So I maxed out all the skills today. I am level 81 with the progress meter roughly 50% complete towards 82. I then went to finally talk to the Greybeards, who taught me the second word for Unrelenting Force.

So people were asking how in the beginning, I got raped by a dragon underwater.

Is that... a giant slaughterfish?

halp

it broke

Shoulda done it with gauntlets on a hand to hand character.

FINN'S LUTE

WHY YOU NO LEAVE INVENTORY

(but the quest reward was awesome)

The main quests were pretty short. Also, I think I currently have a level 46 or 47 Imperial.

Just started, level 8 High Elf. Just going destruction and restoration for now, dunno if I should go for some other magic school. Ideas?

Alteration can be very useful if you're only going to use robes and stuff without any armour.

I started that way as well. Here's a few quick notes:

• Don't pour every level into Magicka (you can eventually have equipment that makes you cast spells for free).
  
• Work on Enchantment. This won't really be useful until you max it out and include perks on it, but it's wonderful once you do. (Again, you can enchant equipment to remove magicka cost on two schools of magic, once it is maxed and has the two enchantments on one item perk).
  
• If you're not planning on using Alteration magic for protection, invest in enchanted light armor rather than robes (you can start with robes, though, because they're pretty useful).
  
• The best light armor set in the game is Dragonscale armor. You need the smithing perks along the light armor side to craft this yourself.
  
• Destruction's most useful spells are: Fireball (fast-traveling AoE damage missile), Ice Storm (slow-traveling AoE damage missile), Fire Bolt (cost-effective missile). Once you get zero-spell-cost, the Expert level abilities are superior to these.
  
• Restoration's most useful spells are: Close Wounds (cost-effective healing), Heal Other (if you have a companion). Once you can afford it (or have zero-spell-cost), switch to Grand Healing, which heals everyone near you a whole bunch.
  
• Destruction's most useless spells are: All the "walls" (cost-ineffective and waste of time, even with zero-spell-cost)
  
• Restoration's most useless spells are: All wards (unless you're good with them)
  
• Alteration has Paralyze and spells to increase armor rating. Telekinesis is rather useless (but it can be fun if you have zero-cost), and I've never used the Detect spells practically.
  
• Conjuration is a very nice school. If you're interested, go the Atronach route; my favorite summons are Dremora Lords for melee and Storm Atronachs for range. If you want to level Conjuration fast, cast Soul Trap on a corpse over and over.
  
• Illusion has Invisibility and spells to calm opponents, which are both very useful to have on-hand. If you're going this route, get the perk for the dual-cast combination, as it makes your cheaper spells work against most targets. If you want to level Illusion fast, cast Courage on a target over and over.

For the zero-spell-cost:

• Max out Enchanting and get the Enchanter perk (5/5), Insightful Enchanter, and Extra Effect
  
• Enchant a helm, ring, necklace, and armor to have 25% reduction on the two schools of magic you're interested in
  
• Equip all the items

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 24 2011, 10:20 pm by Roy.

Illusion is tremendously useful; makes your followers less wimpy, can calm opponents (and even let you pickpocket them with no risk of aggro if you get detected). Very useful if you want to avoid fights; has good synergy with Sneak). Can be leveled very quickly by casting buffs at friendly targets; even when you are just walking around town, throw Courage/Rally out at your follower once your mana recharges. Pretty soon you'll hit level 100,

Alteration is easily leveled by holding something up in the air with telekinesis or using detect life in a crowded city.

Destruction takes a lot longer, but if you use combat magic regularly on high-leveled opponents, the levels shoot up pretty fast at the start.

Conjuration, similarly, takes forever to level unless you do that soul trap exploit. Best way to level it "legitimately" is just to sneak around with a Bound Bow; levels Archery, Sneak, and Conjuration at the same time.

Increasing Restoration is actually very difficult if you aren't prone to getting yourself injured, so I used trainers to level up restoration. Using wards in battle as an alternative to holding a shield up can get you levels quickly while neutralizing magic damage.

This. A thousand times this. I did that and now I get one-hit by all the Draugrs (thankfully I have enough sneak to kill everything undetected). If you need extra magicka to handle spells, use fortify magicka equipment and just get extra health.

As for armor, don't bother saving the dragon bones and dragon scales; sell them for extra cash. Dragonscale and Dragonplate armor look very bad, and once you start training heavy armor, the perks will make Heavy Armor weigh nothing anyway, making Daedric a far superior choice than Dragonscale/Dragonplate.

It's true. Dragonscale armor is so ugly. I still use it though because it's the best light armor. ;\

Heavy armor perks give Heavy Armor all the benefits of light armor later on, and more; I suppose it's to reward people who stuck with the extra weight, speed reduction, and noise of heavy armor at the beginning of the game.

Some other extremely useful skills:

• Speech - Makes prices at stores not as ludicrous. This increases in level via trading with merchants, or via a trainer. It is far more economical to use trainers to level your speech as early on as possible, than to suffer horrible shop prices for a long time while speech increases at a snail's pace. The most important perk is "Merchant"; makes life much easier.
  
• Smithing - Very easily leveled by buying iron and making iron daggers. This will probably be the first skill you max out; get up to the Daedric smithing perk.
  
• Pickpocket - Awesome source of income early on, and has very entertaining end-game perks. You cannot sell stolen goods to normal merchants; you need fences, which are acquired by joining the Thieves guild in Riften. Note that items manufactured from stolen goods are not stolen; so if you make an Amethyst ring from stolen amethysts, you can sell it to any normal merchant. This is much easier to do once you get Transmute to convert iron to silver and gold.
  

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 25 2011, 5:04 pm by Aristocrat.

Well, I'm an archer, so I'd rather light armor (like you said, the beginning of the game isn't best for sneakers/archers with hard armor). Not to mention, my heavy armor skill is like level 17. Now that I think about it, my light armor is only like 72. I just never get hit anymore.

Oh, get a follower as early on as possible. The extra carrying weight they have is super useful. Lydia will be the first one available to most players; use her well.

Leave them to wait at the beginning of caves/dungeons if you plan on being sneaky, though; most followers suck at sneaking and will get you detected fast, Leeroy-Jenkins style.

So out of all you have said it basically means I should stick to enchanting to make my spells cost nothing. I guess it is the perks I should worry about then, since I would rather not waste them. Thanks.

Essential perks:

Destruction: Novice Destruction -> Destruction Dual Casting -> Impact (Very useful for killing powerful enemies one-on-one early on in the game).
Speech: Haggling (only need one level; with 100 speech and one fortify barter gear, prices can be maxed without haggling perks) -> Allure (to unlock merchant) -> Merchant
Pickpocket: Light Fingers -> Night Thief -> Extra Pockets
Conjuration: Novice Conjuration -> Mystic Binding (This instantly gives you the most powerful bow and arrows in the entire game, the Bound Bow. The spell tome is purchasable at some court mages late-game, or you can find a copy in Fort Amol. Beware that Bound Bow requires 206 Magicka to cast without any perks or cost reduction apparel.)
Archery: Again, you don't actually need any perks in Archery, but maxing out the perk tree gives you one hell of an overpowered bow.

End-game perks of interest:
Enchanting: Extra Effect
Conjuration: Twin Souls

You don't actually ever need any perks in lockpicking; I can pick master locks at low levels with zero perks whatsoever.

While it may be tempting to delay the main quest to do all the side questlines first, the Main Quest gives you access to some very awesome places and shouts easily (Whirlwind Sprint, Dragonrend, access to Blackreach which will solve your soul gem problems forever with its geode veins).

Speaking of mining, it's faster to wield a pickaxe and just swing at the rock as quickly as you can rather than using the "Mine" option.

_________________________

Something I noticed, being a high elf who went the magic route: Destruction magic becomes heavily outclassed by everything else late-game; you cannot increase the damage of spells, while high smithing and fortify smithing potions/enchantments will give you ludicrous melee damage and archery perks give your bound bow ludicrous ranged damage. The end-game destruction spells not only take forever to cast, but also do horrible damage compared to endgame bows/weapons.

Not really any point putting points in Speech. I usually end up with way more gold than I can spend without it.

I haven't gotten much far but from what I have seen I could agree with Zycorax. Getting gold is easy in this game, I already have a fully upgraded house even though I'm at a low level.

Gold is no issue; I'm not even trying to get rich and I'm at 350,000 gold just by collecting/making potions, scrolls, and dragon bones/scales.

But yeah, as Aristocrat was saying, the Destruction perk Impact is probably the most useful perk in all the schools of magic, especially early on.