Alteration, then destruction, then restoration. Then do: -racial powers/abilities (like the Orc beresrker rage, Argonian Histskin, etc) -Dragon shouts -standing stone effects -shrine blessings -alchemical effects (specifically in the context of used in potions, ie, it's alchemy, lololol) -"level 100 perks", i.e. rank the set of all perks from each skill tree that are only available when reaching level 100 in their respective skill trees, so Dragon Smithing for the Smithing skill tree, or Two Effects for the Enchanting skill tree) -"entry-level" perks... similar to the prior set of perks to rank, but use the very first perk from each skill tree that the player has available, e.g. it would be the +20% damage to bow damage in the Archery tree, or the 'half-magicka Novice level spell casting cost' for the various schools of magic skill trees
I used the illusion magic in the civil war and oh boy, watching your enemy tear each other apart like a battle royale game while your allies tear them apart even more is SO MUCH FUN.
When I started my first Skyrim playthrough last year I looked at all the directions I could go and chose Illusion. So far I only have 3 characters total under my belt but two of them revolve around Illusion one being an Illusion Assassin and the other an Illusion/Destruction hybrid. Between those two I have over 200 hours using illusion and I have some thoughts. 16. Clairvoyance: Useless. You have a map marker. 15/14. Rally/Courage: somewhat useful for conjuration or followers but most illusion mages are going to be on the sneakier side. Also unlike Call To Arms, it wears off quickly requiring micromanaging to keep your allies buffed. 13/12. Fear/Rout: Causing Fear is good if you're playing a pacifist, it gets them out of the combat zone sometimes and out of the way. The problem is they might alert their friends and if you're trying to be sneaky like a thief who doesn't want to kill the last thing you want is to alert the whole dungeon. 11. Frenzy Rune: Honestly don't have much experience using this spell. Just use Frenzy. It might be okay but you need to start the Dragonborn DLC to even buy it and if you're high enough level to handle the ash you can use the better spells on this list. 10. Calm: Lower-level Pacify works well until you have the Magicka/enchantment reductions to upgrade to Pacify. Not bad, just outclassed. 9. Fury: Lower-level Frenzy, read Calm for more details. 8. Hysteria: Works great for pacifist characters. Enemies scatter letting you steal their loot or complete the mission objective without spilling blood. How many people are roleplaying as pacifists though who only kill when the story demands it? I don't know but probably not a lot. 7. Call to Arms: Great for conjuration, the problem is it's a massive investment for conjuration either in enchantment slots for low cost or perk points to get the Master Illusion perk. Also great for Illusion mages who are getting to the point that they can cast a pacify/frenzy and then run in with Serana or another companion. It lasts 10 minutes and also means you can buff your ally outside a cave and have it last the whole dungeon without babysitting your companion. Very good for non-traditional Illusionists and conjurations mages, but useless to Illusion assassins. 6. Invisibility: Yes it has a high Magicka cost, yes it sucks that it breaks when you interact with things and that's why it's not higher but damn if going invisible on command isn't powerful as all hell. Escaping detection, flanking enemies to kill high-priority targets like mages who would 2-shot you if you get detected, and sneaking around being a master thief not alerting anyone in the guild questline is fun. With Magicka reduction enchantments it's not even fair to the janky AI. 5. Muffle: Muffle my beloved, not only does this spell make illusion assassin's dreams come true by making them sneakier until investment can be made in light armor to remove armor weight but it also power levels Illusion. From Lv 1 you can buy this spell and as you walk from quest to quest you just refresh your muffle and watch the school level so fast. Can't put it any higher because high-level illusion mages won't need it after getting 0-weight armor or are just using robes that don't make much noise regardless. 4. Harmony: This is a win button, calm most if not all, enemies in a dungeon and you can virtually run up to them, sneak then stab them. I use harmony to make destruction magic great in the end game. If I run in casting fireballs and thunderbolts having everyone attack me; it's a little overwhelming if one enemy needs 2-4 thunderbolts. With Harmony, I attack enemies one by one forcing them into 2v1s or 1v1s until the spell runs dry. High magicka cost can be countered by enchantments but was still taken into consideration in this ranking. 3. Frenzy: duel casting is required to make this stronger than its master spell counterpart but lets you target almost anything, especially as a vampire. Great for controlled chaos when the story demands you work with allies or enemies to resist your Mayhem spell. Held back by only being an Adept level spell. 2. Mayhem: Making virtually every enemy hostile to their allies is so freaking fun to watch as a puppetmaster mage. The best part, even if the big boss of the dungeon is too high level, the minions aren't. They'll attack and weaken if not just kill the boss before you even find the room his body was in. Has a higher level threshold than Harmony to make things even better. Cast Mayhem watch to see all or most of the enemies die, then cast Harmony and finish the rest of yourself. Crazy strong but also high Magicka cost pretty much demands most of your enchantment slots to help the cost. 1. Pacify: The GOAT of the Illusion School, while it does require duel casting to outperform Harmony using this on bosses, casually walking behind them and then stabbing them in the back with duel-conjured daggers for a 60x damage strike doesn't get old. It makes you feel completely in control of the battlefield. I enjoyed listening to your opinions even if we aren't in alignment, it's nice to hear someone else's perspective in a friendly respectful manner. Nice work on the video.
Awesome comment. I Really appreciate your input and your thoughts on the topic. I feel like one of the best parts of this game is that we can all play different playstyles and enjoy these spells differently. I think it's interesting hearing from someone with over 200 hours using this school of magic alone, whereas ive only used these spells for like half of a playthrough or so. Thanks for leaving this comment.!
@@TypicalPirate55 Yeah, I love the variety in gameplay Skyrim has to offer. My first character was supposed to be a stealth archer since that was the meme but the magic system stole my heart away lol. I only have about an hour in my 3rd character gonna mess around and see if I can make a spell sword fun with Conjuration and Alteration as supplements so I can learn more about those schools. Also, paralyzing some poor bandit and watching a Frost atronarch smash him into the ground sounds funny as hell to me xD Going to check out your Conjuration lists when I spend time with her because I barely understand that school outside of Bound Weapons and Summon Thrall.
Another reason rally/courage aren't great: Your followers or allies don't crouch and stop attacking until they get low on hp. If you use rally or courage on them, then they crouch to stop getting attacked, then the rally/courage wears out, it can easily reduce them below 0 hp when the buff wears out, killing them. This isn't as big of a concern with call to arms due to the longer duration.
Thank you. Doing a playthrough where I'm not allowing myself to use a bow or destruction magic. Decided to give illusion a go but didn't know anything about the spells. Thank you for the breakdown. Very helpful.
Muffle is amazing for that early game stretch before you find a a Muffle enchanted pair of shoes and want to actually backstab instead of just being yet another stealth archer.
5:27 i am playing a necromancer that utilizes illusion and alteration too. Calm is not only good for being able to sneak attack and pickpocket. It's also nice to just turn a 2v1 into a 1v1 for example. A really cool thing I do is cast an armor and a cloak spell, have calm in one hand and a bound sword in the other and just do 1 power attack to stagger a calmed enemy and immediately use calm again. Hit, calm, hit, calm, hit, calm. When i have 2 bodies i revive them and buff them with rally. If i am in close quarters i utilize the fear spells since enemies usually get stuck in a corner. I mostly only use the frenzy spells when i have Line of sight to a group of enemies while still being undetected. Since I have no armor or anything i try to let followers, pets and summons do the work or let the enemy fight each other while i support them with illusion spells, destruction spells or a bound bow or sword
I would put muffle much higher, because of the powerleveling effect. I would also put invisibility higher. It makes the game brokenly easy. You can put a dagger in one hand, and invisibility the other, then backstab backstab backstab. It is also great for setting up ritual spells, because the spell breaks the invisibility when it is finished, and not while being casted. Invisbility is top level spell. Also unlike most illusion spell it always works. Also i find illusion the "sneaky school". It is useful, but not great for a pure mage, but when used as a sneaky-mage, then they are far more powerful. I find fury, and similar spells the best fro enemy target. Hit one enemy in the group, then sit back, and enjoy the show.
Been running an illusion build recently, quite fun to stab people calm them down then stab them again. Fury has been less useful as it has significantly lower level effects and I haven't been hard focusing illusion over every other skill, plus I'm using a perk mod which seems like it might be bugged out and won't let me further down the tree to increase the individual spell types effective level. I also just end up with a lot of enemies just immediately targeting me and ignoring their friends anyway when i use fury spells, unless I use it from very far away or from stealth and they don't catch me shortly after.
Any spell has noise without Silent Cast perk, but for invisibility, it's a mandatory perk as you have to recast it very often. However, Silent Cast is a great perk to have, and when you have access to Invisibility, you'll probably have it anyway.
What i personally find quite important to mention, is.. related to what Skilltree-Model? Ordinator or Vanilla? - this makes a HUGE difference, you know ;)
On my last play through I had a lot of fun using mayhem with the storm call shout. Then I would use invisibility and watch them end each other and the last one standing would end up being electrocuted 😂
Fair point on calm.....but i would rather use it to calm animals early on as I have no desire to kill animals for fun....only self defence if no other way....i mean sure you have the shout...but best for hordes of animals in centre....like a cavern full of spiders.....but yeah messing with few peoples head can be a very jedi thing and fun 😁
Clairvoyance at the bottom?! For me that is my top spell. Wandering at the foot or a mountain or picking through a dungeon I’d much rather find the quick path to my objective.
plus frenzy can in theory affect higher enemies. when dual casting illusion spells it increases the level effect. so dual casting and playing as vampire with the necro perk from restoration tree (and all the needed perk from illusion tree) will make every spell more effective (except for master spells because you can dual cast them).
Muffle has no business being that low honestly, it singlehandedly makes stealth mages viable and further enables nightblades paired with invisibility to repeatedly go for x30 sneak attacks while remaining forever undetected. Edit: Bro what is invisibility doing so low on this list...
The illusion tree is irrelevant because the spells only work on low tier enemies, defeating their entire point. Muffle is the only useful spell besides invisibility. Aids with sneak at lower levels and is the best for grinding illusion levels. It's much more fun to use basically any other spell tree to combat against enemies. Illusion tree is only helpful for stealth magic.
This is untrue. If you have all the illusion perks and are dual casting, your spells can affect enemies up to level 55. The only enemies that go past that aside from certain specific NPCs are some rarer vampires and dragons. So illusion works fine for basically everything, albeit with quite a bit of investment. Definitely not difficult to use it throughout your entire playthrough though. Also, fortify illusion potions can further boost this.
Dual cast, become vampire, necromage then get all illusion perks, then you can affect illusion on almost all enemy, maybe only karstaag that is immune because of level But with potion of illusion maybe you can breach that too
Muffle is great for power-leveling illusion, since you don’t have to be in combat to gain xp from it. Just spam Muffle as you run errands around Whiterun, and watch that level counter tick up.
The muffle spell effect is actually different than the armor enchantment. The armor only halves your noise, whereas the spell silences it completely. Combined with invisibilty it's actually my favourite build in Skyrim. If you equip a dagger and have a perk from the sneak tree, it does 15x stealth damage, further multiplied by an enchantment to a 30x modifier. You can be invisible and muffled, one shot practically anything, and just recast invisibilty afterwards. If you fuck something up you can always calm down your enemies and then backstab them
While that is true, any piece you enchant has the full muffle effect and there are a couple of pieces that also have the full effect (predator’s grace, ebony mail, and nightingale boots because of a bug), so that’s only like 80% correct.
Illusion also works very well with necromancy. Imagine making an enemy fight their buddies to then have those friends be resurrected for them to fight them again.
I did not know this, THANK YOU i really needed this info cus my character is level 41 and none of my illusions reach that high, not even master ones that I have so far
It is actually 2.2 times, so greater than double. That 2.2 times is AFTER the illusion perks that raise the level cap. If that still isn't enough, you could become a vampire to increase that final level by 25%, meaning dual casting illusion spells with a vampire would result in the level being 2.75 times what you would get single casting with a non-vampire.
harmony/voice of the emperor is amazing Because all of times during quest or in the college or the vampire castle your allies will agro because of a mistake or bug and harmony is literally your only why out of this situation
Clairvoyance is one of the most useful spells in the entire game for me and a must have for every character. I have a terrible sense of direction in video games and I'm painfully unobservant, so it's saved me a lot of pain and suffering
I find clairvoyance to be useful to get to a quest location. Normally I just run in a straight line to the quest marker, then run into a mountain and end up slowly jumping up it because I don't know which way to go to find the path leading up. It can also be used for custom markers you make on the map.
Many thanks! I feel that even stealth archers should use "fury", and get the "Quiet casting" perk from the Illusion tree. Casting this spell from the shadows and seeing bandits beat each other up is very satisfying. 😄 Obviously, invisibility is a fun one. While this doesn't happen all the time, I have cast pacify on bandits and others, and a courier would visit me after a few days with a note from the Jarl with inheritance from the same bandit or other humanoid. Lots of fun!
Honestly a really fun playstyle with illusion is using calm spells and then switch to a two handed weapon, then even if you’re facing a large group of enemies you’ll be able to single one out and pick them off one by one
4:14 there is one useful usage for "harmony" type spell. As a vampire you can calm and interact with member of dawnguard. Ther is a few spell that can be bought only ther.
The biggest change that I wish was implemented into illusion was making the level requirement relative to your level instead of fixed. At higher levels most illusion spells have no effect on enemies, even with perks. It's a bad design choice. Admittedly, you can just Legendary the skill once it becomes useless. Call to Arms and Invis are really good, but it's hard to justify the entire skill tree based on that.
I don't think they ever become worthless if you invest into the tree fully. You have to dual cast but you can be effecting level 80ish creatures, 60 something if it they weren't either human or animal. Even at levels well past that most enemies will cap out below those levels.
Dual cast the spells. When dualcast, a high level Illusion mage can even stop the Ebony Warrior in his tracks. Illusion is the ONE skill tree where dual casting is critically important.
Some counterpoints to the lower ranked spells. Muffle: Can be useful to level illusion for other spells at least, or for RPing a nightblade. Invisibility: Yes, doing almost any action breaks this spell, but keep in mind, that’s one free action with no chance of detection. Pick a pocket in broad daylight. Shoot someone with a frenzy spell without anyone knowing it was you. The only limit is your creativity. Frenzy Rune: Not gonna lie. I didn’t even know this existed. Like other runes, could be useful as a trap if used properly, and out of the rune spells I would argue it’s probably the best. Set it up in a choke point enemies are forced to pass through, force them to search for you, and watch the chaos when it goes off~
I never went much beyond Destruction spells before, then I began using Muffle and Invisibility, then Conjuration. The latter is basically adding a follower, which could give a tremendous boost to damage, and lower damage to yourself when dividing attention for your enemies.
A note regarding the muffle spell, if you make a sneak build that includes enchanting, or use a pair of boots with other buffs you can use the spell and still get the benefit of muffled movement.
invisibility is in my top 3 illusion spells, best spell for an assassin type build, combo with some boots enchanted with muffle and you're ready to backstab one by one an whole army with invisibility in your left hand and a dagger in your right hand. regarding the fact that the spell breaks after doing any action, well you can cast it again, i don't see any problems as it's perfectly balanced for the great power that is given to you. call of arms and other great influencial spells are obviously good, sometimes they feel like cheating, but come on, invisibility can completely trivialize some quests and it helps in every type of situation, also it doesn't depend highly on perks of the illusion skill tree that enhance the power of fear/ fury/ calm spells, at high levels it still works, you maybe only require the expert perk in order to half the cost
Muffle at 13 cuz... boring? Ok I'll just stop. No, I won't stop. Best spell in the school. Muffle is a contender for best spell in the game. It's available at lvl 1 from court wizards and the college. Looting just a bit of trash in Helgen gets you enough to buy this, way faster than joining the guild (and that's considering you can easily join the guild at lvl 1). Totally silent unlike the assassin boots, and not all players always join or destroy the guild (those boots are sweet though... great low level item). Cheap xp. Stunningly low magicka cost for the effect. The same as 70 with 5 perks in sneak, or self-enchanted boots, and the effect can be hard to find unless you shop/exploit a vendor, and that can take a really long time, and of course you must waste a valuable item enchantment slot. All characters, even characters that are full Austin (my friend who never, ever sneaks), can benefit from it because you can advance on many opponents unnoticed just by accident. Works on everything at maximum effectiveness. . The one and only reason not to use it : you do not want to level up illusion. 13th.... I find your disrespect of muffle disrespectful! 🤪🤣🤗
Clairvoyance is only useful in the Reach because of how bullshit it's designed. I, a decade plus after Skyrim, still know no one who enjoys exploring the reach. Fear is useful for leveling illusion in dungeons, and then casting a frenzy on a couple alerted enemies which leads to them chasing the bandit to the end of the dungeon and every enemy start fighting one another, with many hitting one another unintentionally in the big kerfuffle. Essentially fear useful for setting up a few frenzy and almost wiping an entire dungeon at once. Edit: Fear is better than calm because can't fight back as you wail on them if they get cornered.
Fear is a little annoying but I managed to use it on a Briarheart and whittle his HP down in the gold mines in the Reach which is amazing because I was still using a Steel Sword with no points in One-Handed. And Muffle should be placed higher because 1.) I rarely find muffle enchanted armor nowadays, 2.) Not everyone is just going to join the DB for the Shrouded Armor and the TG for the Nightingale Armor, the latter of which is better to join later on at higher levels for Chillrend and the Nightingale weapons having stronger enchantments, and 3.) It's useful for power leveling Illusion. Top 10 at best.
I'd add that the silent caster perk is also important as a lot of the illusion spells work better from a hidden caster. Also it is worth discussing enemies who are immune to many of the spells such as undead.
I’d say mayhem is the best for dungeons simply walk into a dungeon you know is full of enemies and cast mayhem easiest way to clear a dungeon by far as it goes through walls and is far enough range to reach most of the dungeon
Pacify is amazing on Legendary. Just spam cast it dualcast at bad guys and loot their whole dungeons out from beneath them. Forget fancy tricks like using it to break up fights, or to set up backstabs; early game in a Legendary run, enemies have so much health it isn't even worth fighting. Just leave the enemies alone and walk right by them as they watch you steal all their shit.
Harmony is more useful than you think and is the best spell for assassin. It is literally more worthy than invisible. Like other spell that turn enemy agro down, it allows you to position perfectly behind your target' s back even at the least ideal situation(eg. everyone is watching you in open daylight) and back stab the whole map without a fuzz. It is basically the shadow warrior perk but with less crouch and last so much longer that you can clean a dungeon like a walk in the park. Also, the worst enemy of backstab assassin build is your companion. You cannot backstab if your target is engaging in a fight with someone else. Thus the harmony chill everyone and now you can do your stabby stabby.
Clairvoyance is good to me for 2 reasons and I'll put it 2 ranks above - Leveling loop which is as broken as telekinesis but consume lesser magicka, and unrecommended for player whom seek an immersion - It's good to find the way out of complex dungeon(especially modded ones) That's all, I guess...
You'd have to be further away and hidden. They will run at your direction at first but after two seconds when they haven't detected you they will turn on each other.
1:42 I use clairvoyance a lot, because I don’t fast travel. I play on survival mode and lack of fast travel means I often need to find the easiest way to a far objective. It also keeps you mostly to the roads, which is something travelers should be doing for their own safety in Skyrim during a time when vampires are roaming the area. Soldiers stay to the roads and traders do as well. The roads are simply safer than the wilderness.
I personally fall under the belief that certain spells are best suited for specific playstyles. Like with rune spells, you're not going to get much use out of them unless you're playing a sort of Shadowcaster build, using both stealth and magic skills to lure enemies in and catch them with well placed rune traps or placing rune traps on strategic points where the enemy makes their rounds. Fear and Calm spells seems to be the best sort of spells for players who want to play as a sort of pacifist or at the very least minimize casualties whether it be because they're too squishy and don't want any confrontation yet or reduce the number of enemies to deal with as one enemy leaves in fear or stands around and watches as you deal with the primary target. But all and all, yeah the Master Illusion spells are sort of a bummer, if not all Master spells all because of those ridiculous charges. Like some spells such as Lightning Storm or Guardian Circle may have a good thematic reasoning or purpose as to why they have such a big charge time, but spells like Harmony or Dragonhide just become less useful because of those charge times. As a mage I'd rather just cast Ebonyflesh on the spot than to spend a few precious seconds to cast Dragonhide and hope to the Divines that I don't get staggered out of it or worse. The only logical way to even use these spells in my opinion is with Dragonhide you always have to cast it whenever it turns off even when you're just walking around Skyrim you always have to have Dragonhide active, with Harmony you need to sneak into a middle of the group most likely invisible and then just cast it. But I'm sure people out there have made more better use of these Master spells.
well it will show the cat. but the way that spell works will only give the first target. there are some theories on who is the target. some say is you the dragonborn, some say is astrid and some say it's just a test. she took random people that may look they have people who wants them dead.
Clairvoyance is pretty good if you ask me. It's not just useful for when inside caves or dungeons, but also outside in mountainous paths; it's better to follow the road than to try to climb every time. I've used it since my first playthrough, since it's available on the very "first" dungeon you encounter (The bandit mine near the guardian stones). That's a pretty subjective opinion, but I'm sure there's a lot of people that think the same.
Calm/pacify is an easier and quick accessible tool in aid of leveling up your sneak skills before you can use invisibility. With a mob of enemies I usually start with frenzy and pick up the last-standing foe with pacify/invisibility paired with backstab.
To this day my first mage build is my favorite mage build. Illusion + Conjuration. At max skills you walk into a dungeon and cast mayhem, deploy a pair of dremora lords, then vanish into thin air. Only weakness is that illusion and conjuration both would become useless at extreme levels, but I never play the same character long enough for that to matter.
The dremora lord's keep up into the 80s fairly well, and you can use illusion potions to get to pretty high levels, especially as vampire. But yeah, requiring alchemy to be viable past mid-game is a downside
Clairvoyance is better for begginer players, who have a hard time finding their way. As we become more expirienced, this spell becomes unecessary. I love Muffle and Invisibility as a way to grind the Ilusion ability quicker.
If the Invisibility Effect would NOT break, by any interaction, it would be equal to "God Mode" Do you want that, or do you enjoy a tactical challange? You have to answer this question, first.
Ok but see you cast frenzy and just stood there when you could have cast frenzy into invis backstabbed someone cast invis again to drop aggro and repeated the process until all your foes are dispatched.
Bro invisibility that low makes me want to click off the video it’s so good for assassin builds it’s pretty much a must have.. imma keep watching though.
the rune spells are good for one reason if your running away in a dungeon cast them in a choke point and it hits the guys imediately following. cast the frenzy rune in a hall as your running and the next guy or guys to come through hit it then stop and fight each other as well as some of those following them. I didnt mention it in the destruction video but a well placed fire rune in say a door then snipe your enemies with a bow can finish them off as they come through, you can also lay a fire rune then snipe with say a fireball or bolt then the rune does extra damage when they get close to you running through the door. the damage runes are also nice when your running away through a dungeon cast them as you go and they can kill the enemy following although the wall spells i think can work better that way
I can imagine it having a chat with a enemy and asking what they have for sale right right in the middle of Kombat excuse me what are you selling before you try to kill me got any goods spell 📚 books 📚 for sale 😂😭🤬🙅
I hope in 6 they expand the illusion school a bit bringing back spells from morrowind and oblivion. And more importantly I hope they switch off of the level cap model for the spells. Firebolt may be less effective at level 50 than it was at level 5, but it still does damage. Sure your level should help with resistance but a level 80 should be able to fail to resist a basic fear spell and a level 8 should be able to resist a master tier spell. Add in a different resistance method for these spells. Saves from D&D, I don't know. This goes for all spells but assuming master tier spells are in 6 and they work sort of the same and dual cast perks should apply to them for all schools of magic.
..sorry, have to correct you again ; Muffle is super useful to Max Illusion up quite quick ; you should take these "side-Effects" into count, as i see it ;)
I personally like a mix between necromancer and illusion builds A chaotic fight with dozens of bandits? The moment they start dying you start bounding an army to clear out the last few raging/pacified foes left all the while you're "chilling" with with your ice summon at hand in case something somehow runs through the entire missive battle towards you The only downside is when there's not an abundance of foes in the area, pretty much leaving you with just your main summons
A bunch of people talking about how the muffle spell is superior to the muffle enchantment but here's another thing, the enchantment can work as a substitute but only *IF* you manage to find a pair of boots to disenchant and your best odds of that are once you reach level 11 and they can start showing up in shops. The more you level up from there on the less likely you can find them until they almost never show up and you can't even disenchant the unique pairs like the shrouded boots and predator's grace. So unless you're mindful of getting them ASAP then you might just be SOL when you get around to looking for them. Or you could just console them into your inventory if you're on PC, too...
The thing that turns so many people away from illusion is they don't understand how the maximum level works. They look at something like frenzy, see it is a level 40 spell that works on enemies up to level 14 and immediately decide it is junk. For that reason, I'll explain how the maximum level for illusion spells works so hopefully more people will try it after watching this video. You start with the level displayed on the spell, I'll use frenzy as my example here. To that level, you then add levels based on relevant perks. In the case of frenzy, there are potentially 3 perks that can add levels: animage, kindred mage, and rage. Animage will add 8 levels to any illusion spell if you are targeting an animal with the spell. Kindred mage will add 10 levels to any illusion spell if you are targeting a person with the spell. Rage will add 12 levels if the spell you are casting is fury, frenzy, or mayhem. Therefore, if you cast frenzy on a person (like a bandit) with the kindred mage and rage perks, frenzy will work on people up to level 14+10+12=36. After additive level increases, the next thing that is calculated is dual casting. If you have illusion dual casting, you can put the same spell in both your right and left hands, and click both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time. You will see both hands participate in the casting, and there will be a single glowing orb for the spell being cast (if you see 2, then you didn't click both buttons at exactly the same time). A dual cast illusion spell will cost more, but it will also have the level multiplied by 2.2. That multiplication takes place AFTER EVERY additive increase. Therefore, again using my bandit example, if you dual cast frenzy with kindred mage and rage, frenzy will work on people up to level (14+10+12)*2.2 = 79. That alone is enough if you are targeting animals or people: frenzy, pacify, or rout will work on most anything in the game. However, think of all the undead you find in nordic ruins, those don't count as people or animals. The next step is to add master of the mind. That perk allows illusion to work on undead, daedra, and dwarven automatons. Once you have that, you could use frenzy with the rage perk and dual casting on undead. That would give a level of (14+12)*2.2=57. Therefore, you don't need to worry about undead anymore. The last thing to talk about are the master spells, people call them worthless because they cannot be dual cast. However, there's another step you can take here if you even want to use the master level illusion spells! This time, I'll use mayhem as my example, and I'll still assume you are casting on undead, because that is the worst case scenario. The final calculation that works on the level of illusion spells is vampirism. If you become a vampire, the level is multiplied by 1.25 after everything else! Therefore, let's see what that would do for mayhem on undead enemies. Mayhem goes up to level 25 by default, then you can add 12 levels with the rage perk, and finally you multiply the result by 1.25 for the bonus from vampirism (which is called champion of the night). With those combined, your mayhem will work on undead of up to level (25+12)*1.25=46.25. That is enough to work on any undead except for dragon priests! However, if a dragon priest has minions with him, you can use mayhem to weaken the dragon priest until he is the only enemy left, then use dual cast pacify if you need help finishing the lone dragon priest at the end. With Hypnotic Gaze, dual casting, and vampirism your pacify will work on undead up to level (20+8)*2.2*1.25=77. That's enough to even work on the mighty dragon priests! If you add EVERYTHING I've mentioned, your maximum level bonus will be so high that you could even use LOW LEVEL illusion spells on most enemies. Let's look at the level 1 illusion spell: fury. If you have illusion dual casting, kindred mage, rage, and vampirism, the "weak" level 1 fury spell would work on people up to level (6+10+12)*2.2*1.25=77! This should be enough to see that the level displayed on the spell itself is only a small fraction of what you can get, illusion perks and vampirism take these to a whole new level, literally! If you plan to get vampirism for the illusion level bonus, my last suggestion is to start as a dark elf, because dark elves get a fire resist bonus that will counter the fire weakness you get from vampirism. They also start with a +5 skill boost to both illusion and sneak. Sadly, there will still be one weakness after all of that. Even with insane maximum levels, illusion magic cannot work on dragons. You have to deal with them some other way.
This was exactly my issue years ago when I was getting into illusion for the first time. I had the same thought of "these suck, max lvl 14, are you kidding me?" until I realized the full potential of the school like you just explained. Great comment and I hope someone will get into illusion thanks to that :)
As with all the Master spells the shout Become Ethereal is what really helps them. use the first word then start charging the spell. you cant be damaged or staggered as your Ethereal. it drops on cast ofc. Illusion is easy to power level so you can keep it leveling with you at the beginning ot playthroughs
Harmony has the greatest XP rate in the game. You can grind levels really quick with enchanted gear to reduce casting cost to zero. Go to a crowded place, like the market in Riften or Witherun and cast Harmony with your enchanted gear equipped. As your Illusion skill reaches 100, make it Legendary and repeat the process as long as you like. It's a great way to get perk points in no time.
Hope you’ve enjoyed the video!
What school of magic should I rank next?
i want alteration next then restoration,
destruction spells
Restoration next.
Alteration, then destruction, then restoration.
Then do:
-racial powers/abilities (like the Orc beresrker rage, Argonian Histskin, etc)
-Dragon shouts
-standing stone effects
-shrine blessings
-alchemical effects (specifically in the context of used in potions, ie, it's alchemy, lololol)
-"level 100 perks", i.e. rank the set of all perks from each skill tree that are only available when reaching level 100 in their respective skill trees, so Dragon Smithing for the Smithing skill tree, or Two Effects for the Enchanting skill tree)
-"entry-level" perks... similar to the prior set of perks to rank, but use the very first perk from each skill tree that the player has available, e.g. it would be the +20% damage to bow damage in the Archery tree, or the 'half-magicka Novice level spell casting cost' for the various schools of magic skill trees
Vote, I’d vote for alteration, followed by destruction, Lashley restoration
I used the illusion magic in the civil war and oh boy, watching your enemy tear each other apart like a battle royale game while your allies tear them apart even more is SO MUCH FUN.
I agree. Using Illusion magic for those types of quests are so satisfying.
Yup. It should be high up just for that.
Y súmale el aumento de poder a tus aliados gracias a llamado a las armas y reagrupar.
I used it on two deer. 😂
Yep that made the asualt on solitude so easy
Quiet Casting perk is OP and it is worth spending perk points for. It even works with shouts.
When I started my first Skyrim playthrough last year I looked at all the directions I could go and chose Illusion. So far I only have 3 characters total under my belt but two of them revolve around Illusion one being an Illusion Assassin and the other an Illusion/Destruction hybrid. Between those two I have over 200 hours using illusion and I have some thoughts.
16. Clairvoyance: Useless. You have a map marker.
15/14. Rally/Courage: somewhat useful for conjuration or followers but most illusion mages are going to be on the sneakier side. Also unlike Call To Arms, it wears off quickly requiring micromanaging to keep your allies buffed.
13/12. Fear/Rout: Causing Fear is good if you're playing a pacifist, it gets them out of the combat zone sometimes and out of the way. The problem is they might alert their friends and if you're trying to be sneaky like a thief who doesn't want to kill the last thing you want is to alert the whole dungeon.
11. Frenzy Rune: Honestly don't have much experience using this spell. Just use Frenzy. It might be okay but you need to start the Dragonborn DLC to even buy it and if you're high enough level to handle the ash you can use the better spells on this list.
10. Calm: Lower-level Pacify works well until you have the Magicka/enchantment reductions to upgrade to Pacify. Not bad, just outclassed.
9. Fury: Lower-level Frenzy, read Calm for more details.
8. Hysteria: Works great for pacifist characters. Enemies scatter letting you steal their loot or complete the mission objective without spilling blood. How many people are roleplaying as pacifists though who only kill when the story demands it? I don't know but probably not a lot.
7. Call to Arms: Great for conjuration, the problem is it's a massive investment for conjuration either in enchantment slots for low cost or perk points to get the Master Illusion perk. Also great for Illusion mages who are getting to the point that they can cast a pacify/frenzy and then run in with Serana or another companion. It lasts 10 minutes and also means you can buff your ally outside a cave and have it last the whole dungeon without babysitting your companion. Very good for non-traditional Illusionists and conjurations mages, but useless to Illusion assassins.
6. Invisibility: Yes it has a high Magicka cost, yes it sucks that it breaks when you interact with things and that's why it's not higher but damn if going invisible on command isn't powerful as all hell. Escaping detection, flanking enemies to kill high-priority targets like mages who would 2-shot you if you get detected, and sneaking around being a master thief not alerting anyone in the guild questline is fun. With Magicka reduction enchantments it's not even fair to the janky AI.
5. Muffle: Muffle my beloved, not only does this spell make illusion assassin's dreams come true by making them sneakier until investment can be made in light armor to remove armor weight but it also power levels Illusion. From Lv 1 you can buy this spell and as you walk from quest to quest you just refresh your muffle and watch the school level so fast. Can't put it any higher because high-level illusion mages won't need it after getting 0-weight armor or are just using robes that don't make much noise regardless.
4. Harmony: This is a win button, calm most if not all, enemies in a dungeon and you can virtually run up to them, sneak then stab them. I use harmony to make destruction magic great in the end game. If I run in casting fireballs and thunderbolts having everyone attack me; it's a little overwhelming if one enemy needs 2-4 thunderbolts. With Harmony, I attack enemies one by one forcing them into 2v1s or 1v1s until the spell runs dry. High magicka cost can be countered by enchantments but was still taken into consideration in this ranking.
3. Frenzy: duel casting is required to make this stronger than its master spell counterpart but lets you target almost anything, especially as a vampire. Great for controlled chaos when the story demands you work with allies or enemies to resist your Mayhem spell. Held back by only being an Adept level spell.
2. Mayhem: Making virtually every enemy hostile to their allies is so freaking fun to watch as a puppetmaster mage. The best part, even if the big boss of the dungeon is too high level, the minions aren't. They'll attack and weaken if not just kill the boss before you even find the room his body was in. Has a higher level threshold than Harmony to make things even better. Cast Mayhem watch to see all or most of the enemies die, then cast Harmony and finish the rest of yourself. Crazy strong but also high Magicka cost pretty much demands most of your enchantment slots to help the cost.
1. Pacify: The GOAT of the Illusion School, while it does require duel casting to outperform Harmony using this on bosses, casually walking behind them and then stabbing them in the back with duel-conjured daggers for a 60x damage strike doesn't get old. It makes you feel completely in control of the battlefield.
I enjoyed listening to your opinions even if we aren't in alignment, it's nice to hear someone else's perspective in a friendly respectful manner. Nice work on the video.
Awesome comment. I Really appreciate your input and your thoughts on the topic. I feel like one of the best parts of this game is that we can all play different playstyles and enjoy these spells differently. I think it's interesting hearing from someone with over 200 hours using this school of magic alone, whereas ive only used these spells for like half of a playthrough or so. Thanks for leaving this comment.!
@@TypicalPirate55 Yeah, I love the variety in gameplay Skyrim has to offer. My first character was supposed to be a stealth archer since that was the meme but the magic system stole my heart away lol. I only have about an hour in my 3rd character gonna mess around and see if I can make a spell sword fun with Conjuration and Alteration as supplements so I can learn more about those schools. Also, paralyzing some poor bandit and watching a Frost atronarch smash him into the ground sounds funny as hell to me xD
Going to check out your Conjuration lists when I spend time with her because I barely understand that school outside of Bound Weapons and Summon Thrall.
Another reason rally/courage aren't great: Your followers or allies don't crouch and stop attacking until they get low on hp. If you use rally or courage on them, then they crouch to stop getting attacked, then the rally/courage wears out, it can easily reduce them below 0 hp when the buff wears out, killing them. This isn't as big of a concern with call to arms due to the longer duration.
Thank you. Doing a playthrough where I'm not allowing myself to use a bow or destruction magic. Decided to give illusion a go but didn't know anything about the spells. Thank you for the breakdown. Very helpful.
Glad to hear it helps. Good luck!
Muffle is amazing for that early game stretch before you find a a Muffle enchanted pair of shoes and want to actually backstab instead of just being yet another stealth archer.
5:27 i am playing a necromancer that utilizes illusion and alteration too. Calm is not only good for being able to sneak attack and pickpocket. It's also nice to just turn a 2v1 into a 1v1 for example. A really cool thing I do is cast an armor and a cloak spell, have calm in one hand and a bound sword in the other and just do 1 power attack to stagger a calmed enemy and immediately use calm again. Hit, calm, hit, calm, hit, calm. When i have 2 bodies i revive them and buff them with rally. If i am in close quarters i utilize the fear spells since enemies usually get stuck in a corner. I mostly only use the frenzy spells when i have Line of sight to a group of enemies while still being undetected. Since I have no armor or anything i try to let followers, pets and summons do the work or let the enemy fight each other while i support them with illusion spells, destruction spells or a bound bow or sword
This is quite relevant to me, due to my latest character being an Illusionist Rogue
I would put muffle much higher, because of the powerleveling effect. I would also put invisibility higher. It makes the game brokenly easy. You can put a dagger in one hand, and invisibility the other, then backstab backstab backstab. It is also great for setting up ritual spells, because the spell breaks the invisibility when it is finished, and not while being casted. Invisbility is top level spell. Also unlike most illusion spell it always works. Also i find illusion the "sneaky school". It is useful, but not great for a pure mage, but when used as a sneaky-mage, then they are far more powerful. I find fury, and similar spells the best fro enemy target. Hit one enemy in the group, then sit back, and enjoy the show.
Illusion and conjuring is my favorite spells conjuring can carry any fight at high lvls I frenzy everyone and cast my summons in then just watch
Been running an illusion build recently, quite fun to stab people calm them down then stab them again. Fury has been less useful as it has significantly lower level effects and I haven't been hard focusing illusion over every other skill, plus I'm using a perk mod which seems like it might be bugged out and won't let me further down the tree to increase the individual spell types effective level. I also just end up with a lot of enemies just immediately targeting me and ignoring their friends anyway when i use fury spells, unless I use it from very far away or from stealth and they don't catch me shortly after.
Invisibility also makes a lot of noise. If you want to use it, Quiet Casting perk is pretty much mandatory
Yeah. That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t like it so much.
Any spell has noise without Silent Cast perk, but for invisibility, it's a mandatory perk as you have to recast it very often.
However, Silent Cast is a great perk to have, and when you have access to Invisibility, you'll probably have it anyway.
Alchemy can be used.to boost the power of illusion spells.
It's actually really funny that you could literally beat the main quest with 0 kills just by useing the Illusion spells
lol 1 Your required to take the final HP that Alduin has to beat the main quest other then that you totally can beat the main quest with just one kill
@@umbradens6129 even using the Bleed bash shield?
What i personally find quite important to mention, is.. related to what Skilltree-Model?
Ordinator or Vanilla? - this makes a HUGE difference, you know ;)
Players:Clairvoyance is useless
Also players: Treats horses like montain goats.
I use courage and muffle early on in my Legendary Playthroughs for getting Illusion up. Courage is better bc you don't need to be in combat to use it.
Call to arms is a good spell for me but that's just me and frenzy is a good spell to I just love to get assault charges on me I love it
On my last play through I had a lot of fun using mayhem with the storm call shout. Then I would use invisibility and watch them end each other and the last one standing would end up being electrocuted 😂
Fair point on calm.....but i would rather use it to calm animals early on as I have no desire to kill animals for fun....only self defence if no other way....i mean sure you have the shout...but best for hordes of animals in centre....like a cavern full of spiders.....but yeah messing with few peoples head can be a very jedi thing and fun 😁
Harmony helped me when everyone in morthal tried to kill me even after I paid off my 20gp bounty.
Clairvoyance at the bottom?! For me that is my top spell. Wandering at the foot or a mountain or picking through a dungeon I’d much rather find the quick path to my objective.
Awesome Video!
plus frenzy can in theory affect higher enemies. when dual casting illusion spells it increases the level effect. so dual casting and playing as vampire with the necro perk from restoration tree (and all the needed perk from illusion tree) will make every spell more effective (except for master spells because you can dual cast them).
Muffle has no business being that low honestly, it singlehandedly makes stealth mages viable and further enables nightblades paired with invisibility to repeatedly go for x30 sneak attacks while remaining forever undetected. Edit: Bro what is invisibility doing so low on this list...
Muffle is also great for fast leveling illusion
The illusion tree is irrelevant because the spells only work on low tier enemies, defeating their entire point.
Muffle is the only useful spell besides invisibility. Aids with sneak at lower levels and is the best for grinding illusion levels.
It's much more fun to use basically any other spell tree to combat against enemies. Illusion tree is only helpful for stealth magic.
This is untrue. If you have all the illusion perks and are dual casting, your spells can affect enemies up to level 55. The only enemies that go past that aside from certain specific NPCs are some rarer vampires and dragons. So illusion works fine for basically everything, albeit with quite a bit of investment. Definitely not difficult to use it throughout your entire playthrough though.
Also, fortify illusion potions can further boost this.
Dual cast, become vampire, necromage then get all illusion perks, then you can affect illusion on almost all enemy, maybe only karstaag that is immune because of level
But with potion of illusion maybe you can breach that too
Uh... wrong. Dual casted pacify works on giants and pretty much any enemy that isn't a major boss fight. It's extremely useful.
Does calm affect prices?
I don’t believe it does.
Wondering pacify spell theres master spell level exist other than expert?
step one to become Vinland saga meme in Skyrim: learn Harmony
I use clavoience al the time. I get lost easily
I only use illusion magic to power level ._.
Illusion is op
make more videos
Will do. Finals just finished up so I should be able to make these a lot faster. Thanks for watching.
@@TypicalPirate55 Here are some ideas
Restoration spells ranked
Standing stones ranked
Shrine blessings ranked
Alteration spells ranked
Artifacts ranked
Muffle is great for power-leveling illusion, since you don’t have to be in combat to gain xp from it. Just spam Muffle as you run errands around Whiterun, and watch that level counter tick up.
Yeah, I always end up making Illusion Legendary multiple times before making anything else Legendary lol
Only Invisible with Quiet Casting is ranked higher than Muffled.
Same with clairvoyance and light spells
tbh i think spaming Relly and Call to arm in cites is much faster
The muffle spell effect is actually different than the armor enchantment. The armor only halves your noise, whereas the spell silences it completely. Combined with invisibilty it's actually my favourite build in Skyrim. If you equip a dagger and have a perk from the sneak tree, it does 15x stealth damage, further multiplied by an enchantment to a 30x modifier. You can be invisible and muffled, one shot practically anything, and just recast invisibilty afterwards. If you fuck something up you can always calm down your enemies and then backstab them
While that is true, any piece you enchant has the full muffle effect and there are a couple of pieces that also have the full effect (predator’s grace, ebony mail, and nightingale boots because of a bug), so that’s only like 80% correct.
I'd say more importantly its a easy spell to cast with a long duration, by casting it it frees up a slot in your armor for a different enchantment.
put invisibility in offhand and dagger in main hand, channel invisibility, sneak attack and instantly recast invisibility, profit.
Illusion also works very well with necromancy. Imagine making an enemy fight their buddies to then have those friends be resurrected for them to fight them again.
that and sneaky knife attacks
"Call to arms" on an army risen with "Stone of Ritual", after drinking a "fortify illusion" potion and the necromage perk.
this school of magic is unironically one of the most broken if played correctly, you could fight an entire army and not take a single point of damage
That’s why I‘ve been using it a lot more. Thanks for watching
What people sometimes fail to realize is that dual casting high-tier non-master illusion spells doubles the level cap.
I did not know this, THANK YOU i really needed this info cus my character is level 41 and none of my illusions reach that high, not even master ones that I have so far
Yup which is one of the reasons the master tier spells suck. A dual cast version will have a higher level cap.
Thank you for info
It is actually 2.2 times, so greater than double. That 2.2 times is AFTER the illusion perks that raise the level cap. If that still isn't enough, you could become a vampire to increase that final level by 25%, meaning dual casting illusion spells with a vampire would result in the level being 2.75 times what you would get single casting with a non-vampire.
@@Ahglock Pero hey! Al menos podés subir de nivel ilusion casi de un disparo con armonía.
harmony/voice of the emperor is amazing Because all of times during quest or in the college or the vampire castle your allies will agro because of a mistake or bug and harmony is literally your only why out of this situation
I've used this the same way it's like a free bug fix button.
if youre not using those spells you can use the command resetai on them
Clairvoyance is one of the most useful spells in the entire game for me and a must have for every character. I have a terrible sense of direction in video games and I'm painfully unobservant, so it's saved me a lot of pain and suffering
It's useful trying to find the way up a mountain, would be more useful if you could use it on horseback
I find clairvoyance to be useful to get to a quest location. Normally I just run in a straight line to the quest marker, then run into a mountain and end up slowly jumping up it because I don't know which way to go to find the path leading up. It can also be used for custom markers you make on the map.
Many thanks! I feel that even stealth archers should use "fury", and get the "Quiet casting" perk from the Illusion tree. Casting this spell from the shadows and seeing bandits beat each other up is very satisfying. 😄 Obviously, invisibility is a fun one.
While this doesn't happen all the time, I have cast pacify on bandits and others, and a courier would visit me after a few days with a note from the Jarl with inheritance from the same bandit or other humanoid. Lots of fun!
Honestly a really fun playstyle with illusion is using calm spells and then switch to a two handed weapon, then even if you’re facing a large group of enemies you’ll be able to single one out and pick them off one by one
Definitely sounds like a lot of fun
Quiet casting, invisibility and the perk that increases rune placement range is a pretty fun combo can also swap out runes for conjuration.
What a great video. Even after 11 years of playing Skyrim I could lern something.
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!
4:14 there is one useful usage for "harmony" type spell. As a vampire you can calm and interact with member of dawnguard. Ther is a few spell that can be bought only ther.
Once in awhile I like to spawn 100 Nazeems, use the mayhem spell, and watch them fight each other.
and take them to the clouds?
@@lukmanalghdamsi3189 Do you get to the cloud district very often? Oh, what I'm saying is that of course you don't.
The biggest change that I wish was implemented into illusion was making the level requirement relative to your level instead of fixed. At higher levels most illusion spells have no effect on enemies, even with perks. It's a bad design choice. Admittedly, you can just Legendary the skill once it becomes useless.
Call to Arms and Invis are really good, but it's hard to justify the entire skill tree based on that.
I don't think they ever become worthless if you invest into the tree fully. You have to dual cast but you can be effecting level 80ish creatures, 60 something if it they weren't either human or animal. Even at levels well past that most enemies will cap out below those levels.
Ordinator mod
Being a vampire also helps.
Where are you fighting enemies above lvl 75?
Dual cast the spells. When dualcast, a high level Illusion mage can even stop the Ebony Warrior in his tracks. Illusion is the ONE skill tree where dual casting is critically important.
Some counterpoints to the lower ranked spells.
Muffle: Can be useful to level illusion for other spells at least, or for RPing a nightblade.
Invisibility: Yes, doing almost any action breaks this spell, but keep in mind, that’s one free action with no chance of detection. Pick a pocket in broad daylight. Shoot someone with a frenzy spell without anyone knowing it was you. The only limit is your creativity.
Frenzy Rune: Not gonna lie. I didn’t even know this existed. Like other runes, could be useful as a trap if used properly, and out of the rune spells I would argue it’s probably the best. Set it up in a choke point enemies are forced to pass through, force them to search for you, and watch the chaos when it goes off~
I never went much beyond Destruction spells before, then I began using Muffle and Invisibility, then Conjuration. The latter is basically adding a follower, which could give a tremendous boost to damage, and lower damage to yourself when dividing attention for your enemies.
A note regarding the muffle spell, if you make a sneak build that includes enchanting, or use a pair of boots with other buffs you can use the spell and still get the benefit of muffled movement.
invisibility is in my top 3 illusion spells, best spell for an assassin type build, combo with some boots enchanted with muffle and you're ready to backstab one by one an whole army with invisibility in your left hand and a dagger in your right hand. regarding the fact that the spell breaks after doing any action, well you can cast it again, i don't see any problems as it's perfectly balanced for the great power that is given to you. call of arms and other great influencial spells are obviously good, sometimes they feel like cheating, but come on, invisibility can completely trivialize some quests and it helps in every type of situation, also it doesn't depend highly on perks of the illusion skill tree that enhance the power of fear/ fury/ calm spells, at high levels it still works, you maybe only require the expert perk in order to half the cost
Muffle at 13 cuz... boring? Ok I'll just stop. No, I won't stop. Best spell in the school. Muffle is a contender for best spell in the game.
It's available at lvl 1 from court wizards and the college. Looting just a bit of trash in Helgen gets you enough to buy this, way faster than joining the guild (and that's considering you can easily join the guild at lvl 1).
Totally silent unlike the assassin boots, and not all players always join or destroy the guild (those boots are sweet though... great low level item).
Cheap xp. Stunningly low magicka cost for the effect. The same as 70 with 5 perks in sneak, or self-enchanted boots, and the effect can be hard to find unless you shop/exploit a vendor, and that can take a really long time, and of course you must waste a valuable item enchantment slot.
All characters, even characters that are full Austin (my friend who never, ever sneaks), can benefit from it because you can advance on many opponents unnoticed just by accident.
Works on everything at maximum effectiveness. .
The one and only reason not to use it : you do not want to level up illusion.
13th.... I find your disrespect of muffle disrespectful! 🤪🤣🤗
Clairvoyance is only useful in the Reach because of how bullshit it's designed.
I, a decade plus after Skyrim, still know no one who enjoys exploring the reach.
Fear is useful for leveling illusion in dungeons, and then casting a frenzy on a couple alerted enemies which leads to them chasing the bandit to the end of the dungeon and every enemy start fighting one another, with many hitting one another unintentionally in the big kerfuffle.
Essentially fear useful for setting up a few frenzy and almost wiping an entire dungeon at once.
Edit: Fear is better than calm because can't fight back as you wail on them if they get cornered.
Fear is a little annoying but I managed to use it on a Briarheart and whittle his HP down in the gold mines in the Reach which is amazing because I was still using a Steel Sword with no points in One-Handed. And Muffle should be placed higher because 1.) I rarely find muffle enchanted armor nowadays, 2.) Not everyone is just going to join the DB for the Shrouded Armor and the TG for the Nightingale Armor, the latter of which is better to join later on at higher levels for Chillrend and the Nightingale weapons having stronger enchantments, and 3.) It's useful for power leveling Illusion. Top 10 at best.
I'd add that the silent caster perk is also important as a lot of the illusion spells work better from a hidden caster. Also it is worth discussing enemies who are immune to many of the spells such as undead.
I’d say mayhem is the best for dungeons simply walk into a dungeon you know is full of enemies and cast mayhem easiest way to clear a dungeon by far as it goes through walls and is far enough range to reach most of the dungeon
I saw a video of someone playing a pacifist Monk who never killed anyone. He used a lot of Illusion spells.
{:o:O:}
Pacify is amazing on Legendary. Just spam cast it dualcast at bad guys and loot their whole dungeons out from beneath them. Forget fancy tricks like using it to break up fights, or to set up backstabs; early game in a Legendary run, enemies have so much health it isn't even worth fighting. Just leave the enemies alone and walk right by them as they watch you steal all their shit.
If you use clairvoyance and you fast travel, you can max out illusion it ain’t gonna be on the first try though
Harmony is more useful than you think and is the best spell for assassin.
It is literally more worthy than invisible.
Like other spell that turn enemy agro down, it allows you to position perfectly behind your target' s back even at the least ideal situation(eg. everyone is watching you in open daylight) and back stab the whole map without a fuzz.
It is basically the shadow warrior perk but with less crouch and last so much longer that you can clean a dungeon like a walk in the park.
Also, the worst enemy of backstab assassin build is your companion. You cannot backstab if your target is engaging in a fight with someone else. Thus the harmony chill everyone and now you can do your stabby stabby.
Rally spell is one of my favorite spells and I used it all the time and I just love it
On higher difficulty, it takes forever for the enemies to kill each other with frenzy :(
Clairvoyance is good to me for 2 reasons and I'll put it 2 ranks above
- Leveling loop which is as broken as telekinesis but consume lesser magicka, and unrecommended for player whom seek an immersion
- It's good to find the way out of complex dungeon(especially modded ones)
That's all, I guess...
Frenzy spells have a downside where everyone will attack you if you're the most "threatening" person nearby, instead of each other
You'd have to be further away and hidden. They will run at your direction at first but after two seconds when they haven't detected you they will turn on each other.
1:42 I use clairvoyance a lot, because I don’t fast travel. I play on survival mode and lack of fast travel means I often need to find the easiest way to a far objective. It also keeps you mostly to the roads, which is something travelers should be doing for their own safety in Skyrim during a time when vampires are roaming the area. Soldiers stay to the roads and traders do as well. The roads are simply safer than the wilderness.
I personally fall under the belief that certain spells are best suited for specific playstyles. Like with rune spells, you're not going to get much use out of them unless you're playing a sort of Shadowcaster build, using both stealth and magic skills to lure enemies in and catch them with well placed rune traps or placing rune traps on strategic points where the enemy makes their rounds. Fear and Calm spells seems to be the best sort of spells for players who want to play as a sort of pacifist or at the very least minimize casualties whether it be because they're too squishy and don't want any confrontation yet or reduce the number of enemies to deal with as one enemy leaves in fear or stands around and watches as you deal with the primary target.
But all and all, yeah the Master Illusion spells are sort of a bummer, if not all Master spells all because of those ridiculous charges. Like some spells such as Lightning Storm or Guardian Circle may have a good thematic reasoning or purpose as to why they have such a big charge time, but spells like Harmony or Dragonhide just become less useful because of those charge times. As a mage I'd rather just cast Ebonyflesh on the spot than to spend a few precious seconds to cast Dragonhide and hope to the Divines that I don't get staggered out of it or worse. The only logical way to even use these spells in my opinion is with Dragonhide you always have to cast it whenever it turns off even when you're just walking around Skyrim you always have to have Dragonhide active, with Harmony you need to sneak into a middle of the group most likely invisible and then just cast it. But I'm sure people out there have made more better use of these Master spells.
Use Clairvoyance the next time Astrid asks you which prisoner to kill.
well it will show the cat. but the way that spell works will only give the first target. there are some theories on who is the target. some say is you the dragonborn, some say is astrid and some say it's just a test. she took random people that may look they have people who wants them dead.
@@lukmanalghdamsi3189Not in my games. It shows the old nag.
Yes clairvoyance is bad but like
Climbing mountains
I guess it could help there, but to be honest, I can’t think of another Illusion spell worse than Clairvoyance.
Yeah lol that's fair, with the perks you pretty much can avoid having to play the game with Illusion
Clairvoyance is pretty good if you ask me. It's not just useful for when inside caves or dungeons, but also outside in mountainous paths; it's better to follow the road than to try to climb every time. I've used it since my first playthrough, since it's available on the very "first" dungeon you encounter (The bandit mine near the guardian stones).
That's a pretty subjective opinion, but I'm sure there's a lot of people that think the same.
Calm/pacify is an easier and quick accessible tool in aid of leveling up your sneak skills before you can use invisibility. With a mob of enemies I usually start with frenzy and pick up the last-standing foe with pacify/invisibility paired with backstab.
Muffle is great to level ilusion. Nothing more
"Overlooked tree... anyway most of these I hate" lol ❤
To this day my first mage build is my favorite mage build. Illusion + Conjuration.
At max skills you walk into a dungeon and cast mayhem, deploy a pair of dremora lords, then vanish into thin air.
Only weakness is that illusion and conjuration both would become useless at extreme levels, but I never play the same character long enough for that to matter.
The dremora lord's keep up into the 80s fairly well, and you can use illusion potions to get to pretty high levels, especially as vampire. But yeah, requiring alchemy to be viable past mid-game is a downside
Harmony is good to spam for legendary.
Clairvoyance is better for begginer players, who have a hard time finding their way. As we become more expirienced, this spell becomes unecessary.
I love Muffle and Invisibility as a way to grind the Ilusion ability quicker.
If the Invisibility Effect would NOT break, by any interaction, it would be equal to "God Mode"
Do you want that, or do you enjoy a tactical challange?
You have to answer this question, first.
As a heavy armor user muffle goes hard AF
Ok but see you cast frenzy and just stood there when you could have cast frenzy into invis backstabbed someone cast invis again to drop aggro and repeated the process until all your foes are dispatched.
Bro invisibility that low makes me want to click off the video it’s so good for assassin builds it’s pretty much a must have.. imma keep watching though.
the rune spells are good for one reason if your running away in a dungeon cast them in a choke point and it hits the guys imediately following. cast the frenzy rune in a hall as your running and the next guy or guys to come through hit it then stop and fight each other as well as some of those following them. I didnt mention it in the destruction video but a well placed fire rune in say a door then snipe your enemies with a bow can finish them off as they come through, you can also lay a fire rune then snipe with say a fireball or bolt then the rune does extra damage when they get close to you running through the door. the damage runes are also nice when your running away through a dungeon cast them as you go and they can kill the enemy following although the wall spells i think can work better that way
I can imagine it having a chat with a enemy and asking what they have for sale right right in the middle of Kombat excuse me what are you selling before you try to kill me got any goods spell 📚 books 📚 for sale 😂😭🤬🙅
Damnit, I'm gonna start another playthrough again…
I hope in 6 they expand the illusion school a bit bringing back spells from morrowind and oblivion. And more importantly I hope they switch off of the level cap model for the spells. Firebolt may be less effective at level 50 than it was at level 5, but it still does damage. Sure your level should help with resistance but a level 80 should be able to fail to resist a basic fear spell and a level 8 should be able to resist a master tier spell. Add in a different resistance method for these spells. Saves from D&D, I don't know.
This goes for all spells but assuming master tier spells are in 6 and they work sort of the same and dual cast perks should apply to them for all schools of magic.
..sorry, have to correct you again ; Muffle is super useful to Max Illusion up quite quick ; you should take these "side-Effects" into count, as i see it ;)
I personally like a mix between necromancer and illusion builds
A chaotic fight with dozens of bandits? The moment they start dying you start bounding an army to clear out the last few raging/pacified foes left all the while you're "chilling" with with your ice summon at hand in case something somehow runs through the entire missive battle towards you
The only downside is when there's not an abundance of foes in the area, pretty much leaving you with just your main summons
Harmony is realy good in leveling up ilusion skill. But only if you manage to lower up the cost of the spell, or if you realy invest into magika.
Calm is also good for stealing.
A bunch of people talking about how the muffle spell is superior to the muffle enchantment but here's another thing, the enchantment can work as a substitute but only *IF* you manage to find a pair of boots to disenchant and your best odds of that are once you reach level 11 and they can start showing up in shops. The more you level up from there on the less likely you can find them until they almost never show up and you can't even disenchant the unique pairs like the shrouded boots and predator's grace. So unless you're mindful of getting them ASAP then you might just be SOL when you get around to looking for them. Or you could just console them into your inventory if you're on PC, too...
Imagine thinking Illusion tree is irrelevant.
Meanwhile players clearing out dungeons from its first room with mayhem alone.
I use fear spells in dungeons to make enemies flee until they are grouped ... and then hit them with frenzy. BOOM!!!!!
The thing that turns so many people away from illusion is they don't understand how the maximum level works. They look at something like frenzy, see it is a level 40 spell that works on enemies up to level 14 and immediately decide it is junk. For that reason, I'll explain how the maximum level for illusion spells works so hopefully more people will try it after watching this video.
You start with the level displayed on the spell, I'll use frenzy as my example here. To that level, you then add levels based on relevant perks. In the case of frenzy, there are potentially 3 perks that can add levels: animage, kindred mage, and rage. Animage will add 8 levels to any illusion spell if you are targeting an animal with the spell. Kindred mage will add 10 levels to any illusion spell if you are targeting a person with the spell. Rage will add 12 levels if the spell you are casting is fury, frenzy, or mayhem. Therefore, if you cast frenzy on a person (like a bandit) with the kindred mage and rage perks, frenzy will work on people up to level 14+10+12=36.
After additive level increases, the next thing that is calculated is dual casting. If you have illusion dual casting, you can put the same spell in both your right and left hands, and click both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time. You will see both hands participate in the casting, and there will be a single glowing orb for the spell being cast (if you see 2, then you didn't click both buttons at exactly the same time). A dual cast illusion spell will cost more, but it will also have the level multiplied by 2.2. That multiplication takes place AFTER EVERY additive increase. Therefore, again using my bandit example, if you dual cast frenzy with kindred mage and rage, frenzy will work on people up to level (14+10+12)*2.2 = 79.
That alone is enough if you are targeting animals or people: frenzy, pacify, or rout will work on most anything in the game. However, think of all the undead you find in nordic ruins, those don't count as people or animals. The next step is to add master of the mind. That perk allows illusion to work on undead, daedra, and dwarven automatons. Once you have that, you could use frenzy with the rage perk and dual casting on undead. That would give a level of (14+12)*2.2=57. Therefore, you don't need to worry about undead anymore.
The last thing to talk about are the master spells, people call them worthless because they cannot be dual cast. However, there's another step you can take here if you even want to use the master level illusion spells! This time, I'll use mayhem as my example, and I'll still assume you are casting on undead, because that is the worst case scenario. The final calculation that works on the level of illusion spells is vampirism. If you become a vampire, the level is multiplied by 1.25 after everything else! Therefore, let's see what that would do for mayhem on undead enemies. Mayhem goes up to level 25 by default, then you can add 12 levels with the rage perk, and finally you multiply the result by 1.25 for the bonus from vampirism (which is called champion of the night). With those combined, your mayhem will work on undead of up to level (25+12)*1.25=46.25. That is enough to work on any undead except for dragon priests! However, if a dragon priest has minions with him, you can use mayhem to weaken the dragon priest until he is the only enemy left, then use dual cast pacify if you need help finishing the lone dragon priest at the end. With Hypnotic Gaze, dual casting, and vampirism your pacify will work on undead up to level (20+8)*2.2*1.25=77. That's enough to even work on the mighty dragon priests!
If you add EVERYTHING I've mentioned, your maximum level bonus will be so high that you could even use LOW LEVEL illusion spells on most enemies. Let's look at the level 1 illusion spell: fury. If you have illusion dual casting, kindred mage, rage, and vampirism, the "weak" level 1 fury spell would work on people up to level (6+10+12)*2.2*1.25=77! This should be enough to see that the level displayed on the spell itself is only a small fraction of what you can get, illusion perks and vampirism take these to a whole new level, literally!
If you plan to get vampirism for the illusion level bonus, my last suggestion is to start as a dark elf, because dark elves get a fire resist bonus that will counter the fire weakness you get from vampirism. They also start with a +5 skill boost to both illusion and sneak.
Sadly, there will still be one weakness after all of that. Even with insane maximum levels, illusion magic cannot work on dragons. You have to deal with them some other way.
This was exactly my issue years ago when I was getting into illusion for the first time. I had the same thought of "these suck, max lvl 14, are you kidding me?" until I realized the full potential of the school like you just explained.
Great comment and I hope someone will get into illusion thanks to that :)
Fear is good if you find yourself in a pinch and need time to recuperate, or it's good for crowd control if you want to fight less enemies
The only time i used clairvoyance it lead me into a wall
😂
As with all the Master spells the shout Become Ethereal is what really helps them. use the first word then start charging the spell. you cant be damaged or staggered as your Ethereal. it drops on cast ofc. Illusion is easy to power level so you can keep it leveling with you at the beginning ot playthroughs
really great video, love the format and straight to the point well done spider pig
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed the video!
Harmony has the greatest XP rate in the game. You can grind levels really quick with enchanted gear to reduce casting cost to zero.
Go to a crowded place, like the market in Riften or Witherun and cast Harmony with your enchanted gear equipped. As your Illusion skill reaches 100, make it Legendary and repeat the process as long as you like.
It's a great way to get perk points in no time.
Spamming muffle is the fastest way to level illusion so you missed a point of usefulness there.
Frenzy and Calm at higher levels, lets you play the game without nearly no more physical fights - it's that powerful!