The Atronach Stone is a standing stone in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that fortifies magicka by 50 points and grants 50 spell absorption, but decreases magicka regeneration by 50. It is located south of Bonestrewn Crest, east-northeast of Darkwater Crossing, in the southern-most part of the hot springs. The stone is found at the top of a mound with several other stones jutting out at an angle around it, surrounded by roiling volcanic pools. At its base is a steaming, shallow pool.
The Atronach Stone can be stacked with other absorb magicka effects, such as the 100 Alteration perk called “Atronach” giving 30 Magic Absorb and the 75 Restoration perk “Improved Wards” giving 30 Magic Absorb. However, it does not affect Restoration spells, such as Focused Mind/Respite.
The Atronach Stone also causes magicka regeneration, which is a glitch associated with spell absorption. It absorbs the base cost of the spell, so failing a spell does not affect it. To make a Templar/Paladin character, one should be a Breton for natural magic resistance, get the Atronach Stone, and the Atronach Alteration perk.
A permanent 80 spell absorption can be achieved by any race of character by using the Atronach Stone and choosing the Atronach Alteration perk. DoomAtronachEffect set to magnitude 50, translates into 50 spell absorption, reducing spell damage by 50. After obtaining skill level 100, the Atronach perk at the top of the tree allows for 30 magic/spell absorption. A vampire taking the Necromage perk before taking both the Atronach Perk and Atronach Stone can reach a permanent 100 spell absorption, making a character immune to dragon’s breath and almost all types of magical attacks.
📹 Skyrim – Why the Atronach Stone is the BEST!
Why the Atronach Stone trumps the Lord Stone in Skyrim! Twitter: Scott: https://twitter.com/NewberryCrunch Michael: …
Has anyone beat Skyrim 100 percent?
A fanatical player, known as pawelos4, has successfully beaten Skyrim by doing “everything that can be done” in the game, acquiring every item and perk in the quest to reach level 1, 337 without mods or cheats. The player, who boasts 1, 800 hours of Skyrim playtime between its standard and special editions, claims to have done “everything that can be done in Skyrim” in pursuit of “the most legendary character ever”. This achievement is not surprising, as they have done a similar feat three years ago, publishing a video of their many-hour attempt to create a 100 complete Skyrim save file.
Pawelos4 claims that their resulting save has every skill maxed out, every perk, item, location unlocked, every house, and every hidden or less known quest completed. This is seen as the ultimate triumph of the human spirit in Skyrim.
Can you get 100% magic resistance in Skyrim?
The Resist Magic enchantment has a cap of 85, which can be increased to 97. 75 magic damage reduction on one element. The enchantment offers various abilities, such as Agent of Mara, Blessing of Azura, The Lord Stone, Vampiric Blood Rested, Alteration Magic Resistance perk, Breton racial, and Savior’s Hide. The enchantment also has a stronger version called Resist Magic, Shield of Solitude, Shield of Ysgramor, and Spellbreaker. These abilities can be combined to increase the magic resistance of the enchantment.
Is the Atronach Stone better than the Lord Stone?
The Atronach stone exhibits superior resistance compared to the Lord, as evidenced by the 95% reduction achieved by a level 1 Nord with a Frostbane pot and Atronach stone. This makes frost mages unparalleled in combat, and even eliminates the necessity for fire mages to possess resistance to combat frost mages.
What is 50 Spell Absorption oblivion?
Spell Absorption is a magical ability that allows players to convert energy from a spell into Magicka points, preventing its damaging effects. With 50 Spell Absorption, half of all spells cast at a character would refill their Magicka, depending on the spell’s strength. This applies to spells and magical damage from enchanted weapons. Beneficial spells, such as blessings at altars, will also be absorbed. Characters with the Atronach birthsign have permanent 50 Spell Absorption.
Leveled items like the Spelldrinker Amulet, Sorcerer’s Ring, Cursed Absorbing Gauntlets, and Greaves of Purity provide up to 26 Magicka points. The Amulet of Absorption is particularly useful since it is available starting at level 9. Other items like Mankar Camoran’s Robe, Spellturn Cloak, custom sigil stone enchantments, and Helmet of the Mage also provide up to 15 Magicka points.
Which Atronach is strongest?
The Frost Atronach is a powerful creature with icicle arms that can punch enemies and deal frost damage. It is essential for Master of the Conjuration school of magic and summoned only after a high level of skill honed. The Ash Guardian, created from ash on Solstheim, is one of the strongest enemies in the Dragonborn DLC. To summon this entity, a Heart Stone is required, as it will be hostile when conjured. Both Frost Atronach and Ash Guardian require a Heart Stone in inventory.
What is the best stone for assassins in Skyrim?
The author suggests using the Thief Stone for stealth characters for the first 10-15 levels, then switching to the Lord Stone or Steed if they struggle with getting killed more frequently. They end up using the Steed Stone because it is highly useful. There are three ways to approach this, two of which are related: acquiring a stone with a special ability, such as shadow or steed, or selecting one of the class stones like Thief, Mage, or Warrior Stone, which give a 20 skill bonus in perk skills related to the stone. These stones can be found on the wiki for more information.
Is Atronach worth it in Skyrim?
The probability of negating spell damage is dependent on chance, with a 50% chance of successfully negating all incoming spell damage, including the atronox stone.
What Stone should I pick Skyrim?
The Lover Stone is a highly regarded Standing Stone in Skyrim, providing the Lover’s Comfort effect. It is the best choice for players, as it allows them to increase all skills faster, even though it is slightly slower for some skills. The Lover Stone can be found in The Reach, a stone’s throw from Markarth. To find it, head east, follow the road to Kolskeggr Mine, then west for a second. Look for a sloping way up the mountain to the west of Kolskeggr, and climb up to find it. Survival Mode alters the process of receiving a standing stone’s blessing.
What are the benefits of the Atronach Stone?
The Atronach Stone has been observed to increase magicka by 50 points, while simultaneously decreasing magicka regeneration by the same amount. Additionally, it has been noted that the stone introduces a 50-point absorption of spells. If a player has 75 faster magic regeneration due to their robes, does the Atronach Stone negate 50 of it, leaving the difference? This question is pertinent to the study of magic in Skyrim, particularly with regard to its mathematical aspects.
📹 Skyrim – Spell Absorb interfering with conjuration
If you have spell absorb it will absorb YOUR summoning spells. Ex. if you have 25% absorb your summoning spells will fail 25% …
Also, keep in mind that magic resist caps at 85% while spell absorption has no cap. A necromage vampire with Antronach Stone and Atronach perk makes you completely immune to any form of magic and allows you to absorb the magicka of any spell cast on you. The downside is that you are also unable to use a lot of spells due to them being absorbed.
I always prefer the stones that give passive bonuses as opposed to the ones that give you an ability that can be used once a day, though this does include the Atronach Stone! I find they’re just better overall since you get their bonuses all the time instead of just using a power then having to either wait or sleep til the next day to recharge it, very limited if you ask me compared to the passive stones, especially if you’re in the middle of a dungeon and have already used the power.
You forgot the ritual stone with the Aetheral crown. This lets you run around with a perma giant necromancer army as reequiping the crown refreshes all standing stone abilities. Being able to kill a dungeon, come out with all the inhabitants, then raid an imperial camp and raise them all too, then a town, then a second town, and basically have over 400 followers is extremely strong.
The steed stone is great for early play for those who want to be heavy armor sneakers. No weight means way less sound, and it replicates a perk in the heavy armor tree way down the line. Plus, it makes armor of the same type that you are wearing in your inventory (say you’re wearing dwarven boots: all dwarven boots in your inventory also weight nothing), so it’s a nice way to have multiple armor pieces for different needs: boots for pickpocket/locking, another for archery/1-handed, etc. yay exploits 😉
“If your character has 500 armor rating why would you want a measly 50 points more?” Actually the way the armor curve works is with increasing returns right before the cap. Armor cap is ~567 (depends on how many pieces you’re wearing, because wearing an armor piece has a hidden 25 point armor bonus, which is dumb, but anyway), so if you were at 500 armor rating, the last 50 points or so would actually be the most effective points you could add. Take an example, assuming you’re not a shield user: You get hit for 100 physical damage by some warhammer power attack. You wear 4 pieces of armor for a displayed armor rating of 500. This gives a damage reduction percentage of 500 x .12 + 3 x 4 = 72%, so that instead you are dealt 28 points of damage. Now you get hit for 100 physical damage by some warhammer power attack while wearing the same 4 pieces of armor for a displayed armor rating of 550. This gives a damage reduction percentage of 550 x .12 + 3 x 4 = 78%, so that you are dealt 22 points of damage. The percent difference between the two hits is: (28-22)/28 * 100 = 21.4%, that is, your armor is 21.4% more effective with that next 50 points. Running the same example for an untempered light armor example of 100 AR vs 150 AR would actually give a percent difference of only 7.9% additional effectiveness. For people playing on higher difficulties and/or with mods that buff enemies, those last few points of armor are extremely important. This isn’t an argument for the Lord Stone, however, as if you really need those last few points you should just level smithing and smith better gear.
Remember that with 50% spell absorbtion when you shout, it has a 50% chance to not work, when you summon an atronoch it has a 50% chance to not work. Also, if you are a Mage (at a high level) you don’t need the spell absorbtion as you should have spells costing barely anything and a huge pool of magicka. 85% magic resistance is better than 100% spell absorbtion because it doesn’t affect the spells you can cast. Lord stone forever!
The Steed is useful for early game heavy armor users, as it allows them to carry more heavy gear when then have little stamima still, it also allows them to have a normal running speed before getting the conditioning (thats the name, right?) perk. Obviously for light armor characters and mages this is irrelevent.
I might be missing something but your logic seems off. It’s far easier, with less investment in Alteration to reach the magic resistance cap than spell absorption cap. And if you’re blocking 85% of all incoming magic the damage you take is negligible. You can easily reach 40% magic resistance with the Lord Stone and doing the incredibly simple Agent of Mara quest.
For any given character, I almost always start with the Lord Stone. Then mid-game I switch to the Atronach stone for all the reasons the FudgeMuppet gentlemen give. Then late-gamw I usually switch to the Steed because at some point I become so powerful and resistant to damage and magic that I dont even need any defensive stones, so I just grab Steed for the +100 carry weight. Around this time (after training pickpocket along the way via a trainer) I’ll invest 3 perk points to get the pickpocketing perk for +100 more carry weight. Endgame, for convenience and looting, my jaded dragonborn values the extra 100-200 carry weight more. Especially since I do no-fast-travel playthroughs.
I don’t use the atronach stone for two reasons: 1. it interferes with the shadow warrior perk, and if I’m running sneak, I usually have 100 in it before leaving the tutorial cave 2. it interferes with conjuring allies, and one time when I felt like mixing it up, I made a character that only uses conjuration, and found it to be overpowered, and then when I tried mixing it into other builds I found that even if it doesn’t mesh well with the skill set it was still too effective to be ignored and don’t get me started on how effective a stealth conjurer is.
Uh. I’ll still try getting that stone even if my character is kinda a warrior. Even tho my character has elven armor. Iron great swords. An ancient nord bow. But I don’t use potions. Instead I use the restoration spells. I don’t use the spells to attack. Instead I just raise zombies and I heal myself. But it will help more than lords stone I think. Because I’m encountering the thalmor wizards. And some dragurs with the spells. Soon enough I’ll fight alduin. And the spell absorption is gonna be helpful. I think. Idk I’m level 15
I think I will go out of whim here and mention you can potentially get both affects of those stones by just getting the aetherium crown or if you want to keep that standing stone and get another one of use it is better off…You would sacrifice the armor rating of the helmet as a warrior, but you can still get the armor fro mthe lord stone and on top of that get the magicka resistance on top. Also it wouldn’t matter with a mage and yet for a thief it shows promise to use the aetherium crown to get 2 standing stone affects….I hope this opens up more possibilities.
I have the 1. arch mage robes that give 100% faster magic regen 2. The Morokei mask that gives 100% faster magic regen 3. Ring of the Erudite that also increases my magic regen times So I think getting this stone will be great, I hope it doesn’t interfere with my bonded weapons I like using the sword and bow a lot
My opinion: aetherial crown with the stored ritual stone. Literally coolest thing ever. I’m a vampire with serana as my only main follower so it’s us and our undead army. It’s awesome to use in the civil war line cuz of the obvious. Then I use azidhal’s ring of necromancy for a big finale. Each your heart out mannimarco! Lol Ps I also like using the albino spider scrolls and have a bunch of the cloaked flame spiders following me… we all look pretty terrifying!
I’m a big conjururer so I don’t like the spell asporption stealing my atronachs and dremoras. So I go for the resistance. And the 50 armor while not good isn’t bad for that one enemy you missed gets the drop on you when you don’t have a flesh spell. That being said I do still get the 30% absorption in alteration just because it gives my build a little more oomf with less chance of having summons not work. But for every other build I go for atronach stone all the way.
Magic resistance is much easier to obtain than spell absorption. Any character can play Breton with the Lord Stone and Agent of Mara, then mages can take the perk and warriors can use the Shield of Solitude or Ysgrammor. Spell Absorption is difficult to max for warriors. Miraak’s Robes are situational, and alteration level 90 is out of reach. So Spell Absorption is hard to get past 50, whilst magic resist can easily go up to 65 at a minimum, and easily still up to its cap of 85. 85 > 50.
Armor in skyrim caps at 567 which can be achieved legit with upgraded steel or eleven and there is significant diminishing returns past 100 armor. However with my build 50% regen is too shit so I actually don’t use atronoch either. I use a vampire illusionist/conjurer/alteration/restoration so I can’t enchant 100% reduced magika cost and have to use magic constantly in battle either to heal followers/thralls/myself, buff allies, fear enemies about to attack me, frenzy enemies in the back, parralyze etc. with regen enchantments i can beat sun weakness and be at least able to fight back somewhat but with atronoch I would basically be severely hampered until my glass cannon Mage gets hit with spells on legendary. When a giant is about to ground point you waiting twice as long to regen enough magic to calm it is huge.
Here’s my take on it: the atronach stone is absolutely amazing in every instance besides a very specific 2. Firstly if your enchanting and level is not high enough, the 50% decrease can be a hinderance to a pure mage, obviously u said it’s an end game stone so I guess this point is countered by that. But finally there’s one scenario where the atronach stone is so flawed, and that’s when ur build involves conjuration. Conjuring atronachs and other summons r considered spells that r cast on ur self.. this means ur summons will not work which is so fucking annoying it just makes u want to ur keyboard or controller thru the monitor lol. Which sucks because spell absorption is just so nice to have when ur playing a necromancer or summoner and I wish there was a way around this.. u could consider this a fundamental flaw in how conjuration spells r classified and supposedly it’s been addressed in one of the patches but it still seems to happen to a lot of ppl ik
Ok, this is just something that’s going to bother me if I don’t bring it up. Even if it is months after release. That isn’t how statistics work. 50% chance of absorbing 100% of damage does not come close to equating to absorbing 50% of the damage. The Atronach stone gives you a coin flip on what attacks you’re going to be taking the damage from an attack, or getting your magicka back. While a 50/50 ratio is possible it is also possible to get feast/famine scenarios where you dominate because you take no damage, or take all damage and are rendered essentially mana-less. I prefer the Lord Stone as it’s infinitely more persistent and thus allows the user to more accurately gauge just how dangerous the situation is. IE: A spell that hits a lord stone user for 40% of their life will know to incapacitate that user, flee or use a potion immediately while an Atronach user will be gleefully unaware until an attack goes through for 50% of their life. Both are valid, and just about the only 2 truly viable late game stones.
As a Breton you are 25% magic resistant; the Lord stone grants you 25% magic resistance; Alternation can grant you 30% magic resistance; and the Agent of Mara gives you 15% magic resistance. That’s 95% magic resistance! Add or enchant a ring with 10%, or more with magic resistance, and you’re 110+% magic resistant! Thanks for your advice, FudgeMuppet, but some of us are already experts at Skyrim.
You imply that the 50% damage resistance from spells with the atronach stone is chance based. Is that true? Also, when reading what the atronach standing stone does while in-game, it only says it absorbs 50% of the magica from hostile spells. Meaning, if an enemy casts a spell at you that costs 50 magica, you’d absorb 25 of it. Doesn’t say anything about absorbing damage though? Hm. And it also doesn’t say it’s chance based. So um…clarification would be nice. Thanks for the vid. Hope you (or a kind gentleman) will reply 🙂
Since ESO’s ultimate 100+ followers necromancy Aetherium crown build didn’t work, patched i guess, I now can have 2 stones at a time per the Aetherium crown, i have Summoner Breton + Lord and ritual stone (ritual stone has been meaningless thus far and a waste). I’m lvl 88 all skills got legendaryed, Conjuration twice, and I haven’t even been to see the Grey Beards yet ha lol, play the game on very hard to Legendary, potions and enchantments and smithing and conjuration and archery are all maxed out for my archer hide behind summoned with bow build… I like it its fun, let the pawns do the dirty work and I mop up & enjoy the immersion of the story line. Playing on very hard and is very playable(bordering on easy), and Lydia still only has steel plate armor & items enchanted high…….. Her flawless sword has buffed soul trap and health absorb enchantment and I put low lvl soul gems in her inventory so she fills them automatically… nice little cheat there …
Atronach Stone is also good for sneaky mage, or thief. If you max out the Sneak and have Shadow Warrior, the hidden effect during couching is consider a spell and the Atronach stone effect will absorb some magicka from it by just simply crouching. Spam crouching button will recover your magicka very quickly even when there is enemy nearby.
If a 200 hp character get hit by a 180 dmg spell they will die 50% of the time, while the lord stone would save you every single time. On higher difficulties single cast spells are likely to kill you. Therefore magic resist is more important to max out. When you’re higher in health and it takes multiple spells to kill you the atronach is ofc better.
well… it kind of depends, for characters which don’t use magic extensively, and have problematic armor rating, lord will be better. even with characters which potentially will not need the armor boost, for mid game, lord stone might be a better option. granted, 90% of the time atronach will be more useful.
It doesn’t matter what race you are. The Lord Stone is by far the best for end game builds. The Agent of Mara plus 3 ranks of Magic Resistance from Alteration plus the 25 of the Lord Stone puts you at 70 magic resistance. Yes being a Breton gives you 25 more putting you over the cap. Alteration is a skill important to any character build played on higher difficulty settings. Then with the Atronach perk you get 30% spell absorption. But I feel most experienced Skyrim players realize the Lord Stone is better. Also the kick back on the Atronach Stone is not worth it. Especially on higher difficulty settings
Aetherial crown + Ritual stone = you can have an army of 30 undead following you for 3 minutes, when they run out remove you crown and put it back on then use the ritual stone again since the bodies don’t turn to ash. Combine this with atronach conjuration, destruction spells, illusion, vampirism and sneak then you’re op. Use vampire lord as a panic button.
In Skyrim, your main priority is to gain as much resistance to magic as you can. In the late game, melee and arrows shouldn’t be a problem anymore, but because magic can pierce armor, and they can do a lot of damage, you’re going to need a lot of resistance towards spells. Because the Atronach Stone gives you a solid flat 50% resistance, and absorption towards magic with little to no downside, other than 50% less magic regen, this stone is simply the best for late-game Skyrim. Every class and race can benefit from this stone, but I prefer the Breton since he also starts with another 25% magic resistance.
Well if you are playing a vampire, just take time to boost restoration to get the necromage perk that increase your spells against the undead, which includes you (making all your active effects stronger) and take time to get the perks for magic resistance and the atronach perk and stone and you become damn near immune to magic and if you do get hurt it doesnt do much damage. But the drawback is that you cant summon anything besides Bound weapons
The Atronach Stone is not really that great for pure mages. 1: It absorbs your conjurations. So if you are using conjuration to summon help, this can be a problem. Either you keep it at 50%, and have to spam your conjuration spell a few times to get your creature out. Which in the heat of battle can be a problem, or if you max it to 100% you can’t summon at all. 2: You’re ignoring the fact this stone protects you HALF the time. So without any other enchantments or protections, means you’re taking 100% of spell damage 50% of the time. If you’re a pure mage and focus more on magicka then health, this means you can be one shot by powerful spells or dragon breath attacks. While magic resistance is negating 25% all the time. And if you max out magic resistance to the 85% cap, that means you’re taking 15% of damage 100% of the time, without penalties to your summons. Given that this stacks with fire, frost, and shock damage resist, and you can drop that even further through enchanting to the point where you are barely taking any damage. 3: The 50 points of armor from Lord Stone is VERY useful for mages. While Dragonhide spell can max out you’re armor rating it’s a Master level spell. So it takes longer to cast, and uses more magicka. The ebony flesh spell is more practical, but maxes out with perks at 300. A 167 points below the armor maximum. Meaning your squishy mage is taking more damage then a fully outfitted warrior. 50 more points raises it to 350. While not huge, anything helps with a mages armor rating.
But I think the Noble Stone or however it is called is the best because when you go to late game with a warrior or something you are almost invincible and if you go as a mage you have the final perk in Alteration that does the same and the Master category spell that reduces 80% physical damage. However, as a warrior, I like investing my points in restoration to heal all the damage I receive. I would like to remember however that you have a perk in the shield category that increases your elemental defenses by 50% when you raise your shield. In conclusion, this stone is ok in the early game but not necessary in the late game. Thanks for your vids, nice advices 😉
See your math for the absorb vs resist is not applicable to high difficulties making it invalid. To account for difficulty modifier you need to first have a more reasonable damage of high level spell be used. Instead of ten spells at ten damage try with 100 damage spells which you will have common on high level/difficulties. Control damage would be 1000 and 25% resist would be 750 and in theory absorb 500 but there is a problem here. Since the damage is all or nothing if it doesn’t activate on the first few casts you are still taking damage for that time the same as the no buff control. Just like with the perk the game already knows rng activation is less reliable then solid resist so costs 3 perks to get equal percentage. See the build that wants the stone the most mages already have low hp so without the straight resist they can get easily one shot on high difficulties. Then you need to take into account that while you can max out absorb at 100% and be immune to magic it eats your conjures. The power spell absorb brings doesn’t make the atronach stone op as much as it shows breton best race with a decent competition based on builds with orc and high elf. With what I said in mind my usually stone progression is lord stone right away, cause you don’t need leveling stones save that for grinding low use skills, into atronach after I get other sources of resist. With the penalty of full 100 absorb you will find its usually better to have a good mix then one or the other.
The Lover Stone early to rack up levels & perks to establish a base build, and the Steed Stone later when every level up is a grind. The Steed Stone’s +100 to carrying capacity may seem to only appeal to hoarders, but if you add the Pickpocket perk of Extra Pockets, you get an additional +100 carrying capacity, allowing you to wander around aimlessly adventuring significantly longer. The true value of the Steed Stone is the weightless armor mobility it gives. If I have gotten the weightless perk of heavy or light armor (depending upon specialization) or if I’m a mage, I don’t take the Steed Stone. The Ritual Stone is good for reviving allies you’ve ended to improve the Ebony Blade’s health absorption, & get extra credit toward that goal for each time you end them again, since the Ritual Stone is like the high level Conjuration reanimation spell (Dead Thrall, I think) doesn’t turn them to ash when they pass away like low level reanimation spells. Outside of those, & the Guardian Stones, I rarely take any other Standing Stone blessings.
Steed is best not because of the Carry Weight boost, Steed is great because the armor doesn’t slow you down. Heavy Armor players can finally be fast. But if you’re going with the Atherial Crown, mix the Steed with the Tower. Every lock but Master locks are available for you to loot, and with the extra carry weight it’s great for a thief character.
In Oblivion, the Atronach Sign has the same 50% chance of spell absorption, but offers a much higher boost to max magicka while completely eliminating passive regen as well as regen from rest. Even in Oblivion, I feel it is one of the best signs to have. In Skyrim, it seems straight up overpowered. Even so, I use the Steed Stone because Skyrim is easy and I don’t want to sort my inventory. 😛
You didn’t really consider the fact that you can still get 1 shot by spells and what not with the atronach stone if you’re just unlucky, while the lord stone actually straight up just gives you 25% more resistance, meaning that damage will either never 1 shot you or always 1 shot you. Still agree with most of the article though.
Personally I do not think the Atronach stone is the best. I use a stealthy build for now and usually cap every mage in a room before my little eye thing even opens to a slit. If one notices me, I just dodge the spells (they are quite easy to dodge actually, except shock spells) and if you do set of traps as a stealthy build, then you are doing it wrong.
Atronach has always been the sign of choice in the elder scrolls, even when it was more extreme (No passive mana regen at all + 2x/150 mana pool). Objectively the best in morrowind regardless of build or how far in you are – no big deal to go from only getting mana from potions + sleeping to just potions. That’s all before you count in the schenanigans you can get up to as a mage with high spell absorb in the games. Out of manapots? Just summon something with a magic attack and turn it hostile, cast telekenisis spells on yourself, or activate shrines a bunch of times. Get effectively infinite mana in combat by eating your own aoe spells etc. Can be anywhere from good to game-breaking depending on how much imagination you have and how willing you are to abuse the game engine.
While the Atronach Stone is the best stone for magic resistance (MR) when built right, it is actually technically worse than the Lord Stone under certain circumstances, albeit only slightly. Specifically, it is worse if you already have over 50% MR and you do not have the Atronach perk (i.e. your current spell absorption (SA) is 0%). This is because the resistance it adds is a multiplicative increase and not an additive one. This means that your overall effective resistance will be lower if you take the Atronach Stone over the Lord Stone in this very specific case. For those interested, I will go into the specific math here. For clarification, I know that 50% SA means 100% of the spell will get blocked 50% of the time. Or, in other word, the spell will get absorbed completely if SA procs, which has a 50% chance of happening. For all intents and purposes, this means that SA reduces magic damage by 50% when averaged over multiple spell casts. With that out of the way, here is the formula I will be using to calculate effective magic resistance (EMR): > EMR = 1 – (1 – SA) * (1 – MR) > where 0 <= SA, MR <= 1 Now imagine you are a Breton with the Magic Resistance perk, so you have a MR of 55% passively. Your base EMR would look like this: > SA = 0 > MR = .55 > EMR = 1 – (1 – 0) * (1 – .55) = .55 So you have a base EMR of 55%. Now imagine you have to make the choice between the Atronach Stone and the Lord Stone. Let’s start with the Atronach Stone: > SA = 0 + .50 = .50 > MR = .55 > EMR = 1 – (1 – .50) * (1 – .55) = .775 Now you have an EMR of 77.5%. That’s a 22.5% EMR increase, which is pretty good! However, let’s see what happens when you use the Lord Stone instead: > SA = 0 > MR = .55 + .25 = .80 > EMR = 1 – (1 – 0) * (1 – .80) = .80 So now you have an EMR of 80%, 2.5% higher than with the Atronach Stone. So technically, the Lord Stone is better for EMR in this very specific case, but not by much. With all of that said, my preferred build is Breton (25% MR) with the Atronach perk (30% SA), Magic Resistance perk (30% MR), and Mara’s Blessing (15% MR). That puts me at 70% MR and 30% SA. Now lets plug in these numbers to compare the two stones (remember, MR is capped at 85%): > Lord Stone: EMR = 1 – (1 – .30) * (1 – .85) = .895 > Atronach Stone: EMR = 1 – (1 – .80) * (1 – .70) = .94 In the end, the Atronach Stone wins out for me. If, however, you find yourself unsure which one you should go with for your build, use this formula and test it for yourself. Calculate your MR and SA with each stone, then plug in the numbers. Remember though, EMR isn’t the only factor here. Consider your play style and the other benefits/detriments of each stone. At the end of the day, your choice will come down to what suits you the best.
I really like you guys for your roleplaying aspects but you often are simply wrong when it comes to theory crafting: Unless you are maxing magic spell absorption the lord stone is still by far the best if you already have a good amount of armor and magic resistance but are not capped and it works together with mage armor perks. Let’s see; for this calculation you have 300 hp and the spell does 100 dmg. Let’s see how various magic resistances will effect your survivability: with 0%= each hit 100 dmg, no. of hits you can take before you die= 2 with 25%= each hit 75 dmg, no. of hits you can take before you die= 3 with 50%= each hit 50 dmg, no. of hits you can take before you die= 5 with 75%= each hit 25 dmg, no. of hits you can take before you die= 11 with 85%= each hit 15 dmg, no of hits you can take before you die= 19 As you can see the more magic restiance you have the more valuable additional magic resistance becomes. A function which would depict this even better would be= f(x)= A/(B*(1-x)) -1 A=Player’s HP; B= DMG of the Spell; X= Your Magic Resistance(in decimals, between 0 and 0.85, ignore the rest), f(x)/y= Number of hits you can take before you die(always round up) Don’t even get even started on getting lucky or unlucky vs a fixed dmg reduction. Trust me when I say that you should always prefer safe % dmg reduction instead of chanced based total reduction. There is a reason why they changed dexterity to give armor instead of dodge rate in diablo 3, because you can play better around a certain amount of dmg than an unknown factor.
Atronach Stone is best if you exploit the perma 100% Spell Absorbtion xD “Consuming a potion of restoration (Longfin + Spadetail) and a potion of restoration and frost weakness (Longfin+Spadetail+White Cap) before selecting the atronach stone will boost its power permanently.” – Obsidian Sentinel Build theskyrimblog.ning.com/group/character-building/forum/topics/character-build-the-obsidian-sentinel
Huh interesting. I am not fully convinced, only because of my character build. I am a thief/conjurer/battlemage with 2 Dremora Lords (Dead Thrall), on top of my companion (Marcurio). At only lvl 33… Marcurio is decked out as a heavy armor battle mage with Ebony armor. My bound bow pretty much one taps everything I commonly face. Almost everything. Takes two taps to kill a giant. I pretty much never get hit as I am damn near invisible during battle. If I do get attacked, I always have my stoneflesh spell active (habitually). I use the Iceform shout when in a bind, and my sword is the Chillrend. So in the rare moments I do have to face combat I just freeze them solid and myself or my crew takes them out. Again still only low 30s. I will admit, dragons are annoying…
All fine points, but as an expert to legendary player, armour rating is everything, since EVERYTHING with a weapon is dangerous, and everyone packs weapons. Also, mace/warhammer/crossbow users can be exceedingly dangerous as a rule, since anyone using these weapons starts ignoring portions of armour around level 30 or so (so having at least 40% ABOVE the armour cap is recommended, if possible). I certainly respect your points on the quality of absorption versus resistance, but let’s just examine some of the numbers for a second. On the legendary difficulty, enemies deal 3x normal damage to you. So, if their fire ball spell usually deals 50 points of damage they will actually deal 150 damage, with one spell. And then they cast a second, and most characters are dead. Let’s assume you have 350 health. It would take three fireballs to kill you with no buffs to absorption OR resistance. A 25% resistance ensures that a fireball trio would only deal 337.5 damage. With absorption, you are most likely to take either 150 or 300 damage… except there’s an equal chance of you taking either 0 or 450 damage to consider as well. So, in that scenario, you’re either definitely alive (if not peachy) with resistance or 25% dead with absorption. Let’s also not forget just how many attacks can come at you inside of a few seconds, either. Since there isn’t really a way to gain movement speed in skyrim (only lose it), if they’re too close, you’re just dead. And dragons! Holy crap, dragons. Dragons wreck absorption.
I always use the Lord stone over atronach. with perks 30, agent of mara 15, breton25, and Lord stone 25 you are at 95 magic resist (caps at 85 so use 2 perks instead to save 10 percent) most damaging spell is legendary dragon breath 300 damage on legendary difficulty 900. 900x.15 is 135 damage. (if you have 50 elemental resist that makes the damage around 68.) If you are level 80 you probably have 500 health. 4 fire breaths to die if you just stand there and take it. With 80 percent absorption you have a 20 percent chance to die. I hate rng so I choose resist
I always try the Atronach Stone and then end up switching to the Lord Stone because I do find the Magicka Regen noticeable. As a Breton Magic damage is inconsequential already from the start. 40 Resist and 50 absorb once a day means you never fear magic. Even on my Rogue character I just did the math. Nightingale Armor with a Light Armor skill of 100 and all perks that increase Armor rating just puts me at 48,375% Damage Reduction. The Lord stone gives me extra 6% damage reduction which I take over the more and more useless Magic Resistance. Physical Damage also scales a lot more on higher levels than Magic. And since Illusion is my Bread and Butter it is very annoying to not have Magicka regen and there are plenty of situation were I couldn’t just instantly go back invisible. I always use it for endgame warriors though. Smithing or just Heavy Armor alone make it really easy to reach the cap. Even easier if you wear a shield.
Why it isn’t: 1: For any kind of mage charector, your conjuration spells will fail and it’ll fuck you up. 2: For any kind of sneak character, it won’t matter as mages drop dead easily with your bow, the lord, serpent, shadow, or steed stone would all be better choices. 3: For a warrior character, it’s only usefull against mages, which you normally insta kill anyway, and dragons, which you just dragonrend and destroy. It’s only usefull against magic bossrooms, which can easily be sorted with a resist frost/fire/shock potion. Overall, I much prefer the serpent stone or lord, or steed, or ritual, or apprentice.
My favorite build is one I call a Mage Hunter. Start as a Breton, go Light Armor and One-Handed, off-hand use Restoration (mostly Wards), Illusion, and Alteration. Alteration is used to give you a little boost to your armor rating while also giving you access to magic resistance, Paralyze, and the Atronach perk. Illusions are used mostly to avoid fighting enemies you’d rather not fight, and to unlock Silent Casting so you can silently Paralyze an enemy. Restoration… obvious good spells are obvious. I tend to RP the Mage Hunter as someone that is in Skyrim for the purpose of hunting down rogue spellcasters. Early on, you’ll take an interest in bounty hunting, possibly joining the Companions as a means of gaining some allies in your campaign. Once you find out about the College of Winterhold, though, you’ll know where you’re truly needed. You’ll initially display some mistrust toward the College, but you’ll find that the College is actually a positive force in Skyrim, so, once you sort out the problems there, you’ll find better uses of your time elsewhere. I’d advise waiting a bit before actually starting the main storyline. This build does take a bit of time to actually get to the point where you’ll be able to handle a dragon by yourself, so making dragon encounters happen at low levels would be a death sentence. RP-wise, this also makes sense. The Mage Hunter isn’t there to take down dragons, so you’d have no plan for them. Once you have a bit of experience with defending yourself from both the spells of rogue mages and the swords of those they hire, you’ll probably be able to handle a dragon.
It’s possible you won’t proc it for a few spells in a row. Try fighting an Arch mage or a high-ranking dragon on legendary difficulty, instant death if you’re unlucky. I’d go with 85% magic resist unless you can hit 100% magic absorb. At least it gives you a chance to heal rather than getting instagibbed.
i always use the atronach stone right when starting a game, so i can survive dragons and mages on master difficulty better. but later on it really sucks, because i like the sanguine rose and the summon dremora lord spell, and they get absorbed SO FUCKING OFTEN with the magic absorbtion. and those summon spells are way useful even when you are late-game, especially if playing on legendary (i usually switch from master to legendary around lv 30). whereas the magic absorption is not so useful lategame, because of custom enchants and other effects. so i basically see it the other way around – good early, not good mid- to late-game.
i play skyrim for hours and hours now i got like 1129 armor rating Just by using smithing and enchanted Gear + enchanting on the armor my swords do like 200 damage with an enchanting 50% chance to do 1 of the damage frost, fire, lightning for 60 damage. i think you know this enchanting 😉 means its does every time 60 damage somtimes 180 damage if your Lucky what means my swords does like 380 damage + my wapons and armor are dragonbone my charachter is an argonian i call it the dragonlord because IT looks like a dragon and he is baddass his life Just don’t drop my years playing got me some serieus overpowerd shit but its not fun on easy mode i have to play and the most difficult level Just to have some fun en to see my life bar drop haha. also i enjoy you article’s keep going
Spell absorption sucks for a thief because the perk that let you stop combat by crouching will not work and you will regen like 5 magicka instead. For a mage I also don’t recommend spell absorption since it hinders conjuration, which is probably the strongest school of magic on legendary. Snother problem with spell absorption is that if you don’t have 100% it will only be worthwhile if you can tank some magic shots anyway (basically warriors and variants on the warrior).
Your statistical analysis isn’t entirely accurate. The 50% absorption is independent each time you’re hit with a spell. If you’re hit with a 10 damage spell 10 times, you have a 50% chance to absorb each spell, which doesn’t necessarily mean you will absorb 50 damage. It’s just like flipping a coin. If you flip a coin ten times it won’t necessarily land on heads 5 times and tails 5 times since each toss is a separate 50/50 chance.
With draugr after a while, they stop using frost spells, and start using shouts, which are don’t get absorbed. Next, conjuration you cast can also be absorbed, so trying to summon something can be stopped, next, not every build needs magic resistance, and it can start to feel OP if you get past about 45%, next, just because something is “a convenience perk” doesn’t mean it is bad. 100 extra weight is much more useful most of the time, when you can’t get to a safe chest to use. Also, the steed stone gives access to the non-weight perks from heavy and light armor
On higher difficulties i think I disagree, you want to stack as many resistances as you can together. The blessing of mara quest gives you 15% resistance to magic. Couple that with the lord stone and that’s now 40% resistance to magic. Playing as a nord or breten? Even an orc while berserk taking half damage from spells and then from half damage and then resistance of 40% and you can end up tanking magic better than you think. Not to mention all the resist magic or specific elements you find. Right now im playing on legendary difficulty with a nord paladin. Also, the quest that gives you 2 standing stone abilities would pair nice with the atronoch and lord stone.
This is really why I so hope they changed the leveling/birth signs system. They could’ve committed to having stones help with leveling OR help gameplay so a stone(s) isn’t favored like atronach is. I like that in Morrowind you made a character and are dedicated to the playstyle. I know Skyrim is suppose to be more open with types of gameplay, but a big piece of your character in the past is now minor.
There are couple of things to consider. While I generally agree that Atronach is superior there are some points make for the magic resist. Spell absorption can’t be enchanted into items. Magic resist can. And it has good synergy with elemental resistances. The point is – resistance is going to be more valuable for characters with low hitpoints – 80% chance to completely mitigate a spell is nothing if 20% will still kill you. Resistance gives you more reliable reaction window as it diminishes the overall effect. Second point – even mages should generally wear armour. Perks that increase your effectiveness without armour are a waste if you consider the fact that top tier alteration spell forces armour cap anyway, but the point is – casting such spell uses up magicka that could be spent elsewhere. So it is better to have a passive armour cap from armour. On non-breton characters – you can reach 70% magic resist without. This is huge still. And it is still beneficial for a shield-wielding fighter, if you have elemental protection perk, you can further decrease incoming elemental damage by 50%. This nearly completely negates any elemental magic damage. If you manage to cap out both elemental and magic resist – you can negate around 97% of magic damage. Sure, this requires some solid enchanting or item swapping but still. There is also one major downside to spell absorption – it interferes with conjuration.
The atronach Stone is unreliable, leaving your “protection” up to chance. I don’t care what statistics you run, the fact remains that real world runs of chance will still be left up to chance I will admit there’s a case to be made about 100% spell absorption as opposed to 85% magic protection, but the fact that spell absorption can destroy your ability to use conjuration is just too much for me. Especially when anything below 100% leaves things to chance still I personally say that reliability from your standing stone is more important than a game-breaking stat that can even affect gameplay
Eeh as a warrior character that uses a magic often I’ll still stick with lord stone. Why? I have 120% fire and frost resistance anyway so magic isn’t a threat. Sure I still take shock damage but it’s not like it’s that bad anyway. I deal high damage myself meaning I’ll kill whoever uses it against me before that person can kill me with it since shock doesn’t do that much damage usually anyway.
For those who use conjuration or just want the Lord stone for no reason Allow me to illuminated and alternative means to ignoring magic. Preferable for Nords and Dunmer You can reach the 85% resistance cap through lord stone, Mara quest, and alteration perks or otherwise equivalent enchantments. From there you want to have either 2 enchantments and the race trait or 3 enchantments that increase resistance to all 3 magic element types to 50 plus. This forces spells to pass 2 extra defense checks and reduces the damage to less than what your natural hp regen can recover. Now conjurer and crazy people who love the Lord stone can also engage the power fantasy of magic immunity!
if you’re a necromancer the ritual stone is the best here’s why. now to be clear you can use whatever stone you want on your character. BUT Using the aetherial crown and azidals ring of necromancy you become an unstoppable dead lord. equip the ritual stone on the crow and summon all dead bofies around you wbu h then become walking frost runes with the ring and then once they all blow up just reequip the crown and bring them all back PLUS all the enimeis you killed. beware though because eventually you can get so many frost bomb zombies you can crash the game when they explode. that takes alot though.
I disagree about 50% better spell absorbtion being better than 25% spell resistance and 50 armor, firstly because the spell absobtion is a chance and for me that never works out well and second, because when you role play or even role play one of your builds often time you do NOT have the best armor and 50 extra armor to someone who does NOT have alteration is great, while 25% spell resistance is also great, I think both stones are equally as good and it falls down to preference, I just prefer raw stats than chance based stats.
Just wanted to point out that your maths on ten spells hitting the player and the atronach stone only causing them to take half the total damage is wrong. 50% chance to negate dmg of 10 different spells doesnt mean 10 spells divided by 2 it means 50% on first spell divided by 2 for the second and another 2 for the third so essentially for 10 spells to say you would only receive half the damage is incorrect rather it is correct to say that for 10 spells there is a 0.09765625% chance to negate all damage.
why chose 1 stone when you can get both? I personally like the vampire necromancer build with atronach and ritual stone using the aetherial crown and a large focus on restoration for necromage and the guardian circle. no need at all for magic Regen at that point. just try not to get caught in your own spells blast or you will stop absorbing the magic from your guardian circle. I also think the only real use for the Lord stone is for hand-to-hand builds. that’s what I plan on doing for my Nord. I named him Chuck Nordis
except now you level indefinitely and it becomes harder to level as you go up making all the stones that help you level still very useful late game. Also the 50% slower magica regen is a huge setback for a full mage character where you’re going to use and need a lot of magic in combat against magic users and non magic users and you can’t be relying on a chance of spell absorb to get that magic back, especially since as a mage you probably don’t have that much health, and it not triggering absorbing could mean the difference between life and death. Also there’s a chance you absorb your own conjuration spells, witch once again if you’re a squishy mage could mean the difference between life and death.
It will reduce damage by 50% not half the time. That is statically, and sure it works saying it and I am not arguing the effect of it, but it’s chance based. The lord stone is constant. It’ll always reduce it. The Atronach can reduce all of the spells hit to nothing or none of them. So it’s not exactly as easy at it sounds in this article.
know what i did? i’ll tell ya. Atrronach stone off the bat, head directly into the star of azura, kill that bum, keep it, head to the shrine of Meridia, stand in her divine light, cast heal while her beams burn away my flesh, all the while receiving magic unending. repeat until my restoration skill increase due to my pious masochism
At level 1 if i use the atronach stone and breton (mainly for dragon skin) so if i fight a dragon and use dragon skin thats 60 seconds of 100% absorption so so many spells and no damage (if you stay a range where he uses dragon breath) lv 1 breton with atronach stone = 1 totaly badass dragon/mage slayer
Ive gotten my armor rating up to like 1100 completely legit tf you mean it caps at 600? And if you means it caps but the number will still go up thats not true cause i used to use the fortify restoration potion glitch to make armor with millions of armor rating and than I’d sit in a corner and let a briarheart hit me to power level my heavy armour skill. I wouldn’t not be able to do that with my set thats like 1100 so im a little confused here
The Atronach is still a pain in the ass if you’re a spell caster yourself, so many times I have gone to summon my Dremora Lord to save my ass moments before dying only to have the spell absorbed instead =( only conjuration spells that work well are necromancy since they are target spells and not cast on self
When you total the magic resistance with the lord stone, you left out the agent of mara buff, meaning that the total for non bretons is 70%, and bretons hit the the cap without enchanted gear. I’d argue that the lord stone is better if it allows you to benefit from an enchant that you would have otherwise devoted to reaching the magic resistance cap. I’ve never really had problems with mana on a mage, but I noticed that you claim that the magic regeneration penalty is negligible at high level due to cost reduction enchants, but access to this gear also lowers the benefit of the extra magicka that you receive from successful spell absorption. Without an armor rating mod, the armor rating can be ignored at high level when you’re using tempered doubly enchanted armor, but why wouldn’t you use an armor rating mod?
I agree with it being the end game standing stone, but I think Lord stone is still useful in that period before end game and after early game when the guardian stones aren’t really useful, and when you don’t have a full set a daedric armor. The lord stone helps with this I think, and then once you have better armor near late game you simply switch to atronach. What do you think?
I find the steed stone to be handy negate the cost of armor in you stash (especially dragon bone gear that’s heavy as fuck) or for robing a city blind point is comparing it to the Lord stone or atrnoch stone is absurd there not ment for the same uses and if your so worried about spells enchanting with absorb is still good where the steed stone is a utility based stone
I always used it just to level up my alteration skill just start meridias quest the break of dawn get the telekinesis spell and the atronach stone and in the first room activate the light beam egg thingy then drop any item and stand in front of the beam because it does magical damage so use telekinesis and healing at the same time and that’s it just wait till alteration is at level 100 I usually just do that like 4 times then just level up illusion and use the harmony spell where the gildagreen tree is and make my illusion skill legendary over and over and then get like 1500 magika in no time 👍
lord stone 200% better for any builds since you dont loose any magika regen. I have an orc with max magic resistance (85%) some spell absorption (50%) and specific reduction, like max for fire storm and for ice damage (85%) and i never ever have trouble with taking damage… and even if I stay AFK for 10 minutes I come back with a lot of hp remaining and I can activate berserker rage for half less damage like a boss .of course i play on legendary
My current character is a very basic nord. I’ve been doing fancy shmancy buildsfor a while and decided screw it, I want heavy armour, two handed, one handed, block, smithing, and a little archery. Over the course of play, this heavy handed shout happy brute joined the thieves guild, of all things (Figured a thug and conman belongs there just as much as a thief). This presented some… challenges. Challenges I worked out a way of resolving that makes quite an interesting play style. Aetherium crown (which as we know lets you immediately use stone powers upon re-equipping it), equipped with Shadow stone, and Steed stone the rest of the time; Ebony Blade for the weapon of choice. The end result is a surprisingly nimble tank with the ability to go a little loot crazy, and vanish into the shadows when needed; plus it’s amusing seeing enemies go “Hey who’s there” as I noisily clunk past them like a damn ninja. It’s pretty much the only time I’ve even remotely considered the steed stone. So yeah… that’s my story.
I’ll use the Lord stone regardless. I don’t consider the idea of giving my defense up to chance a better one, given you can only reach 100% absorption with a certain ability once a day combined with this stone. A 100% chance of reducing all incoming magic damage by 85% is in my eyes far better than an unreliable percentage chance of negating that damage all together. To me it’s like the idea of giving defensive abilities up to rolls. I’ve played too Much DnD and 100% OJ to trust that at all, thank you very much. Roll wrong on one hit, and you’ll be taking significantly more damage than you would have if you’d just tanked the hit with high resistance. Roll wrong on two, it gets worse. Get unlucky enough and you’d be certainly killed. The idea of waiting 24h for the 100% to come back up before every fight with a magic user is annoying, too, and since it just absorbs damage, and not negative effects like drains, it’s effectively just a knockoff dodge mechanic that’s worse than ones from other games. get into a fight with an annoying enough ice mage, and you’ll never be able to get to him before you roll wrong enough times for him to kill you due to that dumb slow, making it pretty much the same as resistances anyway, but worse in a drawn out fight. There’s also the fact that 25% resistance is all the stone gives you, and 50% absorption is the other, and there is a cap for one, but once the pointless once a day power wears off it’s like 60-70% chance to dodge vs 100% chance to reduce 85% of all damage.
Depending on your build the apprentice stone isn’t as shit as you might think it is. Even though the magicka damage penalty is severe it can be completely negated by wards. This coupled with enchantments that increase magicka regeneration and if you a master resist magicka or spell absorption makes the Apprentice Stone Ideal if you play your cards right. And I don’t know if it stacks with high born (but it probably does) which can be alot more beneficial than 50+ magicka and spell absorption.
This is ridiculous, ended up here because I read the bug on TES wiki. I hope they fix it in upcoming patch… doesn’t seem like they’re fixing most bugs very quickly, especially framerate issues on PS3, let alone massive bugs not to mention these ones. For now I think I’ll hold off on taking the Atronach perk, it’s just not worth the pain of not summoning 100% of the time..