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As a mage there are some nice clothes out there. I'm wearing:

Master's Robes of Destruction
  +150% Magika Regen
  -22% magika cost for Destruction

Pretty awesome. But not wearing armor makes me incredibly vunerable to melee attacks. I often get one-hit killed.

Is there a way to get the awesome enchantments of clothes on armor? I have the enchantments but they don't work so well on armor. If I up my Enchanting skill will they ever be as good as clothes?

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    This is a perfectly valid question, which just has a bad title. Please take the time to read the question first, before voting to close. Do not just base it on the title.
    – Wipqozn
    Dec 13, 2011 at 13:32

7 Answers 7

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The formula for enchanting apparel is

net magnitude = base magnitude * soul multiplier * skill multiplier *
                (1 + Enchanter perk) * (1 + specific perk modifier)

where

skill multiplier = 1 + 0.3 * ((skill - 10) / 100) ^ 2.

Therefore, the maximum magnitude (100 enchant, the appropriate perks, +32% Fortify Enchanting Potion) is:

skill multiplier = 1 + 0.3 * ((132 - 10) / 100) ^ 2 = 1.4465

net magnitude = base magnitude * 1 * 1.4465 * 2 * 1.25
              = base magnitude * 3.6163

Regen Magicka's base magnitude is 20% and Fortify School's is 8%, so that means at best you should be able to add about 72% magicka regen or 29% fortify school to a single enchantment on one piece of equipment. With Extra Effect, you could add both to a helmet, armor and ring, and fortify school to a necklace, which brings you to +216% magicka regen and +116% fortify school, on your choice of apparel. That means you can reach the armor cap fairly easily, which equals 85% damage reduction.

The best stuff you can find would be something like the following:

Head: Morokei - +100% magicka regen (note that you would have to replace this for Mage Armor perks to work)
Ring: Ring of Peerless [School] - +25% fortify [school]
- or - Ring of Recovery - +100% magicka regen
Chest: Master Robes of [School] - +150% magicka regen, +22% fortify [school]
Neck: Necklace of Peerless Magicka - +70 magicka (AFAICT necklaces can be enchanted with Fortify [School] but generally aren't found as such)

So with the above equipment, you'd wind up +44% (or +144%) more magicka regen, -69% (or -94%) less fortify school, and +70% magicka and almost no armor rating. That may look comparable, especially given the tradeoffs in putting perk points in enchanting or anything else. But consider the following:

  • The real benefits to armor become clear the more you have. That is, each additional point in armor adds more to physical durability than the previous point. With clothes equipped, you lose out on perks like Custom Fit/Well Fitted, Matching Set even if you get the best possible gauntlets and boots.
  • A school fortified 100% (i.e. 0% magicka cost) is better than all the magicka regen out there for that particular school. Most mages focus on only a few schools, and there are benefits to concentrating.
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6

As a mage around level 30 you can cast ironflesh which gives 80 armor. With mage armor 2 around that level it increases it to 200 armor.

You should always be moving and not getting hit at all with melee.

With enchanting at 100, you are able to finally enchant your own gear that surpasses the Archmage Robes.

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    Yeah, Ironflesh could work. I am always moving but when there are 5 of them, it gets a bit hard. I'm working towards enchanting 100 with Extra Effect but, will in definitely provide >100% magika regen?
    – Coomie
    Dec 13, 2011 at 7:41
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    @Coomie even better - it will allow you to reach -100% School reduction, i.e., free spells! Dec 13, 2011 at 12:27
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    TIL about free spells, makes me feel stupid for leveling up magicka so many times @Raven
    – juan
    Dec 13, 2011 at 13:43
  • Yeah, that means my 500 magika is a HUGE waste. Metal note, invest in Health!
    – Coomie
    Dec 14, 2011 at 0:41
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Whether accidentally or by design, the Fortify School and Magicka Regen enchantment's 2nd effect, the Magicka Regen, will always remain limited to 10%. (Fortify starts at 5%, and goes up with skill / perks)

So I guess the question really is, which is the "awesome enchantments" you're trying to get in the first place? A simple way would just to be to make your way to 100 enchanting and pick the Extra Effect perk, which would let you apply the Magicka Regen and Fortify School enchantments to a single piece, allowing both to scale normally.

Alternatively, you may just want to keep the Fortify School and Magicka Regen in the meantime - after all, the greater the fortify, the less the cost on your spells (and thus, the less need for regen!).

The big thing to take note of is that enchanting with anything less than a Grand Soul gem will earn you a fractional portion of the potential magnitude (I believe petty soul gems go all the way down to 1/12th the base magnitude!).

Alternatively, there's a simpler solution to survival: spend more level-ups on health! Armor is more effective the more health it has to protect!

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You can't get Enchantment high enough to create those +150% robes. Presumably, it's a balancing factor to keep wizards wearing robes instead of home-made heavy armour.

However, with high enough Enchantment, you can create four items that give -25% Magicka cost. Together, you will have -100% Magicka cost and all spells will cast for free.

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Or you could level up enchanting use a potion and do fortify (school) on chest, head, ring, necklace and that school can be free. If you can put two enchantments on one item you could have two free schools of magic.

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  • and if you find the enchantment reduce all magic (something like that i cant remember) and then do two enchantments. Reduce all magic and resist all magic you can have an infinite amount of magic and never take damage from magic.
    – jake
    Jan 20, 2012 at 22:24
  • I have this. Just imagine shooting firebolts and doing close wounds and all other great spell for FREE!!!
    – jake
    Jan 20, 2012 at 22:28
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If you cheat, you can do the alchemy/enchanting loop and get good enchants on various items to equal or surpass the archmage robe or grand master robe, and while there is no enchanted non-armor gloves in the game, you can enchant non-armor gloves easily. Even if you do not excel in enchanting, even a minor enchant on gloves as oppesed to no gloves would help immensely. The enchanting options for gloves are not that expansive, but they do exist.

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I think that robes are truly the best solution for mages. I stick to the archmages robes, because I use every school of magic and not just one, the amulet of saarthal(-3% magicka cost for all spells) and the diadem of the savant(-5% magicka cost for all spells). that way I reduce the magicka costs for all spells by 23%, 1% more than the master robes do for one school, and get +100% magicka regen and +50 magicka(the diadem of the savant does NOT cancel the "mage armor" bonuses). Then one should probably wear the Ring of Recovery(+100% magicka regen) and has an empty gloves slot. as there are NO enchanted non-armor gloves in the game, one can decide between not wasting 6 skill points and being OP enough anyways, or get the 6 skill points in enchanter 1-5 and Insightful Enchanter and enchant some non-armor gloves with up to +70 Magicka

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