Mage: Armor on or off?? & skills

Hi guys I am trying to be a pure mage.. So is it advisable to use armor?? I am thinking of doing a dragonscale armor.. And can it be enchanted??

Another question, for perks can someone suggest what skills i should get? Thank u very much

I started off as being a mage pure, but then progressed to every skill.

But here's some advice and what I did.

Armour, yes, robes. I highly recommend going through the College of Winterhold quests, for fantastic mage gear, training and spells. It's all magic based too, obviously. Dragonscale armour should be more for melee combat in my opinion, doesn't really fit mages; although it looks nice. I'm not sure if it can be enchanted or not.

Which skills you should train? Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, all of them magic-based ones really. If that's what you was asking. Hope I helped.

Thanks, so do you think I shouldn't touch the blacksmith skill?

kwelito _88 said:

Thanks, so do you think I shouldn't touch the blacksmith skill?

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Well if you only want to be mage-based, then yes, there isn't really any need to touch the blacksmith skill. But sometimes it's handy to carry around a dagger or something whilst you don't have a staff just incase you run out of magicka and need to finish them off quick. But nothing else, really. :

You can enchant any armor in the game, but maybe put on armored boots and gauntlets. then that way you have a little more protection.

You CAN put armour on, but it wont really fit your character. Mages are built for strong attacks, and healing, not for defence. You can easily get some nice enchanted robes if you join the College of Winterhold.

Yes i did finish the quest for the college but i felt that something is still missing... check this guy out he fitted some dragonscale with enchantment

kwelito _88 said:

Yes i did finish the quest for the college but i felt that something is still missing... check this guy out he fitted some dragonscale with enchantment

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That's pretty awesome

Im a high elf mage and I wear steel boots and gauntlets. Looks cool and offers more protection. Ill be looking to get daedra ones later on...

Swordsmansmith said:

Im a high elf mage and I wear steel boots and gauntlets. Looks cool and offers more protection. Ill be looking to get daedra ones later on...

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If you're wanting to create the daedra armour, and haven't go 90 smithing already, I'd recommend watching a youtube guide. It's really quick, just basically buying iron ingots and leather straps and making iron daggers. Takes like 30-60 minutes and the outcome is definitely worth waiting for.

I'm just starting out (level 5) so forgive me if this is a dumb question. But early on, it seems to me that the big advantage of robes over armor is that the robes give you magic bonuses. I think mine give me a bonus to illusion spells or something like that.

Anyway, if you could enchant armor with the same kinds of enchantments, then wouldn't that make armor vastly superior to robes, since they provide the same enchantment plus a much higher level or protection?

it would, but your enchant skill has to be very high, and you have to get plenty of souls, so that means alot of grand soul gems, or the black star.

Don't overlook the bonuses of going with Alteration for your primary protection. With almost the entire upgrade tree (constellation) maxed, a dual wielded Ebonyshield will bring my armor rating up to 300 (that suit of Dragonmail in the video had a rating of 145). Looks rather mage-like too.

Heavy Armor, Enchanting, Alchemy and Smithing are extremely important for every character. Yes, smithing and heavy armor are considered "warrior" skills if you believe in the robed/bookish mage archetype. But a badass battlemage or savage orc shaman is not going to be the bookish trouserless type. He or she is going to be wearing heavy armor cause full daedric mail (except for the helmet, which is corny and horny) is way more badass and cool than a bathrobe.
Plus, he or she will have worked with magic in every part of the crafting process; enchantments to boost her own crafting skills. Esoteric alchemical potions that supercharge enchantments (elixir/potion of enchanting) or alchemical oils that burn in the forge with arcane flames to temper the metals (elixir/potion of smithing). Harvesting the hearts of daedra (or rather buying them from the magic college) to feed their innate power into the armor, which is made out of solid darkness (ebony).

Sure, the bathrobe guy is going to get more mana regeneration. But the bathrobe guy is not going to run around in red-black spiked metal plate that glows with unholy radiance and gives over a thousand points of armor.

PS: the daedric sword doing 400+ damage per hit for when you run into magic resistance enemies or want to slap aside unworthy creatures without bothering to cast a spell at them is not bad either. But then, you're no longer pure mage.

Just thought I would add my penny's worth about some of the benefits of not wearing armor.

- If you wear any armor at all your spell damage is reduced. Not sure about exact figures but I think around 20% or so (based on my Flame spell doing 10 dmg per sec with robes and 8 per sec with iron armor).Note: Robes and cloths do not count as armor. Anything that has an armor rating counts as armor.

- If you are going Alteration there is a perk that provides 3 x the armor bonus for armor spells (like Oakflesh) IF you are no wearing any armor items at all (so only cloths or robes).

- You move faster without armor (unless you take armor perks). This works well with a mage (imo) as when I play I am using backtracking and blasting. With no armor encumbrance it is hard for the enemy to catch me, yet I can still blast. When wearing armor they can catch me.

So, while wearing armor defiantly has it's advantages in terms of added projection, going robes only is still a viable option as well imo

I'm a breton battle-mage, and i like using my enchanted dwarven armor for extra protection, and when i run out of magicka i finish them with my enchanted sword, it adds for survivability and is a lot fun to make and hybrid fighting. I'm putting perks into enchanting so when i found better armor i would enchant those too to add magic attributes.
Also there are a lot of tougher and fast enemies, that can get to you before you can kill them and if you ran out of magicka in that situation and you are pure mage type, then you are certainly dead-meat.

Sebastián Piazza said:

I'm a breton battle-mage, and i like using my enchanted dwarven armor for extra protection, and when i run out of magicka i finish them with my enchanted sword, it adds for survivability and is a lot fun to make and hybrid fighting. I'm putting perks into enchanting so when i found better armor i would enchant those too to add magic attributes.
Also there are a lot of tougher and fast enemies, that can get to you before you can kill them and if you ran out of magicka in that situation and you are pure mage type, then you are certainly dead-meat.

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Aye true, my first char was a spellsword with heavy armor, 1h sword and destruction spells. Lots of fun.

I guess my point is that a pure mage is a valid choice as well and there where some advantages. As to what is "better" or "easier" to play, I would suspect the armor wearing, sword/axe/mace swinging version