Player frost magic vs NPC frost magic

[Knightmage Bael]

clear difference.

Frost mages are bs as the slow is super hard. the second I get hit with frost magic I can't freaking move.

When I use frost magic however, it does absolutely nothing and hardly slows at all. The comparison could not be any more clear, and its absolute bs. Encountering a group of frost mages is so oppressive that armor and magic resist becomes useless because you essentially just get paralyzed in place.

Frost Resistance as an effect only counters the damage, not the slow effect, so that doesn't help.

[DPMR]

Well ya your level and school dependant, they are not.

From
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction

Unfortunately, many enemies boast a resistance to Frost damage, and Nords—the most common NPCs in Skyrim—resist it as well.

[Knightmage Bael]

NORDS I can understand. Its not the damage resistance I'm talking about, its the slow effect.

[Unchangeling]

According to the "Bugs" section of this UESP page for the Slow effect:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Slow

"Slow will not affect NPCs unless they're drawing or sheathing a weapon, or something changes their carry weight. It will always affect the player normally."

I dunno if the unofficial patch fixes that?

[Unchangeling]

Also most frost magic only has a Slow effect for 3-4 seconds, which isn't long. Wall of Frost would seem (on paper) to be the best spell to slow enemies, because the frost it leaves behind has a 5 second Slow effect on it. There's also the special spell Freeze - which you can only cast with the Ring of Arcana from Kolbjorn Barrow on Solsthiem - which has a 15 second Slow effect.

[Knightmage Bael]

Originally posted by Baron Offswitch:

Also most frost magic only has a Slow effect for 3-4 seconds, which isn't long. Wall of Frost would seem (on paper) to be the best spell to slow enemies, because the frost it leaves behind has a 5 second Slow effect on it. There's also the special spell Freeze - which you can only cast with the Ring of Arcana from Kolbjorn Barrow on Solsthiem - which has a 15 second Slow effect.

That's on a single frost spell. That wouldn't be long for ice spike or ice spear, but NPCs tend to use frostbite, which is a sustained spell, so every time there's damage, it would also proc the spell.

I'm wondering if the slow effect stacks. That would make sense, actually.

[Unchangeling]

that's a fair point, but I only seem to notice being slowed myself when hit by/trying to cross a Wall of Frost - Frostbite doesn't seem to do much.

the consensus seems to be that Slow does stack in some way that nobody (that I can find with google) quite seems to understand, but possibly geometrically; this might explain the difference (the UESP page implies that WOF potentially has two different slow effects hitting you at once - the spell itself, and the ice it leaves behind).

[Knightmage Bael]

Originally posted by Baron Offswitch:

that's a fair point, but I only seem to notice being slowed myself when hit by/trying to cross a Wall of Frost - Frostbite doesn't seem to do much.

the consensus seems to be that Slow does stack in some way that nobody (that I can find with google) quite seems to understand, but possibly geometrically; this might explain the difference (the UESP page implies that WOF potentially has two different slow effects hitting you at once - the spell itself, and the ice it leaves behind).

Yeah. I can run up and kill a single ice mage without much difficulty, but when there's more than two it becomes a problem, because then not only am I slowed, but I also lose MY ENTIRE STAMINA BAR.

Its fairly oppressive ^^;