Im new around here, my name is Mike, so I want to say hello to everyone before I begin. So, hello all

Ok, Ive had very few issues with Skyrim so far, well to say the truth its second to none, this game is just great in every aspect and Im having lots of fun with it. So far Ive had great times with all Bethesda games and Skyrim is just awesome.

Right now Im lvl 43, mana 490, health 300, stamina 190.

Ive started the game thinking I will try magic a bit and so I did, well sort of. My destruction is now 59, restoration 70, conjuration 55 and alteration/illusion isnt worth noticing on my character, both are around 30 or so. Destruction and restoration I have every possible perk unlocked, except runes on destruction and wards on restoration. I dont know why, but I didnt invest anything to conjuration yet...

Well, I know. My problem is that I wanted to have my character as a battlemage, walking the land of Skyrim in heavy armor, casting fireballs and such. It works when I meet bandits/giants/dragons/any enemy which isnt casting spells. But when I meet up with a bunch of mages, even one master, I get totally destroyed within a minute (if I dont use potions quickly that is). Im using Daedric armor with 628 armor, except helmet, for that Ive gone for Othar, which grants me 30% elemental protection. Just today I was fighting a group of Necromancers, and all above apprentices were just kicking my butt pretty hard. Master conjurers, Vampires, Necromancers, you name it. I just cant stand few hits of magic attacks. Melee is fine, but what can I do to make my character more resistant to magic attacks? When I get hit by a lighting bolt or fireball, my health drops by half..?

Also, can I ask you if magic regen stacks up? I enchanted my equipment, armor has 43% regen, necklace as well and so on. But in a fight it seems like its regenerating way too slow.

Then I want to ask about magic damage. Are all mages made of ebony or something? I used double chain lighting attack with staffs on master necromancer, and it was just scratching him really. Magic which ist cast does the same, so I see a very little point in destruction magic when I can cast three or four double chain lightning on someone, doing a very little damage. And when Im out of mana and strike those magicians with my 53dmg daedric sword I see a little difference. And that is a full heavy armor warrior vs man with no protective spell, wearing linen robes. Or do they have higher body protection and more health if you are higher level?

Im playing on adept and I find this pretty ridiculous. It feels like the high apparel protection number isnt really helping me when it comes to magic, can you please help me to make my character stand its ground against those cheeky magicians?

Other info about my char: High Elf, Enchanting 94(1/3 perks), Smithing 100(all perks), Heavy armor 100 (all but one perk), One-handed 54 (2 damage perks).

Now I know that it doesnt look I followed the mage path lol, I just dont want to feel so breakable when it comes to magic attacks vs my body.

Thanks in advance and happy hunting

So basically the problem is getting owned by spells. This is natural, many men experience this, don't think you are out of the ordinary.

In the first place, try not to get hit by the spells by dodging or using cover. Apart from that, you can find 70% elemental resist necklaces about the place. Then you can combine those with magic resist from e.g. the Lord Stone or various items, and become extremely resistant to magic damage. There is one particular shield that provides excellent protection from spell casters, and there is a Block perk for shields that also gives good elemental resistance.

Usually everything stacks in TES, but only up to 80% or so in Skyrim. However, for elemental damage you can get 80% elemental resist plus 80% magic resist stacked (theoretically), and then Ancient Dragons are like a sheep coughing on the hillside.

Magic bypasses armor! You need to be more well rounded in your enchanting, or at least carry specific mage hunting gear. If you have a few elemental resistance pieces, and or the potions to resist element and or magic in general you will do a lot better. I found this was what my warrior needed to run up and wail on mages. Without the gear I can't even get in range to melee. My thief never had an issue, as archery can make quick work of mages. Both archery and destruction have the stagger perks as well which are very useful against spell casters. When you attack multiple spell casters, conjuring up an frost atonarch is a good idea, and relatively cheap as is having a good follower. I think that gear that makes spells cheaper to cast are more useful than gear that either regens or adds total mana, but it is a fine line. Playing the line of sight game is also important when facing spell casters. I like to use cover often, as this is my advantage over the AI.

To be immune to magic without the use of a Shield:

1.) Disenchant the Shield of Solitude for Magic Resistance*
2.) Disenchant Magic Resistance (this can stack with Shield of Solitude)
3.) Use Lord or Atronach Stone
4.) Enchanting - 5/5 Enchanter, 1/1 Insightful Enchanter, 1/1 Corpus Enchanter, 1/1 Extra Effect - 100 Skill
5.) Get the Black Star Soul Gem. Trap Black Souls for Enchants.
6.) Brew Alchemy potions to Fortify Enchanting
7.) Enchant your gear with Fortify Destruction and the Magic Resistance where applicable. As far as the Extra Effect goes, you can choose to make 2 schools of Magic entirely free to cast. With the Atronach/Lord Stone and the proper Enchants you will be at Magic Resist Cap.
8.) To further cheese this, take the Alteration perks for Absorb and/or resistance.
9.) Use potions to Fortify damage with magicka.
10.) Magicka Regen is worthless. Taking the perks to lower Magic cost is worthless.
11.) With a Shield, you can completely obliterate the Resistances (but this isn't necessary)

If you were a Breton, you'd REALLY be immune esp with the 1 day cd.

Ok now I realized I have NO magic protection gear. I thought elemental protection equals magic protection, or am I wong? Like 30% shock resistance=30% resistance against chain lightning for example?

Yeah, all the armor in the world is not going to protect you from spells. Your 30% shock protection is not enough. Start shopping for some better necklaces or other gear of elemental resistances (frost, fire and shock) and then brew up some potions. Put on the appropriate necklace and quaff a fire, frost or shock resistance potion the next time you go up against a mage and you should be fine.

As far as you magic not affecting mages, they might have a ward spell up.

This is a very good answer, easy, rich, and memorable. Many thanks

NPC magic does way too much damage, NPC mages suffer practically none of the drawbacks/limitations involved in using destruction magic that PCs do, you pretty much have to stack magic and/or element resists if you're playing a character that's going to face them in a fair fight.

Your resistance categories are:

-Fire
-Frost
-Shock
-Poison
-Disease

Magic Resistance refers to:

-Fire
-Frost
-Shock

Elemental refers to:

-Fire
-Frost
-Shock

Poison and Disease are separate.

If you have Magic Resistance of 10%, you resist Fire, Frost, and Shock by 10%.

Any Shock based spell (chain lightning for example) is goverend by Shock Resistance.

Magic Absorb is not the same as Resist. Absorb has a chance of completely negating inferior spell damage or affects. Resist will mitigate it. Absorb will HEAL YOUR MAGICKA by the type of Magicka being absorbed. The veiled downside to Absorb (which may be fixed now) is that beneficial spells or conjurations in some cases may have a chance of NOT WORKING because they are being counted as being absorbed. Known issue.

Thing is they dont. Some of they do, but in that case I understand magic istn really doing any damage to them. But if they are not using ward, they are doing really well against any damage. Goes for master magicians only, novice and apprentice mages go down pretty quick.

If you have a lot of magica, wards are your best friend. If not, you should rely on conjuration. Let your zombies be your meatshield.

If you actually run through all that stuff, the end result is that you will be disappointed that kiling an Ancient Dragon is like killing a fox with bonebreak fever.

Not sure what the issue is then. My Altmer mage has no trouble using destruction on other mages. Sometimes I run into a Dunmer and have to use something other than fire (my prefered element for destruction spells) but I have never had a problem with shock on mages. There is very little that is naturally resistant to shock.

On your regen, combat reduces mana regen a lot, more then you can boast it generally. It's way better to enchant your armor with mana reduction. Beyond that, casters are one of the most difficult enemies in the game. My warrior with heavy armor, block (with elemental resistanceperk) gets owned pretty hard by them. Only my sneaky thief beats them easily because she remains unseen and thus untargeted.

NPC spells scale up with their power level, i.e., a Master Necromancer does a great deal more damage with his Frostbite spell than a Novice Necromancer. Facing high-level wizards can kill you very fast without magic defense gear/perks. If you put some perks into Conjuration and use Atronachs, you will do much better in surviving the tougher areas of the game.

-Loth

I would use conjuration, and use some of the higher level things you can call up to help you. From what I've read so far, there are some things that make great tanks, while you stand off in the distance and deal your damage.

You know who has annoying magic? The Forsworn, seriously screw them and their stamina draining ice spells. But anyway the best thing to do is probably get a few resist enchantments if getting owned is the problem.

lol, but really, Im more disappointed that I started the game on master, then I had to lower it to expert, and now on adept, I want to play this game on highest difficulty, being it a challenge, now I feel like I am made out of glass. Window glass, not armor

Seems a bit like an "I win" button when you power craft like this.

That isn't power crafting. This isn't even exploiting. This is just standard game design and choices. The fact of the matter is you are almost forced to "exploit" with Enchanting to overcome how poorly designed the Magic system is in Skyrim. Further, since outside of mitigation there really is no way to defend or actively dodge magic. Your only way not to die in most cases immediately is to stack resistance. This little checklist I compiled isn't stuff like "go to the Basemant of Befallen and sell bat wings to the vendor for an infinite profit, then use your Shaman to craft Damage Shield pots to power level everyone with tap kiting some mobs in a random zone (EQ reference)".

This does not take into account the "true exploit" which is Potion looping. The fact you can do this is an enormous oversight that could have been easily curtailed. Sorry, the game design svcks. Had they been more creative and added stuff besides Fortify: "skill" enchant. The fact these exist and that Fortify Enchant/Smithing potions exist is also a massive fail.

Hey mike, I'm sorry I only read a little, but your best option would be to use your wards from resto, like you say is one of your main skills. I find restoration is a lifesaver if not a viable source to block magic. Be it a dragon or enemy spell caster. The atronach perk is wonderful in the alteration tree as well as the lord (?) stone as it let's you block 25% of magic.

If you find the wards using up too much magicka look around for enchanted equipment or enchant yourself.

The only other option I see is conjuring up an atronach to soak up some damage. Either way, any single one of these- or a combo- is perfectly viable.

Wards are terrible, they will use too much magicka(something NPCs have more of than you do) for far too little protection, you are definitely better off getting passive resistance. Using a ward is like actively draining your own magicka just to kill time.

Yup. Wards are for NPCs to use... avoid them. The only time wards can be considered helpful is when you have plenty of warning before getting blasted, and that boils down to Dragon breath attacks, and not much else. Way easier to have passive resist/absorb in place...

-Loth

Maybe I'm doing something wrong then, but wards usually block ALL magicka damage for me, not just 40%. But really it's up to you, since you've invested into resto, they won't cost as much and I find them very helpful later in the game. People will disagree, and others will agree, I just say try them out and make a decision on your experience.

For example I usually take no damage with lesser ward up on a dragon's frost breath and that is my only resistance.

No, you're right... wards will absorb as much damage as they can before breaking. If you are on Adept, and fighting a low-level dragon, a lesser or steadfast ward will ably protect you from dragon's breath. Just don't count on that spell to save you from a gang of enemy casters -- you just might find yourself reloading a save to a time before you died.

-Loth