Why am i so weak to magic? Need suggestions...

[coloonizer]

I have a melee/archer character at level 43. Here is some of his stats;

Two handed: 100
Archery: 94
Heavy armor: 75
Sneaking: 100
Magical skills (conjuration, alteration etc.) are all around 30.

My character takes HUGE damage from any magical attack, especially fire based attacks. Is there a skill i have to improve to have better magical defense? What do you suggest?

[nrtic]

there's perks in the alteration tree that gives magik reist and spell absortion there's a standing stone called atronach stone which gives 50% spell absortion. Another standing stone is The Lord Stone which gives 25% magik resist. U can also if u want enchant magik resist into your gear. Ohh yea and I reccommend doing the Book of love quest which gives 15% magik resist permentaly.

[Sevrojin]

are you a vampire? they take up to 75% more damage from fire spells but 75% less damage from ice magic.

[Mringasa]

Enchant everything you can with resistances. Start early on, and level your enchanting as you go. Even adding 10-20% resistance helps immensely against dragons and magic using enemies.

If you don't have the all-around Resist Magic enchant, just do fire/ice. Very few casters use lightning against you, but lots of them will use fire. Necromancers and undead ones use ice. Balance between those two until you do get Resist Magic works fine.

Resist Magic itself is a much lower potency than the specific resistances, but you can get a healthy amount fairly early on that will make your game a good bit easier. If you want, you could setup two sets of armor as well. One with fire, one with ice. That way you can swap in/out depending on the dungeon you are headed towards. I personally never have, preferring to just balance it as best I can. Frequently the dungeons and such will house multiple different types of spellcasters so you can't always focus on one.

If you are still having problems, the Daedric quest for Peryite has an excellent reward. The shield Spellbreaker. It will form a Ward that gives 50% (I think, correct me someone please) resistance to magic when used to block spells. Not positive of the actual stats, but it's a lifesaver against magic users. Might consider doing that quest if you can. Kesh can tell you more.

Last resort, Alchemy. It is extremely easy to find resist fire, ice, shock, magic ingredients out in the world. You can make potions from those. If you don't specialize, they won't be very potent, but as I said before, an extra 10-20 percent will help you greatly. Especially in conjunction with some resistance gear. Layer those resists and you'll find it quite easy to survive.

[alexander_dougherty]

If you use the Spellbreaker shield, you will need to carry a seperate shield for when you are facing bandits or warriors, since Spellbreaker is rubbish against weapons.

I usually put Resist Fire, Resist Ice, and Resist Lightning on pieces of Armour. I know Mringasa says lightning using enemies are rare, but I find when I run into them they are either bosses or a string of them, making one Resist Lightning enchantment worth it,

[MysticMalevolence]

Get the Lord Stone, unless you're on vanilla.
Do the quest "Book of Love" and train alteration for the magic resistance perks.

[Zsrai]

Use gear with Elemental (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison) AND general Magic Resist. Armor rating does jack squat against magic spells. None of your stats are helping against enemy mages. Also get more HP.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Use gear with Elemental (Fire, Frost, Shock, Poison) AND general Magic Resist. Armor rating does jack squat against magic spells. None of your stats are helping against enemy mages. Also get more HP.

Always get more HP, that and magicka are always in short supply.

[Mr.MilkMann]

Originally posted by coloonizer:

I have a melee/archer character at level 43. Here is some of his stats;

Two handed: 100
Archery: 94
Heavy armor: 75
Sneaking: 100
Magical skills (conjuration, alteration etc.) are all around 30.

My character takes HUGE damage from any magical attack, especially fire based attacks. Is there a skill i have to improve to have better magical defense? What do you suggest?

Near the end of the game, enemy mages can do an absurd amount of DPS due to them having magicka costs that are almost 1/4 of what it would cost to the player. While resistances are good, it's far, far better to maximize spell absorbtion by utilising the Atronach Stone and Atronach alteration perk. You can achieve 100% absorbtion by being a vampire with the necromage perk, and only then activate the Atronach stone and perk (Won't work before, and was patched by USSEP). If you have USSEP or don't want to become a vampire/get necromage, you can always use Miraak's equipment to maximize it. The reason Absorbtion is superior to Resistance, is that Absorbtion doesn't have a cap. Every type of resistance caps at 85% except Absorbtion, which has none. so thusly, at 100%+ absorbtion, magicka will have no effect on you besides giving you absurd amounts of magicka (You get like 10x what it costs to cast, it's absurd).

[coloonizer]

Thanks everyone for the answers. You have enlightened me

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by Mr.MilkMann:

Near the end of the game, enemy mages can do an absurd amount of DPS due to them having magicka costs that are almost 1/4 of what it would cost to the player. While resistances are good, it's far, far better to maximize spell absorbtion by utilising the Atronach Stone and Atronach alteration perk. You can achieve 100% absorbtion by being a vampire with the necromage perk, and only then activate the Atronach stone and perk (Won't work before, and was patched by USSEP). If you have USSEP or don't want to become a vampire/get necromage, you can always use Miraak's equipment to maximize it. The reason Absorbtion is superior to Resistance, is that Absorbtion doesn't have a cap. Every type of resistance caps at 85% except Absorbtion, which has none. so thusly, at 100%+ absorbtion, magicka will have no effect on you besides giving you absurd amounts of magicka (You get like 10x what it costs to cast, it's absurd).

Absorption is a lot harder to consistently cap than resists though. It's pretty easy to just get enchants on your gear and perk Alteration and pretty much be done with it.

[Mr.MilkMann]

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Originally posted by Mr.MilkMann:

Near the end of the game, enemy mages can do an absurd amount of DPS due to them having magicka costs that are almost 1/4 of what it would cost to the player. While resistances are good, it's far, far better to maximize spell absorbtion by utilising the Atronach Stone and Atronach alteration perk. You can achieve 100% absorbtion by being a vampire with the necromage perk, and only then activate the Atronach stone and perk (Won't work before, and was patched by USSEP). If you have USSEP or don't want to become a vampire/get necromage, you can always use Miraak's equipment to maximize it. The reason Absorbtion is superior to Resistance, is that Absorbtion doesn't have a cap. Every type of resistance caps at 85% except Absorbtion, which has none. so thusly, at 100%+ absorbtion, magicka will have no effect on you besides giving you absurd amounts of magicka (You get like 10x what it costs to cast, it's absurd).

Absorption is a lot harder to consistently cap than resists though. It's pretty easy to just get enchants on your gear and perk Alteration and pretty much be done with it.

Not really, all you need to do is get the necromage perk and a vampire before activating the Atronach stone and Perk, then simply remain a vampire.

[MysticMalevolence]

Originally posted by Mr.MilkMann:

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Absorption is a lot harder to consistently cap than resists though. It's pretty easy to just get enchants on your gear and perk Alteration and pretty much be done with it.

Not really, all you need to do is get the necromage perk and a vampire before activating the Atronach stone and Perk, then simply remain a vampire.

Unless you don't have the mod that enables that with USSEP...
Anyhow, why not simply get both? Doubling up on defenses can't hurt, much.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by Mr.MilkMann:

Originally posted by Zsrai:

Absorption is a lot harder to consistently cap than resists though. It's pretty easy to just get enchants on your gear and perk Alteration and pretty much be done with it.

Not really, all you need to do is get the necromage perk and a vampire before activating the Atronach stone and Perk, then simply remain a vampire.

Yeah except then you have to play as a Vampire and you have to know to grind Restoration and get Necromage before turning into one and...

Or I could just wear some enchanted gear. Yeah, that second one is pretty easy.

[Mringasa]

The Necromage min/max is pretty cheesy. I prefer to play a reasonably balanced game. That one makes it pretty damn OP. Rather like the Alchemy, Enchant, Smith loop that is horribly OP and was patched out.

The Atronach stone is a waste of a slot imo, but I use EnaiSiaion's mod for the Stones so that generally rules it out in favor of something with more flexibility. Magic users in Skyrim are pretty easy to avoid their spells, and get into melee range with quickly. Even at higher levels, they don't scale too well with the player.

As for leveling Alteration for a single perk, kinda useless for a warrior type imo. If you were going for some sort of robe/clothing wearing RP playthrough, it would be worthwhile for the skin spells though. General useage for a Sword and Boarder it's pretty meh. Better to use those points/Perks for Enchant, Smithing, Alchemy or even Stealth if you wanted a bit of skullduggery.