FIrst time playing as a mage and...

[ITrollBecauseICan]

wtehflux... I have never played such an underpowered ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ character in an rpg.. (i cheated) to get armor and console coded in some stuff anyway.. wow.. arch mage staff/robe, miriaks gloves/boots, azradale (fire one, sp) and to fight an even level mob, it takes me 30 cast to kill it YET.. if i played an archer at the same spec.. i'd 1 shot everything.. or an orc warrior.. really?
Why is a mage in this game so undertuned its pointless to even play one imo.
RPG no longer wants anyone to play a mage?
Oh, also using best spells of that level.
One example, im doing the companion quest and i cant kill anything before i get 1 shot.
I throw fireball after fireball and it takes like 3% of thier hp away per cast.
I have destruct tree nearly maxed out (bonuses 50% to spells atleast) and with another 25% from the dragon priest mask, it still hits like a .. hell i would say wet noodle, but its even WEAKER than that lol.. ffs.. just thought i'd rant a bit.
Destruct skill at 92 too btw.
SIGH, wasted like 9 hours of my life setting this mage up and its pointless ...

[Aralyn]

Really sounds like you have no idea what you're doing to be honest, mages are fine.
Flames is rough at the beginning but thats it, get yourself some conjuration, firebolts, and you'll be rollin'

If you cant make it with those, you're not very good.

[Anders]

Dude Mage playstyle is like rock paper scissors

Use Ice based spells to slow warriors down, and then flame to burn away their health

Use Shock on other mages to drain their magicka and then Ice and Flame to destroy them

For ranged attackers, use Ice spells again to drain their stamina so they can't fire arrows at you and then ranged based fire spells to kill em.

Simple, you just have to use ya head :)

[omed_86]

It starts off a bit difficult, because your spells don't work on powerful enemies and your armor sucks, but you can become really powerful later on!

I feel like I have a lot more options playing as a mage, than my previous archer build:
- Cast fear on an enemy and let my Atronach chase and kill them.
- Paralyze and hit with one handed weapon to your heart's content XD
- If an enemy is standing near a ledge, paralyzing them can cause them to fall off, it is so hilarious!
- Casting Mayhem in a crowded dungeon and going invisible, enjoy watching your enemies killing each other.
- Or cast Harmony, go collect the item you want, loot treasure chests, go back out without breaking up a sweat.
- Pacify> sneak attack> pacify> sneak attack... etc.

Now there is something I haven't been able to overcome, is a lot of spells not working on the more powerful enemies like Dragon Preists, I've had to resort to bow and arrow, swords and a lot of potions. There was this one Dragon Preist who turned my flame atronach on me :S Crazy, I didn't know it was possible.

But I read people recommending enchantment and I haven't done much of that, gonna give that a go.

[Jage]

Originally posted by Dex:

Originally posted by Predator78:

Dont waste your time George, my god they are pittiful. Mage is supposed to blow ♥♥♥♥ up, mages in this game are just absolute undertuned trash.
And ffs, not everyone wants to use mods, stop pushing that lame argument.

vanilla mages suck ass. Either get mods or stop ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

this is factually untrue. I am playing a vanilla Destruction / Resto / Alteration mage right now in vanilla. Once I got my Enchanting to 100 and made a 100% set of destruction gear, I have had no problem completing anything. It just takes a lot more work than other classes. Once you break the class ceiling you are basically invincible.

[John Counterstrike]

Mages are underpowered in skyrim but you can still go overkill if you use extrem enchantments to give yourself -90% costs for descruction spells while wearing on of the dragonpriest masks from dragonborn dlc that give you an additional 25% damage to either fire,shock or ice magic

[John Counterstrike]

Originally posted by Jango:

Mages are underpowered in skyrim but you can still go overkill if you use extrem enchantments to give yourself -90% costs for descruction spells while wearing on of the dragonpriest masks from dragonborn dlc that give you an additional 25% damage to either fire,shock or ice magic

And always use conjuration with your builds because at max you can summon 2 dremora lords and they wreck everything

[Goilveig]

Mages are only underpowered at low levels. At top end with enchanted gear, they can pretty much look at things and kill them. The game kind of suffers from a common RPG issue of "linear warriors, quadratic mages" - at the lower levels, warriors are better and improve faster, but at the high end mages catch up and surpass.

The last time I played a pure mage, I was disintegrating ancient dragons in midair with pew pew lasers (aka Lightning Storm) for zero magicka cost.

[John Counterstrike]

Originally posted by Goilveig:

Mages are only underpowered at low levels. At top end with enchanted gear, they can pretty much look at things and kill them. The game kind of suffers from a common RPG issue of "linear warriors, quadratic mages" - at the lower levels, warriors are better and improve faster, but at the high end mages catch up and surpass.

The last time I played a pure mage, I was disintegrating ancient dragons in midair with pew pew lasers (aka Lightning Storm) for zero magicka cost.

I dont think a Mage Character can be stronger than any Warrior Build in Late Game

[Sl3]

destruction magic is overrated. crowd control is great in this game, illision/necromancy/paralize/speechcraft, try these magics out and u will have a diffrent optnion.

[Tiranoslav]

I killed two dragons, that attacked me simultaneously, in a few seconds. Mage 33 lvl with 75 destruction. Don't fool newcomers, if you can't play properly.

[Dwane Dibbley]

Originally posted by Goilveig:

Mages are only underpowered at low levels. At top end with enchanted gear, they can pretty much look at things and kill them. The game kind of suffers from a common RPG issue of "linear warriors, quadratic mages" - at the lower levels, warriors are better and improve faster, but at the high end mages catch up and surpass.

The last time I played a pure mage, I was disintegrating ancient dragons in midair with pew pew lasers (aka Lightning Storm) for zero magicka cost.

Destro mages gets OP very fast, but they very fast become useless cuz of nonexistant spell scaling - so they can access very strong spell early, but as they lvl up, spells doesnt scaless and are eventualy overleveled by enemies. As of other schools of magic, alot of spells has levelcap (and wont work on high lvl enemies).

Originally posted by Reisgrom:

I killed two dragons, that attacked me simultaneously, in a few seconds. Mage 33 lvl with 75 destruction. Don't fool newcomers, if you can't play properly.

On legendary without mods?

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Predator78:

wtehflux... I have never played such an underpowered ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ character in an rpg.. (i cheated) to get armor and console coded in some stuff anyway.. wow.. arch mage staff/robe, miriaks gloves/boots, azradale (fire one, sp) and to fight an even level mob, it takes me 30 cast to kill it YET.. if i played an archer at the same spec.. i'd 1 shot everything.. or an orc warrior.. really?
Why is a mage in this game so undertuned its pointless to even play one imo.
RPG no longer wants anyone to play a mage?
Oh, also using best spells of that level.
One example, im doing the companion quest and i cant kill anything before i get 1 shot.
I throw fireball after fireball and it takes like 3% of thier hp away per cast.
I have destruct tree nearly maxed out (bonuses 50% to spells atleast) and with another 25% from the dragon priest mask, it still hits like a .. hell i would say wet noodle, but its even WEAKER than that lol.. ffs.. just thought i'd rant a bit.
Destruct skill at 92 too btw.
SIGH, wasted like 9 hours of my life setting this mage up and its pointless ...

Uhm, no - its more along the traditional lines of linear-warriors, quadratic-mages. Though straight up killing will never be a mage's strong point in this game, they get a huge number of tools to control the battlefield.

Use rage/fear/slows/etc while summons do the fighting.

If all you're doing is spamming lightning bolt then you may as well have just played an axe-wielding fighter.

[psychodegu]

You will need to use staves, while your building up your character. Focus damage over destruction cost reduction for your direct damage spells, since you will be using a staff any way.

[Goilveig]

Originally posted by Jango:

Originally posted by Goilveig:

Mages are only underpowered at low levels. At top end with enchanted gear, they can pretty much look at things and kill them. The game kind of suffers from a common RPG issue of "linear warriors, quadratic mages" - at the lower levels, warriors are better and improve faster, but at the high end mages catch up and surpass.

The last time I played a pure mage, I was disintegrating ancient dragons in midair with pew pew lasers (aka Lightning Storm) for zero magicka cost.

I dont think a Mage Character can be stronger than any Warrior Build in Late Game

On my last mage playthrough I could take out ancient dragons on Legendary with a destro mage faster than my 2H warrior could even get into attack range (even with Dragonrend to down it immediately).

[cronic0_0]

Originally posted by Dwane Dibbley:

Originally posted by Goilveig:

Mages are only underpowered at low levels. At top end with enchanted gear, they can pretty much look at things and kill them. The game kind of suffers from a common RPG issue of "linear warriors, quadratic mages" - at the lower levels, warriors are better and improve faster, but at the high end mages catch up and surpass.

The last time I played a pure mage, I was disintegrating ancient dragons in midair with pew pew lasers (aka Lightning Storm) for zero magicka cost.

Destro mages gets OP very fast, but they very fast become useless cuz of nonexistant spell scaling - so they can access very strong spell early, but as they lvl up, spells doesnt scaless and are eventualy overleveled by enemies. As of other schools of magic, alot of spells has levelcap (and wont work on high lvl enemies).

Originally posted by Reisgrom:

I killed two dragons, that attacked me simultaneously, in a few seconds. Mage 33 lvl with 75 destruction. Don't fool newcomers, if you can't play properly.

On legendary without mods?

What this man speaks is true if you wish to play master or legendary you need this mod when you get higher level. This mod makes it so your spells scale with you no matter what. Or you will find your spills well become useless. It's Called full magic scaling

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/494/?