Yes. I would recommend heading to Winterhold to do those quests first. They of course give mage related rewards and they are quite nice.

Also, do what I just described above. Grab the spell Equilibrium, pop it in one hand and keep restoration going in the other. You will be happy.

But the problem with Destruction appears to be SCALING. I doubt that many unwilling to accept the weaker at low levels/stronger end-game bargain play mages. The problem here is that Destruction appears not to be delivering on the stronger at end-game part of the deal. We're more vulnerable. We're resource limited to a much greater degree than the other archetypes. We have the expense of constantly needing to update spells. What appears to be missing is the payoff--both in terms of special abilities (like waterwalking and unlock) and in terms of power. It's harder at the beginning and you end up weaker doesn't cut it.

I'm glad you mentioned Conjuration when the problem is Destruction. You can't play Destruction WITHOUT Conjuration, but you can play Conjuration without Destruction.

I'm guessing the people who are running out of mana are spamming destruction spells, or maybe conjuring an atronach and then just spamming destruction spells and doing nothing else.

Here's a hint: Illusion is your best friend and is the most powerful magic school. The ability to calm, enrage or fear multiple different enemies is INCREDIBLY strong. Use all tools available to you....especially if you are playing on the higher difficulty levels.

A bow/2h/1h character with those spells will still be better off, especially at higher levels. At higher levels Destro should be on par or atleast competitive with those damage skills I just listed.

Conjuration is the only spell school I don't use. I've gotten two Mages to level 30 and I've had no problems with either.

Here's a hint: no one needs more "this is how you are supposed to play" garbage talk. TES games were always about freedom, and this offers the least for magic BY FAR. Let me know when you've calmed or feared a dragon that's breathing breath in your face. Illusion is good for one thing: Paralyze. It's almost outright broken it's so good. But it's also the only truly good thing from it and the rest are just for comedic relief.

Conjuration > every other Mage school though. The bound bow is ridiculous as is the Dremora Lord for killing the enemies that give you the most troubles when you're not dual-wielding bound swords in their face.

It's the only school I don't use as well, strangely.

Gee; maybe I'll just take up illusion as a thief or warrior and do exponentially more damage to begin with. even better.

Also scaling eventually surpasses the illusion spells level limit anyway, I think

question, I saw that the illusion spells have fixed level caps, are there any for level 50+? if not, then illusion would be weak endgame (except for stealth and buffing allies/summons, but I am referring to the CC elements you seem to endorse)

For those who missed it the first 31 times...

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1266212-2469-armor-3199-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-31-perks/

Paralyze isn't an illusion spell.

Dragons aren't easy on higher difficulty settings, and they shouldn't be, get over it. Destruction is more supplemental to the other schools in this game rather than being something that can dominate on its own.

Not counting dragon fights, if you think illusion is only for comic relief I don't know what to tell you.

You've nicely pointed out the problem. There is a "most powerful" magic school. Many players would like for destruction to be equally powerful. Saying that conjuration and illusion are more powerful so we should use them is not an answer to "Destruction is weak." It's like saying to someone who wants to be an archer, "Archery is weak. The answer to your problem is to use a melee weapon." It doesn't at all address the playstyle issue.

+40% fortify destruction potion, 20% weakness to frost poison on my enchanted sword. Let the games begin.

Destro is NOT weak, you just need a strategy more complicated than say - running around spamming fireballs.

A good build accounts for controlling tough fights, also incorporates a fallback for when you need to regen. You don't HAVE to use highborn, you can crutch with something else. Enchanting, conjuration, alchemy all give you outs.

I'm not saying I agree with it. But until mods are created, we are going to have to make due with what we have.

Panic/Frenzy etc are useless against single targets, unless you enjoy just sitting there for whatever reason instead of doing anything else to finish it off. Sure, Mayhem or whatever is great against giant/mammoth camps but it's like I said, comedic relief. There's absolutely never a reason to use those spells other than for laughs. Illusion has invisibility if you really have to use it, but the other spells are not worth putting points into the tree for. Unless of course you like slow and tedious.



Why do people insist on shoving very specific playstyles down other people's throats and then saying "See, there's nothing wrong with the game, you just don't play in a very specific way!"?
Mentioning potions is utterly pointless too, becuase that's Alchemy. Alchemy also has similar potions for physical damage to the point where you can literally melee for 2k a swing. Good thing your frost spells are hitting for a whopping 150 huh?

AI in Skyrim i pretty stupid, mobs always attack your minion instead of you.
I can summon 2 atronachs, and kill 4 mammonths and 2 giants.
A pity that summoning minions has nothing to do with destrucion school.

I disagree, frenzy and the like are very useful for clearing dungeons, they offer crowd control, start a fight with a few bandits, drop a fear on the melee guy to ease some of the pressure off of you, then hit their archer/other melee with frenzy, then go invisible, now they are killing eachother and the first to fall gets reanimated with conjuration, it breaks invisibility but by this point you shouldn't need it, and if you are in a harder fight, throw some illusion buffs on your ally, it isn't a useless school, it is just indirect.

EDIT: and yes single target encounters make frenzy worthless, but fear still does well if they pressure you too hard, not to mention you are a mage, get an ally, buff your armor (yay dragonskin) and fight to win, make use of what is there.

I think the main problem is simply that the damage output of the mage class is very small when you compare it to thieves/assassins and warriors which is just weird considering the huge trade off you're doing with your survivability. Think about it this way: is it really normal that if, instead of using conjuration+destruction, you specialize in conjuration+1h/2h/dagger you actually finish fights WAY faster on master difficulty? I think it's the main problem: destruction is the weakest form of damage dealing currently in the game, and that's... Weird, and frustrating for most mage players. It's not that you CAN'T kill it's that by using a weapon you'll just kill so much faster.

How is frenzy for laughs? While I agree it is hilarious sometimes...you do realize how strong it is when you have multiple NPCs after you to calm or fear a few, and then frenzy another? They start killing each other, and then you join the fun by drilling them with destruction spells. If the frenzy target likes you, pop invis or sprint away quickly and he will go after one of his friends. It's FAR more useful than just comedic relief.

I am playing a battle mage character, with major skills in Destruction, Heavy Armor and One Handed and minor in Restoration and Conjuration. I think it is quite balanced- challenging but not overwhelmingly so. However I also have a companion, and she helps take some of the melee pressure off, while I'm able to heal her occasionally. For a pure spellcaster, I would say having a henchman is more important.

All in all I would say the leveling system is great. So much variety but nothing is handed to you, and there are more sacrifices you have to make in order to be good at something than there were in Oblivion.

I can't verify this. The perks obviously allow you to go higher level mobs, but I haven't gotten up to that high of a level yet to tell you.

My strictly Conjuration (melee) only Mage utterly annihilates what the Destruction Mage did. And those who are talking about Destruction + Summons...your summons actually do more damage than you do from Destruction and they can take more hits. My non magic using "Warrior" does more than either of those builds and all I need to put points into is health with enough stamina for a few power attacks.


It's for laughs because the problem is with Destruction. Using Frenzy and making enemies kill themselves has absolutely nothing at all, what so ever to do with YOUR personal damage and what you can do on your own. No one ever said "Mages" can't get through the game on the highest levels. The argument is that Destruction is terribly weak due to it's utter lack of scaling. Those CC spells also do nothing vs single target enemies that are relatively hard.

Over sensitive.

It's not rude at all... it's true.

I've tried 3 different mage builds before I found the one I really enjoy. The pure mage in Skyrim is one of the most fun classes in any game I have tried, but the player really needs to on top of things and think things thru before rushing into battle. If you disregard everything you have learned about mages in other games and look at the perks and spells you have here, I think you will be amazed at how fun the class can be.