thank you soo much!!

@Zydrate, bradleyh and wtflag: does your magicka targets include the base +50 magicka I get from being a high elf or not ?

Mostly agree, except with Stamina.

My thief has around 60 pounds of essentials.
My warrior has around 80-100.
My mage, however, usually has around 40 pounds of essentials. Or less. And she carries around robes, and two light armor sets for sneaking and battle-maging.

Stamina can be skipped and you can still function.

I would count that bonus towards the total, because the fifty points on a mix means more Stamina or Health for the character overall. I use 400 as a base because it allows my characters to cast a shield and a cloak spell at the same time.

As a pure mage, magicka is an absolute necessity. Health is a nice bonus to have, but not required. Stamina is a complete waste for a pure mage. Between spells and potions, a pure mage should have no real reason to put a single point into stamina when it could be better spent on magicka.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7827/screenshot22x.jpg: Female Breton, pure mage. Never touched a single weapon...short of the staff of magnus. Wears absolutely no armor, only Arch Mage's robes, boots, and Thalmor Gloves.

Level 39
Base Magicka: 430...515 with enchantments
Health: 150
Stamina: 100

80/20 Magicka/Health is about what you want to shoot for. Another important thing is to get/enchant whatever gear gives you the most Magicka Regen. Most robes you can find/buy early on give you a lot more magicka regen than you can enchant until you max out Enchanting.

Has anyone played a "glass cannon" (100% Magicka) build on Master? I'm wondering how viable and enjoyable playing such a build on the hardest difficulty would be. With only 100 base health and no Fortify Health enchantments I'm guessing you'd get one-shot a lot but I've never tried it so that's why I'm asking.

Currently playing a mage build with 100% Magicka on Adept; personally I think having 0% casting costs would make my game too boring but that's just me.

That sounds like a build that would require a metric ton of patience to play. Even with the Mage Armor buffs, if something catches you remotely off guard, bam, reload.

That's what I was thinking and that I would have to at least bring my health to around 200 at least through spending attribute points or Enchants. Enchants appears to be a much more attractive option if I plan on staying with 100% Magicka, but I have no idea what the highest Fortify Health enchant you can have is, assuming no exploits.

With just max Enchanting and the relevant perks, it's 62. If you max Alchemy, take whatever perks are needed for it, it's higher than that but I'm not sure how much higher.

My friend has max Alchemy/Enchanting but missed a few perks and he can get +78 Fire Damage on a weapon whereas I, with just max Enchanting and them pretty perks, max out at +31. So if you pour points into those two fields, get Fortify Alchemy enchants and Fortify Enchanting potions, you can probably add a lot lot more.

Also, the Blessing of Arkay is +25 health and those shrines are in basically every hold city.

I have a friend who plays glass cannon.... AND DiD (dead is dead). She has WAY more patience than I've ever come close to in my entire LIFE.

Agreed that stamina can be skipped: I am lvl 50+ and haven't felt the need to invest a single point in stamina instead of magicka or health. My essentials weight about the same as yours around 40 pounds.


Aren't you having trouble with only 150 health ? That's a one shot by a lot of things on Expert and Master.

That's what I'd like to know as well. If having ~200 health on the higher difficulties is pretty much a given to avoid being one-shot all the tiime, then I have no problem using up 2 Enchantment slots for Fortify Health, assuming at 100 skill and the right perks I get at least 60 extra health per enchantment; that's 120 plus base 100 health for 220 total health. Since I'm not trying to reduce casting costs to 0, I feel this should be "adequate" as the majority of my enchantment slots would focus on Magicka Regen. This would also allow me to spend all my attribute points into Magicka.

Of course I've never played on anything higher than Adept, so I would love to hear from those who have gone and done something like this.

I do get one shot on occasion, but I play on normal difficulty, and have a sneak skill that is currently sitting at 87. Most of the time when I'm one shot, it's outside in the open, and not while I'm dungeon crawling.

One-shot deaths (master) are the most annoying because it makes any defenses like mage armor pointless in those situations, if you die anyway due to low maximum health. Personally I like to min/max things (not by using clear exploits like fortify alch/ench looping), so that every point has a meaning. Even "pure" mages should take at least one hit from anything (unless the hit is designed to be fatal if not avoided) without dying.

At the beginning I would only increase magicka so there is enough buffer to kill enemies without carrying tons of magicka potions or playing cat and mouse with them while waiting regeneration. Too bad that Skyrim doesn't show you how much the one-shot hit did damage so you could plan how much extra health is needed to prevent those one-shots.

I also invest all my points to magicka. I tried the zero cost thing and thought it was too much. So now I plan to take it down to maybe 75% reduction for destruction and just focus on magicka enchants after that.

I'm thinking of playing a pure mage too. But I'm curious, is it possible to be pure mage without investing in enchanting? Because looks like a lot of people here invest in enchanting to lower the magicka cost.

Well you don't need Enchanting but it's overwhelmingly useful, especially in this sorta scenario.

If you didn't use Enchanting, though, that'd be pretty metal way to play.

I don't know.. Cuz I feared maxing out enchanting will make my character become OP. Unless I won't become OP with enchanting because destruction itself is quite underpowered? Hm.....

That's a very real concern, since I have it too, lol. But yeah, I think having Enchanting is generally a good boost, though searching for unique items is also fun. Also I figure it'd be extra frustrating if I went back to having no enchantments after getting used to them.

But yeah, you can also use enchantments for lolrp purposes or just to cover your bases with some weakness. For example, if you're a vampire, enchant Resist Fire and Health/Stamina Regen to combat the evil sun. Muffle is a good tool for most any character, especially "pure" mages since you don't necessarily have to run in dual wielding Destruction spells yelling I'M THE KING/QUEEN OF EVERYTHING. Or for RP's sake, if your'e into paladins, Banish Daedra and Turn Undead on your weapon. POSSIBILITIES!

Just need some imagination!

On my pure mages I don't put any points into health because I like playing glass canons and as a pure mage you shouldn't be getting hit at all.

Don't forget Alchemy; you can make Fortify Destruction potions that boost Destruction damage or Regenerate Magicka potions that boost Magicka Regen. If you don't want to use Enchanting to lower casting costs to 0 or just don't plan on investing heavily into Enchanting, you have other options.

Same way I play on my pure mage. The entire intent of the "pure" is that that character invests entirely into magicka. I'm not planning on going to zero-cost route (that'd be silly since I've invested so much into magicka) but I am utilizing enchanting for +magicka enchants.

Does it svck to have 100 health? Yeah, sometimes, but those are usually times I find myself doing something absolutely dumb or just not paying any attention to my surroundings. At master/expert level difficulty, it hardly matters since most hits result in one-shots anyway.

It's a *very* unique way of playing and I would advocate it to anyone looking to try something new in Skyrim. I do use a few mods that make magic more-viable but nothing severely overpowered or out of place. It does require a lot of patience but I honestly I'm not a very patient person and have noticed great fun and sucess with this build.

At Master level, I get one hit by nearly anything. I enchanted away the need for magicka and redirected points to health. I use ebony flesh and the perk, but still really cannot let anything touch me.

Melee and archers in armor are far more powerful.

I can't imagine playing a glass cannon. I considered it, but decided not to do so. I have a level 52 Breton mage, and I get hit enough from archers and in crowded rooms that I probably would have given up if I had 100 health.

I had a Bandit Elite Warlord archer (higher-level enemies mod) that tagged me for like 150 damage in one shot (and that's going through 600 armor), and these guys are EVERYWHERE now.