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I ran into my first one of these last night. Wow, he was tough for a mage character. I need some advice on fighting them. After reading up a bit, I see they have 50% spell absorption, so I'm assuming I don't want to cast on them at all. The question I had is what all counts as a spell. Do the magical enchantments on my dagger (fire damage, weakness to fire, weakness to magic) count as spells and can they be absorbed? How about the shock damage from my mage staff?

Any advice on fighting these guys would be a help. I'm currently a level 21 Breton Mage. My blade skill is pretty low at 25 or so. I've just started leveling it a little bit.

Thanks!

For mage characters, I usually get a strong paralysis spell. Sneak up on them from behind (sometimes with Invisibility) and cast paralysis on touch. When they are down, simply hack at them with an enchanted+poisoned dagger. When they start to stand, cast Paralysis again. Works mostly only 1 on 1.

Be sure to carry restore magicka potions and for your own safety, have a lot of resist paralysis enchantments on you.

Also have a restore health spell handy on the D pad; if not have lots of restore health potions.

Welcome to the Boards Necros

My approach: Just cast right through it.

1) Make a lot of cheap restore magicka potions. If you have 100 alchemy, this couldn't be simpler--make a loop around Skingrad picking all those zillions of flax plants, then turn them into potions.

2) Craft a target spell that does 100 weakness to your element of choice for about 5 seconds (I personally like fire because of how it looks, lightning is the best for killing Xivilai and most daedra, frost moves too slow imo) and also decent damage of that type. It doesn't have to be insanely powerful since you will be casting it repeatedly.

3) When you meet a Xivilai, cast your spell a few times, and when you've used 1/3 to 1/2 your magicka, drink a potion. Heal yourself as needed, or drink healing potions. Keep casting and backing away. Yes, up to 1/2 of your spells will get absorbed--who cares? If you run out of magicka, keep out of range of their strikes and lightning til your potions can do their work.

Xivilai have scary weapons and a Clannfear to keep you staggered--why would you abandon your strengths in this fight by switching to a knife? Mages are all but immortal as long as you don't run out of magicka, so use that to your advantage. You'll be surprised how easily you can handle them once you get the hang of it.

Vesna wrote:Be sure to carry restore magicka potions and for your own safety, have a lot of resist paralysis enchantments on you.

Xivilai don't paralyze, that's just spiderlings.

EDIT: the wiki says to be cautious about casting spells at them because their spell absorption lets them regrow magicka. You kill stuff by making their HP go to 0, not by limiting their MP. Who cares whether or not they've run out of magicka by the time they die?! If you stay out of range of their attacks, their MP won't help them.

Cast Invisibility, and try pushing them to the lava or simple bypass them or sneak attack them with a anchanted shock dagger poisoned with shock damage (from ectoplasm). The 1st option is the funniset, the 2nd is the easy but not rewarding, with the 3rd you will kill them almost instantly, but is hard to do.

I mean for all the other creatures in Oblivion. Some have spell reflect. Can be very nasty.

Necros wrote:... The question I had is what all counts as a spell. Do the magical enchantments on my dagger (fire damage, weakness to fire, weakness to magic) count as spells and can they be absorbed? How about the shock damage from my mage staff? ...

The answer to your question is that anything of that sort is counted as a spell. The effect of an enchanted weapon, a staff or scroll is considered a spell, and the Spell Absorption effect has a chance of drinking up those energies as well.

Same applies to Resist Magic or Reflect spell. Hit somebody sporting a good Reflect Spell with an enchanted dagger, and there's a chance that the dagger's spell effect (not physical damage, as that's covered by Reflect Damage instead) will bounce back at you.

Depends on how much you restrict yourself to spells only. I find a poisoned arrow from a good distance always does for them before they can get to me.

Thanks for the insight so far. I am a bit confused as to what constitutes "poison" then. If the spell absorption can absorb elemental damage from enchantments, I assume it can do the same for poisons. If it is a DOT (damage over time) does the 50% calculation occur once and cover the duration of the effect or is it rolled for each tick? Also, there is a resist poison effect in the game. What does that cover? Does it cover damage to health effects from alchemy only?

poison doesn't cost any magicka to deal damage, so therefor, absorb spell doesn't do anything for it. Elemental damage effects from poison count as poisons, not spells.

First of all, Spell Absorption/Reflect is calculated as an all-or-nothing chance of success; secondly, it is calculated only at the moment of initial impact.

If a Damage-over-Time spell gets past that Spell Absoprtion effect and lands on the target, then the effect will carry over unimpeded for the full duration.

Resist Magic is another thing entirely, though. The magnitude of a Resist effect is calculated as a damage reducer, not a To-Hit% one. Any spell calculated against a Resist Magic effect will hit (unless it exceeds 100%, then a message tells you that the effect was resisted), but the strength of that spell is reduced. Mind you, the message that tells you the spell was resisted only occurs if it was resisted 100%— thoroughly negated. That message will not appear against partial resistances, and the only indication you may get of that is the fact that your target isn't being hurt as badly as you expected.