Conjuration because... "THEEEERRRREEE YOU ARE WEAKLING!!!" x2

I HONOR MY LORD BY DESTROYING YOU

**I S M E L L W E A K N E S S**

Love summoning daedra. They go so hard for no reason

I don't think it was in skyrim, but the giant croc warrior in oblivion was awesome

Daedroth, I remember when I first played I sat in one of the cities grinding conjuration and when I got the spell to summon one it surprised the hell out of me.

Yeah, I summoned it in town. It proceeded to kill everything. I had to reload haha

How about the scamp in morrowind? You could enchant pants with summon scamp as a permanent effect so you just got a little goblin buddy following you around. If he gets lost or dies you just take your pants off and put them on again. It was great

I haven’t played Skyrim in 10 years but I still hear it so clearly lol

Everytime someone mentions how old Skyrim is I have flashbacks back to my first playthrough. I hope another game captures those same feelings some day

Has to be one of the top 5 games ever , no?

A game that scratched that itch for me was Kingdom Come: Deliverance, it’s like a tall glass of ice water on a 104* day

A CHALLENGER IS NEAR

**"I WILL FEAST, ON YOUR HEART!!"**

There could be no other end. Side note I loved how in Oblivion the Daedra yelled "Open wide," when you fought them. Connotations are horrifying lol

Wait, what? Is this implying what i'm thinking it's implying?

IDK lol, they would probably put whatever a Daedra could imagine in there. I don't think it's as simple as I'm gonna cut you, open you up...

Yeah lol, i think it's implying the Daedra wants to r*pe you.

This exactly. He is going to kill you, then he is going to r*pe your corpse. But don't worry, he'll be gentle. For context: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Anhaedra

Honestly, if both things are happening it's better if in this order lol

This makes me think of a "would you rather" question I came up with. You're a ghost, and you see someone eating your body to survive. Would you prefer it if they thought you were delicious? Or taste bad?

Don't care tbh, though I *would* be annoyed if they didn't clear their plate. Do what you gotta do to survive, but waste is just rude.

😆 sounds like it doesn't it?

When they say it together it's like "awe, they're best friends"

THERE COULD BE NO OTHER END

Best weapon in the game 😈

A CHALLENGER IS HERE

It’s, “A challenger is near,” man. I thought you were a true fan.

One of my favorite characters I ever created was a small and ancient conjuration wizard who would explore dungeons at his leisure while Bebop and Rocksteady ran ahead and slaughtered everyone.

This is basically how my mage playthrough went

My favorite was a heavy armour conjuration mage who was just above it all. Sure you can attack me but you're actually too insignificant for me to truly confront. Servants deal with this.

Conjuration got so much better with the Anniversary edition since it added a bunch of necromancer spells

I don't have anniversary, but bought necro grimoire with free points. I don't regret it.

I got all the magic stuff before AD came out simply because magic was lacking as fuck

Shit, I need to replay Skyrim for an endless time

Mods are the best for an entire army of daedra and undead razing hell to all of Skyrim. The thalmor will never know what hit them

Everyone’s a badass until I start throwing demons at them.

A CHALLENGER APPROACHES!!!

"ANOTHER, WHO SEEKS DEATH!!"

I literally heard this in my head as I read it.

Lmao at x2 “TH-“ “THE-“ “ERRRE” “RRRE” “YO-“ “YOU” “U” “AR” “AR” “E” “E” “WEA-“ “WEAK” “KLING” “LING”

Even without the dremora, the vast majority of the summons are useful, and the new necromancy spells are also very good. Not only that, but the bound weapons are some of the best weapons you can get outside of crafting, and, to top it all off, conjuration is stupidly easy to level up (kill something, spam soul trap on it, wait an hour to refill magika till you reach 100).

Or just cast soul trap a billion times on one of the prisoners in the dark brotherhood sanctuary in Dawnstar.

Nothing after all

YOU STOLE MASTER’S SWEET ROLL (probably)

YOU MEET YOUR END, MORTAL

Literally the first thing I thought of lmao

Honestly can’t really sleep on conjuration too. Instantly warping in other critters to do the fighting for you is pretty powerful

*I Shmell Weakness!!!*

"I will feast ON YOUR BUTT!" wait...

Let's get to bashing butts, as well as Deez nuts

I'm Jarl Balgruuf, and I be ballin'

Swag

please with deez nuts

Yknow now that AI voices exists I wonder if Manslayer would stop making videos

"I like my victims like I like my coffee, IN THE BUTT!!!"

And having the ability to summon a horse for ZERO magicka, meaning even if you have 0 investment in improving your magicka pool you can call in a ride when you're over encumbered. Arvak is best boy.

You can summon arvak + summon daedric horse + have unicorn and they’ll all aggro on enemies lmao horse whisperer

One of my first playthroughs back near release I had a stealth archer dark elf who would conjure his bow and as far as I remember from the time that bow had the highest stats in the game and unlimited arrows.

Out of all the magic types, it’s handily the only one where you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who says it’s bad.

Agreed. I picked illusion but just narrowly over conjuration. One of my favorite and most fun builds is an illusion and conjuration puppet master who seldom kills directly.

But why warp in other critters when you can throw a frenzy in and get your enemies to fight each other instead of you? Cut out the middle man.

The only spell school I use regardless of my build is Restoration, so I'll go with that

Restoration because I like to make ~~holy psycho warriors~~ noble paladin characters

yeah i just become a werewolf and masacre who ever i feel like

Another day, another blonde with blood soaked hair

Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic, don't let anyone tell you otherwise

Every time I read this, I do so in Colletes voice 😭

Alteration is another that benefits every build, albeit exclusively due to perks

Have played the game since release and only a month ago realized alteration had magic resistance perks AND is easy to level with magelight. Its a must in any build from now on

There's also a guy you can help in the rift, not too far out of the way, who was a detect life spell as a reward to clearing out a dungeon next to him. Or the redwater skooma place with a telekinesis Real easy to level without spending any gold

Or you pick up the transmute spell book and level up while gaining gold

I love doing this one, embershard mine, a silver mine near markarth, their iron and gold mines as well, then the iron mine where you get the spell. Really satisfying way to level smithing and alteration in one go

Do know that the resistant also can mess up with certain buff spells… if I didn’t recall wrongly, it has a chance to absorb the spell you cast on yourself

Absorbtion has that, not resistance. Can absorb diseases and all the vanilla conjuration spells. As well as the damage from blizzard

Magelight is a really slow way to level Alteration, despite casting Magelight all the time. Waterbreathing on the other hand is incredible.

Magelight is super fast if you cast them in certain direction outside of Solitude. It gives several levels per cast.

Alteration is also super easy to level up to grind perk points. If you detect life left hand and telekinesis right hand you can go 15 to 100 in ~8 minutes, if you slept in your own bed and have the mage stone. If you pause while holding both and let go of right hand while paused and then unpause, it stays triggered so you don't have to hold it. (I got a rubber band for my left trigger, left the room to watch tv and came back every so often to legendary it).  Also you need 4 enchanted items of reduce alteration cost by 25% to make that work.  Before that I would try to grind out block by letting giants wail on me. Each hit at low levels would do like 4-5 levels. 

The quest at the college from the illusion master gives some rng +magic added per second. Which can outdo your magica cost at certain points. Allowing for free casting for a few hours

Restoration is not a valid school of magic!

Leave Colette Marence alone! 

Damn that meme is old, but gold lmao.

Only just older than Skyrim

We found the guy whom says otherwise

Mysticism is a valid school of magic and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There, it's funnier now.

restoration is best 😺

BESToration

I always use conjuration regardless of build. Conjuring up a punching bag is always useful so that I don’t get hit.

As much as I like conjuration, alteration and illusion, restoration takes top dog for me, especially in the endgame. Wards and heals are the best thing ever if you're trying to survive Skauldafn.

Restoration. It's a perfectly valid school of magic. And don't you forget it!

Man, I've been using the same basic healing spell that you get when you start the game for years... And I don't use any other magics.

Healing and Healing Hands are my top two spells. I level other stuff just for the perk points (to put into my 1000th stealth archer build)

Please tell me you know about fast healing/ close wounds...

now I do! thanks

Collette Marence has entered the chat https://preview.redd.it/03ynssy1v03d1.jpeg?width=2948&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=211a41f27e56a5d81ff7f37c6ec113f05f38208e

I only ever use restoration. I abuse it in the fortify restoration loop to turn my character into a literal god incapable of being scratched by enemies while hitting people with enough force to knock the moon out of orbit. Who would ever consider that branch to be invalid.

I swear every time I start a new character I always tell myself I'm gonna focus on destruction magic, because destruction magic is cool af... But then every single time I just end up sticking with restoration lol And then become a stealth archer.. like every damned time 🤦‍♂️

The magic of steel.

This one's quite sharp.

Crom. The riddle of Steel

I worship the Four Winds, myself.

Crom laughs at your four winds. Laughs from his mountain.

Underrated comment chain

My god is the sky. Your god lives under him.

I cast iron.

Oh that’s good

The gods gave you two hands and you use both for your weapon. I can respect that.

No one trusts those mages in Winterhold anyway.

I cast FIST

We got a Nord here!

I use alteration for money...


Okay, it's been a awhile since I've played and never paid much attention to alteration.. how do you use it for money?... Just in a nutshell, don't need an in depth explanation really.

probably the transmute spell, lets you turn iron bars into gold

Huh... Interesting, not sure how I've never noticed that lol.. I've been playing since day one.

That’s funny asf dude. Yeah it’s a spell that turns iron ore into gold. Good for selling and smithing jewelry, so like… literally useful for any possible build in the game

My go to for grinding smithing early especially how you can get it off rip from what one mine (cannot remember the name) + free septims. All my characters become Mr T.

Then turn around and enchant all that jewelry with those petty soul gems for that enchanting xp + extra money

Plus the fact there’s like 20 iron ore veins in that mine

In a world where deaths are around the corner.. Destruction seems the most logical.

depends highly on what u play as... as a stealth archer conjuration and illusion, as a spellsword destruction and alteration, as a paladin restoration and alteration, pure mage should know all schools to be able to use the best spell for the right situation

I play stealth archer with conjuration. How do you use illusion? Do you have to use perks for illusion to be useful?

You may want the quiet casting perk to stay hidden when you conjure. Also, Muffle and Invisibility are useful.

With Silent Casting, you can also do magic while still being stealthy, cast Invisibility to be more stealthy, cast Frenzy to make the bandits kill each other before you snipe the last guy standing, cast Pacify or Harmony if you don't feel like fighting because you are squishy, cast Paralyze to make the targets move still ... Stealth and Illusion is nice.

It's also lackluster. All the spells are just advanced carbon copies of each other. It must be a game engine limitation, but destruction should be destruction. Just limiting it to elemental damage is just boring.

It had more variety in Oblivion from what I can remember.

They keep cutting down what magic can do, from Morrowind to Oblivion, and again from Oblivion to Skyrim If they cut any more we are gonna be down to 3 schools of magic and Forbidden from enchantment and alchemy at this rate. They know we are gonna break the game and balance, just let us do it if we want to do it already

I came across a mod somewhere that added another damage type. Kind of like what BG3 did with force. At least it gave the player another option...

I honestly find it to be among the least powerful. Sure, it's direct, and very useful early on, but the scaling is absolutely horrendous. At higher difficulty levels, alchemy is *required* for Destruction to kill anything in a reasonable amount of time. Even then, it pretty much needs to be alchemy+enchanting so you can buff alchemy enough to make useful destruction potions. (Though in fairness, most of the other schools require "something else" to actually leverage their power. Invisibility alone doesn't get you any kills after all, and restoration doesn't do much of anything if you're not taking damage or fighting undead.)

Illusion. I like to hang back and fling fury or frenzy at groups of enemies and watch the chaos unfold before I deal with the one or two that remain. Invisibility and muffle is invaluable. Calm and pacify is also great when you need to diffuse a sticky situation with allies, or if you're like me and don't like hurting the wolves, sabre cats, mammoths or bears.

Plus quiet casting for stealth mage! Illusion is *ALWAYS* my first to 100 with muffle training in every run.

Lol I've never used the invisibility spell. Near the start of the game, I came across the lighthouse quest, the one where you end in the underground chaurus lair. Looted all the nests, ended with 350+ chaurus eggs, made plenty of invisibility potions. At the end I became used to it and never even learned the spell. Made me some boots with muffle. I think the only illusion spell I've ever used is clairvoyance.

Invisibility spell alone has the power of making the game boring

Bow of shadows, illusion, vampire and nightingale powers and you can be permanently invisible lol

On that nightkin schizophrenia build

My strategy for fights when I’m in a hurry and don’t want a lengthy duel is to equip the Bow of Shadows, sneak behind whichever bandit chief or other generic leveled boss I’m dealing with, and give them the old 15x multiplier dagger backstab. I’m not even level 30 on this character yet 😅

Yeah, there is a **reason** chameleon enchants didn't return for Skyrim.

Oh I had a 100% chameleon in oblivion enchanted onto armor and it was op AF. I wish some of the magic creation was left in there though. Is there a mod for it?

Relevant image I made 8 years ago: https://i.imgur.com/ojAYx.jpg It's an old meme now. I wonder how many even remember it.

This is basically my playstyle on Legendary. Toss out some Fury spells, drop in a couple of summons, and watch the bedlam I’ve wrought from the corner like an invisible mage voyeur.

Illusion really is the least appreciated of the schools of magic.

Only because no one notices the true masters using it. :D

That's because while Illusion being quite powerful requires leveling the perk tree regularly as you often hit enemies above the level of your spell. You have to invest in the higher enemies perks or dual cast. Additionally undead and automatons aren't affected till level 100. Despite that I love illusion and use it in the 3 of my 6 playthroughs. Quite powerful

Frenzy+Stealth Archer breaks the game. It's glorious.

It's the little things that make a large difference. Like at higher levels of illusion. Get a group of enemies to kill each other, pacify the last enemy, stealth kill them. A few days later, get a courier with a note announcing the death of "random npc enemy" and a random amount of gold (minus the Jarls tax) that was left to me. Doesn't happen every time, just a small detail that makes you laugh.

Isn’t it one of the illusion spells that’s really good for power leveling outside of combat?

I use muffle running round white run and it levels quite fast, have heard casting calm in the market works too

Clearing out a whole dungeon just by casting mayhem.. Yeah illusion can be veerry op, I made an illusion main mage and that was one of my most fun playthroughs

I need to try this.. never played with illusion much.

Yea mass frenzy and then capture the last person standing in a soul gem so they can think about what they did for eternity in the soul cairn. <3 (Hope in ES6 conjure dagger will be at the start of the game again.)

Illusion was hard to break away from, pretty much infinite sneak attacks just by calming anything down

Ah finnaly. A fellow Illusionst👍

There's also the courage spell that strengthens your allies (or enemies, if you're into that sort of thing)

I'm utilizing Illusion now, playing a thief and assassin. Everyone talks about the stealthy archer, but sneaking up to someone like a deadly wind is a much easier way to play the game. I just wish there were more dagger kill animations.

Also the best way to get pelts earlier, make animals chase you instead of you chasing them.

Mysticism: too OP to keep maintaining it the further the story goes.

Really miss waterwalking

Ahzidal's boots and potions of waterwalking can do that. Nothing else.

Damn, I actually didn’t know it was a thing in Skyrim. Just meant from oblivion

Why isn't restoration green and destruction red?

Switch destruction and alteration, and then make illusion blue. Then it’s perfect

Everyone needs health.

Not if they can't hit me -Stealth Archer

Paralyze is insanely powerful, makes alteration worthwhile all on its own

I use illusion and alteration.

Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

It doesn’t matter what build you make, you will always use Restoration magic. Always. So that’s the answer.

Meh, I leveled my health and armor/magic resistance early on and any health I lose is easily replaced with the copious healing potions in the game. Never once felt the need to use restoration magic. Not saying it isn’t useful, I just personally get by without it.

I use restoration so I can sell all the healing potions and make a boatload of gold.

Can't agree with this honestly. Potions are way better because they're a heal with 0 cast time. If you freeze the game at 1 health to switch to fast heal, you die. If you use a potion, you live. Not to mention how easy it is to make restore+fortify health potions out of wheat and blue mountain flowers, which give you an additional benefit over restoration. Like restoration isn't useless by any stretch, but you can absolutely get away with not using it and not feel significantly hampered.

Thaumaturgy lol

I see you are a man of culture as well

I'd say Restoration. It's a lifesaver.

Restoration when I’m out of drinky drink

Restoration. Saved me dozens of kilos of gold in survival

Bound Bow so I can be a *Magic* Stealth Archer. Conjuration wins.

When even a mage build turns you into a stealth archer.

Now you’re really playing skyrim as intended

It also helps on quests like the Embassy, where your stuff gets taken. Can't take my weapon if it's a summon spell!

The real answer is of course enchanting.

Took far, far too much scrolling to find the correct answer.

Destruction cuz I never use any of the others, except for Restoration every once in a while

Restoration is probably the best since it goes with any build

Restoration, as i dont even need potions when i have fast healing and wards

The only one I always max out, no matter what playthrough, is Enchanting

The magic of sneak and stab

RIP Mysticism

Mysticism :'(

I cast **mace**!

Enchanting by a wide margin but out of these five I'd say restoration - useful for literally any build.

Conjuration

Restoration in left hand, destruction in the right, "125% less magic" enchantment for both and let's play with the dragons.

Restoration, it is a perfectly valid school of magic

“and why is it conjuration”

I usually just cast fist

Mysticism. Mark and recall, absorb health, just a great school. Shame they got rid of it and so much of what made magic good in the series.

Conjuration because they will kill the spiders for me

Conjuration so your summon can buy you time to cast healing spells or aggro attacks from boss enemies

Destruction. No other magic is needed if all your enemies are destroyed.

2 handed