Anyone think that mages are kind of underrated? I just think that Bethesda didn't do a good job with mages as they did in Oblivion.

Yes, because playing as a mage is a completely different experience at least in my eyes because as a mage you sometimes have to think strategically, like sometimes before battle I would always cast a flesh spell and conjure up something before I use my destruction or illusion spells when you're a tank and nothing hurts you all you need to do is charge in and smash skulls. Some people refuse to play as mages because they think destruction is really unbalanced and I do have to admit it kind of is. I was expecting the expert level destruction spell 'Incinerate' to be something big and create a hell of a lot of damage but it was nothing special.

There's no bloody spell creation.

Ever watch those Youtube vids showing various NPC's in a "fight to the death" type simulation to see who is the strongest NPC in the game?

Arch mages are by far the most the ass kickin' class in Skyrim. No matter who they are pitted against, they are always the last ones standing.

"Mages underrated?" No.

Undervalued? Yes.

It's mostly because the players aren't playing as smart as they should be.

Lot's of reasons. No spell creation, lack of spells, Destruction not being very viable, etc.

mage game suffer the most in mid game.

early game (level 1 to 15) your damage can pretty much kill anything with flame (unless you go challenge giant in level 5). you should be fine for almost everywhere beside high damage hitter like dragon priest

mid game (16 to 40) is starting to suffer, even you put all of your leveling on magicka the magicka consumtion can pretty much make you drain to dry really really fast. in this point enemy starting to have certain hp that making you not able to kill them with just few spell. this is the point you need to learn how to use magicka efficiently (mixing novice/apprientice spell with adept/expert spell). also remember to prepare lot of potions.

end game part i seem to have no problem at all, i have plenty of magicka (700 and still increasing). i am much easier to spam impact stagger lock with enough magicka base and regen. also by this time you should have farmed/created your strong gears. if you have about 50 to 70 magicka decrease (arch mage robe 15%, Nahriin 20%, shopping for ring of destruction the best i got is 17%. atm i got 52% decrease), you should be able to consider a glass cannon. (watch out for arrow tho, with complete focus on magicka, you pretty much got around 100 to 200 hp and bandit can one shot kill me with arrow).

alteration and conjuration are your best friend. having some tank to distract enemy is necessary to survive a lot of difficult area. also paralyze is very powerful spell. once you got this unlocked, one hand paralyze and one hand destruction spell. you are free to walk almost anywhere on the map.

some people play mage that only focus on destruction and never level some other area, while this can control your character level and make your destruction spells much stronger. this is also the most boring method to play. i prefer to mix with other school to create a master of arcane

p.s. oh btw, i play on master

I really agree. Spell creation is great for mages in the Elder Scrolls! Bloody Bethesda.

^ This, How could bethesda have removed it? D:

Its because people don't use variety when doing magic, they run it using shield spells and casting fireballs expecting to cause a ton of damage and get hit lil or they depend too much on summons and do nothing. Its more of the players then the spells and the perk tree or anything else, mages are undervalued and unappreciated.



Because its kinda overpowered and sometimes useless, most people just use it for renaming spells for customization in Morrowind and oblivion.

HA. Besides the thousands+ of unique and powerful spell combinations and variations you can make that weren't in the base game? Like combining ANY effects in the game together for spells. The only limit was you creativity. And compared to smithing, alchemy, and enchanting now, hell no was it ever over powered. Yeah you could spell stack, but that is like the alchemy loop in Morrowind, or the alchemy enchanting loop in Skyrim. They are effects that exist and are acknowledged, but they can be exploited to break the game.

Removal of spell making is the biggest problem for magic in Skyrim, plain and simple. Then comes the spell cost for Destruction. All the other schools costs are balanced, but Destruction you will be casting repeatedly. And then the flat out violation of the number of spell effects. There used to be more spell effects than there are total spells in Skyrim. Yeah there were some useless ones.

Bethesda SHAFTED magic in Skyrim.