Hey all. A brief search didn’t turn up a (recent) thread about this, but I wanted to talk about it. Please move it if there is a more appropriate category for it to go in.

Anyway, I am poised to exit the sewers with my new character. Earlier when the Emperor said “Yo, gurl, what’s your sign?”, we selected the Atronach sign because of the huge amount of magicka you get. So at the gate to the outside, I started rethinking our choice, because of the no magicka regen. Leveling minor spell schools will probably be a pain if I’m constantly having to replenish my magicka pool with potions or sleeping. Would Apprentice be a better choice? Almost as much bonus magicka but the awful 100% weakness to magicka. How bad is that weakness? Obviously against non-mage enemies we’ll be fine, but you fight a ton of Daedra who use magicka and then there is the Mages Guild quests which are going to be essential. Any thoughts? Which do you prefer?

The safest choice is something like The Mage or The Lady. All positives, no negatives, but not much effect either.

Lena Wolf was born under the Apprentice. She's a Breton, so she gets some extra magicka already. But Weakness to Magic really hurts! You have to watch out and dodge most spells. Yes, it is actually possible to dodge them. If you like your combat to be challenging so that you actually have to avoid getting hit, this sign will give you this challenge.

I ended up going with Atronach, but man, the stunted magicka is harsh! It doesn’t even come back with sleep! I had forgotten that. I found that Flax seed and bog beacon make a restore magicka potion, but it looks like I’ll need to drink potions a lot to restore magicka when not fighting mages. Hoping the spell absorption will be worth it.

I didn't mind The Atronach when playing Morrowind since I didn't need to fear magickal attacks much. Fixed regen with potions when necessary and didn't think much of it.

Another thing to consider is reflect/absorb/resist are applied in that order. Any attack you reflect isn't absobed, so Atronachs need to avoid using reflect magic. Also note that Absorption is a chance to absorb, and resistence is a percentage reduction. I.e. 50 points means 50% chance to absorb 100% of the incoming magicka, but 100% chance to reduce the damage by 50% when resisting.

Atronach may be best for characters that will have a physical attack skill that fills the downtimes, like a speelsword. You can supplement the incoming absorption with Absorb Magicka spells, so if they don't cast at you, you cast at them (unless you're completely drained), but it's better to have that on a weapon, so you don't need any magicka of your own to do so. But not on a bow, because of the range limitation.

Ask Jeriic for the "Jerric's Juice" recipe.

Yeah this character is a modified Crusader, so will definitely be doing lots of melee.

We bid thy new crusader welcome, Khajiit.

Thanks for the opinions y’all. It’s been quite a while since I’ve made a serious start on a new Oblivion playthrough. There was a lot that I need to relearn.