I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I'm curious what other people who use magic almost exclusively on a character used Illusion over conjuration. I went Illusion/Destruction as primary skills with Restoration/Alteration as supplemental skills, and I find it to be more effective vs most everything except dragons, where a storm atronach can really help. I don't know, I guess I just find Illusion to be strong AND one of the more fun schools of magic for the laughs it can provide.

Illusion is one of the games most powerful skills. I used it on my nightblade character extensively and I felt like its way over powered.

Illusion
Sneak
Alchemy
Light Armor
One Handed
Speech
Pickpocket

I would sneak around and make every one fight each other. When there was one person left I would backstab them. If things went south and I started to get overwhelmed I just spammed calm and then instantly backstabed the now docile enemy. The game was kind of difficult vs undead and dwemer robots until i got master of the mind and then illusion makes that build a cake walk. Only thing that illusion and sneak are useless against are dragons and that is where alchemy comes in.

Illusion is lots of fun, I agree. Lots of laughs for me if it's done right. My pure mage character http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad208/xenaclone/Image0085.jpg has struggled to incorporate as much Illusion as she can. She does participate in all the other schools, though. I have yet to make a pure illusionist.

Beth's main schools (most-used to least-used) go like: Alteration, Destruction, Illusion and Conjuration are about equal, and Restoration is the least-used.

I'm waiting to get to the point where Beth finally gets Invisibility. Her entire game is going to change when that happens. But I've noticed Illusion levels up really slowly. She's at Level 30, and still hasn't seen Invisibility offered to her.

Invisibility isnt for sale till your in your 70's in that skill. Using Frenzy, Calm, Fear on enemies levels illusion very fast. Once you get the area of effect versions of those it levels up crazy fast. You can also spam muffle while walking around the country side if you want to level it faster (not really necessary till your 80+ in that skill imo that last 10 levels were the only ones that really felt like a grind to me.)

Use courage on your follower before every combat situation, it helps to level it up quickly and it makes them quite a bit stronger. And yes, you need around ~70 illusion for invis to show up in the vendor list.

The reason I prefer illusion over conjuration is you have more control over situations: sometimes NPCS will ignore your summon and bolt straight for you. In that case I'd quickly calm the stray target, and rip into the frenzied crowd with fire or lightning at range. The only thing I really miss is Dremora Lord

I like mixing things up, so i do pull out illusion spells from my spell book occasionaly. But i mainly have a routine of 3-4 spells. 1.Cast Mage Armour 2.Summon/Reanimate 3.Have Fireball/Ice Storm in my off hand 4.Heal when necessary.

I've just gotten the Paralyze spell(too expensive to cast atm), no invisibility yet, but i'll no doubt use that allot when i get it, that it will take spot 4 or i'll force it in as my 5th most used.

I use both, I only recently started using illusion and it's become one of my favourite summoning a frost atro into a crowd of frenzied bandits is defiantly worth it

I do love the frost atronach because it just looks so damn cool, plus its ground slam attack just looks and sounds awesome. Also if you are on PC and use Mighty Magick, they do scale quite well with you. But other than that, Illusion all the way . Its just too much fun

They both serve the same purpose. Crowd control. It buys you the time to use your destruction magic to whittle down mobs.

Illusion is FAR more powerful when you get Master of the Mind. Mayhem is undoubtedly the most destructive spell in the game. I would go into a dungeon and cast Mayhem and all hell would break loose. The end result would be me sneak attacking a Draugr Demigod (mod) with 1/3 of his health bar left. Dungeon over. Larger dungeons might require 3-4 casts and that's it.

My nightblade/spellsword loves illusion. No need for conjuration to fight my battle for me when i can act like nightcrawler at will.

So...you play as a worm?

I do like Conjuration more But I love Illusion also. Nothing like going to a giant camp with maxed out Illusion and instilling the same fear into them that they used to cause you haha.

I like combining the two - summon a pair of dremora lords, turn invisible. Repeat.

With elaboration, Illusion is my absolute favorite skill in the game.

This is interesting reading. My first character, (and my first time delving into a game of this type), was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, but simply because of its awesomeness and the ability to attack things from a distance, Destruction was by far the more favoured of the Magic Abilities. Hardly ever used Illusion, and only used Conjuration occasionally.

My next character is only a couple of hours old, but I'm going to go straight down the Conjurer/Illusionist path.

Honestly, both Illusion and Conjuration skills make the game a complete joke. You can pretty much beat anything in the game without lifting a finger using either two Dremora Lords or Illusion AoEs.

Illusion is a beast honestly think you could beat the majority of the game with this on its own (dragons being the exception).

Conjuration is also a lot of fun and as a pure Mage it probably save me more than any other school baring restoration.

If I could only have one as a pure Mage I'd choose Conjuration since illusion isn't that strong during the early stages of the game.

My pure mage character uses illusion and conjuration quite equally. I primarily use illusion for invisibility. I approach enemies invisible, blast them with fireballs/lighting, then mage armor, and then summons, and then blast some more, if I am getting mobbed I turn invisible again.

I have made an 'illusion' mage that really just focuses on killing enemies with illusion and then blasting the last enemy left with destruction. Super fun build when you get master of the mind.


I like both illusion and conjuration, both of them have there merits for sure.

I love illusion, i'm trying conjuration now, is pretty cool two. I recommend, for those who likes mages, developing two characters, one with illusion and one with conjuration XD

My Manni-Big Staff - descendant of Mannimarco (or at least,he pretends to be that ) use both of them...however,i think that Illusion is better developed and more fun than conjuration in Skyrim - even if seeing two Dremora Lords mutilating and decapitating bandits sayin' "quiet,again" or start to fight an Ancient Dragon with the phrase "You are weak, mortal" have no equals - i've to admit...

My current Mage is Illusion/Conjuration. I've enjoyed how the two schools work so well together. I keep the summoning to a minimum preferring to kill off enemies with illusion where possible and while they are fighting I'll conjure a bow and help them out. When it's down to one they're usually just a bow shot or two from death anyway. I use the Dremora Lords for dragons and really difficult enemies.

I'm level 12 right now so I'm using them both to survive. I'll use Frenzy on a group of enemies and let them beat each other to death, then I'll start summoning atronachs and use destruction to finish them off. All while keeping a bound sword in one hand in case they get close. I don't know at what point I'll start focusing on one or the other, but right now both are helpful.

Being able to whip 2 dremora lords into existance is brilliant. Then again, invisibility/muffle/frenzy etc is pretty mean stuff as well.

I think the real preference comes from whether your Mage wants to go loud and proud, or softly softly.