New Mage Anniversary Edition

[championofcyrodiil]

Creating a new Mage with High Elf from the start and tried to only use Frenzy. I'm looking to see how far I can go w/ Magic only focus. I started from Helgen last night, and I am currently making my way around the map to pick up books for the Orc in the Winterhold Mage's guild Library. Any tips? I seem to be leveling up VERY slow.

[worm_master]

I iz Des Conj Alt, of course ya levelling slowly, coz u level by using the skill, U gotta spam them really, which cost's manna, which needs potions, I created all mine, magic is prob the slowest to level.

Then too, best experience is Adept, all seems to "work", things get a little more complicated when u reach master, an more complicated still, when u reach Legendary.

[mikk011]

The wikis have advice on leveling more quickly. See
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Skills_(Skyrim)
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skills#Skill_Advancement

From those links click on the individual skills for specifics.

[Elthrael]

Before you do any dungeon delving/questing/leveling, don't forget to:
- use Mage standing stone (+20% XP gained for all magic schools and Enchanting)
- sleep at an inn (+10% XP gained for all skills)

Find "Fortify <insert magic school>" gear as fast as possible, to reduce your casting cost. Or train Enchanting to make your own. At level 100, you can make a circlet, ring, necklace and robes with 27% cost reduction per item, so a total of 128% cost reduction. With the Extra Effect perk, you can do that for two magic schools (I chose Destruction and Alteration as my two main schools, for example). Then you can spam spells all you want. With the help of potions, you can increase that percentage to 33% or even above 50% (with no exploits!).

If you want to purposefully train magic, here's some tips.

First off, Dual Casting does NOT grant extra XP in ANY school.

Second, the spell XP is directly related to the BASE cost of the spell you're casting. That is, BEFORE any Fortify effects. So a spell that costs 500 Magicka grants more XP than a spell that costs 5 Magicka.

You can train most schools by spamming one spell:

Alteration is by far the easiest. Get the Detect Life spell. Go to Whiterun, wait until around 8-9 AM, hold down Detect Life, wait when out of Magicka, repeat. When night falls, go to the Bannered Mare, cast Detect Life and wait to regen until the inn is empty, wait until 8-9 AM, go back out, repeat. Easy.

To get the spell for free: go to Treva's Watch, find a bunch of guys camping nearby, talk to them and do the quest - you don't have to kill a single bandit, just run into the cave and out again to make sure the quest stage advances, then run up the hill to the right of the cave, over the wall and into the wooden guardhouse in the courtyard and open the door. Talk to the questgiver to get Detect Life.

Illusion is also easy - just spam Muffle over and over. Anywhere, anytime, in or out of combat counts. Wait when out of Magicka, repeat.

Destruction has to actually deal damage to level, so it's not super easy to level, but if you're going pure mage, it's probably your main source of damage, so it should level fairly quickly. Get the Dual Casting and Impact perks as soon as possible, but ONLY use Dual Cast spells as a means of staggering enemies - dual casting doesn't grant any extra XP. You're better off doing a rapid left-right click to cast two spells in rapid succession. My usual "combat loop" was dual cast - two rapid cast spells - dual cast etc.

Conjuration has a few options, one of them is casting Soul Trap on anything and everything, regardless of whether or not you have soul gems, or casting Bound Sword when in combat (find a mudcrab, make sure it can't reach you, cast, sheathe, repeat).

Restoration is the worst to level. My advice is buy the highest level Restoration spell you can, find a trap that doesn't kill you but takes off most of your health, and trigger the trap then heal. You can also complete Meridia's quest, then stand in the ray of light (which damages you) and hold Healing to offset it, stepping out when near death. It's slower but it's more passive than the trap method.

Lastly, once you've completed the school's Master Ritual spells and maxed out a spell school, and you have some Fortify gear, possibly to reduce casting cost by 90% or more, make it Legendary and just spam

Alteration: Detect Life (again) or pick up an object with Telekinesis and run around with it (be careful not to pick up owned items as that is considered a crime).

Illusion: the Harmony spell in Whiterun, should level you to 100 in no-time and is not considered a hostile act. Or spam Invisibility. Or just spam Muffle again.

Conjuration: get into combat and cast any Thrall spell where the Thrall can't attack the enemy. Should level very quickly.

Destruction: Blizzard, since it damages YOU a bit and that makes it give XP, you can cast it out of combat and still level the skill.

Restoration: unlike getting to 100, re-training Restoration is easy, just spam Circle of Protection, it works out of combat too.

[FurryQueenYT]

Originally posted by Elthrael:

Alteration is by far the easiest. Get the Detect Life spell. Go to Whiterun, wait until around 8-9 AM, hold down Detect Life, wait when out of Magicka, repeat. When night falls, go to the Bannered Mare, cast Detect Life and wait to regen until the inn is empty, wait until 8-9 AM, go back out, repeat. Easy.

An even easier way: Get Magelight, stand outside the gate to Solitude and aim at the mountain peak, send light balls up there and it skyrockets the XP like mad

[brainless]

you might actually want to not level so quickly, given your intent.

Any build including the trio of smith/enchant/alchemy that can easily be farmed in cities and from loot-buy/selling cycles can quickly get you an early 20 to 30 levels. At the same time illusion is a magic that is limited by npc levels (unlike say conjuration or destruction). Plus depending on your difficulty, you'll end up having too low level illusion spells against overly tanky opponents.

with respect to the playthrough: there is not much more exploration progression to have if (for example) by the time whiterun and falkreath are fully cleared, npcs are already walking around in deadric gear, and all of that is tied to your level.

Low level magic and loot feels better balanced in my experience; a slower progression lets you play one playthrough for far longer before the inescapable, repetitive, and tedious monotony. (if you wanted to do everything in one playthough at least).

[Luminary]

There are spellswords in the game, people who do both magic and combat and many in game mages uses daggers, so the game sort of includes a way to have some weapons. (if you want a reason to use weapons)

If you are going to spam Destruction spells you need a lot of magicka and you need clothes with magicka regeneration (like robes) but if you are walking through the woods and want to use illusion spells, you don't need to spam them, so you can wear actual armor, giving you more damage protection. (keep both in your inventory and change as needed.)