On a side note, please let Dawnguard come out in disc form soon, as I really want it.

But onto Bilzzard, and spells in general. .. So, I realized the other day that I didn't have the master Frost spell for Destruction. An oversight. I was lounging in flirty conversation with Feralda, a common enough rest haven for me, and picked the spell up from her on my way out to wander.

Went out on the tower top and tried it out (figured it would impress Lydia). The build up was impressive. The effect was AWESOME!! One of the best, most devestating seeming spells I had every seen at work in a game. I couldn't wait to try it out on some foes.

So I went off and found some. And. . . .. MAAAAAAAAAAAN was I dissapointed. That spell wasn't s. . . . . . . That spell wasn't CRAP! Ugh! And many of you will know, it isn't the only Skyrim master spell like that. The illusion ones are great (even though they don't work on everything, no matter how high your level as a caster).

And it brings me back to spellmaking, and how its removal almost certainly was an intentional hampering tool of the devs, not just some oversight or inability on the part of the systems or tech. designers.

I've never learned a master destruction spell. I guess I've never needed to.

The problem with spell making in skyrim is the dualcasting system. they may have just needed more time to work out the kinks with that. im hoping they add it in in future dlcs/free-stuff-patches

*Edit*
Also yes even at low levels with a blizzard scroll frostbite does more damage than blizzard to starter-level bandits.
although firestorm has saved me once or twice, and ive heard lightning storm is amazing against dragons.

Lightning storm IS good against dragons, but ONLY against dragons. Which is also crazy. Lesser foes keep running along like nothing is happening, and it doesn't run down their health as quickly as it ought to. Blizzard is just a major dissapointment. Neither Frost Wall nor frostbite spell, nor even Ice Storm should NOT be more effective than Blizzard. And Blizzard doesn't seem to have the proper slowing effect that a cold/frot spell of THAT magnitude should have.

I just spam firestorm all day (it cost 15 for me )

I always felt there was something wrong with Blizzard. Too weak. Much weaker than expected. Then I read this:

"The player's magic resistance and cold resistance will reduce the total damage output of the spell. The real damage the blizzard spell deal can be checked while having blizzard active, then checking in the active effects section. A high cold resistance or Magic resistance dragonborn may find this spell dealing really low damage, down to 2 frost damage per second. Likewise, spells, enchantments and poisons that decrease the player's cold resistance or magic resistance, such as The Apprentice Stone, will highly increase the damage output of the spell."

From: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Blizzard

My characters always have very good magic resistance and elemental resistance by the time I get Master Destruction spells, so that's probably why I was never impressed with Blizzard.

UESP doesn't have anything on it.

svcks to be a nord on that note then.

Also many of the enemies are Nords who are resistant to cold spells anyway, just like in Morrowind the Dunmer were the most numerous enemy and resistant to fire. I remember one playthrough as a Nord where I had the base 50% cold resistance, plus some boots I found in a notorious lighthouse which gave me an extra 30% cold resistance, plus a shield that I got as a quest reward that gave me another 40% cold resistance and another piece of armour/accessory that had yet another 20% cold resistance. Those restless Draugr's were firing their silly cold spells at me and I just smashed their faces in with an axe.

Hmm, I have 60% Magic resistance and 51% Frost resistance on my character, Now I kind of see why Blizzard is completely useless.
Bethesda really needs to fix the magic, especially Blizzard since not only does it svck but it also does damage to you >:|

"stolen" ?

I find blizzard pretty useful, probably due to the fact that it costs me nothing. Also it usually slows down enemies a lot and is great when escaping. I was in a bandit fort and i was running away from a mob of bandits and kept on spamming blizzard, and it devoured everybody in the fort. It was amazing.

Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt.

What's a Master level Destruction spell?

Meh, blizzard's not so bad. It equals out in the odds when my enemies can't move at all. If Bethesda even tried to amp up the damage, it would be the most powerful spell in my opinion. Super slow and super damaging? Way over powered. I think it's just fine. Leave it

Also, if you don't like it, mod it to do more damage

I prefer Icy spear.

Magic does need to have more and be fixed. I don't doubt thqt the issue mentioned above is a bug. Your magical resistance should not effect the output and the damage magnitude of a spell. This game is a bug ridden mess.

Also we do need to have spell creation do we could tailer the spells the way we see fit and so the spell effects and combinations suit our character build. Spell creation could probably be integrated it would have just taken some more dev time. Heck the game needed more time anyways.

Eh for me even Asthetic-wise I like Fire Storm and the Master shock spell more. The shock one is completely awesome, an electric Kamehameha wave lol.

What this person said.

The master illusion spells are usable. Mayhem is the only one worth using though.

Not as a vamp: 25 base level, +12 from the perk so 37. Then add 10 from the kindred mage perk against human enemies, or x1.25 against undead with the necromage perk. It pretty much affects everything then, draugr deathlord (30 or 40), bandit marauders (25), arch level mages (46).

As a vamp: 31 base level, +12 from perk so 43. Then add 10 from kindred mage against humans and x1.25 due to necromage against undead. It now affects everything you come across, hold guards at level 50, everything that isn't immune.

You can also take the illusion perks as a necromage vampire for their effects to be boosted 1.25x, instead of +10 from kindred mage you'd get +12. You'd get +15 from aspect of fear instead of +12. This is the only way for the harmony spell to affect level 50 NPC's.

That must be one of the most bassackwards designs schemes ever. Why in the hell would a CASTER's magic resistence make ENEMIES more resistant to his/her spell. . . Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???!!!!!!!!!

The Devs have gone mad.

I actually find hypnotize is quite useful, if you aren't hell bent on killing every hostile you encounter, which I generally am not, once my level is where I desire it to be.

it svcks that my master level spell that takes a good 5-7 seconds to charge does 0 damage to enemies.

Do you mean harmony? The master level calm spell?

Hysteria is the master level fear spell and mayhem is the master level fury spell. Not sure what hypnotise is.

Personally, Lightening Storm is about the only Master Level Destructo spell worth getting, along with the perks in that tree. It's really useful against Dragons with the stagger perk taken. Keeps them from getting off hardly any shouts. Other than that, magic in Skyrim is utter [censored] in most cases. Was severely disappointed in the non-scalable magic system.

Lightning storm isn't affected by impact, it can't be dual casted.

The real tragedy is the cost of the adept/expert/master destruction spells, you have to use fortify destruction gear to use destruction regularly at high levels. But you're wrong about damage, the damage is fine even for master.

I honestly think they need to change the formulas for cost reduction as you level the magic skills and reduce the base costs of destruction spells. The expert level destruction spells should not cost the same as the other schools, the other schools only need to be casted once/twice. Something like spell cost = base cost x [1.2 - (0.01 x skill level)], so at skill level 100 you cast spells at 20% of the base cost, I believe oblivion had a similar system.

Then they should change the enchantments:
Fortify destruction increases damage.
Fortify conjuration increases summon duration.
Fortify illusion increases effective level.
Fortify restoration increases healing potency and level of spells.
Fortify alteration increases duration.

But they'd have to change enchanting (and quite frankly the whole broken crafting system) to stop the schools being ridiculously overpowered.