I understand the 2 go together amazingly, but i'm currently leveling a pure mage right now. By pure I mean i'm putting all my perks into all the magic types, and then filling up either alchemy or enchanting. I'm wondering though if it would even still be worth putting perks into conjuration because i'm not specializing in any armor type. I would think the bound weapons wouldn't have much use without armor, sounds like death.

Edit: also, do bound weapons get affected by weapon perks? Like would a bound 2h axe work better with 2 handed weapon perks?

I'm a little confused, are you planning to use conjuration for just bound weapons or also for summoning undead and atronachs? If you're planning on summoning you'll obviously want to put points in that side of the tree, especially for longer duration and stronger summons (Atromancy and Elemental Potency for atronachs, respectively). If you're just doing it for bound weapons you might at least get the Mystic Binding perk for doing more damage with bound weapons.

As for your second question I'm not positive about the 1-handed and 2-handed perks applying for bound weapons but I think they might. My reasoning is the one and only time I summoned a bound axe and swung it a couple of times my 2-handed level went up (I exclusively use 1-handed weapons). Hope that helps.

I'm using conjuration with the bound weapons. I put one perk in one hand for the pickaxe witch is the only weapon I carry, it increased the damage the pickaxe does. But I don't know how to see the damage the bound weapons do and I put 2 perks in the bound weapon tree.

I'm also using summon creatures to help fight or the wolf to clear the rune traps out of the way. I have light armor on my feet and hands and I'm using mage robes and mage hat.

I'm not using destruction magic because on my last character I wasted 4 perks in the destruction tree and then realized I was only doing 4 more damage per second. I had to concentrait on destruction magic and my other magic wasn't being used.

I'm level 20ish with 50+ conjuration, 50ish alteration, 50 enchant, 50 smithing, 50 trained pickpocket for the extra carry weight (never picked a pocket), 45 sneak, and 50+ onehand. My other skills are in the high 30s and low 40s, which are; light armor, restoration, lockpicking, and speech. I just found the bound bow spell and my argonian (sp?) started with 20 archery and it's only gone up to 21 all other skills are 15 to 20.

I'd like to fill the entire tree, but like i said i'm not going to be using armor so I guess it wouldn't make sense to put anything into bound weapons as I probably won't need them. I actually didn't realize until now that you could go both ways so I guess i'll just put perks into all the summoning perks because I like those and the put the remaining points into something else. I found out last night that bound weapons do increase your weapon skill, i'm still not sure about the perks though. It makes sense that they would, but i'm still not sure.

Okay, forgive me if I'm being stupid but I still don't see what you mean by not putting points into bound weapons because you don't use armor...

I don't think there is a correlation between bound weapons and armor. You could be naked in game and would still get benefits of perks for bound weapons. Do you mean you would be using points for perks in the 1-handed or 2-handed weapon trees instead of putting those same points in armor (because you're not using armor)?

Bound Weapons are affected by the relevant weapon skill and perk. So while you may be able to conjure up a decent weapon, without the skill and the necessary perk investment, you're still better off using spells over conjured weapons. Not to mention that as a Mage with low armor, health, and stamina, being in the thick of melee combat won't be good for your health.

I think what the OP means is that he thinks without armor, he won't be able to survive melee attacks (because the enemy will be hitting him back, and he's afraid he'll go down so fast he'll never have time to attack enough to kill the enemy).

To the OP: You said you are perking "pure mage" right? Well, the alteration tree gives you access to magic 'armor' spells - The oakflesh/stoneflesh/etc spells. With perks, I think these spells become very powerful, and effectively replace armor (I mean, it might not quite get you to the resistance cap, I'm not sure, but I think it gets high enough to be very useful).

You'll also have access to restoration heals, alchemy heals and buffs. Let's not forget illusion spells like paralyze (ok, I've heard that illusion spells don't scale well beyond level 45ish, because the enemies tend to be immune because of their level, so at that point paralyze might not be so useful, but until then, definitely). I don't think you have to worry too much about dieing if you use all the tools available to you.

If you're fully perked into Alteration, Dragonhide caps physical mitigation at 80% for 1 minute, and Ebonyflesh grants 300 Armor (48% mitigation) for 4 minutes. Toss in the Lord Stone to bring it up to 350 Armor (54% mitigation). For an unarmored Mage, that's powerful mitigation, but it's nowhere near the cap.


Illusion spells become useless due to resist in th late game unless one fully perks and enchants for it. Paralysis is an Alteration spell; I recall reading some complaints about Paralyze being resisted, but I don't know of any way to mitigate that.

Ah, that makes much more sense.

Yeah, sorry I didn't word that well. This is one complex game..