When people complain about melee they're actually talking about (for instance) 2H + Blacksmithing + Enchanting + Alchemy + Heavy Armor. Destruction doesn't synergize with those professions, it synergized with other spell schools. Destruction is the damage that gets added to your insane shielding, Healing, Summoning and CC capabilities. Destruction does less damage because of how insanely powerful it's supplements are.

2 post above the one I quoted, and my comment on it in the one right under. Get reading.

Also: how hard is it to grasp that if you change the balance for one person, you change it for everyone? Meaning that changing it for you may mean my game suddently just turned way too easy. How is that not affecting me?

ITT: Nobody who has played a pure-mage past say...level 40, agrees with the OP.

Block and Armour is your defense. Conjuration, Illusion, a bit of Alteration, and the fact we are ranged is ours. We assure you, we aren't some [censored] idiots who throw fireball after fireball expecting everything to die immediately. If we did that, chances are we wouldn't even make it to 20 without grinding a non-combat skill.

Does it seem very intuitive that if i have the same perks in Conjuration, Restoration, Alteration, Illusion, and Enchanting that i would be better off using a bow then i would be using my Destruction spells? Even if my Destruction spells are fully perked, and my Archery is not? Does that seem very intuitive to you? An unperked ability from another specialization is more effective at dealing damage than a perked ability from the same specialization as Enchanting.

You think thats fine? That is horrendous game design, nothing more, nothing less.

If everyone would take a set back and look at this for a minute (and think critically).. It makes perfect sense..

Do I think Destruction should scale a bit with character level? Yes, as the primary source of direct damage to enemies sure.. But people can't honestly expect to just just max every perk in the Destruction tree and expect to be some uber-deathdealing Juggernaut of spell-casting... In fact, I think that, were you to specialize in any particular tree and use it by itself, Destruction would be the most powerful, with maybe archery as a 2nd.

Archery is extremely immobile and not versatile at all. You need to add stealth perks, enchanting and archery for the damage to justify how cumbersome it is.

Go on, tell me a single synnergy that Destruction has with the other Spell Schools that a Bow doesn't have... Just try to find a single one.

Actually, the Master level spells freeze you in place while casting or channeling them. So . . .

Heh, this again.





Yes, how dare you. In fact how dare you expect people to play how you think they should in a game series that's always been about being the character you want and playing how you want.



That's a lot of assumptions in one post. For one thing, you seem to have no concept of TES lore or past TES games. The very lore of magic in the game has included the idea of specialized casters, even concentrating on them, not just the gameplay mechanics. Beyond that, the NPCs and Enemies in Skyrim, guess what? They specialize as well.

As for what you think "I want" ? You're wrong. You confuse want with support. My character has Conjuration, Illusion, Destruction, Alteration, Restoration, Enchanting, Smithing and more as this point. What you're unable to grasp is that I support people that want to, "Play the game in the way they choose, just as EVERY SINGLE PRIOR TES GAME ALLOWED." Skyrim isn't one game. It is a part of a series of games, and thus must absolutely deal with the fallout when they change the long standing mechanics (or contradict the longstanding lore) of everything that has happened prior in the series. People have every right to be disappointed and to complain.

More importantly, it goes well beyond wanting to specialize in a specific school. Certain schools of magic, like destruction, stop. They just stop. They stop entirely. Past a certain point they no longer improve in any way. They do this long before the level cap. A 30+ player will start to see it, a 40+ player will have to grit their teeth through it with overly complex strategies and the 50+ plus players will be tearing their hair out by the time they get to the 60s and eventually hit 70. Why? Because they stop. Melee and Ranged continue to scale all the way up to 70 through a variety of means. Spells though?

Nope.

Certain schools, like conjuration, continue to scale - bound weapons especially because they work hand in hand with melee or ranged scaling. Things like Alteration's Dragonhide will continue to scale because 80% reduction of all damage is always going to be 80% no matter what level you are.

But a fully perked Master spell from destruction? That stops. It just stops. Entirely. You will slowly see one melee hit equating to half a dozen casts of your strongest spell, and by the time you get to the 60s a single melee strike will completely eclipse anything you can throw out. That's not "an intended form of play" that's, "this skill set continues to scale all the way to 70, and these? These over here? They stop. You can get max level spells before you even hit 30 and be fully perked out and that's the most damage you'll ever have unless you switch over to melee or ranged or bound weapons for melee and ranged. It's not just night and day. The amount of damage you can do when comparing a 60+ melee player to a 60+ caster is that the melee player scaled all the way to 60 and will continue to scale to 70. The Caster though? He won't. He stopped scaling entirely back in his 30s, because he was perked out then and he had his master spells then and he's never going to get anything better."

There are a variety of reasons for this, but one of the most important doesn't even have to do with the skills themselves but entirely different skills. Enchanting and Smithing. Guess what the interesting thing is about how enchanting and smithing effect melee and ranged versus how they effect casters?


-

All of that is meaningless though. What's important is you can't get down off your high horse to realize, it's a single player series of games that have always let you create the character you want, a series with long standing - still canonical - lore that supports specialization and a series that has always allowed specialization. A series that even in Skyrim supports specialization by presenting you with NPCs that specialize. But you? The player? You can't specialize in what you want anymore. Sure some schools like Conjuration can get away with it, but restoration and destruction? Nope. It's especially bad for restoration because it actually used to have damage built into it.

Luckily none of what you think is relevant or valid.

Why?

Because if Bethesda doesn't fix it, then the modding community will.

Seriously??? It's not affecting you because using destruction magic is NOT A REQUIREMENT. Besides, it's nothing you will have to concern yourself over. The modding comunity will take care of it. Your precious "balance" will be preserved

Bow is impossible to fight with in close combat; can barely move while using it. Without any of it's synergies and unperked archery skill is not very useful.

Use expert level spells when on the move. Archery is always uselessly cumbersome if not perked and synergized correctly.

If everyone would take a set back and look at this for a minute (and think critically).. It makes perfect sense..

Do I think Destruction should scale with character/skill level? Of course. As the only form of direct damage from magic skills, I think this would be obvious.

However, there is a fine line that needs to be treated here.. Destruction is ONE skill tree.. It takes at least 6 perk tree's to build a truly powerful warrior. For both the abilities you need to use, and the ability to craft the best gear to support them.

1/2 handed weapons
Heavy/light armor
Blocking
Archery
Smithing
Enchanting

Destruction by itself, even when 100% maxed in skill and perks, should NOT be equal to a warrior who needs to invest into all three of these tree's in order to be successful.

ITT: Nobody who has played a pure-mage past say...level 40, agrees with the OP.

Block and Armour is your defense. Conjuration, Illusion, a bit of Alteration, and the fact we are ranged is ours. We assure you, we aren't some [censored] idiots who throw fireball after fireball expecting everything to die immediately. If we did that, chances are we wouldn't even make it to 20 without grinding a non-combat skill.

Does it seem very intuitive that if i have the same perks in Conjuration, Restoration, Alteration, Illusion, and Enchanting that i would be better off using a bow then i would be using my Destruction spells? Even if my Destruction spells are fully perked, and my Archery is not? Does that seem very intuitive to you? An unperked ability from another specialization is more effective at dealing damage than a perked ability from the same specialization as Enchanting.

You think thats fine? That is horrendous game design, nothing more, nothing less.

Seems you didn't find any. This is because the only things Destruction does is use mana and deal damage. Worth noting that even with 0 perks in any of the Melee Weapon skills, enchanting and blacksmithing will still let you do more damage per hit then the Master level Destruction spells when it's too 'cumbersome' to use your Bow.

This is because the physical weapons actually have synnergy, Destruction does not have synnergy, this is why it svcks.

Idly I've found that the most useful Destruction spells are actually the Adept ones. This is because they won't kill your allies and force you to reload every 5 minutes while being fully capable of exploiting the broken Stagger perk to trivially kill anything 1v1.

It has synergy with mana regen enchants, it has synergy with perks that lets you absorb magica from spells that hit you (alteration), or that boosts your mana regen passively (resto), it has synergies with Conj because it allows the magician to keep casting them instead of running away.

Destruction doesnt svck because it has no synergy. It svcks because it doesnt scale with level.

It only makes sense because you're going on Skyrim's system alone and forgetting the things they took out, part of which are the problem with magic not scaling properly to the highest levels of gameplay. It's like they forgot they needed to make up for those systems no longer being prevent, because that is half the issue - there's nothing that can improve spell damage beyond the bought/found/earned spells. No caster stats, no spell making no nothing that can allow for 'some brand' of scaling.


Then you aren't very well versed in the mechanics of the game. Destructions spells beyond the perks and master spells - do not scale. At all. Melee and Ranged both continue to scaled all the way up to 70. You can max out of your destruction spells and get your master spells well, well - WELL - before that in your 30s and even before if you're truly single minded. Let's round and say that's 40 levels where everything else continues to scale, the content around you and, of course, melee and ranged continue to scale all the way 70. Magic though? It doesn't. Certain schools, like Conjuration get around it, but destruction? No. It just stops. It's not more powerful than anything. It might seem like it in the early game but that's stops. And I mean it stops. It doesn't just slowly become less useful. I mean it stops. It never gets better beyond a particular point. It stops. Entirely. No advancement whatsoever beyond a certain point while most things continue right on up to 70, including the content you have to tackle.

You get to the point where a single melee strike can equate to half a dozen casts of your strongest spell, and it gets WORSE because the melee will continue to scale all the way up to 70 so that damage difference only grows larger and larger and larger and it doesn't stop growing larger until you hit the level cap . . . oh, wait, I forgot, enchanting and smithing further the difference even more on top of the base scaling.

I was under the assumption everyone is comparing Destruction by itself to a Warrior who's using normal skllls+smithing+alchemy+enchanting.. Seems that it's just a typical warrior without the crafting skills included.

But anyways, like I said, Destruction should scale with skill/character levels.. For obvious reasons. If it doesn't (whole point of this thread) then it needs to be remedied by Bethesda for EVERYONE, and not just the modding community for the PC players. But as I said in my edited post while you were replying, should Destruction be buffed, it should be equivalent in damage output to a standard warrior, not a warrior who invest in smithing/alchemy/enchanting and crafted uber-tier equipment.. That takes 3 extra perk tree's to accomplish, and having Destruction by itself equal to all of this combined isn't fair to those who choose to play melee characters.

You're confused.

Destruction TAKES AWAY mana you'd otherwise use on those other schools. That's an ANTI-synergy because they're competing for resources.

Use expert level spells when on the move. Archery is always uselessly cumbersome if not perked and synergized correctly.

And that is why you will have noticed that I did not mention a single spell. Instead, i spoke of mana REGENERATION perks comming from other trees.

Also, competing for ressources have nothing to do with wether something is synergetic or not. Its about the effects.

For exemple, a spell that shatters a frozen ennemy and a spell that freezes an ennemy. Both spells cost the same ressource, yet that is a classical exemple of synergy. I know there is no shattering spells in this game, but any spells that lets you make use of another spell more easilly, better, or more often... well thats a synergy my friend.

but any spells that lets you make use of another spell more easilly, better, or more often... well thats a synergy my friend.

Look at what happens when you replace Destruction with a decent set of equipment.

Ohh, I get to keep all that mana regeneration for my non-Destruction spells, Oooh, and I also do more damage to boot? Where's the downside? There isn't any.

What does competing for resources do? It makes you able to use the spells less often.

And that is why I have been saying from the beggining that Destruction spells SHOULD scale with level so that equipping a weapon you dont have perks for will never deal competitive damage with a magic tree you have fully leveled and perked.

I was under the assumption everyone is comparing Destruction by itself to a Warrior who's using normal skllls+smithing+alchemy+enchanting.. Seems that it's just a typical warrior without the crafting skills included.

But anyways, like I said, Destruction should scale with skill/character levels.. For obvious reasons. If it doesn't (whole point of this thread) then it needs to be remedied by Bethesda for EVERYONE, and not just the modding community for the PC players. But as I said in my edited post while you were replying, should Destruction be buffed, it should be equivalent in damage output to a standard warrior, not a warrior who invest in smithing/alchemy/enchanting and crafted uber-tier equipment.. That takes 3 extra perk tree's to accomplish, and having Destruction by itself equal to all of this combined isn't fair to those who choose to play melee characters.

You're missing the point. Warrors can get uber-tier equipment to improve their destructive power, Destruction can't. If you could craft/enchant the Staff of über Destruction that boosts the damage of your Destruction spells by 100-200%, then there wouldn't be any issue.