And what does paralyze have to do with warriors/rogues still doing 10x the damage and scaling 10x better?

lol at having to cheese CC something and spam spells at it for years. Even with the enchanting infinite mana exploit those 2 archetypes still do better.

While we improve our items to reduce our magicka by 10x, they improve their items to do 10x damage. Which would you rather have if you wanted to play as a primarily damage dealing mage?(something that 99% RPGs have)

All Destruction needs is +damage enchantments to be fine. If people could pop on a +80% damage ring they could go back to barbecuing stuff in peace. It seems like that ought to be a simple enough thing to patch in.

Sanctuary,

You are creating false reasoning. You make a statement like "I guess you could be an oddball and use frenzy?" or you rule out conjuration.

Your thread was: Did Bethesda Nerf Magic .... not Did Bethesda Nerf Destruction - but that is all you talk about.

If you want to play a game that is about "how big is my gun" - go for it.

A pure mage is meant to use all different spells. Period. This is a rather lame discussion..... I'm level 18 pure mage. I use Conjuration/Destruction for most things, but also use some Illusion, Alteration and Healing. Different combos for different situations have worked quite well. Most things don't get a chance to close for melee with me at all. I have 100 health and stamina - all points have gone into magic.

If you wanted destruction to be a one shot killer by the end of the game - fine. But many of us never entered the game expecting that in the first place.

Good lord.

or +magic skill enchant should do half magicka reduction and half potency/damage. This way people can't exploit the 100% freecast thing AND we get dmg scaling.

What a load of bs. So much for making our own "playstyles" Even if you did take all 6 skills the other 2 archetypes still do better on higher difficulties/lvl.

A warrior just needs his dmg skill (out of 3), and heavy armor or blacksmith. He doesn't need all 6 skills.

Then you don't know how to play the game. Sorry.

Soooo...just to see if my theory about bound weapons being the defacto caster damage "spell", I started another quick character. Only playing on Expert right now because I'm wearing light armor this time as apposed to what my other melee character was using, so I can't take quite as many hits yet. Anyway, it's pretty sickening. You literally start with the Daedric equiv before level 5, and you can use two at once. You can also use all of the one-handed weapon perks that apply to swords as well as the one-handed damage enchantments. Each weapon may as well have the "Bodies Explode" spell attatched to them, and this is without having any of the one-handed perks yet. Late game Daedric weapons would beat them, but it doesn't matter. With this kind of build you would want to smith anyway, and you'll end up in Glass armor, so you can just make Glass swords that are not quite as strong, but close to Daedric. Unless of course you simply dump two more points into smithing to get Daedric...



I never ruled out Conjuration anywhere. You must not have been reading anything I've said, because I said it's literally REQUIRED if you want to deal any damage as a Mage, especially if you're using Destruction. You're also pretty much dead wrong on what a Mage is "supposed to do". In almost every RPG or fantasy story there are those who are very specialized. What you are suggesting is just another generic generalist caster. That's not what I want to play and playing that way is removing my own customization. The topic isn't really misleading anyway since Destruction has always been considered "the" stereotypical Mage trait and way to deal damage. I could have said Destruction, but that is also magic, and literally the main school in every RPG. I also never wanted "one-shot" ability with the Mage, but please get your head out of the sand and stop pretending everything is fine.

Mods WILL solve the magic issues... like Supreme magicka did for oblivion.

But: The lack of spell creation will hold back Skyrim, and should not have been excluded by Bethesda.

I agree, but this is also true of the other fighting styles. A well rounded fighter of any flavor will likely draw benefit from various disciplines, but I think the argument here is that the moment he drops one of his weapon proficiencies for destruction he's immediately worse off (or at least at the later levels as some are claiming). The biggest issue from my perspective is that it just seems demoralizing to think that your spells won't get any more powerful once you've leveled destruction to 100 and spent your perks while the weapon based players will be growing still via enchants and other effects. Each level you gain from that point on is just a level the enemies are getting stronger while your main damage talant stagnates.

So from reading all these posts I get the sense that unless you are down for an epic struggle, one should just avoid playing as a mage until Bethesda patches mage-related issues (assuming they ever get patched)?

How sad, I just started playing a pure mage character , guess I better just go back to my main melee character.

No. its very doable. Just not nearly as easy as the other 2 classes.

It's pretty much killed the game for me. I'm not going all the way back to the start and have to go through hours of tedious gameplay just to play as a viable character who I don't really want to play as.

The spells are so weak it's pathetic. You cast a couple of destruction spells then run around like some Benny Hill sketch waiting for your mana to regen (and it doesn't, it crawls back up during battle even with a 75% increase in regen rate enchantment)

12 hours wasted just to find out that hacky-slashy is the only way we are meant to play this game. Would have been nice to have been told that at the start.

In before people tell you "u should have used alteration, restoration, alchemy , enchanting, conjuration!111"

all while mister warrior uses 2H and Blacksmithing.

Yes I am actually loling at your maxed resto, and I seriouly am wondering on your other skill set as well.

Ever tried going face to face as a rouge vs multiple foes without CC? Gl.


If your post is about smithing/enchanting overscaling on items, thta's totally a different story rather than class balances, but there is nothing stopping you from using those as well.

Yes, keep making fun of me maxing out resto and destruction like some MMORPG elitist - please stop that, its annoying. How dare I try my own playstyle in a new TES game that we new "everything" about

Overscaling on smithing/enchanting won't help a pure mage 1 shot bosses like Rogues/Warriors currently can , it will only help me have infinite mana. There is no real damage scaling for mage.

Rogues..CC? LOL..just spam Shadow Warrior and 1 shot with db gloves and backstab perk.





Either way you slice it, destro could use some better scaling at higher levels on Master-difficulty like the other pure dmg skills have (2H/1H/Bow). I'm not sure why you guys keep linking destro to conjuration/illusion/alteration - you can use those with the much more powerful 1h/2h/bow as well.

However conjugation would also be useful for an archer or even melee who want a disposable tank. Even more with illusion now add the ability to cast magic silently, silent frenzy and an summon then supporting fire with a bow.
An nightblade, spellsword or batlemage (oblivion classes) will be more powerful than a pure warrior or archer, because they use magic as an utility and because it's an utility it don't have to be strong, any medium level summon will last long enough for you to get behind enemy and axe him down.
I predicted the death of the pure mage with the removal of spell crafting, it's sadden me to be right.

Ovversaling on enchanting/smith/potion will help a mage greatly. You dont need to wear robes you can go out in your maxed custom enchanted heavy armor set, get 100% magic resist and 100% less magic usage while sporting a shield/spell - shield/sword - sword/spell combo. With the perk you gonna save on magic schools you can invest in sneaking , archery and one handed making the most overpowered class in Skyrim called Jack of all trades

I think it's time to end this topic. If you're playing on PC, modders will make magic scale properly (through enchants and smithing, most likely).

Yes, bethesda messed up by making destruction (and conjuration summons, tbh) not scale at all. When you get to level 40-75, your magic is the exact same as it was when you were level 39.

I think we've all acknowledged this.

Nobody is saying mages should only have to spam fireballs, but I also don't see people saying warriors should have to do more than use a 2 hander, or archers should have to do more than use a bow. Fact is, character concepts that revolve around destruction should benefit from scalability.

Whether destruction as an offensive tactic should be as strong as weapons or bows is up for question, but they should at least scale a bit. It svcks being high level and only being able to use a couple 'super' spells, because the normal fireball and rune spells don't do damage to level 60 enemies (because the spells don't scale).

Scaling magic would make all mages have more fun finding loot, leveling up, and strategically fighting monsters. Scaling and progression is rewarding.
So wait for a mod.

I am gonna throw my hat in here. I have read every page but this page (page 7) and i wanted to add my thoughts.

Playing as a major 2hander and heavy armor (my highest skills) I die often and do not feel over powered at all.
Either I am doing it wrong, or other people know something I do not. I made all my armor and weapons, im up to steel plate at the moment.
Other NPC's who use two handed weapons can wipe me easily. Some mobs are OHK for me, and some bosses OHK me.
Mages seem to blast me away with no problem.
At no point in the game (besides on quest) have I fel any bit overpowered. The game always seems balanced (challenge) to PITA at times.

I was thinking of starting a new character using what I know about the game after 23 levels, and going with stealth. But now I am really considering trying mage just to check it out.
Besides min-maxing and exploiting I really do not see anything or any reason why mage is less useful than anything else.




I am so so glad that is gone, it was such a hassle and added nothing to the game at all what so ever.
It literately added nothing, and if you really felt like it you could just sleep then level up. item degradation was silly and I am very glad it is gone. It was useless and silly in the last two fallout games and I did not enjoy it in morrowind or oblivion.
It added exactly nothing to the game. It was not hard to fix your own armor, nor was it hard to find or buy the hammers.
Everything was simply fixed by a hammer and nothing else.

If anything this game is better than oblivion by a long shot and about on level with morrowind so far.
I am so glad that item repair is gone and that sleeping to level up is gone. Not only did sleeping to level up make no sense, it was silly and added nothing.
Item repair and degradation was a giant waste of time and added nothing to the game. It added nothing because it was easy to find the hammers, and was just more of a chore than anything else.

completely agreed. Hopefully the Construction Set gets released soon, but its not a HUGE problem. Just an annoyance.

yeah we need the CS

I thin these threads are funny. On one hand you have those who claim that magic is to weak, but on the other hand you have those who really commited to magic and is killing most enemies in a few seconds.
My conclusion: Magic with mage-friendly gear and perks are more powerful than without the perks and gear.

I've been playing as a pure mage and just hit level 20, and I find destruction magic to be incredibly good, so good in fact that I'm having trouble justifying using anything else.

I still use the basic bolt spells for my main attack, because they are just insanely good. When you have that perk that causes enemies to be staggered when hit by dual cast destruction spells you can just steamroll through most opponents. One hit and thei're staggered, and then you just blast away and absolutely decimate them without them even being able to get back into the fight. With the Altmer power where you gain huge magicka regen I've been able to blast bosses into submission before they got a single swing off, just railed them into a wall with an onslaught of spells that they couldn't recover from.

My biggest criticism of destruction magic is that the higher level spells get so extreme expensive, even after you've attained the perk for casting them that they just aren't better than the low level ones. Since dual casting keeps enemies staggered and unable to strike back the most defining factor to your ability to take down a group of opponents is not your raw damage, but how much damage you can do on a full tank of magicka before you run out.

Those people are level 10-25. (edit: like the dude above me)

Fact: Destruction spells don't scale. It's plain math, buddy

Because you have people playing on medium at still low lvl, and then you have people playing on master and at higher levels.

Also, its not weak in general. Mostly destruction is...the other damage styles for the other archetypes are by far stronger atm--by a rather vast margin.

It's not the damage of desutrction spells that makes them deadly, it's the fact that they stagger opponents when dual cast.