Skyrim talk:The Eye of Magnus

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Possible bug / unintended feature[edit]

During the fight, one of the College members had the brilliant idea of casting Command Humanoid some 15 or so seconds into the fight. Apparently it worked. Shortest boss fight ever :) Jimhsu 02:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Command Humanoid exists in Skyrim?! If so, it's annoying that others can cast this and you can't. On an unrelated note: Ancano's a prick. I "rewarded" him by trapping his soul in Wuuthrad, making it even deadlier to his kind. 209.66.120.3 20:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I imprisoned his soul in The Black Star. Would be nice pay him a visit inside the Azura's Star. — Unsigned comment by 189.35.104.239 (talk) at 07:33 on 15 December 2011

Time to sleep? Another bug?[edit]

I arrived Winterhold at around 5 am. Heading into the Hall of Attainment, I found the three students(Brelyna Maryon, J'zargo and Onmund) lying in the bed. However they were not actually sleeping because when you try to talk with them, they just wouldn't get up but talked as normal.--FelixH 20:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Breaching[edit]

Apparently nobody but me had any difficulty in breaching the wall. --93.73.19.163 11:21, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Fast Travel[edit]

Is it worth noting you cannot fast travel to the collage after you get the staff.--Vanus Galerion 22:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Bug - Eye[edit]

No matter how long I use the Staff of Magnus on the Eye, Ancano remains invincible. I've tried this for over an 1 1/2. And yes, I have tried reloading. Nothing seems to work.  :/ — Unsigned comment by 147.97.172.24 (talk) at 21:35 on 7 March 2012‎

I encountered this bug a short while ago on my mage. I eventually resorted to summoning a dremora lord to distract him for a little while I healed up, they could damage him and managed to make short work of my problem. (90.211.88.20 17:58, 18 June 2012 (UTC))
Likewise. It took ages to close up the Eye (6 x depletion's worth of black soul gems on the effing staff). It would finally close, I'd turn to fight him; he would reopen it and become invincible again. It seemed to help a little if I aimed at the text 'Activate the Eye of Magnus' but I'm not certain. Eventually I lowered the game settings down to novice & it still didn't help. I finally got him by casting a flame atronach with my left hand (took a couple of goes) at the same time as using the staff in the right to keep the Eye closed. Between the anomalies and flamey, he finally died. It was v frustrating. Reloaded 7 times. Gataroja (makes a fine rug) (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Reward?[edit]

Is the position of Arch-Mage, the key to the Arch-Mage's Quarters, and the Archmage's robes, or any or all of them, "officially" considered a/the rewards for the quest? --JRTalk E-mail 13:12, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, they are given to the player at the end of the quest, and they function as rewards, so I dare say that yes, these would be considered the official rewards. For instance, the reward for the quest Death Incarnate is the Blade of Woe but this isn't properly given to the player through dialogue - they pick it up, a little ways before the end of the quest. However, in all respects the Blade of Woe is a reward. I think the same logic applies here, except with the added note that it is given to the player as a reward through dialogue. • JATalk 14:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
OK. Thanks. Hmm... Come to think of it, you get those things immediately AFTER completing the quest. I wonder if it would be inappropriate "spoiling" to put them as rewards in the quest summary. And perhaps the reward that makes the most sense is ... The Staff of Magnus? I dunno. I'll let someone else decide. --JRTalk E-mail 15:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh. I see you added them. What about the position of Arch-Mage itself? See the last quest stage. --JRTalk E-mail 15:20, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Ah, that's true. Added to the article. • JATalk 16:33, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

What?[edit]

"At that point, Ancano can continue to draw power from the Eye until this point, after which you can attack and kill him." Can anyone decipher this? 99.226.40.134 02:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea what was meant. I took a qualified guess to clear it up. The Silencer speaksTalk 02:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Dealing with the battle and the bugs.[edit]

The battle scene is computationally a monster. There are NPC scripts being ran, the script on the Eye, a script on Ancano, a script on Tolfdir, quite a few monsters present and a script constantly spawning more, and more scripts waiting in the wings to run. All that on top of some pretty sophisticated graphics rendering on the Eye. If you go charging in with guns blazing with a high level character loaded with gear and weapons that require more computations, expect things to get buggy and possibly not run at all.

The best work around if bugs develop is to reload then enter slowly. Stay out of the center area and observe that the correct dialogues take place. Use the staff sparingly and get the Eye to close initially then hit Ancano hard with physical or magical damage. If that has no effect you can either reload and try again or just concentrate on keeping the Eye closed while the monsters and NPCs resolve the battle. Sniffles 11:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Quest won't start[edit]

I had this problem with Containment quest, and I was able to just use command console to load Staff of Magnus quest. Obviously i can't do that with this quest... and ideas as to why it doesnt want to start? I sometimes get the barrier outside the college after speaking to Tolfdir, but thats about it.... Ancarno just stand around looking useless and theres no cutscene or anything! :( Platform- P.C — Unsigned comment by 86.20.91.178 (talk) at 20:15 on 12 June 2013‎

Is it normal for Ancano to keep opening the Eye?[edit]

Judging after this walkthrough, I had thought he'd only try it once, then I'd close it with the Staff and then I could fight him. But no, every time I close it, he casts something at the eye and opens the damn thing again. I only have like a second or two to hit him before he opens it and becomes invincible again. In 1-2 seconds I barely manage to find him, let alone attack him. I'm never gonna be able to defeat him this way. So, am I facing a bug or is this how the battle should be? 109.100.55.55 14:21, 1 January 2014 (GMT)

It's not clear in the article but he will keep opening the eye. Close the eye, wait for him to open it, close the eye, attack Ancano. It can be a real struggle to keep alive with all the anomalies, but this is the way its meant to work. As the stave is one handed, equip a weapon in your other hand and try to stick close to Ancano, he focus' on opening the eye, so if you keep closing it his attention will not be on you. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 15:18, 1 January 2014 (GMT)
Thanks. I kept trying and eventually the eye spawned so many anomalies that Ancano was too busy fighting them off instead of opening the eye, so I managed to whack him down. Good thing I had lots of health potions and filled soul gems. Still, this was one of the most annoying quests in the game. Rowena (talk) 10:42, 2 January 2014 (GMT)

Beating the quests with the "Unobtainable Staff of Magnus" glitch[edit]

I could not for the life of me get Morokei to drop the staff of Magnus. It wasnt on his body, but the arrow still pointed at his corpse with the objective to "pick up the staff"... So I tried spawning it manually, through the console. Adding it to my inventory just made the message "Added " followed by blank space, because even the name of the staff is hidden for some insane reason. So the invisible, unequipable staff adds weight to my inventory, but is not listed and thus cannot be equipped. Using the placeatme command to spawn the staff makes the sound effect of an invisible, intangible staff dropping to the ground, but of course I cannot see it or pick it up/click on it to enable it (or anything that might actually make this easy). I finally got around it by entering in "player.equipitem 35369 1" in the console, forcibly equipping the nameless quest weapon in my right hand, while the game was still telling me to pick it off Morokei's dead body. I then advanced the quest ("Staff of Magnus", actually the quest before the one on this page) by typing "setstage MG07 50". The game said I had obtained the staff and that I had to report to tolfdir. I fast traveled to Winterhold town with the staff still in hand, talked to tolfdir, shot it at the barrrier and finished MG07 "legitimately" (I guess). Then THIS quest, "The Eye of Magnus" began, whereupon when I entered the Hall of the Elements to see NO scripted cutscenes whatsoever; Ancano just started fighting everyone. I could not hit him with any weapon and he never changed his behavior, while the Eye of Magnus orbited uneventfully - like it had been doing since it first came from Saarthal - no matter how much I would zap it (or Ancano) with the Staff (which had no charge meter by the way). So finally I just disabled Ancano via the console and force-advanced the quest with the command "setstage MG08 50" to make the game think Ancano was dead, and the game finally said the objective was completed. The Psijics came in as they should have and took the Eye, and I got my rewards to officially end the quest. Later I re-enabled Ancano (still immune to damage) and he acted like he was still an adviser to the archmage, so I just disabled him again and kept it like that. However, I had to manually remove the staff from my inventory (like with Lydia's secret hunting bow) with the "player.removeitem" command, since I could not see it in my inventory, even when equipped. I guess I just have to accept that I am not allowed to have the staff of magnus on this playthrough, because of some typical Bethesda scripting bug... I just thank god I could even get through the mission at all. Recently, I had to restart an entire character (from level 56!!) because I finally accepted the fact that Master Wulfgar of the greybeards was NEVER going to give me the third word of Unrelenting Force at the conclusion of "The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller" (which means the main quest was totally stuck), all because of another stupid scripting bug. That particular glitch remains a gamebreaking bug for literally hundreds of people, all the way from the game's release up until this very day. Anyway, I just wanted to share how I got around these two incredibly glitchy College of Winterhold quests. Sorry if this seemed like a rant - it kind of was. — Unsigned comment by 76.100.111.247 (talk) at 11:43 on 26 March 2014‎

Not a bug, but annoying[edit]

I had Frea as a follower during this quest and Tolfdir, after killing Ancano was helping us fight the Magical Anomalies, but was using Fireball, causing her to take offense due to the splash damage. After the Anomalies were gone, they started fighting each other, preventing me from talking to Tolfdir. I was at a high level, so both were immune to Harmony. Since both were essential, neither were in danger of dying, but would just get up and continue the fight after going into the bleedout position. I eventually dual cast Pacify on Tolfdir and that worked. If anyone didn't have the Illusion Dual Casting perk, that could potentially break the quest, forcing a reload. 172.12.96.55 17:35, 14 June 2014 (GMT)

Moved from article[edit]

  • You cannot finish the fight against Ancano if you are afflicted with Vampirism. If you attempt this, Ancano will simply attack you before the dialogue between the Dragonborn, Tolfdir, and Ancano occurs; as such, the Eye of Magnus will not open and thus cannot be closed, making Ancano essentially invincible. To get around this, either use the standard method of ridding one's self of Vampirism, or (on PC) use the Console Command (without quotes): "setstage 000EAFD5 10"

This seems incredibly dubious. I've never encountered this problem, having completed the quest as a vampire multiple times without issue. I kind of doubt vampirism is the cause, especially considering that there's another entry on the page for an identical problem, except it claims that the scene-skipping is caused by collecting multiple staves. Zul se onikaanLaan tinvaak 13:22, 27 June 2014 (GMT)

Bug: Magical Barrier Still Up in Front of Hall of Elements[edit]

I got through the barrier that you are supposed the use the Staff of Magnus on with no problem; however, when I open the door to the Hall of Elements the barrier is still up preventing me from entering the room where Ancano is.

Fast travelling to another city does not help. Waiting elsewhere does not help. Reloading an earlier save does not help. — Unsigned comment by 72.209.227.185 (talk) at 22:52 on 3 July 2014

I encountered the same bug recently. Solution: open the console and click on the closed gate that is preventing you from entering the space where Ancano is (you are actually clicking on the force field). Type disable (this disables the force field). Return to normal mode and then open the gate as usual and approach Ancano. Proceed with the quest as usual. — Unsigned comment by 94.62.188.228 (talk) at 06:22 on 2 October 2018

Invincible Ancano might not be a bug[edit]

When I first attempted to finish this quest, I ran into the problem of Ancano being invincible even after I hit the eye with the staff. I was convinced that it was the bug, and no matter how many times I reloaded it never helped. But once I hung back in the antechamber and let the dialogue play out, and I saw the eye flash with what I used to assume was the power of me hitting it with the staff. So I went in and shot the eye after that, and lo and behold Ancano was vulnerable.

The article should be rewritten to make a couple of things clear:

1) If the eye is separated—its slivers are floating around one another—Ancano is invulnerable.

2) Shooting the eye with the staff causes the eye to slowly reintegrate into a sphere.

3) You have to hold the staff on the eye until it reintegrates fully. Once it is a sphere again, Ancano is vulnerable to magic and weapons.

76.201.60.221 00:57, 21 March 2015 (GMT)

Paralysed followers[edit]

Should I have expected Tolfdir and Lydia to have fallen into a state of paralysis after the eye lets out the big flash? Ran the scene twice due to invincible Ancano bug and both times they'd just lay stiff on the floor, full health and option to 'talk' (but no response, obv.). They both get up after I kill off Ancano and help finish off the rest of the anomalies, seemed fine after that. Can't tell if that was supposed to happen or not. Toulmin (talk) 22:50, 18 May 2015 (GMT)

Closing the gates worked! (Skyrim VR)[edit]

I’m on Skyrim VR and I couldn’t get the interaction between Tolfdir and Ancano to initiate, but closing the gates worked so I could finish the quest. --Grimbold (talk) 05:49, 25 November 2019 (GMT)

Ancano once he is defeated can be enthralled by the Ritual Stone[edit]

Xbox One Skyrim SE.

Sprinting with supplemental endurance to Winterhold with Ritual Stone raised Ancano and visiting the tavern, enthralled Ancano soon dies and the Ritual stone shall not work again on his body. And Dead Thrall spell just pushes his body away with no error or warning that Ancano is too powerful for the spell to work. 216.58.27.151 10:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Two staves of Magnus accidentally dropped in Labyrinthian boss fight of Morokei over the staff[edit]

Xbox One Skyrim SE.

I had very high health perhaps many thousands via enchanted armor using restoration loop fortify enchanting and high heavy armor skills for landing hard and surviving. I was on one side of the mountains of the valley above Labyrinthian. This was about my 8th to 10th playthrough.

I knew but had forgotten where the escape exit was for Labyrinthian once you defeat the the entire dungeon enemies, and I had a follower, two dead thralls, and that newly added spidery bug that is black, yellow, green that also becomes a follower, and may have also had some Aetherium Crown plus Ritual Stone resurrected follower too. I accidentally did a Whirlwind Sprint down from one of the valley mountain sides to land on this exit hatch or doorway that is the exit from the place.

When I entered this exit door, normally there is a barred doorway that prevents progressing through this path or route to the boss fight area, but because of all of my various followers, the huge space or distance that I was from the ordinary entry spot placed me a meter or yard beyond the barred wooden door, thereby, I could just unlatch the bar blocking the door shut and invite in all of these followers.

Eventually fighting all those that I found in my path, I ended up in the boss fight area with the two enthralled wizards casting continuous spells to maintain the force shield that imprisons the main boss leitch Morokei there.

I never encountered thalmor advisor Ancano's friend Estormo, a Thalmor mage and associate of Ancano, who normally attacks you on the way out of the place. This may likely be because I went through the entire dungeon in reverse order and never triggered the precise sequence that spawns him to get him to attack me. I did this reverse order thing to be able to collect all of the very light weight enchanted weapons carried by the transparent looking Draugr.

I had very high sneak so the main boss leitch Morokei never does any of his various dialog speeches to me, nor did I suffer any of those huge losses and recoveries of magicka or whatever else.

Rather than bother attacking the poor enslaved wizards to have the force shield drop, I had a very high level of illusion, and very powerful enchanted Forks with very low damage, but high paralyze and absorb stamina or health or magicka or whatever it was. I got the enemy boss within the force shield to become agitated that he poked parts of his body slightly outside of that force shielding spherical bulb that would normally prevent you from attacking this undead leitch guy.

I seem to recall from this happening about a week ago in real world time that the enemy leitch Morokei moved out of this spherical bubble and myself and my crew of followers attacked and killed this dragon priest looking shade, and he dropped two staves of Magnus when I did a X button press to take all. I can't recall if I used sneak hidden mode casting an illusion potion boosted Frenzy rune or whatever it was and that triggered the main boss Morokei to move out and beyond that spherical enveloping barrier field.

Before this boss guy attacked me and my crew and was outside of his bubble sphere of the force shield, the two enthralled wizards went away from their posts, but their magic streams of energy to support the force shield kept going without them originating them. It was a very odd bug that was happening in a very odd situation of events leading to this happening. I watched what these enthralled wizards did while my crew and I were in hidden sneak mode. They wandered around a while, then went back to where they had originally been casting those spells of streams of energy to maintain the engulfing spherical force shield that was now or then or later empty.

Often when you have two or more such staves and you do the duplication glitch of having your follower pick up the items from the ground, it works more often and better than had you only done this with one single of the given item. Thus I now have 5 or 6 such staves now.

I went back to the college carrying 2 such staves and found the mages on the elevated walkway entrance path who had been driven outside the entire college buildings area to being on this walkway entrance path. I went on with the quest as per normal. 216.58.27.151 14:56, 3 February 2022 (UTC)