****This is not a "MAGE IS UNDER POWERED" post"""""

For the record, I love playing my mage. I am however, disappointed to find that nearly every higher level destruction spell is AOE, and that AOE damage equally hurts my companions/pets. I can't figure out why Bethesda puts this into their games, and why they don't have a toggle button for friendly fire.

I guess it has something to do with immersion, but to me their are bigger immersion issues that remained (stopping time to drink potions in the middle of combat).

Hopefully someone creates an anti-FF mod, cause i can't see the point in throwing a fireball if its just going to kill my zombies.

High level destruction is mixed aoe and single target. And atronachs have an elemental immunity you can exploit.

If you know the target is weak to fire, you shouldn't be mixing frost atronachs and fireballs. Match the element.

Be a bit more careful where you aim then.

Its that simple, Once your Zombie has the enemies attention, Flank them and cast your fireball from the side or back.

If you have friendly fire IMO it would make the game to easy

This is how I play as well. Also, try a ranged follower, like a fellow mage from the college. Then they don't get in the way of AoE spells. Conjurers are the best I've found, double summons and firepower, and they stay in the back.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I didn't think of the atronach thing because I've been mainly using the zombie summons, kinda bummed I put a point or two into that tree now.

Any recommendations on a conjur mage for hire?

One other question, with perk trees, do I need to put points into both the atronach line and the zombie line to get the top perk point, or will one suffice?

Thanks!

Grab the fellow apprentice female Dunmer from the College. As for the perks, you only need either/or, not both to hit the top (same for all the other perk trees that have multiple lines to the top perks).

OP just set the difficulty to "easy" and be done with it. There is something called strategy in any form of games.

Why not have a modder create a"Finish The Game" button and once you press it you will instantly finish the game?