Skyrim – a short guide for upping your mage skills

I’m an avid gamer. I am not (!), however, a social gamer. I don’t like to spent my time in an online world with various fourteen-year-olds bothering me with PVP requests every single time I walk by. I tried social gaming with World of Warcraft and, basically, this grew old very fast (even if I was on an RPG server).

But I do like exploring, on my own, no mumbo-jumbo of people bothering apart from the occasional NPC with some ‘urgent business’.

So Skyrim was/is perfect for me. A gigantic sandbox game in which I get to explore every nook and cranny. It’s my second game in now and still I have felt no need to find a mod because I’m done with the main game (and it’s additions).

The second game
Where, in the first game, I pretty much followed the main storyline I had saved the world at level 50. After that I only had some silly side-quests left that, somehow, felt a bit sub-par for me ‘the great dragon killer’.

Now in my second game I decided to postpone the main quests as long as I could. And, most of all, not pick a side between the Empire and the Northerners.

In my first game I found it rather silly of me that I joined the Empire (even though they tried to behead me –but they were nice to Elves) and after killing Ulfric decided to kill the Emperor as well in the Dark Brotherhood storyline. This game makes a lot more sense if you don’t pick sides.

This being my second game I knew most of the tricks of the trade by now and decided to level my character to a clean level 100. Which, unfortunately means that you have to level your mage skills as well.

It never felt ‘right’ to me that I somehow became the Arch mage of the magic college with only the most mediocre capabilities as a mage.

I’m  a double sword, light armour, man - woman (now, in my second game) all the way. What do I need magic spells for? Besides, those spells are a nightmare to level. Swords and armour increase whenever you pick a fight. Speech increases when you sell lots of stuff. But magic just annoys the heck out of me because, whenever, I got the enemy good and ready my magica pool is ‘zero’.

So, as a nice little post on this blog I wish to highlight my way of dealing with levelling those pesky mage skills.

First things first
For starters: higher levels are best.
Just play the game ‘til you reach level 65 or something. By that time you’ve completed most of the quests, seen most of the dungeons and are pretty strong to accept some health-damage.

Preparations: Smiting
I’m a big sucker for smiting. What you need for smiting is a shoot-load of gold. I’m not the kind of guy that wishes to spend a lot of time taking my pickaxe to some ore-vein if I can just as simply sell some Northern armour to a blacksmith and get an equal amount of ore in return.
The more raw material you have the easier smiting becomes.

Plus it would certainly help if you finished the Stones of Barenzia quest.

It’s not that difficult a quest. And by level 65 you probably visited most of the places it requires anyway.

Just remember that making jewellery is the easiest way to level the smiting branch.

Preparations: Enchantment
Enchantment is the second step after the smiting branch (if you made enough jewellery). Just collect every soul stone and every single magical item you can find (in your journey to level 65) and then just make a heck of a lot of magical items. Easy peasy.

Once you’ve got those two skills completed (including, of course, filling in the ‘dots’) you can get started.

Now you can make rings, necklaces, armour and circlets that ‘cut’ 25% of your magica usage for a certain branch. So, let’s say you enchant these four items to cut 25% of your destruction magic. 4 times 25 is a full 100 – meaning: you’ll be casting spells for free!
If you do this you can make several items that will make you free to cast spells. So now we can learn some spells:

Spell learning

If you have a follower get them to wait a while off. Especially (I found) Serena has a tendency to wander in front of you when you are casting destruction spells. She doesn’t like that.

Alteration
Just wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch. Go to Whiterun –a crowded city- and hide behind a building (so nobody will interrupt you-especially kids). Use the spell: ‘Detect life’.

Now all that’s left is the press the button and keep it pressed. Tape it down and take a stroll, a shower, whatever. By the time you return you are a full 100 level Alteration wizard.

And alternative way is to use the Black Book ‘Secret of Arcana’ blessing.

This blessing allows, once a day, for somebody to cast as spell (for 30 seconds). As long as you don’t release the mouse-button this blessing allows you to take much longer.

Illusion
Wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch. Then go to a secluded place (again, so nobody will interrupt you). Place the spell ‘Muffle’ in both hands (L and R). Then cast the spell left, right, left, right…and so on. Time it right and you’ll level like the wind.

Conjuration
Wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch. Find a dead body (in a secluded place).

I happened to have a (lucky) glitch of a dead body of some fanatic lying in a corner of Whiterun that simply wouldn’t go away.

Any dead body will do (animal, human). Then arming both ‘left’ and ‘right’ with the spell: ‘Soultrap’ and go crazy on it. Left, right, left, right...time it right and you will be fine.

Restoration
Again, wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch.
For restoration it’s best if you are a bit higher level. Find a dungeon with some Draugs (Dead man’s respite worked for me –the first room) and cast ‘Repel dead’ on those beings. Again: left, right, left, right...et cetera. The timing here is a bit more difficult but not impossible.
The main point here is to trap the Draugs into a corner and just keep blasting this spell at them.

The reason I advise you to become higher level is because the AI sometimes directs one of the Draugs (if you have multiple victims) to walk off behind you. Of course, those will attack you once the spell wears off.

Destruction
Much like the sword-levels Destruction-spells rely on enemies. But, as I said, I don’t like using spells in combat. So how to tackle that?
The main trick is this: get Shadowmere form the Dark Brotherhood quest-line.
Once you’ve got this undying horse you can blast each and every destruction spell at it to your heart’s content (I advice ‘Ignite’ and ‘Fireball’).
Just remember to wear items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch; obviously by now.

A slight cheat to end with
If, like me, you don’t like to be an assassin. There is some handy cheating on the PC for this quest-line.
You could always skip the quests in code. But, to my (deranged) mind that actually felt like cheating.
Instead I cleared my conscience by fulfilling the quests of killing somebody and then, after I got the ‘ok’ from the main quest-thingy, pressing ‘¬’, click on the body and type: ‘resurrect’. Suddenly the victim is alive and well again and has no hard feelings.

Then, at the end of the dark brotherhood quest-line I pressed ‘¬’ typed ‘ModPCMiscStat “murder -16” and gone were all the murders I committed.

I know it is somewhat cheating, but, then again, the game rather forced me to become and assassin in the first place. Just like I can’t get rid of that silly Boethiah quest simply because I picked up a book.

So there you have it! My tricks of the trade to level your mage-skills in Skyrim. Now for those pesky ‘Block’, ‘Double Handed’ and ‘ Heavy Armour’ levels...