I just recently embraced the magic system of Skyrim wholeheartedly, and I'm finding that my reservations against it were totally biased unfairly! The ability to improvise answers to seemingly insurmountable odds, and the rewarding feeling that comes with it- only possible through magic!
I am currently running the squishiest character I've ever tried, and his purpose is technically that of a witch-hunter and crusader combined! Hes a pacifist to boot! (unless your undead or an evil mage.)
So I was fairly low level, and challenged Malyn Veran inside Azura's star. The only real handy perk I had is Quiet Casting (useless here). I'm trying to find out a way to survive the Dremora, while chasing down Malyn. Even when I dodge past the dremora I cannot best, Malyn is too strong for anything I have as well. Its complete chaos, and I'm out of my element. My only physical weapon, a silver sword enchanted with fear (uniformly useless in this situation as well).
I die twice, and I'm moments before a third death before it hits me. Why exert myself? Hit Malyn with frenzy and let his Dremora take care of him for me. I sit back and watch, then just trigger my Breton racial ability Dragonskin and hold down heal while Nelecar pulls me out of the Star and the Dremora close in.
I felt smart. I was exhilarated. I wanted to go outside and shout out into the night that I was no milk-drinker anymore. I took a break and contemplated the awesomeness of magery instead.
I have a few questions in relation to this anecdote: Is there still improvisation to be found among you veteran mage players? Would my solution have come to mind instantly for you? This far into the game and into magic mechanics, do you guys just know what spell to use against who?
I done that before. I've also tried to fight fire with fire (very unsuccessfully). One of my favorite shouts as a mage is Slow Time, I usually end up with two words (Two are quest locked, one isn't.) It makes aiming and getting off multiple spells a lot easier, and you react faster than your opponents.
I don't know why laying down calm spells wouldn't work either, then picking them off one by one to collect those lovely hearts. Or paralyze.
I'd really need to know skill levels, magicka, perks, and spells known to formulate a good strategy.
I've come to love that quest for the sheer occult atmosphere of it all, but the only character I've run that could stomp the place and collect hearts at leisure was the Clever Man lol. When you say you tried fighting fire with fire unsuccessfully, do you mean you had your own summons fight his while you engaged him directly?
Anyway, I plan on posting this guy as a build before long. Its been abit of a learning process- but I don't want to post specs or spoil too much more (I wasn't after strategies for this particular character or fight).
Do you still have fun making new strategies with pure mage, or mage-hybrid gameplay? Its still pretty new to me (extensive high level magic usage atleast). It seems like it has endless potential now that I'm really experimenting with it.
No. We lobbed fireballs and lightning bolts at each other.
I actually get bored eventually. Using only a few schools gets really tedious, so I end up going deep in all of them. Eventually, you'll have enough options that you'll sit back and wonder what sounds like more fun; blowing them up, watching as Daedra/Thralls clear the way, illusions, avoiding combat altogether and just slipping by, etc.
But after 50+ hours, I start romanticizing about branching out to some melee or archery. Just to try something new. Mage + Assassin is pretty fun. Sneaks, backstabs, and spells when your ass gets caught. Could deck yourself in some badass heavy armor and start punching them in the face with fireballs. Some sexy looking armor and a conjured bow is pretty cool (not worth it without archery perks).
I don't have much to contribute beyond my support for this thread and a note on your use of Dragonskin. Too often racial abilities in builds get forgotten and racial preference is determined through lore/theme. It's always good to remember those starting abilities your character has.
The Transient Sorcerer really proved Dragonskin's usefulness to me. For this particular instance, those Kynvals were shucking ice spikes at me, and I have nearly base health lol.
@ Tom, I think most characters slow down for me after a certain length of time regardless, and my save game files would agree its not too much longer than 50-60 hours lol. There are a few exceptions where I've played for nearly 200 hours on singular characters, and they are definitely hybrids (cough*The Prowler and The Clever Man*cough).
Actually, the Clever Man was my first exposure the Necromancy, and Conjuration in general. Using Command Daedra one day while storming a Forsworn camp (just to test out its novelty) completely blew me away. I've been more and more drawn to magicka since then. I remember now why I started working on this anti-mage concept so many months ago now lol.
I know this is just kind of a meandering forum post (written hastily in post-battle excitement), but I appreciate the feedback. Nerding out about Skyrim has got to be allowed here no!?
Definitely. Racial powers are hard for me to incorporate into builds because that 24 hour restriction on use makes them hard to rely on consistently. However, that cooldown is just enough that you should be able to save it for pretty much every boss fight. And most powers can totally change the tide in most boss fights.
I do wish they were a bit more balanced for engame play though; Ancestor's Wrath for instance is pretty much useless beyond level 10 or so, and Adrenaline Rush will eventually be matched or trumped by other endgame perks, apparel, and powers.
As for magical improvisation ... after a while, a lot of those sort of tricks become second nature. For me, my first mage was HARD. I was used to Oblivion's magic system, especially endgame custom spells. Adapting to Skyrim's preset spells was tough, and my first mage felt super squishy. I couldn't hang with the College Questline and ended up scrapping the character. That was my second ever build, probably around December 2011, before I knew about the blog or had any semblance of comprehensive knowledge of the game.
Now, I'm so familiar with the magic systems that I just pre-design my builds to be able to deal with basically any situation. So the new challenge becomes finding ways to inject some excitement into the gameplay!