Spellsword - Skill and attribute advice

Typically when I play an Elder Scrolls game, I play the ever powerful stealthy archer type as various races. It's all fairly easy and simple, so as you can imagine, it's become quite boring.

I created an Altmer spellsword of sorts, who I'd like to keep his heavy armor, his sworr and various spells to keep him going. Nearly level 19 now, had some struggles at the start, but things are starting to become easier. I have perks in heavy armor, restoration,
destruction, alteration, illusion, one-handed and conjuration.

As it stands, I've invested 10 points into health, with the rest into magicka. Considering adding points into stamina, but unsure how much. I'm playing on adept, and only having real difficulty when I'm being ganged up on by conjurers.

Any tips, advice for a newbie magicka/melee user?

:)

 

My V.A.T.S Critical Build

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He listed his attributes and his skills are largely unimportant... 100 Guns, 100 Sneak, 100 whatever else he may want.

 

Attribute bug?

For some reason I'm getting +2 to my attributes this level but I know that is bull *** as I have leveled up 10 skill points in endurance skills and strength, and agility.

Anyone know why?

 

My spellsword is level 41 now and I remember having to start adding points to stamina at about 20 or 30 to be effective with 1H. Once you get 1H up you can just get in the face of casters. When you get a good sword and a few more perks in it 1H is incredibly
strong. Make sure you have enough magika to use high level conjuration/destruction spells and get a good follower and your set.

 

I'm curious, what do you use your alteration on? I ask because I was playing my Altmer mage last night and she's wearing legendary vampire and I put alteration and destruction enchantments on the armor. I can't figure out what I was thinking. I have capped
armor even without a matched set or all light (there is no head armor in vampire) and I never remember to use any of the mage armor spells though I think I must have thought I would since I made some extend use alteration potions. It seemed a waste of an enchantment
slot so I'm going to enchant another set with conjuration and destruction so I can throw the storm atronach into battle.

 

Mostly for survivability until I start leveling up my smithing and enchanting. Been holding off on those, as I don't want to level too quickly and mess myself up. Later on for paralyze and magic resistance. Looking to start eventually playing on Master
or Legendary if I'm feeling especially suicidal.

 

I'm not sure how I did it but, I always end up as a Spellsword/Stealthy archer. I'm thinking if you want your Mage skills to go further than your one-handed you need to use them more often earlier and choose the Mage Stone to boost your advancement. I wouldn't
suggest waiting to up your smithing skill as it has saved my butt more often than not. Presently I just passed level 81 and my Mage skills are the lowest of any except for Heavy stuff. I never use Heavy anything and those are the least of my worries. There
is an object you can get that allows for 2 Stones to be used. I have it but chose not to use it as it has no armor rating and I use Dragon priest masks all the time. My Conjuring is finally making headway as it just went to 55. I don't think any of my magic
skills are over 70 except for the one that has "Detect Life". I use that one the most along with Aura Whisper. I just got tired of that guard telling me my shouting was disturbing the peace.

Not sure what it is your looking to do but I just play as I go and suffer the consequences.

LadyB is your best bet for magic use. If she were a companion I use her all the time and never worry at all about magic. She's more powerful than Valdimar.

 

Well said AT, If you are looking to magic something or someone to death, remain unseen, or impervious to attack - LadyB is your girl.

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I managed to get pretty decent at Destruction, while mainly intending one handed and archery for physical combat with my first character, now level 73. Like most others early learning experiments, I fell @ss backwards into it and just landed on my feet through
dumb luck for the most part. I don't cook dragons to death like LadyB or others here, but they definitely take damage, then I either rush in and hack them to death, or use them as a pincushion for Auriel's Bow. That turns the lights out pretty quickly.

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As Angelus said a good follower will also save your butt... Illia from Darklight Tower comes to mind, she is a beast with destruction magic, only LadyB would supplant her as my traveling companion when there is danger afoot.

 

Thanks, guys, you are so sweet. Magic is great but you have to use it exclusively early. And you need good sneak. If you can throw a fireball and then blend into the scenery while the bad things look for you then you will stay alive longer. I am still not
happy with my conjuration mage though. It takes too long to conjure a bow or a helper and the atronachs get weak against everything too fast. I think I just prefer flinging magic at them since that works close or at a distance.

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CH, i would think with the heavy armor you would need stamina pretty fast. Once I got the hang of what I was doing, my lst two characters just spent their first 20 levels working on getting strong. I prefer to put all my levels into health and get my magic
as cheap as possible until it is free. You may find you have spread your perks around too much. I know I did at first. Of course, until you've played through a couple of times you don't really know that. I suck at swinging a sword so my non-mage is a stealthy
archer though she slings a mean fireball, too.

 

I'm still on my first play through and think I raged at first and lowered my difficulty from the default adept so I didn't have many issues just playing a pure spell slinger for the 1st 20 levels or so. If your trying to build a mage from scratch on Adept
I suspect sneak would be required a lot as Lady B said.

 

Honestly, I didn't even think to try sneak, as I'm in heavy armor with a sword, throwing glowy death at baddies. At level 20, leveling it up from.

I've leveled to 21, my "big leveling" skills seem to include one handed, alteration, restoration,, illusion and heavy armor... unsure how that whole system works really. Not really looking to make the perfect character, but I'm also not trying to create
something utterly useless later on in the game.

 

Out of curiosity, what skills do you guys consider absolutely essential?

 

Also, use magic exclusively at the early levels... could you elaborate? Why its necessary, what it benefits and what to avoid doing?

 

[quote user="The Clodhopper"]

Out of curiosity, what skills do you guys consider absolutely essential?

[/quote]

Everything that isn't speech is worth trying out, assuming it fits your playstyle.

 

Some magic is fairly easy to level but I, personally, have never been able to use illusion effectively and forget to use alteration spells. I just prefer to save my magic for offense and so don't use restoration. As I said, for me, conjuration isn't really
working, though, for my level 47 mage, I may add it in for atronachs since I can give myself enchantments to make it free. The magic that is hard to raise fast is Destruction. Early, especially, it is just so much faster and better to use a bow or a sword
against everything and so destruction doesn't get better. You need it to be free and you need every bit of boost allowed. I will tell you frankly, my destruction mage is very strong but it takes forever to fry a dragon or a hoard of Foresworn when a stealthy
bow could do it in a blink of the eye. Once you have free spells and the necessary 9 perks it doesn't get stronger though my son told me of a trick using illusion.

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Once you have the two fire perks to make fire as strong as it can get without a booster potion then get the fear perk in illusion they work together. Fire causes fear which is magnified by the illusion perk. I haven't tried it since it takes 6 perks in illusion
to get there and I haven't decided if I can spare anything from other trees. I do carry destruction boost potions for times I'm being overwhelmed by vampires so I can thin them a little faster though I save them for necessity.