That's really a silly point. I did not say I wanted to be able to make armor with destruction. It's never been an option and it does not particularly make sense. However, conjuration has, for multiple games up until now, been able to supply its wielder with both weapons and armor. There have also been other options of defending yourself with magic, such as shield spells (now ---skin spells in alteration). These are two viable and sensible options to, end the end, perform the same task. What I ask for is the choice to arrive at a solution through multiple paths, as players of previous Elder Scrolls games have been able to do.

The raise dead spells kinda supplement the diversity, but because of how they function all but the thrall ones are pretty useless.

I mean, mid-fight you don't really have time for the long resurrect animation and post-fight you have 60 seconds to find and complete your next fight or you'll be commanding a pile of dust. Nevermind that most dungeon distributions are a ton of trash NPC's and one near impossible battle at the end. In all situations atronarchs are more convenient and useful.

Dead thrall is a fun spell, though, and while it's limited to humanoids it satisfies my need for diverse pets.

A giant? What spell is powerful to make a giant zombie?

I personally used...

- Apprentice: Skeleton obviously to start with, thought it was quickly replaced with the Zombie for foes that did damage without weapons like wolves and such and I used the ghost against weapon wielding foes since it couldn't be harmed by most low level weapons, then came the scamp for my ranged needs. So 3 or 4 depending on if you look at the skeleton as being useful or not, it's obviously the best starter though when you have low mana due to it having the lowest manacost for the most amount of time (40 seconds base).

- Journeyman: Pretty much everything here like with apprentice, I still threw the ghost at some enemies with weapons if I only needed it as a distraction but the Dremora came when I had a lot of mana at the ready and needed a powerhouse, the Headless Zombie replaced the normal one, flame atronach for scamp and then came my favorite skeleton the Skeleton Guardian that came with a leveled shield! awesome against ogres and other hard hitters. Definitely all 4 here.

- Expert: Here came my personal favorite of all of the summons, the Clannfear, Faded Wraith came instead of the Ghost, Frost atronach if I was against something that didn't like frost or wielded frost itself and sometimes just as a shield (huge and can heal itself...), I wasn't too fond of the Daedroth and Spider Daedra as they were always so slow to get to the fighting and I felt the Skeleton Champion cost too much considering I could make a Dremora and the Skeleton Hero was quite pathetic, no shield made it worth less than the skeleton guardian for me which I used instead. So I used personally 3 at this level.

- Master: Dremora Lord... need I say more ? Then an upgrade to the wraith with a Gloom Wraith, Storm Atronach to have the shock element covered and Liches are always awesome, only one here I never liked much was the Xivilai, just used Dremora Lords instead. So 4 here.

4 + 4 + 3 + 4 = I used personally 15 summons, and then some could be upgraded with spell making to make them last longer making the Spider Daedra viable for combat potentially pushing my use of summons up to 16.

And that's just me, a lot of people loved the Daedroth which you mentioned yourself and the other summons while they may not have liked the same summons I liked. Variety is always good and I find it to come in short supply in Skyrim.

Wait... There's TWO familiars? I thought there was only the wolf.

EDIT:
Flaming Familiar, found it on UESP

I miss the Lich, XIvilai, and Spider Daedra the most. A bound shield would also go nicely with the bound sword too.

Yeah. Having less usefull damage spells than DragonAge2 is certainly a good thing. (sarcasm)

I was under the impression revenant could do it, if not I know for a fact the ritual stone re-animates mostly anything.

That brings me to my second point, not all of them have to be amazingly useful, variety is what makes conjuration so fun, being so restricted is annoying.

I wish there were more variety in Conjurations as well. Something like a wall to briefly hinder or trap(depending on placement) opponents until they bust it up or it expires.

I can think of a few things that would have been nice to see. maybe a few flying creatures(different power levels)

More than 1 power level creature(1 fire, 1 ice, 1 lightning) and they are always in that order of power. It might be nice to have "easy" summons for each type so you'd have weak/cheap fire creatures to summon and expensive/powerful fire creatures...You know make a difference between an actual conjurer and some fighter dabbling in conjuration for backup

A few creatures with unique abilities, say a meelee type creature that can walk on walls, or maybe an expensive creature that will suicide itself..

there are a lot of optiong to flesh out this school


Although I'm pretty happy with the game. There's a ton of things that "could" have been added time/cost permitting. I don't begrudge them the fact that their small number of people didn't think of everything the general population can come up with...


I will point out that they stripped out just about all the utility and non-combat spells in Skyrim so I'm not really surprised conjuration is so limited.

I suppose you can justify using the ghost, since it's pretty similar to the scamp and has normal weapons resist. However, it's super slow to move around, making it do less damage AND making it a limited meatshield. But yeah, I concede that maybe that one is useful. The Apprentice level spells were most balanced, but you also stay with them the least amount of time.


Headless Zombie just IS the ONLY choice here. The Skeleton Guardian does 8 damage a hit. The Headless Zombie does 27. It also has 5 more hp and some magic resist. There is just no competition unless you don't have the mana to cast the Headless Zombie.

Flame Atronach is pretty hard to justify using at this point as well. It does 5 points of melee damage, and has spells that do either 8 on target or 13 on touch. The fact that it's ranged is nice, but again, the headless zombie does 27 damage! It'd be silly to use the flame atronach in almost any case. Similarly, the Dremora does 5 damage in melee and has a couple random apprentice level spells. It also costs more than the Headless Zombie. I really don't see how it could POSSIBLY be construed as worth using.


This is, of course, not particularly different from what I said, except that I actually use the Daedroth. Not much to be said about this.


The Gloom Wraith is a really annoying summon though. It CAN do a ton of damage, but all too frequently, it flies around super slowly trying to get into melee range. It's too slow to get near stuff that much, and when it DOES, it only does 17 damage, much less than the 35 of the Clannfear or 40 of the Daedroth. Sure, it has very powerful spells, but it honestly doesn't frequently use them enough to get anywhere near the damage output of the Clannfear and Daedroth. Meanwhile, it costs a TON. I dont find that the Faded Wraith does much worse in terms of damage because while its spells are not as good, it actually does more melee damage.

The Dremora Lord can be good. There are a lot of variables as to the spells and stuff it comes out with, but at its best, it still only will basically match the Clannfear and Daedroth in damage while costing a ton more mana.

The Lich is also hit or miss but mostly miss. It gets a random staff, but frequently the staff is virtually worthless. When it IS a good one, it can be powerful, but even then, its insanely expensive and can frequently end up flying around slowly doing nothing the entire time. It's not worth it.

The Storm Atronach is not BAD, but it is not good enough to justify using really. It does 26 damage in melee instead of the 40 a Frost Atronach does. Meanwhile, it's spells are of similar quality. Unless you are fighting a frost resistant or shock weak enemy, the Frost Atronach will be better. Meanwhile, that is not even mentioning that the Storm Atronach's most powerful attack does 30 damage, while a Clannfear and Daedroth will always be doing more than that, and while the Storm Atronach can do ranged attacks, the Clannfear and Daedroth will probably still get off more attacks because they are faster.

I like the spell that auto casts once you play for an extended period of time. Its an AOE that effects everyone, including yourself.