I've never gone pure Mage before but decided to give it a try... and in most games, mages are usually the better classes; usually over-powered.. not in this game, at all. I have all the Magic in the skill-tree at (100) and have many, if not all, master spells. I'm also I very high level... which means, so are all other enemies.

Because I'm a mage and not a warrior, I'm wearing mage-robes and a dragon-priest mask.. and some other stuff. Then I encounter a draugr death lord, who, with one arrow, kills me. Or in fact, almost any contact with him will kill me instantly. So I decide I'll use a Mater destruction spell.. 5mins later, still casting it and oh, he shot me, I'm dead again. It's basically whoever hits who first.. and right now, mages take way too long to attack. And even with those massive master destruction spells, I never have large groups of enemies to use them on.. so it's kinda pointless.

Do you have the mage armor perk? If so, take off that mask, it negates the effect.

Just turn the difficulty down if that doesn't work.

Dual conjure daedra lords, stand back and let them do their magic.

All bosses have fallen to illia, 2 daedra lords and me cheering from the background

You need to put the xx-flesh and ward spells to good use and some perks to boost them. I also like the Lord stone which gives both protection from both physical and magical attacks. My mage can take at least a few arrows from a death lord and still have time to heal up inbetween. And if you shoot him with dual cast destruction spells with the Impact perk you will stagger him so he won't be able to shoot at you between spells. Or go with conjuration as above.

vD

The difficulty is already at the lowest setting.. I almost thought it was at the max. setting at first though.

And I do, do that. But I have 100 in destruction, I would also like to fight..

A mage in Skyrim should never aspire to "do damage". you either conjure something to do it all for you, or you cast fear/frenzy/calms to let the enemies do it all for you. You are never ever supposed to do anything directly.


Yay for destruction non-scaling, eh?

Edit - oh, sorry. You can conjure bound weapons (or ust plain use a bow or a sword) and run into the mix hacking and slaching (or shooting from sneaking with your bow), that will have decent results. Not very magical, granted, but.. well, if you conjure the bound weapons, it kinda sorta almost counts, right? ...right?

Beth has made it so that pure destruction is not a valid combat style, you'll have to utilize illusion and conjuration if you want to be an effective mage.

Your post makes no sense to me.

I'm playing a pure mage, currently level 56 on master difficulty. I have 0 armor rating. I don't cast any alteration armor spells. I don't use any summons. I don't have a follower. I use destruction and nothing else.

Just yesterday while in Labyrinthian I encountered 2 death lords in a small space and I easily killed both of them without them touching me. One dump of my magicka bar dual casting fireballs was enough to wipe them out. It was a quick and easy fight.

What are you doing wrong?

Pure mage here. Lvl 55. I am playing on adept. I own draugr Death Lords.

I have Zero perks in illusion.

Illusion and Conjuration are your friend.

My pure Mage is so God-like and powerful she's now not much fun to play..

Twin daedra lords, follower, thrall, dog ...
4x25% cost reduction in destruction means permanent blasting as much as I like. Not that I need to bother when my army wades in.

They had better more interesting spells in past games, that's why.

Somewhere around level 19-20-21, my mage went from being pretty strong, to getting owned in every dungeon I've played recently. I'm carefull to not level enchanting, or any non-combat skills, too fast. Most of her skills like sneak, lockpicking, etc., I don't even put perk points in, I let them level by themselves, without perks or training.

Looking at the destruction skills yesterday, I discovered that I probably should level up my skills from the novice level toward the master level. Wondering if that's the problem? Do your spells increase in damage when you get higher in the skill tree, or do you have to purchase new spells that do more damage? Looking at the Whiterun mage, he doesn't have any higher level spells that I can see.

Thanks.

Not really, no.

This.

I'm confused as to why people are having so much problems with a pure mage s: I usually play on expert and most things go down within a few hits. The same thing happens if I bump up the difficulty to master.

I didn't think I'd find magic fun at all; I played my first character without using a single spell. The lack of spells is kind of limiting, but it's still pretty fun despite that.

Its wonderful reading all these posts giving workarounds and fixes to make Skyrims terrible, terrible magic somewhat playable.

Fact is that the lesson learnt here is that removing spellmaking was the single worst design decision in the TES franchise in the last 20 years.

You have to purchase new spells, and they don't really keep pace with increasing damage requirements. If you're on PC, I strongly recommend trying out some Destruction rebalancing mods. There're a couple which I think fix Destruction and make pure mages viable (and more importantly, enjoyable) at higher levels.

Indeed. I've been playing a pure mage (not that high a level yet) and while some enemies can be a challenge at times I've certainly never felt "this is impossible" or "WTF? Mages are so underpowered!"

I think it is important to get to know your spells and what they can do for you, and use them correctly at the right time. Plus having the right companion helps to (and conjuration helps even more).

Where are all the posts with the workarounds and fixes? I see plenty of posts talking about people's experiences playing pure mages, but they don't seem to be talking workarounds or fixes, rather - "I play game and and use magic, here are some experiences of mine with my magic".

Unless playing the game is the workaround? I guess it does seem to work for me.

Wait, I guess "lower the difficulty setting" could count, but that is a basic answer to people having trouble with any play style - melee, stealth and magic.

Sad but true. Quite remarkable when you consider the contenders for "worst design decision" ...

I can't relate to Qiox's experience. In my previous (vanilla) pure mage playthroughs I found Destruction okay until maybe level 40, with a fairly focused build. It wasn't that it became too difficult after that, exactly, it just became tedious and unenjoyable for me. Success started to require a playstyle I don't really enjoy. Defeating tough enemies became a matter of stunlocking them, spamming expert-level spells, and whittling the enemies down slowly. Magic just didn't feel powerful anymore, and I didn't enjoy it. Tastes, playstyles and experiences clearly differ, but from the talk on the various forums, my experience isn't unique. Still, on the PC, there's no reason to live with Destruction in its vanilla form if you don't enjoy it.

Pure mage, Master, no problem.

I take it that you level up health as well as magicka? what is your health points? you can level up health and magicka and still be a pure mage. if you just level up magicka everytime you level up then you will die easily.

a Pure Mage in Skyrim isn't about direct damage. They are about Indirect Damage. Pure Mage should dual summon the most powerful things they have, use the most powerful flesh spells (with no armor at all and the Mage Armor perk), and focus on supporting their summons while protecting themselves, and only casting a destruction spell when necessary.

Now, Sorcerer's, Battlemage's, and Spellsword's are more offensive, as they are a fighter-mage mix.
Sorcerer = A Mage who uses armor and maybe a weapon to compliment their primary magical fighting style.
Battlemage = An even mix between combat and magic.
Spellsword = A Fighter who uses magic to compliment their combat skills.

Well I find it not only playable but a lot of fun too, and that's a first for me in TES. I don't see anything wrong with it, and neither do many others. That's just our opinion of course, but it's every bit as valid as yours.