I swear, this is ridiculous. The Marauder-class mages are just absurdly hard to kill, and they have those awesome NPC spells that do 584639 damage and cost 2 magicka. I fought a couple of generic Dragon Priests wandering around (Wars in Skyrim mod), and they hardly did any damage. This lowly Bandit mage took 500 health off of me, 3 separate times, before I finally killed him. Just spamming fireballs non-stop. With a few shout cooldown enchants/blessings, I had a 3 second gap between Ethereal Form running out and the cooldown time, and this dude is lopping hundreds of points off in those 3 seconds.

IMO, no humanoid enemy should be harder to kill than a Dragon Priest, yet they seem to be one of the easier boss-level enemies.

Mere bandit mages? Wait until you meet arch-mancers.

just wait til you meet a master necromancer

I keep seeing this...
"NPC spells that do 584639 damage and cost 2 magicka."

On adept... so not even giving them extra power a mage can dish out over 200 damage per spell. So 3 hits would take out a lot more than 500 damage. If you are on expert or master it will only take 2 hits.
Destruction seems underpowered for the player because you are doing 200 damage and enemies at level 50 have 1500 health.
Destruction seems overpowered for the NPCs because they are doing 200 damage and you don't have 1500 health.

Now the bandit mages are not that bad. Wait for the master vampires, and arch conjurers/necromancers/pyromancers/cryomancers.

If you want this pain to go away get the atronach stone. Then get your alteration to 80 and take the atronach perk. When you ignore 80% of their attacks they won't bother you.

I've met plenty. As I stated in another thread, I feel that they are the most challenging enemies in the game.

I guess the issue I have is that bandits are just so...generic. It's quite a shock that such a disposable enemy can do so much damage.

Playing a mage character can be really hard, also. At level 28 on adept, Imperial Soldiers keep one-shotting me with power attacks. :/

I know all the tricks, I just started a new melee character and have no magic resistance ATM. Even with Agent of Mara + Lord Stone this guy would have schooled me. Not all of them are this way, there just seem to be a few that pack a huge punch.

Probably 10 min after my last post, I ran into an Arch Cryomancer. For some reason, she was casting primarily Incinerate, and it was doing FAR less damage than the bandit's fireballs. Still a tough fight, but much easier than the bandit mage. That bandit must have been one of those weirdly scaled enemies.

Mages do tend to be some of my harder enemies, but with:

Breton Blood = 25%
Lord Stone = 25%
Alteration Magic Resistance = 30%
Agent of Mara = 15%

Ward magic scaling with my Restoration enchantments

Become Ethereal/Unrelenting Force


And of course, my OWN arsenal of magicks and swordplay, even Archmages crumble before my might.

That my usual class, right there. Playing an Orc berserker right now and not used to having little magic resistance. Well I just got Agent of Mara and Lord Stone, so I should be better now. That bandit would still light me up, not sure why his spells were so powerful.

I have no clue why you're running into such powerful bandit mages. On the default skill level the toughest creature I ever encountered in Skyrim was Krosis, followed by the Ancient Dragons - but even those don't bother me any more now that my character is well beyond level 50.

Try enchanting some of your gear with Magic resistance first, then work to get Magic Resistance in the Alteration tree. Either way, youll need 40-45% more resistance to be capped.

The most IMPORTANT things to remember when fighting mages though, is to close the cap, and stop them from casting spells. If you are chasing them around all day, even 85% resistance isn't going to save you.

LOL, I was thinking today that a few leveled Falmer would be able to systematically annihilate every single hold.

Then I remembered that a leveled Briar Heart mage is actually a threat to level 50 characters, and would probably be able to single handedly wipe out solitude in about 1 minute.

Yesterday, I ran into a couple of folks that somehow match you guys description, I never got close enough to check out who they were. After my 6th try I gladly switched into werewolf form and ran off. Good to have some enemies that keep you going

Early on for me anything that throws fire, frost or lighting at me kills me in one hit, even the aoe of incinerate sends me flying. It's why I gave up on DiD characters. Once you get to level 30ish they start to hurt less but playing as a slow, cumbersome warrior is target practice for these guys. RUN AWAY!

You wasted a perk. 85% is the Magic Resistance max. According to the UESP.

That's nothing, if Mistwatch bandits ever left their keep they could annihilate the legion, stormcloaks, every single dragon, the falmer and thalmor and be home by dinner time.

You and your level scaling, Bethesda

Give an Ancient Dragon magic resist and high defence... That would be scary.

I fear bandit mages more than hagravens or dragon priests. They move fast and they seem to have almost no cooldown on their spells meaning they can spam you to death in no time. Grouped with other high level bandits I'd say they are the toughest enemy you can encounter in this game.