Ebony Warrior fight is completely different if you're not a melee build

[RiftenWanderer]

I just hit level 80 on my pure mage playthrough and the Ebony Warrior showed up. Everyone talks about how hard he is but I figured magic would handle it fine. Nope. Dude just walks straight through my spells and one-shots me with his greatsword before I can even cast a second spell.

I'm running mostly destruction with some conjuration on the side. Tried frost, tried shock, tried summoning an atronach to tank - nothing sticks. He just power attacks through everything and I'm dead. Meanwhile I'm watching clips of melee builds just trading blows with him and it looks almost manageable.

Is there actually a way to beat him as a pure caster or am I just supposed to respec? The game's been telling me destruction is viable the whole time but this fight feels like it's designed specifically to punish you for not being a sword guy.

 

[DragonbornVet]

The Ebony Warrior has spell absorption on his gear - that's why your destruction spells are bouncing off. You're not doing anything wrong, the fight just sucks for pure destruction because of how his resistances stack. Melee builds don't care about absorption so they just bash through.

Your best bet is honestly conjuration heavy - summon two atronachs or dremora lords and kite while they distract him. He can't absorb summons. Paralysis works too if you've got any perks in that direction, though I think you need the right illusion or alchemy setup. Alternatively, if you're willing to cheese it a bit, summon stuff, back away until he aggros the summons, then just snipe him with a bow from a distance while he's occupied. Not glamorous but it works.

Pure destruction as a primary damage source against him is rough though, ngl. The game does kind of assume you're either tanky enough to trade hits or mobile enough to kite, and a pure mage hitting a guy with 50% spell absorption just gets starved for damage. Frost in particular feels bad against him since he's likely got frost resistance stacked on top of everything else.