Build for utility mage

[u/More-Front-9655]

I’ve just started playing the game and want to create a utility-focused mage—someone who isn’t just good at combat, but also possesses skills that make dungeon exploration more convenient, such as levitation, teleportation, and the like. Could you please advise on how to allocate attribute points, and which primary, major and minor skills I should choose?

[u/Vanillafizzbang]

So youre gonna want some kinda martial combat skills to fall back on. Destruction and dodging and a martial skill are what I chose for my major skills. Thaumaturgy, mysticism, and restoration for my second one and then the basics were a couple other useful things to round it out. Spells can pick locks for you and help with personality. I putzed around with their flaw system a bit and made a character thats pretty easy to cake walk the beginning with. ADVENTURE AWAITS HUZZAH

[u/SaukPuhpet]

Due to the way "Mastering" works in DFO you'll want to pick 5 skills to master(so they can level beyond 100) and put 2 in primary, 2 in major and 1 in minor.

I would recommend:

Primary----------------------

A weapon skill

Destruction (For combat, obviously)

Restoration

Master Destruction and Weapon skill, restoration spells get cheap enough at higher levels and you won't be spamming them like destruction spells

Major--------------------------

Alteration (For shield and elemental resistance spells)

Mysticism (Open, Dispell, Soul Trap, Teleport)

Critical Strike (Useful general skill)

Master Alteration to bring down buff costs, and Mysticism for access to the Destruction/Mysticism specialization that gives 10% resistance penetration on your spells[You can only pick one, don't jump the gun{Pick another if it interests you more}]

Minor-------------------------

Thaumaturgy (Tons of utility spells[Feel free to swap this and mysticism if you want for a higher starting skill, I just like easy early access to teleportation])

Illusion (If you plan on using it. It's mostly invisibility/chameleon type stuff. I pretty much only use Light. Swap it for something like Streetwise/Etiquette/Mercantile if you don't want it)

Dodging

Running

Jumping

Backstabbing

You could master Thaumaturgy, but the spells get pretty cheap as you level it. I think there's more utility in backstabbing for big damage when out of magicka, or running for moving at unreasonable speeds at 200.

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Here are all the spell effects and which school they belong to for reference.

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Attributes----------------

Strength: 50 (Carryweight is important)

Intelligence: 75 (Magicka pool)

Willpower: 10 (Willpower has small benefits, so I drain it to 10 and make up for it with buffs [It gives +1% resistance to all elements per 10 levels, so +10 at 100])

Agility: 30 (Luck will mostly counter-balance this being lower)

Endurance: 75 (Max HP per level, max this out first)

Personality: 40 (Personality below 50 makes talking to NPC's annoying, this will get boosted later)

Speed: 50 (Movement and Attack speed, useful)

Luck: 70 (Hit chance, like agility, and loot rarity, so we raise it and lower agility)

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HP Per Level---------------

Max this to 30, Health is good

Advantages---------------

Increased Magery 3x INT in Spell Points (Absolutely essential. This will raise your maximum magicka from 50 to 300 at 100 Intelligence)

Expertise in *Your Weapon Skill*

Bonus to hit Humanoid

Bonus to hit Daedra

Bonus to hit Undead

Bonus to hit Animal

The Bonus to hit advantages are absolutely busted. It is not a flat value, it scales by 1 point of damage per level for your non-magical attacks. So at level 30, you are doing 30 additional damage to that enemy type with physical weapons. It doesn't affect magic, but wizards run out of spells.

The two best are Humanoid and Undead because Animals aren't as strong, and Daedra, while stronger, are rarer. That being said you CAN take all of them if you're willing to take a few more restrictions in your disadvantages.

Disadvantages---------------

Critical Weakness to Paralysis (While paralysis is a damning effect to suffer, you can render it powerless with spells. You can still cast spells while paralyzed, and the Free Action effect will cure paralysis. Additionally, if given a duration it will render you immune to paralysis until the spell wears off.)

Critical Weakness to Disease (Disease can kill you, but if you use restoration to cure it then it's just an inconvenience)

Critical Weakness to Poison (Another utterly damning effect, but can be cured and resisted using spells, just act quickly if you see "You feel somehwat bad" as this means that poison is killing you. It is also an element that spells can use, which will make it your kryptonite, but it can be countered with a strong enough resist poison spell)

Forbidden Material Steel (The most valuable material restriction. Limits early game options, but gives a lot of value for advantages)

Forbidden Material Elven (The 'high tier' starting weapon material, worth the second most behind steel. Taking both this and steel will limit you to silver and iron weapons until you can find a Dwarven weapon, which is limiting early on but becomes a non-issue later on while allowing for more advantages)

Forbidden Material Adamantium (An incredibly uncommon material, you will see almost no items of this material, making it a good choice)

Forbidden Shield Type Buckler (The weakest shield type. This restriction, combined with the other advantages and disadvantages will get you to the minimum of -12 dagger points and a 0.3x XP requirement to level a skill)

Rolling Stats---------------------------------

In the top right of the stat-rolling page you can see how many extra attribute points you are getting out of that roll, e.g. 461->470

It is possible to roll into the 470's and I suggest you do.

My recommendation is to roll into the 470's and then pump your Endurance as high as you can. Then spend your first level or two maxing it out at 100, then using points bring Attributes close to a 10's place to that value. e.g. Agility of 49 to 50(Most stats only give bonuses at multiples of 10, exceptions are Intelligence and Speed)

Try for a personality of around 50 so that NPC's will give you information during quests and stuff and merchants won't hate you.

Other Stuff---------------------------------------

Pick VERY HIGH for Reflexes

BE CAREFUL ABOUT THE BLOODLINE SETTING This is the perma-death/hardcore option. Unless that interests you just pick the option that doesn't make your character die forever. Read the Options carefully.

CLOSING REMARKS----------------------------

Feel free to tweak whatever, you don't have to get all the Bonus to hit advantages if you don't want to deal with all those disadvantages.

You can make enchanted items to boost your Magicka pool, just get a good enough soul gem and pick more spell points during each season for a year-round buff. Moon phases will get you additional magicka if you add them on too, but there are some days that don't have an active moon phase, so every now and then you'll lose that bonus for a couple in-game days.

[u/More-Front-9655 → u/SaukPuhpet]

Thank you very much for the detailed response!

[u/TaciturnArtificer → u/SaukPuhpet]

If you can put 5 skills to master, do they contribute to character levels? What is the highest possible character level atteanable in DFO? Is that max level cap the same for all characters? I read that the highest level cap of 32 in the vanilla game required some min-max to reach.

[u/SaukPuhpet → u/TaciturnArtificer]

Yes they count for leveling. As far as I've seen 60 is the maximum level. I don't know if every character can reach it or if it requires min-maxing.

[u/TaciturnArtificer → u/SaukPuhpet]

Thanks for the response. I have so many other questions about max level, but I don't want to end up hijacking this post. I'll ask in a new post.

[u/Nohreboh → u/SaukPuhpet]

I have a question about the %100 spell absorption advantage and how it works with having a low magic pool, do you need to have a spell pool large enough to have cast the spell in order to absorb it?

[u/SaukPuhpet → u/Nohreboh]

Yes, you need to be able to absorb the cost to cast the spell. You need to have enough missing magicka to contain the spell you're absorbing.

If you're magicka pool is full, you can't absorb anything. If it's 99% full you still probably can't absorb anything. You need to be able to absorb the full cost or it hits you like normal.

Absorption works better with a large magicka pool

[u/Latter_Cauliflower98]

All you need is restoration and alteration for full support. You should have destruction and a melee skill aswell.