Need Spell Advice

[GumWax]

I'm not that new to Oblivion, but in the magic field, totally. I'm a level 16 dark elf and I was wondering if you guys know any combos for spells I could make that would be pretty good, because I feel like being a mage is really weak but I don't think it should be. Thanks

[arottweiler]

Weakness spells can be very effective especially if it's something that the enemy already has a weakness to. As an example, Frost Atronachs have a weakness to fire so hit them with a fire weakness spell that lasts a few seconds and then attack with an enchanted weapon that has fire damage. If you have followers you can give them enchanted weapons and use a weakness spell that lasts longer such as 20 seconds and then watch as the followers kill them in one or two hits. The good thing about weakness spells is they use very little magica so you can create spells with multiple weaknesses and a very long duration.

[Darth Cannabis]

Focus on the mages guild quests and getting to the university so you can use the spellcrafting alter, as being a truly powerful mage comes down to the combination spells one can create.

Some of my favorites are combining illusion effects with damage to create spells that literally control the battlefield. Fearful Flames, is a spell that I use (several levels of as I develop a mage) where I combine demoralize with a time realeased fire effect. The end result is spell that causes the enemy to run away on fire. Frost Giant's Breath is another I made, which is an aoe frost spell, with a 1 second aoe paralysis just to make it seem like a wave of frost, that knocks enemies off feet. Early on, a simply calm + shock combo, can be a great way to deal with clanfears (just be careful to balance the shock damage as to not overpower the calm effect), and as you look at more and more spell schools the combinations become limitted only by your creativity and magicka (and the second can be buffed temporarilly long enough to use a welklynd stone, recharge a large magicka pool, and unleash truly insane spells).

For homework I suggest checking out
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Magic
for all your basics and any questions you have, but pay attention to the link there http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Useful_Spells
to see a lot of different way in which spells can be combined and to get inspiration for your own spell book.

[GumWax]

Originally posted by arottweiler:

Weakness spells can be very effective especially if it's something that the enemy already has a weakness to. As an example, Frost Atronachs have a weakness to fire so hit them with a fire weakness spell that lasts a few seconds and then attack with an enchanted weapon that has fire damage. If you have followers you can give them enchanted weapons and use a weakness spell that lasts longer such as 20 seconds and then watch as the followers kill them in one or two hits. The good thing about weakness spells is they use very little magica so you can create spells with multiple weaknesses and a very long duration.

Thanks for the feedback, helped a lot!

[GumWax]

Originally posted by Darth Cannabis:

Focus on the mafes guild quests and getting to the university so you cna use the spellcrafting alter, as being a truly powerful mage comes down to the combination spells one can create.

Some of my favorites are combining illusion effects with damage to create spells that literally control the battlefield. Fearful Flames, is a spell that I use (several levels of as I develop a mage) where I combine demoralize with a time realeased fire effect. The end result is spell that causes the enemy to run away on fire. Frost Giant's Breath is another I made, which is an aoe frost spell, with a 1 second aoe paralysis just to make it seem like a wave of frost, that knocks enemies off feet. Early on, a simply calm + shock combo, can be a great way to deal with clanfears (just be careful to balance the shock damage as to not overpower the calm effect), and as you look at more and more spell schools the combinations become limitted only by your creativity and magicka (and the second can be buffed temporarilly long enough to use a welklynd stone, recharge a large magicka pool, and unleash truly insane spells).

For homework I suggest checking out
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Magic
for all your basics and any questions you have, but pay attention to the link there http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Useful_Spells
to see a lot of different way in which spells can be combined and to get inspiration for your own spell book.

Thanks for the feedback; I like your spell ideas and I hope I can make ones just as creative as yours. I'll check up on them links :D

[papa nurgle's pizza]

I just got an idea: Make a spell that deals Fire damage and very heavy Weakness to Fire

[Darth Cannabis]

Originally posted by Khorne, Lord of Skulls:

I just got an idea: Make a spell that deals Fire damage and very heavy Weakness to Fire

That doesn't particularly work. When in the same spell the damage and weakness don't work in right order code wise. Thus you won't see the weaknesses effect unless you follow it up with a 2nd cast of a fire spell. That 2nd cast, will see the extra damage, but not the fire damage applied at same time as the weakness.

Also, weakness tends to have a more multipicative stacking to it, than other spells that stack, and is one of the easiest to get to an excess of 100%+. It is often seen more efficient to stack weakness effect than go for just one huge weakness effect for this reason.

[arottweiler]

The increased magica cost of the damage effect also makes combinging weakness and damage in the same spell or enchantment a bad move. It uses a lot of magica and you have to use it twice to get an effect.

I enchant a few iron daggers which are the lowest weighted one hand blades in the game with 100% weakness to frost for 60 seconds and also one for fire and shock so I have 3 daggers that will have a use against any enemy including undead and Oblivion Realm enemies. Knowing what the weaknesses and immunities are for each enemey is important because using fire damage weapons against most creatures you meet when closing Oblivion gates will be useless or cause very minimal damage. But if you have a dagger that has 100% weakness to frost for 10 seconds that you can slash them with and quickly follow it up with a frost damage spell you will show them you mean business and see their health bar drop.

There is a mod called Midas Magic Spells of Aurum that has some of the most challenging quests and hundreds of new spells that I can't praise enough. It's an astounding offering and probably the best mod ever made for Oblivion. I obtained all the spell books the hard way but it was worth it because it adds so much to the game. I think there's a way to add everything the mod offers without doing any of the quests but I would avoid doing that at all costs because the genius of the mod is how difficult but well balanced and executed it is.

When training the magic skills you can increase restoration health spells just by casting them while running around so if you choose a restore health spell that uses very little magica you can constantly cast it to increase skill level. This is a little menial but it will help your magic skills increase a lot. When I was level 1 I used to fast travel to somewhere away from any other NPCs and would battle summoned creatures like skeletons to increase my magic skills. Fighting summoned creatures adds to your skill levels but they do fight back as well. If it gets too hairy you can just summon them again and they stop attacking.

[papa nurgle's pizza]

Oh.

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by Termin8TheJuice:

I'm not that new to Oblivion, but in the magic field, totally. I'm a level 16 dark elf and I was wondering if you guys know any combos for spells I could make that would be pretty good, because I feel like being a mage is really weak but I don't think it should be. Thanks

I'm going to assume that you're playing Vanilla [non modded] Oblivion, because there are a lot of situational factors that come into play if that's not the case. Mods do different things.

If you're playing Vanilla Oblivion: A well played mage is most certainly not weak, and if anything is the most powerful type of character in the game by a country mile, mainly thanks to Custom Spells. And for that, a wealth of relevant info can be found here:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making

In a nutshell: You can make Custom spells at a Spellmaking Altar, which requires either joining the Arcane University [i.e. completing the 7 Mages Guild Recommendations] or possessing the Wizard's Tower Plugin and upgrading Frostcrag Spire to contain an altar. Custom Spells cost the same magicka to cast as 99.9% of the spells in Oblivion [there are a few exceptions], so once this option is available, it is almost worth not bothering with Standard spells EXCEPT to buy the base spell effect required to create a particular spell [e.g. Flare permits the creation of Fire Damage Spells].

If you're into number crunching, it can help to calculate the Base Cost of effects in a Custom spell and tailor them to your skill level. For e.g. Apprentices in a magic skill can cast spells with a base cost of 26 to 63, so try to tailor an Apprentice Level spell to cost the upper end of that limit to get the most out of it. It also helps to keep in mind the most cost effective way to create a spell [Magnitude cost increases exponentially, whilst Duration cost increases linearly], and to try to balance out your Intelligence/Willpower/Magicka to get decent a decent Magicka pool that regenerates quickly.

Arguably the most powerful effect available are Weakness spells [requires 50 Destruction], which can be stacked on top of each other to exponentially increase the damage of a particular spell. In the Spell_Making link above, it's called 'Spell Stacking'. If you are playing on very high difficulty, this is one of a small handful of methods that a player has to deal the monstrous amounts of damage necessary to topple high health enemies. A breakdown of Spell Stacking [and some other mage strategies] can be found here [Level 12-16 Parts 3 and 4 for Spell Stacking specifically, I realise that there's a lot there. =) ].

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873311868

IMO to get the most out of learning about spell combos requires experimenting for yourself, and to do that requires the working knowledge of individual spells effects. I suggest reading through the Useful Spell link [that Darth posted up]; you can reverse engineer a lot of the ideas behind those particular spells. Two of the simplest that for some reason is not included in the list:

- Custom Practice Spells that cost very little Magicka, such as LIght 3pts for 1 second or Detect Life 100ft for 1 second. The latter is a very cheap way to spot enemies in a dungeon.

- Summon a high power melee summon [e.g. a Clannfear], and then cast Calm 25 pts for 2 seconds on Touch, repeatedly on an opponent. Basically: Stun lock a target whilst your summon pounds them into the dirt. This is terrific for 1v1 vs just about anything, is cheaper than Summon + Paralysis [which btw works well too], and works against Paralysis immune opponents such as Spider Daedra.

What is not included in the list are spells that exploit 'glitches', which IMO are a little subjective, but I'm going to assume that this includes Spell Stacking + other effects.

If you're not worried by this: Weakness to Magicka Stacked, in combo with a spell with Fortify Intelligence + Fortify Magicka + Absorb magicka x points for y seconds on TOUCH, is a roundabout way for a mage to regenerate magicka by BOOSTING and then STEALING it from an opponent mid-fight. I personally do not use it; I prefer just to manage Magicka/Willpower/Intelligence to get the most out of natural Magicka restoration. But it is a clever workaround to the Magicka pool problem.

On top of spellcasting: Alchemy opens up a wonderful world of love and pain, and can be easily practiced by grinding food stuffs together. There's a little bit on that in the Max Difficulty guide as well.

Anyway: I'd go research, and then experiment for yourself. Magic is a lot of fun. :)


Out of curiousity: What are your current magic skills at? i.e What level Destruction/Illusion/etc.

[Col Com Dante]

Also, if you want to really have some fun, a paralyze effect for 1 second is cheap to make, cheap to cast and guaranteed to knock enemies onto the ground, givng you a stationary target to hit with multiple debuffs. It's probably y favorite effcet in the game. Only don't try and use it against spider daedra, they're immune.

[GumWax]

Originally posted by Col Com Dante:

Also, if you want to really have some fun, a paralyze effect for 1 second is cheap to make, cheap to cast and guaranteed to knock enemies onto the ground, givng you a stationary target to hit with multiple debuffs. It's probably y favorite effcet in the game. Only don't try and use it against spider daedra, they're immune.

How do I know the level of certain enemies? For example, a demoralize up to level 7 is kind of expensive, so I assume that applies to a lot of enemies. But again, I don't know the levels of the enemies and which ones the spell would actually work on. Would I just have to look up a specfic enemy on the wiki?

[GumWax]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Originally posted by Termin8TheJuice:

I'm not that new to Oblivion, but in the magic field, totally. I'm a level 16 dark elf and I was wondering if you guys know any combos for spells I could make that would be pretty good, because I feel like being a mage is really weak but I don't think it should be. Thanks

I'm going to assume that you're playing Vanilla [non modded] Oblivion, because there are a lot of situational factors that come into play if that's not the case. Mods do different things.

If you're playing Vanilla Oblivion: A well played mage is most certainly not weak, and if anything is the most powerful type of character in the game by a country mile, mainly thanks to Custom Spells. And for that, a wealth of relevant info can be found here:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making

In a nutshell: You can make Custom spells at a Spellmaking Altar, which requires either joining the Arcane University [i.e. completing the 7 Mages Guild Recommendations] or possessing the Wizard's Tower Plugin and upgrading Frostcrag Spire to contain an altar. Custom Spells cost the same magicka to cast as 99.9% of the spells in Oblivion [there are a few exceptions], so once this option is available, it is almost worth not bothering with Standard spells EXCEPT to buy the base spell effect required to create a particular spell [e.g. Flare permits the creation of Fire Damage Spells].

If you're into number crunching, it can help to calculate the Base Cost of effects in a Custom spell and tailor them to your skill level. For e.g. Apprentices in a magic skill can cast spells with a base cost of 26 to 63, so try to tailor an Apprentice Level spell to cost the upper end of that limit to get the most out of it. It also helps to keep in mind the most cost effective way to create a spell [Magnitude cost increases exponentially, whilst Duration cost increases linearly], and to try to balance out your Intelligence/Willpower/Magicka to get decent a decent Magicka pool that regenerates quickly.

Arguably the most powerful effect available are Weakness spells [requires 50 Destruction], which can be stacked on top of each other to exponentially increase the damage of a particular spell. In the Spell_Making link above, it's called 'Spell Stacking'. If you are playing on very high difficulty, this is one of a small handful of methods that a player has to deal the monstrous amounts of damage necessary to topple high health enemies. A breakdown of Spell Stacking [and some other mage strategies] can be found here [Level 12-16 Parts 3 and 4 for Spell Stacking specifically, I realise that there's a lot there. =) ].

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873311868

IMO to get the most out of learning about spell combos requires experimenting for yourself, and to do that requires the working knowledge of individual spells effects. I suggest reading through the Useful Spell link [that Darth posted up]; you can reverse engineer a lot of the ideas behind those particular spells. Two of the simplest that for some reason is not included in the list:

- Custom Practice Spells that cost very little Magicka, such as LIght 3pts for 1 second or Detect Life 100ft for 1 second. The latter is a very cheap way to spot enemies in a dungeon.

- Summon a high power melee summon [e.g. a Clannfear], and then cast Calm 25 pts for 2 seconds on Touch, repeatedly on an opponent. Basically: Stun lock a target whilst your summon pounds them into the dirt. This is terrific for 1v1 vs just about anything, is cheaper than Summon + Paralysis [which btw works well too], and works against Paralysis immune opponents such as Spider Daedra.

What is not included in the list are spells that exploit 'glitches', which IMO are a little subjective, but I'm going to assume that this includes Spell Stacking + other effects.

If you're not worried by this: Weakness to Magicka Stacked, in combo with a spell with Fortify Intelligence + Fortify Magicka + Absorb magicka x points for y seconds on TOUCH, is a roundabout way for a mage to regenerate magicka by BOOSTING and then STEALING it from an opponent mid-fight. I personally do not use it; I prefer just to manage Magicka/Willpower/Intelligence to get the most out of natural Magicka restoration. But it is a clever workaround to the Magicka pool problem.

On top of spellcasting: Alchemy opens up a wonderful world of love and pain, and can be easily practiced by grinding food stuffs together. There's a little bit on that in the Max Difficulty guide as well.

Anyway: I'd go research, and then experiment for yourself. Magic is a lot of fun. :)


Out of curiousity: What are your current magic skills at? i.e What level Destruction/Illusion/etc.

Wow you really did your homework. I'll check up on all you said. I think I'm getting the hang of spell making.

[papa nurgle's pizza]

Originally posted by Termin8TheJuice:

Originally posted by Col Com Dante:

Also, if you want to really have some fun, a paralyze effect for 1 second is cheap to make, cheap to cast and guaranteed to knock enemies onto the ground, givng you a stationary target to hit with multiple debuffs. It's probably y favorite effcet in the game. Only don't try and use it against spider daedra, they're immune.

How do I know the level of certain enemies? For example, a demoralize up to level 7 is kind of expensive, so I assume that applies to a lot of enemies. But again, I don't know the levels of the enemies and which ones the spell would actually work on. Would I just have to look up a specfic enemy on the wiki?

They level with you

[GumWax]

Originally posted by Khorne, Lord of Skulls:

Originally posted by Termin8TheJuice:

How do I know the level of certain enemies? For example, a demoralize up to level 7 is kind of expensive, so I assume that applies to a lot of enemies. But again, I don't know the levels of the enemies and which ones the spell would actually work on. Would I just have to look up a specfic enemy on the wiki?

They level with you

That's what I thought. So If I'm level 22, ALL enemies are also level 22? Because the other day I casted a demoralize spell when I was level 20 on a bandit, and it worked; even though the spell was only up to level 7.

[GumWax]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Originally posted by Termin8TheJuice:

I'm not that new to Oblivion, but in the magic field, totally. I'm a level 16 dark elf and I was wondering if you guys know any combos for spells I could make that would be pretty good, because I feel like being a mage is really weak but I don't think it should be. Thanks

I'm going to assume that you're playing Vanilla [non modded] Oblivion, because there are a lot of situational factors that come into play if that's not the case. Mods do different things.

If you're playing Vanilla Oblivion: A well played mage is most certainly not weak, and if anything is the most powerful type of character in the game by a country mile, mainly thanks to Custom Spells. And for that, a wealth of relevant info can be found here:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making

In a nutshell: You can make Custom spells at a Spellmaking Altar, which requires either joining the Arcane University [i.e. completing the 7 Mages Guild Recommendations] or possessing the Wizard's Tower Plugin and upgrading Frostcrag Spire to contain an altar. Custom Spells cost the same magicka to cast as 99.9% of the spells in Oblivion [there are a few exceptions], so once this option is available, it is almost worth not bothering with Standard spells EXCEPT to buy the base spell effect required to create a particular spell [e.g. Flare permits the creation of Fire Damage Spells].

If you're into number crunching, it can help to calculate the Base Cost of effects in a Custom spell and tailor them to your skill level. For e.g. Apprentices in a magic skill can cast spells with a base cost of 26 to 63, so try to tailor an Apprentice Level spell to cost the upper end of that limit to get the most out of it. It also helps to keep in mind the most cost effective way to create a spell [Magnitude cost increases exponentially, whilst Duration cost increases linearly], and to try to balance out your Intelligence/Willpower/Magicka to get decent a decent Magicka pool that regenerates quickly.

Arguably the most powerful effect available are Weakness spells [requires 50 Destruction], which can be stacked on top of each other to exponentially increase the damage of a particular spell. In the Spell_Making link above, it's called 'Spell Stacking'. If you are playing on very high difficulty, this is one of a small handful of methods that a player has to deal the monstrous amounts of damage necessary to topple high health enemies. A breakdown of Spell Stacking [and some other mage strategies] can be found here [Level 12-16 Parts 3 and 4 for Spell Stacking specifically, I realise that there's a lot there. =) ].

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873311868

IMO to get the most out of learning about spell combos requires experimenting for yourself, and to do that requires the working knowledge of individual spells effects. I suggest reading through the Useful Spell link [that Darth posted up]; you can reverse engineer a lot of the ideas behind those particular spells. Two of the simplest that for some reason is not included in the list:

- Custom Practice Spells that cost very little Magicka, such as LIght 3pts for 1 second or Detect Life 100ft for 1 second. The latter is a very cheap way to spot enemies in a dungeon.

- Summon a high power melee summon [e.g. a Clannfear], and then cast Calm 25 pts for 2 seconds on Touch, repeatedly on an opponent. Basically: Stun lock a target whilst your summon pounds them into the dirt. This is terrific for 1v1 vs just about anything, is cheaper than Summon + Paralysis [which btw works well too], and works against Paralysis immune opponents such as Spider Daedra.

What is not included in the list are spells that exploit 'glitches', which IMO are a little subjective, but I'm going to assume that this includes Spell Stacking + other effects.

If you're not worried by this: Weakness to Magicka Stacked, in combo with a spell with Fortify Intelligence + Fortify Magicka + Absorb magicka x points for y seconds on TOUCH, is a roundabout way for a mage to regenerate magicka by BOOSTING and then STEALING it from an opponent mid-fight. I personally do not use it; I prefer just to manage Magicka/Willpower/Intelligence to get the most out of natural Magicka restoration. But it is a clever workaround to the Magicka pool problem.

On top of spellcasting: Alchemy opens up a wonderful world of love and pain, and can be easily practiced by grinding food stuffs together. There's a little bit on that in the Max Difficulty guide as well.

Anyway: I'd go research, and then experiment for yourself. Magic is a lot of fun. :)


Out of curiousity: What are your current magic skills at? i.e What level Destruction/Illusion/etc.

My destruction is above 100, my illusion is about 60, conjuration about 50, Mysticism is about 50. Restoration I don't really care about.