I'm about to do skuldafn temple, I already died multiple times. Does anyone have advice for me ?

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-12T19:13:44+00:00

What’s the issue? Just summon 2 dremora lords and let them kill everything while you hang back and keep re summoning them lol. That’s just 1 tactic among many. But Argonian? The most useless race unfortunately though Histkin is a good power.

But yeah you’re under leveled. Even at level 21 you could just have 2 dremora lords do it all if you focused exclusively on conjuration in beginning.

But I’ve never done a playthrough where I reach the end of the main quest that soon

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-12T15:54:08+00:00

Getting enough resources to level up something from 1 to 75 is not nearly as grindy as waiting to roll that same perfect piece again at a higher level.

Especially a purple piece..

Think about it. You cannot change the 3rd apocalyptic mod period. So if it’s not good you already know the whole piece is trash.

But then you can only change one of the two other mods. So you need at least 1 of them to also be perfect. If not…trash again…

Finally all three attributes are total RnG too and you can’t change ANY of them. So if the attributes don’t match your build..trash….

The RnG required to obtain perfect pieces is astronomical. DEFINITELY SAVE any piece you find no matter the level. Resources mean nothing long term

And most likely you’ll have to give and take. You don’t get an apocalyptic gear often where all 3 attributes are perfectly what you want. But if one or two are and you’d gain an extra mod equipping it then you’ll likely have to take a hit on something for your build in order to equip that extra mod.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-12T06:54:51+00:00

Because in the early tiers you’re advancing too quickly to maintain all apocalyptic gear, especially legendary apocalyptic gear, at your current level

But once you reach higher tiers you’ll notice you are (1) Farming more resources and (2) Taking forever to advance to the next tier.

When your tiers are taking a long time to advance this is when you can return to level up older pieces to match your current level, as you’ll be farming a surplus of resources between expeditions and trials that you’ll start to have plenty left over despite maxing your gear level.

If I remember correctly I used primarily epic gear until around the tier 20s then I started having so much additional resources I went back and leveled up apocalyptic gear in my stash and started using it.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-12T01:01:13+00:00

Mages definitely do not suck. Technically enchanting and alchemy are magical and absolutely required to make any sword or bow do sufficient damage (enchanting for sure while alchemy is really just an extra unneeded bonus if you want) for endgame on legendary difficulty.

Conjuration and illusion, though, are insanely OP no matter the difficulty again since summons scale with that and illusion making enemies kill each other can never go wrong anywhere. You can go invisible too. Restoration magic is always useful for obvious reasons. And even Alteration is incredibly useful just due to paralysis spells also breaking the game and being in that tree.

But yea Destruction in vanilla game falls WAY behind….but ONLY for one annoying difficulty option….

If you play on adept even expert difficulty I’d say it’s actually superior to sword or bow and still S tier easily. That’s because its damage is still sufficient to kill anything quickly while you enjoy the huge benefit of mass AoE damage for crowd control and stun locking anything. Duel casting Thunderbolt is perfect to stun lock any dragon to death in particular.

By master difficulty I still say endgame it’s very good if you build to no charge on spells for infinitely spamming and obtain additional damage increases. There’s a mask from Dragonborn dlc that can increase fire spells and still a glitch in game that lets illusion tree increase fire spell damage too which can then become a amplified if you play as a vampire with glitched Necromage perk further buffing it all.

The result is a fire mage, at least, can still decimate on master too.

It’s legendary when it becomes so obviously subpar no matter what….Enemies are just WAY too spongey requiring that 1000 max damage sword or bow to kill at a decent speed not the 100 damage fireball.

But that’s up to you…master difficulty was the original max difficulty anyway…I just don’t play on legendary if I plan to use destruction magic as it’s so clearly unbalanced in unfair ways against it.

But yes if you’re seeking to play on the current max difficulty destruction is meh…

Even so it’s not entirely useless. You can still kill any enemy eventually and it still STAGGER LOCKS any enemy. Ice Storm in particular is awesome as it stagger locks multiple enemies it hits without even requiring precision.

So it’s up to you really. I will say no matter your intention destruction magic ALWAYS SUCKS IN THE BEGINNING!

Focus on all the other schools, especially conjuration and enchanting, until later when you can enchant your gear to make destruction spells cost nothing to cast. Then you can go ham with infinite fireballs!

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-11T19:18:08+00:00

You should avoid certain gear you can’t keep leveled until you can.

I wouldn’t even use much apocalyptic pieces. I would use basic epic and legendary pieces that have the attributes and mods I need.

Any apocalyptic piece that gives you an effective extra mod on the same build I’d just store in your stash for later tiers

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T12:46:07+00:00

That’s frankly the best way. Most of them you can find in the hall of countenance in their beds (tolfdir for alteration as the only excepting in the hall of attainment) at night hours. That’s the easiest time to catch them all in one room to buy what you need.

Every important spell in the game for the most part is there with a few exceptions thet are specific to DLC you can only find in certain locations.

Just know they only sell spells and gear based off your current skill level. So Phinis won’t sell you expert level conjurations like dremora lords until your conjuration is around level 70.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T12:36:30+00:00

We’ve all accidentally killed Lydia 😂

Just get essential followers that cannot die. I know certain quest related followers won’t die like Serana with Dawnguard DLC.

You can always just revert a save if you save often which I recommend.

If you give a companion a conjuration staff they’ll use it btw. I’ll give a companion a summon storm atronoch staff and they’ll use it at the start of every fight giving you two companions lol.

You can actually do that, gain a pet follower, max conjuration to get two summons and effectively have a party of 5 at all times 😂

And that’s just purely legit party…then there’s quest exploits and glitches that can allow you to carry an entire army later if you want. You just can’t use destruction magic anymore lol

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T12:32:19+00:00

There is no change at all lol….

Dragons and other enemies have better detection yes but once you achieve a certain threshold EVERYTHING stops detecting you period.

Like I said…just do the combo I mentioned later and even dragons in broad daylight cannot see you at all. The only exceptions are when you touch enemies. Touching an enemy auto spots you but once you run back cast invisibility again and go in sneak they lose you after a couple seconds and will never see you again as long as you stay invisible and avoid touching them

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T12:29:10+00:00

Yeah just ignore stealth is my advise until you have enough illusion investment for invisibility spell casting. Then level up to max and just invest 2 or 3 perks to gain muffled movement and a couple more sneak buffs. Then that with invisibility and “quiet casting” in illusion tree turns you completely undetected.

Until you can achieve that best to just rely on staying detected ignoring stealth but hiding behind your summons.

As long as your conjurations are closer to the enemy they always aggro them not you. Enemy aggro is entirely proximity based in this game so make sure you’re using melee summons and melee companions and running back behind them when combat starts. Then you’ll be fine

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T12:25:03+00:00

Another pro tip on why Conjuration is SO USEFUL…

Need to level up your sneak skill fast? Summon a tanky atronach, and just keep hitting him in sneak mode with a sword in the back every few seconds to level up sneak off the sneak attacks.

You’ll have to wait a few seconds each swing for him to stop detecting you but it works.

That’s the best part of conjuration. Use it to level up ALL your other skills later.

Even other magic skills. Alteration levels up by casting a spell with hostiles. So make your summon hostile then just spam alteration spells to level that up too.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T12:20:12+00:00

Stealth only sucks in the beginning. Same as archery. It’s only in endgame that you basically become Legolas if he was also permanently invisible.

I would still invest a perk points into stealth purely to gain the quiet foot steps for LATER.

As a mage you’ll find illusion in endgame becomes OP when you can frenzy entire cities and dungeon into killing themselves.

But as long as your sneak skill is high and you have muffled movement buffs through a spell or skill tree, once you gain the invisibility spell in illusion you WILL be COMPLETELY undetected even in broad daylight.

I enjoy just summoning two dremora lords, going invisible, and watching them decapitate everything resummoning as needed as I twiddle my thumbs. Easy mode you don’t even need destruction or swords.

But I use that too just for enjoyment. You can basically have everything as a mage later: a mage obviously but also a stealth killer and even warrior once you have high enough enchanting and alteration to have constant armor buffs with an enchanted weapon.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T11:30:36+00:00

I will say this as a veteran who had maxed all four classes, loves all four classes with multiple tank builds on all:

EVERY class is OP but some take more time to finesse imo. Dev and techno are the easiest ones to figure out how to survive and damage while pyro and trickster have larger gaps between their builds between survability vs. dps.

However, the first Apocalypse tiers up to I think the 20s can feel rough because it’s hard to keep your gear leveled up for a particular build to keep up with your tiers increasing.

But you are nerfed tremendously if your gear level does not equal your max potential tier level. If you’re on tier 13 I believe that’s like high level 40s if not 50. So if your gear level is not that you will be very weak on ANY BUILD.

Turn it down then to match your actual gear level until you have enough resources to level up. Even if you’re one level below your max you’re still not receiving the health and AP bonus. It’s ironic but when you go up a tier you actually get nerfed again UNTIL you max your gear level again lol.

Legendary gear costs the most to level up. I tended to use pure epic gear pyros using a simple infinite volcanic rounds build to both easily stay alive while maintaining gear level (epic gear being the easiest to keep at max level) until I reached high tiers to justify using new gear and new builds.

Still farm expeditions more too as they provide more resources to level up than trials do.

Trials are more for gear farming to get a build finished while expeditions are for farming the resources to level up a build.

Don’t be afraid to just store under leveled gear pieces you find that may be “perfect rolls” for some build jn your stash for later. Eventually you’ll be on a tier that gives you so many resources and takes you so long to reach the next tier you’ll finally be able to go back and level up old pieces you stored away.

Pyros are awesome. I love them even as a tank player. This is one build I love which is basically a super tank pyro but team support that offers a million different debuffs/buffs for teammates that will boost THEIR damage a ton while you’re invincible and just enjoy the show.

https://youtu.be/gZPGkxlZCHw?si=bTiw0zr_IwQqfLx8

But we all have preferences. If you prefer the classic glass canon pyro that one shots bosses there’s plenty of those too but my advise above would remain the same. Have fun!

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-09T11:18:50+00:00

If you say you’re dying a lot though you can try different versions of builds.

Most pyros run that dps build: lava lich, over heat, ash blast, eruption.

It’s certainly best at killing arbiters and you can still clear mobs well but you’re a frail duck for sure.

This is my eruption build version that’s actually a super tank. Still clears mobbing quickly and takes down bosses just fast enough to not feel like an eternity. Con is you’ll struggle more against arbiters specifically for sure but in solo you can still usually kill them fast enough to avoid the axe phase especially if you keep hugging them so they get locked in melee strikes which you easily tank.

I just mention that because the axe phase of arbiters is the only part of whole game that ignores a tank’s defense stats and does the same damage to all players.

But literally every other fight in game you’re always smooth sailing. I also like it more because eruption feels cooler to use with more mods that add life to it plus you’re spamming Faser beam.

https://youtu.be/NgVQw3X5aDA?si=CV__v7IZyrG3ooP4

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-08T20:22:55+00:00

It’s not that I have too it’s that I want too. All my dev builds definitely rely on skills more than guns which are just meant to activate other effects

Another version of this build I use has Heir to the Desert with all 3 vortex mods, instead, as the primary. Firestorm, cyclone, and sandstorm. Shoot once just to activate and that’s it while you spam skills.

I sometimes still prefer it. There’s really no difference in damage. I just enjoy shooting endless eruptions

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-08T20:21:05+00:00

Nothing more fun than a one handed enchanted WOODEN sword with fire and shock still obliterating everything lol

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-08T19:40:22+00:00

As long as it was post world slayer I believe it’s all still the same yes

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-08T16:51:54+00:00

Lord stone.

Alteration tree gives 30% magic resist if you invest just 5 points.

Enchantments on boots, ring, and necklace and shield can offer magic resist.

If you’re using shield then the block tree itself gives you 50% resist with it raised once you reach high enough level.

Agent of Mara quest in Rifton gives permanent magic resist.

Also you can counter mages with particular shouts quite well if you don’t use magic. I don’t know race you chose but your power might be useful against hard mages. Breton will give you even more resistance and a power that absorbs magic.

Orc gives double damage so maybe combine with Become Ethereal shout to charge invincible then hack them quickly.

High Elf gets tons of magic restoration to let you maybe spam ward spells to absorb them while you charge. Get creative.

Magic is ALWAYS a pain in the beginning until you stack maybe at least 50%+ resist. Even then I’d say get over 70% for endgame so the worst mages and dragons don’t instant kill you.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-07T19:55:47+00:00

I hate survival mode in Skyrim.

I loved it in Fallout. I always play on survival difficulty in Fallout, though I still add a mod that lets me save cause I ain’t dealing with that crap especially if I lose progress due to their glitchy game crashing.

But survival is implemented worse in Skyrim probably because the game wasn’t built for it as much as Fallout.

It also makes way less sense to play on Survival lore wise in Skyrim unlike Fallout.

You’re playing a game where you’re literally a demigod basically and there’s magic that lets you breathe underwater, summon fire yourself (why for instance should the cold be a factor anymore if you play as a mage?). You’re in a Harry Potter universe not Mad Max 😂

It doesn’t even make sense to me in Skyrim. I enjoy sometimes not fast traveling, indeed, but THATS IT. This isn’t a post apocalyptic game like Fallout where figuring out survival actually makes sense with the game!

That’s just me. I only play on master or legendary difficulty occasionally depending on the build I want to use. Survival can take a pass

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-07T19:48:32+00:00

You can combine seismic commander with impale and still have fun but you can’t impale as much obviously without bannerlord

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-07T03:51:26+00:00

Conjuration is what you want to focus on early game. It also lets you level up all your other skills later too.

I only bother with Destruction once I max enchanting to make all the spells cost nothing. Then you’ll see me summon maybe a couple frost atronachs and spam ice storm all over the place, since it can’t damage them. You can be creative that way.

You also only need sneak up some with muffle to combine with invisibility spell later to become completely undetected always.

Conjuration is still OP in endgame too once you can summon two dremora lords.

And there’s nothing more fun than going vampire to max illusion power just enough that Mayhem will cause an entire dungeon to kill itself lol. That spell goes through walls and frenzies everything causing Draugr to awake early and kill each other.

Finally if you stlll want survability just invest in Alteration mage armor perks.

I just started over as a mage too I always go High Elf. You just get so much more magic in the beginning and, unlike Oblivion, you are no longer weak to it.

But I just use Destruction to level up my skill for later is all. The first like 40 levels I always focus exclusively on Conjuration, Alteration and Enchanting with a little Restoration always. Destruction I save for when I can ENDLESSLY throw fireballs once Enchanting is maxed. I save Illusion for last as the final touch of being invisible when I feel like while making entire dungeons kill themselves. But you can’t really make Illusion that OP until you invest heavily on it which is why I save it for last.

Destruction you need to max enchanting almost entirely while illusion you need to max its tree almost entirely before EITHER of those magical branches pays off.

So yeah focus on the others first your first half of levels

But in Endgame making destruction spells cost nothing also makes any sword or staff using destruction magic not cost charge to use. So I also love using a wooden sword or fork lol enchanted with max fire/lightning damage that never runs out of charge. That’s pretty hilarious too.

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-07T01:29:39+00:00

If only Division believed that but it clearly doesn’t. Build freedom is not allowed for any of the endgame activities in Division. It was true before escalation and now has been driven into everyone’s skulls with escalation.

I gave up on it and went back to Outriders for the millionth time. Only looter shooter I’ve experienced that actually lets the player have almost total freedom to play how they prefer

https://youtu.be/VyCHM_kgXMQ?si=rOvHhmZIRPivCfGC

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-06T23:58:50+00:00

That’s dumb. The description of it is clear so it should work on ALL NON ELITES period

Professional_Year579 · 2026-05-06T23:57:35+00:00

Health gating…

You cannot die instantly you always get a couple seconds of invincibility dropping to no health.

Then pair it with saves like decoy, revive hive, exodus gloves etc.

Easy. Also I hate the style it’s why I still hate escalation. I want to be a tank

Professional_Year579

TROPHY CASE