost of magic. Not that big of a deal.
Other races have these uber powers that make it worth while even in the long run (not sure what it is for skyrim)

So I guess it all comes down to which power/resistances you like the best.

OT: Personally, I like the heavy armor perk 10% reflect chance over light armor perk 10 doge chance. If the clothing perk works for enchantments then I'd definitley go for it, but I'm still in the middle on it. I guess I'll put in my points in heavy armor to get a taste of that daedric armor. (Can't wait to see what it looks like )

QFT

Being new to TES this whole discussion of Heavy/Light/Clothes is very confusing.

Wanted to play a kinda pure mage, but with the hotkey system being clunky and having to recast the armor spells all the time it just seems easier to wear armor. Is there even a downside to wearing armor? Some people say it decreases regen and effectiveness and some say it doesnt?

What are the downside of just going heavy armor, enchant, smith, destruct, restor, alchy and 1 more mage skill?

Oh I was referring the the Breton's ability to absorb magic spells and convert it into mana.

The person I quoted was worried of his low mana and wanted to wear heavy armor. A magic-absorbing Breton would alleviate the mana problem somewhat.

Basically my questions come down to this:

Both clothes and armor can be double-enchanted with +armor or +hp, etc.
Someone who wears enchanted clothes doesn't have to spend 8-11 points in an armor tree. Thus, they are free to level up a skill of their choosing.
However, those using light or heavy armor have to spend points to make it good.

So which path do you guys see as being preferable:
Max enchanting, max light or heavy armor.
or
Max enchanting, max a different skill of your choosing.

You lose out on whatever +armor the armor skills provide, but you gain whatever new skill you choose.

Being the noob I am, how can you see the cooldown/remaining time on Alteration buffs in the screen? Nowhere? Do I have to go into the menu system and manually look it up?

You're saying that if you max enchanting, you can enchant your cloth to be as good as light armor, plus other benefits that enchantment offers. So you don't even need light armor.

But I'm not sure if enchantment is strong enough to protect you for the entire game.

Assuming enchanting clothes allows it to be at least as strong as light armor, armor-wise. It did in oblivion (well, with sigil stones ), and since enchanting is more powerful in this game I assume you'll be fine. There's a reason theres a perk to make HP enchants 25% stronger - its gonna be good.

From experience id say, while its nice to have the extra skill points, in the end you may find that the enchanting you need to do on the clothes will end up being just to replace the armour your losing, either with health or shield. What your proposing is that the robes/clothes with enchantments, with no armour skill OR alteration shields, might be better than leather armour. While i agree you gain the extra skill points, the fact you will still have 0 armour without enchantments, or + armor enchantments on the clothes... which defeats the prospect.

Basically, why bother enchanting armor on the clothes when you wont come close to light armour values/ alteration spell armours, you may find that this means the armor value you do have is way to low for the content. You mentioned as a thief, as a mage doing this i could possibly suggest giving it a go, as mages are primarily ranged. As a thief though there will be times youl be up close and according to the official guide no armor enchants would come close to the value you get from light armour with perks. This ofcourse means that with content aimed at this sort of armor value you will be easier to kill than intended.

Ontop of this, as a thief stamina is more important, which as you mentioned the increase in stamina regen far outweighs most cloth armours "+ magicka regen". Sure you could enchant stam regen onto the clothes but again, youd be taking cloth armour and enchanting it to be like light armour, you might as well take light armour and enchant it with something else.

I'm curious why people think stamina is important for thieves than other classes. (aside from carrying capacity)

Except by taking light armor, you're using 8-12 skill points.

And 8-12 skill points is a Lot. It's a whole 1/7 of what your character can invest in themselves (level cap ~70ish).

As duel wield daggers are amazing with full stamina bar. If your going to continue firing arrows at point blank range then sure, stamina's not as important.

If you're telling me "you need stamina", then tell me "only if youre dual weilding daggers" because otherwise there's no point in bringing up stamina, is there?

Alteration also gives other things like the magic reduction perks.



The Altmer get the equivalent of 5 perksless level ups in magicka. It's an amazing perk, either you're a mage with the same magicka as any other race but with 50 more stamina/health or you just have 50 magicka more than another mage. That and the magicka regenpower can be a godsend when you''re running low on potions.

No what im saying is, the general play style of a stealth thief will benefit more from an increased stamina and armour than he would from clothes enchanted for similar effects. Even if you go ahead and enchant your clothes for armour and health, you still would get the same if not more benefit from enchanting light armour with health. As you still get your armor and health values, but ontop of that increased stamina, Which as a thief is far more useful than the other stats.

Put it this way, robes: Either increased magicka, or health/armour enchants. Well.. the magicka isnt going to help you.
Light armour: Armour, additional stamina regen, health enchants . Same as the robes accept you get additional stamina. Which will help you in cases of melee fights, which as a thief is going to happen more often.

Unless your going for a magic based thief, using illusion alot, the magicka bonus off of robes (which 95% of them have) is irrelevant. Ontop of that, if you enchant those robes with armor and health, your essentially getting the same thing you would get from light armor with a health enchant on it.

At the base of it all, its pretty much a case of either:

- Which do you like the appearance of more?
- What playstyle exactly are you going for, Magic stealth or Weapon stealth.

If your going for weapon stealth then the stamina increase will help your archery with its "pushback/knockback" attack, and then if you switch to melee weapons when up close it will help there.
If your going magic stealth then go for clothes. The less encumberance means better sprinting away to safety, magicka bonus and generally looking more "magicky".

I'm not entirely convinced. I've been finding enchanted circlets with +archery. I've got no reason to believe archers can't stick with clothing + enchants if they manage to not get hit often. Same goes with mages, I think using alteration shields + shield enchants would be overkill for a mage.

I still respect your posts though, you're posting 100% truth. I just think that you're underestimating how useful 8-12 skill points are. By sticking with clothing, you dont have to spend points in light armor. That's a big deal, there's a lot to spend those points on.

For example, is the 50% stamina perk sacrificing 8ish skill points in another skill tree?

light scaled armor ( 36) for my mage!
later i wil enchant this for regenerate magica faster, so no robes in this game for me

Well i suppose if your going like Full on archery, in such a way that you will almost never be in melee, then its either or in that case. The clothes will let you carry more, move quicker and tailor your enchants better. Just make sure not to get hit ;]

What would you put those extra points into though, smithing has little use, alchemy maybe.. with no weapon skills.. most magic trees need a good hefty amount of magicka to use, your not really left with many tree's to spend those extra points in.

To answer that question, the skills I'd ideally like for fun factor are:

Alchemy
Enchanting
Sneak
Pickpocketing
Lockpicking
Archery

And 5 points in one handed for dagger stealth damage.

That's already 65~ points, which is level 65, with the max being around level 70.
As you can see - no room for armor. If I go with armor and close range viability (5 more points in one handed) then I've got to get rid of either enchanting or alchemy!

I found those too. Very handy for my Breton

I see.. well in that case give it a go! Only one way to realistically find out, the theorycrafting would show it to be viable however no idea how it would play in practice. All i can say is, ive been rocking three characters so far and my mages survivability is drastically changed between light and cloth, even with no perks.

I believe the hard cap for not getting any more perks is 80 btw.

How long do the armour spells last?

And I'm guessing it's not possible to wear robes over armour? I miss Daggerfall's clothing options.

-EDIT: answering a post from long ago without realising - info already in thread.