Sorcerer Build

[Archibald Meatpants]

How do I make a decent sorcerer build?

[Lobo de hielo]

What type of Sorcerer do you envision playing?
One who knows a bit of everything or a specialist in 1 or 2 schools?

2 schools a Breton starts of with are excellent for a Mystic Conjurer. Mysticism to my way is a must, not only because of Mark,Recall and Intervention spells but Absorb Health is a top damaging spell, no creature or person is immune from it. Just at later stages beware of creatures/ npc's that reflect damage.
Conjuration you get your little helpers and weightless armour. Short sword is a good back up weapon to have, just conjure one.

Altmer is good for most types, a little hard to play if never played before. Starts with a lot of Magicka and 10 into Destruction. You should be able to use all low level destruction spells from the get go with no problems.

Battlemage/ sorcerer, I like Orc. 25% magic resist. Excellent endurance. Although watch if you go with a female Orc for the extra intelligence, they have very poor personality which stops them joining a couple of factions till you raise it to 30. You also have to spend a little time raising the schools of magic you want for them.

[Archibald Meatpants]

Probably should've mentioned that this is my first time playing and my first time making a character. Sorry for being so vague the first time. Anyways, my goals are pretty simple, obtain powerful magic, unleash it on the bad guys. That "little bit of everything" thing that you mentioned sounds pretty good though. Thank you for the response.

[Innocent]

My first time playing this game like 10 years ago, I wanted to do the same, and was quickly diosappointed! See, the main issue will be Magicka. The game is INCREDIBLY stingy with restore magicka potions, in fact they are really rare considering how essential they are, and you won't be able to find the ingredients to make your own until you can kill high level monster. Basically, a deep magicka pool is very important if you want to sling spells exclusively, otherwise you'll cast one fireball and have to sleep straight after.

Breton and Altmer have magicka bonuses, and Argonian females start with an intelligence bonus. Atronach, Mage and Apprentice signs give magicka bonuses as well. That's not to say you can't play an orc shaman, but you will have to be prepared for a reduced magicka pool, and maybe consider supplementing your magic with a weapon or potions.

You will be able to design and buy custom spells early in the game (although you won't have the skills or magicka pool to cast the most powerful ones). In the late game, you will have a deep enough magicka pool that you can start casting these sort of spells. I'll let you find out what the strongest combination is for pure damage. There are also tons of interesting utility spell effects.

If you want to be completely OP, get into alchemy and stack potions of fortify intelligence (look it up online for details). Alchemy stacks indefinitely, so you can effectively become god mode with it. Up to you if this is what you want. Otherwise, you can do a little bit of Alchemy to supplement your build without exploiting the system, up to you :)

The starting classes are all decent. Morrowind is not a very hard game and you will have the room to muck up. Note that most classes operate more on a hybrid combat style i.e. magic supplemented by a weapon. You'll see that most mages fight like this in Morrowind (cast a few spells, then draw a weapon or fists; fists are retardedly OP in this game by the way). If you want to min-max however, you're better of designing your own class (and basically NOT selecting any of the skills you are going to use , welcome to TES).

[Archibald Meatpants]

That kind of shuts down my hopes for a pure-magic build, but it isn't a deal breaker for me. I'll combo my magic with like a sword or something, then. Thank you for the response.

[Innocent]

Glad you're still giving this a shot :) Unfortunately, it's a design choice from the original game, or an oversight. If you really want to go pure mage, there are a number of mods that can help (magicka regen mods, magicka pot merchants etc...), or you can use the console to periodically give yourself some pots (and drop some gold if you want to "buy" them). If you ever get into high level Alchemy, you can end up creating pots that regen 200+ magicka per second for 10 minutes+, essentially giving you infinite magicka for the duration of the pot. But that should be more of an end game thing.

[Nebgama]

Id say they knew what they were trying to achieve not many areas in this game are by happenstance.

Magic is very unorthodox and as a new player it will take you a long time to understand its nuances unless people ruin it for you and spoon feed you the answers. which is going to happen just because you asked the question.

The design of this game is not really intended to use mana potions its way more deeper than some generic mana potion as a solution. You can easily craft any potions in this game and i think the internal meme at play is that potions are for chumps because you can break the game with potions.

A real player is above potions. We way past potions over here.

[Lobo de hielo]

There are 40 free magicka potions at the start of the game if you join the mages guild, more than enough time to get a little bit of alchemy behind you. (appx 40 to 50 in alchemy is what to aim at to start). Comberry are everywhere and very cheap to buy. The alchemist in Balmorra sells Frost Salts and constantly restocks (these items create magicka potions), they do cost 75 gold, but by the time you have gone through the 40 free ones you should have enough money.
Playing pure mage can be difficult if you have never played before. Always have a back up weapon like a stave or dagger. Also enchanted damage rings are available early.
2 sets of master alchemy sets are available, but you have to find and steal them.
If you still trying, you might find it easier than you are led to believe.
Have great fun anyway.

[LexCondran]

Alteration = Has "Shield" which is a mages armor rating
Conjuration = Has distractions, but most summons are kind of weak early
Destruction = Has fire ice shock poison damage, and lowers attributes skills
The best would be to damage Speed - Athetics - Willpower
Slow a target to a halt, and pelt them
Restoration = Heals you
Mysticism = alot of teleports
Illusion = Paralyze, Persuasion, invisibility

Alchemy = Makes potions, reveals a ingredients effects around 15 - 25 - 50 - 75
Enchant = reduce usage on enchants, really hard in vanilla
need a golden saint with 400 soul to add constant effect enchants
not alot of stuff has enough to get out of that though

Heres a build
https://mwcct.com/?build=30115cagbhd1fe91

Dark elf, High elf, or breton are pretty decent mages
i dont use conjuration much, but who knows
having maxed out unarmored + alteration shield buffs is great
good to use alchemy to make restore mp potions

---Potions
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Potions

---ingredients
Alchemy Ingredients
The following alchemy ingredients can be used to create a Restore Magicka potion:

Adamantium Ore - Tribunal/Mournhold
Belladonna Berries - Bloodmoon/Solstheim
Comberry - Really Common Plant, Ascadian Isles
Daedra's Heart - Daedra / Dremora, Scamp, Clannfear, Daedroth
Frost Salts - Frost Atronach
Heartwood - Bloodmoon/Solstheim
Void Salts - Storm Atronach

Good Recipe
Comberry, Fire Salts, Frost Salts, Holly Berries
adds
Restore Magicka, Fire Shield, Frost Shield, Resist Frost

[psychotron666420]

Originally posted by Archibald Meatpants:

That kind of shuts down my hopes for a pure-magic build, but it isn't a deal breaker for me. I'll combo my magic with like a sword or something, then. Thank you for the response.

Pure magic builds are completely viable, I've done them a lot. Just don't pick the atronach birthsign because you don't regain Magicka through sleeping and must get potions or play the game like a chore and use workarounds to regain Magicka. Apprentice or mage birth signs are good enough.

Atronach is powerful yes, but I guarantee you it will put you off from the game if you use it on your first build. Atronach should only be used by people who have experience with the game

[theo]

My experience with magic made me think it was designed to be like DnD magic. Meaning you can have very powerful spells (not only for combat but also for utility purposes) but it's not worth it to spam them all the time

[psychotron666420]

Originally posted by theo:

My experience with magic made me think it was designed to be like DnD magic. Meaning you can have very powerful spells (not only for combat but also for utility purposes) but it's not worth it to spam them all the time

I really like that style. But because of morrowind leveling with stats and it only matters how many times you cast successfully, not how much Magicka you use or how *difficult " the spell is, so in the end you have to play exponentially more hours than any other build to level at the same rate. If you play it like that DND style as a class that's mostly magic, you'll find yourself where you have 100 in your non magic skills and magic is still in the 40s or 50s.

Basically your magic skills won't level up organically or will take an extremely long time while late game your magic will be so far behind that even what heavy spells you can cast won't make a difference to the battle - if you're using magic sparingly like DND

[theo]

Yes but magic skills don't really level up organically even if you focus just on them, it only works with weapon skills and athletics, I suppose that's why there are trainers

[Lobo de hielo]

Magic skills can level up quite fast. Apart from the trainers or 1pt spam spells.
Instead of thinking you are so powerful and making that 1 hit kill spell, stick with your starter spells. Just reaching level 6 with an Altmer enchant/mystic and Mysticism is already at level 68. But I stick with a starter absorb health spell, it takes a few strikes to kill thinks but means it levels quick.
The huge spells I make and keep "just in case".

[psychotron666420]

Originally posted by slayor3000:

Magic skills can level up quite fast. Apart from the trainers or 1pt spam spells.
Instead of thinking you are so powerful and making that 1 hit kill spell, stick with your starter spells. Just reaching level 6 with an Altmer enchant/mystic and Mysticism is already at level 68. But I stick with a starter absorb health spell, it takes a few strikes to kill thinks but means it levels quick.
The huge spells I make and keep "just in case".

Yeah that's essentially how magic was designed to be. We were talking about the DND style of only using big spells as game changers, and I was just saying the mechanics of morrowind doesn't really lend itself to that concept well. Yes, you're better off spamming lower level spells for a more consistent level advancement.

[Archibald Meatpants]

Sorry I missed so much, had stuff to do. Anyways this question is directed towards theo. Now that I know that magic isn't something that I can just "spam" to defeat my foes, is it possible to compensate with a staff? I'm trying to avoid swords and daggers if I can.