Illusion magic is secretly the best damage tool if you stop using it wrong

[DragonbornVet]

I've been replaying with a pure illusion build (no destruction, no conjuration) and I think people fundamentally misunderstand how this school works. Everyone treats it like a utility tree—oh, invisibility is nice, calm spells are good for crowd control, whatever. But if you actually stack the perks that boost spell effectiveness and lean into the right spells, you can delete rooms full of enemies without casting a single damage spell.

The perk that makes enemies attack each other is the actual carry. Pair that with the one that makes your spells harder to resist and suddenly you're just watching two bandit chiefs beat each other to death while you stand there. Add in the perk that extends spell duration and you're controlling entire encounters for 60+ seconds. By mid-game, a single cast of frenzy on a dragon fight turns it into the dragon fighting two other dragons while you loot their corpses.

People sleep on this because it doesn't give you the dopamine hit of watching a fireball explode, but the action economy is genuinely broken in your favor. You're casting one spell every 30 seconds and the game is solving itself.

Anyway, if anyone wants to try this and needs perk order or early-game survival tips, I've got a full rundown. Just curious if anyone else has actually committed to this or if I'm the only one crazy enough to bench destruction entirely.

 

[WhiterunModder]

I respect the commitment but I think you're overstating how well this scales, especially solo. The frenzy / mayhem thing absolutely works in the mid-game sweet spot you're describing - that window where enemies are tanky enough that watching them kill each other feels efficient - but it falls apart pretty fast after that.

The problem is spell resistance. Yeah, there's a perk that helps, but you're still fighting against the fact that high-level enemies (especially dragons, which you mentioned) have stupid high magic resistance by design. A dragon with 50% magic resist laughs at your frenzy spell landing in the first place. You can stack perks all day but you're still rolling against that base resistance pool, and illusion doesn't get the Augmented perks that destruction does. You're also not getting the resist-piercing tools that other schools have.

Also - and maybe this is just me being paranoid about my load orders - but pure illusion runs into the action economy problem you're solving for in reverse once you hit Legendary or Requiem. If your spell doesn't land, you're just standing there. If it does land but the enemies kill each other slowly, you're babysitting the fight instead of controlling it. Destruction at least lets you pivot if the crowd control fails.

That said, the mid-game experience you're describing is genuinely fun and way more interesting than "spam fireball." The pacing is different. If you're having a blast with it, that's what matters. Just don't expect it to trivialize late-game the way you think it does right now.