Just when killing enemies seemed to be becoming easy peasy, my level 25 mage has started encountering enemies that have him conjuring, backpedalling, casting runes, and doing whatever it takes just to survive. All of which requires magicka management to a degree I wasn't expecting. It is really great, much different than the fighter builds I'm used to. I just haven't had the opportunity to enjoy slaughtering enemies with ease for a level or two... and I'm only playing on Expert. Anyone else going for the pure mage build finding it a challenge (or those who have gone before me)?

As a side note, I witnessed a band of Stormcloaks raid a small Imperial camp and chop them to bits... I thought that was nice as I often wondered why I wasn't seeing that occur all over the place.

Yep, the use of mana and how it runs out, rather than fighters and how they can just hack and slash forever without stopping, makes it far more challenging

Not for everyone I know, but if you go the route of enchanting everything with -"your favored spell school percentage", it makes things much more manageable.

I found that the Invisibility spell with the quiet casting perk helped so very much.

pure mage is really bad in this one =p. although no one is stoping ou from useing a sword and shield when you run out of magicka.....

destruction stinks on its own, but buffs fighters REALLY well

Ummm...using a sword and shield while trying to rp a pure mage defeats the purpose of the rp in the first place. However, I completely agree that destruction totally blows in Skyrim.

Yea, I'm loving my redguard mage. I always laugh at pure mage builds that have a dagger or some type of melee weapon to fall back on... WEAK. I'm all in: pure cloth mage, on master, no melee. I would say no armor too but the dragon priest masks count as armor. So because of that one piece i can't reap the full benifits of alteration... svcks. It's challenging bro. I'm kinda pissed because I had to bust out some staffs to survive Liar's Retreat (lvl 40). I had to laugh because it was the first time I actually genuinely needed em.

The staff of magnus is booty btw... absolute trash. Sanguine's rose and staff of firebolts FTW.

Oh man, I love my Altmer mage! Ebonyflesh with the third mage armor perk and only wear robes, wards, the third magic resistance perk (30%), atronach stone, summon a daedra, frenzy a couple enemies, destruction in one hand (frost mage only for me, saves me the perks and is more fun role playing), expulsion in the other, and boom, another forsworn encampment disappears.

I assume that, in going pure mage, you are leveling enchanting? If you can enchant a piece of armor to negate magicka costs (with dual enchantment perk, negate two whole schools' magicka use), magic becomes the most powerful build. Especially with the impact perk and lightning magicka, nothing stands a chance. With lightning's magicka drain, dragons cannot deal damage, and impact makes all battles easily won by stumbling everyone. I had to switch from pure mage to archer, because there was no more challenge!

For extra fun, use all schools of magic. Conjuring dead thralls for permanent companions is fun, and with illusion, you can use invisibility to boost assassin builds. Good luck with a pure mage, it was the best experience I had in my 3 well-worn characters.

i never found a invisibility spell, where do i go to get it?

Drevis Neloren sells it at the college once your illusion is at least 75.

Once you get your skills high, yeah, it might be easier, but that's how it goes for everything.

I'm almost a pure mage right now, but I sneak as well. The spells I use most are firebolt, muffle, summon x atronach, and frenzy (basically hiding and letting someone else fight for me, jumping in to support sometimes).

Holy Frijoles... what does that even mean

I don't agree that it's "really bad". I think it's been very entertaining so far (I didn't like magic in Morrowind or Oblivion). I also don't see a contradiction with a pure mage using a dagger or a short sword (I carry an enchanted dagger with me at all times... just in case), but I don't think a shield matches the build so I won't use one (that's what wards are for).

Sacred beans

now, dont even get me started on wtf sacred beans are.....

In some of the fantasy books I've read, mages keep daggers in hidden sheathes in their voluminous sleeves for when they run out of magic. I don't think daggers defeat the purpose of roll playing a mage, but I do think sword and shield, or warhammer, or two-hander sword would be a bit much...haha

And for advice for the topic starter, when I play mage and I'm up against warriors, I will jump somewhere high where they can't reach and rain fire upon them. It doesn't work with archers unless you have cover to hide behind.

Mages can use weapons of some kind as a back up you know a last resort if you need it.

Being a mage is more interesting than being a fighter in this game because there is more options than the fighter but its not as interesting ad being mage in older entries of the series what with the lack of spell creation and older spell types that gave even more diversity to make your mage the way you want and that adds to roleplaying value.

Also to use your mage more effectively is get some magic reduction in all of the schools you use so you fan actually usr your spells more effectively.

It's ALOT easier if you're playing an Altmer pure mage!

So true! I sometimes forget about highborn, but it's the perfect power for an Altmer mage! Not like the dunmer' stupid apprentice level fire spell power...

TC, did you think all those playing mages and complaining at launch and afterwards on this forum didn't know what they were taking about?

Magic is Todd Howard's cruel joke.

Just get conjuration up then being a pure mage is easy, you have fun using your spells against enemies you can handle while your two dremora lords take care of the hard enemies

I agree magic before was to spreadsheety remember.

I wish magic was what it used to be in this series a system with options and customization and depth. I want the spells we had at least the ones to Morrowind and spell creation then magic would be fine, and if shouts are the reason magic has been gutted toss them in spell creation as well becausd the Thu'um is just another form of magic I hope people have not forgotten that.

It's funny. The day I make my pure magic high elf is the day I see that magic is underpowered.

I'm doing a destruction focused build and I'm noticing that it's quite strong. I'm doing destruction and alchemy, with a little restoration and having a good time on adept. When I run out of magicka, I switch to concentration spells. They use very little magicka and you regenerate quite a bit of magicka while you are using them. I use potions very rarely, and I think a completely pure destruction build is also viable. The thing with this kind of focused build is that you stay in low level for very long time and max out at low level. If you just focus on one tree, you can top out at under level 19.