Wyrmlord said:
By the way, I wanted to ask you all.
...
Do you start a new game with a fresh level 1 character or do you continue playing with your existing level 30+ warrior?
This is simple, the maximum level in the game is 81, meaning you only get 80 out of 251 perks meaning you get about 30% of the perks available.
Assuming by mastering you unlocked all the entire skill perk tree, that is 41 perks you have used, Conjuration Perk Tree is 16 skills for a total of 57 perks, possible as doing that would similar to the Battlemage class was back in Morrowind.
Playing as Mage would pretty much require a start over since the sum of all the schools of magic perk trees takes 72 perks, you can play as a hybrid class but as a pure Mage its hard to became the ultimate Mage since you all the perks points you gain have to be used for the schools of magic perks, also as a mage you had to wear no armor and that means doing into the Alteration tree.
I would say this is the difference of being to cast spells and mastering a specific school of magic and playing as a Mage.
Majestic47 said:
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like 3-5 spells would suffice for more than half the game?
I got a Summon Flaming Familiar which explodes from a quest, but mostly it's been meh so far with my High Elf.
Flame Atronach is the weakest of the Atronach, Frost Atronach is stronger and there are too many fucking ice mages in the game, Storm Atronach is better because not many enemies are immune to be zapped (and its ranged, unlike Frost that is meele) so you dont have to juggle with Frost/Flame depending on who you are facing.
And then there is the Dremora Lord but to answer your question, a Flame Atronach will only get you so far even with Elemental Potency, not to say some enemies *cough*Dragon Priests*cough* apparently can turn then (apparently since the only time I tried that against the one with the Staff of Magnus it kinda bugged him into being a sitting duck as he stopped attacking but I used a scroll for that so it might be the cause) so you cannot depend on it for long, higher level Draugr can kill a Flame Atronach with ease.
Point is if you are playing a Mage you have to go to the College since Phinis Gestor is the only one that sells Spell Tomes above Flame Atronach, you really cannot depend on the Jarl Wizards to sell you anything above Apprentice level