The Last Necromancer's Guide

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Anthrax

Revenant of Shadows
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The Last Necromancer's Guide
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I find the lack of necromantic content in Skyrim a bit disappointing. And if you anyone that has a love for Oblivion like myself, then you may also be disappointed. Role playing as a necromancer in Skyrim isn't for everyone, that has to be said. Rather this is for two types of classes, A, for those who are used to conjuration and use it often and those that are simply necrotic by instinct. Either way, my writing this guide is a sort of passive protest for the fact that not much on this subject is present in Skyrim. The lack of guilds and quests for necromancy is deeply disappointing. Did I mention that? It's extremely disappointing. In Elder Scrolls 6 I expect to see more content concerning this black art and it's practice being implemented in guilds for which to serve as a school like any other mages guild. However being optimistic about necromancy and it's resurrection in the Elder Scrolls is a farcry away from becoming a reality. And only those that still practice it underground will mod and craft their spells for it and in their own right implement these facets of the black art and reanimate death magic back into the game.​
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Necromancy is a black art that has been shun upon and looked to as been a study of and with the dead and those who practice it have been slammed as evil and satanic.​
The term necromancy is derived from ancient Greek (nekrós) "corpes" / dead body - (manteía), prophecy and/or divination.​
(Not to be confused as "negromancy")!​
Necromancy has been a practice that has not originated from one civilization or any one geographical location, but rather has been founded by nearly every ancient civilization, in all corners of the globe. Necromancy is practiced for many reasons, and is one of the least understood black arts in all the Arcane sciences. The necromancers goal is to ultimately become a living dead that is not limited to mortal damage caused and inflicted by weapons or destruction magic, which would otherwise inflict death upon himself, but by reaching this state of "undead" he has buffered himself from the claws of death and has powers that are greater than that of the mortal human/creature. This state of undead is referred to as the Lich state. Necromancers spend their time with the human body to learn it's anatomy and find the life force so as to manipulate and inject the sweet life force back into the corpse so it may reanimate and become an absolute servant to his master, to serve and execute any will and wish his master may desire. Throughout the ages necromancy has been practiced in different ways and all of them serve one purpose. The reanimation of the dead.​
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Disclaimer! (whilst this is a guide for conjuration, I will not assert any heavy exclamations and use it to defame the guild as this would be impractical.)​
The insignificant slandering and blatant statements made by the mage's guilds regard to necromancy is that of fear and idiocy. One cannot begin to imagine where such idiocy came from. It was devoured by dumb fools in blue robes who sit up high on their subtle little soap boxes admiring their type of fanatical "order" of ghoul servant pupils who are poor novice fools who are about to be completely brain shagged. Preaching soap operas of preconceived assumptions and ambiguous ideologies about the teachings of necromancy to have the concepts of cruelty and malice and things that they conjured up sniffing moonsuger. The reason for this is because these old fools in the upper ranks of mainstream Arcane have lived sheltered little lives and anything that aims to otherwise change their tradition of their petty little organization and protocol' oh' Talos help them.​
For this the mages today have a very limited grasp of the Arcane, and this limited scope restricts them in their ability to comprehend other magic that exist in the darkest spectrum of the glorious yet diverse wonders of the Arcane. Then on their little quaint outings and pathetic attempt at abolishing necromancy for good, they come across artifacts and tools crafted by the necromancers. They crowd over these items like a herd of pesky sheep in awe with the sight of them. Then they take it back to their little secluded locations they refer to as "guilds" and attempt to study these things like it was some mechanical Alyied apparatus falling down from the sky landing in a remote settlement of primitive orcs who crowd over it like it was a gift from Talos. I bet these fools actually worship these artifacts and may of written a religious doctrine in their name.​
Due to the lack of knowledge and understanding, and quite ironically so, the Arch-Mage Traven had necromancy banned before the Oblivion crisis. And even as far as to have anyone who even sniffed a dead corpse excommunicated from the guild. This childish act was so incredible, I couldn't even contain myself. What a childish figure who has climbed the ranks in the Arcane and been credited with having done wonderful things for the guild, to have been so naive and myopic. Only a fool would bury his head in the books filled with their crap pontificated by such a mere fool! Their curriculum is presented in a light pussy footed manner, avoiding anything with the sight of one drop of blood, as it may tear out their soft delicate nerves and reduce them petrified in anguish. As for this, this history lesson as now come to an abrupt end. I am not one to be a tool that drives the continuity of their ridiculous ideologies and preconceived pipe dreams.​
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A question for readers: Who will read this guide?​
Anyone that wants to role play as a conjurer and/or necromancer.​
Introductory
Build Configuration 1.
The Spells 2.
Apparel 3.
Enchanting 4.
Combat 5.
Defense 6.
Build Break Down 7.
The Fundamentals:​
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Conjuration is a school of magic and is associated with the Mage class. Essentially there are three "main" types of conjuration spells.​
The first is standard conjuration, this is the conjuration of creatures. The other is weapon conjuration, this is the conjuration of bound weapons. And the later is reanimation. Reanimating is the necromancer's primary spell. This spell will breath fresh life into the dead corpse and reanimates it body to fight for you as a thrall.​
The potency and strength of these spells are measured by skill levels. These are listed as such​
Novice
Apprentice
Adept
Expert
Master
Each rank has certain spells available to them. These are listed in the following order.​
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Build Configuration:
The build for your character needs to be chosen wisely and I will discuss with you two practical options for this build. These builds are not limited for necromancy and it is important to note that any such build can be used. Essentially I will discuss two optional builds to choose from in that the you can make the choice based upon your own taste.​
The Dunmer
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In crafting a build for a necromancer, the Dunmer (i.e. Dark Elf) are one of the ideal races.​
The Dunmer have the following bonuses​
They also start with spells consisting of: Flames, Sparks, Healing. In starting with this race you going to benefit from being equipped with destruction and restorative magic.

Perks that you must focus on are emphasized on conjuration and destruction. In leveling these you need to do what necromancer does in their time, practice.

The Breton
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The Bretons are a mix between Imperial and elf and in having elven ancestry they posses unique abilities. Their skill bonuses consist of the following:

Starting as a Breton you will ready have a conjuration spell available for use which are of the following.

What also makes the Breton remarkable is that he can absorb destructive spells inflicted on him. He can only absorb a slight percentage of 50%. And he has a natural resistance to magic of 25%.

Conclusion?

Both the Dunmer and the Breton have unique abilities and they just depend on what you want to achive.

For the Breton we focus on conjuration in early beginnings. So if you want to focus on conjuring creatures while parring and assault, the Breton will be the best option for you.

If you more orientated towards the use of destruction magic or have a natural feel for it then the Dunmer is a good option.

Summery is basically a choice between conjuration and destruction class spells.

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In getting started, one needs to be blessed by the mages stone. Being blessed by the mages stone speeds the magicka skill level 20%. Every time you cast a spell you increase increment amounts of advancement and soon you will level up in that type of spell class. Spell classes include, alteration, illusion, conjuration, enchanting, restoration, destruction.​
On the completion of the quest "Unbound" you can talk to Ralof or Hadvar. They will then lead you to it southwest of Riverwood.​
Once you have have activated the mages stone, it's time to get initiated into the mages guild at the College of Winterhold. Reason why, is this college acts as a base in which to acquirer gear, buy spells from the other mages and it increases your magic skills quicker . Though this college is more nicer than the one in Oblivion, the mages in Winterhold care for necromancy any less. To them they'd rather indulge in excavating dwemer sites and finding lost artifacts. But to use them as tool in the first stages as starting as a necromancer plays a pivotal role in giving you the advantage to progress in your magic skills quickly.​
When you attempt to enter the the College their stern attitude and lack of hospitality is present. Whilst the people of Winterhold hate them, claiming that they were the ones that destroyed their town with their hocus pocus nefarious magic tricks, the college has taken precautions in preventing any trespassers. The first quest you will need to complete is First Lessons, given by the gatekeeper.​
If you still questioning why you should join the mages college, here's a list of benefits. The initiation in the college is not mandatory, but rather a head start.​
Benefits:​
Master-level trainers in Illusion, Destruction and Alteration.​
Expert-level trainers in Enchanting, Conjuration and Restoration.​
Access to alchemy supplies, as well as an alchemy lab and an arcane enchanter.​
Access to shopkeepers that sell various spell tomes.​
Access to various skill books.​
Multiple potential followers.​
Storage area.​
A free bed to sleep in.​
One should note in the nature of being a freelancing necromancer, that if you get suspended from the college you are required a 250 gold fine to be reinstated. For this speak to Tolfdir.​
You should also know that the reward for completing the mages guild quests is to be granted the title of Arch-mage. The Arch-mage get's presented traditionally with the Arch-mages ropes which has the following effects, 15% reduction on all spells cast, +50 magicka and 100% extra magicka regeneration. So all in all, these are the rewards. But in keeping with that, during your time at the mages guild you will be given quests that will reward you with staffs, spells. and other things. Rather than go venturing out, these things will be attained sooner in the guild.​
Assuming you now in the guild and have became a student, and whilst that word serves no meaning in the sense they don't teach you dark arcane arts, lets take a look at the tools of this dark art.​
The spells:
At skill level 0 and at rank novice, the spell that you will be able to use will be the "Raise Zombie" spell. And unlike Oblivion, the reanimated thrall will collapse to an ash pile on it's second death, deeming it useless. This spell will also not work on any corpse that does not contain a head to serve as the vessel to contain it's corrupted consciousness. This spell is also not limited to human NPCs and can be used to resuscitate a creature. However, as far as dragons are concerned, we will look in to that a bit shortly.​
This spell can be obtained from merchants throughout Skyrim, as this land doesn't hold fearful mages that are spineless in venturing into other realms of new thinking, ideas, or anything that is beyond their heads, like the fools in Cyrodil.​
A valid source of these spell tomes (i.e. spell books) I shall list below.​
Calcelmo at Understone Keep​
Drevis Neloren​
Falion at Morthal​
Farengar Secret-Fire​
Madena​
Lucan Valerius at Riverwood​
Sybille Stentor​
Wuunferth the Unliving​
Wylandriah​
These are merchants and locations of their whereabouts. Normally as a freshly bright lit spark in Skyrim you going to be questioning how much this tome is and you beginning to wonder if you going to be able to buy a sweetroll after having read this. Well this book is about 49 gold.​
Once you have bought the tome select it as if you were going to read it in your inventory, once that as happened you will have learned the spell. Now it can be equipped in the magic menu. This how ever is useless at this moment, but at least now you have acquired the primary spell of necromancy.​
APPAREL:​
The one thing that makes the necromancer stand out from all the other lost fools is the notorious robe of death. These are black mages robe with the skull insignia, the denotation of necromancy. These are robes are essential to be a necromancer as this separates your logic of wisdom, from the logic of preconceived innocence. These robes have special effects that aid the necromancer and make him more powerful. The necromancers robes grants the mage with 75% faster regeneration of magicka a forify of magicka effect of 75 points. Let us take a look at the comparison to the ones worn at the college. The novice robes presented to you at the college on the first day only have 50% regeneration speed as the only effect. Pretty poor. Then we have the apprentice's robes with 75% regeneration speed. Not much if you calculate the time in acquiring one. This makes it meaningless when you can get a necromancers robe quickly out in the wild. Now those which I mentioned are student robes but I haven't mentioned the arch typical robe that mages wear that are refered to as "blue mage robes" which also have the same percentage as the apprentice robes. Some of the most powerful robes have a magicka regeneration of 100% these include the Arch-mages robes and adept robes. What separates the Arch-mages robes from the adept robes is 50% magicka points making the Arch-mages robes one of the most powerful. But the power benchmark is 150% in magicka generation, and these "named" robes are not as strong as robes that designed for a special and unique class of magic. As a necromancer we not perturbed by these other robes that fortify a particular spell and their colours normally don't match that of death. In order to fully appreciate the darkness one needs to quench all colour and feel the deepest darkness fall over you and blanket thy being. This helps a necromancer to be silent in his pristine silent dark solitude with himself and can meditate on projecting more powerful spells and destruction magic.​
So now we do this a s ritual, clarity of mind and thus better control on what we focusing on, be it destructive or restorative. This is not going to be enough as you live on in Skyrm, oh dear no. One needs to gain more apparel with added effects in order to increase the maximum.​
And for that, the art of enchanting needs to be focused on. So we are to first acquire un-enchanted apparel, and learn the the spells in order to enchant them. (refer to next chapter)​
The location and easiest way to get hold of the necromancers robe is to venture out to Hob's Fall Cave. Necromancers reside in this wintery lair, and have lots of gear in which take once you have slain them. The cave is located on the coast between Winterhold and Dawnstar, so a fast travel will do if you have scouted one of those towns.​
In visiting the towns near cave, you need to visit the merchants and buy an assortment of jewelry. This consists of a necklace, 2 rings. Boots that you will acquire from the necromancer's will also serve as extra apparel for enchanting. Wearing several enchanted apparel with effects is imperative in combat.​
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Enchanting:​
The necromancer is not a biased mage, and doesn't ignore other forms and spells of magic. Instead he hacks their craft and learns how to make them more powerful through trial and error. Any true mage of the Arcan knows this. The necromancers are not limited to fools of the guilds in their limited poor understanding of the knowledge they claim to profess in. Necromancers can't accept limitations and dogmatic elements in their world and will do whatever's necessary to seek the basis of the subject down to it's absolute core. This makes him more attuned and more pure as a practitioner in the Arcane.​
There are many types of enchanting spells, so before we take a look at them lets focus on what is essential for the necromancer.​
A . the necromancer is going to need a endless supply of magica to sustain the draining of energy when he is casting spells. And in combat if relied to heavily on the ward spell you going to suffer with this. Therefor he will want to use the "Fortify Magicka" enchantment. This enchantment increases the magicka the mage has and to a certain extent regenerates it faster. This enchantment can be made with alchemy and includes the ingredients, Briar Heart, Ectoplasm, Histcarp, Jazbay Grapes, Red Mountain Flower, Tundra Cotton, Void Salts.​
Magicka's natural regeneration speed is 3% and having having 100 magicka yields 3 magicka per second. So if you have effects and active enchantments of 100% magicka regeneration you will have doubled your magicka's regeneration speed by 6% so the best enchantment would the "Fortify Restoration & Magicka Regen". This enchantment can only be used on armour, and can be disenchanted by items you will come across in your guild quests.​
The next best enchantment to have mitigates magic inflicted on the necromancer. This enchantment is called "Resist Magic" this mitigates all forms of elemental and dragon breath attacks. This enchantment is capped at 85% and coupled together gives 97% of magic resistance.​
With these effects in mind one needs to obtain items with these effect or learn enchantment spells form the mages at Winterhold. Once you have that use the enchanter in the Arch-mages dormitories in the colledge, assuming you have progressed as Arch-mage​
Exploiting the Amulet of the Gargoyle: (Dawnguard)
Amulet of the Gargoyle can be obtained in the quest Amulets of Night Power", given by Feran Sadri in Castle Volkihar.​
If your enchantment skill is 100 you may add two extra enchatments on this amulet. Which makes a very strong unique piece of apparel. If you are using your character in Dawnguard, you use it become a vampire lord and acquire this amulet.​
Black Soul Gems:
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Black soul gems are the necromancer's soul batteries for enchanting. They are gems tainted by the revenant shade being baptized in the altar of death. The black soul gem is a grand soul gem at first. The shade of the revenant taints it the dread powers of necromancy to forcefully create a black implosion vortex in which to suck the soul out of an NPC. This esoteric threshold over the NPC isn't enough to fully force his soul and break it's axis in the body, the mage has to make his body cease in order for the soul to be forcefully removed. On it's exit the threshold on his soul cast by a soul trap spell will draw his soul into the gem still remaining conscious to be reassembled in potentizing weapons and apparel. These gems are used to incarcerate a NPC's soul and then used to enchant higher potency enchantments in apparel and weapons.​
The fundamentals of black soul gems compared to their earlier models of grand soul gems don't differ.​
The grand soul gem and the black soul gem each has the capacity of 3000. The black soul gem isn't limited to NPC souls and be used to captivate others, but this logic is incredibly wasteful.​
Locations of these gems I shall now list:​
The Black Star: (Quest Related)
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Azura's black star is the paradigm and dual counterpart of that of the original one. This is the necromancer's most prized possession in the enchanting arts of the Arcane.​
What makes and separates this star from the black soul gem and the original "Azura's star" is that it has a perpetual anomaly in sustaining the dark spiral vortex that draws in the souls with it's relentless force of dark gravity. This gravitational force is void and is fed by man's esoteric vibrations of evil that start to resonate forming the void.​
This star can recharged over and over and is not subject to depletion like any of the soul gem family. This star however can still only hold one soul at a time. The advances in such a mechanical feat by the Daedra were still limited in creating separate vortex channels to flow through one another in order contain two or more spiritual energies.​
During your voyage in the wintery environments of Skyrim, you will venture inside this Star to battle Malyn Varen. This does not however contradict the statement above in that two spiritual energies cannot be bound inside the maze. For a void to contain a soul it needs to have spiral channels that create a vortex in for the soul to be sucked in. On your entrance however, Azura exploits the second channel subject to the original star. Nelacar exploits this using a spell. This second channel has to exist in order for the mage to draw out and utilize the spirits energy. It acts as a one way valve. Azura keeps this connection live as to create a bridge that's made of ions projected by her "good" energy.​
To gain this tool you need to seek the Shrine of Azura south of Winterhold. Then speak to Aranea Lenith. She will tell you that Azura has chosen you as her champion. As you go through the quest, until you reach "Cleansing the Star" you must give it to Nelacar and follow his procedure.​
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COMBAT:
The shadow at night that reeks with the putrid essences of his last slaughter, the screams that imprint the blood stained tatters of his robes. The dark airy howls that resonate from the suffering, battle cry with screams of torture and mayhem, this what gives the necromancer his identity. So too does his style of combat and he is the center of it. The necromancer is surrounded by dead energy that sucks and leeches the life force from the enemy and as they enter the necromancers domain their bodies weaken to the dread powers of necromancy. The necromancer needs to preserve himself above all and is not gullible enough to a sudden charge in the heat of any battle. The necromancer commands the battle and manipulates it to his advantage is a confusing yet chaotic thing for the enemy. Whatever the enemy does he is compelled by the dark magic that infests his very soul. It spreads like a disease spreading decay. The necromancer is a one man king of death, his army, that of death itself. He conjures his creatures from the depths of Oblivion as servants. He casts Reanimate corpse spells on the deceased victims that were slain by his Daedric army of beasts. Once the the reanimated thrall has killed more targets he dies but the necromancer in his quest for fresher flesh exploits the corpse with the essence of soul and this freshly slain corpse repeats the process. Necromancers very seldom fight in hand to hand combat, therefor only carry a simple blade, be that of a sword, dagger and also a mace poisoned with toxic ingredients as to cripple his enemies. The real weapon he uses is the Arcane. At his disposal here and whatever flavour of destruction he opted for, his destructive powers consist of the following choices, fire, frost, and shock. I found fire to be the most effective in Skyrim. Frost here seems to be an element of temperature that doesn't effect the inhabitants has effectively has fire or shock. And in Dawnguard, you going to love fire more as Vampires will be present in the shadow you linger in. Once the necromancer has engaged full combat he is pitted to make decisive and sudden decisions. If he feels locked in, and over crowed he utilizes the invisibility spell and casts the shadow over himself leaving the enemy confused and vulnerable to attack.​
Now lets analyze the branches of magic and their combat qualities​
Destruction:
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Dual wielding destruction spells make them most powerful. On the time you have struck the spell at the selected target, the time it takes the spell to "recoil" is precious time lost. And in battle the more time you have in the motion of attack, the better chances of your survival. Same applies with melee combat. In the time you are attacking is the same time your opponent is defending. One should keep in mind that if you use dual wielding spells the cost of magicka is going to be significantly high. The difference?​
Single cast fireball - 42 magika
Dual cast fireball - 117 magika
Single cast chain lightning - 49 magika
Dual cast chain lightning - 137 magika
Single cast fire rune - 74 magika
Dual cast fire rune - 206 magika
Single cast conjure familiar - 44 magika
Dual cast conjure familiar - 122 magika
But with enough enchantments on with added magicka effects this doesn't count for much.​
In wielding these spells, theres a simple logic that follows.​
Single spell causes the least as apposed to the dual setup, there you are assaulting your enemy with less power and therefor offering him more time in which to craft an assault of his own. The less time the enemy takes to die, the better. Bottom line.​
Conjuration:
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By now after reading above, you have come to understand that conjuration is essentially what necromancy is in Skyrim, Oblivion and so on. It's the spell that manifests creatures or it draws a lost soul and gets incarcerated back into it's biological mechanism. This spell is what makes an army from nothing. And in my opinion this serves as the most crucial spell of all.​
In using this spell, the tactics adopted with the necromantic forces of death consist of elements of surprise. When the enemy has been sited, he is engaged with the bodies and creatures coming from out of the abyss, appearing from nowhere amongst in and around the enemy. This surprise form assault tactic demoralizes the enemy with fear and panic. The necromancer must then not waste this time as the enemy has the potential to recoil his assault. The necromancer must use this time in whatever means he can to bring down the enemy. To rain the destructive Arcane forces in forms of fire and blitz lightning in the enemy retarding their ability to think actively and critically and in this chaotic circumstance he will perish in the onslaught. This spell is to be used effectively in just about any tactic employed as it aids the necromancer with manifested options of attack.​
Illusion:
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The art of illusion is considerably overlooked and misunderstood, which is why I encourage the reader to use it in any combat scenario. The school of illusion focuses on utilizing the shadows and veils you from preying eyes. Such spells in the school are invisibly.​
The soul trap is used to cast a threshold on a soul that still in a live creature or NPC just before death and is only used right at the last of their breaths. One needs to then cast the soul trap spell on the enemy and the requirement is the correct empty soul gem to captivate the soul.​
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DEFENSE:
The necromancers first line of defense are the shadows. He exploits illusion itself and confuses the enemies around him. he dual wields spells of animation and destruction and if he gets inflicted to heavily he reverts to using wards. Wards are magical force fields that deflect and mitigate elemental and dragon breath magic on the mage. Dual wielding a destruction spell or reanimation spell depending on the situation in combat the necromancer normally uses a ward a long side that if he is getting heavily attacked. The true defense the necromancers have is the ability to create elude their opponents. Invisibility makes him unseen, and his banishing and paralyzing effects in the form of spells and enchantments cripples the enemies chances in gaining the upper hand. The necromancer also exploits geography and wedges himself safe in vicinities impossible or otherwise harder for the enemy to get at him. With the necromancer in this position he is ultimately a mobile fortress that can unleash the rain of darkness upon his foes with destruction magic and raising of the dead and the evocation of the dead. The enemy then will be suppressed and he will not have enough skill level in which to sustain and mitigate the necromantic assault. He will either flee or use up all his potions and soon will perish to the onslaught. Obstruction and illusion are elements that if you as a necromancer can use and manipulate, you will have gained the skills necessary in conquering any battle. The necromancer also burdens the enemy with poison arrows if he is a good marksman and normally long ranged attacks with poisons retards the enemies ability in which to retaliate with assault, acting as a type of mitigation attack scheme. This is adopted in front line tactics. First cripple and weaken the opponent, then allow your undead thralls to finish him off, aiding them with destruction magic.​
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Build Breakdown:
Race: Dark Elf or Imperial.​
Class: Mage​
Spells: Everything​
Perks: Conjuration, Destruction(fire, frost, shock),​
Weapons: Everything​
 
Holy **** this is a long guide. It's a really good read though, and is very informative.
 

The_Madgod

LordLlamahat
I like this. I like this a lot. I like you for making something I like. That is an honor. Place it on a plaque and go ride an ice cream cone.
 

Streets

The Gentleman Owl
I will try to be kind, constructive criticism. You spent a lot of time and effort on it, and it's a good guide. But the whole thing is overly wordy and confusing. The message may get lost in all the extra words you have there. Try adding more double spaces to help break up the text.

I think you should add something in about how you can use any race despite skill starting bonuses. You see those two races as good options, but they certainly aren't the only options. I can use an Orc necromancer and will eventually become just as strong as the Dark Elf or Breton (less the innate abilities of the races).

You mention using the Mage Stone to level up, but you never revisit the stones throughout the guide. What is the ideal end stone? I like the Lord and love the Atronach, and you should probably say something about the Ritual, since this is a necromancer build.

You can add to the benefits of the College leveling enchanting, you have so many merchants there who all sell soul gems, making it easy to purchase a bunch of Petty gems you would fill yourself, or have pre-filled. You should also mention the Atronach Forge, a way to get Daedric Armor without touching any Smithing.

The apparel section needs to be broken up a bit, and is kind of confusing to follow in general. You should mention eventually the Master Conjuration robes, something you can wear on your head, and if you will ever wear any armor (Daedric Atronach Forge).

If you want to do Alchemy you should have a separate alchemy section instead of mentioning it inside the Enchanting section.

I think the best enchantment is actually just the reduced casting cost of magic school, rather than the one with cost reduction and magic regeneration. The shared enchantment makes a lower casting cost enchantment, and only gives fixed 10% extra regeneration, making it not worth it. You really need to mention Azura's Black Star, I mean come on, a rechargeable black soul gem is a necromancer's wet dream.

In your "Resist Magic" part in Enchanting, you say 85% combined to 97%, but you don't mention the elemental resistances. I guess it's simple enough to be inferred, but for the sake of being thorough, I would say 85% magic resist plus 85% elemental resist (fire/frost/shock) gives you 97%.

The soul gem location text is too dark, hard to read.

The Destruction casting cost amounts are different for everyone based on skill level and any enchantments or perks. You should mention the skill level, perks, and enchantments, if any, you used to find those values, and do the same with some Conjuration spells. You should mention that single casting is more magicka efficient per point of damage.

The Conjuration and Illusion combat sections don't have anything useful in them. You wrote Soul Trap in the Illusion section, but that's a Conjuration spell. The sections should have the Conjuration spells (unless you plan to add them all in at the "Spells" section) and Illusion spells, what they do, what are your end spells to aim for, you don't mention Dead Thrall, the point every Necromancer works towards. What kind of Illusion? You can Calm, Fury, Fear your opponent, or you can Invisibility and Muffle yourself. You should mention dual casting Illusion spells multiplies the enemy level they affect by 2.2, making it very important for Illusion. Example: Novice Calm hits level 9, and dual cast increases that to level 19, a big jump. Dual casting for Conjuration isn't as important, since it doesn't change the level opponent you can hit, it just doubles the duration, but you should still mention it.

It looks like the Build Breakdown still needs work, but spells "everything" and weapons "everything" doesn't seem realistic. Maybe you should say the necromancy line of Conjuration, fire Destruction, other spells as you see fit? Maybe Alteration for defensive armor skills or magic resistance, Illusion for Quiet Casting or Master of the Mind, and you mention ward spells, but never mention Restoration. You might be better off getting the Spellbreaker Shield, or just sidestepping.

If you are using a weapon skill, it should probably be one-handed, so you can use it in conjunction with a spell. Two-handed weapon users / spell casters are clunky, and you don't need Archery if you're investing in Destruction. One-handed pairs well with what you were saying about Invisibility in Illusion. You can sneak dagger kill your first enemy, then have something to raise just as the battle starts. You should probably add a few more perks, like maybe use the perk calculator and plan out a skeleton build or a sample build for us.

All in all, it is really long. It looks great, I didn't mean to be so harsh in the critique. Take your time and stick with it, it is well on it's way to being a great guide. :)
 

Anthrax

Revenant of Shadows
All in all, it is really long. It looks great, I didn't mean to be so harsh in the critique. Take your time and stick with it, it is well on it's way to being a great guide. :)



See, that's why Merlin had a pet owl!


Such a great guide that is matched by such a great critique.

On day 4 in reading it, I had noticed that I misplaced that illusion stuff. I will address it closely.

Thanks a lot mate.
 

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