Thanks, Teccam!
Barbas in the early game is devastating (in fact he was a bit annoying... here I am trying to level up my skills or Soul Trap enemies, and he'd tear through them before take care of business xD). Mid-game, I felt, was just the right balance for me. And of course late game, he really only serves to take some of the heat off, but by then you've built yourself up pretty well to handle that. Disclaimer: I play on Adept, so your results may vary (you may find yourself relying a bit more on magic and summons than swordplay).
For the life of me, I can't remember if Paralysis affected undead in Oblivion (I only really came to appreciate just how powerful the Illusion school is from playing Skyrim). I'm embarrassed to say that I only ever used Destruction and occasionally Mysticism.
Combat was actually pretty fluid for me. I play PC and have those 8 beautiful hotkeys. Once I determined what type of enemy I was dealing with, I would adjust the hotkeys accordingly for the spells I felt I would use most often. I rarely found myself using all 7 spells/shouts in one dungeon crawl. I always had my sword, a rune, a healing spell, a summons spell, and MfD hotkeyed, and I would fill in the gaps near the beginning of a cave or dungeon.
Thanks, Teccam!
Barbas in the early game is devastating (in fact he was a bit annoying... here I am trying to level up my skills or Soul Trap enemies, and he'd tear through them before take care of business xD). Mid-game, I felt, was just the right balance for me. And of course late game, he really only serves to take some of the heat off, but by then you've built yourself up pretty well to handle that. Disclaimer: I play on Adept, so your results may vary (you may find yourself relying a bit more on magic and summons than swordplay).
For the life of me, I can't remember if Paralysis affected undead in Oblivion (I only really came to appreciate just how powerful the Illusion school is from playing Skyrim). I'm embarrassed to say that I only ever used Destruction and occasionally Mysticism.
Combat was actually pretty fluid for me. I play PC and have those 8 beautiful hotkeys. Once I determined what type of enemy I was dealing with, I would adjust the hotkeys accordingly for the spells I felt I would use most often. I rarely found myself using all 7 spells/shouts in one dungeon crawl. I always had my sword, a rune, a healing spell, a summons spell, and MfD hotkeyed, and I would fill in the gaps near the beginning of a cave or dungeon.