Max difficulty Battle-Mage Builds

A [Low Level] Build and a {High level} Build, which should allow you to play Max Difficulty.
I played both on Permadeath runs and worked like a charm

!!! Before leveling do this quest !!!

When you are out of the Sewer, go to Bravil, do the "Bravil Mage Guild Recommandation"-Quest and afterwards the "Through A Nightmare, Darkly" quest.

You can't beat the "Through A Nightmare, Darkly" quest when you are over level 2!!!
Those Minotours will be too strongh.

[Low level] Build

Gender & Race

Female Orc

Reasoning

• 45 Strenght
  
• 40 intelligence
  
• 45 Willpower
  
• 50 Endurance <- That one is actually the most important
  
• 25% Magick resist
  
• Also Berserk Spell

Birthsign

the Warrior
if you want to carry more and deal slightly more damage

the Lady
if you want to cast more spells

Class

You can do whatever you want tbh, but here are my major talents I picked:
Mage -> so your mages Talents will lvl up faster
Bonus -> Endurance and Strenght or Willpower

Armorer -> because so I don't need to lvl that one up that much
Athletics -> hard to level up with
Hand to Hand -> easy to level up on will
Restoration -> because it's the one which takes the longest to lvl up, just to boost it a little
Acrobatics -> easy to lvl up on will
Light armor -> because I don't use it
Marksman -> because I don't do much archery

You can also pick
Alteration -> because I will only use the shield spell or perhaps the open lock ones
Blunt -> easy to level up on will
Speechcraft -> because you can ignor that with illusion spells

[Low level] Attribute leveling

You want to reach level 4
and put 5 points into
Endurance, Intelligence and either Strenght or Willpower for each level







Reasoning:

• At level 4 you get the same creatures spawning as on lvl1.
  There are some exeptions like in Kvatch, where it would be best, if you enter at level 1, because the least amount of the weak version of the Clannfear will spawn.
  
• You get 124 Magicka, which allows you to cast any summon or other very powerfull spells.
  You can also almost get up to 200 HP.

[Low level] Spells & Skill leveling

Conjuration

You summon those when anything is too scary to attack by yourself

Turn undead -> cheap and can save your life
Headless Zombie -> good for low level conjouration
Scamp -> good for low level conjouration
Clannfear -> safe option (good for perma death runs)
Clannfear + Invisibility -> (Stay hidden, but still be able to kill a strong dude)
Dremora Lord -> highest DPS and very aggressive, but if you hit him once, he will attack you

How to lvl:
Create a spell which summons a scamp for 1 sec and spam it

Illusion

It will safe you in risky situations

Invisibility -> self explainatory
Paralizing -> 3sec is enough, due to stand up animation
Silence -> great against mages and imps
Charm -> to not use speachcraft
Command -> cheap and can save your life
Tip: You can create a spell which turns you invisible and summons a clannfear for 30 seconds.

How to lvl:
create a spell of invisibility or light for 1 second and spam it

Armorer

You want magic gear, so level it up to level 50

How to lvl:
Summon a skeleton and hit him once, repair sword. After the 3rd attack, resummon it. Repeat
Shivering Island DLC, get the Amulet of disintegration. Equip it, and repair your gear. Requip and repeat.

Alchemy

Alchemy is also very important for poisons and to get money.
Because you need poisons against any tankier unit, to deal a good amount of damage.

How to level:
Quick Travel to farms and pick up the crobs and sell the useless potions at "the gilded caraf" in the imperial city.

Destruction

Basicly weakness to X is the way to deal the most damage.
So when you use a poison, cast weakness to poison on your enemy.

Best min/max destructiuon spells with 100 to destruction
#1 Elemental rage [Target] - 19 Magicka cost
- Shock damage 10
- Weakness to Shock 100%
- Fire damage 14
- Weakness to fire 100%
- Frost damage 14
- Weakness to frost 100%

#2 Shock [Target] - 11 Magicka cost
- Shock damage 20
- Weakness to shock 100%

#3 Fire [Target] - 10 Magicka cost
- Fire damage 19
- Weakness to fire 100%

#4 Frost [Target] - 9 Magicka cost
- Frost damage 18
- Weakness to frost 100%

How to level:
Create a spell which does 1 frost damage on self (least annoying sound and visuals IMO)

Restoration

Easy way to heal HP and fatigue and pre-buff.

A not exploitativ way to prebuff magicka up to 295
Spell 1 - 100 Intelligence for 7 seconds
Spell 2 - 100 Magicka for 7 seconds
Spell 3 - 40 Intelligence and 100 Magicka for 120 seconds
Spell 4 - 40 Willpower for 120 seconds

Also keep in mind, more max and current fatigue = more melee damage
So prebuffing fatigue and strenght, than sneak attack one shots most enemies.

How to level:
Spam minor healing

Alternation

Just for the Shield spell, to get up to armor rating 85

How to level:
Spam Shield spell


For other Skills leveling Strats, check out the {High level} Attribute leveling section

[Low level] Gear

With the "best in slot" gear, it doesn't matter much which armor you take, because we will enchant them anyways.

Gear set 1 (good starter gear)

You want to get 7 Black souls gems for
+10 Endurance Helmet
+10 Endurance Chest
+10 Endurance Legs
+10 Endurance Boots
+10 Endurance Shield
+10 Endurance Ring or Base Ring of Nihilism
+10 Endurance Amulet or Charity of Madness [DLC]
Weatherward Ring
Hands of the Atronarch
Umbra [Sword]

You can buy a Greater Soul gems in each Mages Gild City and go to Dark Fissue to turn them into dark soul gems. Fill them up and go enchanting.

Gear set 2 (recommanded)

+10 Fire Shield Helmet
+10 Fire Shield Chest
+10 Shock Shield Legs
+10 Shock Shield Boots
+10 Frost Shield Shield
+10 Shock Shield Ring or Base Ring of Nihilism
+10 Frost Shield Amulet or Charity of Madness [DLC]
Weatherward Ring
Hands of the Atronarch
Umbra [Sword]

You can max get 85 armor rating out of it, so you don't need all the elemental Shield. Because the armor you equip varies in their rating, you might need 1 or 2 less +10 Elemental Shield gear.
You can get +10 Elemental Shield enchantments from Sigil stones.

If you want to get the highest armor base, you need to kill Umbra.
You can simply jump ontop of a broken pillar in her chamber, and bring around 20 poisons and some arrows with you. Make sure you have baught the weakness to poison spell.

{High level} Build

Gender & Race

Male Breton

Reasoning:

• 40 Strenght
  
• 50 intelligence
  
• 50 Willpower
  
• 30 Endurance (!)
  
• 50% Magicka resist (!!!)

Birthsign

The Mage, because more max Magicka

Class

Here is what I would do, because I want to max all my Attributes
Mage
because we want to level Intelligence, Willpower and Endurance.
Also we need quite some spells to kill high level units.
Bonus -> Endurance and Luck
You can do whatever you want tbh, because all we need is to reach level 25.

Armorer - [Somewhat] required to level up Endurance early on AND to level indefinatly
Hand to Hand or Blunt (not Both) - just to level indefinatly
Alternation - Easy to force a level up AND to level indefinatly
Acrobatics - Easy to force a level up
Light Armor or Mythicism - I recommand Light Armor, because the Breton has +10 into Mythicism, which basicly robs you from 1 level. Additionally Light Armor is faster to level, but still both are easy to force a level up
Security - You can pretty much work around locks with alternation and easily force a level up with the skeleton key
Speechcraft - It's tedious to level, but you can force a level up when you need it. Also you can easily work around it.

So even if you do not level efficently, at some point you can still max all attributes.
Also if you want to level indefinatly, you need to get inprisoned and sleep in the cell. You can reload the savefile in the cell to reduce one of your major skills you want to decrease.

{High level} Attribute leveling

You want to reach level 25, after that we really don't care much about anything else.
BUT
If you want to deal the most DPS, we want to max every Attribute beside of Speed and Personality.

Strenght - More melee damage
Willpower - Faster Magicka regen more Spells
Intelligence - More Magicka, more Mana regen, more Spells
Endurance - More Fatigue (as well as HP per level up!)
Agility- More Fatigue, Faster Fatigue regen, that means more melee damage
Luck - more melee damage

Beginning Attributes leveling

Get +5 Endurance and try to get +5 to other Attributes, or +1 into Luck

I personally level up those skills:
Destruction, Restoration [Willpower],
Heavy Armor, Armorer [Endurance],
Conjuration and Alchemy [Intelligence].

Attributes leveling Strats

[Endurance]
There are 2 strategies to level up Endurance, which are very efficent.

Rat-Strat:
Setup:
Go to anvil, join the Fighters Guild and do the Rat quest.
Kill the mountain Lion in the basement (Poisons are your best friend). Done

Now, you can punch those 4 rats and get attacked by them.
When your HP is low, leave the basement, repair gear and sleep, repeat.

Disintegration-Strat:
Setup:
Go to the shivering island.
Get gate keeper bone arrows.
Drop at save at the stair and load it (there is a bug that the archers arrows do not give the debuff, with loading it, you fix that issue).
The archer should stay near the stairs, otherwise the gatekeeper will kill it.
You need the debuff of the gatekeeper and than shoot fireballs, until he is dead (magicka potions are handy there).
Go through the door to mania and get to Milchar.
There get the Amulet of Disintegration. Done.

Now you can equip and unequip the amulet to break your armor pieces and repair it.
Just have enough hammers on you.


[Intelligence]
Easiest way to level up Intelligence is with Alchemy.
The good thing is, you can cast spells while harvesting, so level up Destruction, Restoration, Alternation, Conjuration or Mysticism, while farming. Being a Member of the Magest Guild and creating your own spells do help a ton.

Great-Spots
Shetcombe Farm [Kvatch]
Lord Drad's Estate [Anvil]
Odiil Farm [Chorrol]
Greatful Pass Stables [Skingrad]

Ok-Spots
Withmond Farm [Anvil]
Harnlus Watch [Cheydinhal]
Waters Edge [Leyawiin]
Border Watch [Leyawiin]
Blankenmarch [Leyawiin]
Imperial City Castle moat [Every Imperial Distict]


[Willpower]
Create a spell with "Weakness of X" on self, spam it.
Create a spell with "Heal" 1 on self
Create a spell with "Shield" 1 on self


[Strenght]
There are 2 strategies to level up Strenght, which are very efficent.

Horse-petting-Strat:
Setup:
Bring Martin to Weynon Priory and get your horse for free. done

Punch that horse with a sword, axe or fists, when it's low on HP, wait for 1 hour.
Horses are members of the thieves guild. So if you punch them too often, you'll get kicked from the thieves guild

Peryite's-Shrine-Strat
Discover the shrine. done

Punch those NPCs against a rock, so they stop moving.

Tip:
Switch between swords, axes and fists, so you level up all 3 strength skills.


[Agility]
There are 2 strategies to level up Agility, which are very efficent.

Petting the cat
Go to Bravil in the "Skooma Den".
Wait till midnight.
Open and close the inventory of a Khajiit, while he is sleeping

Security-Strat
Get the Skeleton Key from Nocturnal (it's quite easy with an invisibilty spell)
Create a spell with "Decrease Security 50-100"
Get any Very Hard Lock and spam auto attempt


[Speed]
Acrobatics
Get a Bridge where you can bump your head against.
The Imperial sewer prison is my favorit for that

Light armor
Setup:
Go to anvil, join the Fighters Guild and do the Rat quest.
Kill the mountain Lion in the basement (Poisons are your best friend). Done

Now, you can punch those 4 rats and get attacked by them.
When your HP is low, leave the basement, repair gear and sleep, repeat.

{High level} Spells

I recommand to organize your spells with Numbers, because you will switch around your spells quite a bit.

Offensive Spells

1# Storm Atronarch Killer
100 Fire
100% Weakness to Fire
100 Frost
100% Weakness to Frost
100 Damage
100% Weakness to magic
Storm Atronarch are very common, and have reflect damage, that's why you need a good spell

1# Daedra Killer
100 Shock
100% Weakness to Shock
100 Frost
100% Weakness to Frost
100 Damage
100% Weakness to magic
That one is designed to kill Daedra, but I use it againt any opponent

1# Paralyze
3 seconds (IMO that's enough)

1# Soul Trap
60 seconds (IMO that's enough)
You need that a ton, to recharge your sword

1# Weakness to Frost
100% Weakness to Frost
120 seconds
That's your main debuff spell for your sword

1# Weakness to Poison
60 Seconds (IMO that's enough)

Defensive Spells

2# Demoralize/Flee
Lvl 20
30 seconds

2# Invisibility
30 seconds (IMO that's enough)

2# Invisibility+ Speed
30 seconds
Fortify Attribute: Speed
30 seconds
For traversing the landscape if you don't want to fight anything

2# Tame/Command
Lvl 20
30 seconds

2# Turn Undead
Lvl 20
30 seconds

Summons

3# Clanfear
40 seconds

3# Dremora Lord
40 seconds

3# Atroncarch Frost
40 seconds

Healing

4# Cure Disease

4# Cure Poison

4# Heal 25HP
Restore Health 25 (IMO that's enough)

4# Heal allies
Restore Health 25 on target

4# Fatigue Heal
Restore Fatigue 100
You have to get used to cast that quite often

Utility Spells

5# Charm
100 Charm
5 seconds

5# Light
50 (IMO that's enough)
65 seconds

5# Telekenises
10m
7 seconds

5# Unlock
Unlock lvl5 lock

5# Water Breathing
60 seconds

5# Hurry up
Fortify Attribute: 100 Speed on tourch
for 20 seconds
Helps for making the NPCs move faster

Buffs

6# 1 int Buff
Fortify Attribute: 100 Intelligence
7 seconds
Cast it first

6# 2 Magicka Buff
Fortify 100 Magicka
7 seconds
Cast it second

6# 3 Mana Buff
Fortify Attribute: 100 Intelligence
120 seconds
Fortify 100 Magicka
120 seconds
Cast it third

6# 4 Willpower Buff
Fortify Attribute: 100 Willpower
120 seconds
Cast it forth
Now you have a ton of Magicka and fast regen

6# Speed Buff
Fortify Attribute: 100 Speed
20 seconds
To run faster

6# Fortigue Buff
Fortify Fatigue 100
120 seconds
That way to deal more Melee damage

Beast Burden
To run faster (yes really)

{High level} Gear

You only need 4 items to become semi-immortal

You can get those 3 items at level 20
#1 Mundane Ring (50% Magic Resist)
#2 Ring of the Iron Fist (33% Reflect Damage)
#3 Necklace of Swords or Amulet of Axes (33% Reflect Damage)

You need to be level 25 and complete the quest "Sins of the Father" and return the blade to Laythe Wavrick or Fathis Ules.
#4 Escutcheon of Chorrol (35% Reflect Damage)

The only things which can kill you now are:
- Youself
- Archers
- Reflect damage (Atronarchs and Clanfears)
- Liches which infect you with some deceases

For max DPS, we need a Mage Gear Setup and quite some spells.
- Daedric Longsword enchanted with a 25 Frostdamage Sigil Stone.
Because it has the most charges with a good amount of damage.
- Glas Armor enchanted with 50 Magicka Sigil Stone.
Because you don't take any damage anyways, so we don't need anything heavy. 50 Magicka because you regenerate the most Mana that way (when Intelligence and Willpower is maxed), also you can cast more powerfull spells that way.
-Glas Armor enchanted with 50 Fatigue Sigil Stone.
More Fatigue and Max Fatigue = More Damage.

Credits

The unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages - Almost all images
Kalli Holub on Pintrest - The Mage Icon
The Flying Rodent from his Oblivion Guide - Inspiration for the Skill Overview

[Biervampir [AUT]]

I tried that, but it felt it wasn't as good on max difficulty as my suggested spells. It costs more and doesn't do that much damage as my suggested ones, unless I misunderstood you

[I like the Color Green]

One fun trick I like to do is the glitch that allows you to gain orc racial abilities because you can use that to gain the custom spell option "Drain Attribute" and use it to reduce enemy max health and (at the same time) deal high damage, basically making an instant kill spell.

[Chrono]

No problem man! i am currently coming back to this guide a fair bit for leveling tips on my current character and it's making the whole process a breeze. And i am gonna try out your spells as well because i never actually knew you could stack buff spells together in a chain to make a super buff, I only ever knew about spell stacking to make elemental damage eventually one shot creatures.

[Biervampir [AUT]]

@Chrono
Thanks again to your comment. Motivated me enough to create some pictures, to make it less boring to look at

[Biervampir [AUT]]

I haven't finished the guide completly yet, but thanks for the compliment.
Didn't expect that many people reading it (and putting it as favorit)

[Chrono]

Absolutely love the guide since i always dreaded the leveling experience in this game and could never put enough thought into what i could do to make it easier on my self. And to be 100% honest i didn't put nearly enough time into exploring the mechanics of this game as much as i did with Morrowind.