Pure Mage in Skyrim and other play-styles

[Dandark]

Pure mage is my favorite playstyle. It can be difficult at first but once you get good robes and level up your Conjuration and Destruction enough to half the cost then it's great. I would recommend getting the "Become Ethereal" shout so that when an enemy get's close to you or you need time to recover you can use that. Alway's fun to have a Orc with a greathammer charge towards you, finally reach you swing his axe and then have it go through you as you laugh.

 

[him over there]

I played a pure mage who dual wielded fire destruction. I also maxed out enchanting so I had pretty much a huge amount of mana all the time because of the 75% regen.

 

[Voulan]

I usually play as a Breton with a one-handed sword and a destructive spell in the other hand (switching often to a healing spell so I can take the hits I can't block). It actually works out very well, though you do have to sacrifice leveling up health and instead focus entirely on Magicka. Once you master Enchanting though and get the two enchantments perk, you can enchant a full armour set (chest, ring, necklace and head) and cast a particular school of magic with no magicka cost. That's when the real fun begins.

 

[Doclector]

I tried to play a battlemage, or spellsword, whatever you want to call it. That was in Oblivion.

It did not work.

What went wrong? That worked fine for me, it was my main playthrough. Was it just not to your taste?

I've started so many skyrim playthroughs that I've lost count. The first one I started, I tried everything except what sucked in oblivion. It kinda ended up a mess, what with me not knowing what I was doing with the new perks and all, a jack of nearly-all trades, master of jack-all.

Recently, I tried that again in an attempt to finally find a class I would stick with for a decent amount of time. Even gave it my own, real name, to cement the fact that this is the "true" playthrough. It ended up going real well, imperial, light armour, slightly sneaky, specialised in archery (talk about going from useless to godly), fairly good with an axe and sheld, good at magic schools of conjuration and restoration, and handy with alchemy, mostly to go with archery in the use of poisons, that and I love to tinker/make my own stuff in RPGs. Only real trouble I've had is wondering why my armourer skill is going so slowly. Probably the recent updates so that you can't just make iron/leather armours all the time and level up easily from it.

Some of my other playthroughs;

Spoiler

"Jack Hyde" Khajitt sneaky theif/assassin. Primarily my "evil" playthrough, as well as being sneaky. I have a tendency to use a bow or a single blades sword on it, not using a sheild.

"Remus" High elf pure mage, I rather like using magic, so this was obligatory. That, and the robes look cool.

"Strider" Nord "ranger". Kinda like my pure playthrough, only less sneaky and more specialised towards close range and alchemy.

"Urdnot" Orc...orc. Basically a playthrough for whenever I don't feel like thinking much. Just endless "WAAAAAGH"-ing into battle with a mace and sheild, or a greatsword. The other two handed weapons always felt a tad too slow for my tastes, and this is the only playthough on which I used two-handed weapons.

"Wake" Breton battlemage. Awsomely OP. Heavy armour with magic skill enchantments, sword skills, good in all magic schools, specifically destruction.

There were probably others that never really got off the ground. All of my classes use restoration, and due to my tendency never to sell raw alchemy ingedients, a naturally high alchemy skill, although there are some playthroughs on which I didn't take any perks on that tree.

 

[mParadox]

I played through first with a battlemage. Same with the second.

But for third and fourth playthroughs, I decided to go full on assassin archer. Wood Elf, since they are the best archers plus due to that fact, they get a ten point boost in Archery and a 5 point boost in Sneak.

It's so satisfying to shoot from the shadows and kill everyone without the other guy finding out before I kill him off with an arrow to the knee. @_@

 

[spartandude]

Ive essentially got a Leman Russ (Primarch of the Space Wolves) build


heavy armour with two handed sword and great use of the voice, and doesnt allow others to get in his way

 

[Nouw]

Battle Mage, can't go wrong. With the Daedric Mace in one hand, and whatever spell I want in the other.

 

[kingthrall]

I found pure magic to be the worst choice out of the 3 (combat/stealth/magic).
The spells are just totally useless. Try playing anything harder than normal it becomes a freaking chore waiting for your magika to boost up to take out the enormous health some enemies have.

I went a pure illusionist and it was aright but I found avoiding enemies as an illisionist was easier than actually killing enemies. using invisibility I stole everything and waltzed into dungeons looting and evading everything.

Alteration is awesome though, ignore that other guy about it being average. That convert to iron to silver gold spell is extremely handy and so is the stoneflesh spells.

Restoration is the most useless spells to upgrade, just keep using the heal spell and use potions that you find for the harder battles. Why waste perks when you can eventually just buy a tonne of potions from all the ore you can easily purchase, convert to gold ingots and smelt into jewellery.

 

[White Lightning]

I tried going pure destruction mage but I didn't like it. The Master spells are useless and the Expert ones aren't all that strong, so I just went into enchanting, stealth, and archery and just sneak attacked everything.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Well I have a straight warrior.

An Orc called Uzulg gro-Grunthor.

Two-handed, one-handed, archery, block, heavy armour, blacksmithing. Pretty much a pure tanking machine who can adapt to any melee situation and pick off any stragglers with a bow.

What about magic user?

Spell Breaker shield

Also, he's a werewolf

My other character is a sneaky/mage hybrid.

A Dunmer called Amaya.

Archery, one-handed, pickpocket, smithing, light armour, illusion, destruction, alchemy.

Can make enemies calm, run away in fear, or attack each other. Deal some serious elemental damage with her destruction spells, and that's just if she's spotted.

Sneak attack with a bow, duel daggers, bitches!

Also, she's a vampire.

 

[subtlefuge]

The one thing that everyone should learn in Skyrim:

Enchanting can make any playstyle viable, and often overpowered. I just wish fortify shouting would be an enchantment. I'd love to do a shouting unarmed combo where I disarm people and then force them to brawl to the death.

As for me, I got my fortify conjuration up to roughly 75% before I stopped caring, I only have 130 or so base magicka and I can cast 2-3 thralls before running out. Conjuration/Shield is pretty fun, and it gives plenty of versatility with what to do with your other hand.

 

[SeeIn2D]

Well I started with the typical broken assassin character that at this point can one shot anything in the game on Master difficulty. My second character was a destro-mage but it was also broken by the time I was done. Full daedric armor with 25% less magicka cost for destruction spells on 4 pieces of armor so I can cast infinite destruction spells so that's not a pure mage (although I do have a pure mage armor set that I switch to sometimes). And finally I'm starting a third character that I'm really liking so far, it's got archery, restoration, and one handed. I have restoration in the left hand and a one handed weapon in the right and I'm really liking that character so far.

 

[Muspelheim]

I played a Khajiit assassin (oh, Di Fiesco, you charming scoundrel) all through Oblivion, and planned to do it again in Skyrim. But I'm one of the few people who really liked the new magic system in Skyrim and went with that instead.

So, my main is a Khajiit Warlock-thing, with heavy armour, with a sword in one hand and some spells in the other and a few demons in tow. It was great fun! And I've always been a bit of a professional tomb-raider in all Elder Scrolls-titles, which worked well with the theme. What half-mad demonologist wouldn't be turning old graves inside-out for magic items and to destroy the competition?

And he did become a werewolf, pretty much by accident. As if he needed more fur, although he certainly won't be feeling cold up in the mountains, at least.

I don't know how viable or how balanced and efficient my build is, and to be honest, I don't really care. It works, and I can vaporize people with one hand and slice their noggings off with the other. It's... All I ever wanted...

I should brush off the Creation Kit and give old Khan a proper evil mage laboratory, though...