I'm on my first play-through as a pure mage and I am almost giving up on this game. I have a tremendous trouble killing enemies, one example is the dwarven sphere. I find myself hiding behind my flame atronach 100% of the time and even then just one of them is not enough to kill a dwarven sphere. Right now I am stuck at the one quest because I cannot handle two Falmers at once. It's one mage and one archer. The mage uses ice so my flame atronach is [censored]. And it takes 4 hits for my mage to die from any meele/arrow attack so yea.

Magic svcks in this game, hard.

I dfon't think mages are that bad, they could use a slight buff in damage...but I do however think melee/stealth/archery is too good.

You're doing it wrong.

Try again.

Its mainly just destruction and parts of Alteration that svck at higher levels.

Difficulty? I'm Level 40 on Adept and I do pretty fine whenever I use magic

Hate the player, not the game.

I have a Mage character. He's bau5.
Conjure up some Obliviminions.
Get me a Bound sword in one hand.
Get X cloak on.
Healing in other hand.


That's my usual setup.
Get your enchanting up for +Magicka and +Magicka Regen.

While you'll limited in spell casting choices I actually liked the mage play in skyrim. Get the dual casting destruction perk and the impacy perk and your pretty much prema stun and pwn anything upto and including dragons.

Yes... granted that Magic is a bit nerfed. But, I'm playing a pure mage myself on Master level find that I had to watch out for places that were above my capability. That's the point of some areas. If you find you're in too hard a place, leave and come back later. I'm a level 45 now, with 100 for Destruction and I feel that about 20 Ice Storms are too many against a Blood Horker (a mission I just received, meaning it should scale to my level to provide some difficulty).

I feel for you, and yes, when you first start as a mage you should get your butt handed to you left and right. But as a level 45, most things should run away on sight because of the awesomeness of the mage. This unfortunately is not the case. I still rely a LOT on a Frost Atronach... I shouldn't have to as a Destruction Mage... ((

+1

Lolwut? As long as you stay at a distance from axe wielders you are undefeatable. Use a defense spell if one gets to close. And remeber...Chain Lightning, Chain Lightning, Chain Lightning..... (because it costs a good amount of magicka to use over and over, not as high as the master level spells. If facing a group use wall of flames)

Honestly I was ridiculously overpowered at my mage skill set.

As far as actual magic as a whole, its a joke compared to previous games. Beth definitely took the magic out of magic.

I've actually been finding it almost too easy. The Impact perk in Destruction usually means nothing gets close to hitting me. Only time I have trouble is when there are a lot of enemies or when it's a big enough boss that I run out of mana (though I try to keep potions on hand for those cases). I'm only level 23, so it may get rougher when I level higher, but so far I don't really understand what all of the complaints about magic are about (with the exception of complaints about all the spells left out from Oblivion; I agree with those completely).

Dwarven constructs are resistant to most magic from what I can tell.

A few schools of magic are arguably the most overpowered builds in the game, with the right perks.

Desto - You can stun everything while dual casting, although you may be spamming the spells due to a poorly scaled damage ratio higher on.

Conjuration - You should never have to cast a single spell outside of this school, or engage in direct combat, even moreso if you get the perk for two summons.

Illusion - omg wow, in combo with any other school of magic... you don't even need an offense.

Resto-Alteration - Perfect companion schools for battlemages or illusionists.

To play a mage properly you have to invest into enchanting, which makes sense for an archetype. You don't need to completely nullify spell cost, but you can make it much more managable.

A 1 trick pony mage will svck, which is what I'm guessing you are...

A pure mage does not mean just destruction. You need the other schools to survive muliple enemy encounters.

Illusion makes groups not that big of a deal, than add in a summon or raise the dead and a few spells to finish off the survivors.

destruction mages are ok on expert but svck at master....at least for me. i got tired of quaffing potions all the time. the other magic schools i did on master just fine though. my favorite mage by far was a combination conjuration/illusion mage with the only other skills being archery and light armor. was very fun to play and is kind of like the mastermind class in that old superheroes MMO. oh and i used staves with that guy. ironically i had to level up my destruction magic even though i never cast their spells just to make the staves last longer.

i'm passing everything on master as a mage, don't be afraid to let others do the killing for you.

Less QQ, more pew pew. And magic is ridiculously awesome if you know what you're doing.

Falmers are hard anyway, why shouldn't they be able to kill Mages quick?

I'm giving the Illusion school my first try. I've always done Destruction mages, but seeing if it is viable to try Illusion + Conjuration + some Restoration. Not sure how it will work against Dragons and other bosses, but it could be fun...maybe?

Don't give up on your mage yet, maybe you just need to incorporate more magic from the other schools?

A Mage should seldom take damage and is not a warrior. A Mage arranges mayhem to his purpose.

Any way that's how I build my Mage. I have one at level 49 and he is parked except for demonstation runs for friends. He is a Destruction/Conjuror and wanders around with lightning in one hand and a Dremora Lord in the other. Two Dremora Lords make combat pretty well irelevant and I can cast Storm Atronachs for baddies with bows. I just go get the item/do the deed with very little fuss.

For a Battlemage it's very different and I have built one I am quite pleased with although it took quite a bit more time and effort than the Mage did.

Yep. Alteration is pretty useless though. Even with ebonyflesh, and the 3x perk, you only get 300 armor. At alteration level 75. thats just crap.

So would you suggest people just use heavy armor and enchant it rather than going the mage armor route?

Take alchemy, invest 7 perks and quit whining. Make the potions so magic will scale at the same disproportionate level and quit whining.

***Scurries back under the bridge.

Hyperbole, at the very least an exaggeration and in all honesty just plain and simply not true.

It could be argued that not having any cost to any combination of two whole school of spells brought the magic back.

Not even mentioning the dual wielding aspect of the whole process.

Regardless, I'm not going to change your staunchly held stance on the issue...

But just know that specialized mages are JUST as, if not moreso, powerful than any other build in the game period.

The general /wrists the game is boring and fileted sentiment is that the removal of spellcrafting and chameleon somehow simplified the game.

The inarguable truth is that with dual-wielding you have MORE options than you had with magic in any other TES, let alone the perk system.

Sorry folks, hate to rain on your parade.

Ha! trying using a sword once in a while...