I meant I should not have to go to a weapon [blade, mace, axe, bow... whether real or bound] at all more than half of the time to be considered playing a Mage. No Smithing. I don't use shields, though I don't see anything wrong with it overall. It is just that since you can't equip a spell to a hand with a shield, gameplay suffers with the amount of switching necessary for it to be effective in a fight. A shield and spell is still sort of ineffective with more than one enemy within striking distance of you.

I swear Bethesda did everything they could think of to make being a Mage not fun.

No Spellmaking
Casting delay
Spells don't scale
Tons of spells missing

Magic is designed to discourage the use of magic.

Why?


...Because Nords use weapons and shouts and Bethesda thinks you're not playing Skyrim correctly unless you're using weapons and shouts too. Bethesda nerfed magic because otherwise spellslingers wouldn't have cared about Shouts... and if you don't have to care about Shouts, what kind of Dovahkiin would that make you?

Magic was gimped so that shouts had a chance to remain relevant, but in the end they don't anyway.

Sweet, good timing for a link. I just started my Altmer pure mage. Thank you.

I "underlevel" my master level destruction mage, by that I only ever increase levels in alteration, destruction, and enchanting. My character will never reach level 40 and it works for me, I admit its a work around and if I get to level 40 it will get very tough. but my question is why should I level light armor, alchemy, restoration, . . . when I'm not going to using it?

I tried to do an altmer pure mage, but around level 13 ran into the problem that I am being one shotted by dragr deathlord arrows. Wearing no armor means a super low armor rating (mine is 56 maybe, wearing krosis and lord stone, arch mage robes, and boots/gloves/etc. that reduce casting cost). I own enemies with conjuration and stunlocking via destruction dual casts.... my casting costs are pretty low. My problem is that with only 140 health (needed the magicka) I can be one shotted if a dragr gets lucky and gets an arrow around my atronach/follower/whoever.

This results in a pretty frustrating play experience where I own almost everything, then a random arrow can kill me. My alteration (for stoneflesh) is OK, not great, and expensive because I haven't perked it up. I'm left in a position where I either start casting stoneflesh and perking up that tree faster, or put up with being randomly killed on occasion. I just built the character wrong by not wearing armor and paying no attention to the defensive spells or illusion spells

This isn't a complaint about mages; quite the contrary, I recognize this as a problem I caused by building the character wrong.

My point is, pure mage is one of the character concepts that can be "built to svck" if you do it wrong. Not the game's fault, it just requires a more careful build.

Like he said, he got hit by an arrow. If its the death lord Im thinking of he runs with ebony bow and ebony arrows and that WILL 1 shot a mage. But arrows can be dodged and they dont seem to be smart enough to close to melee.

This just... hurts. Bethesda put mages robes in the games, but then punishes you and implies you're "doing it wrong" by wearing them?

Yes, you can make bad decisions about where to invest your perk points and end up with a weak character, but you shouldn't have to troll the forums or scour the wiki to figure out how to build your character so that you can play the game effectively.

Well. I know I haven't eloborated, but allow me to do so now.

I have rolled an Altmer Mage on Expert difficulty. Pouring points only into Magicka to keep up my spells and all that jazz without being OOM constantly. Here is the deal. On level 20+, I am already showing signs of 'choking' and resorting to using Impact to cheaply stagger all my opponents out of range. However, my damage output remains the SAME if you look back 10 levels or more.

I don't do Enchanting much, because it's a power levelling skill and all it does is reduce the cost of my spells, which I don't really need. I need more damage in a reasonable amount of time. Master spells are utilizing valuable cast seconds, which allow the enemies to cut my glass cannon up in pieces real easily. The fact I can best a Blood Dragon easily but a puny bandit carving me with one swipe is annoying me to no end.

For this, I resorted using a Robe + Glass armour from my feet and arms to protect myself, with Conjuration [ Which is OBLIGATED rather than encouraged with such playstyle ] to summon some atronachs.

Summary:

- We constantly are being shafted on ever after Morrowind.
- We are losing spells with every instalment in the franchise. Some of them damn useful ones.
- Regeneration rate is GIMPED for no reason during combat. A warrior still can perform a full power attack with 1/100 Stamina ball filled.
- Damage doesn't scale. Destruction is our version of the sword. Sadly, that sword is just poo at the very moment.
- We need more gear/robes/variety overall. Gets real boring to use the same spells over and over.
- Master spells..Don't even bother.

Yes it is. The game should not force one to play "the right way" in an open, do as you please world, that they advertise as such.

Destruction is broken, and there is a serious lack of spell creation.

Again...

... Destruction is fine. I play a pure mage on Master and do just fine. You have to select a support skill (I prefer Alteration, but Restoration could also be used, depending on build). ANY enemy is easily killed one on one using dual cast firebolts or similar spells. Being at high level does not mean always casting master level spells. It all depends on context.

Frankly, it's the difficulty levels that are boring, but that's true for most games because all difficulty usually does is make more hits needed/damage dealt by enemies. Very silly and pointless because that approach is not "more difficult" just longer.

Obviously, as a character who has no armor, your strategy is to not be hit. I think that makes perfect sense.

And you have to only wear clothing, of course. You can enchant clothing to be more powerful than anything in the game, anyway, so this also makes sense.

As far as people claiming Destruction is broken and Beth markets the game to play however you choose, let's keep in mind that such marketing is false right from the character creation system because you have no choice about the visual aesthetics of your character. Likewise, if you think Destruction is broken, then so is Archery, One-Handed, Two-Handed, etc. Beth's games are about providing you mechanics and the general world structure, but you make the choices on how to build characters. You can make poor builds, obviously, and this has been the case in every Beth game. Having choices doesn't mean that all choices are workable in all contexts.

pure mage? you need a summon. i suggest getting arniels shade or some atronach to tank for you

use the rest of mage trees n u win

and this is on master. i cant see anyone messing up on adept (easy mode)

It's a fair edit, but actually I only perked up my sword and smithing after about level 50 to try something new. Up until that point I was a pure mage - it was a total blast.

Once you get a powerful sword the game becomes too easy, so I prefer just using magic most of the time. The sword sure takes down dragons quickly though!

To all the "pure destruction mages" out there, get a clue. Try a "pure one handed warrior" that is to say do not put anything into block, or either armor tree, just everything into one handed and the rest into things like pickpocketing, alchemy and restoration. Now play to 50 and tell me how "good" that warroir is. PFFFT just tilda down the console and make a warrior like that ( I have) guess what, that warrior gets totally pwned, sound familiar?

my first char which I played completely to the end.. she finished off at level 56 I think is a flippin monster mage. Not sure what is happening to you but she can kill anything in the game with destruction. With 4x fort on dest cost, she can spam the 90 pt (I like these the best) spell all fight long with no rest at all needed. No potions, no resting.



She does have dual conj with the lords and for the most part doesn't even need to fight anymore if she doesn't want to, but she can take down anything.




I do know that with these magic res issues not fixed yet, you can get one hit. Some kind of Ice spike has dropped her and dropped my mid level smash and basher as well. I wasn't expecting it, was just looking at the baddies in front of me and all of the sudden my guy was laying on the floor.

That may be what's happened to you?

P.S. my smash and bash guy is much easier to play.. that is for sure though. The killing is quick and pretty much thoughtless.

Christ, not this ridiculous argument again.

QFFT

seriously what do you mage milk drinkers think? you can survive with just destruction? what are you a black mage from final fantasy?

Ok, now look at the discussion from this point of view. All things being equal, looking at just damage dealt, Destruction is broken.

Do warriors stop swinging when their stamina runs dry? Nope.
Do mages stop casting spells when mana runs out? Yup they sure as hell do.
What happens to damage out put now? Well, for the warrior, nothing, you just don't have power attacks.
With the mage however, you must use a staff, companions, or summons. A destruction mage should not have to rely on these to continue to deal damage.

I took Tensi's advice and got much better using alteration and destruction, rather than just destruction

The reason people keep thinking "Pure Mage" svcks is this: They are trying to be a "Pure DESTRUCTION Mage"

I just beat the M.Q. on EXPERT with my Pure Mage at level 52... Yes it was difficult. But it was also a rewarding challenge that required me to use all the schools of magic. I always had twin Dreamora Lords by my side (Conjuration); I always dual cast Ebonyflesh and use Paralyze (Alteration); I frequently used Greater Ward and Fast Healing (Restoration); I often use Invisibility (Illusion)... All of this IN ADDITION TO my Destruction spells.

Additionally you should make liberal use of Alchemy - even though it's a "stealth" skill now (yeah whatever, we all know it's a Mage's skill). If you are not gulping an "Elixir of Lasting Potency" and an "Elixir of Destruction" (or their homemade equivalents) before a really nasty fight, then you're not doing it right.

You also need to use Shouts!

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, bit there are tons of weakness to magicka poisons available that can increase you damage output, in addition to the damage increase potions. Alchemy is a destruction mages friend. I do wish that they had included resistance reduction as a spell effect. It seems cheesey to have to resort to non-magical attacks to increase magic damage.

For the people saying you want to wear robes, Bethesda has given you three options as a Mage.
1. Illusion to hit first and/or control the battle field
2. Destro stun-locking
3. Alteration No-Armor Perk

I agree with all of this.
As the magic system is tight now it is lacking and its stale. So what the effects are are pretty, that does not mean the entire concept of magic had been watered down. Spells have steadily been removed from this series. Now we have no spell creation, with that they have removed the core of the magic system in this series.

If you're only into magic for the Destruction spells, then you need to diversify. Try being an Spellsword or Battlemage instead.

no it the fact that destruction and alt and illusion have verry little to offer at higher levels that other things do the same better, enchanment and con are the only two realistic schools for higher lvls,
with out useing a % for free casting, even with that i have destruction max out i sould be able to destroy things but no i dont have any perks in one handed and my dagger with no enchantments is stronger then the master destruction spells, it svcks and you cant duel the master spells to make them more powerful and their are no enchantments to make your spells stronger in any school.

plain and simple the magi is broke
magi after lvl 20 impossable on the upper lvls of dif. becasue you are only able to use con and enchant to make your weponds and armor better, achl is a sneak skill now so 2 out of five, rest is good for healing and uhhh healing and its master spell is no better the its expert healing, so whats the point.....
magi svcks for hard core, unless you build it one way.

where i can have a fighter or theif that is eather one or two handed light or heavy armor block or not achl bow or not limitless
i could make a theif that has sneak twohand muffle heavy armor and bow. and cast rest.
why cant i have a magi that is destruction illusion con with light armor and heal?

:tops: EXACTLY!!!!!

I thought I could play how I wanted, which was the point of this open world sandbox game, no? Not how you think I should play......

I don't want to play a battle-mage, spellsword or conjurer! I want to play a freaking destruction mage, but I can't, because it's broken.




Wrong.

Pure mage does basically blow compared to any other playstyle. It gets really nice for a while, and then svcks again later. I recommend saving yourself the feeling that you wasted your time later on when your destruction spells stop improving and your only means of killing things is conjuration. Apparently the pure mage was meant to hide behind summons.