It may not level alteration however I find it useful for giving you unlimited resources paired with the right perks in the restoration skill tree I forgot the name of the perk that restores stamina as well as health it's very simple actually, have equilibrium in one hand and a strong healing spell in the other and as soon as you heal let off of equilibrium restoring all of your stats
Speaking of detective dead, I found detect life was useful with a stealth archer build. Because if I'm far enough I can see who is around the corner, it helps me make the right moves against high level enemies
The telekinesis + fast travel is a popular way to quickly level alteration without tedious grinding, although it is an exploit and has nothing to do with the actual utility of the spell
Telekinesis is handy for reaching little hidden loot stashed sprinkled in many dungeons that are otherwise out of reach, in some instances an arrow could knock the items down to a reachable spot but assuming your trying to be only mage its a good option.
It can do damage, it’s possible, but really it’s more of just a useless fun little thing to have. I almost never use it but I have a couple of kills with it on my vampire spellblade. I am rocking a daedric sword and a mix of destruction and alteration to cover all my grounds. I use the ordinator perks, apocalypse magic, and other overhauls so frequently I actually didn’t know telekinesis was a vanilla spell in all the time I played Skyrim, because I never touched alteration in vanilla. Magic is weak enough in vanilla but with apocalypse and specifically Ocato’s recital, alteration is one of the strongest things in my load order of Skyrim. I reserve telekinesis kills for the shittiest of shitty, people I really hate. Alva in Morthal for instance, she’s a vampire who enthralled a nord man and made him burn down his home with his wife and child locked inside. Alva recognized me as kin since I was also a vampire, and even though my Dragonborn isn’t at all a pillar of morality, he still feeds as a vampire, occasionally losing control and draining people, but what Alva did was so heinous I made it a goal to kill her in a poetic way. She aggroed me when I went into her home, but likely due to a mod bug with my vampirism, she acted like a scared unarmed npc and would just run away begging for her life. She sent the man she enthralled after me and I hit him with fear (one of the only times I have used illusion this playthrough) making him run. I spared both their lives but when I later found Alva in the master vampire’s lair, I wiped out all the vampires and left her as she ran around begging for mercy. I proceeded to use telekinesis to beat her to death with a piece of flesh off the master vampire’s table, killed by the very flesh of one of many victims of that vampire clan. My vampire Dragonborn understands the importance of feeding, understands the necessity, and generally does so harmlessly, using powers to quietly bend people’s will to give up blood without remembering it. He has killed innocents before and he regrets it, but he also despises the genuine evil nature of many other of his kin and still clings to humanity.
Also after spouting off some roleplay and gameplay shit about my current Dragonborn, I think I should add that I’m pretty sure Apocalypse magic mod actually fixes telekinesis a little bit. I am not sure if this is in vanilla but the mod both adds new interesting spells (more blood magic and even shadow arcane magic in destruction which is badass) but it also seems to slightly buff some other spells both with the ordinator perks and the basic spell affects. Telekinesis does damage based on your alteration level. It’s still simply worse then using my sword or throwing destruction magic, but thematically grabbing a random dagger or something from my inventory and slinging it with telekinesis is so fun, and because my one handed, alteration, and destruction are all crazy high at level 30, I can kill your average enemy in a couple telekinesis throws
I made an alteration potion so powerful that now after a month later I still have that candle light following me around 😂 I am the light farengar always says brilliant no it's blinding imagine only happened to cast a spell only one time and it sticks with you I always have ebony flesh on me at all times the power of alchemy creating potions alteration is one of my favorite love it
In addition to being useful for Smithing and (not really in my case) Speech, the jewelry created from transmuting iron ore can also be used for enchanting as well, which can be sold to court wizards for more soul gems. That's been my loop for a while now. I always have a huge abundance of rings and necklaces to enchant and/or sell on every playthrough. And yeah. Telekinesis is usually only good for the exploit or power leveling Alteration. I've probably only used it for a serious purpose once or twice.
I love combining paralyze and vampiric grip together, when you throw an enemy with vamp grip while paralyzed they fly extremely far and bounce everywhere lol
I think this is a solid list, but I do disagree with several of the picks Paralyze is honestly *too* good. Any effect that can instantly turn an enemy into a defenseless infant is already strong, and Paralyze can do it for such an absurdly long time that it's just comically OP. Do a weapon in the right hand and Paralyze in the left, and enchant one or two things with Alteration cost reduction, and you can regen more than enough mana to perpetually paralyze a target while you just hammer down on them. Funny, but silly, OP, and borderline immersion breaking. After all, if it's that easy, why doesn't everyone do it? Mass Paralysis and Dragonhide are, along with most Master Spells, borderline useless because of their cast time. Mass Paralysis can be fun, but if you get it off mid-combat, then the enemies you used it on aren't strong enough to warrant being paralyzed in the first place. Again, it has uses, but you could easily just sub regular Paralysis in, freeze the enemies that matter, clean up the trash, and then go back for the ones who count. Dragonhide is completely useless for anyone who isn't using Mage Armor, because every armor can easily reach the 80% damage reduction. Any point of armor beyond that does nothing. If you are using Mage Armor, it usually lasts long enough for fights, but any long-term engagement is going to see you either scrambling to get to cover enough for the 20 year cast time, or just resort to Ebonyflesh since it casts quickly. I agree with Telekinesis, it's fun but pretty much useless for anything other than goofing off. Waterbreathing should be pretty much at the bottom of the list, there's nothing in Skyrim that warrants this spell I definitely don't think Transmute is "underrated", it's pretty much ubiquitous in any speedrun that involves getting some amount of Gold, and probably one of the first little 'milestones' in lots of people's playthroughs due to how beneficial it is for early game finances. Alteration is a school that honestly needs a lot of love in ES6, as making a mage that specializes in Alteration magic for roleplaying essentially just gimps the character. Slap on some mage armor, paralyze whatever, and get some candlelight, but otherwise it's just not that good.
Thanks for the response. This is a big response so I’ll focus on one point. Dragon hide so is great because you can combine the amazing effects from the mage robes (which have 0 armor) and still be as durable as if you were to wear armor. The charge time does suck , but besides that, it is still a great spell. Thanks for watching!
Magelight is underrated because it is genuinely the best looking spell in the game. I still remember that original trailer where it is used in the tunnel and shows off all the lighting effects.
You can unequip then requip a piece of equipment (such as necklace of magicka) to instantly gain that magicka, making all forms of magicka regeneration for non mage builds obsolete. Ring of erudite is good for this trick
Magelight is good vs vampires or invisible enemies/in the dark. As you can tag them with a beacon of light that follows them. Or magelight tag your follower so you dont hit them in the fray
4:12 telekinesis can be used to get items you can see behind a gate but normally have to go through a whole area to get to, it’s a speed runner trick id assume
Everyone forgetting that (as seen by the leek) you can telekineses weapons, which spin around - I can’t remember if they still do their respective damage, but they do act as a barrier against melee opponents.
The problem with Equilibrium is the same one that ruins destruction magic in this game, scaling. At not-so-high levels, destruction magic's lack of scaling forces you to shoot thousands of low damage spells instead of a few high damage ones, that's cheap spells instead of powerful spells. This creates the need for a mage to survive long enough to dish out 40 fireballs, thus rendering Equilibrium useless. If skyrim's combat system relied on high damage coastly spells, equilibrium whould make sense.
Equilibrium is not bad because most situations you’ll use magika to heal meaning you have a lot of healing potions if you run out of magicka potions use equilibrium and then heal or as a vampire it’s also not bad to use
I have yet to play a major conjuration build and thus it is one of the ones I plan to try next. I figured Detect Dead would be incredibly useful for knowing where bodies are to raise zombies in the heat of battle, as missing the cast is very costly (and in the little conjuration I did do I found myself often missing dead targets). Of course once you get Thrall it wouldn't be an issue, but in the levels before you get Thrall I thought Detect Dead would be helpful. Is this not the case? Has anyone else used it in this way?
telekinesis is handier if you have full reduction on alteration cost. I can think of a couple dungeons where it's useful one is where you're going after dawn breaker as there's some potions in one part that you can't reach, I can't remember the name of the other but there's a few weapons that are also out of reach. not to mention being able to disarm the soul gem traps that happen in several places. it can be used to power level if you have full cost reduction all you have to do is pick something up and fast travel while still casting the spell. going from someplace like whiterun to either riften or dawnstar will max out alteration each way make it legendary then do the return trip rinse and repeat until you're satisfied.
Thanks for clearing this up for me. I completely forgot about the soul gems that shoot spells at you in some dungeons. Telekinesis would help with that a lot I guess…
I hope that ES6 has more offensive possibilities for alteration magic. If you can make your own skin have the consistency of iron, why not turn your enemies into statues?
I would love having the ability to make the flesh spells make some cool looking magic armour around you (something like the drain heart weapons) maybe make it customisable?
they had a vampire mod in oblivion based on masquerade. where you could turn yourself into an statue. it was sweet cause you didnt take damage, all pools refilled, and after about 30 secs enemies would stop attacking and wonder off.
You can use Telekinesis to spam Alteration for leveling up. I spam Magelight to get Alteration high enough to get Telekinesis. Then you can grind through levels. BUT, Harmony is really faster if you don't use the fast travel glitch.
You can get telekinesis at the start of the game by hitting redwater den. In a jail cell in the back area its on the floor. There are powerful vampires there so its not necessarily easy without gimmicks. Mine being get muffle. when you talk farrengar ask if there are other wizards, he asks you to take frost salts to the alchemist in town when you deliver it she gives you an invisibility potion. In riften help the stable dude with sapphire, and he gives you a invisibility potion. Clear out the top area. cast muffle, sneak down use potion 1 when you get close and grab the book. Immediately drink potion 2 and hightail it out.
He forgot about vampiric grip, it’s literally telekinesis that you can use on people and it drains their health and transfers it to you. By far the most powerful alteration spell but you need to be a vampire lord to use it.
@@TypicalPirate55 yup. When I did my Thor build I made sure to give him telekinesis just so he could do just that. Had my Stahlrim mace come back to me like the comics
Little barely known funfact about magelight is that it actually attracts enemies who will follow the light when they haven't noticed you yet, making it one of the best utility spells for sneak mages if paired with the illussion perk that silences all spells. Very cheap too, quick to cast and spamable and sticks to anything! I believe it's even quieter than the fool shout too, and much easier to obtain without any resemblence of a cooldown.
Detect Dead spell is great for leveling up your Alteration and finding those dead bodies on the battlefield to loot. Imagine how OP it would be in Fallout, easily finding all the enemies you have slain. Also, Mage Armor is worthless. You are better off using gauntlets, armor boots, and helmets with your mage robes. Just level smithing up and fortify smithing with potions and enchantments.
Telekinesis is quite good in a few selected situations actually, mostly on those caged-doors with master locks where you can telekinesis stuff through them. If there's loot in sight you can just bring it over, from keys, books or that fragment of dagon's dagger in the orc fortress, instead of walking all the way to get the thing off that pedestal full of "traps" if you can call them traps, just zoom it to yourself.
I learned the atronach stone has a hidden effect of absorbing a % of the summons you attempt specifically using staffs. I tried making a storm atronach staff since its mana cost was so high and half of the time it just didn't work.
I would put Transmute Mineral Ore spell as number one since it gives me so much money. You buy some cheap iron ore and transmute it to gold ore. This probably crashes the Tamriel Gold Market but at least it's useful to level up my alteration, smithing, and enchanting.
Destruction spells would probably be a lot better if there were a other ways to beef their power up besides chugging potions and a coue of perks. And runes would probably be a lot better if you could throw down lots of them and basically create minefields.
Magelight is another great Alteration level up exploit. Exit the main gate of Solitude and immediately look up to the mountains on your right. Spamcasting Magelight up the mountainside will make you fly through the levels
Telekenis is super OP, because if you get 100% cost reduction you can pick up an item then fast travel without letting go of the item, to instantly go from lvl 10 - lvl 100 to farm level ups and perk points
Telekinesis is useful for level grinding. Use it it to pick up anything, while holding it, go to your map, pick somewhere on the otherside of the map and fast travel. When you arrive alteration is at level 100.
Equilibrium is insanely strong once you get enough cost reduction for restoration spells. Just have a summon or a follower tank for you and you have unlimited resources by spam casting great heal while you top off your mana with equilibrium. As long as you don't get one shot you have infinite sustain with the only caveat being you need to always have at least enough mana for one great heal. It does require a good 75ish% cost reduction from enchantments tho so it's more of a late game spell. I don't even carry around mana pots once I have equilibrium cuz you really don't need em at that point. Also telekinesis can be used for environmental kills. You can use it to safely activate pressure plates from a distance and you can even pick up bear traps with it which will trigger when hitting an enemy. It's pretty niche but very fun. Alteration is definitely my favorite school and super underrated imo. Paralysis is so broken if a bit expensive but hey that's what enchantments are for. Dragonhide even stacks with armor so you can get 96% damage reduction at max armor rating. Combine that with the atronach perk and atronach stone for 80% spell absorption plus the magic resist perk, an enchantment, and/or a good potion to cap your mr and now you have effectively 96% resistance to magic as well *before* adding elemental resistance.
1:37 u can level up to lvl 100 alteration in like 5 minutes with magelight (leave Solitude through the west gate turn to the right and shoot it at the far away mountain)
Fast traveling while using the telekinesis spell is by far the easiest way to get levels, @ least. It can take Alteration from 15 to 100 in a couple fast travels between Markarth & Riften
Magelight is a TRIPLE S TIER for powerlevelling If you'll stand outside Solitude gates, and cast it on the mountain, you will get a shitload of levels in just a few casts Look it up! Works on every edition of skyrim
I use telekinesis to transport heavy things sometimes if I’m close to home or town & want to make use of one extra piece of loot lol It’s niche but it’s slightly helpful sometimes lol
Ash shell and rune are good for 1/many battle, because it costs two times less than paralysis and works for double the time. It was never meant to be paralysis, these are different spells and are used in different situations
You didn’t cover this one but Paralysis Rune (available with Arcane Accessories creation) vastly outranks the normal Paralysis spell as it paralyzes multiple enemies at once (AoE effect) when you cast it at their feet. And it has a much lower magicka cost. What I like to do for my mage character have PR in one hand and a AoE destruction spell in the other. Lethal and high exp gain. Or with my stealthy character place the rune, throw voice shout to lead enemies onto the rune and snipe them all. Detect Life is good for leveling though. In places like Whiterun or Riften the more people it detects, the faster exp gain.
Telekinesis is the BEST spell in the alteration tree for one reason: extremely fast level ups. Cast it on an object, then fast travel and gain levels quickly. The downside is missing out on training opportunities for min maxing, because you jump levels quick. Go too far and you’ll be at level 100 for Alteration in one jump; potentially jumping up a few character levels
Are we counting bugs? If so you can use telekinesis on an object then fast travel and it will bring your alteration to 100 (if you choose a far away location that is.). Great for leveling alt or levling in general
Telekinesis would be a lot more useful and fun if you could take weapons and armor off of enemies. Like imagine just taking someone's helmet and smacking them with it like the magnet shroom from Plants vs Zombies
You could do that in Morrowind you can cast telekinesis then pick a lock from a distance telekinesis is so good in that game I'm also pretty sure you can talk to people from a distance with it
1:30 equilibrium can be useful for restoration training at early levels. But they are other options to self harm. 4:01 telekinesis is one of this spell that could be way more fun and useful on paper. In game is pretty useless. Apart from powerleveling, I usually use them only once to get the 2 magic rings in Solstheim 4:37 step 4 enchant them. You can train so many skill with this simple spell
i like your way of explaning pros and cons of every spell! i subscribed, waiting for "destruction"... sorry dor my english but i'm italian, mamma mia pizza mafia fettuccine
Honestly waterbreathing should be lower as you can enchant a ring with it with a petty stone and have the effect permanently ready in your invitory without the need to waste ingredients or have a set amount of time you can breath underwater
I will never get over how frustrating it is that Transmute prioritises silver-gold over iron-silver. It means that if you want to create lots of silver you have to drop the created ore after each cast.
Dragonhide is kinda useful at the start but as you progress it's specially endgame it will lose its value as in level 100 or 80 smithing you can easily hit the armor cap with potion and enchantments so yeah if you have good armor it's useless Great list btw :)
7:34 Morokei is a really weak item past early game, because mana regeneration in combat has 1/3 of the effect it has out of combat and Fortify Magicka scales your flat regen as well as max magicka. Personally i think you kinda overvalue spells with long cast times, sure there are workarounds to that like the go Ethereal shout but if you are ever going to do a Destruction tier list I hope you gonna factor in the cast times and convenience of use (which are both really bad for Dragonhide, even with max duration perks)
I do factor that into my rankings. For this video, I still think that both master level spells should be #1 and #2. They can be a game changer in most fights
@@zombieblaster5754 not directly. But your magicka regen is alwyas a certain percentage of your whole magicka bar, so restoring 5% magicka per second will give you more magicka when the overall magicka pool is bigger, but the percentage won't change.
I would say, Alteration is more importend to melee, than to mage builds, bacause the skinns do not replace armor, even with the perk, but support it quiet well. The best thing for me is the 30% magic resist in the skill tree anyway 😊
As a thief/asassin, telekenesis is invaluable. Consider this. - if you are SEEN stealing anything, you gotta deal with guards. If you are using telekenesis to move something to steal it unseen?- profit.
Dragonhide isnt that good considering there's a shout that does the exact same thing, and you end up upgrading most armours to max dmg reduction anyway.
I know this video is pretty old but I prefer aetherium crown over morokei for mages, because it lets you use mage armor spells and if you put apprentice stone and atronach stone together you get +50% magicka regen, +50% spell absorption, +50 magicka, and only +50% weak to spells.
Imagine casting underwater breathing spell that last for over a month drink a high-powered alteration potion and all you have to do is cast spell One time it even works in conjuration flame atronach will last for a month Are till someone kills them😢
Mage light Should be S tier as theres a glitch that when you go outside of solitude at night And look at the mountain in between two pine small pine trees and fire a magelight it Levels your alteration like crazy theres a video on it lemme onow if its not working for you
I like pacifying (illusion) all the enemies and then picking them one by one by using paralyse and slashing them (of course with enchanted equipment to lower the magica cost). Need another strategy for dragons (conjuration with associated enchanted equipment).
Telekinesis is good in a few dungeons. It makes it where you don't have to pick a lock in some situations by bringing the key to you from its resting place. If u use disarm u can throw their weapon far off. Its still not very useful aside from these aplications.
It gets you 300 armor, or 350 with the lord stone. 425 if a vampire with necromage and the lord stone for only 36. 42 or 51% which is still well short of 80%. If you are okay giving up a hand you can cap it out with a really good shield with enhanced smithing. On most difficulties its good enough without the shield. That being said I think the armor spells should have got the hidden armor benefits and the perks should have been x2/3/4, or no hidden armor and x3/4/5. It would still be weaker than smithed up armor but the gap would not be as large.
Alteration is so disappointing, i expect to be able to turn ppl inside out, steal their weapons, throw ppl, unlock chests etc but nah, i get to farm iron for an hour for mid gains or throw junk at ppl for mediocre damage 🙃
Back in Morrowwind, alteration let you fly/levitate, run faster and jump higher. You know, fun. Shame modern technology couldn't handle it, I assume. Or Bethesda just got lazy. Would explain over a decade without Elder Scrolls 6. Online and the sci fi things can go to Oblivion.
This is a good observation 😂 . Its possible that Bethesda thought that these spells would be unbalanced in Skyrim (and they would be). However it’s also possible that Bethesda is just lazy lol
Telekinesis pretty much only exists to level your alteration fast. Why they didn't let you open flip levers, pick pockets etc at range I don't know. And yeah some of the magicka costs are insane. Its because their almost entire mage improvement model is based on reducing costs instead of making things more powerful. Perks for it, all your gear is around reducing costs. And then you get it to 100% cheaper and you wonder why you invested in magicka as a mage. Such a bad model. Spells should have been at default affordable to cast with gear and perks improving them. Like have paralyze start off with like a 5second or less duration but geared up maybe it lasts 20 seconds, but it only casts 50 magicka to cast
@@leonm.8865 indeed cap of damage resistance from armor is 80% but dragonhide is another source of damage resistance as well as blocking, secret of defence, orc's racial ability and stone from Solstheim. So, when you have 80% from armor and 80% from the spell the damage received will first be reduced by 80% and then the remaining 20% of damage will be reduced by another 80%
Thanks for watching this one guys! Hope you’ve enjoyed!
Would background music be good for these types of videos?
Thanks
:)
I think it works well with just your voice mate
Yes
There is one use for equilibrium, leveling up your restoration. I've sat there for a long time just draining health, healing over and over.
Or vampire builds during day
It may not level alteration however I find it useful for giving you unlimited resources paired with the right perks in the restoration skill tree I forgot the name of the perk that restores stamina as well as health it's very simple actually, have equilibrium in one hand and a strong healing spell in the other and as soon as you heal let off of equilibrium restoring all of your stats
If you chose to become a vampire lord get a a death Hound to follow you. Repeatedly cast turn lesser undead and it'll level resto fast.
@@DrewskiGaming0It's called Respite that's a level 50 Restoration perk.
Equilibrium on a tanky character helps out a lot
Detect dead is for when you took an enemy out at long range and it fell in tall grass and you need to find it to loot it
Or a dead follower.
Speaking of detective dead, I found detect life was useful with a stealth archer build. Because if I'm far enough I can see who is around the corner, it helps me make the right moves against high level enemies
Aura whisper is better than both spells
@@xerikl but it still doesn't help when you can't find the fallen bandit in the tall grass to loot
Magelight is a lot more useful than you think. That spell disables tripwires, rune spells, and pressure plates.
Didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.
My thoughts exactly! Such a good spell when you’re dungeon crawling
And there is one cave where being dark is its gimic and having a spell that can light you up without a torch and fighting effectively
Certain areas in apocraphah are designed where the dark kills you, this spell or a torch totally bypasses that gimmick
Love magelight, one of my favorite alteration spells
The telekinesis + fast travel is a popular way to quickly level alteration without tedious grinding, although it is an exploit and has nothing to do with the actual utility of the spell
Even without the exploit you level alteration fast using it. You just have to sit around and rest a lot.
Telekinesis is handy for reaching little hidden loot stashed sprinkled in many dungeons that are otherwise out of reach, in some instances an arrow could knock the items down to a reachable spot but assuming your trying to be only mage its a good option.
Thanks!
not defending one of the worst spells in the game!
It can do damage, it’s possible, but really it’s more of just a useless fun little thing to have. I almost never use it but I have a couple of kills with it on my vampire spellblade. I am rocking a daedric sword and a mix of destruction and alteration to cover all my grounds. I use the ordinator perks, apocalypse magic, and other overhauls so frequently I actually didn’t know telekinesis was a vanilla spell in all the time I played Skyrim, because I never touched alteration in vanilla. Magic is weak enough in vanilla but with apocalypse and specifically Ocato’s recital, alteration is one of the strongest things in my load order of Skyrim. I reserve telekinesis kills for the shittiest of shitty, people I really hate. Alva in Morthal for instance, she’s a vampire who enthralled a nord man and made him burn down his home with his wife and child locked inside. Alva recognized me as kin since I was also a vampire, and even though my Dragonborn isn’t at all a pillar of morality, he still feeds as a vampire, occasionally losing control and draining people, but what Alva did was so heinous I made it a goal to kill her in a poetic way. She aggroed me when I went into her home, but likely due to a mod bug with my vampirism, she acted like a scared unarmed npc and would just run away begging for her life. She sent the man she enthralled after me and I hit him with fear (one of the only times I have used illusion this playthrough) making him run. I spared both their lives but when I later found Alva in the master vampire’s lair, I wiped out all the vampires and left her as she ran around begging for mercy. I proceeded to use telekinesis to beat her to death with a piece of flesh off the master vampire’s table, killed by the very flesh of one of many victims of that vampire clan. My vampire Dragonborn understands the importance of feeding, understands the necessity, and generally does so harmlessly, using powers to quietly bend people’s will to give up blood without remembering it. He has killed innocents before and he regrets it, but he also despises the genuine evil nature of many other of his kin and still clings to humanity.
Also after spouting off some roleplay and gameplay shit about my current Dragonborn, I think I should add that I’m pretty sure Apocalypse magic mod actually fixes telekinesis a little bit. I am not sure if this is in vanilla but the mod both adds new interesting spells (more blood magic and even shadow arcane magic in destruction which is badass) but it also seems to slightly buff some other spells both with the ordinator perks and the basic spell affects. Telekinesis does damage based on your alteration level. It’s still simply worse then using my sword or throwing destruction magic, but thematically grabbing a random dagger or something from my inventory and slinging it with telekinesis is so fun, and because my one handed, alteration, and destruction are all crazy high at level 30, I can kill your average enemy in a couple telekinesis throws
Not to mention it's the king of level ups if you got 25 percent cast reduce on 4 pieces of gear.
You can use magelight to distract enemies.
You can use telekenisis to pick up objects that are on traps.
I made an alteration potion so powerful that now after a month later I still have that candle light following me around 😂 I am the light farengar always says brilliant no it's blinding imagine only happened to cast a spell only one time and it sticks with you I always have ebony flesh on me at all times the power of alchemy creating potions alteration is one of my favorite love it
In addition to being useful for Smithing and (not really in my case) Speech, the jewelry created from transmuting iron ore can also be used for enchanting as well, which can be sold to court wizards for more soul gems. That's been my loop for a while now. I always have a huge abundance of rings and necklaces to enchant and/or sell on every playthrough. And yeah. Telekinesis is usually only good for the exploit or power leveling Alteration. I've probably only used it for a serious purpose once or twice.
That’s exactly why I like Transmute. Thanks for watching!
Candlelight is my number 1. Once you get used to it, everything is dark without it, so I will be spamming it every 30 seconds for the next 200 hours.
I love combining paralyze and vampiric grip together, when you throw an enemy with vamp grip while paralyzed they fly extremely far and bounce everywhere lol
I think this is a solid list, but I do disagree with several of the picks
Paralyze is honestly *too* good. Any effect that can instantly turn an enemy into a defenseless infant is already strong, and Paralyze can do it for such an absurdly long time that it's just comically OP. Do a weapon in the right hand and Paralyze in the left, and enchant one or two things with Alteration cost reduction, and you can regen more than enough mana to perpetually paralyze a target while you just hammer down on them. Funny, but silly, OP, and borderline immersion breaking. After all, if it's that easy, why doesn't everyone do it?
Mass Paralysis and Dragonhide are, along with most Master Spells, borderline useless because of their cast time. Mass Paralysis can be fun, but if you get it off mid-combat, then the enemies you used it on aren't strong enough to warrant being paralyzed in the first place. Again, it has uses, but you could easily just sub regular Paralysis in, freeze the enemies that matter, clean up the trash, and then go back for the ones who count. Dragonhide is completely useless for anyone who isn't using Mage Armor, because every armor can easily reach the 80% damage reduction. Any point of armor beyond that does nothing. If you are using Mage Armor, it usually lasts long enough for fights, but any long-term engagement is going to see you either scrambling to get to cover enough for the 20 year cast time, or just resort to Ebonyflesh since it casts quickly.
I agree with Telekinesis, it's fun but pretty much useless for anything other than goofing off.
Waterbreathing should be pretty much at the bottom of the list, there's nothing in Skyrim that warrants this spell
I definitely don't think Transmute is "underrated", it's pretty much ubiquitous in any speedrun that involves getting some amount of Gold, and probably one of the first little 'milestones' in lots of people's playthroughs due to how beneficial it is for early game finances.
Alteration is a school that honestly needs a lot of love in ES6, as making a mage that specializes in Alteration magic for roleplaying essentially just gimps the character. Slap on some mage armor, paralyze whatever, and get some candlelight, but otherwise it's just not that good.
Thanks for the response. This is a big response so I’ll focus on one point. Dragon hide so is great because you can combine the amazing effects from the mage robes (which have 0 armor) and still be as durable as if you were to wear armor. The charge time does suck , but besides that, it is still a great spell. Thanks for watching!
become ethereal + mass paralysis
Magelight is underrated because it is genuinely the best looking spell in the game.
I still remember that original trailer where it is used in the tunnel and shows off all the lighting effects.
Equilibrium is not a mage spell. It’s a warrior/paladin spell. It’s pretty good if you have low mana and high health
You can unequip then requip a piece of equipment (such as necklace of magicka) to instantly gain that magicka, making all forms of magicka regeneration for non mage builds obsolete. Ring of erudite is good for this trick
Magelight is good vs vampires or invisible enemies/in the dark. As you can tag them with a beacon of light that follows them. Or magelight tag your follower so you dont hit them in the fray
We all know that the true telekinesis is holding the activate(take object button) over an item and swinging it around
4:12 telekinesis can be used to get items you can see behind a gate but normally have to go through a whole area to get to, it’s a speed runner trick id assume
Everyone forgetting that (as seen by the leek) you can telekineses weapons, which spin around - I can’t remember if they still do their respective damage, but they do act as a barrier against melee opponents.
The problem with Equilibrium is the same one that ruins destruction magic in this game, scaling. At not-so-high levels, destruction magic's lack of scaling forces you to shoot thousands of low damage spells instead of a few high damage ones, that's cheap spells instead of powerful spells. This creates the need for a mage to survive long enough to dish out 40 fireballs, thus rendering Equilibrium useless. If skyrim's combat system relied on high damage coastly spells, equilibrium whould make sense.
Equilibrium is not bad because most situations you’ll use magika to heal meaning you have a lot of healing potions if you run out of magicka potions use equilibrium and then heal or as a vampire it’s also not bad to use
I have yet to play a major conjuration build and thus it is one of the ones I plan to try next. I figured Detect Dead would be incredibly useful for knowing where bodies are to raise zombies in the heat of battle, as missing the cast is very costly (and in the little conjuration I did do I found myself often missing dead targets). Of course once you get Thrall it wouldn't be an issue, but in the levels before you get Thrall I thought Detect Dead would be helpful. Is this not the case? Has anyone else used it in this way?
telekinesis is handier if you have full reduction on alteration cost. I can think of a couple dungeons where it's useful one is where you're going after dawn breaker as there's some potions in one part that you can't reach, I can't remember the name of the other but there's a few weapons that are also out of reach. not to mention being able to disarm the soul gem traps that happen in several places. it can be used to power level if you have full cost reduction all you have to do is pick something up and fast travel while still casting the spell. going from someplace like whiterun to either riften or dawnstar will max out alteration each way make it legendary then do the return trip rinse and repeat until you're satisfied.
Thanks for clearing this up for me. I completely forgot about the soul gems that shoot spells at you in some dungeons. Telekinesis would help with that a lot I guess…
I hope that ES6 has more offensive possibilities for alteration magic. If you can make your own skin have the consistency of iron, why not turn your enemies into statues?
That is definitely on my wishlist for the game. Thanks for watching!
cause it sounds nearly gamebreaking OP .... what else u want to do if you can be Medusa 2.0 ?
Or go nasuverse and boost your abilities to superhuman levels. Or warp your enemies.
I would love having the ability to make the flesh spells make some cool looking magic armour around you (something like the drain heart weapons) maybe make it customisable?
they had a vampire mod in oblivion based on masquerade. where you could turn yourself into an statue. it was sweet cause you didnt take damage, all pools refilled, and after about 30 secs enemies would stop attacking and wonder off.
You can use Telekinesis to spam Alteration for leveling up. I spam Magelight to get Alteration high enough to get Telekinesis. Then you can grind through levels. BUT, Harmony is really faster if you don't use the fast travel glitch.
You can get telekinesis at the start of the game by hitting redwater den. In a jail cell in the back area its on the floor. There are powerful vampires there so its not necessarily easy without gimmicks. Mine being get muffle. when you talk farrengar ask if there are other wizards, he asks you to take frost salts to the alchemist in town when you deliver it she gives you an invisibility potion. In riften help the stable dude with sapphire, and he gives you a invisibility potion. Clear out the top area. cast muffle, sneak down use potion 1 when you get close and grab the book. Immediately drink potion 2 and hightail it out.
I like to use magelight to pull enemies into bowshot in dungeons.
Not a bad idea! Thanks for watching.
He forgot about vampiric grip, it’s literally telekinesis that you can use on people and it drains their health and transfers it to you. By far the most powerful alteration spell but you need to be a vampire lord to use it.
When those Dragur Deathlords use the disarm shout, you can use telekinesis to bring your weapon back to you
I never thought of that!
@@TypicalPirate55 yup. When I did my Thor build I made sure to give him telekinesis just so he could do just that. Had my Stahlrim mace come back to me like the comics
@@Righteousone18 that sounds pretty awesome
“Make alteration great again”
Little barely known funfact about magelight is that it actually attracts enemies who will follow the light when they haven't noticed you yet, making it one of the best utility spells for sneak mages if paired with the illussion perk that silences all spells. Very cheap too, quick to cast and spamable and sticks to anything! I believe it's even quieter than the fool shout too, and much easier to obtain without any resemblence of a cooldown.
Detect Dead spell is great for leveling up your Alteration and finding those dead bodies on the battlefield to loot. Imagine how OP it would be in Fallout, easily finding all the enemies you have slain.
Also, Mage Armor is worthless. You are better off using gauntlets, armor boots, and helmets with your mage robes. Just level smithing up and fortify smithing with potions and enchantments.
4:11 the effectiveness with a certain black book (forget which one)’s ability to level you up quickly
Telekinesis is quite good in a few selected situations actually, mostly on those caged-doors with master locks where you can telekinesis stuff through them.
If there's loot in sight you can just bring it over, from keys, books or that fragment of dagon's dagger in the orc fortress, instead of walking all the way to get the thing off that pedestal full of "traps" if you can call them traps, just zoom it to yourself.
More fun to play the Yoink build with disarming and just telekinesis the enemy's weapon to you, loot it and they won't have anything to fight you lol.
I learned the atronach stone has a hidden effect of absorbing a % of the summons you attempt specifically using staffs. I tried making a storm atronach staff since its mana cost was so high and half of the time it just didn't work.
Same goes for the perk that does spell absorption I imagine.
@@generalsodapop3530 Yup it's an old bug I use it to recharge mana when I play Breton
I would put Transmute Mineral Ore spell as number one since it gives me so much money. You buy some cheap iron ore and transmute it to gold ore.
This probably crashes the Tamriel Gold Market but at least it's useful to level up my alteration, smithing, and enchanting.
Yeah, I’ve used that trick to max out my smithing very early on in the game. Awesome spell.
Destruction spells would probably be a lot better if there were a other ways to beef their power up besides chugging potions and a coue of perks.
And runes would probably be a lot better if you could throw down lots of them and basically create minefields.
Yeah. I think it would be awesome if you could place multiple runes at a time.
Magelight is another great Alteration level up exploit. Exit the main gate of Solitude and immediately look up to the mountains on your right. Spamcasting Magelight up the mountainside will make you fly through the levels
You didn't mention the 100% pickpocket chance when pickpocketing someone who is standing up from being paralyzed, unless they changed that
Telekenis is super OP, because if you get 100% cost reduction you can pick up an item then fast travel without letting go of the item, to instantly go from lvl 10 - lvl 100 to farm level ups and perk points
Which will make you exactly 10 levels higher but 0% stronger 😂
@@xerikl gives perk points for other skills
Telekinesis is useful for level grinding. Use it it to pick up anything, while holding it, go to your map, pick somewhere on the otherside of the map and fast travel. When you arrive alteration is at level 100.
Nice food fight at the beginning there.
Equilibrium is insanely strong once you get enough cost reduction for restoration spells. Just have a summon or a follower tank for you and you have unlimited resources by spam casting great heal while you top off your mana with equilibrium. As long as you don't get one shot you have infinite sustain with the only caveat being you need to always have at least enough mana for one great heal. It does require a good 75ish% cost reduction from enchantments tho so it's more of a late game spell. I don't even carry around mana pots once I have equilibrium cuz you really don't need em at that point. Also telekinesis can be used for environmental kills. You can use it to safely activate pressure plates from a distance and you can even pick up bear traps with it which will trigger when hitting an enemy. It's pretty niche but very fun. Alteration is definitely my favorite school and super underrated imo. Paralysis is so broken if a bit expensive but hey that's what enchantments are for. Dragonhide even stacks with armor so you can get 96% damage reduction at max armor rating. Combine that with the atronach perk and atronach stone for 80% spell absorption plus the magic resist perk, an enchantment, and/or a good potion to cap your mr and now you have effectively 96% resistance to magic as well *before* adding elemental resistance.
In MY opinion Resoration is a valid school of magic
Agreed, Restoration is definitely a school of magic, lololol
1:37 u can level up to lvl 100 alteration in like 5 minutes with magelight (leave Solitude through the west gate turn to the right and shoot it at the far away mountain)
Fast traveling while using the telekinesis spell is by far the easiest way to get levels, @ least. It can take Alteration from 15 to 100 in a couple fast travels between Markarth & Riften
Detect Life was actually pretty useful for hunting. Especially for having to collect those 10 bear pelts near Ivarstead!
Magelight is a TRIPLE S TIER for powerlevelling
If you'll stand outside Solitude gates, and cast it on the mountain, you will get a shitload of levels in just a few casts
Look it up!
Works on every edition of skyrim
I use telekinesis to transport heavy things sometimes if I’m close to home or town & want to make use of one extra piece of loot lol It’s niche but it’s slightly helpful sometimes lol
Ash shell and rune are good for 1/many battle, because it costs two times less than paralysis and works for double the time. It was never meant to be paralysis, these are different spells and are used in different situations
alteration spells are the thing we all need every now and then, unless you a warrior with big hammer
Great video! Subscribed🎉
Thank you!
You didn’t cover this one but Paralysis Rune (available with Arcane Accessories creation) vastly outranks the normal Paralysis spell as it paralyzes multiple enemies at once (AoE effect) when you cast it at their feet. And it has a much lower magicka cost.
What I like to do for my mage character have PR in one hand and a AoE destruction spell in the other. Lethal and high exp gain.
Or with my stealthy character place the rune, throw voice shout to lead enemies onto the rune and snipe them all.
Detect Life is good for leveling though. In places like Whiterun or Riften the more people it detects, the faster exp gain.
Telekinesis is the BEST spell in the alteration tree for one reason: extremely fast level ups. Cast it on an object, then fast travel and gain levels quickly. The downside is missing out on training opportunities for min maxing, because you jump levels quick. Go too far and you’ll be at level 100 for Alteration in one jump; potentially jumping up a few character levels
Are we counting bugs? If so you can use telekinesis on an object then fast travel and it will bring your alteration to 100 (if you choose a far away location that is.). Great for leveling alt or levling in general
Telekinesis would be a lot more useful and fun if you could take weapons and armor off of enemies. Like imagine just taking someone's helmet and smacking them with it like the magnet shroom from Plants vs Zombies
You could do that in Morrowind you can cast telekinesis then pick a lock from a distance telekinesis is so good in that game I'm also pretty sure you can talk to people from a distance with it
You can use a shield with flesh spells and it wont go against the mage armor perk.
Just incase you might need some extra defense.
1:30 equilibrium can be useful for restoration training at early levels. But they are other options to self harm.
4:01 telekinesis is one of this spell that could be way more fun and useful on paper. In game is pretty useless. Apart from powerleveling, I usually use them only once to get the 2 magic rings in Solstheim
4:37 step 4 enchant them. You can train so many skill with this simple spell
i like your way of explaning pros and cons of every spell! i subscribed, waiting for "destruction"... sorry dor my english but i'm italian, mamma mia pizza mafia fettuccine
Glad you enjoyed it! I’m currently working on the destruction spell rankings, which should be out soon
Honestly waterbreathing should be lower as you can enchant a ring with it with a petty stone and have the effect permanently ready in your invitory without the need to waste ingredients or have a set amount of time you can breath underwater
You should do Restoration and the Shouts as well
It’s next up on the list! Stay tuned.
I will never get over how frustrating it is that Transmute prioritises silver-gold over iron-silver.
It means that if you want to create lots of silver you have to drop the created ore after each cast.
Dragonhide is kinda useful at the start but as you progress it's specially endgame it will lose its value as in level 100 or 80 smithing you can easily hit the armor cap with potion and enchantments so yeah if you have good armor it's useless
Great list btw :)
7:34 Morokei is a really weak item past early game, because mana regeneration in combat has 1/3 of the effect it has out of combat and Fortify Magicka scales your flat regen as well as max magicka.
Personally i think you kinda overvalue spells with long cast times, sure there are workarounds to that like the go Ethereal shout but if you are ever going to do a Destruction tier list I hope you gonna factor in the cast times and convenience of use (which are both really bad for Dragonhide, even with max duration perks)
I do factor that into my rankings. For this video, I still think that both master level spells should be #1 and #2. They can be a game changer in most fights
so a enchant that boosts magicka also increases your regen rate?
@@zombieblaster5754 late reply lol - yes fortify magicka enchant also boost your base magicka regen
@@zombieblaster5754 not directly. But your magicka regen is alwyas a certain percentage of your whole magicka bar, so restoring 5% magicka per second will give you more magicka when the overall magicka pool is bigger, but the percentage won't change.
I downloaded Apocalypse and it makes Restoration and Alteration actually viable in combat instead of just being support classes.
I would say, Alteration is more importend to melee, than to mage builds, bacause the skinns do not replace armor, even with the perk, but support it quiet well. The best thing for me is the 30% magic resist in the skill tree anyway 😊
As a thief/asassin, telekenesis is invaluable.
Consider this. - if you are SEEN stealing anything, you gotta deal with guards.
If you are using telekenesis to move something to steal it unseen?- profit.
cant believe theirs only 17 alteration spells in base game, one of the best classes with mods i think tbh
I hope that they add more in ES6
To get money fast you can also do the dark Brotherhood forever quest it nets you 800 gold per time
Dragonhide isnt that good considering there's a shout that does the exact same thing, and you end up upgrading most armours to max dmg reduction anyway.
I know this video is pretty old but I prefer aetherium crown over morokei for mages, because it lets you use mage armor spells and if you put apprentice stone and atronach stone together you get +50% magicka regen, +50% spell absorption, +50 magicka, and only +50% weak to spells.
Also you left out mass paralysis being op with chain lightning😅
Cool video dude, keep it up👌
Imagine casting underwater breathing spell that last for over a month drink a high-powered alteration potion and all you have to do is cast spell One time it even works in conjuration flame atronach will last for a month Are till someone kills them😢
Ash spells are utility. I find them useful when I want to save a villager from dying to a high level threat. Say a dragon or vampire attack.
I agree with this list. But with the creation club additions, my favourite alteration spell is most deffinetly the paralyze rune
I definitely got to try that one out. Thanks for watching!
@@TypicalPirate55 yeah it's great, it's cheaper than paralyze, it's only adept, AND it can affect multiple enemies at once
@@TypicalPirate55 tbh, I love all of the cc spells
Mage light Should be S tier as theres a glitch that when you go outside of solitude at night And look at the mountain in between two pine small pine trees and fire a magelight it Levels your alteration like crazy theres a video on it lemme onow if its not working for you
I like pacifying (illusion) all the enemies and then picking them one by one by using paralyse and slashing them (of course with enchanted equipment to lower the magica cost). Need another strategy for dragons (conjuration with associated enchanted equipment).
Telekinesis is good in a few dungeons. It makes it where you don't have to pick a lock in some situations by bringing the key to you from its resting place. If u use disarm u can throw their weapon far off. Its still not very useful aside from these aplications.
Thanks for the explanation!
Telkisis is good . I use it to do the final blow on general tulius with a sweetroll. Cause its funny
I personally prefer ebony flesh over dragon hide as it lasts longer and its just as easy to hit max damage reduction with it
It gets you 300 armor, or 350 with the lord stone. 425 if a vampire with necromage and the lord stone for only 36. 42 or 51% which is still well short of 80%. If you are okay giving up a hand you can cap it out with a really good shield with enhanced smithing. On most difficulties its good enough without the shield. That being said I think the armor spells should have got the hidden armor benefits and the perks should have been x2/3/4, or no hidden armor and x3/4/5. It would still be weaker than smithed up armor but the gap would not be as large.
@Ahglock sorry I meant by adding armour I should have specified
@@cpt.arctourus7950 Okay, yeah the extra 100 will get you there with minimal blacksmithing.
I never vibed with dragonhide, a 30 second physical only buff that requires a long cast time really doesn’t validate the 80% boost
Yeah. After reading a lot of comments about it, im starting to second guess that placement. Thanks for watching!
I always put the simply mod that allows me to grab people with telekinesis and just throw them away 😂
Furthermore, both detection spells are vastly inferior to Aura Whisper shout.
I think Water Breathing is actually the worst spell in this list. But then again I always play as an Argonian.
I'm not a big fan of the telekinesis spell and it makes people mad 🤬 and I have accidentally hit Lydia with a apple 🍎 in the head
The problem with the transmute spell is that it would completely cripple skyrim's economy in real life.
alteration is weird because the spells are kind of mid but the perk tree is insane.
It would be nice to include new creation club spells in these videos
I would, but all of them are so overpowered that they would all be at the top of the lists. Thanks for the suggestion!
@@TypicalPirate55 then how about dedicated video's for purely the creation club spells so they don't interfere with the vanilla ones
@@Maliketh90210 yes do this
killing nazeem with cheese... sheogorath approves hehe
Bro
Step into a populated inn or spot
Cast detect life
Rinse and repeat for very fast leveling
Alteration should be high up cuz u can use it to get to 100 alteration instantly lol
Which edition are you playing?
Skyrim Legendary edition.
Alteration is so disappointing, i expect to be able to turn ppl inside out, steal their weapons, throw ppl, unlock chests etc but nah, i get to farm iron for an hour for mid gains or throw junk at ppl for mediocre damage 🙃
Back in Morrowwind, alteration let you fly/levitate, run faster and jump higher. You know, fun. Shame modern technology couldn't handle it, I assume. Or Bethesda just got lazy. Would explain over a decade without Elder Scrolls 6. Online and the sci fi things can go to Oblivion.
This is a good observation 😂 . Its possible that Bethesda thought that these spells would be unbalanced in Skyrim (and they would be). However it’s also possible that Bethesda is just lazy lol
Great thanks
Telekinesis pretty much only exists to level your alteration fast. Why they didn't let you open flip levers, pick pockets etc at range I don't know.
And yeah some of the magicka costs are insane. Its because their almost entire mage improvement model is based on reducing costs instead of making things more powerful. Perks for it, all your gear is around reducing costs. And then you get it to 100% cheaper and you wonder why you invested in magicka as a mage. Such a bad model. Spells should have been at default affordable to cast with gear and perks improving them. Like have paralyze start off with like a 5second or less duration but geared up maybe it lasts 20 seconds, but it only casts 50 magicka to cast
How did you get charged for 40 gold in the rift for something you did in whiterun?
I used a cheat mod for setting up the video, and I was teleporting everywhere. Maybe that was the reason for that
As an Argonian picking up the spelltome of waterbreathing: this is completely useless.
Magelight #1 .. because who doesn't cast it down long dark hallways, esp in VR.
wearing any armor while using dragonflesh doesn't increase your defeanse as 80% is the max
No, you're wrong. It actualy staks with regular armor, so it's pissible to get 96% of damage resistance
@@funnyimp5209 oh i didn't know that. I thought 80% damage resistance was a hard cap like with 85% magic resistance.
@@leonm.8865 indeed cap of damage resistance from armor is 80% but dragonhide is another source of damage resistance as well as blocking, secret of defence, orc's racial ability and stone from Solstheim. So, when you have 80% from armor and 80% from the spell the damage received will first be reduced by 80% and then the remaining 20% of damage will be reduced by another 80%
Telekinesis is sad because you could just use the activate button
How to have ash shell