I have been playing my Thief for around 140 hours and I wanted to dabble a bit in the Illusion School. I want to add something else to my arsenal, other than Bow + One Handed. I have 100 Magicka, which means I haven't put a single level up on it.

Is there any way to make it viable at this level? Should I devote future levels up to Magicka? I'm thinking my level ups are getting slower and slower, so they might make a bit of a difference but not too much... Right now I'm playing Master and have no trouble with most of the enemies I encounter. Health and Stamina are not an issue, I find them plentiful in most situations. My Armor is at the cap and then some (Full Legendary Dragonscale), so I can pretty much take anything that comes my way, stealth or direct combat...except the ocassional ranged mage, which definitely kicks my ass in 3-4 hits if I'm not careful.

Maybe some Fortify Magicka Potions? Some Regenerate Magicka or +Magicka gear? I have 100 in all crafting skills and prefer not to use the Enchanting + Alchemy loop.

Any tips/ideas are appreciated!

Yeah you could enchant to reduce the costs, would make it easier. By getting illusion up to 100 you would probably go up two levels at least, which won't really make illusion work at your level, unless you just wanted it for invisibility? Which would be easy to do and you wouldn't need to invest in perks, you would need fortify illusion 50% to be able to cast it at 100 magicka IIRC without any perks. As at 100 illusion invisibility costs just under 200.

If you wanted to use the manipulation spells then at your level you need to have most of the perks in the right side of the tree. Dual casting is a must, you will also need the perks that increase the effectiveness of the spells, so you will need at least 7 perk points for illusion spells (IIRC) to be effective at your level.

Illusion is also very easy to level, using the muffle spell, just a little tip.

You could just use alchemy. It has fury/invisibility/utility that illusion has, and you won't need to spend points into magicka.
If you use it with pickpocketing, you can make NPCs commit suicide by giving them fury potions

Or you could level up illusion. Couldn't hurt. It might level you up a bit more quickly if your skill is still low.
I don't quite know your goal here, so sorry if the advice seems limited at best.

The potions, even at max alchemy level with the relevant perks, will not give you a high enough level fury potion for use at his level unfortunately.

Using alchemy isn't the same as having the invisibilty spell at your disposal with a click. No menu pause cheese, multiple casts, and as long as you have mana, you have all the effects of illusion, and you never run out of ingredients so you don't have to question "is this worth my potion?"

To properly use illusion as a more D+D shadowdancer style you wll need more magica. Alot more ( I have 320 magica and would like more- 320/320/180)

Invisibility with half cost perk and 100 skill still costs 99 magica. Cost reducers can help, but I suggest using a dagger with absorb magica on it.

If you are level 52, with 100 magica. Then I hope you are on a PC. If you are on a console, then you might consider a restart or a new character- cuz that is ALOT of grinding.

Well he could enchant -50% illusion spell reduction, which won't need any perks, and he could cast invisibility, maybe 75% would be better though.

Right, but he needs silent casting, which is 4 perks, otherwise invisibility doesn't work well and cant be recast. And substituting that much of his gear for illusion reducers just for a spell or two is also not optimal. Up to him.

Good point, hmm.

Unless he trained a few skills to get some perk points, it isn't that viable tbh.

I am almost level 78 on one of my files, meaning if you want to spend the time leveling up all of your skills you have a lot of stats and perks still ready to invest.

I felt the same as you and in your position on my 1st playthrough. Just got 50 trophy and now my 3rd playthrough Ive trained Illusion but you can train Illusion In Lorgrashbur and at College no matter your level and train it on horkers and wolves quite easily but quite slowly until you perk.

Thanks all for the advice... I've decided it's pretty much not viable at this point, especially because of the low magicka, and high levels of enemies. My goal was Calm/Fury spells, since I don't find much use in Invisibility, since I have Sneak maxed out plus some +Sneak gear.. I would probably need the highest level spells to affect any of the NPC's, and it would probably take me quite a while and a hell lot of perks to make it useful.

Now the Alchemy route, that sounds interesting, I didn't really know about the Fury potion, probably never even made it. That is a little bit up my alley, since I've already put a good amount of perks in it... Is it considered a poison? Would I benefit from the poison+ perk? I think this is a good option! Thanks for the suggestion!

I guess I'll roll a mage or something for Illusion.

Oh so you don't even know what you are missing? Believe me, sneak + invisibility is a whole new level. Sneak is good, but combine it with liberal use of invisibility plus calms/frenzies? whole new ball game.

Example: I only appear when it is a death animation during fights. And it truly doesn't matter how outnumbered/outmatched you are- you just nightcrawler (xman guy??) around.

Yeah it might be a little to late, possibly not

Cheers

True, it's a shame you can't fave potions. This is the approach I'm trying with my current assassin/thief ... no spells, just potions. There's an advantage in that you get access to effect just based on what is in your inventory, and hence what you can create - and no magicka cost to use them. But, there's the fact that you're hauling 200 potions around and have to jump through menus.

Yeah. It is a personal thing guess but I HATE doing menus during a fight. HATE HATE HATE. To the point where my 8 slot has the poison weapon on it so I don't have to pause/apply/all that crap.

Don't get me wrong, I would definitely love this style of gameplay. I've seen several videos and it looks incredible. I just thought of it too late into my character.