How to get more magicka and spend less?

[Spaghettioz]

Hi! Looking to switch my toon over from a mace wielding meathead to a spellcaster. What gear can I find to cut down cost of spells as much as possible, and what chants can I use? I got a few of the fortify ones, and one that reduces cost of destruction spells.

Any ideas on a setup? Been maxing my magicka hard. With gear and buffs, its still just shy of 400 and as you know, magicka goes fast and weirdly, combat regen, even when REALLY maxed up, still goes up pretty slow in combat lol. When focusing a inanimate target, my regen is wicked fast. When facing an enemy, it seems to drop by half or more :P I think cutting down harder on cost of spells may help most.

[NecroMaster]

Your best bet is to max enchanting and complete the mages college quest line.

The mages college quests gives you these items with these bonuses.
The mages circlet +60 magica
Archmage robes + 50 magica faster magicka regen and reduced spell costs for all schools
Savos arens amulet + 50 magicka

Max your enchanting so you can get the level 100 perk to put two enchantments on an item.
Also get all the base perk boosts and get the stats boost
You now need to get any ring a pair of normal gloves and a pair of normal boots.
Put these enchantments on your gloves: fortify magicka and fortify any spell school I reccomend the one you use most.
Put these enchantments on your boots: 2 of the 3 resist fire/frost/shock.
Put these on you ring: resist magick and magicka regen.

These should provide a fairly high magicka regeneration rate with a very high magick boost along with a fair resistance against magick.

[HoBoMiKe]

put all levelup boosts into magicka

level enchanting and put all your perks into the center column.

get a helmet, a necklace, a ring, a pair of gauntlets/gloves, enchant all with "fortify magicka."

collect:
mora tappelania,
red flowers,
grass pod,
white mushroom,
briar heart,
tundra cotton,
giant lichen
fire salt
frost salt
elves ear


and create lots of fortify/restore magicka potions.

gather all the salt and garlic you can and throw it together for "regenerate magicka" potions.

[HoBoMiKe]

FOR REDUCING COST


use enchanting/alchemy to get some decent gear that reduces the cost of your favorite skill trees.

DO NOT USE THE REDUCE+REGENERATE enchantments because they're capped at 10% on the regen and dont go very high.


put perks into your favorite skill trees that cut the cost in half.

for a period of time, sometimes, when you "cleanse the focal points" in the college, you will gain a drain magicka effect that actually restores magicka, EVEN WHILE CHARGING A SPELL.

crazy, right?


you can also gain the "atronach" perk from alteration (difficult) and use a restoration spell called "circle of protection." you will continously absorb the spell as long as you stay in the ring and restore lost magicka.


you can obtain "mora's boon" from apocrypha, which will restore your health/magicka/stamina once a day.

while casting a spell, if "secrets of atherius" is used, you will be able to to sustain the spell forever if it is a continuous one like "detect life" or "telekinesis." so long as it's held.

use the wait/sleep feature to replenish magicka.


use a level up during combat, when all three of your status bars are likely depleted, to get the most out of it.

[HoBoMiKe]

lastly, when out of potions, you can use a staff to temporarily give your magicka bar a break but still stay in combat/use a spell.

however, staff abilities are very limited, and you cant level from a staff. but no true mage build goes without one (unless that build is against the use of staves)

[HoBoMiKe]

"ward absorb" from the restoration tree is useless, as wards are useless, but when combined with the daedric shield 'spellbreaker," you can absorb enemy attacks for free.

this may be contreversial though, as a mage character typically does not use shields. however the shield's "block 50 magic" is juuuuust enough to interrupt dragon breath, so it can be amazing.

[Mringasa]

Depends on the Difficulty you are playing. Expert or lower, you can get away with buffing that Magicka stat, with only occasional points into Health. Master/Legendary, you are much better off looking for gear, or enchanting it, to reduce magicka costs and putting points into Health. There are ways to get it to 0 cost, but I always found that to be a bit abusive and OP, much preferring to have it around 50-75% reduction.

Your gear, and what you are building around, will determine much of what you need. If you go for the standard Heavy Armor Mage, you need some Health since you'll be standing up to people a bit more. Much less mobility. The damage reduction from armor, and Perks, helps, but you need to be able to take more than a hit or two before crumbling. Standing toe-to-toe dropping nukes is fun times to be sure. You will have plenty of armor slots to enchant some magicka reduction, and starting this early on will ensure you have the magicka to maintain a pool for the full combat duration.

Light Armor Mage is a bit different. You have a lot more mobility, and this is functionally like playing a Nightblade (thief/assassin + mage?) style. Moving in and out of direct combat, maybe a few minions or followers, but generally avoiding mass groups is your key. I'd put more points into Magicka for a character running Light Armor, just so you can keep your follower/minions buffed and healthy, and also so you can use more of a variety of spells.

If you're going for a Pure Mage style, robes and a hat, you are going to need a tasty mana pool. WIthout mods, you are really limited in the amount of magicka reduction you can get as many vanilla robes are the robes + hat/hood so you lose multiple gear slots with them. You will want to avoid melee range combat at all costs, that lightweight makes it much easier, and use followers or minions for the brunt of the close combat. 1 or 2 hits and you'll drop, but even with the various Armor spells the Alteration school has, you aren't going to be able to take much damage.

Note, all of this is without mods. Modded you can adjust just about everything. Apocalypse + Summermyst I find to be the best, and most balanced, addition to my builds. They offer a nice variety to the magic schools and enchants. There are a couple jewelery mods as well that add earrings and left-hand rings as well. Obviously by adding more enchantable slots you can overpower yourself pretty quickly, so use your own best judgement in this situation and find a balance you enjoy.

[Spaghettioz]

Freaking great info guys! Thanks!

[jackhickman999]

It depends what you want to do but you if you just want to use a particularly school then you just take the cost reduction enchantments for that school. 4 or 5 piece set at max will give you 100% cost reduction.

You can use the elsweyr fondue and potions to boost stats.

I think it was a bug but you can use circle of protection buff you regen to a high degree.

[HoBoMiKe]

Originally posted by jackhickman999:

It depends what you want to do but you if you just want to use a particularly school then you just take the cost reduction enchantments for that school. 4 or 5 piece set at max will give you 100% cost reduction.

You can use the elsweyr fondue and potions to boost stats.

I think it was a bug but you can use circle of protection buff you regen to a high degree.

oh yes i forgot about fondue.

i dont feel like the circle buff is a glitch. it SAYS absorb spells, and circle of protection IS a restoration spell... it just happens to restore your magicka >:D