I was using a full mage with master and adept level spells and it svcked compared to the warrior. A mage's frost attacks don't do much damage anyway and loses mana too quickly to be effective. Only npc mages seen to have infinite mana if that's what you're referring to.

Yeah so far I didn't even read anything about using shouts or companions.. They literally give you a warrior hireling and shouts to interrupt stuff and stun them for a couple of seconds thats avaliable pretty early on, before lvl 10. Physically dodging mage spells helps alot and ambushing is a good tactic too. I've sidestepped a few mages and whacked them in the face with a bow to plunk more arrows in the ole face more than a few times already. Trimming some of the fat with a sneaked arrow zoomed in on the face never hurts either. If you're just using one test to see how battle worthy something is and not using the full toolset that's out there, of course the tank is going to be best at standing there by himself tanking some other meatheads =/

"You get those at level 1. Get better spells perhaps "

You're probably right. But there don't seem to be many spells around.
And will I end up buying the same type spells over and over again as I level up?(Rhetorical question)
Gonna' have 15 fire spells in inventory eventually, like in Morrowind and Oblivion? (Exageration, but not much)

So, for a Mage, it's a constant search for more powerful spells....

Spells should level up with the player instead of just getting cheaper to cast.

Still trying to work out good strategies....

Amazing Experience...

ETA- Lets not forget Mages don't get any kind of sneak bonus using magic...

What I was saying is this game needs more balance. Pretty much every mmo knows that mages should be low health but have much higher dps than warriors while warriors can tank a lot more. I'm surprised skyrim doesn't grasp this concept and gives warriors both much better health and better dps. This destroys the gameplay and isn't much of a game of "choice".

That's another downside of being a mage. I had to hack all the master spells and even then the mage is still not adequate. I have no idea how one would get those spells without hacking and if you rely on the lower tier destruction spells you're going to struggle a lot. Even though I hacked the dragon armor for the warrior, warriors overall have a much better selection of armor and weapons anyways unlike mages. This is so lopsided guys. I really want to main a mage and my main is actually a hybrid mage/one handed conjure swords guy which is ok and better than a full mage but still doesn't match up to full warriors with 2h weapons. I want to start over cuz I screwed up on my main char but it'll take too long so I might just play a hacked char the rest of the game due to the imbalance.

Try playing mage on master; you're magicka straved and do no damage to common bandits

The game is balanced, dunno what the argument here is.

You wanna play as a thief you will probably svck in close combat, but will do massive damage from stealthy hits.

You play a mage you should know that you will need to mix with one of the other archetypes or go full mage, utilizing both defensive and offensive magic.

You play a warrior you know that you can't sneak up on things or hit anything from a range in general. Warriors are crippled more by frost magic due to their inability to hit things from a range and their dependence on stamina. However, he can take physical hits the best out of the three.

As far as outside of combat goes, thief-esque characters have speech, pickpocket, and lockpick which all help to complete quests. Mages have Illusion and Alteration for overcoming obstacles outside of combat. And the warrior? His only way to complete quests is by killing stuff.

There are things even deeper than this that balance the game further, but I can't be asked to name them all.

And on top of that, why are we even talking about archetypes? Classes are no longer there so you can do whatever you want to do. The whole point is doing what you want, and what feels natural, what feels fun.

Personally, I can't play as a warrior. It is just too cliche for me. I always play with a mix of stealth and magic. Start the fight off by sniping the opponent, and if they find you, burn them. Use Fury to make enemies kill themselves. Use speech to finish quests early. Enchant weapons and armor!

Could you be more incomprehensibly complainy?

Not doing somethign right if the mage is nerfed to you. At my high level now I can't even be touched with armor boosts absorbtion spells and potent AOE storms that level all surroundign enemies.

Sometimes you don't need to fight, mutipel enemies will help kill each other.

I got all 3 of the clips of the hacked accounts I was talking about now. You tell me which one is easiest to faceroll with. For the mage, I tried full destruction without the conjuring and got owned very badly.

Maxed out assassin with full dragonscale armor and 500 stamina

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV1CrWhHZNg

Maxed out Mage with master level spells and 500 mana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceo6wwOMq-4

Maxed out Warrior with legendary dragon armor and 500 health

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0HBpm3WEE0

"Could you be more incomprehensibly complainy?"

Hmmmmm. I'll try.

Morrowind - Altmer Mage - Atronach = Fun, successful

Oblivion - Altmer Mage - Mage = Fun, successful

Skyrim - Altmer Mage - Needs melee skills, armor, and uses magic for anything BUT defeating enemies = not much fun

So why don't you? Seriously, in 10 words or less, what good reason do you have to not play a mage?

So some characters are sweeter ninjas than others. Who cares?

I promise, you're not going to get a trophy for being the World's Most Efficient Munchkin. And no one is going to egg your house if you finish the MQ in less than optimal time. Stop worrying about DPS. Seriously.

Really? People are mad that mages are tough to play? Early days in MW they were tough to play too. But I rolled a mage cuz that's what I do and the game on normal is fun and challenging. At level 7, say, there is that wonderful feeling of knowing I could get handily pwned if I don't pay attention. I wandered into a cave and got hammered by two trolls. I laughed. Went back to town, grabbed a companion and went back to try it again and barely scraqed through it. That made me happy. I could have waited and gone back at level 10 or 12 and probably been fine, but I liked that I actually got a challenge.

I like trying to figure out what skills to give my mage. I like being a little nervous as I explore. I cannot and would not want to play this like I play my mage toon in WoW or Rift, where I have to follow a template in order to compete in raids and such. If and when I want that, I'll log into WoW, or buy SWTOR.

to be effective as a mage I'd need to specialize in spells other than just destruction like conjuring/illusion and switching between spells would take too long for all the battles with the draggy interface on pc. I have no idea how to get the master level spells besides hacking which I don't want to do in my serious accounts. Maybe I will try it as a challenge after I beat the game the first time, but I'm waiting for a patch. It's just easier to faceroll as melee.

This.

Use what's at your disposal and if something doesn't work try something else, be resourceful and use your head.

For myself I'm playing a Rogue, primary weapon is a bow and to be honest no real secondary. I suppose I break out destruction but I find myself more and more just using archery. What I do however is have Lydia with me playing the role of a tank, with her distracting enemies and helping out along with poison tipped arrows and powerful sneak attacks it's a pretty good system =).

Non-melee have to depend on lydia and shouts to survive. Pure tanks/melee just faceroll and win. I really want to make a full mage or a full archer guys, but the warrior is just too easy to faceroll and I don't die half as much. Once they patch everything for better balance I'll make a full mage or archer. Very few people become full archers though cuz there's not many perks that benefit archers. They should've added a category like traps or animal summons like they do in guild wars to promote people to have full archer classes. The game as it currently is forces you to play more of a hybrid to do well.

Sooooo you want to be a "pure mage" with ONLY Destruction? I guess that's as pure as it gets. FYI, even warriors have to have more than one skill to succeed.

Hm. I play on PC and switching spells is no problem for me. If you don't like the favorites menu, you can even assign numerical hotkeys. Not that hard, but YMMV I guess.

Finding spells and building knowledge is part of the fun of being a mage. If you don't want to do that ... why play one?

Cool. The only part of your post I agree with.

So you want to play a character with zero complexity, a one-skill button masher. Again I find myself wondering why you want to play a mage in the first place. You don't want complexity, you don't want flexibility, you don't want to make any effort, you don't want to have interesting tactics to work with. You just want to hammer on one button over and over. To me, it really looks like you just want to play a caveman warrior. So why a mage? I guess all the bright lights from the fireballs are shiny and pretty. That must be it.

If you really want to play a mage and it's too hard, drop the difficulty. That's what it's there for. I promise I won't tell.

I don't agree with the people who have been saying that a classical rogue setup isn't viable. I've got a lvl 21 rogue that is heavy in marksman, sneak, one-handed, and light armour, and I don't feel underpowered at all. Maybe I'm not doing as much damage as a full on warrior would do, but if I remain unseen I can take out almost all humanoid npc's with a bow before they even find me, or take out a lot of their health with a backstab then use dual wield to slice them down.

Yes, if I get ganged up on I'll die fairly easy, and large creatures like bears and trolls are tough, but with some sneaking and kitting they go down eventually. At least on the default difficulty playing a rogue that wears light armour and specializes in sneak is defiantly a fun and viable playstyle.

again, warriors just run in there and faceroll everything. They don't have to sneak or worry about getting ganged up on or worry about mana running out or recieving blows to the face and can outdamage most mages and mages/rogues. If something goes wrong just switch to duel hand healing hands and and come back to win the fight. maybe they should nerf warriors instead of powering mages/assassins.

I have not noticed this at all, I'm on second to hardest difficulty and my Spellblade is better than all of the classes I've tried.

I don't mean to double post but I'm not sure how to add quotes.. isn't that how warriors are in every game? If you take it down to what it really is it's a matter of dps vs tank, a tank solos much better.

What is all this combo stuff I keep hearing about?

Should I be stacking stamina as a bow / duel wield / sneak character?

I've been keeping health / stamina even as i level (currently 25). How borked is that plan?

Based on your footage I think I should be stacking stamina, but not sure.

Thoughts?

p.s.- I have two shouts, but how do I use the bloody things?

Thats their playstyle as a warrior style, are they supposed to sneak in and pick them off 1 by 1? are they suppose to summon for backup?

and what is the point of mentioning that the warrior can use healing spells, everybody can, you do what you can to survive

There will be no patch to "balance" the game TES is not an e-sport or mmo. Each archtype has more than enough tools to overcome challenges within its own type, not to mention that you are only limited by your preference when it comes to how many tools you have to overcome challenges.

If anything they should just buff destro spells, this isn't an MMO, you're not competing with other classes for raid spots. Nerfs aren't necessary, besides I plan on making a nord warrior archetype, and I have a natural predilection towards facerolling.

So you're suggesting that head-on attacks shouldn't work for warriors?

How about this:
Warriors do well with a slow-moving "front door" approach
Stealth characters excel at picking off lone enemies quickly
Mages are weaker in straight combat but have far more options and great crowd control

Does that sound OK? ... Because it's pretty much what we have.

I don't want warriors to be forced to play like rogues, and I don't expect my mage to succeed if I attack head-on like a warrior. Your suggestions really make it seem like you want all characters to play the same. No thank you.