Very true. You try to melee things on master without smithing and enchanting and you will get torn up. I've tried.

Except chugging pots is part of it for all builds... stealth = pot of invisibility. combat = health and stamina pots.

That is not base damage. Base damage is before it is enhanced with Smithing and it only reachs 1000 when you fold alchemy/enchanting with perks.
It might be 100 if you don't take advantage of an exploit.
Why do the Destruction mages always compare their damage to exploits that some players take advantage of?
I don't fold enchanting/alchemy and I don't hit anywhere near that hard.
It's like me crying my melee svcked in Oblivion when Mages made OP spells with the spellcrafting system.

This post is 100% true. Personally I only use 85% reduced magicka cost because I still want there to be a challenge with mana. I wreck with my destruction mage, and I do NOT use conjuration at all (except to soul trap).

There is a reason why we have 18 skills in this game, they are made to compliment each other. If you ONLY leveled 1 handed weapons, and ONLY used a rusty old mace, you would have just as much trouble as a mage that ONLY leveled destruction and ONLY used destruction spells.

Except if they can do it at 24, the will NEVER do any more damage. I'm using dwarven gear to do that. DWARVEN. AND my smithing isn't near being maxed yet, AND i haven't even bothered with enchanting or with alchemy. Oh, and you need to have level 100 to be able to cast master spells....one handed level ~65 here. By the time i get to the endgame, a single normal attack with do 800 damage, and a power attack will do multiple thousands. If i CAN'T kill something with my full stamina meter with attacks that do upwards of 3000 damage each, then mage is going to have...a bit of a tough time.

Just face it: Destruction is gimped compared to almost every other combat class in the game. That's not to say it isn't PLAYABLE! I've never said that! But when compared to other combat skills, it will do consistently less damage, and there's nothing a player can do to fix it.

That's what we're complaining about. You wanna be a demi-god? Play a warrior character. Split the earth in half by accident, eat the moon, all that fun stuff.

But wanna be a mage? Get ready for a tough time.

People who claim they shouldn't rely on alchemy in order to make destruction viable need to remember that in Morrowind you had to rely on potion to regenerate magicka.
I agree with the OP and have to say that I find this game to be completely thought-through.

The big difference is that the alchemy option for destruction exist for melee/ranged too.It's a short term buff.Destruction needs a more static buff in dmg either through the perks in the destruction tree or by adding the poition effect on the enchantments list .
Change the additive feature of the cost reduction enchantments and have mages on robes/clothes set regenerate magicka in combat as fast as out of combat as a "full cloth set" effect.Then we'll be golden.

So messing up the game is the new fixing? How sad are you OP...

True, but not with the regularity which is required to maintain max damage on Destro. But like I've said, I don't bother. I only munch a health pot every now and then when a Deathlord catches me a good'un in the back and I've no time to heal.

It doesn't do that though.
I am 43 with a Daedric one handed axe that I only enhanced with 100 smithing and a store bought +20% smithing potion and I think my axe shows 82 or something with one handed perks.
You're still talking about Alchemy/Enchanting folding.

Or use Enchanting to get free destruction spells and lob fireballs all day long.

I mean, if we're talking strictly about being a demi-god and all. :hehe:

I was using one handed without raising any of the crafting skills and I got along just fine.
The fact is that Destruction by itself isn't very powerful. I was getting my ass kicked as a mage until I switched to melee.

Still takes 20 fireballs to kill a tough enemy though...

I only played a mage up to level 15 or so, so I don't have experience with these issues but from what I read, it looks like the situation isn't so unreasonable as some people make it sound. It's like saying "Alteration doesn't scale! I can't use only Alteration school of magic, I shouldn't have to use other schools on master difficulty at level 50! WTF!"

The game is designed so you encouraged to use more than one skill, they're all tools to beat the game and they should be used together for best results. Destruction may be underpowered, but so is alteration for that matter.

Having said that, I also understand the other side and I think this should be patched because, to put it simply, people WANT to play a powerful mage that relies on destruction spells. People don't want to play a powerful mage that relies on alteration. If people want that, if it's a fun role playing experience, then why deny that for the sake of a certain orientation in the game's design?

double post

The single combat skill is sufficient for the damage part of the equation. You don't need smithing, enchanting or potions to be perfectly fine in your damage output. Things like sword and shield are obviously built in 2 skills that help with attacks. You need other skills for other things, like armor skills to survive hits. Destruction is the only DPS tree that needs other skills to be sufficient in doing damage. If you massively abuse those trees you get your damage to non-abuse levels of smithing for a warrior type, but still fall short of a warrior with sneak, a warrior who works smtihing/enchanting, ridiculously short of a warrior who works all of those.

Here is the things magic needs.

1. Reduce magicka costs massively, this is purely an attempt to keep magic for those who go all into the magic trees. This is not needed the perks should be improving the magic enough that a non-perked mage falls as short in magic as a non-perked one handed user. Which bring me to.
2. Change perks to more damage boosting, pure noticeable effect boosts, and put the numbers in the perk descriptions for gods sake.
3. Have the fortify X enchants actually fortify the skills in the effect department.
4. Have the skills actually improve the effect of the spells.
5. Allow sneak attacks with spells.
6. Put in single effect spell making, so people can create adept versions of novice spells they like or hell novice versions of expert spells they like and play around with targeting systems as they please.
7. This would probably be an OR to 3&4 put weakness to effect spells in the destruction tree, I'd also like a drain armor/attack power spells in the tree to simulate the old destroy armor/weapons spells of the past but oh well.

guys...destruction is NOT underpowered, it is OVERPOWERED. Level 1 equip flame spells in each hand, you can toast virtually anything in seconds. Is easily massacring enemies too slow for you people? I abstain from magic in all but the most desperate circumstances because it is TOO EASY! And if you're playing on Master difficulty dont complain--of course it will take a long time to kill enemies on master. I play on expert and I dont even invest in magic but its still incredibly powerful and I only have 140 magicka. If I were to use all those magic robes and gear, it would be way easy. The game should be challenging, not a cakewalk. That's what makes a game have replayability.

Takes my 43 warrior 20 attacks to kill a tough enemy.
Nothing enchanted and nothing made with folded alchemy/enchanting.
And I have to do it in melee range.

Try making a Warrior without folding Alchemy/Enchanting with:
-Two Handed
-Heavy Armor
-Smithing
-Nothing else

You'll see just how hard Master is.

OP, thanks for your tips and take on this.

I remember when I started playing Oblivion (first game I'd played for two decades), I was very frustrated once I figured out how messed up the leveling system was. So, what I did was turn that frustration into a challenge. Didn't have any other games to compare it to and didn't know how to download mods yet. I just approached it as it was and used my brain to treat it like a puzzle which needed to be figured out. In the end, I had a blast working the system the way it was. True that maybe I shouldn't of had to do this, but what did I know then? I actually ended up having a blast with this game before I ever learned how to mod.

So, that's just how I'm looking at Skyrim when I read about people's complaints and concerns.

What? The system's not perfect?

Bring it on! :hubbahubba:

1. Totally make sense that mages should not work with their magicka. No high cost high damage spell, low cost lower damage spell ... everything is free so there is only damage.
2. Alchemy is valid. It's pain to use, but it's valid.
3. Impact = most cheesy perk in the game.

Yes, you also don't encur magicka costs for regular attacks and have no cast time.

I'm level 30 on a pure mage on Master difficulty without enchanting, and Conjuration is pretty much the only thing my character has going for himself still.

What is the point of this thread? Did the TC miss the last ten days or something? None of this is new and exciting information and it does not make "Destruction" powerful, it only emphasizes the fact that it cannot even function without being saddled to an entirely different perk tree. It still does not even become "good" after that either, and not everyone wants to play on Adept or below and be forced to also always have a companion and summons.



What a load of crap. The only time even smithing could be considered a "requirement" ia on Master difficulty, and even then it's doable without it.

Meele pots are nowhere near destro pots in the %dmg range.
The bugged marksman potion isnt a meele potion its an archery pot so dont use bugs to buff meele in the first place.
Enchants on gear are pernament but not even close to poison weakness to magic and weakness to element which can stack and even get buffed by weakness to potion in the first place.
0 mana cost isnt an exploit becuase you can get it with basic enchanting. Power attacking for unlimited times is a bug exploit.



Everything you said is backwards. Read http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1283497-destruction-versus-one-handed-statistics/page__view__findpost__p__19434212

Your suggestions would severely imbalance mage playstyles. Less magicka costs means you can specialize well in any school at the same time since you won't rely on magicka reduction enchants. You will also pump more into health and less into magicka as a pure mage. There needs to be some trade offs to be a powerful caster and some of your suggestions eliminate the mages biggest weakness, durability. Also battlemages become extremley OP with your suggestions.

But now destruction is overpowered...