Out of interest what level are you? Because it's a mathematical fact that spell damage hits a cap which can't be raised with enchantments, and doesn't increase as your Destruction skill improves. In other words, your fireball spell will never get any more powerful, despite the fact that you'll find yourself fighting against more and more powerful enemies as you get higher in level.

That's the problem. Destruction is very powerful to begin with, but it's pitiful in terms of its ultimate potential, compared to other direct damage skills like Archery, 1-handed and 2-handed.

Do you have any idea what balance is? There is so much difference in power between a pure mage and pure warrior it's insane. If you've ever played a decently balanced game you'll understand the difference. Read #14 here

The most basic thing about balanced games is mages do MORE damage than warriors while warriors tank MORE than mages. If a mage's spell is not strong enough it's balanced by increasing RANGE or reducing SPELL COST. Decent destruction spells like fire wall cost way too much mana to be used effectively and have too little range and mages are squishy like hell. I feel like I"m talking to complete idiots on this forum.



There are just TOO MANY points I can make that say mages overall are underpowered compared to warriors that I can write a book on it. Here are just a few

1. Destruction never gets stronger.

2. Mage spells are either too weak or cost too much mana to sustain in a fight.

3. Mage runs out of mana, has to run. Warrior runs out of stamina, continues to pound heavy damage.

4. Mages do less damage than warriors AND are 10-100x less durable in battle.

5. Master level destruction spells take 5 seconds to cast, cost too much mana, and don't get stronger after you get them at level 50 while monsters get stronger.

6. Warrior late game can have insanely strong legendary armor and weapons that do 500 damage per regular swing without power swing and tank like a god, mages have the 100 damage master spell that takes 5 seconds to cast when they are vulnerable.

7. Warriors can faceroll through the game with 2 skills and two hack buttons. Mages need to constantly switch spells, run around, drink potions, use shouts, use lydia, ect just to get by.

8. Robes with magic regen/cost reduction is nowhere near as good as the armor that makes warriors unstoppable late game.

9. Warriors with heavy armor and weapons can whip out their flame spell anytime and do as much damage as a mage while able to tank so much more, mages who want to fight with swords end up getting [censored].

10. I have yet to find a pure mage at any level able to complete the main quest line, I see warriors level 20ish complete it easily.

11. A TON of people complain about destruction being underpowered and mages in general compared to warriors. No one complains about warriors be underpowered, only overpowered.

12. This is a TES game. Players should be able to play how they want. If they want to focus on destruction without much help in other magic fields they should be able to do that. Game favors warriors heavily to faceroll through the game. Destruction is probably the most important school magic yet it is one of the more useless and full mages can't seem to do well with it without resorting to conjuration.

13. Full mages have to switch between 3-5 spells, conjure creatures, bring lydia, drink pots, hide behind obstacles shooting down enemies, scout the enemies well, before EVERY battle. It's fun on the first few battles but throughout the thousands of battles it becomes tedious and worthless. Warriors just charge into 10 men mobs without thinking and faceroll everything.

14. People say well mages have stunlock and with late game enchants can cast spells without mana. Don't be dumb. It still takes 10 spells to kill one same leveled thug and it's only viable 1v1. Warriors just charge into 10 men mobs button mashing two buttons and tanking all they want.

15. In even decently balanced games, warriors can always tank more damage while mages do much more damage and can nuke from afar. Mage destruction spells are mid-close range spells and can't nuke while warriors do more damage. In league of legends we see spell casters like ryze who die instantly and move slowly but can nuke so well and does more damage than tanks like malphite who are very hard to kill but barely do any damage. Imagine if malphite did more nuke damage than ryze. Who in their right mind would want to play ryze then? Everyone would want to play malphite. Same thing is going on here. People play the more balanced characters and like to play by what is better. This is an elder scrolls game and people should be able to play how they like but instead are forced to be melee or struggle through as a mage.

Well done for completely missing the point. I don't expect to only use destruction and not get killed. I do expect to be able to use destruction as my source of attack and supplement that with alteration for armour and restoration for health control. This is no different to a warrior specializing in heavy armour, two handed and using health potions. Nor is it different to an archer using a bow and arrow with light armour, the relevant archer based perks and health potions. Difference is that those builds will kick ass and my mage will get killed. Surely that isn't hard to comprehend.

I read it, there is not good points in it.

Destruction is INCREDIBLY powerful.

Just because you can't look an enemy, click, and have it die instantly you are all crying about how weak it is. God forbid your boss fights require you to use your brain a little bit.

I've said it dozens of times now. STUNLOCK. Mages can STUNLOCK. I don't care how much damage you do or "don't" do...STUNLOCK.

Let me make it really simple.

Mages, from distance, can stunlock and kill an enemy, with nearly ZERO Magicka cost. There is no problem with damage when nothing in the game world can even fight back. lol

Please stop crying, if you don't like mage, don't play it. But its fine as it is currently, and I really hope Bethesda doesn't "fix" it, because then MY game would be TOO easy.

So embarrassing.

They understand the point fine; they're just egging you on.

Bethesda already knows there is a problem with destruction not scaling; if they are paying any attention to the forums, at all, they HAVE to know by now. There have been so many threads on this topic.

Yes, there are folks who are (in my observation) deliberately missing the point. They will tell you to adjust your strategy to compensate. They will tell you to use other skills like one-handed or conjuration. They will advocate how much damage their mage is doing and that there couldn't possibly be a problem. They will claim that you're just playing "wrong". They will ignore the math and fall back on anecdote. They will insult your mother and call you a "stoopid newb". And my personal favorite: They will accuse you of only trying to get by with one skill alone, despite the fact that NO ONE on any of these threads is claiming to do so.

They are intentionally missing the point to try and piss you off. There are trolls on every forum. Don't let them get to you.

Instead, just keep doing what you're doing. Post the math and post the facts. Direct your posts to Bethesda.

Once they make the little tiny change that is needed to fix this, this entire topic will just go away.

I keep seeing these threads made by non-magic players making us out to be irrational. I think a few people for the cause are blowing this out of proportion, sure, but the fact is that Destruction is simply not given the opportunity to improve its damage. I'm playing a mage that uses Destruction in tandem with Conjuration (among other skill trees), with a slight preference to Conjuration. The issue is that by the time you reach the top of the Conjuration tree, and once you're sufficiently leveled such that enemies become noticeably more difficult, Destruction magic does very little damage in the grand scope of things. It is plain and clear to see that your pets are effective and your Destruction spells have, well, lost their magic. Its only true use is stunlocking with impact. It's pretty clear that you could make a better mage by just using conjured weapons and beings rather than elemental magic. All we're asking for is maybe some damage enchantments, or some form of scaling — the same treatment other skills have received.

At level twenty-five things might seem grand, but once you hit higher levels the real situation starts to sink in. You can either deal with high mana costs and slow killing or use the unintentional enchanting benefits that allow for 100% mana cost reduction and stunlock everything. Either way, I cannot imagine such methods are intentional.

I thought I'd chime in again since people still are not understanding the problem. No one is saying to get by on destruction alone, but it's impossible to get by using destruction period. Destruction is suppose to be the combat tree for a mage. The problem is that destruction doesn't do any damage past level 40. Enemies scale to your level and progressively get stronger. Mages, regardless of whatever trees they have invested in, are suppose to use destruction as the main source of damage out of all their spells. The problem, for those of you who haven't bothered to play a mage past level 15, is that Destruction skill doesn't scale damage. Regardless of if my destruction is 1 or 100, the most powerful spell I have does 150 damage and has a 1 in 5 chance of a stun(the same chance that a warrior has with a power attack doing over 400 damage). That one spell drains most of your magic. Sure, you can enchant your armor to cast free destruction spells, but then all your other spells like conjuration alteration and restoration will take mass amounts of magicka to cast. You say "Well you can cast them safely from a distance and if you can't survive, you svck." You're right about one thing: I can cast it from a distance. But afterwards, when all your magicka is drained and the enemy is still standing with nearly full health, what do you do? The enemy comes straight at you and will kill you. It's not a matter of downing a ton of potions due to the fact that potions do not restore enough of your magicka before it's all gone again. It's under balanced, heavily. Warriors and Rogues keep getting stronger with every skill increase they get, while destruction does not. In every other Elder Scrolls game, Destruction scaled.

Again, read me correctly, no one is saying to only use destruction. But as a mage, it is your main source of damage. The problem is that without using conjuration to summon atronachs, mages don't do ANY damage past level 40, even though you really start having a hard time on the lowest of difficulties around 35. These are all facts that cannot be disputed. The people who are saying "Quit crying and just play the game," haven't, and I repeat, HAVE NOT taken a mage past 25. Those who have will immediately admit that they have had to start wielding blades to fight. This removes any joy or use of playing as a mage at all.

...

...Y'know what, I'm not even going to try.


So condescending, but so true

My Pure Mage No Weapons / Armour Uses All The Mage Skills as well as the Sword & Bow Skills For when useing bound weapons

Bound weapons Slay Undead & Summond monsters if you select the right perks

And this is why they avoid post like yours and mine constantly. The oblivion version and many games have the instant fireball (or whatever destructive spell) that decimates allowing one to put all skills or ablities in other parts. What you never see is the mention of the passives of these spells, IE fireball fire damage dot, etc.. nope that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter as a caster you have more utility then any other class that you try to play as your main skill set. It matters not that you don't get burdond by heavy armor, slow movment and more. No.. the issue here is "I can't one nuke that dragon"... please, from just looking at this game for "what it is" after playing these bloody games for 20 something years (43 now) I just don't see it. Tell them to knock down the difficulty and they say "that's not the point". Funny thing is, it's the same 5-7 guys posting about it with a random once and awhile.

Sure, many people that play games never post on forums (just because of arguments like this) but eh, changing mechanics based on a handfull of people not willing to work with the mechanics in the game will make the devs change it? Good luck, the 8 ball says "try again".

You can minimize the costs and increase your magicka pool, but you cannot buff the damage of the actual spells like you can with weapon skills. One could say that you become more effective with the same amount of magicka, however it does not really feel like advancement when the trolls leveling with you now require 6 dual casted fireballs instead of 4 or 5.

Again, I don't think a rational person would say mages are not viable, my experience with the class is testament to that, although enchanting is required, but that's normal. I think mages are viable and extremely fun to play, and I enjoy utilizing multiple schools of magic to control fights this way and that, I wish I had more hot keys! I am saying, however, that the sense of advancement at high levels really drops off for the mage because his damage is static, not to mention he becomes pigeonholed into only using the high level spells, while the some of the fun ones [runes, channeled flames/sparks spells] simply become useless to cast.

I don't think Mages are asking to one shot everything. But they would like for some way to improve their spells' damage through some kind of game mechanic. Honestly, make the alchemy bonus for magic skills a learnable enchant and build that mechanic into destruction skill increases as well. It's not terribly difficult.

might as well be a warrior who can tank 100x better. most complaints are on destruction, but gl getting past level 30.

Just thought I'd quote these as two of the best summaries of the argument that I've seen.

Well said

Yeah, it might have been a little over the top. I find it a little amusing how emotional people seem to be getting about an issue that really shouldn't be emotional at all. That tells me that some people here are trolling for effect. It needs to be stated. I would hate to see people give up on this problem and leave because of it.

I'm sure it'll be modded pretty swiftly after the creation kit comes out, but I don't generally like the idea of mods (whole other argument), and I think it'd be remiss of Bethesda not to make a fix available to console users. There clearly is an imbalance here, and it's only right that they should make the little tweak necessary to fix it.

Either skill-scaling or +spell effectiveness enchants. I'm fine with either; I'd like both, I'd prefer skill-scaling, but I'd settle for just enchants

so for this same reason (all the people complaining) I decided to do what I promiced myself I wouldnt (not to spoil stuff for me) and used console commands to advance bot my warrior and my pure mage to lvl 45-50 maxim all my primary skills and 1 or 2 secondary ones.
I was playing them simultaneously (with a sniper char too) cuz I was very curious about all 3 styles.
had normal experience with them at master difficulty from 1- mid/late 20 levels.

people who say destruction does less damage, they are right, its does a fair amount less, I notice myself one shoting a mob with my warrior's power attack (without decapitation procing) while my strong single target spell (thunderbolt/ice lance- 90 damage) only takes about 50-60% of its health or so.
yet what people dont realize, is that these spells come with very powerfull added bonuses, like draining mana/stamina/vulnerability debuff (not to mention thunder's "execute" kills mobs instantly if it gets it bellow a certain health)
another thing that people dont take into account is all the other extras that the destructtion school has, like aoe, and runes... sure you SOLE single target spell isnt as strong as a warrior's power attack + fast swings on its own, but you can easily chain a powerfull aoe spell(storm) with a minor aoe spell (fireball or chain lighting) and standd behind a dual casted rune trap, usually the only mobs in a group smaller than 4 that were surviving that combo on my mage were either leaders or bosses (the ones who have insane amounts of health in master diff.), to wich I could easily finish off with the weaker single target spell/enchanted dagger/staff.

one thing I noticed tho was that my alteration armor (ebony) was no longer effective at giving me protection against even the lower dmg fast swings of even the minor mobs, like the previous lower level ranks (maybe I over leveled alteration and thats why it seemed so strong at lvl 20-29), at that point tho I had much better stuff for protection, paralysis spells, but yeah... squishy... and very unforgiving gameplay for a pure mage there.

is a mage weaker than a warrior? yes definetly, is mage destruction bad... no... just no... it does alot less damage single target than melee/bows but it heavily compensates with strong control aoe and draining attackers mana/stamina.
many people think its a minor thing... its NOT on master difficulty having that leader/boss caster drained of mana means you dont get kiled cuz he cant cast stuff at you, if the mob has no stamina it cant power attack you and 2 shot you, and if you chain your spells like trap + single target, you can put out very strong temporary burst of damage yourself.

dependency on mana is great and early on getting enchanted rings/necklaces/gloves/shoes to support your destruction skill and mana pool size goes along way to sustainability of these tactics.

ps: yes I am aware you can exploit enchanting smithing and alchemy to make a god mode melee character and you cant do the same for a pure caster, yet I couldnt care less about that.... in oblivion abusing invisibility and 100% chameleon enchants were also in an I frown upon them for my gameplay just as much.

the only thing I'm worried about playing my mage is not how much damage I do now... its just will I get in normal conditions acess to the same mana efficiency as I did using console commands to support the awesome gameplay I just experienced.

Scale with skills and add enchants is my vote.

And then rework base damages so they make sense.

That is so true. It is totally goofy to have a skill that effectivly doesn't do anything. The fact that there is NO CHANGE between a destruction skill of 10 and a destruction skill of 100 tells me they left something out by mistake. This has to be an oversight. Right now the sole purpose of raising the destruction skill is to unlock perks; that just CAN'T be right.

I really do suspect we'll see this addressed in the next patch. Sadly, knowing the way Bethesda moves that might be sometime next March.

is this something bethesda will likely patch?? and honestly the only thing that bothers me as a mage is the fact that warriors get ridiculous looking gear with crazy stats end game and mages pretty much have the same robes throughout, i hope they add crazy looking robes honestly

I keep seeing this nonsense and it gets progressively dumber every time I see it. "But but but it doesn't SCALE!" is a completely meaningless statement. You are essentially asserting that a whole bunch of programmers and game designers somehow completely failed to consider what you perceive to be a fundamental difference between the two damage sources. Seriously, do you honestly think that *nobody* on the entire dev team ever fired up Excel and did some basic number crunching on the absolute damage potential of 1h, 2h, archery, and destruction? Are you really that thick?

The reality is that destruction damage is pre-scaled, and then magick cost (which directly correlates to casting frequency, which in turn directly correlates to total damage output) is used instead of damage to modulate the total damage potential.

The difference here is strictly psychological.

You think, "Boohoo, the other guy gets to buff his damage with smithing and enchanting and I don't! It's not faaaaair!"

But you can just as easily invert that to read, "Boohoo, melee users have to spend points on smithing and enchanting to unlock their full damage potential, but mages get to do their maximum damage as soon as they buy the spell! It's not faaaaair!"

For those who complain about Destruction Mage, take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nzN0S9Fvtk

Summary: Mana regen is a joke, -xx% cost is the BEST.

Happy Skyrim'ing

WAH WAH WAH, I can't 1-shot every enemy in the game, Destruction svcks, wah wah wah wah wah.

Seriously, if you have an issue with Mage, you lack the IQ to play a game this large. Kindly remove yourself from the gene pool.

I'm done with this moronic forum full of cry babies who instead of playing the game the way it was designed, have to cry that they aren't strong enough to win.

Go find some youtube videos of high level destruction mages...its FINE. L2P

Yeah, random effects that only happen when an enemies health is low enough that another spell would have finished them off anyway are just stellar. Let's not even consider for a moment the fact that you actually had to spend more time casting spells to reach that point than what a melee/archer would have to finish something off.


LOL. You never drain enough mana for it to ever matter, and you never drain enough stamina to slow anyone down. NPC mages are 6x more effective than you are with Destrcution. So something is VERY off with the coding.


You are clearly clueless, especially since you seem to think bugs never make it through. You also must not have paid attention to literally every Bethesda game ever made...they always ship crawling with them. So a) either they DID miss something or B ) this was intentional, but for no logical reason. Even without smithing/enchanting melee output is better than that of Destruction. And these constant remarks about how smithing/enchanting is "required" oh, no I need to spend 5 perks in smithing etc are completely invalid excuses. Melee have nothing better to spend their perks on at the lower levels...there's NO NEED.