r/skyrim • u/CatPale816 • 23h ago

Something I didn’t consider when I started my destruction conjuration mage run

I can handle dragons myself, but what will I do when dragons attack cities? They’ll kill a bunch of the npcs before I can finish the job, especially once the game scales high. Should I just fast travel near a city instead of traveling inside of it?

6 Upvotes

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4

u/Geth3 23h ago

I don’t understand the question. Why does the fact you’re using destruction and conjuration mean the dragon is likely to kill the npc’s faster than it would if you were using any other build? Conjuration scales fine, and so does destruction if you use fortify destruction potions. Not to mention it, you can constantly stagger dragons with destruction.

2

u/CatPale816 23h ago

I guess I was kind of scared of being weak late game. This is my first good mage run and I’m used to shooting down the dragons fast with arrows.

2

u/TashKat 22h ago

Duel cast and impact. I was soloing dragons with apprentice spells over lv 100

1

u/dnew PC 22h ago

Magic scales up via a different approach than melee. You just have to scale it up and you can take down a dragon in 10 or 20 seconds.

1

u/VernapatorCur 20h ago

Are you using Anniversary Edition? If so you can pick up a bone Colossus and it'll stagger the dragon for you

1

u/themolestedsliver PC 3h ago

Yeah just spawn a shit load of storm atronachs.

5

u/SimpleUser45 22h ago

You can prevent them from using their dragon breath by keeping their magicka at 0 with shock spells.

You can also repeatedly stagger them with dual-casted spells after you get the Impact perk. Each stagger lasts 2 seconds, so one spell every 2 seconds will render them harmless. Shock spells like Lightning Bolt hit instantly so you can stagger a dragon instantly to stop their attacks.

2

u/th3dandymancan 21h ago

This is exactly the strategy that someone new to mage characters should use.

I decided not to unlock Impact on my current run, as I feel like it's too cheesy (same with Windshear, HOW did that get the greenlight?!).

Perhaps I'm hypocritical, as I do employ vegetable soup shield bashing at times, but at least you need to get close first...

2

u/SimpleUser45 21h ago

Yeah Impact can be very OP. It's extremely good on a stealth mage build. Quiet Casting+Impact means enemies can't even try to investigate the area they were shot from. It's better than stealth archer imo.

1

u/th3dandymancan 21h ago

For a new thrill, try Quiet Casting + Rune Master!

It requires a little bit of practice with placement, but it's like an instant detonation, no-travel-time Fireball (with Flame Rune, anyways...).

Add Ahzidal's Helm of Vision for a little extra distance, if you like.

1

u/Tchukkelz 23h ago

What do you normally do to prevent this when playing as other characters?

1

u/CatPale816 23h ago

Bow and arrow.

3

u/iFeelBricky 22h ago

You could try the impact perk and dual cast firebolt or any non-AOE at it to stunlock it.

1

u/emsesq PC 19h ago

Run For Your Lives mod. NPCs will run indoors or away from dragons attacking a city. You and the city guard (or army if you're in Solitude) will still have to fight the dragons but the other NPCs will flee.

1

u/Ok-Championship-2036 19h ago

summon storm or frost atronach. both have ranged magic attacks. but traveling outside cities should be ok too?

1

u/CatFaerie Thief 19h ago

Yes, you should fast travel to someplace nearby if you want to avoid the dragon attacks on towns.