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Chodee

Chodee

Member
Hello again, peeps!

Seeing as the last new character thread went so well(for me at least) I figured I would post another!

This time I am looking at making a mage build.
Just looking for some tips on making mage builds, I think I want a pure destruction build, but let me know what you think!

So what hints, tips, or tricks have you guys got for me? Or what has worked for you?
 
Twiffle

Twiffle

Well-Known Member
IMHO, as soon as you get to zero usage magika on destro it becomes a pointless build, see my sig for a build 'Rhossin' ....
 
Chodee

Chodee

Member
What do you think of a 1H+destro kind of build?
 
S

Skoomatrix

Member
Don't suggest going pure destruction unless you go the enchanting route and make destruction spells cost nothing or at least significantly less. That said 100 percent free destruction spells got boring fast for me. If you do go that route then don't take impact, that perk is overpowered to begin with and with no cost to it it's ridiculous. Pure destruction and nothing else (except armor from alteration or heavy/light) can probably be done on Adept maybe Expert but on Master you will just be frustrated, your spells will do no damage...and you'll quit.

Destruction works better with the other schools of magic as a support school, the main (read:best) magic schools are Conjuration, Alteration, and Illusion. From what I understand Illusion drops off as you go into the higher levels however and that school also costs a lot of perk points to stay effective. Conjuration is simply OP, two dremora lords or high level thralls to do your bidding, enough said. Alteration school is nice with a nice perk selection, from that tree you can get 30% magic resistance and at 100 30 percent spell absorption.

To sum it up, the strongest mage build would include illusion and or alteration, destruction and definitely conjuration. If I went Illusion, I would make enemies kill each other first, then summon my two dremoras, then stun lock the mofos while my dremoras deal the real damage. If alteration I would simply mass paralysis my foes and again summon my buddies to kick em while they're down. Since they are paralyzed I wouldn't bother with dual casting impact so I would save magicka by just casting with both hands my destruction spell of choice. I hope you get the idea, the possibilities are endless! .. but with destruction only, your choices are more limited.
 
Twiffle

Twiffle

Well-Known Member
as soon as magicka becomes zero on destro in my opinion destro is useless because it becomes boring,, this is only an opinion,, so again even with 1h, all you will do is spam destro from afar because you dont run out of magicka
 
Chodee

Chodee

Member
Twiffle said:
as soon as magicka becomes zero on destro in my opinion destro is useless because it becomes boring,, this is only an opinion,, so again even with 1h, all you will do is spam destro from afar because you dont run out of magicka
Click to expand...
Ah ok, I understand what you're saying now.
 
Chodee

Chodee

Member
Skoomatrix said:
Don't suggest going pure destruction unless you go the enchanting route and make destruction spells cost nothing or at least significantly less. That said 100 percent free destruction spells got boring fast for me. If you do go that route then don't take impact, that perk is overpowered to begin with and with no cost to it it's ridiculous. Pure destruction and nothing else (except armor from alteration or heavy/light) can probably be done on Adept maybe Expert but on Master you will just be frustrated, your spells will do no damage...and you'll quit.

Destruction works better with the other schools of magic as a support school, the main (read:best) magic schools are Conjuration, Alteration, and Illusion. From what I understand Illusion drops off as you go into the higher levels however and that school also costs a lot of perk points to stay effective. Conjuration is simply OP, two dremora lords or high level thralls to do your bidding, enough said. Alteration school is nice with a nice perk selection, from that tree you can get 30% magic resistance and at 100 30 percent spell absorption.

To sum it up, the strongest mage build would include illusion and or alteration, destruction and definitely conjuration. If I went Illusion, I would make enemies kill each other first, then summon my two dremoras, then stun lock the mofos while my dremoras deal the real damage. If alteration I would simply mass paralysis my foes and again summon my buddies to kick em while they're down. Since they are paralyzed I wouldn't bother with dual casting impact so I would save magicka by just casting with both hands my destruction spell of choice. I hope you get the idea, the possibilities are endless! .. but with destruction only, your choices are more limited.
Click to expand...

I may just try these suggestions, thanks. :)
 
S

Skoomatrix

Member
Chodee said:
What do you think of a 1H+destro kind of build?
Click to expand...
It's fun and surprisingly effective, I've done it. Like with pure destruction however, it works even better with all the schools of magic. I kept bound sword in my right hand and destruction spell in the left, I had the perk that made bound weapons stronger so I did a lot of damage even though I had to sacrifice perk points over a diverse amount of trees with this route (I did alteration one handed conjuration restoration too a bit, that will cost a lot of perks). You'll also need to carefully spread your health magicka and stamina distribution if you go spellsword. A little stam and mostly health and some magicka worked for me.
 
Twiffle

Twiffle

Well-Known Member
there is one build i would like to suggest if your interested, i have recently started one and currently at lvl 31, i only use staffs and 1h and a follower, great fun and the perks from the destro tree apply to staffs as well, such as augmented and the zero magicka from enchanting works also,(and i have tested it 100%)
 
Stigweard Ruadhan

Stigweard Ruadhan

Jeg er stolt. Jeg er sterk.
I've never really used alchemy or magicka.

I've always been a hands on "crack it over the skull with a blunt object" kind of guy.

I've always been tempted to build a swift assassin archer or an ancient wizard of tremendous wisdom.

That's the future plans...
 
Twiffle

Twiffle

Well-Known Member
heres a video of a staff 1h build, , , ,

 
Streets

Streets

The Gentleman Owl
I agree with almost everything you said, and you do have great advice there. I just want to point out a few things:

Skoomatrix said:
Pure destruction and nothing else (except armor from alteration or heavy/light) can probably be done on Adept maybe Expert but on Master you will just be frustrated, your spells will do no damage...and you'll quit.
Click to expand...

You can create a literally pure Destruction build, as in do not level up any skill ever, except Destruction. Put all of your level-ups into Magicka, only wear robes, only use Destruction. This will cap you out around level 16 or so depending on which race you start with. It is very easy on master to play this way, because your overall level stays so low and enemies level with you, aside from select things like Dragon Priests which are constantly level 50. The game stays interesting if you don't take Impact, like Skoomatrix said, and because you only have 100 health. It's still overpowered on Master, because the end-game Destruction damage scaling problem never happens.

Skoomatrix said:
From what I understand Illusion drops off as you go into the higher levels however and that school also costs a lot of perk points to stay effective.
Click to expand...

Illusion can be used throughout the game and easily hit every enemy in the game. Let's take Novice Illusion, Hypnotic Gaze, and Illusion Dual Casting. 3 perks invested. Using the basic Apprentice Calm spell which hits level 9 opponents, plus Hypnotic Gaze adding 8 levels, for level 17 opponents. But wait, when dual cast, the spells power skyrockets to hit opponents up to level 37! For some information, Frost Trolls are level 22, and Bandit Chiefs are level 28. You can have this much Illusion power from character level 4 if you have enough Magicka to cast it.

Your only problem with Illusion is that Master of the Mind is a level 90 perk, so you can't hit Undead until then. If you want to hit the most powerful Draugr, a Death Overlord, it's level 45. That means your basic Calm spell from level 4 won't work. What happens if you use Pacify, the Expert level spell? It starts at 20, Hypnotic Gaze gives it 8 more levels, and dual casting the spell brings you to hit opponents of level 61. Dragon Priests are only level 50.

With only 3 perks invested, you can hit level 61 opponents with Pacify, everything in the game is within that level range. With 3 extra perks (up the center to Master of the Mind), you can hit Undead, Automatons, and Daedra.
 
S

Skoomatrix

Member
Streets said:
I agree with almost everything you said, and you do have great advice there. I just want to point out a few things:



You can create a literally pure Destruction build, as in do not level up any skill ever, except Destruction. Put all of your level-ups into Magicka, only wear robes, only use Destruction. This will cap you out around level 16 or so depending on which race you start with. It is very easy on master to play this way, because your overall level stays so low and enemies level with you, aside from select things like Dragon Priests which are constantly level 50. The game stays interesting if you don't take Impact, like Skoomatrix said, and because you only have 100 health. It's still overpowered on Master, because the end-game Destruction damage scaling problem never happens.



Illusion can be used throughout the game and easily hit every enemy in the game. Let's take Novice Illusion, Hypnotic Gaze, and Illusion Dual Casting. 3 perks invested. Using the basic Apprentice Calm spell which hits level 9 opponents, plus Hypnotic Gaze adding 8 levels, for level 17 opponents. But wait, when dual cast, the spells power skyrockets to hit opponents up to level 37! For some information, Frost Trolls are level 22, and Bandit Chiefs are level 28. You can have this much Illusion power from character level 4 if you have enough Magicka to cast it.

Your only problem with Illusion is that Master of the Mind is a level 90 perk, so you can't hit Undead until then. If you want to hit the most powerful Draugr, a Death Overlord, it's level 45. That means your basic Calm spell from level 4 won't work. What happens if you use Pacify, the Expert level spell? It starts at 20, Hypnotic Gaze gives it 8 more levels, and dual casting the spell brings you to hit opponents of level 61. Dragon Priests are only level 50.

With only 3 perks invested, you can hit level 61 opponents with Pacify, everything in the game is within that level range. With 3 extra perks (up the center to Master of the Mind), you can hit Undead, Automatons, and Daedra.
Click to expand...
The problem is that if you are wearing robes you need to level your alteration for armor especially on master and especially if you don't take impact. You WILL get hit. Leveling alteration will significantly raise your level making pure destruction harder and easier at the same time (but as we know destruction starts falling off in the later levels). This is probably still doable, but on master without a companion especially against tough opponents like vampires you'll need to be prepared with lots of potions and shouts. My pure archer medium level character going solo can pull off a lot on master but pure destruction characters will have a harder time I imagine since my archer still has trouble at times..and mages rely on magicka. My archer relies on Stamina very little..I think there is a little inequality there. Or maybe it's an unfair comparison. After all, power shot is not equal to impact, both have there advantages and disadvantages.

I like your analysis of Illusion, I never used it that much except for the master level spells (and invisibility but that's another story), that is some good info. I always got to 100 illusion casting muffle before I even had money to buy all the low level spells :D then I would just save up for the master spells lol.
 
Chodee

Chodee

Member
Lots of great information here, peeps!
Thanks a bunch!
 
Psiberzerker

Psiberzerker

Author
Pure destruction doesn't work very well. First of all, you don't have enough points early on for all the Perks once you hit those branches, so it helps to have a support skill to level you faster. Then, it caps pretty low, and has no Defensive value, so I'd throw in at least Alteration as well. Pretty much the inverse perk tree, it's a stick with branches, instead of a bush with fingers. So, while you're waiting for the next node to unlock, you can dump points into Augment (Element), then when you get to about 60 in destruction, invest in Magic Resistance, and Mage Armor... A shield caps it off pretty good for stunning once you get up to Wall of [Element] spells. (Doesn't count as armor.)
 
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