Poll: Magic in Skyrim

[Melon Hunter]

I play a character who uses melee along with Destruction and Conjuration spells. I'm currently Level 20, so my usual spells are Bound Sword and Firebolt, which do beastly amounts of damage with the right perks. I have literally only just got a weapon with a higher damage output than my Bound Sword (a Superior Glass Sword), and with Conjure Flame Atronach, most battles are a cinch at the moment. I suppose it is a drain on Magicka, but honestly I'd find it very hard to play a character that doesn't use magic as a major part of their strategy.

 

[Doclector]

I think it's rather balanced, but it does lend itself more easily to battlemages than full on mages. There are difficulties such as limited magicka but those are mostly offset in some way-the game throws a ridiculous amount of cost reducing/regen increasing robes at you (those things made most of my income on my warrior save).

A quick tip-mages are best played agile. Wards are good, sometimes very good, but you can do better jumping around an enemy chucking destruction magic at them and flicking on the ward if it gets close.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

I feel that it is balanced for the most part.

The only spell I seem to have a problem with is Ice Bolt. It deals way too much damage AND slows you down.

That spell makes up the majority of my magic deaths. (Other than the summoned creatures.)

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

My friend made a Mage who's spells no longer cost any magicka. I'd say they're a little bit overpowered.

 

[Woodsey]

Fairly balanced. Relying on magicka is a disadvantage at the start, but you should be able to get your magicka recharging quick enough in no time with perks and enchanted items.

As for enemies, depends on their level, the magic they're using, etc.

 

[DanielBrown]

I'd say it's pretty balanced.
You have to keep constant watch over your magicka resources, sure, but you also get cool animations!
Pew pew!

 

[ZeZZZZevy]

It's pretty balanced until you make your spells cost nothing (enchanting gets super broken) and then combat becomes a complete joke. Master level cast times can be completely negated by Become Ethereal and what you can't paralyze indefinitely can be solved by conjuring dremora lords and running away.

Although I actually kind of like it that way, just because you have to try to break magic, which doesn't make it inherently overpowered. Training takes a while too.

 

[ICantBelieveItGoesBoom]

I've just started playing with an Altmer pure mage who's level 13 now I think and I'm finding it pretty well balanced at the moment but I think that using illusion and conjuration as well as destruction is a must, without it I would be severely underpowered.

Comparing my playstyle to my old character, a dunmer warrior, I'm finding that I die much less but each battle is slightly harder and requires more thinking and strategising (is that a word?). So I'd say it's not really harder or easier, just different.

 

[Primus1985]

I may be alone here but I for one like how magic is retooled in Skyrim. In Morrowwind(PC) and Oblivion(Xbox) I felt magic was very cumbersome to start out with, unless you where a High Elf or Breton. It was hard to make a Character that could fight and use magic, so I mostly focused on warrior based skills, which was easy because in both games they gave you unlocking spell scrolls and Soul Gem spell scrolls like crazy.

With Skyrim its much eaiser to blend warrior and magic skills, especially in combat since you can have a spell in one hand and weapon in the other. Playing a Nord(lvl 24) that specializes in Destruction, one-handed, two-handed, heavy armor, with a minor in Enchanting. Also let me say that while you cant create spells in Skyrim(Im sure Bethesda didnt want people to break the game more than they already have) Enchanting is 100% better, smithing as well I hated carrying around 50lbs worth of hammers just to keep my gear up. People might scoff and say "Oh Enchanting and Smithing are broken" but broken by whose standards? Sure if you exploit it you can raise it quick but it ease of use makes someone that never bothered with it before (like myself) enjoy it. When I can have +70 health, +65 stamina, +70 magicka, +25% One handed damage, and +20 heavy armor, I call that a huge boon to gameplay.

I usually have my Dwarven mace of Thunderbolts and either Lightning bolt or chain lightning in my hands. For big groups and/or tough enemies I blast them with chain lightning untill my magiuka goes down and anything tough enough to survive gets my Elven Warhammer(enchanted deals 25 shock damage 111 charges) I think Bethesda has done right, trimming some things but enhancing the overall experience so you can play how you like.



Also for those that say their over powered...Isnt that the point?

 

[Palfreyfish]

*snip*
Now one thing that I think is a waste is Torches....

Seriously never used one of the things

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323
Get this if you're playing on PC, and turn your brightness down if it's at full, and it makes torches required outside at night, unless you're a Khajit and have night eye. Or get a mod that adds a nighteye spell, such as Midas Magic - Spells for Skyrim:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3413

 

[Sprinal]

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4323
- snip -

yeah I have the Realistic lighting mod... Just use Candle light... I am a mage so it is sort of fair but... Even with the mod it still is possible to kill an entire legion just by using flame cloak and fire balls as your light source...

Also I may actually get that second mod (midas magic) yet thanks...

 

[Joccaren]

Depends which spell set. Conjuration is OP. Summon in high level and strong attronachs x 2, and hide behind them the whole fight, and nothing can touch you. Destruction has a big problem with magica usage until you hit the wall spells. Restoration is good - except those Magicka draining wards. Illusion and Alteration can be great or can be crap.

 

[Summerstorm]

Underpowered. raises slowlier than weapon-skills and you need more time to murder something with it. (Also you need more Magic)

The healing is totally ultra though.

Wanted to play Two-handed + conjuration at first. Gave up conjuring after while... it's just easier and faster to charge in and chop someones head off *g*.

 

[Polite Sage]

Some schools are overpowered even without enchants.

Illusion - You can breeze through dungeons without having to fight anything by switching between fury and calm spells. Also, if you have enough mana you can become completely invisible and silent, eliminating any need for sneak skill. Easily the most broken magic school until you get your conjuration to 100.

Conjuration - Provided you have the right perks, conjuration weapons cut through anything till mid/high levels (especially the bow) and you get the overpowered twin daedra summons later.

Restoration - Becomes broken late game when combining guardian circle and atronarch perk for unlimited HP/MP supply

On the other hand, destruction is pretty shit...
And I haven't tried alteration yet.

 

[Lawnmooer]

I find magic in Skyrim to be underpowered.

Melee weapons can be used forever and are rather easy to increase the damage of via smithing, enchanting and alchemy (Fortify Enchanting, Fortify Smithing, Fortify One Handed and Fortify Two Handed potions)

Bows are limited by arrows but they are rather abundant and bows can be used to do devastating amounts of damage using similar methods to melee weapons and can be used to do long range sneak attacks.

Magic is stuck doing set amounts of damage and every spell uses a resource (While melee weapons use stamina to do power attacks their normal hits don't and there are no free but weaker spells that can be used) there are no enchants to increase damage, there is nothing that can be smithed to increase their damage the only thing that boosts magic affects outside the few perks are the potions (Fortify Destruction, Fortify Conjuration, Fortify Restoration, Fortify Alteration and Fortify Illusion)

Then comes the issue with certain spells being on a time limit (The armor spells from Alteration, the cloak spells from Destruction, all of the Illusion spells and most of the Conjuration spells) meaning that if you don't finish combat in time your spells will wear off and need to be recast (There is nothing like that for the physical forms of fighting)

The health scaling on enemies (Especially on higher difficulties) tends to make it so that the only real way of killing things with Destruction magic is to enchant gear to reduce the magicka cost down to 10% or less and just spam away for ages using Impact perk to not get hit. Which is rather boring and much less effective than any physical based build I've tried (Which does include some that don't use any of the crafting skills... Using items I've picked up and not upgrading them and only using potions that I find)

 

[4RM3D]

The problem is, unlike Warrior and Thief Skills, Magic is limited by a finite resource in combat (Magicka).

That is true, but it is also false. And that is the reason why magicka fails, coupled with another problem.

In the later levels, you can make pretty good enchantments when you have that skills maxed (which you should have). For magic you can make an enchant that allows 2 schools of magic to be cast without magicka. And if you want you can make another gear set for another 2 schools of magic. This is severely unbalanced and breaks the purpose of magicka and the -50% magicka skills.

However the reason why magicka fails is because the spells themselves can not be improved. Magic spells remain the same (after maxing out the skill). But weapons can be greatly improvement to do more damage and on top of that you have insane +damage enchants. That means that in the end you just use your weapon and everything dies. I can instant kill every enemy on lvl50 including the weaker dragons (excluding the more powerful ones). And I am playing on the highest difficulty setting.

Also the magicka master spells are broken and crappy and they take ages to cast.

TL;DR: it's pretty much a fact that magicka is worse than physical damage (on higher levels).

 

[Tjebbe]

Like any Elder Scrolls game, there comes a point where you are just overpowered in general, in Morrowind it was for me when I had a sword that drained health and an unlimited levitation ring, in Oblivion it was a set of equipment that gave me nearly full spell absorption, and in Skyrim it was the combination of enchantment and magic (free destruction AND restoration spells). But no doubt that any other approach in perks/skills/equipment arrives at a similar point. I personally like this quite a bit; when you get to this point you have usually put enough hours in and it is time to wrap the main lines up and move on to the next game.

 

[Jandau]

I used to think it sucked. Then I stared a proper Mage character and found that it's in fact just as strong as any other playstyle.

1. People complain that Destruction sucks compared to physical combat. No shit! One single skill is less effective than a playstyle that relies on 3+ skills? How is THAT possible? [/sarcasm] Your average Warrior will rely on Onehanded, Block, Heavy Armor and Smithing. And you want to be just as effective with only Destruction?

2. People complain that Destruction does low damage. Not true. Even past level 50 my Thunderbolts were taking nice chunks of Health from any enemy, including Ancient Dragons and Draugr Deathlords. Does a pimped out Dual Wielder do more DPS? Probably. But I still kill stuff fast enough and I can permanently stunlock a target with the Impact Perk or clear multiple targets rapidly with Chain Lightning. And in case some brainiac was using Fireballs on a Fire Dragon, that doesn't even deserve a comment...

3. People complain that Spells cost too much magicka for the effect they give. Then get cost reduction gear. Level Enchanting to 100 and MAKE your own gear. No need to use the crafting exploits, just regular Enchanting is enough. What, you don't want to use enchanting? That's your problem. It would be like a Warrior whining that he wants to fight naked and not use any Armor skills...

4. People don't level Conjuration. They see the Familiar and maybe the Flame Atronarch and decide it sucks. What they didn't see is a pair of Dremora Lords (double summon perk) running around clearing whole levels on their own while their master just goes around collecting loot.

5. And that's before we get to Illusion. I don't like it myself, but I've seen people with maxed Illusion wreck entire dungeons while barely lifting a finger.

My level 50+ Mage didn't feel any less effective than my level 50+ Dual Wield Assassin With Maxed Smithing & Enchanting. Also, my Mage needed fewer skills to reach the point at which nothing could touch him. After that he leveled Alteration for the lulz (Alteration sucks, not even I can dispute that).

And no, Mages don't require any particularly convoluted playstyle or anything. I just go in and kill stuff.

 

[babinro]

Once you get the duel cast stutter perk the game becomes a walk in the park.

There are elements within the casting that are simply overpowered in Skyrim. It's by no means the quickest way to get through the game though.