I am trying to create either a bound weapon specialist or a spellsword but I need some advice on how to build it. I have a few major concerns that I will point out, any advice on these or general input would be greatly appreciated.

1.) Defense-With either the bound weapon user or the spellsword I have found that my defense is seriously lacking, I want to avoid heavy armor so I can have robes for magic regen but I swear oakflesh just doesnt provide enough protection.

2.) Magicka vs Health Vs Stamina-I am unsure of how to balance these out because I never feel like I have enough of any

3.) Enchanting-I have heard mixed information as to whether or not enchanting functions properly, can someone help to clarify the details for me?

4.) Spell school-what spell school to use in my off hand, destruction seems like an obvious choice but I am just concerned about how heavily it drains magicka

5.) Perks-It feels like there are a billion perks that could be useful so I dont know what the priorities should be.

Again thank you for any advice, much appreciate it.

1. For defense, you will be lacking if you are choosing robes. You can migitate it by taking all the "mage armor" perks in the alteration tree (also being a vampire will boost the effectiveness 25% assuming necromage).

2.Spellswords/Nightblades will not be needing that much stamina. Spells cover the range, and the sword is for up close. If you get invisibility you can cut combat at will and your stamina will recover. Magic regen will be really slow in combat, and it takes heavy enchanting to overcome this. I would suggest leaving stamina at 100-120 range, and pump the rest into health/magic, this has worked well with me. (take the 25% discount power attack perk, and you can make 4 with a light blade before exhausting your supply at 120 stamina, this is dependent on weapon weight).

3. Enchant is fine, and it is the most powerful crafting skill.

4. Spell school? if you are a spellsword/nightblade you will want alteration,destruction,restoration,conjuration,illusion.. yeah all of them. your ability to qucikly switch between spells in offhand is a great way to adapt to a situation, get spells to match.

5. There are ways to save a bunch of perks:

I would have to see a perk plan of yours before helping on that.


- To add: there is no magic regen penalty for wearing armor this time around... unfortunately.

Is light armor worth while over the mage armor?

1) Try the atronach stone or use enchanted heavy armor with regen

2) 2:1 magic to health ratio worked for my conjurer but 1:2 ratio is also a strong choice

3)Enchanting functions properly?

4)If you are going with bounded weapons you can put further points in to conjuration to summon atronachs or raise the dead, i find destruction to be very weak and without the impact perk damage wont be visible.

5)for the one handed perks try to max the first perk and the rest is up to you. For conjuration if you choose to use bounded weapons get mystic binding. I also recommend restoration because the're many useful perks for your build such as Respite and Recovery.

Technically yes. Mage robes are more on an RP choice in the end.
Yes it costs less perks (only 3 in mage armor) to achieve the highest value for robe armor (alteration magic) but they will not match a armor-capped set.

It is complicated because getting to the armor cap requires smithing work, and probably perk investments in the armor you have chosen.
Finally in the end of alteration tree is dragonskin, and that does give armor cap protection, but it is a weak argument because that is an end game spell.

when enchanted yes

If you are on a console, destruction will not scale, and will be weaker as the game progresses. If you are going to play master, forget destruction without a scalar mod. (unless you like impacting things all day with 0 cost enchants, or jumping through hoops to kill everything)

The issue I heard with enchanting is with the magicka regeneration enchantment, I cant remember the details but the basic issue was that it was also a really low percentage or something. (no clue if its true, just what I heard).

Restoration looks like a very worthwhile school to monkey with and I admit I am torn between using a bound sword or a real sword. Mainly I am debating on whether or not I want to use light armor vs a robe and whether I want my magic to supplement offense (destruction) or defense (alteration/restoration).

1. Hotkey a shield, or just use a two handed weapon.
2. I keep my stats as equal as possible between Health, Stamina, and Magicka.
3. Using Enchanting to reduce the cost of schools is an existing game mechanic available to help squishy Mages. I do not like zero cost casting, but reducing the cost of my two primary schools in half makes running out of Mana less of an issue for a mix character.
4. Destruction works great, Flame spells are nice because a target continues to burn after you stop casting.
5. Perk your melee attack first, then pick the Novice Perk for Destruction for reduced casting cost. As a person who plays a lot of mix characters, Perks need to be thought out before you spend them, if You decide to max out Enchanting early on to get free casting, any perk in most of the Magic trees are wasted. I tend to stick to Destruction and Alteration, and neglect Conjuration, Restoration, and Illusion due to the way I like to play.
Mixed characters do have a harder time than specialists, but they are fun to play.

The magic regen problem, is that when in combat it regenerates at something like 0.03 as fast as normal. The reason that is a problem is because it is such a small multiplier, it takes a lot of enchantment to overcome that.

Alright that makes sense, looks like if I really did have a magicka issue I could just enchant my light armor with fortify magicka to just boost how much I have. Any advice on enchanting? I have literally only ever used smithing so I am unsure of what to do with enchanting. (I know how to disenchant and whatnot but I mean just what is good to enchant, soul trapping, etc.)

Somethings you should note with bound weapons: There are a limited amount of spells so get comfortable seeing the same thing over and over again, summoning a bound wepaon takes cast time and usually reslts in back pedaling and running while your character finshes looking cool by grabing the blade out of the air (this can be massivel annoying in emergency situations), taking enchanting, the mystic binding perk, and the archery perks can lead to an incredably powerful bow.

Conjuration is strong, but bound weapons are rather weak. I would use a real sword. With hardly any smithing a steel sword well be beating bound sword. Bound weapons are just lackluster.

As for armor vs robes - armor hands down. Heavy or light - it makes no difference from a spell casting point of view. Save your magicka for destruction or conjuration spells.

This is so wrong.

Not at all. A bound sword has a base damage of 9. It is 14 with the Mystic binding perk. A skyforge steel sword base damage is 11. With Steel Smithing perk and a smithing skill of 22 you can make it . Which raises the damage to 14.

Even a plain jane Steel Sword will beat a mystic bound sword with a smithing skill of 60.

If I'm enchanting, I prefer Fortify Magicka. It effects ALL spells, and stacked together, with mackia increases at level up, you can have very high levels. It's not overpowered, though, like Cost Reduction, so it doesn't get borring.

I'm using bound weapons because I really like the perk benefits. It's like having a triple enchant: +dmg, soul steal, banish/turn. Definitely not all that powerful but I don't really care. I'm mostly conjuration/illusion on this character and most of my damage comes from them fighting themselves or my conjured helper. I don't want to use any real weapons this time. Seemed like it might be fun. So far I'm enjoying it a lot.

1. If you're using bound weapons, you can use summoned creatures or zombies as meat shields.

It's a little stupid that there's no bound armor/shields though...

I just recently created a Nightblade. Don't put any points into stamina. Not necessary since you'll be taking respite. Take all the magic skills.

If you like stealth then take that.

I put a lot of pts into 1h.

Pick 2 elements for destro and focus on those.

Use the flesh spells with the Mage armor perk. Also utilize paralyze right.

Use the bound sword and invest into the increase in dmg and the soul trap. For summons this is totally up to you. I like the atronachs and dremora.

Illusion is great, my personal favorite, so utilize it however you would like. If you go with the control spells make sure you take dual cast.

With resto take up to expert if you want. Use wards sparingly ad don't take the perk for them. I really like respite since I don't put pts into stam and I dont use FT. Use the rest how you see fit.

With enchanting id take the middle path personally.

Sneak is optional but I'd only take the first and the sword multiplayer one.

Just remember to have fun and do what sounds like fun to you. This is a versatile build so just pick your poison and have some fun.

On a side note, go 2:1 with magic: health until your health hits 250 or 200. 250 is definitely enough and 200 is for a little more challenging build, but you'll have more magicka.

Have fun man!!

Another note: like with what te guy above me said, it's like a triple enchant and if you want you can enchant some gloves and boots so you do more damage with your sword