What would be the point of wearing magicka enchanted robes instead of magicka enchanted light armor? The light armor would be better defensively. Also, where can I get robes that look like the Master robes but without an enchantment? I know where to get the green college robes, but that's it.

There really is no point to robes if what you want is cost reduction.
But robes have signigicant regen % over anything else.

I've never seen non-enchanted robes except for what that store in Solitude sells, and their selection isn't to my liking.

So if I enchanted some ordinary black robes with fortify magicka regeneration, it would be a higher regen rate than if I did the same thing to, say, elven armor?

I'm pretty sure player made magic regen is horrible compared to what robes already have.

It all depends on your enchantment skill level. You have to be practically Odin himself to give items decent enchantments.

If you want to have several sets with different enchants then even all light armor would add significant weight. Though what I did was have my main set light armor and the rest are clothes.

my dark elf is only using robes and mage items just for the challenge.

Yup. I made an enchantment once that was regen 1%

Has...nobody mentioned the benefit of Mage Armor?

Generally if you're wearing robes, you're going to be a mage, or it's part of your roleplay (and if it is, then ignore me). Alteration gives you various --flesh spells, which increase AC. The Mage Armor perk will grant 2x, 2.5x, and finally 3x bonus for the spells when not wearing armor.

I think that's really the only benefit of wearing robes over light armor, but it's up to the player on whether the want to wear robes and upgrade alteration, or wear armor and upgrade smithing and the light armor skill trees.

The only benefit to robes is that, early in the game, they come with much higher stats than you can enchant or make with alchemy, etc. If and when you have the enchanting and alchemy skills maxed out, you can wear glass or daedric armor and do far more damage, regen .... everything.

Yeah, enchanting/smithing is broken. Mages got screwed in itemization, particularly the Dragon Priest masks as they break the alteration armor bonus by being classified as light/heavy armor.

I love my archmage robes, and I refuse to look like a damned warrior/thief. But I do so at a significant statistical cost. I actually resent that enchanting/smithing are so much stronger than the other trees, because it means you can't even think about builds like a mage with sneak and magic builds. Pickpocket, Lockpicking, speechcraft get completely sidetracked, and illusion itself isn't all that great to invest points in when conjuration and destruction are enough alongside alteration for astronach and magic resistance.

The biggest detractor to this game for a mage, however, is friendly fire. Adept+ spells and spray-like spells mean you will want to wander through dungeons alone as you run a high risk of killing your teammates, and master spells are just ridiculous in how my Firestorm and Mass Paralysis hit my allies and have a huge radius, even paralyzing/killing my dremora lords. How hard would it be to just make spells like Blizzard that affect enemies and not your conjures and allies?

I don't know what they were thinking with friendly fire and the current design of high mage spells. Especially as a mage with a tank partner since you'll want to stay at range and that often means your tank getting in between you and the enemy, so the projectile will be pelting him often unless you keep circling.

Then your enchanting level was not high.

Yeah, but even at 100 enchanting with all the right perks, a player made magick regen % enchantment is going to fall behind what robes normally offer.

Hmmm never tried magic regen on anything honestly. Getting 100% magic reduction on dragon armor seemed like better option.

Magic Regen is a useless enchantment anyway as you only really need it in the middle of a battle, and in is seriously slowed down while in combat.

A better choice is the reduction in the cost of casting a school of magic, and you get a better % for your ￡ in this, and never run out of magicka to need to regen it anyway

If you have the Ebonyflesh spell and you have lvl3 mage armor perk you get 200 armor points.. only with clothes though(robes are clothes)

This..
Magic regen is absolutely WORTHLESS!

yeah i agree, magic regeneration is too slow.

Aside from "looks", this is the reason. Also, once you get Dragonhide, you are capped by the spell and can wear anything you want. No need for armor rating. Tavern clothes or Wedding dress ftw.

Tavern clothes are what I want! Is there a non criminal way to get them that you know of?

There are a couple of bandit camps that have barmaids in them and you can kill those for the clothes. Also, Alva in Morthal wears them, so if she attacks you and you kill her during that quest you can get them.

There is one in the first or second room of Liar's Retreat.

The easiest way is to do the quest line in Morthal that begins with the burned house. Eventually, you'll have to kill Alva who's wearing a set.

This isn't entirely true. You can kill her, but you do not have to and you are not forced to. I kept her alive.