Illusion (Skyrim)

''The School of Illusion involves manipulating the mind of the enemy. This skill makes it easier to cast spells like Fear, Charm, and Invisibility.'' "You're the one casts those illusions. Impressive."

- Hold Guard

Illusion is a skill in and is one of the six skills that falls under The Mage play-style. Illusion spells that have appeared in past games include targeted spells such as charm, calm, frenzy, silence, demoralize, command or rally and spells cast on one's self such as invisibility, chameleon, light or night-eye. Casting Illusion spells raises the corresponding skill.

Books

 * 2920, Sun's Dawn, v2
 * Before the Ages of Man
 * Incident at Necrom
 * Mystery of Talara, Part 4
 * The Black Arts on Trial
 * Ogham Infinium - raises Illusion and all other magicka-based skills by 5, if the "path of the Mage" is taken.

Quests

 * Defeat the Master Vampire for Sybille Stentor in Solitude
 * Find Pantea's Flute for Pantea Ateia in the Bards College in Solitude. This also increases Alteration, Enchanting, Conjuration, Destruction, and Restoration.

Spells
The following is a complete list of Illusion spells:

* Special spells

Master spells can't be purchased initially. To unlock Master Illusion spells, the Illusion Ritual Spell quest must be completed upon reaching level 90 Illusion.

Starting spells
The following are Illusion spells that the character can start with if the correct race is selected:
 * Fury spell is unlocked for Altmer (High Elves) at the start of the game.

Perks
The following are the perks that become available to select as the skill is leveled up:

Trainers

 * Atub (Expert): Largashbur in the Rift.
 * Drevis Neloren (Master): The College of Winterhold.

Leveling tips
Illusion is often overlooked because it is associated with staying out of combat, the opposite of what most players want. Illusion can be compared to the crowd control spells in other games. Here are some methods to bring the illusion skill to its full potential:

Where to practice

 * After arriving at Whiterun at the beginning of the game, the player can go to Hulda, the owner and barmaid at The Bannered Mare. She will give several Miscellaneous bounty quests, therefore, Making it possible to practice spells on bandits and earn some money (used later for buying more spells).
 * Another good place (even right from the beginning) is a troll cave- Darkshade which contains several rooms that are nicely separated. They may be individually battled, or can be lead to each other to then watch a troll fight. There is enough space to run away from trolls and they also need few seconds to start attacking after being hit with the spell.
 * Once Animage is obtained, the player can sit in Whiterun and just cast buffs like Calm and Courage on the Cow that's sitting in the pen.
 * Once the Muffle spell is obtained, it can be continually cast to level up the Illusion skill. This makes it possiable to go from 30 to 100 in 30 - 45 minutes.
 * If prefered, Calm and Fear or Fury can be cast at the same time to level it up (note though, this is rather costly in Magicka)
 * One of the fastest ways to powerlevel Illusion is to use the Magicka bonuses from doing the minor quest for Drevis Neloren to 'fix' the focal points in the College of Winterhold. Using those, Muffle can be infinitely dual-casted because the player's Magicka regenerates virtually instantly. This can be done until the bonus runs out.
 * Casting spells like Pacify, Rally and Courage on the jarls in the basement of the Blue Palace is a quick way to raise the Illusion skill.
 * One very fast and easy way is to cast Courage on any NPC in Skyrim. Since they will not attack, it is possiable go from 25 to 50 in under 10 min.

Combination with other schools

 * Combine Illusion with Conjuration to let others do the fighting for you. A player with decent levels in both skill trees can clear a dungeon without killing a single enemy him/herself. It is especially fun to observe the effect of Fear on the enemy attacked by your conjured NPC.


 * A high level in Illusion can make a high level in Restoration obsolete. The use of powerful charm spells will give you enough time to heal with lower level spells. Turn undead spells are not as effective as Illusion with the right perks (Master of the Mind).

Stealth usage

 * Illusion and Sneak: with the right perks (Hypnotic Gaze, Kindred Mage) in Illusion, you will be able to calm almost any enemy not immune to Illusion magic. When you calm an enemy, it will return to its original location, thus turning its back to you. This allows you to sneak behind and backstab. Charm, backstab, charm, backstab.
 * In addition to using calm to sneak attack enemies, you can use the Expert-level Illusion spell Invisibility combined with the Sneak perk Shadow Warrior, to escape almost any enemy (for a time). While in combat cast Invisibility, then run off and crouch to activate Shadow Warrior just before leaving your enemy's line of sight. This works best after casting Frenzy spells, or when you have more people on your side.
 * It has also been reported that casting Frenzy automatically breaks stealth (detection goes from Hidden to fully Detected). The perks "Quiet casting" is not preventing detection like it is for Fury. (although Frenzy is "more explosive" than Fury).
 * Other source states that any spell that emanates light will increase chance of detection, therefore you can be detected even while sneaking.
 * Vampirism synergizes extremely well with the Illusion school, as it grants both Stealth and Illusion bonuses. The Illusion bonus provided increases the power of Illusion spells by 25%, the stealth bonus is 25% better sneaking.

General usage tips

 * If you really want to stay out of the combat the good tactic (especially at the beginning) is to find a group of foes (susceptible to Illusions) and then to cast the spell from far away, somewhere where you want to attract them – very interesting effect is that they will come to investigate what happened there (at the place where the spell just hit), usually turning their back to you. Then you can cast another spell (Fury, Frenzy) and make them fight with each other. You can continue casting Fury from far away to level it up faster.
 * When fighting one or two strong enemies, you can use Calm to stop one fighting, allowing you to focus on one enemy at a time. You can also Calm both and use those 30 seconds to heal or let your magicka recharge.
 * Fear spells can be very dangerous in dungeons. A scared enemy will run away until it hits a closed door. This will trigger/wake all enemies on its path. When the fear effect ends, the enemy will return to you, bringing along all other enemies. This can be a problem for low level players. Players with a high level in Illusion can use that situation with a well placed Frenzy spell—follow frightened foe until he/she meets the others and then start a war between them.
 * Bear in mind that Fury is a novice level spell designed to work on low level(6) enemies. Kindred Mage adds about 12 levels on the power of the spell. If you need the spell to work on tougher enemies you can double the level cap by dual casting. Unfortunately there is no Apprentice level equivalent spell to Fury the next is Frenzy which is an adept spell. Frenzy is the most powerful of the fury type spells as there is no expert equivalent and the master level equivalent Mayhem can't be dual casted.