Conjuration is a trap if you're trying to solo tough fights

[TamrielTactician]

I'm on my 3rd playthrough and finally realized why my conjurer felt so weak in actual combat. I'd summon something, it tanks a few hits, I cast a spell, and suddenly I'm doing like half the damage I'd do if I just went pure Destruction or melee.

The thing is, your conjured atronach or dremora lord is eating up your magicka pool AND your damage window. While they're wailing on the enemy, you're standing there waiting for your magicka to regen before you can cast anything else. Meanwhile a pure Destruction mage just unloads frost bolts and doesn't have to worry about babysitting a summon that might aggro the wrong target.

And don't even get me started on followers. If you have a companion AND a conjured summon, the enemy AI gets confused and you're basically fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Your actual DPS tanks because you're splitting aggro three ways.

Conjuration is way better as a utility thing - summon something to tank while you heal or buff, then switch to your actual damage spell. But if you go all-in on it as your primary damage source? Yeah, you're gonna have a bad time on anything harder than Adept difficulty.

Anyone else notice this or am I just bad at building around summons?

 

[DragonbornVet]

Nah, you're onto something, but I think you're underselling conjuration a bit. The issue is more that it requires a totally different playstyle than destruction, not that it's inherently weak.

Pure conjuration solo is genuinely rough because yeah, you're magicka-starved and your summon is doing the work while you stand there. But dual-summoning changes everything - that perk that lets you have two summons up at once (in the Conjuration tree) turns it into actual crowd control. Two dremora lords or an atronach plus a lord will lock down most enemies hard enough that you can just spam whatever damage spell you want, or honestly just let them do the heavy lifting.

The follower thing is real though. I've noticed enemy pathfinding gets janky with more than one entity - it's like the AI doesn't know who to focus. That's less a conjuration problem and more a Skyrim AI quirk, but yeah, summoning with a follower already out is usually a waste.

Where conjuration actually shines for solo is the utility angle you mentioned, but taken further - summon something to tank, cast paralysis or whatever crowd control spell you want, then nuke from range. It's not about the summon being your damage source; it's about them buying you time and space. Totally different from a destruction mage's playstyle, which is why it feels weak if you're trying to play it the same way.

What difficulty are you on now? Because I'll admit on Legendary the magicka costs get brutal regardless.