The Mages Guild is a professional organization in Tamriel dedicated to the study and application of magicka and alchemy. Its charter from the Emperor stipulates that the guild must provide magic services to the public, with branches located in Anvil, Bravil, Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Leyawiin, and Skingrad. The guild headquarters are at the Arcane, and each city has a mages guild that specializes in a certain magic type.
Alternation is a magic arts skill that involves manipulating parts of the physical world and its natural properties. It includes the ability to walk on water and breathe it, open locks, and shield oneself from physical and supernatural threats. Master-level spells are only sold by teachers at the college after a special quest. Tolfdir sells Alteration-based items such as jewelry, staves, spell tomes, and mage robes.
Tolfdir in the College Of Winterhold can give training for Alteration skill, but you need to be initiated into the college and start the Saarthal quest. Spellmaking services are offered from various merchants around Morrowind, notably within Mages Guilds. To level Alteration, use the standing stones west of Riverwood (the Mage) and the Well Rested bonus to maximize your abilities.
Joining the Mages Guild is one of the most involved tasks in the game, but once you join, you will have access to the Arcane University in Cyrodiil.
📹 “People Say Pure Mage Is…………….Weak??? How??”
Skyrim #Anniversary #SkyrimAE The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim Anniversary Edition Buy The Game Here: …
Where can I find master spells?
In Skyrim, spells can be purchased from the College of Winterhold, but Master Spells require completion of quests. Once Level 90 in each Magic Skill, you can start a Quest for Master Magic Spell from each college of Magic. To acquire master-level spells, talk to Tolfdir at the College of Winterhold when near Mastering the Alteration Skill (around Level 100) and Phinis Gestor at the College of Winterhold when near Mastering Conjuration. They will provide you with the Conjuration Ritual Spell Quest if there’s more to learn.
Is illusion good in Oblivion?
Illusion is a useful skill for sneaks and mages, but it is particularly useful for those with low Personality, Mercantile, and Speechcraft. The most useful spells in this skill set are not accessible until journeyman level, but they are ideal for sneaking around in dark dungeons. Chameleon, Invisibility, and Night-Eye are great for sneaking around, while Silence is useful for stopping mages. Paralyze is costly but can be lifesaver. Light spells are appreciated by almost any character, except for Khajiit.
Illusion is the magic specialty of the Bravil mages guild chapter. With 100 chameleon, a Hero can be completely invisible, but enemies can still hear any noises made. Charm is a useful spell for getting important information without worrying about Speechcraft. A cheap, high-magnitude, low-duration spell can be created by joining the Mages Guild, making it valuable for characters with low Personality, Speechcraft, or gold.
How do you get Alteration to level 100?
A Reddit user discovered a secret in Skyrim that allows players to level up their Alteration skill quickly and with minimal effort. By casting Magelight to the highest point of the mountain, players can increase their Alteration skill from twenty to thirty-five in just one minute. This trick is a testament to the game’s immersion and the fact that Magelight rewards XP based on the distance it travels. The player exploited this rewards system, resulting in fast XP.
Despite Skyrim’s reputation for immersion, some players find quick hacks useful to save time. This is a testament to Bethesda’s work in creating an incredible fantasy action-RPG experience that continues to attract players. The game is still hailed as one of the greatest RPGs, and its devoted fan base continues to share and revel in the game’s secrets.
Who is the Alteration mage in Winterhold?
Tolfdir, an expert in Alteration magic, will be present in the College of Winterhold Quest Line and offers Alteration Spell Tomes and expert training. His initial pedagogical endeavors are conducted in conjunction with Saarthal, the Staff of Magnus, The Eye of Magnus, and Alteration Ritual Spell.
Where to buy best alteration spells Skyrim?
The locations Calcelmo, Falion, Farengar Secret-Fire, Madena, Nelacar, Sybille Stentor, and Tolfdir are all situated within the confines of the following locations: Understone Keep, Morthal, Dragonsreach, Dawnstar, Frozen Hearth, Blue Palace, and College of Winterhold.
Which Mages Guild is Alteration?
The Cheydinhal Mages Guild specializes in Alteration, a magic arts skill that involves manipulating physical world properties. It includes abilities like walking on water, breathing it, opening locks, shielding from damage, and altering a target’s encumbrance. A ‘Lock’ spell is listed in the construction set, but warnings are given to avoid interference in scripts. Alteration spell merchants and trainers can be found on the Spell merchant and Trainers pages.
What city is the Mages Guild in?
The Mages Guild is a guild for mages, located in major cities with its headquarters in the Arcane University in The Imperial City. Joining the guild is a challenging task, but it grants access to the Arcane University, where spelllmaking and item enchanting are possible. This is crucial for making your character invincible, and the rewards are high.
For those planning to use Magicka, joining the Mages Guild early in the game is recommended as it provides spells, items, and equipment that make spellcasting easier. To regain admission, players must provide 20 Dragon’s Tongue Flowers and 20 Redwort Flowers for stealing, and 20 Daedra Hearts and 20 Vampire Dusts for murder. These items can be bought at alchemy stores, except for Vampire Dust, which can only be found on the dead body of a Vampire.
It is recommended to wait a few days and return to the original store to restock the ingredients, as this is easier than scouring the countryside.
Why isn’t the Mages Guild in Skyrim?
The Elder Scrolls’ guild-related lore is based on the Guilds Act, which sanctioned guilds in Tamriel centuries before the series’ start. The Fighters and Mages Guilds existed before the act, but they became entrenched in Tamriel’s political landscape. In Skyrim, the Guilds Act resulted in the creation of only one guild: the Bards College. It is assumed that Fighters and Mages Guilds were never established in Skyrim because suitable substitutes were already in place.
The Companions and the College of Winterhold were already institutions in Skyrim before the Guilds Act was created, but the Fighters and Mages Guilds were known to operate in Skyrim centuries before the game takes place. Skyrim’s guilds seem to exist outside their jurisdiction, forcing them to remain largely neutral in political conflicts. The success of the game may lead to a new assortment of guilds in Skyrim’s sequel.
Where can I get master alteration spells?
The Alteration Ritual Spell is a quest in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim where the Dragonborn must collect and bring dragon heartscales to Tolfdir at the College of Winterhold to learn a master Alteration spell. To collect the heartscales, the Dragonborn must obtain Kahvozein’s Fang, a special dagger, and bring them to Tolfdir. The objective is to study dragon heartscales and help Tolfdir develop a new Master Alteration spell.
Who sells alteration spells in Winterhold?
Tolfdir, an expert in Alteration magic, will be present in the College of Winterhold Quest Line and offers Alteration Spell Tomes and expert training. His initial pedagogical endeavors are conducted in conjunction with Saarthal, the Staff of Magnus, The Eye of Magnus, and Alteration Ritual Spell.
How to get 100% Alteration in Skyrim?
A Reddit user discovered a secret in Skyrim that allows players to level up their Alteration skill quickly and with minimal effort. By casting Magelight to the highest point of the mountain, players can increase their Alteration skill from twenty to thirty-five in just one minute. This trick is a testament to the game’s immersion and the fact that Magelight rewards XP based on the distance it travels. The player exploited this rewards system, resulting in fast XP.
Despite Skyrim’s reputation for immersion, some players find quick hacks useful to save time. This is a testament to Bethesda’s work in creating an incredible fantasy action-RPG experience that continues to attract players. The game is still hailed as one of the greatest RPGs, and its devoted fan base continues to share and revel in the game’s secrets.
📹 Can You Become Morrowind’s Arch-Mage with only Mysticism?
I’m never not using acrobatics and athletics again. What mods am I using? Nothing gamechanging. I’m using the OpenMW engine …
In Daggerfall the power of your spells was tied to your level, so you could end up with thousands of damage points on your spells, in Morrowind you could create spells that wiped out entire towns and in Oblivion spells that defeated any enemy in a single shot, in the lore magic can move entire islands, conjure armies and destroy mountains, both in previous games and in the lore becoming a mage was tedious and difficult but also extremely rewarding, in Skyrim you can’t create your own spells and even though it’s easier to become a powerful magician (alchemy) also feels too futile, like little effort and little reward
Magic isn’t weak it’s just that the crafting system in skyrim OP to the point of being broken. The real problem with magic is the amount of micromanagement it takes, armor spells don’t last long enough, bad UI for managing a lot of spells (god forbid you’re on a console with only two hot keys), and the lack of armor penalties and 100% spell cost reduction makes leveling your mana pointless.
Depends on the level, but the real problem is that magic stops being more powerful much sooner than weapons. Without the alchemy your magic gets capped with your destruction perks. For weapons you get the weapon-skill, smithing, and enchanting to improve your damage. Both also has alchemy, but i don’t like relying on consumables. A full powered warrior with enchanted, and tempered daedric greatsword, plus a potion for more twohanded damage can kill that warrior in 2 hits. Plus crafted shit can be given to companions to improve their stuff as well. You can craft a legendary gear for your warrior companion, and she will slaughter stuff better than any conjured minion. Especially true, if you also give a strong bow, and use your dual enchant for archery as well.
Highborn- best mage ability, bar none. You feel so powerful in that minute, throwing spell after spell, it’s great. That said, magic kind of sucks in Skyrim because of how every spell is capped off. By around level 20, I start struggling as a mage because things just don’t care about my damaging spells. As an archer though, I’m hitting 40’s and still killing most things with one sneak attack or paralyzing it so I can stab it really fast. Mage sucks in Skyrim compared to other versions and to other play styles, but it’s still good for supplementing other play styles. I just hope elder scrolls 6 makes magic as good as it was in oblivion or morrowind, or even half that. I would love to have that level of creativity back in the game
The problem with magic in this game is the limitations of it. With weapons you have enchanting, smithing, alchemy (both potions and poisons), skill levels, perks and sneak attacks to make them stronger. Making it possible to deal thousands upon thousands of dmg in single hits. Magic on the other hand don’t get anything from skill levels, aka a destruction spell on skill level 100 is just as strong on 15. The only way to increase the dmg of magic is with perks and potions. Which will only give you a small boost to the dmg.
I love Mage builds. Throw a frenzy to get enemies fighting each other from stealth, pop a flesh spell and conjure/raise something, then go in with whatever offensive spells feel right. Fighting a mage? Use a ward and shock magic to drain their mana. Fighting a warrior? Hit them with some frost to keep them from closing the gap with power attacks. It’s so much more engaging then sneak archer or warrior builds
The main issue with Skyrims offensive spells is they dont do enough damage. There is no way to increase their damage outside of mods. You can make them free very easily with enchanting, but that’s it. Early game Flames is very good because each tick of damage is equal to that of a single swing from an Iron Sword. However, mid to late game the damage provided from Destruction spells becomes less than that of normal weaponry, not to mention enchanted and improved weapons, in addition to using alchemy to boost your smithing and enchanting. Spells in Skyrim are much more useful as tactical advantages, supplementing your melee or ranged damage. Invisibility, fear, charm, wards and conjuration are all great ways to utilize spells.
My very first run in skyrim, I built a heavy armored guy with double handed weapon like the good ol bloodskal blade, ebony katana. I’ll run head on to enemies then instantly beheading them. Then now, I tried mage build it was fun to plan beforehand what spells to do like should I make them kill each other with fury or paralyze them first. But most of the time I’m hiding like a b*tch with my 2 dremoras tanking everything.
The real problem with magic in Skyrim is that it’s really only effective at lower levels. The damage output of destructions spells has a hard cap that can’t be increased without the use of potions. So the earlier you can get the powerful destruction spells without leveling up the stronger you’ll be. This is compounded even more if you’re playing on a high difficulty. All that prep you did before the fight was almost entirely unnecessary BTW, since all you ended up doing was stunlocking him the entire time.
I gotta be honest I was defending my cloth wearing mage build for a while, expert difficulty was no problem after I figured out the 0 cost to destruction hack. Then I got to level 50 and realized the only way up was with an armor and at least 1 weapon skill because the damage was just not good enough.
I found a simple mod that addresses the problem, it is called Augmented magic. What it does is adjust the power and mana cost of your spells based on the skill level of the school of magic that spell belongs to. It does not alter the magic trees and if you can do it the enemies can have access to it as well.
It’s the weakest way to play in the beginning for sure. You’ve got no magic and no decent spells. It’s also not an ideal build for the endgame either. Your spells will never get that much stronger, and the master level spells are pretty useless. Mainly because how long the start animation is, you’re lucky if you don’t take an axe to the face in that time. If you don’t enchant your gear or wear some really good robes, you’re also pretty useless. Not to mention it’s pretty annoying to play as a mage. Like look at how many times you had to go into the menus. Really a battlemage is the way to go if you wanna use magic. That way when you inevitably run out of magic, you still can defend yourself.
Mage isn’t weak, but you need like, enchantment 100 in order to actually be effective, and on most occasions, you’re either just spraying a dragon down with hundreds of lightning spells, or just stun-locking all other enemies with Impact. If melee functioned on us as it did enemies, we would probably prefer the mage due to the more accessible stun-lock spam.
You can get any combat style fully OP by maxing two crafting trees. You just don’t have all three working for you with destruction magic and you can really feel that while you’re leveling if you aren’t putting the appropriate emphasis on alchemy or you don’t get your impact perk as fast as conceivably possible. That said, the area effect staggers and unlimited range of fireballs and the option to quiet cast and overcome line of sight limitations with chain lightning offers you a pretty nifty and qualitatively different playing experience than you might get with melee or ranged weapon builds. Few things are as satisfyingly aloof as unloading six ice storms in rapid succession down a packed dungeon corridor, not really knowing anything more about what was there than that is all absolutely, incontrovertably dead.
Normally, I would agree with the idea of pure mages being relatively weak, but they can really outshine other classes in some ways. For example, a mage can use high level illusion magic to clear entire barrows with a single casting, assuming they have the Perk to target undead. Seriously! The radius on some of those spells are (from what I’ve been told) nearly the size of Whiterun! A good choice for combat is Azhidal’s Ring of Arcana. The Ignite spell is seriously OP. With a few Perks invested, even a monster like Karstaag only lives for a few seconds. Then there’s my favorite thing to do in Skyrim: The Human Cannonball. Using Whirlwind Sprint, an Alchemy ingredient that paralyses you, and a massive AoE fire spell all together creates enough insanity and havoc to bring any follower of Sheogorath to tears of joy.
In order to do all that though you needed a once a day power, a potion, gear that fully removed the cost of destruction spells, and a chance to set up, and even after that your damage wasn’t very good, the main reason it was easy was because of the impact perk, which is one of the only advantages pure mages have
The good thing about mage that it’s fun not too much overpower and have a lot of option to do But it kinda annoy that you have to buff in fight all the time I try to play mage once when i got so bored of overpower weapon it not challenge at all Well just like they said “spells and incantations for those with the TALENT to cast them”
Full mage is perfectly viable, It’s just weaker when compared to the insanity you can do with melee and ranged weapons + armor, (tho full mage does get the strongest lvl 1 gameplay) While you have to cast a spell to get 80% dmg reduction, warriors/rouges get it all the time, and since they dont need those spellcost reduction enchantments they get to enchant magical resistances too, so they’re twice as tanky as you’ll ever be. Leaving the defense aside, you still needed a full minute of 0 cost spam of THE strongest spell, while using a potion that might be exploited to do more than it should’ve, on top of the necromage exploit and the fear fire dmg buff exploit, so thats a total of 3 possible exploits… just to be on par with the basic lvl 100 smithing power, any melee or ranged weapon would 1 hit ko the ebony warrior if properly built and upgraded, hell if you’re playing an assasin then you can 1 hit ko a health bar so high it’d be like downing 30 ebony warriors in 1 go BUT, at the end of the day, skyrim is an rpg, meaning it’s not about how powerful you can get, everyone can be a god, but not everyone can roleplay as a humble cabbage farmer and enjoy it
“Mages ain’t weak” Mages: ” Fly Bless of Magic Caster Infinity Wall Magic Ward, Holy Life Essence Greater Full Potential Freedom False Data, Life See Through Paranormal Intuition Greater Resistance Mantle of Chaos Indomitability Sensor Boost Greater Luck Magic Boost Dragonic Power Greater Hardening Heavenly Aura Absorption Penetrate Up Greater Magic Shield Mana Essence Triplet Maximize Magic, Explode Mine Triplet Magic, Greater Magic Seal Triplet Maximize Boosted Magic, Magic Arrow”
Having a spells mod can help a lot with the tediousness of playing a mage. I’m playing through a glass cannon mage build atm, and the utility they have is really fun and convenient. I can create bridges, beds, crafting stations, run through the air, detonate any lock open (I have 100 Alteration), have an unlimited storage space that I can cast at will, etc etc. There are certainly drawbacks to playing a squishy mage but it also comes with its own challenges which is part of the fun. Having a tanky companion really helps too.
Im currently a destruction mage, playing through and id say two things that are crucial to make it work (specifically in the realm of destruction): 1. Favourite your items/spells for efficient managment and keep it as simple as possible. Hopping through menus is not as fun compared to easy switching in the favourites bar with just the essential spells, potions or items for the purpose of fun combat. 2. Use the necessity of spell cost reduction enchanting, spell damage elixir buffing and high level armour smithing/improving for survivability, in a synergized build. When you lack in these categories, you’ll miss out on extra damage, cheaper spell casting or higher survivability and your overall build will suffer for it.
Well, people don’t say magic is weak, because you can’t beat the game with it. They say that, because melee is 10 times better. I mean, yes, you were able to beat the Ebony Warrior on legendary difficulty within 30 seconds with an additional 30 seconds of preperation, but the world record kill was something arround 5 seconds with only a single shout right before combat, done by a melee dual whield build. Magic can be fun, but it certainly is not even close to being viable compared to other builds.
You buff yourself up, you even drink a fortify potion (Given how broken alchemy is I’m assuming thats like a 50% increase) and your spells still deal no damage even though you are already using fire magic which sacrifices stamina or magica damage for more raw damage. All of this is pretty much a testimony towards how underwhelming vanilla magic is. I’ve seen vanilla ebon warrior kills that actually looked like two endgame characters fighting. This just looks like an apprentice character with no mana costs and the dualcast stagger perk slowly wearing down the boss. After you mod magic once through EnaiRim mods or similar or play Oblivion’s spell crafting system for a while, you begin to realize how absolutely pathetic Skyrim’s vanilla iteration of magic is. It feels almost as if magic is kept intentionally weak so that casting enemies can use the same spells the player uses without becoming terrifyingly overpowered. Use any magic mod that adds actual strong spells to the whole game (even enemies) and you’ll realize this pretty quickly. Not to mention that you perfectly showcased the issue with skyrim’s leveling system in general. Instead of specializing your character in a roleplaying fashion, you just casually master multiple schools of magic because thats what you are genuinely required to do in order to stay viable. It’s no longer about mastering one specific path in skyrim, its now about mastering everything one of the three branches (war/thief/mage) has to offer and just becoming amazing at everything that branch has to offer.
Because it took you 40 seconds of inventory and spell management just to start the fight. Another build would have already killed it. Then you sat there and spammed the same fire spell 20+ times. Not much different than spamming right click as you would otherwise, and my one handed build can kill the same enemy in 3 hits tops BEFORE enchantments. You’ve just demonstrated the exact reason they’re considered weak lol. Also I get really fucking tired of having to run away and scroll through my favorites wheel everytime an enemy appears. I’d rather just pull out my weapon and do the whole “hoho you’re approaching me?”, instead of “hold up bro lemme get my buffs then ur fuckin dead”. One certainly FEELS a lot more powerful than the other.
Why did they remove so many spells in Skyrim? Open Lock. Lock. Nighteye. Chameleon. Burden. Feather. There are still way more. Skyrim not having Spellcrafting was so limiting, and ON TOP of that, they remove many spells that were in older games. Oblivion didn’t have Slowfall or Levitate. I especially miss the fortify skill/attribute spells
It is viable, it’s just way lower damage potential than many other builds. I always end up playing a dual-wielding sword build and by the end game, you get so many buffs and skills that it’s just completely broken. Especially if you also spec into alteration because dragonhide and the magic resistances make you essentially unkillable
I read a ton of comments: how about these? Stealth, Illusion or both get some synergies from perks so that magic can get sneak attack bonuses? Some gear gets multipliers for sneaky mages or magic-based stealthy types? There could be some trade-off in crafted or dropped gear of free magic vs. magic damage increase? You could have it just be “magicka” cost-reduction” is a separate enchant, whereas something like “fortify” makes the spells of that school more effective?
They say it’s weak because those potions and a couple of perks are pretty much the only way to boost Destruction damage, while martial weapons get more damage increases from their skill tree and perks, as well damage boosts from Alchemy, Smithing, and Enchanting, which all stack on each other. I once created a two-handed build which was able to one-shot the Ebony Warrior on Legendary without resorting to exploits, while mage builds are capped at damage levels which mean you need to hit the Ebony Warrior twenty times WITH summoned support in order to down him.
Magic isn’t weak in Skyrim. Conjuration is pretty good, Alteration has useful stuff, Illusion is fantastic at least until half the spells just stop working on most enemies, and of course Restoration is Restoration. Just about everyone wants Restoration. It’s quite specifically Destruction magic that sucks ass, and it’s only really at higher levels at that. But Destruction is what people think of when talking about how weak mages are, because relying on Destruction as your main weapon is really the main difference between a “pure mage” and anyone else casting a few buffs or conjuring something before grabbing a paddlesword and spanking some draugr. And the paddlesword is just so much more effective for much less effort (not to even mention stealth archery, because it’s stealth archery)
Main problem with magic is that there’s no way to increase damage or reduce casting times. Thus you’ll always be capped on damage, and the master level spells run the risk of you being staggered whilst casting. Also unlike the other ranged options of bow and crossbow, it’s not stealthy so can’t be used for an assassin-style build.
I always go with archery, sneak, light armor. Sneak attacking is my go to. When I first try games, like skyrim, I try different weapons and all the game has to offer, but when I have a bow, I prefer stealth. I keep daggers on me for close combat usually I don’t use them cause the bow with a sneak attack is powerful enough at the range I can see them. I only play with dwemer armor and weapons once I travel dwemer ruins, and honestly I prefer the bow instead of the cross bow. Having to do all the dawnguard missions for a cross bow takes too long and buy the time I get the crossbow, my archery with the bow and my knowledge of how to manipulate the battle with the bow is already pretty good. I don’t use alchemy or enchanting, I never got into it, but if I get to the point where I can enchant, I still wouldn’t know what would be useful. Usually by that point anyways I’m super wealthy, Building a house in falkreath. Having a house in markarth,, solitude, and whiterun. I like west of skyrim, I’ve never been interested in the east. Even with the thieves guild in riften, their is no benefit for me. That skeleton key is useless since I’ve already mastered lockpicking master locks with simple picks, just by playing for so many years, hardly I break a lock pick. When I do get to riften my skills are already maxed. When I play skyrim, I honestly stay around the starting town that I always forget the name of, but I go to whiteout to refine my ores at the smelter. I just sell weapons, hunt, scavenge for food and drinks, and I do quests nearby whiterun.
As a Skyrim Player… Magic is largely utility. Detect Life and Detect Dead, Ebonyflesh, Flame Cloak, Muffle (not including Invis since that’s bugged to only last an effective 25sec + alerts everyone nearby for the first 5 sec). Sure, you have Destruction spells, but they cap out on damage unless you use the Alchemy Bug for insane Destruction (in which case insane Marksmanship would OHKO everything with any other weapon). Not to say the other weapons don’t cap, but their cap is higher, and you can use them with Stealth too for OHKOs (even the Ebony Warrior can be OHKOed with Dual Flurry. Well, 3-shot in one set of swings…) Fireball? Fire Resistance + Low damage cap + Alerts nearby enemies (which don’t tend to cluster quite so close anyhow) + consumes Magicka better used on Utility… Sure, it’s not weak in-game, you can still OHKO mooks, but against the tougher enemies, even the Summons are barely any better than distractions for them to swat. I would know, I tried fighting the Ebony Warrior melee and without tricks. Took forever, had to chug pots and chomp on cheese (I was Magicka Build merely for the Magicka to cast the Master Tier Spells… HP doesn’t really matter for a Rogue, after all, and I used the Alchemy Bug for Stamina and Carry Weight, which weren’t things I considered important to my gameplay experience), and my Summon (either the Reaper guy from the Book or the Dremora, I forget the names) did basically no damage and got dispelled in but a few hits each. Extra damage, yeah, but not much use.
sorry brother but 400 damage bow vs 100 and something damage spell… that’s what they mean by “weak”… weapons are broken because not only you can smith them, you can also enchant them with elemental damage, absorb health, absorb stamina, paralysis, etc., and on top of that you have enchantments that fortify archery/weapon damage, AND on top of that you have power attacks and sneak multipliers… it’s just not fair all you have as a destruction mage are the DLC dragon priest masks and potions of fortify destruction, oh and maybe the aspect of fear bug that makes fire spells deal more damage (lol) ~A fellow mage player since 2012 edit: also impact makes the game VERY BORING
Magic in game stops being powerful much sooner which makes zero sense as lore wise magic can be an army destroyer, for me skyrim magic feels unsatisfying theres really no creative spells it just turns boring spamming the same spell 50 times, I would rather have high damage output both incoming and outgoing but having to strategise with my spells on each encounter to make them effective on certain opponents so the game is harder but far more rewarding when you win.
Pure mage is ok on difficulty lower than master. Beyond that you will still win, but it takes literal ages. Conjuration is just extremely busted and you can stunlock enemies indefinetely. But why do that if you can just oneshot enemies with a crossbow? I personally don´t like destruction magic because it tennds to be TOO flashy on higher levels. If you kill a bandit marauder with fireballs you get a seizure and lose your hearing bevor they are dead.
I’ve killed the Ebony Warrior in a single hit as a Melee Stealth Character, if you think this article showcases how “Powerful” pure mages are you’re sadly mistaken. So yeah, can you play as Pure Mage? Of course you can, Can it be fun to play Pure Mage? Definitely, will a maxed out Pure Mage ever rival a maxed out Thief or Warrior character? No.
God forbid this sweet mage is riding a horse and some unexpected fight from any of the many random encounters every 100 meters comes his way before he is able to unmount and cast Dragonhide. Did I mentioned that the aforementioned random encounter can be a freaking Dragon? Do it because you really want to be a mage, not because it’s a logical build. I always use Magicka as support: conj, illusion, alteration., while I always keep a sword, a shield and a bow in a clicks distance (keyboard quickslots). I’m using master robes of illusion to grind perks, but always keep a capped light armor in a quickslot skyui menu, in order to group use it.
Fun fact if you smith your gear to the max without any glitches and get the shout that increases onehanded swing speed. You can trigger his instant healing from how much dps you cause from power attacks. (You also need alot of stamina) (also only use first word of shout due to cooldown. It drasticaply decreases dps if you use more than the first word)
My usual playstyle would be to become invisible, get in the middle of the area with the most enemies, cast Mass Paralysis and then that Blizzard, watch and laugh my heart out at the enemies and objects spinning around while destroying my fps. And when I’m done laughing, I’d eat enemies spells to the face while casting Lightning Storm indefinitely due to a high amount of spell absoption. It was pretty fun.
Because back in the day, and I mean waaaaay back like 2013, you could make extremely broken swords and daggers with 1000 damage up to 10000, maybe even more. That alone made warriors or assassins far better than any magic welding character. Edit: I assume they patched the broken smithing system by now? Haven’t played in 8 years.
Pure magic does not include alchemy, but if you do play with it you can use poison of resistance reduce to magic on conjured weapons, let’s say a bow, do 1 hit on the ebony warrior with it ( without lvling up archery) and if you have a strong magic resist poison you can burn down the ebony warrior with just a flame cloack or regular flames in less than 3 seconds
Some people think that magic in Skyrim is very underrated for some reason. I used to think it was underrated up until recently, but I also didn’t really like using magic when I was younger. Recently I’ve been making a build that uses healing and fire spells along with a warrior. I’m basically making a spellsword that uses only fire, healing, and maybe a little bit of Alteration spells.
When you enchant 100% cost reduction on destruction it becomes pretty neat I actually never played a stealth archer though (yes really) so I can’t say it’s the most powerful build, because I can’t compare it. But it’s pretty easy to shred your enemies in a moment at high level, and low level spells have like the most op damage, specifically the shock spells
Thank you for trying to prove a point. However, I got some questions/points: 1: Which difficulty level is this? 2: How strong are the fortify destruction potions you use and did you use the restoration glitch to increase their power above what would otherwise be possible? 3: -100% Destruction cost. Yeah ok, sure, you can stagger an enemy infinetly stopping them form acting, if your spells don’t cost any magicka :p (However I accept that this is a gameplay point that I just personally do not like and that it is fine if people use it since it was obviously intended by the devs) 4: Dremora Lords are the second strongest summon for a reason: They do PHYSICAL damage and are meatshields, basically the act like any melee follower in the game. Try the same fight with 2 Atronach thralls that stand back and cast weak spells and then show me again how strong pure magic is, when the ebony knight smashes your face because the atronachs are too far back (also consider point 3 here). fun fact: Dremora Lords are only outclassed by Dead Thrall because of the sick NPCs Bethesda implemented. 5: You tried to prove how strong magic is, yet you used only expert level spells for the fight (aside from Dragonhide in the preparation)…. maybe because master level destruction and conjuration are actually weaker than their expert level counterparts? XD
Because compared to any weapon damage, it is. Take destruction (fire mage) vs one-handed for example. Fire spells get 50% from augmented fire and additional buffs from the dual cast and aspect of terror (exclusive to only fire mages since fire counts as a fear spell) perks, and if your character does alchemy, then you can make fortify destruction potions, with gets amplified by enchanting. Not only does one-handed benefit from all of that with better scaling perks (100% damage from first perk, crit bonus, armor ignoring, etc), it gets direct benefits from sneak, enchanting, which gets amplified by alchemy, AND it gets smithing benefits which gets amplification from both alchemy AND enchanting. Not hard to see why mages are vastly inferior in damage. Not to mention enemies often having damage reduction or immunity to a specific element via either enchantments or natural immunity (atronachs, dragons, etc), sneak not affecting magic even with quiet casting, armor being capped, and a bevy of other problems that I fail to mention here. As someone that plays exclusively on legendary, I have never taken a mage past level 50 because the damage scaling falls off a cliff, dual-casted expert illusion spells simply not affecting people, wasted investment into magicka just to get 100% spell cost reduction, etc. The only thing mages have going for them is that dual-casted projectile spells stagger, so using them is pretty much the only viable strategy
I have a one handed and shield heavy amor build and the only magic I use is restoration, dragon shouts and enchanting, it feels more badass having to dodge and block enemies attacks as I slash and shout through them. makes me feel like a unstoppable warrior that can overpower anything in it’s way. I tried being a mage once and it bored me to death, it just doesn’t feel as badass having to cast 100 spells before a fight and hiding in a corner while your dremoras/companions do the heavy lifting for you.
Now compare this to the t baggin one hit kill sneak build that doesn’t need to spend half a minute to prepare for a fight. You can get 100 sneak and all the perks you need before even exiting helgen. Then just play the game for a single hour to kill astrid to get the blade of woe and the dark brotherhood armor. Enjoy killing every single enemy except bosses in a single sneak attack. Just walk up to them, press the sneak button to trigger the shadow warrior perk and then stab them. For some extra bonus, become a vampire and travel at night, like a real assassin would. Also, you don’t need this much effort to kill the ebony warrior as a mage. The frebolt spell combined with the impact perk and 100% fortify destruction can do it just fine. It’s also more fun.
A lot of people are talking about all the prep you had to do but it’s not a bad thing really. The fact that we have powers and spells we can stack to maximize our full power gives us a feeling of dynamic control over just how much of our full power we’re using at any time. What does a warrior have? “I swing my sword left and right” or the alternative “I swing my sword but harder “. And archers “pointy stick go woosh”.
Magic on its own isn’t weak but what seems better to you: spending 1 minute finding the perfect spot to sneak up and end it in 1 hit. Running up and taking successive staggering hits as your armor absorbs the damage you take, or run in without armor and rely on warriors that dissappear after 2 minutes and spells that waste your magica so you can’t heal without spells if it gets too tough. It’s fun yea. Ya gotta use your head more (but still not as much as a thief or Rouge playstyle) and know your characters limits before even thinking about approaching an opponent.
I like to reduce resto spells with enchants and run heavy armor with sword, not as op as stealth archers but its really fun to just be able to run into any fight and not worry about dying Also if you hate spells casters its a good build cause once you have the all the reduce resto cost, wards cost nothing
I view skyrims magic as more of a support skill than an actual playstyle. Illusion has great crowd control Conjuration can give you two really powerful bullet sponges, alteration for damage mitigation, and restoration for health. The only pure damage dealer is destruction and it scales rather badly late game.
I guess the how is the ten minutes it took to start the fight with the NPC just waiting for you to be ready, being the one race that actually helps with your spell casting on top of needing to either cheese or grind your enchanting high enough to cast the 30 free Incinerates to kill the guy, where as a warrior would just run up to him and kick his head in and the stealth build would just need to crouch down and shoot him. It’s a lot of crap investment to just be playing at par. Dremora Lord is godly though, best spell in the game.
I think it has lots of utility if you get 100% free destruction spells, you can spam attacks that will crowd control enemies very well. Stealth archer is obviously stronger, but you can do pretty well. I remember using the 3 Dragonborn DLC Dragon priest masks to maximice damage of destructions spells alongside alchemy. Its not the best by any means but provided enough support from alchemy and enchantments you can make it legendary viable.
Honestly compared to my Skyrim antics, this is fairly tame. My proudest accomplishment is still accidentally making a walking god with infinite health enchanted armor who somehow died of embarrassment any time he took his enchanted clothes off. Still haven’t recreated that, but it’s effectively the most peak skyrim thing I’ve made to this day.
It’s not exactly weak.. I love the end game of a pure mage build. Not weighed down, only weapon other than magic you need is like one dagger for when things get sketchy, with any kind of hotkey mods for swapping spells (in order to not spend the time to go in inv to swap spells) it’s fun as hell. A bit tricky at the start cuz you will be squishy for a while until you start getting higher in alteration or restoration. By end game with high alteration you can be tankier than heavy armor builds with just a spell and dragonaspect shout with just normal robes and clothes lol. Also.. those elemental spells that the creation club adds are insane
The strongest point of skyrim maging is the ability to stun-lock an enemy with destruction spells. Some enemies can’t be stunned though for some reason, but otherwise, yeah, dual cast lightning bolt until I’m bored and wish I could get a better spell that i can afford to case more than 3 times in a row…
I still prefer sword or bow but tbf… I’ve become broken as Hell without meaning too. Got the immortality glitch and someone somehow made my enchantment 5000. Was definitely not my doing, I wasn’t home when this happened. Well… The enchantment wasn’t… Immortality likely comes from the ethereal shout glitch.
I used hybrid destruction master destruction spell without any buffs as a warrior mage and one shot em pretty ez. Archery is OP as well. In Skyrim I’d like to say mages are weak because they can’t take dmg but with heavy plate and good enchants it’s the most op shit ever. Level 40 if grinded well, you can just walk around town fighting guards and healing yourself and max out armor and whatever else nonchalantly. Hardest class so far gotta be duel wielding with light armor 👍🏼 would have loved more big boss enemies that seemed impossible to beat
So I don’t level as high as some do. Never even reached fifty naturally. And I don’t play on the really high difficulties. So bare that in mind with what I say. I never really has much issue with just going mage. It was simpler and more entertaining than any of the others. And the only real issue was armor (and honestly you can kind of just ignore alteration entirely it seems, and just go ahead and wear armor. Alteration really only has like…three good spells in vanilla? Paralyze, armor, and the one that changes iron to gold I think. And I never cared about it long enough to get paralyze.) Conjuration is fantastic, healing helps a lot if you don’t feel like cheesing things by using inventory potions and food all the time, and destruction can do good damage especially to grouped enemies, something swords and such just don’t seem to do most of the time. Never found the magic weak, almost any style seemed to be possible. Though I did find alteration so close to useless, and lockpocking skills not worth it.
It’s substantially powerful in the early game as magic resistance is fairly rare. Late game it falls of a cliff due to enemies being able to absorb 90 shock damage with a health pool of 2k+ Mods however fix this problem entirely and magic becomes of of the most fun play styles I’ve ever enjoyed. Even if I use half a dozen spells ever combat when a simple icy spear would do the trick in every single situation.
That’s not how it works. First you paralyze him, then sommen two dremoras and punch him with destruction expert spells. If he is mage, use shield and ward, if it gets close to you use elemental cloak. I remember I had two swords which I would cut someone to peaces if he gets close while taking damage from my cloak and my dremoras. If you ask me, this is the greatest class in Skyrim.
Trebonius Artorius is a really fun character – he is a really good battlemage, but he is very much a meathead; they pushed him out of Cyrodiil into being the Arch-Mage of the youngest section of Mage’s Guild. You can ask folks around the workplace for fun tasks he has assigned them, and it includes: – Digging a tunnel to the mainland; – Learning language of silt striders to extract confidential information; – Rebuilding Numidium; – Assemble the inventory of all plates and bottles in whole of Vvardenfell; – Towing the Foreign Quarter by chaining it to an army of dreugh. Maybe we are not all Arch-Mages.
I really like the Mage Guild questline, it paints such a fun picture of the organization. Balmora guild is full of ambitious, but unscrupulous people – Ajira wants promotion above all else, but doesn’t want to do anything herself. She tasks you with finding stuff for her research, even finding her a bowl, then asks you to sabotage Galbedir to one-up her. Ranis is a legit unhinged individual who abuses the little power she has and just sends you to assasinate people. Sharn is a necromancer who bribes you for your silence. Aldrunh is about finding books on Dwemer, Sadrith Mora deals with vampires and monsters, and Vivec is just the funniest guild hall with Trebonius being this dumb and kooky archmage who gives you insane tasks while failing to notice the super obvious Telvanni spy right next to him (kinda like Steve Carell’s character from “Space Force”).
That orc you killed is the part of the first quest in the Imperial Legion and you do have to kill him, you won’t be punished for it, because he murdered somebody I think. Imperial Legion questline was written by Todd Howard, allegedly, and the rest of the base game minus the main quest and Imperial Cult was written by Douglas Goodall. It’s interesting that Todd starts you off with a murder investigation whereas Goodall in the Mage’s Guild starts you off with flower and mushroom gathering. If you did a Legion playthrough you might get odd vibes from it due to the changes in style. In addition, all of the Gnisis legion quests happen less than 2 blocks away from the quest giver and Aldruhn was mostly the same. My theory is that Howard hated traveling in Morrowind as well as mundane quests like mushroom and plant gathering and fighting rats so he made quests that had very short trips and more storytelling intrigue. It would at least explain why Oblivion is so fast travel heavy and why the Daedric quests of that game, specifically took place so close to the shrines where you’re given the quests; or why the guild quests in Oblivion don’t have mundane quests like gathering supplies and start off more interesting.
As a small tidbit you can actually get a ceramic bowl IN the Mages Guild, and ironically for years I thought the game was trying to hint me to do so, cuz in an unmodded Morrowind it has no ownership tag, so you can just pick it up, give it to her, and keep the 10 gold she gives you to buy it. It’s the bowl on the table right next to Ranis. 14:15 Funny enough you’re not that far-fetched, the Mages Guild, like any good monopoly has made sure to corner the market. If you join the Telvanni there’s even a quest to help break said economic squeeze the Guild is doing to magical services on Vvardenfell (though from a gameplay POV nothing really changes). Also it’s worth noting that in her backstory (I believe) Ranis is a former Telvanni noble, so it’s no wonder she has a stick up her butt about them. As someone who loves this game, I can kinda get your point about the boringness of Morrowind dungeons, and I think the issue is two-fold: 1. Low rez graphics making it dull to look at. 2. The fact there’s rarely anything to do or interact with in said dungeons. There’s little actual ‘things’ to justify a dungeon besides just ‘it is there’. But I will offer a counter-point: Morrowind’s dungeons don’t overstay their welcome. Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion had shit dungeons most of the time. They took FOREVER to get through even for a simple objective. Massive cave systems and dungeons that just drag on and on seemingly an eternity just to fulfill one quest. It’s a slog so much of the time.
I gotta say, I appreciate your articles. You called yourself a “Skyrim baby” in a previous article and I am a “Morrowind baby”, but you have discovered more fun ways to play this game than I ever did lol. I can’t wait to see where you go and what you end up doing with your content, don’t feel beholden to challenge runs.
If you do more of these challenge runs you should give yourself the leeway of being able to get experience but not enough to increase the skill. I think you’ll be able to do more challenges if you loosen the restrictions just a tad. Unarmored obviously being an exception still. Because that alchemy thing, while hilarious, i dont think should count.
7:30 – I just did the early Mages Guild quests the other day, so I actually remember where to get the Stoneflower you missed here. Ajira actually gives very specific directions for both the mushroom-gathering and flower-gathering tasks, and if you follow them, you’ll actually find places where all four items for both tasks grow clustered very close together. For the flowers, you’re actually supposed to follow the road toward Pelegiad but turn off toward Suran (I think that’s the town she mentioned) before getting there, by just checking the signposts. Everything you need should just be along the road. It’s such a phenomenally basic task that one wonders why Ajira doesn’t just do it herself. Of course, given that she and another mage are busy sabotaging each other, she’s probably afraid to leave her desk.
Pro-tip training magical schools has no bearing on the effect of the spell, so the best spell you can make to train is usually an on-self 0 point spell, on self to avoid hitting an npc with a 0 point touch fire spell or something and getting an assault bounty, unless you want an assault bounty. There’s value in going to jail as skills will get lower which makes them easier to train due to the experience curve and cheaper to re-train at a trainer. There’s a cheesy quirk with telekinesis, it extends your interaction range even in the inventory, so you can hide in the next room or somewhere without direct line of sight of your target, adjust the camera in third person to see your intended target, cast a really powerful like 2 second long spell, open you inventory, move the menus around so you can click the item with your cursor and from there it is officially in your possession and can be placed in your inventory or closing the menu will automatically stuff it in your inventory. I frequently use this for a Thieves guild quest where you have to grab a grandmaster alembic from a telvanni alchemist by standing upstairs and yoinking it from the shelf directly below the floor.
Regarding Detect Key, the real power it has is when you want to free slaves. Since you (for some reason) can’t just pick the lock or use an open spell on slave bracers like you can for every other lock in the game, the often very easy-to-miss keys are the only way to do it, and since there are (for some reason) a few places that have slaves but no keys, it saves you wasting time looking for one. There’s also at least one chest that can only be opened with a key, not even the Skeleton Key will work on it. It’s in an ancestral tomb right next to the hidden monastery where the DIssident Priests live. the key is like five feet away from the chest, but it’s honestly hard to spot even if you know it’s there.
I wish during the fight with Treb, that he would surprisingly turn into a lich half way through it. Outting himself as a devout champion of Mannimarco, explaining how he’s such a powerful battlemage but yet still an absolute insane bonehead at the same time. And that the amulet, would be/was a sort of powerful daedric type of artifact tied to him. (I know this was before the lore ((and especially in-regards to Necromancy here)) was really codified and That he ((Mannimarco)) didn’t really exist outside of being a Daggerfall character; But still, it would’ve been kinda cool)
The pilgrimage quest for the temple requires you to visit a bunch of shrines all over the world, and if you route it really cleverly with teleports, you can do it all within the duration of the levitation shrine. I think it’s actually one of the best designed quests in any of the elder scrolls games, and I always remember the levitation shrine (and the cool associated lore) because of it.
Starting 2024 with morrowind contents ???? THANK YOU FOR THIS GIFT❤ i love this website. I was addicted to morrowind back in the days. So seeing this is just fantastic. Thank you very much for all the morrowind contents❤ Can i ask you something for a challenge? The low effort challenge. What about making sure that you will gain the less amount of XP possible before killing the final boss. That means NO running or athletic will go up faster. No persuasion to make sure speech will not boost! See what i mean?
The shrine inside the Vivec’s compound (in the sewers) bestows a long lasting water breathing spell, which is handy for underwater exploration such as if you want to fight the Ruddy Man in his underwater cave during the Pilgrimate of the 7 Graces. You could even set up a mark near the cave and then teleport there once you have the blessing to make sure you don’t run out of the duration before going for a dive.
small point of advice if you ever do more magic stuff, custom spells can easily get lost amongst your many normal spells, you can get your own to sort outside that list by putting a punctiation mark before their name. i personally use hyphens for this, such as “-go to church” or “-jump good”, this puts all your custom spells right at the top, easy to find.
Hears a amazing tip to restore magika with the atronach birthsign.Get a Summon Ancestral Ghost spell or enchantment and then you want to smack that spook right in the face to piss it off. Its a very high chance that you will absorb its spells and restore a large amount of magika. I wrote this only a few minutes into perusal this article, apologies if this is redundant information.
The way you pronounce “Yagrum Bagarn” is the exact same way I pronounce it, and I’ve been playing Morrowind for over a decade, and it’s my all-time favorite game. So, stick that to the critics! Edit: And I’ll mention that I legitimately have thousands (yes, plural) of hours of gameplay in Morrowind, too.
The clothier next to the Naclarya or whatever, the high elf alchemist in balmora you have to steal diamonds from as the first thief guild quest… she actually has a planter in her shop next to a conveniently placed pillar so you can pick all but heather right there, and swing by and steal some diamonds for $$$ too!
I honestly have to force myself to walk in these kinds of games if that’s possible because I feel like otherwise I’m missing out. Like Morrowind and Oblivion for example, they have these grand and quite beautiful game worlds with all these strange sounds and vistas and it’s so easy to just run past them and not look at any of it. Someone worked their ass off to Make Kamurocho in Yakuza feel lived in, someone spent hours on designing the skybox of the Citadel in Mass Effect, precious time and money was put into creating great scenery in Witcher to really convey how dreary that world is, months used to make the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3 feel impossibly large and devestated, someone took time to put tiny details and flows to make Skyrim feel like a natural land that could exist, and I want to make sure it was worth it by seeing it. I want to witness it all. But walking is slow and takes time and goblin gamer brain tells me to go fast for more shiny stuff.
30:51 I’m very late to this article but since I can’t find any comments about this, kind of both — you can use either “ruin” or “ruins” to refer to a ruined building or group of ruined buildings, however grammatically the article/determiner still has to agree with which noun form you use. So you can say ” a Dwemer ruin”, but you can’t say ” a Dwemer ruins” in the same way you can’t say “a dogs”, you’d have to say something like ” some Dwemer ruins”, as the indefinite article isn’t used with plurals in English. Although you could say ” a set of Dwemer ruins” or something to that effect, as in that case the article would be attached to “set” rather than “ruins”.
Really enjoying these! Guilds are just cartels, no joke here thats what the point of them is. Though typically they used legal pressure rather than extrajudicial murder to stop non-members from practicing their trade. Cities allowed it partly because the guilds have a good bargaining position and partly because the guilds would make sure standards are upheld. Nobody wants buildings built shoddily or traders that cheat their customers.
14:08 “Is the Mages’ Guild a gang?” YES!! I dunno if you were totally joking and I’m too autistic to tell, but that’s one of the themes of the guild questlines in Morrowind: They fancy themselves up as guilds, but they’re all Imperial-sanctioned thugs and gangsters! There’s constant corporate espionage and sometimes literal hits taken out between the native Morrowind factions and the Imperial Institutions. Glad that kind of thing only happens in article games and not in real life (nervous laughter)
Damage strength 10 pts for 10s is enough for pretty much anything you fight. Some enemies don’t have any items though so they won’t get locked in place at 0 strength. Unless you’re doing this challenge, you can add 1pt of burden to account for that. It’s not permanent like damage attribute but it’s pretty cheap.
Glad to see the website growing! I’ve been playing a heck of a lot of baldurs gate 3 recently and was wondering if you have played it or had any interest. There are so many whacky and crazy things you can do, and it really reminds me of your recent Morrowind challenge articles. Anyways, keep up the awesome content. Cheers!
i love challenge articles for the elder scrolls in all forms, and morrowind is no different, but to the uninitiated talking about what you’re doing in morrowind must sound similar to a common waif listening to a wizard chanting arcane rituals i think this means I’m going to have to play morrowind myself someday to get a better understanding of what things mean, but i suspect I’ll come out of it no better off than coming in lmao
I gotta say, after I first played Morrowind I really miss that you had to have a certian degree of skill to be the head of a guild. They should bring that back and or just dont let us be the head, give us a position of similar rank that at least implies we’re not meant to be the HMIC (head mage in charge).
Nice job – that must’ve taken a lot of patience! I’m not sure how you didn’t get any Mercantile experience, does that only get gained if you haggle..? Anyway – fun fact. I played around in the game’s creation engine way back, and Trebonius actually has lines about… it’s either both of you are considered Arch Mage, or he stepped down, I don’t remember. But either way he was very much alive. (I’m fairly sure the text implied he gave you the amulet too.) But I never found a way to achieve that, so maybe it was an alternate ending to the mage’s guild that was scrapped? Edit – I just Googled, and in fact I misremembered – you just get promoted to archmage, you don’t actually get any gear (apparently). But there is still an in-game way to accomplish it.
The only unavoidable skill you need to use to beat the game is mercantile. You just throw money at all your problems. Enchanted gear for invincibility and damage, give sunder and keening to your chosen merchant(s) and lead them to the heart etc. Edit: you may or may not need multiple merchants depending on how you choose to equip keening to them.
Anthropologically, a single site would be a “ruin,” but if you were naming a specific site, you’d call it “the ruins of (location name),” so grammatically your question is much more complicated than I initially figured. I don’t think you’d say “a Dwemer ruins” though, you’d say “a Dwemer ruin” or “some Dwemer ruins.” Arguably, Dwemer sites are single buildings, so they would be just one ruin each. The Dwemer complexes in Red Mountain and Blackreach however have multiple building sites, so I guess those would be plural ruins.
To my English ears it sounds odd when you say “Dwemer Ruins” when talking about a singular ruin, pretty sure “Ruins” denotes plural ruined things, and ruin is for a single ruined thing. An online dictionary is no help…weird huh? I enjoy your relaxed forays into Morrowind, it was the first ever real game that I lost myself in, in my 20’s. As a child I had recurring nightmares of floating parallel above the ground at high speeds, not being in control, not being able to adjust my speed or slow my progress; I think the acrobatics and alchemy skill in Morrowind helped me exorcise those childhood demons and leaping and moving in general became one of my favourite parts of that game.