We can still summon dremora and trick the enemies into killing each other right? Still......is there no way to increase Destruction spell damage with enchantment?

Yeah, the problem is that destruction spells scale very badly relative to everything else. I suspect they're just fine if you're playing on Normal difficulty and finish the game by level 20 and that's all you plan to do. But on Master difficulty, they're pretty weak even early on, and it's pretty much impossible to kill anything with them by the time you get to level 30 or so.

Wait how can they ''overnerf'' something? they over-less-power magic so it got more power?

Sorry, but this. If you feel something is not powerful enough, adjust the difficulty setting accordingly.

You know what would solve all of this? SPELL MAKING

I have noticed things like this too. I've also noticed certain enemies with magic have obscenely strong spells that hit like a freight truck.

You've not run into the higher level stuff then.

Just wait.

Its only "overpowered" until you reach around level 15. Then everything goes downhill from there. Balance has never been a strong point for BSG.

Why isn't there any enchantments that increase spell damage?

I find the only real problem is magic that there (so far for me at least) is only the one level of each spell. I know in OB it got annoying when there were hundreds of pretty much the same spell. But its annoying that my 'flamethrower' spell for example will always be really weak. I'd like maybe a 'Greater Flames' spell, so the mechanic remains the same but with higher damage. Same with the runes. I love the idea of them. But as there is only the one. Ends up being pretty redundant...

Enchant a bow with fire damage
???
Profit!!

Seriously though, my fire enchanted bow does more damage then my fireballs, even though I've sunk about 6 perk points into Destruction and nothing in Archery.

I have two serious issues with how magic works in this game(disregarding the buggy implementation of the favourites interface).

1) It doesn't scale, your weapon damage goes through the roof as you get better weapons/armor and enchants. However mages only get more mana, it's not terribly useful to be able to throw 50 fireballs without going oom, when you could just shoot your practically infinite arrows instead that deal more damage.
2) Beyond the apprentice spells, Magic doesn't do single target damage anymore. Normally this wouldn't be much of an issue since you often want to kill lots of enemies. However the companion AI is [censored], and unlike the enemies the Health of the Companion doesn't seem to scale. This means that if you try to use magic, you'll randomly one-shot your companion every 20 minutes.

It's so silly. I have 400 mana, 150 hp/ 150 stamina. Yet when things get though, it's always my 2-hander and Bow that have to pull me through, the weapons I haven't even leveled. I'm really starting to regret not just going full warrior in the first place.

That's what mods are for!

Still waitin' on that Construction Set. It's probably doable, we'll just need to create... a LOT of customized spell tomes that are spawned depending on user-selected options.

No, this is something the developers should include in a patch or expansion. There needs to be a system in place to create and modify spells attributes in the game and not have to mod each individual spell. Users here on the forums have been asking for spell making since last year, now it's the only thing holding Skyrim's magic system back.

Huh Im a Very powerful mage at the moment for a tiger it takes me about two lightning bolt to kill it and i enchanting weapons makes the stronger of course because thats what enchanting is ment to do make weapons armor stronger. and you your a mage and you enchant your robes then you can also become very powerful with decreasing your % to cast a spell and a enchantment to rise your mana regeneration you mainly have infinite power and mana is the main downfall of a mage since it is there source of power

I have to agree that magic seems rather weak in comparison to stealth or tank builds. I'm playing on expert, so maybe that has something to do with it, but taking down that first dragon was infinitely easier with a sword/shield character than attempting it has been with my mage character who has four schools of magic at his disposal. I don't think I'm going to be able to pull it off. For as squishy as I am, I should be able to do a LOT more damage. One stream of fire can kill me if I don't use potions/healing in the middle of it, but then my destruction spells bring the dragon down 1% HP every three seconds or so. Once he gets down around 25% he targets the player specifically, so my only option is exploiting the system by running in and out of that little watch tower. Even then, the AI beats me by staying out on the side of the tower where the range of my spells doesn't reach him but he can reach me with fire.

I'm getting ready to roll another character. One who will only be using magic for soul trapping and enchanting this time. They DEFINITELY overnerfed magic so that the console kiddies wouldn't feel like they were missing out on something they couldn't grasp. Anyone who wants to stay alive as a mage NEEDS conjuration, and even then I think they'd have a pretty tough time dealing with the big single target enemies, like dragons and giants and such. Hybrid mage with three or four schools doesn't work. Pure mage I imagine might fair a bit better, but only because he's using enchanted items. Items > spells.

I think they assumed that everyone would want to play the guy in the background there.

I saved right outside there, ready to go in on my next start up... now you got me worried.

...worse still, I haven't touched the MQ... no dragons... no shouts. I've already run from one Dwemer ruin halfway through. Though I think I'll try to go for it now anyway as I'm already there.


I said dozens of times before release that they were nerfing mages too much and everyone said I was complaining. Well, I'm going to say it, I was right. [...unfortunately]

In my opinion magic is horribly weak, just like it was in Oblivion, but now we can't even make our own spells anymore. At least in Oblivion, once I got the Supreme Magicka mod I didn't feel like a supreme wussy any more.

Taking out spell-crafting was, in my opinion, the worst design decision Bethesda made. I absolutely love the game, but I will not be playing a mage character in it, at least not until some great modders can fix this egregiously horrible change, or Bethesda pulls their collective head out and patches in an ability to create our own spells again. Or both.

Im level 13, I've been playing as a mage and putting perks in destruction....

Man do I feel cheated.

It takes (on the LOWEST Difficulty), nearly two minutes of just holding the left trigger to kill a draugr scourge.
Perks do not increase magic damage enough. 50% is pitiful.

Every battle seems like a boss fight, where I need to chug fifty potions, with kiting, and I get hit once and half of my health is gone!

I feel like when 90% of the people in this thread are saying magic they are referring to nothing besides destruction. Here's a hint...use your other spells. Summon up minions/use illusion to make people fight for you. Archers aren't good if they only train archery....going pure sneak without training 1h isn't good...why should just training destruction and not your other magic schools be good?

I'm level 10 and I kill quickly with flames.

On the other hand, I wonder where I can get more powerful spells like flame wall. Do I need to advance to higher level (damn scaling)?

Im confused...i keep seeing this statement by many.. Are people really upset that the game becomes harder when you....change to difficulty to harder? Am i the only one laughing at this.

Also this...

rly... people are saying the dont want to rely on using other schools of magic? Thats like limiting yourself to only playing with a sword and no shield or offhand or enchant or anything.

Yes destruction is underpowered late game. Plan accordingly.

Yeah I think it was slightly nerfed, disappointing because of the new system they introduced. I don't know what I am doing but I am level 18, pure mage first playthrough and I have only just reached 50in conjuration, 50 in alteration, and 45 in destruction. What am I doing wrong?

For damage? Yeah it does, unless you use summons like I said. Or, I guess you could be the oddball and use junk like Frenzy. If you're running around with conjured weapons as your main source of damage you may as well have just been melee anyway.


Right now in just full Ebony I'm wrecking everything. It's literally been so easy that I had to turn the difficulty up. Right now my character simply picked up all of the one handed perks that I could (my one handed is still only 58 and lvl 27...) and I went for the 25% increased damage to standing power attacks. Not going to bother with the dashing one since the stamina drain is not worth it. Other than that I just have two levels in bow damage up to the first rank of the time dilation. Rarely use it though. Smithing is at 96, Restore 40 (picked up Novice Restore and Regeneration). Haven't bothered dumping points into Enchanting yet, because it will require a lot of filled Grand soul gems before it matters. I've just been disenchanting everything and enchanting the bracers and daggers from smithing with petty gems.

You really do end up with a ton of extra skill points. You can pretty much get everything you need prior to level 40, and you can then branch off into whatever like higher Restore for better Wards, or to add insult to injury...Conjuration.


Thank you, next person to miss the point entirely. The TES games have always been about choice. This game is the most limiting the series has ever been. In the past games, even if magic was still "weaker" it was a hell of a lot better than it is in this game, and you could make extremely efficient spells that could kill just about anything through damage over time OR the insanely powerful one-shot spells that required touch. All this game has is FPS crap.

Oh so you just buy the weapons from vendors then? I assumed you had prioritised enchanting in order to do those. That's easier then, although you must've got lucky in that regard.

No, I smithed my current weapons (two ebony swords). You can improve weapons and armor via smithing (and +smithing% items) so that they are better than anything you can buy. Smithing is also probably the easiest skill in the game to level up. You can go from 1-100 by just making leather bracers. Up until level 24 though I was just using a sword that I had crafted as a reward for a quest, and it did half as much damage as my current, and my second weapon was a silver sword. Through smithing at the grindstone I added around +8 - 10 damage to each. Not sure what it would be without it.

You basically get to create weapons that you wouldn't actually see on a vendor list or dungeon 5-10 levels earlier, and what you make ends up being stronger than what is dropped or sold. It's pretty ridiculous really.