I don't get people who are saying magic is broken or underwhelming.

I just took out, at level 20 on Master difficulty, 2 mammoths and a giant together without a scratch.

I overall relied on Destruction using Lightning Bolt with Impact perk (staggers creature) with an occasional Frost Atronach to break up the 'team' for a moment and one shout.

It was a wonderful battle and my mana regenerated throughout - I didn't use any mana potions.

Any more powerful and I'd be a walking demi-god able to one shot everything which, imho, would ruin the whole game.

Note: this is as a pure mage - all perks in mage skills and with my magicka maxed with my 10 pt applies.

J

Well here is the thing, everyone plays the game differently and while I sure have seen my fair share of magic svcks and magic is awesome threads, this one is not going to change anything.
Some people only want to use one school of magic/spell, or maybe just do not have the correct gear.
Maybe they are new to the game or confused. Its hard to say.
I have seen threads saying each play style svcks and much as the ones praising them.

I want to try a mage for my self and see, but it may have to wait.


Edit

Telling someone they are "playing wrong" in a single player non competitive game is slightly offensive and rude.

did you use high-born ability?

before you get stagger, mana regen robes, and decent spells, destruction svcks. With stagger destruction is pretty decent but even then mages die so quickly, make one mistake and you could die.

Yeah, you're right - I tried to edit the title and it won't let me. Sorry about that.

open world kite for 10 minutes? There are damn dwarf robots to kill which you need like 5 6 double charged lighting bolts and all mana ....

Surely that always been the risk for mage types? Or do you mean they are unfairly weaker on the defence side.... something which hasn't really been discussed much is the affect of armour on magic. Is there any?

what might help some people is if some of the successful/powerful mages posted some tips in a thread that upcoming mages can read

Maybe try something other than that spell?


I am considering playing a mage over a thief now, just to see for me self.

How long did this take? Plus you had a huge open field to kite them around. Fighting a couple of Dwemer Sphere robots inside a ruin is pretty ridiculous.

gain a few levels, prepare to kite for another 10 mins
then compare to a warrior.

one complaint I don't get is "why would a pure mage pick something other than Destruction".

You always had to, you're a pure mage, you havve to do more than just attack, you also need defense, be it alteration, restoration or conjuration for meatshield.

yeah. he's gonna notice he's actually getting weaker 30+


thats not how a rpg should work.



A 2h/1h/bow can take those schools as well as suppliments, but kill way faster. Destro should not be scaling so poorly.

ppl that say destruction sux is cause theyre compaing it to how well the warriors way of killing works, i personally think magic is fine since ive never run out of magic on adept level (i dont plan on playin on higher difficulty since all it does is buff enemies).

I think the game is designed to favor melee combat. To play other types of characters (magician, thief, assassin) requires narrow specialization and a knack for surviving at low levels (early versions of D&D Wizards, anyone? Magic missile then HIDE).

I play on master difficulty as a mage as well and I do great overall.

But to not be able to see the glaring flaw in the destruction tree just means that you aren't willing to look close enough.


1. There are no upgraded version of spells.

2. There is no damage scaling for spells at all.


What this means is that stream spells are useless fairly early in the game. They end up doing 12 damage per second forever. What this ends up doing is pigeonholing you into using very specific destruction spells as you got higher in level. On top of that, it causes there to be these huge jumps whenever you hit 25/50/75/100.

Rune spells also suffer from this greatly.


That's why it's a bad system. It's not because it's not workable within a bigger mage picture. Hell, the ranged stagger is absolutely amazing. And if you are willing to use the exact new spell that they've given you at the specific ranks, you should like this system ok. However, you still won't see very high damage at level 50 because there is no way to increase the max damage.

im gonna play a mage on my next game, to see how it goes

Except in D&D you get astronomically stronger later; as opposed to systematically weaker here.

Level 60 mage here.

Step 1: Get level 80 enchanting, get all the +skill/enchanting perks
Step 2: Get an enchanting potion from an alchemist.
Step 3: Enchanting your ring, necklace, hat, chestpiece with -25% (Or whatever you get) destruction magic.
Step 4: Get dual charge/stagger.
Step 5: Dual charge stunlock everything.

Now that that is taken care of, the the burden is on you to help up and coming mages.

In other words, spend 99% of the game powerleveling for an exploit, and spend the last 1% playing.
and still do crap damage?

He only addresses mana as well. This isn't even a problem for me at all at level 22. And it's not a problem with the destruction tree in general.

Crap damage? I [censored] out damage son. Also stop using the word powerlevel incorrectly. You're looking for the word 'gear' or maybe min/max. And it's not an exploit.

I'm going to switch over to a +two handed damage set and try it out.


Mana is a huge problem at high levels on master difficult.y

Well, I'm only level 22, play on master and have about 250% regen. I use other schools besides destruction and use equilibrium in conjunction with restoration to refill mana easily.

If you don't do this, you can thank me later.

Does the mana problem improve in the 15-30 range? Because I'm a level 13 Breton Destruction mage with the 12% destruction reduction/50% regen robes and a regen necklace and my mana pool is my single biggest issue.

If I fight a group of mobs (especially if one is strong), I run out of mana after killing one or two. I am constantly out of magicka potions and find myself having to run around the room for 30+ seconds or whip out whatever sword I happened to pick up looting hte current dungeon I'm in.

Considering that you can easily kite Giants and Mammoths literally forever this proves nothing. You could take on 50 Giants at once in Skyrim with Destruction.