Ok so i love this game its absolutely amazing and i appreciate all the hard work bethesda put into it but for the love of talos can someone please fix the magicka regeneration bug that slows your magicka recharge during battle ......or at least tell me its on purpose and an explanation why? Ive created several mages and they all fail because of this bug or whatever it is.

It's on purpose. I suppose the reason is that if magicka regenerated regularly you could just spam bolts of fire from the get go.

It's not a bug, but it's annoying. They really don't know how to balance magic and it always ends up weak. Unless you make enchanted gear, and then you become overpowered with unlimited magicka.

Yeah, it's on purpose. you are supposed to get a lot of enchanted items to increase your magicka regen or your total amount of magicka. Mages would be WAY overpowered if not for that. Also, there are enchanted items (or you can make them) that decrease the amount of magic that certain spells require. Like Fortify Destruction for example. You can play High Elf too, and get the regen Power.

To put a finer point on it... with all you are able to do with a character and all you can create for them... Beth cannot truely balance much of the combat. There are just too many possibilities we can make for them to get a realistic handle on balance. Overall the game's combat plays well. I have had characters at level 50+ that get wiped out quick in what I thought would be a cake-walk battle.

I play as a Nord mage and I have no problem with the balance what so ever. It works and there's no need to change it.

I noticed this with my attempted mage. He's taken the perk for regenerating faster (25%). He's got on an amulet that is supposed to help by 25%, and a helmet that is supposed to be 60%. Don't notice any of these in battle. Outside of battle things go fast. What's the point of spending money/making items/finding treasure if battle negates its properties?

Because it would make your character OP. At least I think that's the reason.

I don't want to start any sort of discusion here. I just think that spells use too much magic. I'm not even complaining about dificulty, but I find it silly that a warrior can swing his weapon as much as they want while a pure mage can shoot a few fireballs before running out of magic, and they don't even scale damage. We have opinion's, mine is that magic is usually too weak and I'd change some things.

Possible. They could have then just put a cap on it (maybe max of 50% faster type thing) instead of it not happening at all during combat. Makes all those nice items pretty useless since you're not magic slinging too often when not fighting.

Magicka DOES regen in combat.. At a severely reduced rate of course, but it does, and having many magicka regen items has a noticable effect.
The real problem I see with magic is that, as already stated, the spells just cost way too much mana(although CAN be reduced to 0 with enchantments, but I think this should be capped) and they don't do enough damage.

Yeah I know the regen does happen, but it ignores any help it might have and one resorts to potion guzzling or running around trying not to be hit while waiting it out. So somehow that should be able to be affected by items that have it as their purpose. You're right on them wanting you to rely more on getting that cost reduced instead of speed boost. But that brings it back to the first point...

Why put items that regen magic faster in game, if the only time they regen is when NOT using your magic? Just makes little sense. Again, they could have put a limit on the % of increase if they're worried about overpowering or found another creative way to handle it. Feels kinda weird to have a bunch of items that increase that regen speed, not work when they're actually needed.

i had the ring of recovery which is regenerate magicka 100% faster & i also noticed my magicka regenerated normal when in battle & 100% faster outside of battle...which is backwards to me, i also thought it was a glitch... i wear that ring so i can get that 100% faster regeneration to help me in battle... i was disappointed to learn thats not the case...

If the regeneration does not work then I would go with reduction enchanted items so it cost less to use things like destruction spells.

well i appreciate all the useful advice ......what they should have done is allow the regen unless you play on higher difficulty it would reduce the regen rate ....which wouldn't help me a whole lot cause i play expert but i totaly agree with the pointlessness of regenrate magicka if it isnt going to affect the player except outside battle. Then again it could be a serious intention to make the game that way because any battle i have magicka issues with are usually as tough trying to stay alive as a warrior so maybe their combat balancing is working.

If they had kept stamina costs for sword swinging and bowstring drawing this thread probably wouldn't exist. The fundamental reason that mages seem weaker in Skyrim than in previous TES games is because warriors have zero cost related to their damage output., it's like they figured that magic spamming would be overpowered and balanced the game to prevent that but suddenly decided that warriors getting tired and no longer being able to swing their weapons would be incredibly annoying and so lifted their burden.

Ideally I'd have attacks cost stamina again and reduce stamina regen during battle as well, maybe then stamina potions would have a purpose, as it is now they're gold fodder, I take them because they're lightweight and high value, but as soon as I get to town they get sold, no sense carrying items that serve no purpose whatsoever.

@Murt
I think I agree with this. I only ask for better balance, nothing more. In fact, I only think destruction and maybe alteration are wrong in their costs, since I use illusion and conjuration, and those are great.

I'd change another thing though, I'd limit the number of summons to the character's power, not to one or two, I've always thought that's silly. That way, the lesser summons wouldn't be rendered useless over time since you could summon more of them. In that case I'd probably up the cost of dremora lords, they are good enough as one or two.

Another thing I don't like is how dragons are immune to illusion, that's plain silly. If they wanted to balance it they should have made them resistant and you'd have to use a spell more than once on them, but not make it completely inefective against any enemy, since enemies level with you and you could be totally screwed if you had been dependant on illusion, wich is a perfectly viable option for everything else.

@Manikin

Restoration is a little high cost during battle for the effects your get, healing magic should be a perfectly viable alternative to potions and it just isn't. As for summons, Bethesda have never gotten this right, the correct way to do summons is to assign each summoned "unit" a value and have the value that be summoned dictated by skill level. So say every 10 skill points is 1 summon point before perk increases, you could have small stuff like skeletons at one or two points each or a dremora at five or six points each, so at skill level 100 you could have a full squad of skeletons or two dremora. That also gives a tactical edge to summons rather than simply bringing in whatever your biggest summon is and it automatically being the best regardless of circumstance.

As for dragon immunity, have to politely disagree on that one. Dragons should be immune to plenty, definitely immune to all poisons, illusion, stamina damage and at least one environmental effect each. Dragons just feel weak in this game, I see a dragon in the sky and I'll pull my bow and aggro it immediately, but I skirt around giant camps and mammoths as they're just too risky to take on. Dragons should be feared, not fodder.


It's a shame that combat in Skyrim isn't more tactical, but thankfully there are plenty of other games out there that offer tactical depth and satisfying combat, so we can play Skyrim for the things that it is good at, the size and detail of the game world and sense of wonder during exploration.

@Murt
Yes, exactly my thoughts in regards to conjuration and restoration, I just ditched the second and I don't even consider in my game.

As for dragons, think about it this way: In other games, you may have some spells tha cause effects like the ones we get here for illusion, but they are not so tied to the player style. I mean, in skyrim you could level up a lot just by training illusion, you could be depentant on it, it's just another tool. You may be powerful just by using it. But then you find an enemy that is completely immune to it. You have no other resources and you're defenseless. I know it could be rare, but it's a possibility. Wouldn't you think that's unfair for a player that had no other way to play since it's all about freedom of choice, and their choice is screwed? Specially after Oblivion where with enough power you could affect any creature with illusion.

Bottom line, and not trying to to say you view is wrong: If a player trains bow, they can still shoot arrows at a dragon. Of course the dragon will not fall with one arrow, but the style is not useless. The same goes with one handed, two handed and even stealth (OHKO backstab dragons) and block. They never become useless, just less effective. As you said, they can be weak even against arrows.

Also talking about lack of tactical combat, I really miss an evasion move or something, but I think everyone knows that combat in Skyrim could use quite a few improvements.

Ah, wall of text.

To be fair, with my level 35 Warrior, non-power swings are pretty much ineffective against anything more formidable than a bandit. I find myself cursing the endurance bar just as much as I hate the mana bar with my Mage.

I think the point of the regen rates is to make potions viable, perhaps even essential... and to some degree I think that's a good thing, since it breaks the combat repetition up a bit.