Wait, there's Keening in Skyrim? Dang, gotta look out for it.
Keening is just a collector's item in Skyrim, imho. It's horrible.
Just a little word of advice, magic in Skyrim is kind of weak. I don't think Bethesda balanced magic yet, but most spells end up taking too much magicka and doing too little damage, or just taking up too much magicka in general, which is one of the reasons why I never use magic, even though I have plenty of spells to cast. Thieves are awesome though, which is why my Argonian character was based on a hybrid thief character.
Dude, no way. I haven't had a single problem with casting magic spells and wrecking and I'm level 51 right now. This is including before I got my dual enchants, which tbh completely break magic (but not even close to the extent that everything else is broken). The trick is to have a nice balance between +Magicka and Fortify enchants to increase your pool, knowing when to dual cast, and knowing when to swap your spells.
For the most part, Fire spells are your bread and butter--it seems 75% of all the mobs with a magic weakness are weak to fire. Good tactics include micro, alongside Impact Firebolt if you've got the opening, but also swapping to Fireball if you have to worry about dodging 3+ Draugr Death Overlord and you can't afford the miss. Later on, when you get Incinerate, you can often one-shot mid-level mobs and severely cripple the stronger ones with a dual-cast. Mine costs 34 Magicka right now, so it's not really too big of a deal to spam (running off a pool of 600); Fireball is free.
Also, a trick to know is that dual casting is Magicka inefficient (poor Magicka per damage ratio), so the best thing to do is Impact stun the foe and then cast two normal casts ASAP. It's easy to do this by just staggering your mouse clicks by a half second. You can also try to barrage a foe by wielding two spells in either hand and pressing your mouse as soon as you release one missile. I can fire a spell about every 0.66 seconds, which is more than enough to kill an Ancient Dragon before it takes off (take that, Dragonrend).
Plus, Become Ethereal + Fire Storm makes for some really amusing effects.
This is NOT to say that magic is actually better than weapons though. All weapons, save bare hand, in Skyrim are a bit ridiculous at the end of the game (my 1H weapon does 26+41fire+41ice damage a swing and I'm a mage; I've seen bows get to 300+ damage a shot without glitches, about a trillion per shot with glitches). Magic stays at constant damage--which might be seen as a downfall, but actually makes the game more fun to play when you need to put more work into killing stronger monsters).
You have to worry about a lot of things playing as a mage:
- Location of enemies and what weapons they're using. I can tank a sword-and-shield user quite well, but high-end dual-wielders pose a huge problem. 2H users swing slowly, so Impact trolls them. You're extremely squishy so you need to worry about this more than any other class.
- What spell to use when--Fireball will harm your minions / followers, but offers better AoE; Firebolt is virtually free, but doesn't hit hard; Incinerate costs a fortune at lower levels--what element I should use (Ice spells versus melee, Storm versus mage; consider missile speeds--Storm is near instant while Ice is painstakingly slow)
- Order of kill--while Archers are extremely susceptible to magic attacks, they might be too far or too well guarded to take out. Magic does well to either pick off weaker enemies or focus on the stronger ones and beat the weaker ones out of collateral damage.
- Micro versus casting--learning to aim while moving, especially versus multiple enemies who can potentially one- or two-shot you.
- Not letting your Magicka pool run out--minding the approximate amount for you to cast your strongest healing spell and not letting your Magicka fall below that amount.
- Ironflesh, Ironflesh, Ironflesh.
- Hotkeys, hotkeys, hotkeys--make it so much easier to swap spells.
- If you're more skilled than I am, using Ward spells to block spells and arrows last minute (though, I find a good offense is better than a good defense).
- Shouts--since you're so squishy, you probably rely on shouts more than other classes. Become Ethereal, Whirlwind Sprint, Unrelenting Force, and Slow Time are all fantastic additions to a mage's arsenal.
tl;dr -- Magic is really fun to play. It's actually the most balanced of all the playstyles, since you can't scale the damage up like weapons (Bows are completely overpowered). However, it takes a high level of adaptability, attention, and speed to play well. As you progress through levels, the game gets harder--like it's meant to be.
Yeah I won't be using much magic, maybe just some illusion and restoration when I need it. I will be mostly thief/assasin. Good to see someone else is using Argonian, dosen't seem to be many people that like them or use them.
Restoration's pretty much moot later on if you haven't the Magicka pool. You'll probably be able to pull off one good heal before you're spent. Sometimes that's all that's needed, but you'll probably be chugging potions a lot too.
I've never run Illusion personally, but it seems like it requires a lot of dedication to make it effective and the spells become progressively more and more useless as you go on. Not sure how it'd play in to an Assassin playstyle. The Master-level is great, though.
- - - - -
Anyway, I'm nearing the end of my Skyrim playtime and I'm considering playing another character just for the carnage. I'm considering the following; tell me what you think:
- Unarmed fighter with just Shouts, Wards + Mage Armor, a pair of Ragged Trousers, Heavy Armor Gauntlets (Fists of Steel perk) and jewelry. No other spells or armor permitted.
- Heavy armor hammer wielder plus Storm magic--hello Thor.
- Archer that only uses Bound Bow trololo.
