Thinking of starting a new battle mage walk-through - but im not sure what race would be best suited, at the moment i'm thinking of a red-guard but id like to hear some other opinions from players with battle mages at higher levels. Whats it like compared to just raw fighters or raw mages?

ThievesAssassins and Warriors are king for Skyrim. Mages are subpar in this game, but if you want to be one I'd recomend either playing as a Breton or a High elf if you want racial bonuses. If you just want looks, pick whatever the hell you want. Unless you use racial powers there is literally no difference. The 10 levels in a skill won't benefit you in anyway in the long run, especially considering how quickly we can level up.

Nord or Red Guard. I'm a level 72 Nord battle mage. Focus on your spells, smithing, heavy armor, one handed and two handed armors. Then the rest are optional.

IMO, Nords, Bretons and Imperials make great battlemages. They all have good racial bonuses to useful skills as well as useful racial powers.

My last battlemage was extremely fun. Imperial that focused on One Handed, Alteration and Restoration, with enough Conjuration (two perks) to use the Bound Sword. Just throw on a sword and armor spell, switch your armor spell to a healing one, and dive into battle. You can dance around your foes pretty easily, too, since you don't have physical armor this way. If you want, go for dual casting in Alteration so that your armor lasts longer so that you can dual wield bound swords or use a battleaxe instead


Pretty sure this thread isn't about your opinion on why mages svck.


I think you're missing the 5 levels worth of extra magicka that Altmer get.


So being able to dish out double the damage of other races by level three and having a head-start in certain skills is not an advantage whatsoever...interesting. Let's see you win a ten meter dash against someone who only has to run half the distance you do, then we'll get back to this theory of yours.

I'm sorry? It takes me 10 minutes to catch up to the other races in the skills I'm lacking in. If it takes longer for you, or if the game's starter dungeon is difficult for you, that's not my place.
Also, I recomended the Altmer for the attribute bonus. The other races don't provide anything usful for a mage other than possible powers they may provide...unless you found something I missed?
Perhaps you're right. How dare I express my opinion on a forum. Silly me.

There is obviously no use in talking to you.

Just talk. If you have something to say, just say it. That's what a forum is for.
If you disagree, explain why you do. What other races would you find useful for a mage? Just explain yourself and perhaps we can have a friendly discussion. I'm not sure why you're getting so easily offended.

I chose Altmer, you get 50 extra magicka points and a racial bonus I still use at level 71. Bretons have that magic resistance but if you pick a couple of perks in the Alteration tree, do a couple of quests, and pick the Lord stone the difference is irrelevant.

Plus, dont you want to be a superior born mer?

I agree. In the end it doesn't matter. You can make any race become anything, that is just as viable as the next. I have never put much faith in the special "powers". Once a day? Are you kidding? My Vampire Imperials used the VoTE power a good bit. Other than that...out of the other 14 characters, I have use the powers three times.

Racial bonuses can be made up in a few levels. The most attractive race for ANY mage is the Altmer. That extra 50 Magicka can equate to 5 levels of Magicka, that you can use as health points. That is a good hit for any mage character. Be them a battle mage or not.

Both in lore and in past TES games Redguards are not well suited as mages. At the beginning of the game when you select your race, it's mentioned that Imperials are good with both combat and magic, so they might be the best suited for that class. Any race can be molded into a battlemage through, if you work at it enough.

I agree. I can see why Bretons might be attractive to a lot of people, but Alteration or Enchanting can bring down their advantages quite a bit, so much so that I've made a Nord paladin who does his job better than a Breton is capable of doing.

That, and you're right about the racials. Personally, I'm too conservative with my magicka use to use Highborn so often (something I regret xD), but I've used it before and it's not going to get any less useful as time goes on. Same goes for many other powers, like the Nord, Imperial, Argonian, Orc and even the Breton's Dragonskin--that thing is amazing against mages and dragon priests.

But, OP, I think you've gotten a lot of suggestions for race and little in the way of skill investment. At the end of the day, as important as race may be, a mage is only as good as what he knows.

I say stick with either Conjuration or Enchanting for your weapons, using either bound weapons or lining your steel with flames. I'd recommend not using Destruction, since you'll already have a means of dealing damage (unless you want Destruction for range, in which case I strongly suggest it). It'll save up a lot of perks you can use for another skill if you skip out on it. However, if you do skip it but decide to use Enchanting for your weapons, you're missing out on extra damage they could deal via the Augmented [Element] perks.

I'd suggest using Enchanting whether you use it for weapons or not, though, as conjured weapons can easily leave you with more souls than you know what to do with. Aside from profit and easy skill training, outfit your equipment with lots of boosts to your three attributes and their regeneration rates to offset the fact that you'll have to invest in all three.

As for armor, each of the three options has their advantages. Personally, it'd depend on race and RP value for me, but if you want the best-balanced stuff, I think light armor has what you're looking for.

Redguards in Skyrim have bonuses to magic skills for some reason, including Destruction I think it's kind of dumb, personally; they should be "the most naturally talented warriors in all Tamriel," as usual. I'd say that bonuses Light Armor and all of the warrior skills other than Smithing, but what's done is done.