Hey everybody, so I started a new character, a Dark Elf Battle Mage (bad @ss!) I've been raising my magica, health and stamina evenly. I know this go's against conventional wisdom but really I need all 3 for this type of character. But I don't want to screw myself so I'm wondering if anyone knows how much magica I need to cast all spells.

As a side note I like to play dress up and have my magica high enough without armor that enhances magica, in other words I don't want to pigeonhole myself into wearing a particular piece of armor.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Use enchanting to fortify the magic school of your choice, or fortify magicka/magicka regen.

You can have it so spells cost 0% magicka, takes the fun away though.

It depends. Do you rely more on your magic, or on your weapons?

If you rely more on magic, you'll want to level up magicka a whole lot more. I only leveled health up like 4 or 5 times, and stamina only once, in 55 levels, and there are expert and master level spells that still eat up more than 1/2 my magicka (which is over 600 at this point)

But perks help. Before, my Mass Paralysis (master level Alteration) spell ate up more than 1/2 my magicka. Now with the Master Alteration perk, it eats up 1/2 that (obviously). Much more efficient.

The enchanting route is boring, and then if you do that you only have that 1 kind of enchantment on you. I would rather not use that exploit and just use the magic reduction perks, fortify destruction etc. potions and whatnot.

Yeah but I want to cast all spells from all schools. I've already planed on setting aside 25 perks to reduce magica cost on every level in every school. I don't know if I'll take it that far, I'm not as interested in illusion or alteration so I don't know if I'll take those all the way to master level, but I want to be able to cast them.

0 magicka to cast all spells, that's just how broken enchanting is in Skyrim. It's like typing TGM but without actually entering the console to do it, you just need 4 "-25% spell cost" effects and that school's spells are entirely free. I'm not sure if it's possible to get free casts of every school at once but I can see it probably being possible for at least 3 of the 5 at once... and I'd choose Destruction, Conjuration and Illusion... don't really need restoration thanks to Illusion and Conjuration being a bit OPed, destruction with impact means you can stun lock anything that might get close to hitting you, Alteration then also isn't needed anymore either.

Use this link to find out....
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Spells

EDIT: Please note that these are base values. With 100 skill in a respective school of magic, the base cost is reduced by 33%. The "Cost Reduction Perks" are calculated AFTER this initial 33%. Also note that "Cost Reduction Enchants" are calculated AFTER "Cost Reduction Perks". There are three stages to cost reduction.

I use both pretty evenly, magic in one hand sword in the other. I ware enemies down with magic then go in for the kill, I'm putting 5 perks in Armsman to get 2X the damage.

If I run out of magic I switch to two handed weapons, also maxing out the damage in that tree.

Also as maxing out dual wielding, I did this with my last character and it kills everything.

So wait are you saying it's pointless to get the cast for half magica perks?

So use a fortify restoration, fortify destruction, fortify illusion, fortify conjuration and fortify alteration enchantments. If you are level 100 enchanting with the last perk, you can put two enchantments on one item, you can wear 6 items (chest, feet, hands, face, necklace and ring), so 12 enchantments. Not all of them allow fortifying of the magic schools though, but they will all allow something magic related (e.g. fortify magicka regen).

OVER 9000!!!
/jk

Seriously though, I think you gonna need a nice sum of Magicka if you wish to cast master level spells freely.
For example, Dead Thrall, a master Conjuration spell, costs ~850 MP without any perks invested and starting Conjuration (15-20).

Not necessarily.

With 100 skill and the respective Cost reduction perks you only need to spend about 33% magicka as opposed to 66%. That is good, especially if you are not utilizing enchantments.

If you put 25% cost reduction on top of 33%, you will get about 25% final magicka cost for those respective schools.


For example, you could get all cost reduction perks, max out Enchanter and Extra Effect perks for the gear below...

Head: Fortify Destruction 25% / Fortify Restoration 25%

Body: Fortify Destruction 25% / Fortify Alteration 25%

Ring: Fortify Destruction 25% / Fortify Illusion 25%

Neck: Fortify Destruction 25% / Fortify Conjuration 25%

...with this your destruction costs nothing, and all other spells will only cost 25% of their base value.

Well thanks guys this good info. I will use enhancements on some armor and the two enchantment perk but some will be things for warriors.

I'm building a character based off the Nazgul, even looks just like they do when Frodo puts on the ring, so awesome. And OMG I'm such a nerd.

On a pure game mechanic level it is pointless to take any of those perks except the first since it is forced if you want any other perks, and it is also pointless to invest anything into magicka. Use enchanting to reduce the cost to 0, and since it can all on light items like rings and clothing just have enough sets to cover every school. Whether that would be fun or not is a totally different discussion.

There's a spell that costs 900+ Magicka so I say 1000.

The Storm Thrall spell seems to have the highest base magicka cost at 1057.

Mana decrease for spells is affected by things in the following order. Skill - Perk - Enchantment

Let's assume you've got 100 skill, the Master perk for Conjuration and at least 1 item that decreases magicka cost by 25%.

1057 * 0,67 = 708,19 with only 100 Conjuration skill.

708,19 * 0,5 = 354,095 with 100 Conjuration Skill + Master Conjuration perk.

354,095 * 0.75 = 265,57125 magicka with 100 Conjuration, Master Cojuration perk and 1 item decreasing magicka cost by 25%.

So about 265 magicka if those conditions are met. I don't find it unlikely to have more than 25% spell decrease so I would be surprised if the number came to be even less. And this is a spell that conjures a Storm Atronach that will be at your side basically forever. So no need to even cast it in combat.

If you don't see yourself grinding every skill to 100 so you can hit level 81 and are rather aiming at let's say for the sake of convenience 49 then that's 48 level ups or 48/3 = 16 skill up for magicka. Or a total mana of 100 + 10*16= 260 mana. Throw yourself up to level 50 and put that skill up into magicka and you should have 270 magicka or just enough to cast any Master Spell if you have the perk for it and can cast spells for 25% less mana.

I'm not really 100% sure on my calculations though, use only the information provided by this thread and by the UESP wiki and my own fickle math skills.

An alternative is to use the Arch-mages robes which gives 15% in all 5 schools, however as there are only 4 slots you can apply the enchants too and that takes one, it makes it impossible for free spells in any school... then again it's got a +50 magicka effect on it too.

So that would be:

Head: Fortify Destruction 25% / Fortify Alteration 25%
Body: Fortify Destruction 15% / Fortify Restoration 15% / Fortify Alteration 15% / Fortify Illusion 15% / Fortify Conjuration 15% / Fortify Magicka +50 / Magicka Regeneration +100%
Ring: Fortify Destruction 25% / Fortify Conjuration 25%
Neck: Fortify Restoration 25% / Fortify Illusion 25%

This gives possibly the most optimum reductions if you're going after all schools. Tho Lancifer's example gives the the most practical reductions (since destruction is probably going to be the most used spell type in battle).

From what I've given you get from enchantments, Fortify Destruction 65%, Fortify Restoration/Alteration/Illusion/Conjuration 40%. Total fortification : 225%
From Lancifer's Example Fortify Destruction 100%, Restoration/Alteration/Illusion/Conjuration 25%. Total fortification 200%

I offer this as an alternative because to me, fortify destruction 100% just means you can spam dual-cast stunning expert single target spells as you like, constantly with no cost and thus feels a bit broken. Then again destruction is under powered so... if you feel that too much going for destruction 100% maybe for you.

Notably I believe these numbers are based off of 100 Enchanting skill with all relevant enchanting perks, however alchemy also has a potion effect, Fortify Enchantment that maybe able to push above 25% fortification for enchantments, I haven't tried it myself tho.

Two options: lower the difficulty or make sweet love to those crafting tables, i.e. exploit Alchemy, Enchant and Smithing.

Skyrim, unlike past TES games, pushes you into playing a focused character and punishes Jacks of all Trades. Not saying your "bad ass" Dunmer Battle Mage is a bad idea, but he will struggle.