I am level 60 right now.

I have 290 magicka, 330 health, and 270 stamina.

My goal is to be able to cast master level spells without being forced to wear enchanted items. I would like to have the ability to be able to cast them whenever I wish, not based upon what gear I am wearing. The problem is, that I have never gotten any master level spells yet, so I don't know what I am doing right now spending attribute points.

I have heard that the base cost for all master level spells is approximately 1600. With 100 in that school's skill (destruction for example), that brings the cost of a master destruction spell down to around 450.

Selecting the perk which cuts master spells' cost by half, that it 325 magicka to cast a master spell just once.

So that requires a hell of allot of magicka, unless I am forced to don gear which fortifies magicka ( I do not want to be forced to do that).

I want to be able to have the freedom to cast a master spell, anytime, anywhere, wearing my favorite clothing with no enchantments.

Then there is stamina. I want to sprint, use archery perks like eagle eye and steady hand, power attack, and not be over euncumbered allot.

Lastly there is health. I don't want to be forced to play on novice.

I was thinking 400 magicka, 400 health, and 200 stamina for my level 81 goal. Of course, this would require me to open the console and respec my attribute points (player.setav)

But I need some other opinions please.

Well, Fire Storm is the highest base cost Master spell for Destruction specifically. which is listed as having a base cost of 1426 on UESP.

spell cost = base cost * skill multiplier * perk multiplier * equipment multiplier * dual cast multiplier
skill multiplier = 1 - (skill/400)0.65

1426 * 0.8375 * 0.5 = 597.1375

Assuming I did the math right, fire storm would cost 597 magicka, probably rounds up to 578, and that's with the Master cost reduction perk. You practically NEED magicka reduction. And I don't see you going for master cost reduction perks for every spell school. Even then, you won't have enough to cast them.

My goodness!

That is insane!

I do not even know how to begin deciding what number to shoot for in magicka, then!

I need some advice!

Honestly, you'd need gear to reduce the cost in that spell school if you really want to cast them. Either that, or you'd need to enchant alot of gear with magicka buffs, and put a crapload of points into magicka, which seems kind of detrimental unless you're a mage character.

With at least 4 pieces of gear enchanted with Destruction spells cost -, you shouldn't need more than 350-400 magicka to cast Thunder Storm on a soaring dragon and bring him down in seconds. Fire Storm is boring, anyways..

For my warrior/scout, I'm aiming for 300/500/300 magicka/health/stamina by lv 81. If you plan on casting spells often, you could probably go with 600 magicka, 300 health, 200 stamina. If you don't use stamina much, you could put even more into magicka.

Most mage specific equipment (robes), have some kind of magicka cost reduction on it, so it would make sense to have at least some on your gear.

a good mage should be enchanting, seeing as how enchanting is such a big part of magic.

is there any specific reason you don't want to enchant your gear?

A good mage also doesn't want to be level 81, might I add. You're going to find that you're much better off at around level 40 with Destruction at 100 rather than 81. Your Destruction at level 81 is going to do the same exact damage as it did 40 levels ago when you hit 100 in it, but all your enemies will be scaled up ridiculously, you'll barely even tickle them with Master spells.

Wait a minute here.... I thought enemies reached a point where they stop leveling. Same as leveled items at level 46 I believe?

You mean to tell me that enemies scale with you all the way to 81?

Is this true for all enemies from mudcrabs to bandits to dragons?


Did I ruin my game by advancing to level 60?

I think stuff stops scaling around the upper 50s or 60s actually, some stop scaling earlier. Don't quote me on that though.

That sounds about right, based off of what I have read/heard.

Im level 57 and I've had no problem killing draugr deathlords in about four dual casted thunder bolts. I haven't felt that they have taken more than that for quite a while now and im pretty sure they're not going to level up any more and I cant really think of anything in the game thats tougher other than dragons. An ancient dragon takes about 8-10 I think. I don't know about how fast the master spells will take those down because I only have 92 destruction but im sure it will be fine and you can always just use expert spells to clean house. I personally have 250 base mana with an extra 150ish mana from enchantments and 75% off the casting cost of destruction and all the cost reducing perks and ancient dragons are litterally the only thing in the whole game I can't down without downing one potion either restore mana or fortify destruction. Seriously you don't need to cast for free but cost reduction of some kind is kind of assumed when playing a destruction mage.

4, that's all? What difficulty do you play on?

Adept I think playing on anything higher with a destruction mage svcks the fun out of the game. I feel there would be alot less crying about destruction if people played on the difficulty the game was balanced for. I only turn up the game difficulty if I find its too easy which usually only happens if im melee/archer only with crafting thrown in.

I'm not sure about this, at skill level 100 you have 41% reduction.

Given a 1400 base cost (remember most of the master spells have around 1100 base cost), 1400-(1400*0.41)=826

826/2=413 cost with the perk. But like you said, you won't have the perk in every school. You'd need to dedicate nearly all of your enchanting spots to achieve the necessary reduction in all schools, being a necrovamp helps (you can also wear three+ helmets as a vamp).

Well I use it on master, using it up to level 60+, the damage is more than enough. Once you sort out the magicka problem (not 100% reduction) you can take down a deathlord with 3-4 dual cast incinerates.

I can't imagine how overpowered it is on adept.

You can't clauclate it that you, you have to use the proper formula that the game uses. Also, the base cost of Firestorm is 1426. The formula as listed in UESP I already posted in the post you quoted. Check it out there.

At 81 level, a mage's base stats should be 500/500/100

You should be using Archmage's Robes. It is one of the few items stronger than what you can normally craft. That takes 15% of the cost of all your spells already.

I was considering 500/400/200 because I plan to be a master mage, but at the same time, melee warrior/rogue with some bits of archery and stealth.

I think 500/400/200 is what I will finally settle on.

I have played most of the game exclusively as an archer and I've only started to play with magic recently. I have over 400 points in stamina which is just way too much, even for having both steady hand levels and using bash a lot (plus I sprint everywhere I go). I don't think you need 400 health, either. Even on Master I basically never die with... I forget... something like 350 health. Is 1100 the total of all stat points at 81? Maybe 500/300/300 would be a good compromise? That would still make you an effective archer. I think 200 stamina might be too little.

Most enemies cap out long before level 40. Level 50 is the absolute maximum level scale for enemies. That means the player will level up 31 times above the rest of the game world.

My firestorm at destruction level 100, with the master perk costs 423 to cast, so you've made an error with the formula.

1426 - (1426*0.41) = 841
841/2 = 420