The Altmer, or High Elves is one of the best races if you’re going for a mage-character in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
One of the best races for a true mage: The Altmer
Known traits
- Highborn: Once a day you have the ability to regenerate magicka 10x faster than normal. This ability lasts for 60 seconds. It can be a great way to get out of a nasty situation quick.
- +50 Magicka.
Known skills
- +5 to Destruction
- +5 to Alteration
- +5 to Enchanting
- +5 to Restoration
- +5 to Conjuration
- +10 to Illusion
About this Skyrim Race
The significant bonusses to the major magic skills make this character exceptionally suited for anyone who wants to create a Mage character. Once a day your Altmer can cast Highborn: a 60 second burst of extreme magicka restoration. In this period your magicka will regenerate 10 times faster than normal. Use it wisely as you can only use this once per day.
Have to say it, the women are less ugly than the male Altmer…
The most significant bonus you get as an Altmer is the +10 bonus to Illustion. The Illustion skill controls the spells like Fear, Charm and Invisibility. Especially Invisibility can come in handy if you don’t want to invest in the Sneak skill.
Your bonus to Alteration will help you protect yourself: the defensive spells can cast an armor where needed so you don’t have to wear armor. That will allow you to focus on mages robes which improves magicka regeneration or which make spells cost less magicka to cast.
Destruction is your major offensive skill and backed up by Conjuration you can deliver a hefty punch. While your conjured up create acts as a lightning rod and attacks your opponent you can focus on another target or help by casting Destruction spells. Teamwork!
The bonusses you receive to Restoration and Enchanting will help keep you safe. Enchanting will allow you to create custom enchantments to suit your need. Your Restoration will help heal you and avoid damage from spells through the use of the Ward spell.
If you’re in a major fight you can make good use of your Highborn trait. Highborn will regenerate your magicka 10 times faster for 60 seconds per day. Just keep hurling those fireballs!
Weakness of this race
However strong you may be in the magic department; you’re not much for melee weapons. Keep that in mind! If your primary attack spell (Fireball or Flames for example) don’t work quickly switch to another categy (Ice or Shock) to deal some damage because you have nothing else to fall back to.
Another missing ingredient for this race is Stealth: sneaking, lockpicking, pickpocketing and the likes. You can use invisibility from your bonus to Illusion for that, but it can never truly replace your lack of stealth.