The freedom that once existed.... in a DIFFERENT [censored] GAME.

"OMG Final Fantasy 10 is nothing like Final Fantasy 7 guys! I can't believe they did this to me!"

This is just a game in the same world from the same developers. It is not a 'fancy' expansion pack or a mod for Oblivion.

Just stop playing the game if it svcks that much. Hate to tell you but it looks like you bought a very melee oriented game. It wasn't what you expected and I understand that. But you're going to have to either grow some balls and wait for the [censored] mods or quit.

The title, the object of complaint, did not compare destruction to any other damage skills; it simply said that if you think it's weak you're not using it correctly, which appears to be the case.

That it is not comparable to other damage skills is irrelevant. The only relevant issue when deciding the strength of destruction magic in game, is how powerful it is relative to the NPC/Mobs' ability to endure punishment, to which end it is more than powerful enough; as demonstrated with the OP.

Naw actually it's very easy but not faceroll spam spells loot move forward repeat

Also If you're playing a mage and aren't using any summons or anyone to help you then you should expect it to be a fair bit harder. I play on Master as a near Pure mage and i run fine with Only using Frost/Flame Atronach and spamming destro and healing if needed with resto. Wear some decent clothes are you're fine and perk well. Now if you aren't picking strong perks such as impact well thats just a choice nothing wrong but it'll make it a fair bit harder

Disagree. It's the entire point. The OP says "I don't get people who are saying magic is broken or underwhelming.".

It's broken and/or underwhelming because damage does not scale at higher levels like all other weapon choices do. That makes no sense. At a certain point, you can no longer make your destruction magic cause more damage while the enemies continue to get stronger. Meanwhile, all other weapon types continue to scale up in damage through various means.

This, quite simply, does not make sense from a game mechanics perspective.

dont illusion spells kinda get useless past lvl 25?

I've come to the conclusion that it is impossible for bethesda to ever "fix" this game
you have people upset because they maxed out smithing and enchanting and now svck at combat
than there's people that say smithing is way overpowered and should be nerfed
there's people that say magic svcks and is useless
and than there's people that say magic is way over powered
etc.

how in the world are they ever supposed to fix the game to satisfy all these completely opposing reqeusts
it's simply impossible

it requires a shred of common sense. especially to realize that a tree like destruction is badly broken past a certain point in the game.

I have a question:

Other than allowing certain perks/spells to be selected, what does leveling your destruction skill actually do? Does it make spells more powerful? Does it reduce magic cost? Does the skill itself govern anything other than perk/spell selection?

1) No.
2) No.
3) No. Edit: Wait, I'm wrong here. It allows new spells to appear at trader inventory, because, for example, if you don't have 75 destro, Faralda in College won't have Expert level spellbooks in her inventory. This happens at 30, 50, 75 skill level (not sure about 100, dropped playing my mage before getting there when I realised how bad things are going to be when I'll hit high levels. But I heard you can't buy master books, have to find em. can be totally wrong here, though)

P.S. Imo, oblivion had way better magic system except for the obvious lack of spell "types" (self, touch, ranged. No "novas", no channeling, etc). As for dual spellcasting... honestly, I'd rather have the hotkeys for spells then dual casting, if I'd be given a choice. Current UI just freaks me out.

The people who are saying smithing and enchanting now "svck in combat" are the wrong ones. Fact. Both can result in godmode characters.

The people who are saying magic svcks and is useless are the wrong ones. Most schools are actually pretty cool. Just destruction is fail and you're better off taking bows and conjuring one.

I've stopped getting conj after seeing how much dmg summons do in mid mid 50s.
I have 2 more mages (in 30 and 20) in masters and the only conj spell they have are bound swords.

doesn't matter if they're wrong
they seem numerous enough and will be pissed off if any changes are made that don't satisfy their specific wishes
so however bethesda decides to "fix" anything there's just no satisfying every1 i think

Yes, you're correct...mostly. It does have a VERY minimal effect on magic consumption rate, but it is negligible. I just tested it, partially.

To test, use the following command in console:

player.setav destruction 10

This will set the destruction skill to 10, obviously. Load up sparks and hold the command down. Count how long it takes to deplete your magic bar. With a new character (magic at 100), it took just over 6 seconds. (16x6seconds=96dmg)
Then use the following command with the same character.

player.setav destruction 100

Now try the same test again with your skill at 100. The same characters magic depleted after about 9 seconds with the same spell. (16x9=144dmg)

(144-96=48dmg) 48 damage difference between a skill level of 10 and 100. Compare this to other traits and the rate at which enemies level up health, it doesn't seem like much.

Obviously there are other factors than just this skill (magic will gain over time, perks, enchantments, etc), but the skill level itself appears to have negligible effect.

Seems like it was worth noting. I wonder if adding some sort of damage multiplier to the skill level itself would resolve most peoples complaints.


EDIT: added math

For whatever reason, melee continues to scale past a point. However, Spells stop scaling at a certain point entirely once you have the highest perks and the highest spells because, again, for whatever reason, they forgot that the rest of the game would continue to scale well past the point at which you could max out the damage potential for any school of magic that has damage potential. Melee, on the other hand, continues to keep on scaling. Which is why you have single melee strikes and single assassination strikes, in the later levels, that will do more damage than any single spell.

This is why certain schools of Magic, see conjuration, are simply better than the others as the Bound Weaponry finds that line between magic and melee scaling. Not even counting the Dremora Lords which are just monstrously, hilariously even, powerful. Though it does make me sad to see how far behind the Fire Atronach falls relatively quickly. Especially sad because the visuals for the Fire Atronach are simply splendid.

Learn to anolyze information.

Magic is:
Illusion
Destruction
Conjuration
Alteration
Restoration

...

Now.
Here's the point:
Some magic spells work.
Some are bloody powerful.
Some are nearly useless.

All the destruction spells are useless even if you have ALL the relevant perks.
That makes the magic school of destruction useless.
At least in comparison to Conjuration, which allows a level 10 mage summon a bow that is more powerful than any destruction spell, with infinite ammo, that deals heavy damage and lasts for 2 minutes without consuming mana.

And that is just an unenchanted deadric longbow for you, without any bow perks.
I just restarted the game because the summoned bow is better than all of my destruction spells combined, so I may just as well go with a conjurer / archer / thief.

Of course there's no pleasing everybody. What does that have to do with discussing the fact that the Destruction magic tree is mechanically broken?

You're correct in that there is no "right" or "wrong", but we do live in a winocracy where the people who complain the loudest usually get their way.

Back when Oblivion came out, there were people on both sides of the leveling argument. Bethesda did not do much to correct this, because of the amount of time involved (would require an entire overhaul) wouldn't have appeased everyone, or quieted down the rabble.

When FONV came out, the same thing with energy weapons (which svcked later in the game due to lack of AP). Again, the forums were divided, but Obsidion decided to correct this with a patch because it was a (relatively) easy fix, which got everyone to stop complaining.

What we have here is a "problem" that is upsetting a large group of people. Bethesda has a shot at "fixing" it with minimal effort. It might not make everyone happy, but the people who are in the "magic is fine" group might not complain as loud if a slight tweak was performed to the magic system in order to shut the other side up.

I happen to think that a moderate multiplier to destruction in order to make it scale more in line with the other skills, and the game, would go along way to making everyone feel like they got a reasonable compromise.

Agreed.
That's all that's really needed here.

Just some kind of scaling late in the Destruction tree so that people who want to play a "fireball tossing wizard" are not gimped late in the game as the whole world continues to get more powerful around them. It won't hurt anything else anybody is doing.

Isn't the cause of this problem the sheer amount of whining about magic and spellmaking being overpowered during the course of the development of skyrim in the first place ? :laugh:
In a lot of ways it doesn't seem like there was a lot of design into put into this in development, It just needs to be fixed. I doubt most of people saying its fine even plays mages anyway.

I'm playing a mage, currently at level 20, and I haven't had any problems so far. However, I'm not focusing all my attention on Destruction. I've balanced out my usage between Illusion, Conjuration, Destruction, and Alteration. I will agree that in terms of outright damage, the Destruction spells fall very short, which is odd considering the school is called "Destruction". It seems that they appear to be more tactical this time around instead of outright damage with a gravitation towards supplementing other forms of combat. It appears that in addition to the damage being dealt by any given elemental spell, there is the added destruction of one of the target's attributes. For example:

Fire spells = Damage to Health + continuous burn damage to health
Frost spells = Damage to Health + Damage/Drain to Stamina of Target
Shock spells = Damage to Health + Damage/Drain to Magicka of Target

So all in all, it appears they are more supplemental this time around. I've found them useful for my needs, but I can see how it would be frustrating to a mage only using Destruction for damage.

The problem people keep trying to illustrate through out the thread is once you've leveled significantly high enough you will notice you will only do less and less damage as you level, and the supplemental effects mean little when enemies have their statistics scaled and you do virtually 0 damage for all your magicka. :laugh:

So level 20 is far too early to see the effects of that scaling.

Anyone complimenting their alteration/conjuration with destruction instead of their conjured-bow or any other weapon skill is just needlessly wasting their own Magicka and killing slower.

That magicka you save could be used to spam Paralyze as you do superior damage with the other skills. Destruction is the most wastefull and least DPS skill atm.

I'm actually tempted to just not play any more. This whole destruction business really is that bad.

They just seem to have gone to absurd lengths to making playing as a destruction mage nigh on impossible, especially when compared to what melee damage can do.

I know people are saying you just need to use conjuration and illusion, but the point is I DON'T WANT TO. Why should I be forced in to playing a certain way in a ROLE PLAYING GAME? Conjuration is massively overpowered and destruction is massively underpowered. I mean shouldn't something called DESTRUCTION actually be destructive? You know, as opposed to being like a fly attacking an elephant.

I took a while to plan out my guy before I started and decided (quite reasonably I think) to go with a destruction/alteration build supplemented by restoration. My idea being that destruction would be my attack, alteration would be my armour and restoration keeping me topped up on magicka and health? Pretty standard build for a mage in rpgs right? Apparently that's too much to ask though. Conjuration feels like cheating. I want to be one of those lone type mages that can handle battles on their own with good use of solo based skills.

It seems like if you want to be an all powerful warrior that just goes in and hammers the enemy with no thought given to tactics then of you go, knock yourself out. But if you want to be an all powerful mage who can use highly destructive attacks supplemented by ranged spells then you're out of luck. All mages are wimps who have to summon creatures to do their bidding apparently. Not guys that at high levels can rain down fire and brimstone and clear a room.

I keep trying to work out a build that I would enjoy playing but it just seems like too much effort. I like magic so warriors are out. Destruction based mages are out for cited reasons. I don't want to use conjuration. A thief just wouldn't make any sense in terms of completing the story quests as it would be completely at odds with my character type so that's out. That leaves me with battle mage. But with battle mage comes the need for enchanted armour as you can't wade into battle with dual swords wearing pyjamas and losing said pyjamas means losing magicka regen and boost benefits. But I really don't want to have to much around with enchanting and smithing as quite frankly it's just too much effort.

All I'm asking for here is a simple patch that lowers the ridiculous level lockouts for spells and for destruction spells to scale with level as EVERYTHING ELSE DOES.

They've been making this game for how long now? A million years? Without even delving into incredibly simple math it's still stupidly obvious just how underpowered destruction is when compared to everything else. How has noone spotted this glaringly obvious flaw? It aint like I'm trying to play some crazy build here. When you think fantasy role playing you think of warriors and mages. On from that you think of a guy wading into a crypt full of zombies and gutting them all over the place. That's in the game. With mages you think of a guy throwing fireballs that obliterate anything in there path (barring dragons). That's NOT IN THE GAME.

Bethesda fail as far as I'm concerned. Now where's my copy of Dark Souls... Oh no wait. I'm waiting on some massive patch a month after release that will totally change any build plan. Jesus Christ. Back to finding Riddler Trophies for me then

..and there is the rub.

Get to 40-50 and see how you feel about it. Keep in mind, your spells aren't going to do ANY more damage than they do now. You are causing as much damage with those spells as you will for the entire rest of the game. But enemies will scale up, with more health and more strength....and your spells will still be exactly the same.

That is the point. Destruction DOES NOT SCALE. It's fine at early levels, and even mid-levels (due to spell "upgrades" and perks), but when you get to high levels, you've long since run out of new spells to purchase and new perks to add, and have no way of increasing your damage.

Destruction needs to scale. Period. Everything else in the game does. This is an oversight, plain and simple.

Bethesda can fix this in one of two ways:

1: Create a new set of variations for each spell (Novice, Adept, Expert, Master, etc), which you can purchase as necessary.
2: Have one spell, but have it multiply it's damage based off the Destruction skill level.

Even a combination of both will do.

I realize this will get modded in, but there are a lot of people playing on console who are totally turned off by this. It needs to be addressed officially.

I use Conjuration, but not that much. I might setup a Flame Atronach at first, but that svcks up 75% of my mana. Even with kitted robes, rings, etc., it still does a HUGE dent to my mana pool. And then I have nothing left to spam Fireballs, since thats the only thing that does any damage in Destruction. This resigns me to my sword & shield combinations, which also requires me to switch armors (or get pulverized quickly with only mage gear and little-to-no armor) every time. That is really annoying.