You equip the heavy armor you get from Blacksmithing, you just don't put any points in it. Are you deliberately obtuse?

I have to disagree with a lot of the 'magick is useless/nerfed' argument.

Firstly, a fighter type has to rely on a range of things to survive and win: weapon skills, armour, armour skills, shield (maybe), blocking, etc.

A fighter wouldn't waltz into a combat wearing peasant clothes and only carrying one sword...wouldn't last long at all.

Which is exactly the same argument and reason as to why a mage type has to rely on things other than just 'spelling down' opponents...you can't rely on one thing alone to do it.

You have to cast protective spells, or distractions, or conjure up things to fight for you.

If I decided to take One or Two Handed perks, wear only cloth, refused to use Alteration, Restoration, Conjuration or Illusion spells I'd die faster than a Destruction only class would.
I'd be luck if I got a second swing off. You might actually keep them staggered long enough and far away enough to kill them.
But instead what I did was took Blocking and Heavy Armor, perks that compliment One Handed, and now I survive.
But you're still trying to cast flamethrower at melee range in just your panties and screaming "BALANCE!"

You "balance" for the swell in the bell curve. You let the outliers, the truly [censored] characters or the truly power gamed to do as they will. If a player is utterly unwilling to bother to understand the simple mechanics or spend their perks, or use guardian stones, then, yes their play will suffer.

I have to disagree with a lot of the 'magick is useless/nerfed' argument.

Firstly, a fighter type has to rely on a range of things to survive and win: weapon skills, armour, armour skills, shield (maybe), blocking, etc.

A fighter wouldn't waltz into a combat wearing peasant clothes and only carrying one sword...wouldn't last long at all.

Which is exactly the same argument and reason as to why a mage type has to rely on things other than just 'spelling down' opponents...you can't rely on one thing alone to do it.

You have to cast protective spells, or distractions, or conjure up things to fight for you.

I was just trying to put a Two Handed only Warrior in the same vacuum as your Destruction only Mage.
You can summon pets, calm, fear and paralyze so you can deal damage but you refuse to in this vacuum. So I'm choosing not to defend myself appropriately (like you) in order to use my intended form of damage.
You'd actually win if we went into that vacuum.

If I decided to take One or Two Handed perks, wear only cloth, refused to use Alteration, Restoration, Conjuration or Illusion spells I'd die faster than a Destruction only class would.
I'd be luck if I got a second swing off. You might actually keep them staggered long enough and far away enough to kill them.
But instead what I did was took Blocking and Heavy Armor, perks that compliment One Handed, and now I survive.
But you're still trying to cast flamethrower at melee range in just your panties and screaming "BALANCE!"

It seems what people do not understand is that there are no classes.

There are for primary damage skills. 3 of them scale damage wise with smithing, enchantment, and weapons. One of them does not (herp derp).

People keep saying you have to take OTHER mage skills to be successful. That's hogwash. This game is about playing what you want. If I want to throw fireballs everywhere, I should be able to do so.

And anyway, if you take the following loadout: Alteration, Alchemy, Illusion, Enchanting, Conjuration and simply swap out Destruction for 1h/2h/archery, your build is vastly more effective at later levels. You have to compare the damage dealing skills to the damage dealing skills. Just like you compare alteration to the armor skills. And granted, yes, a mage will be much more effective if they choose to specialize in illusion and conjuration and learn to adapt their playstyle. But that isn't the point. If a mage gets to level 50, they should be able to steamroll with fireballs, lightning beams, etc. If enemies are going to scale, we should be able to increase our damage (which is why 2h/1h/archery seem to work so well and destruction doesn't at higher levels).

Hell, I think half the issue is Bethesda chose to do level scaling badly in this game. Why in god's name is there not a combat level that enemies scale to? I pick locks and herp derp enemies are harder.

I don't understand the argument against it. It's a SINGLE PLAYER game. Why the hell are people so obnoxious about not improving destruction so those who want to focus on it can enjoy the game more? Does it make you all butthurt to know that someone who isn't so l33t and good with the combination of all the mage skills can play through the game fine and enjoy it? It just makes no sense.

Also, I am sure this was a rant, since I'm tired of seeing people bash other's for "not playing mages right." Let other people play how they want and the game should accommodate it to certain degrees. I don't really believe that Bethesda destruction magic to be so awful at higher levels.

It seems what people do not understand is that there are no classes.

There are for primary damage skills. 3 of them scale damage wise with smithing, enchantment, and weapons. One of them does not (herp derp).

People keep saying you have to take OTHER mage skills to be successful. That's hogwash. This game is about playing what you want. If I want to throw fireballs everywhere, I should be able to do so.

And anyway, if you take the following loadout: Alteration, Alchemy, Illusion, Enchanting, Conjuration and simply swap out Destruction for 1h/2h/archery, your build is vastly more effective at later levels. You have to compare the damage dealing skills to the damage dealing skills. Just like you compare alteration to the armor skills. And granted, yes, a mage will be much more effective if they choose to specialize in illusion and conjuration and learn to adapt their playstyle. But that isn't the point. If a mage gets to level 50, they should be able to steamroll with fireballs, lightning beams, etc. If enemies are going to scale, we should be able to increase our damage (which is why 2h/1h/archery seem to work so well and destruction doesn't at higher levels).

Hell, I think half the issue is Bethesda chose to do level scaling badly in this game. Why in god's name is there not a combat level that enemies scale to? I pick locks and herp derp enemies are harder.

I don't understand the argument against it. It's a SINGLE PLAYER game. Why the hell are people so obnoxious about not improving destruction so those who want to focus on it can enjoy the game more? Does it make you all butthurt to know that someone who isn't so l33t and good with the combination of all the mage skills can play through the game fine and enjoy it? It just makes no sense.

Also, I am sure this was a rant, since I'm tired of seeing people bash other's for "not playing mages right." Let other people play how they want and the game should accommodate it to certain degrees. I don't really believe that Bethesda destruction magic to be so awful at higher levels.

That's certanly not enough what you've taken.

I could ask you why its so important to you that you do feel like a god? Have you completed the MQ? If so, at what difficulty? Did you have any truly game breaking encounters? If Smithing/Enchanting/Alchemy combo wasn't as powerful as it is, would you still be here raging about destruction magic? You for one, certainly are butthurt that you chose to level up magic skills and you've now realize that someone living hundreds of miles away can do more damage with an axe than you can. I don't know why this matters to you so much. In 2 sentences you summarize and epitomize all that is wrong with this entire premise. There is nothing truly challenging about stacking all the crafting perks to create mega weapons. Nor is there any higher level intelligence behind picking the magic perks. This is not rocket science, it is not supposed to be. Because one combination of trees gives the user a [censored]storm of rainbows it does not mean all the other "buttons" in the game also now need to "[censored] rainbows."

Will they patch the smithing/enchanting/alchemy? I don't know. Its a single player game. There are pitfalls to that. But the devs may feel that in the long run a patch which "nerfed" the crafting bonueses wouldl sustain overall interest in the series longer, I'm not sure how they will address this, if at all. I would patch it, certainly, but I'm not a Bethesda employee. Rather than continually arguing about Destruction, why don't we focus on the root of the problem of your perceived inequity, the smithing?

The issue isn't that Archery+Blacksmithing+Enchanting > Destruction.
It's that Archery+Blacksmithing+Enchanting >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Destruction+Blacksmithing+Enchanting

In fact, Archery[Zero Perks]+Blacksmithing+Enchanting > Destruction+Blacksmithing+Enchanting.

Or another way of looking at it. If you have Enchanting+Conjuration+Destruction, no points spent in Archery. You will still do more damage by using your bow conjured with Conjuration then your Destruction spells.

You know that for a fact? The problem with melee and archery is using enchantment and blacksmithing to enhance your actual weapons. Your conjured bow can't be enhanced with blacksmithing or enchanting so it has the same bottleneck as destruction would. You get more damaging destruction spells as you move to 100 and you get higher archery damage; same relative scaling.

Now enchanting and blacksmithing give pure melee/archery classes something to spec into to make those PURE specs feasible by greatly increasing their damage.

But what you want is to be able to do the same DPS while staggering the mobs at a huge range without taking any other perks and all of it be AoE. While I'd do the same damage one mob at a time while trying to desperately get into melee range.

I am forced to take Heavy Armor, Blocking and Smithing to stay alive in melee range.
You are forced to use Alteration, Conjuration and Illusion spells to keep them out of melee range.
Sorry but we have to take the same amount of perks to do our jobs effectively.

You have a fair point. I am a level 35 mage focusing on destruction, conjuration, alteration on expert difficulty. I honestly stopped playing this character because spamming dual firebolts got boring as hell quickly. 10-25 as a mage was an absolute blast to play, but beyond that enemy health scaled upwards too quickly for my spells to remain effective and fun to use.

But yes, it is important for me to feel like a god late game. I want my character to always get STRONGER against opponents. Not weaker. That's asinine and it was the biggest problem with Oblivion (well, one of them anyway).

And no, it was not coming to the forums and realizing that other skills are OP. In fact, playing on master difficulty in the higher levels, those skills are probably essential to survive. I am complaining that destruction is underpowered. I have no issue with the other skills being overpowered (aside from the fact that there should be experience curves with the skills and crafting 500 iron daggers should not get to max skill level, though this is something I chose not to exploit for my warrior, so I don't really care if it's changed).

And if I'm butthurt, it's because I played 35 hours with a character only to realize he gets weaker and weaker as I level up.

And honestly I don't see why some people feel the need to defend every mistake Bethesda makes. Yes Bethesda is probably the best video game company out there, but it is important that they know about their mistakes so they can improve their games in the future.

Sure it can. Stacking +Archery damage on all your gear with enchanting is a massive damage boost even if you can't enjoy the rather sickening +[elemental damage] and weapon upgrade bonuses. You appear to be unaware of the actual enchantments available?

I never said any such thing but it IS a pure mage we are talking about and as such if the effort and skills were chosen to DO damage, then that damage should scale like everyone else's. Also, what part of SINGLE PLAYER GAME keeps getting lost on you and other arguing about "balance"? This is not an MMO. "Balance" concerns shouldn't even be in the equation. I would ask why you and some specific others have such a bug up their azz about something that doesn't even concern you because it will never affect you?

You're screaming for damage balancing.
What part of single player game don't you understand?

That's all totally valid. I get it.


But, Bethesda loves their scaled enemies. You are always going to find this in their games. You are also always going to find the difficulty slider in their games more frustrating than challenging. Sometimes it works and a fight that should feel epic on default falls flat but is much more challenging and fun on the higher settings, but most of the time it just means the rank and file "trash" spawns are going to be annoying. I honestly don't know why you guys bother with it the first time around. Just put the setting back to adept if you truly find your 35 hour character to no longer be fun to play. You have that option. Save him/her for all the DLC to come. Create a smith/enchanter/alchemist and abuse the hell out of it if you want on Master.

Or go play a 2H guy in cloth who "never blocked' on Master and beat the game, have fun constantly pausing for potion spamming. If anything, the thing I find the most annoying about magic is how awkward it is to change spells on the fly.

Destruction magic doesn't scale as well as melee damage and I believe that's working as intended.

A warrior has to waltz into a room shrugging off damage until he has one shotted everything. If he couldn't front-load a ridiculous amount of damage he would stand around absorbing damage for 15 minutes. A mage, on the other hand can summon minions, turn enemies against each other, heal, shield themselves, fear, set traps and any number of other things. Not to mention the larger variety of ways a mage can deal damage. Being able to put out focused damage that's comparable to melee classes on-top of everything else would be ridiculous.

Mages are balanced fine, but relying on destruction is foolish. The mage schools all seem to be supplemental; except conjuration which is overpowered. Use them together and play right if you want to pwn face, or turn the difficulty down to nothing and do whatever you want.

Just because you're playing by yourself doesn't mean you want to svck.

1. Destruction never gets stronger.

Ever use a Poison with Weakness to Magic or Weakness to Element (Or BOTH...) right before blasting away with your spell? That's where Destruction get's it's damage multiplier. You just have to land a single hit with a poisoned weapon/arrow, then you can fry/freeze their ass easily, even on Master setting.