So after playing a warrior character for so long, it feels great to just take a step back and just play a mage character, i have to rely more on how much magica i have and what i'm wearing that alters what my magic bonus is. It's just a refresh from the usual walk into cave, butcher every thing walk out mentality. This way i do more... magy stuff, i do more college quests, i don't smith i enchant. it's just a big refresh if you ask me. thoughts?

Destruction magic should either have its damage scaled higher, or have the spells cost less.

I also find zombie AI to be lacking.

I played a pure mage when I tired of warrior and rogues. I had to retire her at level 12 due to the damage/creature scaling. Course at level 12 she was already head of the college, did the bard quests and beat the MQ.

Yes playing mage is fun, you get to go pew pew pew at enemies.
But statistic wise, its better to install a mod to do correct magic scalling cause vanilla scalling for destruction really svcks.

I enjoy being a mage, but i find myself shortchanged on the mage guild quest compared to the Thief/DB guild quest. (Haven't done the Companion one)
Its so....lackluster compared to them. So many questions unanswered, so many loose ends.

Even with a magic scaling mod (balanced magic) I find that Destruction magic is just something i annoy enemies with until i get close enough to hit them

And i have enchantments that allow me to dual cast five fireballs before i run out of magicka, and single cast another one within seconds after that.

I like mages because there is so many different ways you can fight. I invented my own "Fire & Ice" attack which is fire in one hand and ice in the other. Too bad it can't be dual cast.

Yeah it was fun but it got tad boring after awhile so I tried another build.

I agree with the OP, I love playing a mage in this game.

Even though spells variety has been reduced from Morrowind and Oblivion, there is still enough types of spells to make being a Mage possibly the most interesting and diverse type of character in the game -- and perhaps the most powerful.

Mages are great fun, but they can get boring quickly.
Mixing it up a bit helps.

Eg. If my Orc is especially peed off at that one bandit that survived his barrage of spells, he'll burn him until he's near death.. Then do a brutal unarmed kill.

Fun

I seen this type of comment a lot and it makes me wonder about doing a mage. Any suggestions for a mod that does good magic scaling?

I usually read about Skyrim magic being too weak. What are you doing that most aren't mages aren't in order to be powerful?

I use this one on the Steam Workshop. Its nothing fancy, and small in size too, but it does the job.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=8096&searchtext=magic+scaling

It increases combat mana regen too. In vanilla, Mana regen during combat is actually
much slower then out of combat, no amount of mp regen items will improve that.

If you're not afraid in using totally new spells I highly recommend the http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=54586711. It contains 130+ fair and balanced spells that add strategic depth to the game and increase the fun and variety of playing a spellcaster, hybrid, or anyone at all who casts magic. The main design goal for Apocalypse is to make magical combat more interactive and engaging than simply selecting the highest dps spell and pointing at the enemy or summoning a creature and watching it fight from a distance. It comes with features like daily spells, utility spells (feather fall, teleportation), spell automation and contingencies. Just read the author's description. This mod brings a lot of fun into a mageplayer's life.

Agreed! My favorite build in the game. Eventually you'll have a bit of trouble with destruction, but that's nothing that a few atronachs or some illusion spells can't fix. As long as destruction isn't the only magic you use, you'll have no problems.

Mages are my favourite. When I first got Skyrim on release I made a pure Destruction mage. I only added points to Magicka and was running around casting a lot of fireballs. I was new at first and I didn't know how to get any other spells haha. I eventually found out that I could buy spells and I bought a new fire spell, Fireball which consumed all my Magicka and didn't do enough damage. I could Dual Cast three Fireball attacks and I'd end up low Magicka and the enemy would still be alive. I ended up having to go back to my Firebolt which did minimal damage but didn't consume as much Magicka. I ended up just stunlocking something until death with the same spell.

Now I've just made a new Mage but this time I'm going to focus on all 5 magic skill trees so I can add more variety and hopefully make destruction more viable.

I've gotten in-combat magicka regeneration to be pretty darn fast just by equipping things I found in the game and taking the magicka regeneration perks in the Restoration tree. So yes, those items DO improve combat magicka regeneration as well.

The problem with Destruction is the scaling. It's absolutely terrible, I'm not sure what Beth was thinking when they were finishing the skill up. They probably just threw it together in a rush. Lack of spell variety is another huge problem. But the biggest downfall of Destruction is it has no sense of progress. You essentially get weaker and weaker the more you level up, when it should be the other way around.

You'd think hurling giant fireballs at your enemies would do more damage than a dagger or bow. Such a shame.

I took a lot at the mod description on Steam. Under 'Upcoming Features' the author says "Next release (revision 4) will tweak the mana cost reduction / spell damage increase. The game quickly becomes unbalanced using the mod in it's current form."

I use mighty magick skyrim, with only the scaling and dual cost modules installed:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=13166