Magicka is the magical energy that is used to cast spells.
Your base magicka is determined by your intelligence, birthsign, and race:
Magicka = (Intelligence × 2) + birthsign bonus + racial bonus
Fortify Magicka effects can be used to increase your character's available magicka above the base value.
Your magicka will go down after casting a spell. It is restored over time at a rate determined by your willpower unless you are afflicted by Stunted Magicka, in which case your magicka will not naturally recover. The two most common ways to acquire Stunted Magicka are either by selecting the Atronach birthsign or by catching a disease with this effect (in particular Astral Vapors, which can be caught from Dread Zombies). You can also wield the Fork of Horripilation from the Shivering Isles expansion, which gives you stunted magicka. Tips on how to restore magicka when affected by Stunted Magicka are provided on the Atronach page.
Your magicka determines the strongest spell that you can cast. However, the magicka cost of a spell is also determined by your magical skills (see Magic Overview), so spells that at first appear impossibly expensive can become more affordable later in the game.
Character CreationEdit
- The following birthsigns provide magicka bonuses:
- Mage: 50 points
- Apprentice: 100 points (but accompanied by permanent 100% Weakness to Magic.)
- Atronach: 150 points (but accompanied by permanent Stunted Magicka)
Maximizing MagickaEdit
Players interested in maximizing their magicka will want to select a High Elf (+100 magicka) with the atronach birthsign (+150 magicka) and maximising their Intelligence (+200 magicka at 100 intelligence). Further enhancements are possible by:
- Enchanting every item (5 armor/clothes pieces, shield, 2 rings, amulet) with Fortify Magicka Transcendent Sigil Stones (+50 Magicka). This is the most powerful possible custom Fortify Magicka enchantment. Nine enchanted items can be worn simultaneously, yielding +450 Magicka.
- The Ring of Perfection can replace one of these, and provides other substantial benefits.
- The level 25+ Necromancer's Amulet can be worn in place of one custom enchantment. This amulet fortifies Magicka by 130 points and fortifies intelligence by 14 points (158 magicka in total).
- Wearing the Birthright of Astalon gives +50 Fortify Magicka, the same as a custom enchant, but also provides the wearer with 5 pts Fortify Agility.
- Possessing the Scales of Pitiless Justice, which adds two points to your intelligence.
- Waiting until your Intelligence is at 100 to do the Hermaeus Mora Daedric quest, allows you to get your base Intelligence to 110.
- Using the Permanent Enchantments exploit an "infinite" amount of Magicka is possible.
All combined, these would yield a total Magicka of 1032, which is the highest constant effect amount possible in the game without any mods or exploits. Higher values are temporarily possible by also using potions, Doomstone powers, scrolls, and/or spells.
Maximizing Magicka Instructions: 0.) Atronarch Birthsign is not recommended due to stunted magicka at high levels of magic you have significant regeneration which becomes wasted. It's preferred to choose a Breton Mage for +100 Magicka for overall maximum character power. 1.) Reach 100 Intelligence by leveling naturally. 2.) Become Addicted to Felldew to lose 15 Int, while addicted gain 15 int by leveling to return to 100, then cure yourself of your felldew addiction to be left with 115 base. (You can also increase willpower endurance and strength which benefit you with permanent increased mana regen and help to counter the necromancer's amulet downsides but it's not required.) 3.) Complete Oghma Infinium and choose Intelligence to get to 125 base int. 4.) Complete KOTN and take julianos blessing to get 130 base int. 5.) Complete Dark Brotherhood questline for Scales of Pitliess Justice to reach 132 base int. 6.) Complete Mages Guild for Necromancer's Amulet for +158 Magicka. 7.) Collect 7-8 Trancendent Sigil Stones with +50 Magicka and enchant all gear slots but 1 ring and neck. (Arguably 50% magicka on mundane ring on breton is the strongest combination so 7 may be enough for your build.
This leaves you with 872 Base Magicka. Slightly less than possible maximum, it gives you the most character power with 100% resist magicka in addition.
8.) With 100 Restoration you can create a 100 Point 120 Second Fortify Magicka and Fortify Willpower Spell which costs 180 Magicka at 100 Restoration. You can make multiple versions of this spell. The most convenient way to stack them is to add 1 point of spells with different icons to help visually indicate when they wear off or prebuffing has failed. 1 point light, detect life, any resist, and shield are the lowest cost ways to get 4 unique visual indicators on your spells. Add Feather 100 for 120 to all versions for maximum movement speed at a low cost.
Casting your prebuff takes 8 Seconds and gives you: 400 Magicka, 400 Willpower, 400 Feather. This is castable immediately with your base mana of 872 for a total of 740 magicka. This gives you a Usable Mana after prebuff of 1272.
With 1272 Mana and 500 Willpower you passively regenerate 138 magicka per second. Assuming your prebuff takes 10 seconds you will regenrate 15,041 over the next 110 seconds to use on whatever you wish.
The official downloads add two possible additional magicka enhancements:
- Using the Felldew withdrawal exploit from Shivering Isles allows a possible 15 extra Intelligence points. Note that the Felldew bonuses would need to be obtained before any other permanent effects, as the trick relies on Intelligence being at or under 100 when doing it.
- Julianos' Blessing from Knights of the Nine bestows a +5 Intelligence boost. With this, it is possible for your Intelligence to have a base value of 110, with an additional +21 constant effect enhancement. The resulting maximum, constant effect value for Magicka is 1042, without using mods or exploits.