Playing a Mage - now what?

[stevej713]

I've only ever played warriors and thieves in Oblivion, so I'm doing my first real attempt as a pure mage. No armor, no weapons, just spells. I'm Level 17, I haven't done the Main Quest yet, and I'm slowly making my way through the Mages Guild questline.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads: I have tons of spells that make the game really easy in some areas (like opening very hard locks) and I have so much money that I don't really pick up loot anymore. But when it comes to combat, I'm kind of mediocre.

The defensive and offensive spells I really need are draining my magicka too fast (I have 90 intelligence and 100 willpower). My hotkeys are filled up so chaining spells is cumbersome. I haven't really done anything with Enchanting yet so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for items I can make to stack effects and make my character more powerful, maybe in conjuction with certain spells?

[Shiroi Ren]

I presume you play on 50% difficulty.
The most easiest way for me was Alchemy to Fortify Anything and Restore Magicka. And spells that drain enemy health on touch.

I usualy went something like: drink potion before tough combat, run up to enemy, weakness to magic #1, weakness to magic #2, weakness to magic #1, drain health 100 for 2s.

[The Flying Rodent]

Mages are amongst the strongest in Oblivion when it comes to combat. You have: Summoned Creatures, Poisons (which you can attach to arrows and one-shot enemies, even if your Marksman is terrible ), Illusion crowd-control type effects, and Weakness Stacking + ultra powerful destruction spells.

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

All of which is covered in here. There’s subheadings in the right-Hand side chapter section, should tell you where the relevant info is. :)

[jovalleau]

My mage character got too easy using clever spell combos. Touch spells with 4 damage types over time, range spells with 4 damage types, frenzy, drain health+weakness to magic, etc.

Only the strongest enemies provide any real challenge at level 20.

[Bomb Bloke]

Spell chaining really is the way to go. The idea is that if you cast the same spell twice, the effect of the second application will replace that of the first.

Not so if you switch between spells. If you have two different offensive casts which both happen to include a "weakness to magic" effect, alternating between them will quickly start to cause ludicrous amounts of damage. This is the tactic Shiroi's hinting at.

Personally I also like to keep a "damage fatigue" spell handy. Once an NPC's reserve hits 0 they're essentially paralysed, and there's nothing stopping you from sending them way, way into the negatives. After this, you can take your time healing yourself or whatever.

[Shiroi Ren]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Personally I also like to keep a "damage fatigue" spell handy. Once an NPC's reserve hits 0 they're essentially paralysed, and there's nothing stopping you from sending them way, way into the negatives. After this, you can take your time healing yourself or whatever.

I once had drain 100 speed sword with 0/0 cost/charge. Very OP weapon.

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by stevej713:

The defensive and offensive spells I really need are draining my magicka too fast (I have 90 intelligence and 100 willpower). My hotkeys are filled up so chaining spells is cumbersome. I haven't really done anything with Enchanting yet so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for items I can make to stack effects and make my character more powerful, maybe in conjuction with certain spells?

Probably the first thing to do is to find a way to Fortify your Magicka, so that you have more reserves in a fight. You can do this with Potions or spells, but the most consistent way is to do this with Sigil Stones.

Now, granted, this is a little 'exploit'y': You can save and reload in front of a Sigil stone when you're collecting one from an Oblivion gate, and continually reload the save until to you receive a Fortify Magicka stone [2 in 30 chance]. The best stones start appearing at level 17... but you have to make your way through Kvatch first (part of the Main Quest) to get Oblivion gates to spawn, and that in itself can be quite tricky.

Out of curiosity, what magic skills have you specialised in currently?

[Col Com Dante]

I find one of the funniest and most cost effective things as a mage is a "trip" spell. Paralyze for 1 second on target. Makes it really easy to catch more enemies in duration AoEs

[jovalleau]

Speaking of damage stacking, quick question.

In THEORY, if I cast a touch spell with Shock/Frost/Fire/Health damage over 5 seconds, then cast another different Shock/Frost/Fire/Health dmg spell (no duration), the second spell should NOT cancel out the DOT spell, right? The DOT spell should continue to damage an enemy until it expires, correct?

I'm just asking because it's hard to judge based on the wonky enemy health bar and no hard numbers.

[Bomb Bloke]

Correct, the effects stack so long as the spells which caused them have different names.

Although you wouldn't want to make spells with all of those effects, and including "weakness to magic" would make them far more powerful.

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

[jovalleau]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Correct, the effects stack so long as the spells which caused them have different names.

Although you wouldn't want to make spells with all of those effects, and including "weakness to magic" would make them far more powerful.

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

I don't care much for that type of stacking, though I do have a Drain Health + Weakness spell or two just in case.

[stevej713]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Out of curiosity, what magic skills have you specialised in currently?

My Alteration and Destruction are in the upper 70s. Illusion and Mysticism are in the 60s. Restoration and Conjuration are in the 50s.

Also, I tried downloading the better hotkeys mod but I can't get it to work which is infuriating. Opening up my inventory and searching through my extremely long list of spells for spell chains is sapping all the fun out of it.

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by stevej713:

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Out of curiosity, what magic skills have you specialised in currently?

My Alteration and Destruction are in the upper 70s. Illusion and Mysticism are in the 60s. Restoration and Conjuration are in the 50s.

Also, I tried downloading the better hotkeys mod but I can't get it to work which is infuriating. Opening up my inventory and searching through my extremely long list of spells for spell chains is sapping all the fun out of it.

Ah ok. Well at the very least, you’ll be able to summon a Headless Zombie (which isn’t that strong compared to enemies at level 17, but it’s at least something), and use Weakness stacking/ Spell Chaining/whatever else this is called if you so desire.

And I hear you: having 8 hotkeys sucks for a spellcasters, so you have to be pretty efficient with what you put on there, and switch them out over time as you accrue new spells. From memory, mine was something like this:

1. Weakness #1
2. Weakness #2
3. Damage Spell
4. Summons
5. Invisibility
6. Aux 1
7. Aux 2
8. Healing Spell

Aux 1 and Aux 2 changed quite periodically depending on what I as trying to do. Often I’d have a Paralysis Spell on there, sometimes a Shield Spell, sometimes Chameleon, Fortify Speed, etc. Basically these two slots were left open.

For spells that you think you’re not going to use often enough to have to worry about switching to them mid fight, don’t stick them on a hot key. This is just wasting precious space.

[arottweiler]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Originally posted by stevej713:

My Alteration and Destruction are in the upper 70s. Illusion and Mysticism are in the 60s. Restoration and Conjuration are in the 50s.

Also, I tried downloading the better hotkeys mod but I can't get it to work which is infuriating. Opening up my inventory and searching through my extremely long list of spells for spell chains is sapping all the fun out of it.

Ah ok. Well at the very least, you’ll be able to summon a Headless Zombie (which isn’t that strong compared to enemies at level 17, but it’s at least something), and use Weakness stacking/ Spell Chaining/whatever else this is called if you so desire.

And I hear you: having 8 hotkeys sucks for a spellcasters, so you have to be pretty efficient with what you put on there, and switch them out over time as you accrue new spells. From memory, mine was something like this:

1. Weakness #1
2. Weakness #2
3. Damage Spell
4. Summons
5. Invisibility
6. Aux 1
7. Aux 2
8. Healing Spell

Aux 1 and Aux 2 changed quite periodically depending on what I as trying to do. Often I’d have a Paralysis Spell on there, sometimes a Shield Spell, sometimes Chameleon, Fortify Speed, etc. Basically these two slots were left open.

For spells that you think you’re not going to use often enough to have to worry about switching to them mid fight, don’t stick them on a hot key. This is just wasting precious space.

Couldn't agree more because I had problems with adding extra hotkeys so just relied on the default hotkeys and there is enough if you assign carefully and can chop and change them depending on the enemy. If I had more I probably wouldn't be as effective with them. Mine are something like this.

1. Summon Midas Chest (summons a storage container that is weightless and can be summoned anytime even when enemies have been detected)
2. Summon Midas Angel (summons one of the toughest NPCs. The Angel has armour and a weapon to take on groups of Daedra and she will still come out on top. Perfect ally for Oblivion gate realms and zero maintenence.
3. Use restore health potion (it took me a long time until I realised I could assign potions to hotkeys)
4. Use restore magica potion (replenishing health and magica with hotkeys during battle is ideal for making light work of any enemy)
5 to 8. Weakness and damage spells.

I'll sometimes change the above and make hotkey 4 another summon and maybe even 5 yet another summon but I never change 1-3 so it's become second nature to use them. If I'm in a hostile place where I think I'll need some backup it helps to be able to quickly summon multiple allies.

[stevej713]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

1. Weakness #1
2. Weakness #2
3. Damage Spell
4. Summons
5. Invisibility
6. Aux 1
7. Aux 2
8. Healing Spell

Aux 1 and Aux 2 changed quite periodically depending on what I as trying to do. Often I’d have a Paralysis Spell on there, sometimes a Shield Spell, sometimes Chameleon, Fortify Speed, etc. Basically these two slots were left open.

Thanks, that's super helpful! Do you have any suggestions for enchanted clothing? My concerns are mostly about defense and increasing magicka regeneration but even with grand souls, the values are not very great.

[Shiroi Ren]

Sigil stones after level 17 all the way. Save scumming is recommended.
Or you can go my way (if you're really bored). And enchant armor via TES CS. =)