hola,
made a sneaky, but creapin around sniping with the bow kinda seems OP. im only at lvl17 an my illusions at 50 im lookin for something to spice up my game play and im wondering, since it seems that illusion wont work on "bosses", if its even a viable, fun, way to play...ty

Well it does do invisibility for one thing, plus it's possible to boost it's effectiveness by...

I'm also doing a similar build as yours.

But currently I prefer alteration, with detect life/dead, paralysis and all that. Make things a little easier, but more interesting at the same time. But I guess illusion has its advantages when it comes to face-to-face combat.. (calm/courage/fury.. etc.) But I find it frustrating because my current character has low magical skills.

I like Illusion for any forester types, or anyone who is sick of tripping over spiders and wolves every hundred yards... it works but mix it with a offensive skill so you won't be beaten by the bosses. It's actually good at keeping resources till the tough fights

very, my last character played a stealth mage, at time you will feel OP. like use a variation of the calm spell on high up stuff. just know that you have to put perks into it for it to continue to be good. but if you want to boost your sneak skills/ dominate dungeons. example: walk into dungeon sneak to first room, pacify people if they catch you backstabbing them, repeat, dominate. IT may not sound fun, it may sound overpowered (it is) but its VERY fun

I felt like I really had to invest in the Illusion perk tree to make sure the spells would work on higher level enemies but I found that they did and that made it fun. I haven't finished that game yet though so I don't know how they'll work when your level is way high.

Yes, Illusion is the most powerful of the magic schools, if it's fully perked all the way to skill level 100. Warning, though, you may feel it is too powerful then, even on master levels (though I think that's fun, and like you say, it doesn't effect bosses as much). If you want it to be hard, don't perk it, or use it.

With no perks, the spells become useless, pretty quickly except for "muffle" and "invisibility". So just having them is irrelavent, and a waste of money, if you don't plan to spend the perks.

If you are a sneaky type, then Muffle is always worth it. Invisibility is always worth it.

Illusion is a very powerful spell school. If you invest in the perks you can pretty much control anything in the game minus a select few.

Muffle and invisibility used in junction with eachother is very useful, and the silent casting perk is excellent.

Yeah, getting Mayhem + Rage + Kindred Mage + Quiet Casting + Duel Cast if Necessary.
You should only ever have to face one enemy at any one time. Then there is Calm for that one enemy.

The stealth style is itself very powerful, allowing for incredible levels of tactical play. Combine it with illusion magic and it does not double the effectiveness. It skyrockets it. One issue I had was that I became so effective at getting enemies to kill themselves or walk into traps that my one-handed skill and light armor were rarely put to use. There are so many things that fall under the umbrella of stealth style play though. Keeping a supply of the weakest arrows on hand to use to shoot from a shadowy alcove towards some other spot so enemies nearby go investigate comes to mind. You can use that to send an enemy over a rune, into a trap, or to slip by a well lit area, or just to position them to sneak up and sneak attack.

I was doing the "Summerset Shadows" thieves guild improving quest. As listener for the Dark Brotherhood, Nightshade has no problem killing. A killer she is, but she also has a twisted sense of honor (she's a complicated character). The thieves guild's policy is to try not to murder on jobs. Soooo... for that reason, and as a pure challenge to myself, I went into the hideout and did all the objectives including the optional and left without killing anyone. Just a bunch of patience, distractions with arrows, and very careful timing. A masterful piece of stealth work that was more fun than I've had in an Elder Scrolls game in a long time.

As for the limits on Illusion's effectiveness, it's not that bosses have some special "immunity" per se, although you can't use the spells on undead, automatons, or constructs until you get the 100 skill perk. If a boss is not one of those types, it may be that the level of person or creature your spells can effect is not high enough, as bosses tend to be at least a few levels higher than the rest. I've made master necromancers turn on their underlings, or more frequently fun, their weaker underlings turn on the master to weaken him, then move in to finish him off. The most useful information I found on the fury/calm/fear spells was on the talk page of the UESP wiki's Illusion page http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Illusion. Dual cast slightly more than doubles highest level you can land on AFTER the additions for kindred mage, rage, and other such perks. vampire boosts it all by 25% further, and illusion potions boost by their set percentage too.

If you do decide to go illusion, you will probably wind up dropping the bow, since it takes both your hands. When you can sprint while muffled and invisible and engage for 30x damage at a whim you might just start weilding a dagger and invisibility in your hands. All of a sudden your sneak build will demand mana.

If you are taking it to boost stealth, make sure to pick up silent casting! You can ignore the middle of the illusion branch if that is the case.

-- The number of times you an repeat cast invisibility is the amount of NPC's you can engage at once, at about 5 worth you can just sprint through swarms of foresworn (or whatever).

thanks a mill guys
+2 nightshade
+1 udey

In order to use illusion you gotta dual cast.

I play an archer/stealth/illusionist, i like to use frenzy (dual-casted for high lvl enemies) to make enemies fight themselves while i shoot everybody with my bow \o/ It does not take too much mana, cause the spell has a good length. Sometimes i cast invisibility to go stealth again. I think its very fun, also, pacify saved my skin a lot agains bears, tigers, these damn beasts. I always loved TES illusion magic school, now much more, cause it works on dead/mechanical enemies with "master of mind" perk. You can go with little mana and at least a 20% reduction enchanted equip.

yeah turns out this is VERY fun. still using bow an flame atro but totally just pulled a calm to backstab that ended in a *hand over mouth throat slicing* killcam with dragonsbane, on the ritual master in wolfskull cave. wish i had it recorded. very happy, i def recommend this play style