Actually, come to think of it, aside from the TKCOMBAT mod, the bloodskall blade is the only thing that comes close tot he definition of a spellsword (although bloodskaal blade is a 2 hander).

Yeah, as much as possible, i use mods that affect the evirontment and difficulty of the NPCs, though I rarely use gameplay revamp mods... TK COMBAT though, I might make an exception.

I have to third this as well. It's a well done build, but even trying to nail down definitive criteria can be problematic, as people will disagree with those (for example, I don't agree with several of the criteria listed here).

I fear some mistaking sellsword for spellsword..

Hi Guys, 

When i started this thread, my intention was to eradicate most doubts on the concerns and confusions, as well as provide my take on this. So, I would highly suggest concerns are highlighted on specifics and we can move forward from there.

In light of this, I am going to be replying to all of PSI's concerns and hopefully try to solve them. The answers will most probably contain the maturity that would have been expected of the questions.

Also, as an initial reaseach, i have included that breakdown from the 2 most commonly confused builds. I would suggest we take this discussion further and type away your concerns so we can brainstorm on this to reach an understanding.

Thanks.

Ok, thanks for the advice ben. I will keep that in mind for my next builds :)

Hi Psi, 

I had mentioned in an earlier response that I would attempt to try to settle most of the concerns that you have, though I have rather been short of time of late. I'll pick up from where i left off with this one.

First off, thanks for letting me know the already well known meaning of IMHO.... sigh.

Now, let's touch on the first 2 concerns:

Magic first, then melee. + Heavy Armor does not equal Tank

If you have played any build on legendary, chances are you will realize that without much of a healing spell or potions, you will probably be dead in 2 hits, maybe 3. 

Granted that most of the spells in morrowind were not available in Oblivion and this was further reduced in vanilla skyrim (to go along with your argument of "why should i need to play DB content if i choose not to or i don't have it yet), the conjuration tree offers the most dependable of tanks to fit the oblivion playstyle below, which adheres and holds some truth to it's morrowind fashion as well:

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Battlemage

"Conjuration allows them to summon powerful allies to cause even more damage to opponents, and to serve as protection in combat. Lacking armor or shield skills, a Battlemage will need to use summoned creatures to divert enemy attention away from themselves." 

Really, there's a wikia on this... i would suggest go reading it up. Of course, the argument can be made that heavy armored mages are also battlemages, which is right, but then again, what makes it different from a spellsword? At what point does that line gets crossed?

In my opinion, that line gets crossed when the players starts tanking damage and relies less on summons, resulting in an increased dependency on the restoration school to stay alive whilst taking damage. Once that happens, the shift from Magicka to Magicka Regen happen, and that's largely a spellsword playstyle ( I would advise looking up the stats for the classes in oblivion, Willpower vs Intelligence)

Therefore, relying on your atronach to tank as an opener in itself, the restoration school or health potions are of the initial use only (to recover health loss), whilst it would make sense only to hide behind the atronach and let it gain aggro.

Once that happen, going magic first would be the next most logical form of attack, hence my statement, Magic First, Melee second.  

I am assuming that after all this explanation, I would not have to explain why you're not a tank even if you wear heavy armor... I'm giving you that much credit that you should be able to comprehend the natural reasoning of it, but if you cannot conceive such an understanding, do let me know... will try to break it down as simple as possible for you. 

With the understanding above, points in heavy armor might be wasted, though gaining new armor through smithing increases the base AR and the type of armor you gain, and it was a suggestion (not a must):

"This means no points in heavy armour perks, though you can smith I suppose, to improve the base AR and gain new armor"

And this brings me to the subject of.....

Melee Weapons & the misconception of how to play

So, for this one, i have never mention any weapon restrictions. For this particular build, I chose to use Swords and took the appropiate perks. If you wanna use maces or axes carry on. No where in the initial portions did i mention that you must only use swords and nothing else.

Now as for the misconception of how to play, I only pointed out the necessary core logic of the battlemage in both morrowind and oblivion, taking those qualities that have been constant.

Am i telling you how to play? Heck No! Am i telling you my understanding of how bethesda sees this class and what specifics have been maintained over the series? Of course! Anyone with half a brain can see this and it surprises me that you didn't.

In your post, you keep mentioning that you don't wanna spam magic first then melee. Hey, it's your game, play it the way you want. I just went that extra step, given the reason above, to summarize that playing magic first then melee would help keep in character if you going to RP a battlemage.

If a sabercat pounces on you, there are so many way to go about dealing with it... summon frost atronach + become ethereal shout or Close wounds + Frost Atronach or even pause game to down a quick health potion and summon a frost atronach, running out of melee range to allow the atronach to gain aggro.

Like i said in the opening of this post... the battlemage playstyle has a lot more finesse than just tanking damage, healing and using conjuration summons to only help dps. Heck, this build can be further expanded on for end game, possibly having 2 conjuration summons and have one as tanking the other as DPS while the player can concentrate on the kill.

Feel free to reply with any questions... I will reply to your other rant/post when i get sometime later this week.

Thanks.

Well, since Warlock is addressing concerns, may as well post my own:

Magic First, Melee Second: If you left it at that, I would have agreed with you. The primary difference between a Battlemage and a Spellsword, in my mind, is that a Battlemage focuses primarily on magic while a Spellsword splits between magic and melee more evenly. However, you go on to say that melee offense should be solely used for when you have no magicka left for spells. This I disagree with. One of the Battlemage's greatest strengths is flexibility to choose between several schools of magic and a weapon of their choice. Forcing yourself to limit your melee weapon usage to when you have no other means of attack, even when melee might be a more practical option than magic, hinders your strategic options.

If you wear heavy armour, you are not a tank: Honestly, considering that Battlemages got Medium Armor has a major skill in Morrowind, the notion of not being able to perk heavy armor even if they choose to wear it seems pretty absurd to me. Futhermore, considering that Battlemages get Alteration and Restoration in addition to a potential armor skill, it seems to be that a Battlemage who focuses more on those skills could be a potential tank. Hell, all it takes is one spell and suddenly you only take 20% damage from incoming physical attacks.

Conjuration is a must!: This seems mostly like a corollary to the above point, since, without stealth, you need something to take hits. Again, like I said above, it depends on how you develop your Battlemage. You could focus on Conjuration, like yours. Or you could focus on Destruction and stagger enemies via Impact to stave off hits. Or like I said earlier, you could focus on Alteration and Restoration for a more defensively-minded Battlemage. The point is, there is a good deal of flexibility in how to make a Battlemage without compromising what a Battlemage is.

Poisons and potions are essential!: This has a pretty solid justification. After all, Alchemy was a major skill for Battlemages in Oblivion and a minor one in Morrowind. However, in both of those games, Alchemy was a magic skill. Now that it's a stealth skill, I don't think it has any place in the Battlemage skillset, as a Battlemage is strictly a Mage/Warrior hybrid. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying any build that involves making potions and poisons is not a Battlemage, however, I object to having it being part of the criteria for a Battlemage.

Melee and Magical Weapons: I actually agree with this point. It only seems natural that a build that mixes magic and melee would want to enchant apparel.

Don't mistake my criticism as being hateful; I actually gave your build a like a couple of days ago. I just feel that you'd be better off leaving out the part about the criteria for a Battlemage. I made a Battlemage template for my Classes of the Elder Scrolls topic, and honestly, that's as far as I'd dare go.

Hi Albino, 

Thanks for providing me the feedback. This thought has actually been playing on my mind since Psi's first post.

As rude as we was, his input did have some merit, though not as much as i had expected. Still i can see that there are various definitions of the battlemage being done and too many variations on what is the de facto way of playing this class.

Therefore, taking your's and Psi's feedback, I will either do one of 2 things:

• Remove the criteria, retaining it's core gameplay and mechanics for peeps to have fun.

• Constrict the criteria to being "build" only, allowing others to have their own variation of this build, whilst retaining core mechanics and gameplay.

As of now, I am heavily leaning towards option 2, since that is how I have done my toon. I believe it should put any general sentiment of dissatisfaction to rest. What do you think mate?

Option 2 seems to be a good choice. There's nothing wrong with presenting your idea of a Battlemage. It's just that when you try to make the criteria for your Battlemage the definitive Battlemage criteria that things become problematic.

Yeh, i thought that was a typo until he repeated it enough along with the Spellsword in the pick to clear that up.  I like the concept, and even the confusion a little bit.  Then again, I think in puns.