Bethesda Hates Mages: 12 Reasons Magic in Skyrim Sucks

[SonOfVoorhees]

Yeah magic sucks. But it is funny fighting magicians in the game and they use all that magic on you only for you to stab them in the face. I bet they regret all that studying in the mages guild.

 

[Rblade]

In morrowind if I want to be a mage I level a fighter until I can crush everything, then put on asliip's ring and full glass armor and start balmora with the mage guild, heh, just for shits and giggles. My intelligence tends to be up there a bit already by that point anyway because of restoration and enchant. And my hobby, alchemy.

And if anyone gives you shit about your weaksauce fireballs, draw hopesfire and restore order, man I love morrowind.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

So how does it work for people who actually want to go into close combat?

For a stealth character it really doesn't -- it's not quite as badly broken as the magic system, but you're at a disadvantage. The only time I go into "melee" on purpose is when I'm 100% that I can sneak attack and instant-kill the enemy. Incidentally, this does mean that some scripted battles (where you can't choose your distance/moment of attack) are extra hard for stealth characters.

So how does it work for people who actually want to go into close combat?

You play a warrior. Later in the game skyrim doesn't really have too many viable options.

If you wanna melee you gotta be a warrior of some description. If you want to sneak you should probably be an archer. If you want to do fuck all level destruction magic. If you want to do fuck all but not die level conjuration. If you want to do anything whatsoever late game level enchantment and alchemy.

That's a shame. I'd really want to make a Dunmer dual-wielder with some light armour and some stealth skills called Drizzl Schmo'Durden or something, but you're saying that wouldn't really work out?

......


Drizzit was Fighter/Ranger with nearly no stealth feats. I dont know why people keep thinking he had levels in rogue.

In the books he seems to be no stranger to sneaking around when necessary. And I said some stealth skills. By no means it's the focus of his character, but he's certainly capable of doing so from time to time.

 

[Souplex]

To be fair, magic as overpowered as hell in Oblivion. (So long as you played a Breton +50 magicka from the get-go, or a High-Elf +100 magicka from the get-go with some downsides. As the your magic is 2x your intelligence + Racial/birthsign bonuses)

 

[kajinking]

That god for Mods, my main dokakin (which sadly got lost in a hard drive wipe) was a stealth mage mixing the usual sneak and stab with some destruction and illusion just for fun. It was always nice to know that if my cover was blown I always had the option to nuke down the enemy with some lightning.

 

[nyysjan]

Bah.

Level destruction, restoration and enchantment, get some gear that make your restoration and destruction spells cost 0 magicka, stun lock dragons to death.

Magic, if anything, has simply gotten easier to level overtime, but lacks versatility (seriously, stun locking dragons to death is boring).
Or get summoning to 100, do same with gear, have 2 high level summons kill everything for you.

I'm level 60+ on Skyrim, started out as a Dunmer mage, and having 0 issues, later i switched to rogue style play, and after levelling sneaking and one handed a bit, coupled with illusion, i can now one shot any non boss monster, and most boss monsters i bump into, with a dagger (crafted, sharpened, smithing 100 level daedric dagger).
Occasionally i use daedric heavy armor and 2 handed daedric sword (both skills below 30) just for fun, but when going gets though, i pull out my destruction spells (runes are especially awesome).

Could they have made magick better? Yes.
Is magic underpowered? Hell no.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I'm someone who mainly likes playing stealth characters, but I found that as soon as I enter melee combat, tits go up pretty rapidly. If I use two weapons, stuff dies quickly, but so do I. If I use a single sword, I can block, but it seems to do very little. Am I playing it wrong?

Don't enter melee combat is my advice; use a bow and unlock all the perks -- combined with high-level stealth powers, most enemies in Skyrim die before they even know you're there. As a last ditch defense weapon, get something that can paralyze and you should be okay when facing the exceptions.

Regarding the article, I completely agree. The Elder Scrolls games are one of the few RPGs in which my default character is not a mage. It is just too much hassle for too little reward.

So how does it work for people who actually want to go into close combat?

Well, first of all, a stealth character shouldn't have to go into close combat. If you invest in the sneaking perk tree properly most enemies won't even know you are there. By the sounds of it you want to make some cross class of stealth and warrior (like some sort of lethal melee assassin). However, when fighting is unavoidable...

If you want to use Dual Weapons and be a melee beast:

Put trait points into Health mainly, with Stamina a low secondary (and none in magic). So for every ten levels you rise it should be 6/4/0 (Health, Stamina, Magic). This is to balance your ability to deal damage and how well you can take it.

Put perks into light armor... the more combat focused your build the more perks you should invest. If every encounter is to be a fight, fill this perk tree up over your play trough. Be especially concerned with Windwalker, since that will allow you to power attack very often.

Invest in One handed skills, Armsman (up to rank 5), figthing stance (for reduced stamina consumption), Dual Flurry and Dual Savagery. Savage Strike is optional, it gives a mild damage boost to standing power attacks and a cool decapitation animation that plays randomly. The weapon type perks (for axes, swords and maces) are also optional, they add extra affects such as bleeding, higher critical chances and ignore armor ratings. If you are sticking with daggers, choose Bladesman if you must.

Getting Savage strike opens up Paralyzing Strike in the late game, which gives your backward power attack a 25% chance to paralyse, which can be extremely helpful. Ignore any perks that aren't relevant to your playstyle.

In this build, Sneak will have to take a back seat since you value standing power and damage over evasion, but it can be useful. Getting the drop on a powerful enemy can net you massive damage if not instant kills, with the right perks. Max out "Stealth" to reduce the chance of detection. Light armor will have negligible penalties so you won't need "muffle". Then invest in the assassins path (backstab, deadly aim [not useful if you aren't using bows, but needed for the last perk] and Assassins Blade, which gives daggers 6x damage when used in a sneak attack). Assassins Blade, coupled with One Handed skills, can make most enemies die instantly.

You should invest some perks in Alchemy. Poisons and Potions are a Thiefs friend in combat, and much like smiting and enchanting, have some ludicrously powerful. Certain potions are extremely useful. In the early game, try to harvest Frostbite poison from spiders, as they make dealing with large enemy groups much easier.

Only go one handed if you plan on using shields and the Block Skill tree.
In this case, do much the same as earlier, but instead of investing entirely in Light Armor, put a few perks into Block, primarily "Shield Wall" and "Quick Reflexes". Shield Wall mitigates damage while quick reflexes gives you a "bullet time" effect if you time a block against a power attack properly (if you see a heavy swing, block and time should slow down allowing you to bash them, cause them to stagger and counter attack). Ignore any of the right side of the perk tree as they aren't too useful to anything outside of a pure melee warrior. Consider investing in Block Runner (need Deflect Arrows and elemental protection, which are both useful to some extent) as it allows you to run (not sprint) while blocking. Shield Charge turns sprinting while blocking into a wrecking ball (low damage but massive chaos as you knock over most enemies), but it's more flavor then it is practical, so you can skip it.

Stick to using light shields (leather, glass, elven etc.) since it compliments your light armor skills.

Ignore all Dual Wielding perks in One handed, no need to add any more perks here unless you want to specialise in a weapon choice (axes, swords or maces), instead you can reinvest these into blocking.

Sneak is much the same. If you are using daggers you will want Assassins Blade for the 6x damage with Daggers. However, you must be sure that you can land sneak attacks consistently, otherwise it's just a wasted perk (same for Dual Wielding if you can't land a sneak attack). If you need to invest a little more in sneak then reduce investment in light armor (go 1 or 2 levels in Agile Defender instead of all 5), since Blocking can substitute for the lower defense rating (if you're good).

AS you can tell, becoming a combat ready stealth character leaves little else to other skill sets. The only other Perk Tree you really need to consider is Alchemy, since speech, pickpocket and lockpicking are virtually useless (Pickpocket is useful for pure Sneak characters, speech is fairly useless though it can help with early game cashflow problems and lockpicking can be mastered by you without investing perks, just have lots of picks on hand).

OT: I'd have to disagree with you Shamus. Magic doesn't suck. Going Pure Mage is difficult, but my level 54 Dark Elf mage (master necromancer) is able to shoot Dragons (low level) out of the sky in a single volley and turn dead enemies into my own personal Thralls. The early game is pretty misleading though, which is where I can see your point.

Destruction, for a pure mage, seems immediately necessary since it feels like your primary damage dealer. In reality, Destruction is a double edged sword. It compliments a high level mage quite well, but in the early game it can drain so fast as to make your other skills near useless.

Likewise, Alteration is a huge drain on your Mana, and leaves you open to attacks with no means of response.

Restoration is useful for quick fixes, but potions are so abundant you will rarely need it. However, it can be very useful if you use Heal Other Spells on companions. In the late game it can let you stand in the fight a little longer.

Conjuration is a must for a pure mage. They draw attention away from you by acting as decoys AND deal damage. This should be one of the first skills you start investing in and it's really easy to level (just summon daggers or familiars for the first 30 levels, then higher level items and creatures from then on).

Alternatively, Illusion can also be used (I prefer Conjuration). The ability to turn enemies into allies, or enemies against enemies, is extremely useful and if you have companions, the buffs you can throw at them can turn them into beasts. Heck, in the Civil War (a modded version which much harder then the vanilla), the ability to buff my comrades turned a potential loss into a resounding win.

However, Illusion is a little trickier. You will need a companion early on, to apply buffs too, and it levels really slowly (doubling the need for a companion).

Enchanting allows you to customise your own robes or armor to best suit your character build, rather then relying on random drops or rank based robes at the College. It also allows you to deck out your companions, making them far more competent when left on their own (though certain enchantments have no affect on companions). With the Dragonborn DLC (i think) you can also create your own custom staffs.

Speaking of which, Staffs are a mages friend. I've often heard people selling them for cash and relying on their spells alone. While you don't level skills with magic staffs, they are affected by your corresponding skills (not in terms of damage, but duration of use... high destruction allows you to use destruction staffs for longer without need for recharge.

Also, you said you need to spread yourself thin? That's not true. Put something like 5 points into health MAX, nothing into stamina and the rest into magic. By level 30 you will have 150 points of health and 350 mana (by 40 it's 450, 50 is 550 etc). Robes (chosen based on your preferred specialization) and enchanted items will massively reduce mana consumption, allowing you to cast often with little need for respite (and you have potions to spare, if you've been spending money wisely, in case you need a little extra).

I could go on, but this post is way too big already.

 

[Nimzabaat]

I read this article as "I don't know how to play a mage".

Skyrim was my first elder scrolls game, and I loved playing it. Always a mage.

That said, everything Shamus said is completely true. I actually like the archmage robes, but they don't compare to daedric armor, in terms of looking cool and stats. Also, pretty much all of the other robes besides the thalmor robes, and archmage robes, just look lame.

The only way I was able to play a "mage" well, was to get great at enchanting, smiting, and alchemy first. That way I was able to make myself great armor and weapons, and use alchemy and enchanting to make a circlet, ring, and necklace that let me cast all spells for free, and sell powerful enchanted weapons for gold to buy the best spells.

Even then, it takes forever to level up the skills.

Hope it's better next time I guess.

Well some of the article is true, but I find mages pretty OP myself. I read it as "I don't know how to play a mage in Skyrim".

One of the first little tricks is that north of Whiterun there's a mine full of easy kills and a transmute spell for turning iron into gold. Level your spells, create wealth, buy destruction skills (unless you're doing the summon critter, kill critter practise for your destruction keeping in mind that mages study).

I will agree that the robes could be better looking though.

EDIT: I also seem to recall picking up enchantments that boost destruction and mana regeneration at the same time. I guess Shamus wasn't looking hard enough.

 

[Rawbeard]

I hope ESO crashes and burns so hard, that Zenimax decides to bury the franchise. Considering they will start out with a subscription model, this is very likely to happen. They deserve this for making magic stupid. And for making a bland MMO. But mostly for the magic thing.

 

[Norix596]

I am perfectly ok with a system existing where everything besides mages aren't trivial and pointless next to the limitless power of the godlike spellcasters (looking at you, DRAGON AGE) - not that two unbalanced systems make a right but it's a nice change of pace from the usual imbalance between mages and fighters in most places ever.

 

[RandV80]

I've always favoured going stabby over going boom so the shortcomings here don't really effect me as a pure mage is the last type of character I'll try. I guess what's always bugged me with them goes back to Balders Gate and those types of games, where you always had to stop and rest for 8 hours after big battles to recover your spells so you can actually be useful. Especially when the story sets things up as being time critical. Yeah you just beat the mid boss and the final boss is just through that door about to destroy the world, but no you gotta stop and have an 8 hour nap to get your spells back.

I will say one thing for TES mages though, in Morrowind I thought it was really cool all the complimentary spells you could learn. With the right skill in magic one could breathe underwater, walk on water, levitate, turn invisible, teleport, make people like you, unlock doors, grab keys with telekinesis, and so on. Even if you could kill quickly with a sword and die slower with heavy armour, just being a straight fighter seemed pretty lacking in comparison.

But that was Morrowind. When I started my first game of Oblivion, I made a spell sword type of character with those things in mind, taking stuff like Illusion and Mysticism instead of the usual Destruction and Restoration, but he flat out sucked because there was barely anywhere to use those 'neat' spells. I'm guessing Skyrim isn't much different.

I did finally by Skyrim during the Steam Christmas sale, but after loading a bunch of mods the game would crash to desktop every 5-10 minutes and I couldn't figure out why.

 

[Two-A]

i have to admit i never ran into this because i only started playing skyrim last summer and the first thing i did was mod the magic system to be good.
damage scales with skill, a shitload of new spells and armor and enchants with +magicdmg.
except that made the game too easy so i had to boost enemy strength, which meant they broke some quests so i had to fix that but by now i heard of another cool mod that gives you a magic castle and like 8 new schools of magic that are different kinds of destruction and interact with each other...
and i spend more time modding the game than playing it. again

Same thing happened to me with FO3.

I've now halted my playthrough until I can find/create a DLC extension for a food mod.

OT: That sucks, but at least Skyrim has a mod community. Can't say the same for most RPGs that do the same thing.

 

[Mister Chippy]

That's a shame. I'd really want to make a Dunmer dual-wielder with some light armour and some stealth skills called Drizzl Schmo'Durden or something, but you're saying that wouldn't really work out?

Well, it may assuming you overenchant your armor so you might as well be wearing something amazingly better than what it really is. Same with your weapons. Sadly like I said almost nothing is viable late game in skyrim, and everything that is viable is only viable because you can exploit potions of alchemy allowing you to cheese your alchemy level to astronomical levels so you can make potions of enchanting that allow you to craft god level gear. Still, if you're gonna try to survive the lategame without a shield or by sniping, I wish you luck.

 

[Hartland]

Fun fact: Besides the added perk of being able to carry more increasing stamina is as far as I know USELESS. Yes, yes, you can sprint for longer as well I guess. But in combat? Just eat some stew damn it! With a constant reg of one or two stamina points you will always have SOME points to use for power attacks or shield bash. Infinitely shield bashing someone into a corner is not a pretty tactic, but it often works. Combined with gear made to erase the cost of casting spells completely... You more or less only "need" health.

Question for everyone: At what difficulty are you playing Skyrim? How much do you think that that affects your perception of the strength of your build?

 

[Fdzzaigl]

It definitely sucks balls in vanilla Skyrim, that's for sure. I can never live without mods that add to spellcasting.

Strangely enough though, I predict it will be different in Elder Scrolls Online. Because there the ones who don't focus on magic will be spreading themselves thin.

Three out of four classes in that game rely on magicka for their class skills. It was a big problem for my templar tank had to balance between stamina, magicka and health.

I am perfectly ok with a system existing where everything besides mages aren't trivial and pointless next to the limitless power of the godlike spellcasters (looking at you, DRAGON AGE) - not that two unbalanced systems make a right but it's a nice change of pace from the usual imbalance between mages and fighters in most places ever.

Archers and melee DPS >>> Mages in DA2 mate

Tanky warriors and melee rogues didn't do so bad in the original either.

 

[nyysjan]

It definitely sucks balls in vanilla Skyrim, that's for sure. I can never live without mods that add to spellcasting.

Strangely enough though, I predict it will be different in Elder Scrolls Online. Because there the ones who don't focus on magic will be spreading themselves thin.

Three out of four classes in that game rely on magicka for their class skills. It was a big problem for my templar tank had to balance between stamina, magicka and health.

I am perfectly ok with a system existing where everything besides mages aren't trivial and pointless next to the limitless power of the godlike spellcasters (looking at you, DRAGON AGE) - not that two unbalanced systems make a right but it's a nice change of pace from the usual imbalance between mages and fighters in most places ever.

Archers and melee DPS >>> Mages in DA2 mate

Tanky warriors and melee rogues didn't do so bad in the original either.

Only reason i did not have a group of nothing but mages in DA:O was because there was not enough mages (holy fuck those guys were OP), could not force myself to play 3rd act of DA2, but they really nerfed mages in that game.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Only reason i did not have a group of nothing but mages in DA:O was because there was not enough mages (holy fuck those guys were OP), could not force myself to play 3rd act of DA2, but they really nerfed mages in that game.

Well, it's really different if you play on Nightmare, because then your mages will kill your own party

You should try a dual dagger rogue backed up by double haste (which you indeed need mages for), momentum + swift salve. Rapes everything a new one, even burns through high dragons and everything in seconds.

+ You can make warrior tanks virtually invincible (also to magic).

 

[Kajin]

I always played as a Jack of All Trades kind of character. The perfect mix of Warrior-Mage that summoned a Flame Atronach before exhausting all magicka throwing giant AoE destruction spells before charging in sword drawn cleaving the heads from the necks of my adversaries. And if I got hurt, no worries because I leveled up my magicka evenly with HP and Stamina and some of my armor had magicka regen to it so I could pull out two-handed healing spells to get back into the fight quickly.

But I understand how hard magic sucks in Skyrim if you use it by yourself. At one point mid to late game I suddenly realized I hadn't gotten any good new spells in a while and found that my magic skills were severely under leveled in comparison to the fighting skills I'd been using just as much of throughout the game. So I started trying to level grind my magic and it was so damn difficult I just stopped bothering.

 

[Jynthor]

In other news: World War 2 is over!

 

[Agayek]

Archers and melee DPS >>> Mages in DA2 mate

Tanky warriors and melee rogues didn't do so bad in the original either.

In the only proper Dragon Age game, Mages were broken as fuck, to the point where my main character mage guy was a better warrior than my warrior character, plus he had magic.

It's one of the reasons when I play I only have Morrigan (who is built pure offensive support) and maybe the main character as a mage. Anything else is way too stupid easy.