I feel many players don’t understand the true power of destruction magic. In the destruction magic skill tree there is a perk that allows you to stun an enemy when you dual cast destruction magic. This perks effect different spell elements differently, but I have found that all lighting basted attacks but the first, walls and runes will always stun the enemy. this has allowed me to face some of the strongest characters in skyrim with little or no health loss. there is the drawback of needing a large manna pool, but that can be counteracted with perks and equipment. Also you can spam the weaker cheaper attacks for longer while your man refills. There is one spell I feel that must be mention with this combination it is chain lighting. this attack hits multiple targets and stuns them all. I would like to hear if anyone has had any good experiences with this like me or has never heard of these interesting facts. Also if you have any questions about magic or theories I would be glad to know. I have maxed out destruction magic and most other magic above lvl 60 and im am overall lvl 61.

I think it's quite common knowledge. With Impact and enough cost reduction you can stagger lock any foe indefinately! Compared to melee or archery, I find it rather stale. But if it works for you, that's awesome!

Pfft, I paralyse them with a staff. They aint moving then. I want to unlock paralysis spell then enchant gear to cost noting then I can control everything. Well, no but I could spam it. Five enemieslolnoproblemoverpoweredmagearmourtoparalysethemallwithnotmagicacost.

Congrats on your discovery of stun lock, but that isn't the core issue the destruction-discussion is about.

Right. And the stun lock thing svcks anyway. Someone already said that it gets stale quick, but I'd like add a +1 to that.

In archery there's a perk that you can take that will stagger most opponents 50% of the time. But with Destruction you go from not being able to stun a jackrabbit or anything else to being able to stun an Ancient dragon perpetually. It's silly. Why not a graduated system of something like Stun 15%, Stun 25%, Stun 40% etc.? Every other tree regardless of if it's combat or not has an interesting variety of things to choose from.

Look at the all the choices available in the Illusion and Conjuration trees. There are so many ways to go with those. Same with the 1H and 2H trees. There are real decisions to be made that will noticeably affect your character's performance.

With Destruction the progression is one way and narrow. The only time you have to decide between one thing or another is with elemental damage--and that doesn't make that much difference anyway because Fire is easily the best choice with Frost coming next and then Lightning. It would be much more interesting to have to decide between a stun perk or enhanced fire/frost/lightning.

It's strange that one of the most popular aspects of a game like this would be so poorly done. And AFAIK, Beth hasn't uttered a single word about adding to/fixing it.

I Use destruction magic WITH alteration an conjuration an illusion ,Stun them with alteration then shoot them in the face with an icy spear Or with illusion, Clam an enemy shoot with icy spear then clam him again.Just using destruction got me killed alot.So I think destruction magic is good but even better in combination with other spell's.

I would like to point out that the Impact perk also applies to any staff that uses destruction magic. I found that using a Chain Lightning staff will stun lock an entire room full of enemies with every hit. Quite over powered, in my opinion.

This does not work without the Impact perk.

So this is how Destruction compensates for hideously underpowered attacks and cookie-cutter spells?

Stun locking does get boring, it's why I avoid it and instead use my stuns strategically, for example to stop a Dragon from Fire-Breathing. Worth mentioning is that this is no different than the block stun spam that is possible from the time you first pick up a shield, except that you have to actually spec into impact.

In response to "narrow" choices in the Destruction tree, all other direct combat trees are the same. One handed has only two real options: dual wielding or not. If you want to count the weapon specializations, then that is essentially the same as Destruction's element specializations, except with more interesting and more useful effects for Destruction. Two handed has no real choice, unless you count the "Charge" vs the "Devastating Blow" and why not take both? You're never FORCED to pick one or the other, unless you're stuck on perk points. Once again, the only customization really is the weapon type (same as Destruction). Archery is a bit better for this, but still, it's pretty clear cut which perks you'll want to take from the get-go. Also there is a sort of progression to impact. You go from casting two spells from two hands, to being able to "charge" a spell cast with both hands to do additional damage, to being able to use that charged up spell with more force, staggering/stunning your opponent.

The skills that DO have lots of/more customization, (Conjuration, Block, Illusion, etc), tend to be SUPPORT skills. As such they need to be able to support various different playstyles. Conjuration can give you powerful weapons, or powerful summons. Weapons are more useful to a warrior-mage, and summons are more useful to those that need protection/distraction. Illusion offers a host of combat solutions/strategies for any class. Block is probably the single best defensive option in the game (if you only need one hand for what you're doing), and/or can be used offensively for a more aggressive playstyle.

Additionally, the stun provided from Archery is a 50% chance just from regular bow shots, with no additional planning required. A mage who specializes in multiple schools of magic, or wants to use a shield, 1h weapon, ward spell, etc.., has to limit themselves to one current attack to use the stun. This brings up the choice when mana gets low (if you choose to not enchant yourself into godhood) of whether doing some damage with stun, or getting off a fear/calm/conjure/heal is more important.

Actually that last point brings me to the real problem. Enchanting/Smithing/Alchemy boosting your weapons to godly heights is the only real problem people have with Destruction. You can't boost Destruction to the point you can one shot dragons, which is why people get sad. I understand that Magic has taken a bit of a hit since Morrowind/Oblivion, but honestly a lot of the "utility" of spells people miss is creating cheap uber godly spells that either one shot towns, turn them into unstopabble killing machines, or are just plain fun/funny to use (Scrolls of Jumping in Morrowind haha). I agree that magic feels a little "cookie cutter", with a limited choice of spells. But on the plus side, those spells are MUCH better done and animated than Morrowind/Oblivion, where you had the choice of a little textured orb appropriate to the spell school/effect type, or a touch/self spell. The spells aren't as godly, but much more fun to use IMO. TES games tend to have exploits to min-max your character, (Alchemy in Morrowind and town slaying spells, Magic Resist Stacking and OP spells in Oblivion, the crafting trifecta in Skyrim), and playing that way tends to be the boring aspect for me. Not using skills as they are intended.

Anyways, enough of my rambling.

TL;DR:
Destruction is fine as is, it's crafting that is the problem causing an "unbalance" of relative power between Weapons and Destruction magic.

But isn't the best strategy to do as much damage as possible while taking as little as possible? Therefore stun locking them is the best strategy. You can gimp yourself, something I don't have a problem with, but you know that in a life or death situation you can win everytime if you need to. That's why I bring up the idea of graduated system where dual casts will only stun X percent of the time based on perks you would take.

The rest, I don't care to argue about. You make some good points. For example, with a weapon that absorbs stamina you can perpetually power attack an opponent as long you hit them, thereby stun locking them that way.

I've procrastinated long enough. Time to get back to work.

I love stun locking as it allowed me to survive many situations, but I also like AoE damage of Fireball. You can use this from very far away, and you don't have to be as accurate with your hits. In fact, if the enemy is a mage and has wards up, you can still damage them by hitting the ground next to them. In most fights against lower level non-boss enemies, I use Fireballs. Fireballs just kill them before they get close to me. I have 400 magicka, which is enough for 4 dualcast fireballs.

Most importantly, Fireball allowed me to dramatically increase my success rate for slaughtering bunnies.