I know there are all the complaints about Destruction magic being underpowered etc, but this is less of a complaint and more of an observation.

To be a viable mage you need:
Destruction to deal damage
Conjuration so that the enemies can't just charge you
Restoration for the ward spells (so you can fight other mages)
Alteration for your Protection

Now yuo dont need to use all these skills to the full extent, but you still end up having ot use alot of perk point in each tree to reach the perks you need.

For a warrior though:
One-handed/Two-Handed
Heavy Armor
Block
Smithing

4 Skills still right? True but now I show the biggest problem.

As a Warrior you wear armor for your Heavy Armor skill, you have a weapon in one hand/two hand and a shield in the other. Smithing doesnt require you to equip anything.

As a mage though, all for of those skills have to be interchanged between the hand slots, and quite often you need to be ready ot dual cast spells.


This is really had to play with as you are constantly having to switch between 5-8 different spells (with a hotkey system that really svcks), preparing for a battle is actually really tedious as you need to cast protection, a summon, then set up if you need a ward spell ready, or dual destruction and then what kind of destruction.....cause using that frost spell on a frost troll is useless. If you get ambushed? Well now you have to do all that while also running away from the enemy. And you have ot do thise chore, like recasting protection and summons constantly as you play, battle go on for too long? guess you end up running in circles recasting your spells.

And what benifit is there to this? None, it would actually take less time with a warrior character who would be more powerful and just be able to charge in. Why play a tedious mage character, when it is easier to play a warrior.

The protection spells don't reach the armor cap, but a warrior can easily and his armor rating never runs out.

I'm not saying that things need to be changed, spells dont need to be more powerful or anything....the system just needs to work better....Bethesda have removed many of the customising options in order to make the system more manageable....but they didn't remove the many tedious problems with the system that has been around forever.


Thats just my two cents though.

PS: I know this'll come up, most of the skills are powerful enough (except for the destruction at super high level), as with 100% magic reduction you can machine guns out those spells much faster then even a warrior could attack.

You know it was because of this issue that inspired my wish list for perks one being a mass casting perk that is almost like spell crafting save that instead of making a new spell you just make combos for spells that way you spend less time switching out.

I'm running as a pure mage and I don't think it's that hard. It does take a bit more planning but you don't need to max out every skill tree in magic. I'm primarily leveling alteration, Destruction, Conjuration and Enchanting. There are some others, (Restoration being leveled for faster magicka regen) but definately not putting that much into the others.

I have a Lvl 46 warrior and a Lvl 45 mage and had for some time a Lvl 56 mage through cheating (for scientifical reasons, ?mmh) and it is easier to play a mage. Of course you have armour on the warrior or a shield to block but you have to go near to your enemies. As a mage you can fight from a distance. The last days more often than one time I looked to the gameplay window to reasure myself that I was playing my mage really on master (what I do), it sometimes feels so much easier than with my warrior. One enormous virtue of the mage is that you can damage more than one foe at the same time. As a warrior you need a twohanded perk for this which is working really bad and a mighty attack which leaves you wide open to every enemy attack.

Maybe a mage is more complicated to play than a thief or warrior. At least he is much more expensive to equipp. But some people (like me) would see that as an advantage. I don't play TES to be a one-hit superstar but to have a decent challenge.

BTW, you need Restoration or Alchemy also for a warrior, even more so than for a mage.

High end desto magic costs nothing when equipped right, purposely so I believe, and damage was scaled to reflect that.

I look at it like this :

Go desto/resto/alteration

Go desto/sword or shield

Go desto/conjuration

I've only got about 100 hours in my mage, with some 50 hours or so in each of those builds, and even on Master I still have zero problems.

Its not quite on par with weapons, but I think they took the attitude that magic was more about crowd control in this game.

Honestly, this was one of the greatest uses of the spell crafting system, multifunction spell (provided you had high enough rank in that skill to use them). A melee can enchant the crap out of a weapon if they also have that skill and while the 2 are performed separately, in effect are used simultaneously (since the enchant actually gets used when you swing your weapon), then there's no reason a master resto and alteration can't both fortify and shield simultaneously.

I don't have any grievances with the Magic skill trees.

A significant issue with Magic in Skyrim is that a lot of spells have to be cast during combat to earn any xp from them. You can buff before a battle and summon too, but you don't get xp if you don't have an active enemy combatant. Also the schools have different rates for xp levelling so some of the schools level quickly (Alteration and Destruction) while others (Conjuration and Restoration) level substantially slower.

It's all the lame o lame o favorites system with 2 hotkey for console. 2!

At the very least we should have 4 but really we should have 8 and in a better designed game we would have 8 on console (all 8 directions on the D-Pad with a shift function to make it 16).

I really cannot stand having to pause every couple seconds to switch spells. If there were at least 8 I would just really focus my character to only use 8 spells and make it work. Constant pausing is an impediment to fun.

Been replaying fallout3, got 8 hotkeys there. Vastly superior.

My pure mage is closing on level 30....I carry no weapon and only cast for damage. I have no issues with the damage so far.

Well for one i don't use wards, since the dremora lords conjured totally take their attention. So i just have to shield and conjure before battle, and its all guns blazing destro from then on.

Breton mage, Agent of Mara perk, Alteration Magic Tree, Lord stone (I am basically the ultimate mage hunting mage). No real neeed for wards. Need more hotkeys though so I cna have fun instead of pause every second.

Hehe.

I hate the very concept or archetypes. I really do.


You dont "have" to do any of that as a mage in this game. You are perfectly able to play a mage who wears heavy armor (thus not needing to use a hand) and a sword to deal damage.


And if that's the playstyle that you prefer, well, you knew what you were getting into.

I wouldn't be against more hotkeys (only 2 is rather surprising) but outside of that I see no issues with the current system what so ever.

More hotkeys would be definately appreciated. I will agree with you on that.

I have a spellsword. Or maybe a battlemage. I forget the difference. I can make use of a whole bunch of half leveled trees. The game isn't even that hard. I think it's kind of overkill to go full gusto into things.

I don't need full resto or destruction. I just like healing and mana/stam regen. I can replace Wards with Blocking and Shields. I can kill undead other ways. I only really like situational lightning from destruction. I don't need the full Alteration tree. I like some of the tricks and skills, but don't need the mage armor. I use Heavy Armor, Blocking, and enchants. Except, I don't need fully specced heavy armor either... a lot of the perks are kind unnecessary to me. I definitely don't need the whole one-handed tree. I just like swords, and upping my damage from some of the perks. Block is something I delve into pretty extensively.

For me, I use fire or ice (sometimes Runes) for warriors and archers, and lightning against other mages. I use Alteration for protection, but only Wards (on one hand, and Healing on the other) when I have to face those multiple soul gems traps that shoot elements at you.

To be effective, warriors must move forward and let enemies hit them, and even gang up on them. Mages use ranged attacks that allow them to harm enemies without letting the enemies hit back. Their weapons are weightless, letting mages travel lightly and quickly, making it even easier to keep enemies at a distance. Warriors are in the front lines, so they do not have the same luxury of time that mages have for finishing off enemies. For survival, they need to wear armor and deal out damage at higher rates. Their weapons have weight. If a warrior wants to switch from a fire attack to a cold attack to a shock attack, he must carry three different weapons, a heavier load.

I played a mage for a little while, and it felt like I was playing Unreal Tournament or Halo: running and gunning and dodging. I enjoy that style of play sometimes. Other players might even prefer it. If I want a more toe-to-toe, hack-and-slash approach, I go with a warrior. If I want to play at measured, less-frenzied pace, I choose a stealthy archer.

Forced to use too many skills? LOL.

That is the complete opposite of my complaint about magick. In my experience, you can get away with spamming just 1 spell that is being dualcast for the stun-lock. It is extremely cheap and disheartening. I find that warriors and archers are far more interesting to play. This is pretty sad imo, because the mage is usually my prefered playstyle. Outside of the mage guild quets, there is no compelling reason to play one, since the spells get progressively dull to use. Eventually you can just spam fireballs at the ground near a target. Destro mages are all one-trick ponies.

I think bethesda realizes just how dull destro mages are, and they made them weak at high levels just to encourage people to branch out to other fields to keep things a little more interesting. I swear, if destro spells scaled with level, you'd all be complaining about boring and EZ mode they are.

I'm no too fussed about it though, because I know that some mods will make things more interesting by tweaking the mechanics and making more destro spells useful for different purposes and maybe even tweaking the mechanics of magic to increase the amount of synergy, tactics, and strategies available to spellcasters.

I have to confess I don't understand the problem. The way I see it, the more difference there is between playing as a warrior and playing as a mage the better. Why the need for this equivalence? I get the impression that some would like to play this game the dame way for each character, only the weaponry visuals being different. Playing as a mage SHOULD be completely different from playing as a warrior. Almost by definition you're playing as a more intelligent, less hands-on type, and needs completely different skill set.

I'm OK with the whole thing really

Excellent idea. It would be a decent replacement for spellcrafting.

This is why I will ALWAYS prefer PC over Console. And the superior selection of mods, of course.

EDIT: Fixed ------- EDIT 2: Fixed again

Not quite accurate... You don't get any xp at the time of casting if you don't have an active enemy combatant, but you do get the xp as soon as you get into a fight if the spell is still up. Many a time have I been greeted with a notification that my Alteration or Conjuration skill has improved when a wolf charged me.


This can be adjusted with the Elys Uncapper mod. There are other mods on the nexus which tweak skill gain rates to what the mod author thinks they should be, but Elys Uncapper is the only one I've seen which puts the skill rate multipliers into a .ini file and lets you adjust them for yourself.

Remember there is one less magic skill than there was in Oblivion.

I'm enjoying my robe-wearing mage (Conjuration/Illusion/Destruction/Restoration) specifically because of the complexity, compared to my 1H Mace warrior (both chars in their 40's). I had to bump up my difficulty from Expert to Master to keep it challenging. The Lord stone is great for some damage mitigation but without armor or Alteration, I go down in one or two hits. I enjoy the thrill of that vulnerability. More than 8 hotkeys would be useful, though.

Is OP saying mages have a different play style than warriors and this bothers him?