I shot like 30 arrows outside whiterun, but after a while they disappeared tho

Lol, I sure hope so. A Breton or Altmer mage-type was untouchable in Oblivion. In Skyrim, at least they aren't godlike. True, they're still very powerful when played correctly. Alteration, Conjuration and Illusion definitely helps.

1.4 is alright the only reason I would recommend it is if your a person who runs into bugs/glitches alot or a ps3 player the patch makes the game playable for ps3 for a good 30-50 hours again (so I hear)

on the sneak thing i hear your pain about mages even If they were strong they would be really boring cause its basically spamming a spell no matter what kind of mags you are. btw don't powerlevel sneak do it naturally i powerleveled it and it got really boring because sneak is pretty OP at high levels

To OP regarding sneak:

As an archer training sneak is really easy. There is no reason to "grind" the skill. Every time you make a successful sneak attack (which you will since you have a ranged weapon) you will get a large skill bump in sneak.

What you will want to grind- or train, is armor, since as an archer you will not get hit often- but when you do it will hurt since you will have low armor skill. Unless you don't mind reloading and in that case don't worry about it.

Training Sneak is fairly easy, on any character it was my first skill to reach level 100, besides Smithing and Enchanting which I powerleveled on two of my characters. The main way to train Sneak is to just sneak whenever enemies are nearby, there is not much more to it. Say you play the MQ and all you ever do is sneak during that time, your Sneak will be at least 60 or 70 by the end of it, assuming you don't purposely alert enemies. It does eventually get easier to level too, as enemies will hardly notice you anymore when your Sneak is over level 70.

Difficulty setting... epic fail?

Edit: Aspect of Terror & Firebolt => epic win?

Destruction 82 - Sneek 85- maxed out bolts with duel weilding and 6 shots to kill a Falmer tank. Bow with 27 Archery 1 or 2 arrows tops to kill a Falmer tank. And Mages commonly wear robes. I am thinking there is an equality issue here ?? And this is why I tossed my battle mage.

thats when i switch to dual wield slash happy maniac ? assassins are awesome only thing that i will miss is shooting lightning from my finger tips

im hoping that spamming stamina will allow me to run long distances and get away from what ever is trying to attack me so i can turn around and rain death down on them

also bows get damadge boost perks + can use smithing to boost the bows damage + diffrent types of arrows = diffrent damage + can get enchanted gear to increase archery damage even further + sneak attack bonus + crital hit bonus perks

so upgrading all of this can = a stack of 46million damage well a mage is still doing base damage ...

I agree completely. Pure mages are weak when compared to other classes. After 32 levels as a battlemage I gave up. Rerolled a dark elf "assassin". Now I use swords and bows. Magic to enhances my abilities; restoration and Illusion. With a sneak attack I can 1 shot most (assuming I get the jump).

Also most of the sneak perks are for melee. Sneak attack bonuses for daggers and 1 handed weapons.

And Magica and Sneek don't mix ! Other than you give your position away when ya do shoot, and no bonus damage. But at plus 50% on bolts it should have been like 45 per bolt times 2. So I should have been yeilding 90 or 90 pluse damage each shot. "NOT!!!!!!"

tip on mage. the dual cast stagger thing is your friend. also, higher frost spells like ice storm help with kiting as it does it to large groups and slows them/

I play a mage in master difficulty, dont use impact perk, neither enchanting. But you NEED equipment for destruction magic cost reduction, at least 60% - i dont use any equipment to other magic schools, besides mana regeneration. Its harder than playing and sneak archer for sure (i have one), but to me, harder is funnier. You can use illusion or alteration spells to manage the battle. After all, you are a mage right? You are supposed to use another kind of magic.

Some good combinations: pacify + damage spell / paralyze + wall + flame/frostbite/spark --> veeeeeeeeeeery cool watching enemies burn! / fear + ice spells/ ice + fire (slow and burn) / ice + thunder against mages --> when they get out of mana, cant get to you cause dont have stamina either hehheheehhehe.

Well, thats how i play, i hope it helps.

Mages lost spellcrafting, destruction now have 9 useful spells, we have some perks to increase damage but fewer than melee and archers.
Predicted that magic would be useless without spellmaking however summoning and necromancy is improved.

My first character was all in on destruction, but when I reached level 36 and realized I had only a select few spells that were actually useful, I got sick of the lack of variation and went to combat on a new character. Fire Rune and Fireball... I couldnt find any other spells that were better

im playing a mage now on master and its really hard, without cost cutting close to 90% i dont know how u'de play like this the high level spells get u gulping or dead...well im sure u know this. im also using the passive thief skills with runes and conjuring. anyways, u can also boost sneak in town by following pedestrians and guards, though i think it builds slower but theres no risk besides listening to repeated babble of the townsfolk. u just have to be in line of sight without being seen, and of course close enough (not sure the range...too lazy to test).

Maybe the next DLC should lean towards equaling out Magika, and re-implememnting spell creation.

I got a few skill levels in sneak going behind belethor's place in Whiterun. There is a guard between Belethor's and the Alchemy shop. Walking around behind him, around the buildings corner, was enough to level it up. But I gave up after a few levels as I got bored. Did the rest the "natural" way by playing.

The arrows, weapon, shields, and bound arrows do not clean up after 1.4 and I still have ash piles and Gstaff has requested my save to look into the ash pile issue and some respawn bugs of mine.

I am thinking they might try to latch in something where the weapons and arrows properly clean up in 1.5 but that is just speculation.

Wait ... Whut?! Bound arrows don't disappear either? $hizzola! I just recently started using bound bow sometimes recently (for a couple of reasons), but if their arrows stick around plus being immune to self-cleanup ... well, did I say, "$hizzola!"?

Except for the fact that half the enemies in the game are immune to the slowing effects of frost spells. Any bandit or other humanoid that is of the Nord race, and that is most of them, are immune to it. The dual stagger is only good on single enemies. You get any multiples and you're dead if you play a straight up low health mage. You just can't do enough damage to kill them all fast enough and with no way to slow them you're screwed. I've faced this situation many times in the nearly 300 hours I played my destruction mage which is why I finally gave in and leveled up conjuration. I needed some effective tanking and companions svck at it since any aoe spells kill them. If I kill a conjured helper I just make another one.

LOL. Amalur is good game, just sick of comparisons between Skyrim. Right now there's a poll on PC IGN. Ughhh.....

anyway, I'll have try playing a mage for once.

No they do not fade away and its annoying. I hope that 1.5 addresses the clean up issues so many are having it seems to be one of the most frequent issues a lot of people are having.

{sigh} ... From your lips (err, fingers) to angel's ears. Whichever way I turn with my character's RP, I seem to bump into a bug wall. [I'd better kindly exit now before I go on a rant.]