Wrong. You can get by by only using 2h, Bow, DW, sword+bord, or conjuration as your only damage skill.

Destro is the damage skill who needs damage suppliments on high levels of Master.

The general complaint is not failure to use multiple skills. Rather, it's that melee and archery damage exceed destruction by so much that one handed weapons are even more viable in magic focused builds than the skill that is supposed to pour out magical damage.

I can see the argument here, but what you're ignoring is that the warrior is only using damage because all he can do is damage, while even if you don't care for it, magick, even if you stick to strictly damaging spells, comes with a plethora of other advantages and side effects included. You can't compare the sheer damage output, and in order to play a mage that only deals damage with no bells and whistles and does as much as a warrior, you'd need to completely revamp the system, locking a "All your Destruction spells now scale with level" perk at the end up of a 40ish perk monster tree.

I'm only a lowly level 11 mage, so I'm not sure whether all these complaints are legitimate or not. However, there seems to be a huge misunderstanding in what people are complaining about. It's not that the other schools of magic are less viable or unused, but that they are and were intended to be used as utility magic. Destruction is a mages 1h, 2h, and archery all rolled into a single tree. It's our main and practical dps. If this is not functioning correctly in that role, we're forced to adapt our utility magic into our primary source of dps. An example would be a warrior having to rely solely on sneak damage multipliers because his 1h/2h damage doesn't scale with level. You can still get by, but things become much more complicated, and with this horrible menu system, much more convoluted. I admit that popping potions, utilizing traps to your advantage and using companions makes for much more interesting gameplay, but it does get tedious after a while.

Only he is viable....I don't see a 2H warrior having to switch to other damage skills.

Hell, not even conjuration mages need to take destro, they will almost always be better off w/ the other damage types.

No, but Archery is one tree, like Destruction is one tree.

Destruction should, when at 100 and fully perked, be able to deal as much damage as rank 100 and all perks in Archery.
If we remove enchants and potions from the equation, is this the case?

This is not about 'Magic Users', this is about wasting perks on a tree that becomes ineffective in the later game, thus negating all of those points you dropped into it you could have put into a different tree.

I agree with the idea that there should be higher level versions of novice/apprentice spells, so that damage continues to scale up to the damage cap for other trees.

This is correct. However, people are actually complaining about warriors who use the alchemy/enchanting combination exploit to get crazy high numbers. If you don't do that as a warrior, you don't get anywhere close to these numbers. If you do use the exploit, as a mage you can still be near invulnerable, run around in high resistance heavy armor even as a mage, and make all your spells cost no measurable amount of magicka. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to compare this, obviously neither is supposed to happen at all.

I find that it still applies even without the exploit. You can easily wear basic + smithing gear to get daedric swords dealing damage of 150+ per swipe, without a power attack. Now enchant that with +30 fire and lightning, and your regular attacks are doing more damage than our best spells, for no resource cost, and your power attacks are still halving enemies healths where our best spells pale in comparison.

I promise you a 2h warrior will have an hell of a time progressing through the game at Master until he starts breaking the system with enchanting and smithing.

My smithed Daedric Bow with only a normal Soul Trap enchantment does just above 100 damage right now. I don't have archery at 100 yet, but close. The highest perk doesn't improve damage. There is an earlier perk that improves crit chance and crit damage that is hard to take into account for comparison purposes.


That is the case... you can't buy them or see them in vendor inventories if you don't have enough skill but they exist... What people are complaining about is that even the Master skills don't scale with skill level. But, well, neither do weapons once you reach 100.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't archery usually used to get sneak attacks, in which case all kinds of other bonus damage would be applied?

For those attacks, you still have to be at close range, while a mage can kite. Warriors can't do that at all. And there is a drawback to improving your weapons like this, too: In order to be able to make these weapons that do 150+ damage, you need to level up two or three non-combat skills. Meaning, your enemies become stronger as well.

I think this is less a problem with magic and more a problem with the general level scaling.

After level 40, when you have maxed out your main skill tree/s, you damage and protection values aren't going up much at all....yet the game is still adding more challenge. The exploits are then being used in order to just make the game possible to play.....unfortunately those exploits arent in the mage tree and it makes it feel weak.


I think its a fundamental problem rather then a magic problem.

It's only times three. (The base damage bonus is already factored into the number shown, so that's what people will compare.) Melee weapons get x6, daggers get x15. So if you want to get sneak attacks, you are better off with daggers at melee range, which can easily take down enemies in one hit if you manage to get close.

Bows are viable for normal combat. Unlike swords, you can kite enemies with bows. I think comparing bows to Destruction makes more sense than swords since both skills have the same range advantage.

If spell damage gets the job done, then it doesn't matter if it doesn't scale evenly with weapon damage.

But I feel that's because destruction magic has other special effects. Frost for example can freeze people. Lightning can take away mana as well. Fire can do burning, but that is comparable to bleed effects for combat. Melee and archery need poisons and enchantments to replicate those secondary effects.

So I feel as a mage, the strength of destruction magic isn't in the raw power, but rather the ability to freeze people with impunity, and also with area damage spells.

I am playing a rogue character, so I do not have good knowledge of how bad destruction magic is. But the strength of destruction magic to me looks like its ability to have CC and area damage.

But unfortunately no sneak attack bonus for single shot destruction spells like Lightning Bolt and Ice Shard...

Bows can still have poisons, enchantments, potion damage increases, scaled arrow types, sneak attacks, silent attacks, perks that directly increase damage. etc.

Destruction cannot freeze at will, you're thinking of shouts.

fire and lightning is scaled to damage. which is probably much better when enchanted on a weapon you'd think due to increased damage.

AOE damage tends to be very bad in elder scrolls. Ever notice friendly fire?
Alot of the higher level spells are all aoe, which is a problem more often than not.

Much depends on what difficulty you play on and how you spec your character. I can only say from experience as a level 54 mage playing on Master difficulty you cannot rely soley on destruction to get the job done for you. You need crowd control in this game even if you play on adept because there are going to be many scenarios where you will be greatly outnumbered by near impossible odds and relying soley on destruction will run you out of mana and get you killed. Illusion is working for me just fine, even at level 54 and my undead are cleaning house even on Master difficulty. You need to unlearn what you have learned from Oblivion, in that you cannot just rush a dungeon and nuke everything in it in one shot, you actually have to use your brain and use smart tactics.

I will also say this, sneak is your best friend as a mage. You need atleast 5 points worth of perks in sneak that make you harder to detect, cast your illusion/crowd control spells from range, let your zombies clean up and then finish whats left over with your destruction magic. Destruction is definately underpowered in this game but conjuration and illusion make up for this. I love Skyrim for many of the reasons that I hated Oblivion, in Oblivion you could cycle the same 1-2 spells and kill everything you saw while in Skyrim you have to use tactics to win. Kudos to Bethesda for getting it right this time and actually making the game challenging.

From experience, I can tell you that a high level mage feels very underpowered

The thing with smithing, enchanting etc. is that they multiply the impact of a warrior's damage - enchanting doesn't do that.

This could easily be fixed by a % increase in destruction damage enchant, but for some reason they chose not to include that whereas % increase in one handed damage they did. Go figure, makes no sense to me.

The % increase in magicka regeneration doesn't work in combat either, meaning that the number of spells you can launch is reduced which makes matters even worse. Again, to compare with a warrior, stamina doesn't even go down when you attack!

It's imbalanced. Yes, it's true that there are other types of magic that should be used, and it's fine to make the most of conjuration, illusion etc., but destruction is the fundamental skill of any attacking mage - without it you're a defensive mage and your style of play is COMPLETELY different. As different as playing a thief vs. a warrior in my opinion.

Beth made two mistakes IMO:

1) spells should scale - I don't really mind how (in TES4 it was the spellmaking alter, maybe this time - if they insist on not including the alter - the damage could increase as the skill goes up as well as through the perks?)

2) Magicka regeneration in combat is far too slow - this may be deliberate, or it may be a bug. Either way, the regeneration enchantments (which you can clearly see through their prevalence among mages were meant to be the principle alternative to not using armour) are frankly pointless. Compare this to some of the armours you can get (which you can also enchant with something useful) and you realise that mages got stitched up

I absolutely love this game, I should stress that.

However, playing as a mage is easily my favourite style and I hoped this game (based on what the devs were saying about how magic had been improved) was going to be incredible in that respect. Those two points above will forever limit my potential enjoyment, however well crafted the rest of it is.

Have you guys ever considered alchemy and enchanting? There are some alchemy effects that boost destruction, and those DO scale with level. For example, you can go get some fortify alchemy robes, and use them to make some fortify enchanting potions, which you then use to make some fortify alchemy robes. You can repeat this process essentially forever if you wish...when you're ready, equip your now amazing fortify alchemy robes, and make a fortify destruction potions, maybe a few dozen. Next time you're in a battle, pop your +100% destruction damage potion, and watch your enemies burn!

Since those aren't combat based skills, they should be acceptable, right? It's not like warriors get so good without them, either, y'know.


EDIT: also, why the HELL are you complaining that THE HARDEST DIFFICULTY LEVEL is HARD!? PLEASE explain that one for me? Pretty Pretty Please?

I think that is a part of the problem as they see it. As I have understood it they expect to be able to stand still cast 2-3 destruction spells and be done. No summons, no mind-manipulation and no strategy. And since you encounter strong opponents more frequiently the higher level you are... well going to have to use strategies more often. That said, a higher damage version of the basic spells might be a good idea to include.

Let me get this straight. Robes with 0 armor and for example 50/75% magic regen don't regen magic in combat ? Is that a fact ?

Just to clarify, I don't think they're necessarily WRONG...it's just that they're probably overstating it. They should undoubtedly get some boost from leveling, and being able to enchant their clothing for increased damage wouldn't be a bad idea either. According to my calculations, the max damage for a mastery fire spell without alchemy is about 250 damage, which is what my level 22 dual weilding dude does in a single power attack, and that seems a bit unfair.

So while I agree that it should be beefed next patch, it is also not entirely as bad as they're making it out to be.

As far as I can tell. Magic regeneration slows massively in combat - FACT

It may be that it's faster than it would have otherwise been but it slows to about half the normal rate. I have the arch mages robes, which are +100% regen, and in combat it doesn't seem to make any difference

For the record, I agree that it shouldn't just be about destruction - no doubt. There need to be more facets to the game. I would prefer scaled spells or the ability to enhance what I have (i.e. a trade off, higher cost, higher power) but that's not too bad - I think I overstated above

But the regeneration issue does actually irritate me.