Finally bought Skyrim. Can someone tell me what magic is usable, if not good? I'd rather not plink away for hours with shitty spells when I could be doing real damage with something else. It seems that this game will be based on cross-classing more than anything. Any neat builds you guys have ran across? Anyways, naptime. I look forward to reading your responses. For now I slumber, having fought the crowds during Black Friday from 5AM onward as an employee, not a customer
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I am sure you've seen my ranting on Destruction magic. I was one of the first few to vocalize my great disdain with it, when many did not see the problem yet because they either did not use that school, or they were still very low level. Now it's the number one complaint across all forums. So stay the fuck away from using it unless you want to be completely dissatisfied. Mods "help" circumvent some of the problem, but without the creation kit, most are just making simple hexidecimal tweaks.
For your first playthrough I suggest Expert difficulty, other than that it does not matter too much what you want to do, but here are a few things:
-If you use Smithing, just use Smithing by itself and do not powerlevel it to 90. It ruins the game quickly.
-If you use Enchanting, do not couple it with Smithing, or the game is trivialized on any difficulty.
-The only way to "function" with Destruction is by stacking -%cost enchants to the point in which your spells cost nothing. This still does not improve your damage, only longevity...which is meaningless.
-%manaregen enchants do nothing in combat, use -%cost or simply stack more mana. Health/mana/stamina combat regen is faster the more of that stat you have. Think Diablo 2.
-Conjuration is the most powerful magic school. Dremora Lords can tank mammoths/dragons and clear most dungeons alone. Perked, you can have two.
-Bound weapons are equal to Skyforge unperked, with perks, Ebony. You cannot upgrade or enchant bound weapons, but they are still good enough until level 40 or so.
-Restoration perks are mostly useless. It's also faster/more efficient to simply drink a potion over using a healing spell since they are not fast enough and you usually have to "run away and hide" just to heal with a spell.
-Dual wielding does the most damage via power attacks, but the range is laughable. You also do the same auto attack damage as just sword and shield. Alternating attack buttons is pointless as it only slows your attack speed down. Just mash a single attack for the auto attacks, or tap both for a swipe with both weapons (not a power attack).
-Two-Handed weapons have a slightly better range and are easier to land power attacks with as well as avoiding being hit by some enemies. Less damage than dual wielding later on, but easier to use overall.
-Sword and Shield is not really needed on the lower difficulties, but on Expert and Master, ends up being extremely powerful. You can incapacitate with a block skill and then quickly switch to dual wielding while they cannot attack.
-Archery is much improved, but you'll struggle for the first 15 levels without using a companion or pets. It becomes gdlk once you have at least 25% time dilation, the 50% stagger, 30% crit and faster draw.
-Shadow Warrior is stupidly powerful, especially when combined with Archery. Do not use unless you want zero challenge at all. You basically end up with an invisible sniper that can never be detected.
-Illusion is the second most powerful school with the Frenzy/Pacify lines. They stop having any effect on many enemies however after level 50.
As for races, it doesn't really matter too much, but if you want to min/max there are really only three choices:
Breton for the natural resists
High Elf for the five levels worth of mana and the nice "emergency" mana regen
Orc for killing bosses/dragons. If you are not exploiting the crafting skills, you really cannot top Orcs for damage output (Even if you are, it just makes them doubly effective). This allows you some funky builds that are high risk/high reward such as an all stamina, no health character since the once a day power also cuts damage taken significantly.
The Aela the Huntress popularity is very vigorous on every forum.
