Anyone playing like this?
Bound Bow and zoom \ slow-motion kill while the enemy run over a Fire Rune\Frost Rune? I wonder how that will look.

Anyways, off topic.. Magic has become better with the last patch yes?

Or would you guys say normal bow with poisons, adding that one the arrows is more fun?

I do not think destruction has received a boost in the last patch. But the bound bow does rock. Hands down the BEST bound weapon. Unlike the bound ax and sword it has a higher base damage and it has a higher rate of fire then the normal Daedric bow. Unless you are placing high level enchants on your Daedric Bow the bound bow is better.

Personally, I find the slow time perks to be the perfect mage killer! Zoom in, take the shot and then dodge the ice spikes/incinerates!

I'm currently playing a Mage who only uses illusion and conjuration. No destruction at all so I've been using the conjured bow quite a bit and I really like it. It's all the power I need and I've only put one point into archery so far.

Only way to make destruction viable in higher diffculty is by using Fortify Destruction potion. Imagine a potion that multiplys destruction damage by lets say 1000.

How do you guys split the mana and stamina? 50\50 75\25? 100 mana \ 0 stamina

That's exactly how i play right now with my witchhunter kind of build. I put everything into magicka till 200 then rest into health because bound bow and runes are really expensive especially if you're missing the perks and equipment at the beginning and you don't need as much health as an archer. I'm planning on raising endurance also a little bit but that's not really necessary i guess.

I would also recommend to pick alchemy...with fortify destruction and poisons with weakness to poison/magic/element the rune damage is really nice.

Lvl 21 on expert right now. I always start the fight with planting a rune in front of me and then start shooting with my poisoned bound bow.

svcks a little that the impact, and augment destruction perks don't work on runes...dualcast does though.

This is such crap, you have no idea.

I use it consistently on master from level 1 to level 67, but then again I imagine you haven't used it and just follow what the idiots on this forum say about destruction damage.

Although Destruction is most certainly not a "fire and forget" type skill like Archery, I don't use the two together. Given that bows require two hands and can do ranged damage, it seems a bit superfluous. I prefer Destruction, though, due to its versatility, elements and effects. Honestly, I cannot imagine a build that uses Destruction and Archery being fun or even useful.

oh, it can be. you can use archery and destruction together quite well. Archery is good for stealth, extra-longe-range, or even medium range, and things like that, but in a confined space, what use it is? melee enemies will deal a lot of damage while you draw back the bow. this is where you use magic. for closer enemies, or the ones that move around a lot (like those pesky dragons that insist on eating you), you can use a steady stream of magic to catch them, and follow their movements, rather than guessing where they'll be. plus, you can lay traps behind you, or drain their stanima/magicka to weaken their attacks. also, Destruction improves the power of enchantments like Shock Damage, i believe. if so, put Frost or Shock damage onto a bow , you can do extra damage while draining stats. with 100 enchanting, you can add both to drain health, magicka and stanima severly with each shot.
both hace ups and downs, but can be used together well. cloak spells are helpful in tight hordes of enemies.

Hmm it's quite powerful leading with a sneak poison (weak to fire/magic/shock/frost) bow attack, then pummel them with destro. I also prefer destruction if I had to choose, it outclasses archery everytime in a non-sneak situation (maybe not with this 1.5 arrow bug, but that's ridiculous).

It's quite a fun build using robes and just ranged attacks, maybe conj and illu for crowd control, alteration for defence.

this^^

Do you think Alteration is a must have if you chose to go around the world alone without Conjuration, only Illusion and Destruction? Illusion can help you do some crowd control, so is Alteration really needed there, hm? What do you think!?

Well I'd play that build as a necrovamp, so alteration would be boosted. You also have access the strongest spell IMO, paralyse.

Illusion doesn't work on all enemy types until you get it really high in level.

so no, it won't always work.

You HAVE to perk alteration... you could full cast it.... but then you're waiting half it's duration out recharging. There's also some good magic reduc perks in that tree.

Poisons work with bound bows.

That's a good way to put it, and I can see why that might be fun for some people, but not for me. I guess if I'm using bows and Destruction, it would be a Bound Bow, and with the purpose of poisoning enemies at range. Feels more magicy to me, especially since I can just put the bow away after and be done with it. There's also daggers for poisoning foes up close.


I just can't use Archery for range on a mage character. Seems wimpy when compared to explosions and bursts of lightning.