Mana regen continues in battle, not sure what you're talking about. It, however, doesn't regen while you're holding in either of your casting buttons with a spell ready to cast.

Yay more posts about forced playstyles in TES of all games, when I never had to use conj or illusion in previous games.

smashing, it doesn't continue at the same rate in battle as out of it. hence I was stating his 150% would be correct, when not in battle.

I do see it appeared that way. I'm sorry for that. It was an assumption though based on the complaint that destruction magic is weak. And its not.

If its weak for you then I KNOW you are not using expert level spells. For Those are what I use and they do more then enough

Really? I haven't noticed that at all and i've got 66 hours on my mage...

Then again, my expert level destruction spells only cost like 3 mana each because i've spent some time creating nice enchanted gear.

Cough someone is forgetting about difficulty settings and assumes everyone plays on his difficulty level. (Now here comes your silly comment about "lower" the difficulty, which I shall not do since I enjoy hard battles just not ones that require me to take 3 minutes casting spells to destroy something with what should be a viable choice to use to kill something no matter the difficulty)

I don't play as a mage. I was just assuming that was how it worked. Sorry if I'm being misleading, but that's how I would've done it, so it made sense. I may not have said exactly what I meant. For example, adding "I assume" to my post probably would've helped. But common, did I really do anyhting to be talked to like a moron? I had good intentions in there.

You seem to wreck your own point in the last paragraph. You're saying that you have a companion, level scaled and using 1-handed/2-handed/bow. You summon creatures, the damage and HP of which scale. And then, when creatures get through your neutral-NPC-agroing-AOE-spells, you end up casting a shield spell and resorting to a sword.

The question I would ask is why did you end up having to resort to a sword when you possess single target damage spells? The likely answer seems to be that your single target damage spells are insufficient.

The other point I would make is that your conjuration is doing a lot of your work for you, because the creatures it produces scale based on your level. Your destruction, while it may well be wonderful support and help kill creatures, has no purpose in the world but to kill things, and it seems extremely likely that your summoned creatures are doing more damage than your massive AOE super-mage spells.

Really the point is, player magic never gets to a level where we feel like all-powerful magic users, which are spoken of in various bits of lore throughout the game (and some of the Liches seem to be). I understand that we should need more than destruction, but I would like the spell field that's only purpose is to deal damage to deal at least as much damage as melee does, or at the very least bows. Right now it doesn't, it doesn't even come near.

As an aside, I believe that NPC spell damage DOES scale. The reason I say this is the aforementioned Lich. We all know that he can only be casting spells that we have, but for some reason those spells seem to be capable of doing 100+ damage. One of the Liches I ran into a few days ago used a lightening spell, likely Chain Lightening, and he was able to drop me to 20HP from 150 as a Breton with the extra 10% magic resistance perk, around level 18.

(I play on the default difficulty, FYI)

Well if you're completely against turning the difficulty down or adapting to how the game was created, you have noone to blame but yourself for ruining your gameplay. Way to ruin the game for yourself!

I can indeed adapt to how the game was created smashing, and sadly that waits for the creation kit to come out. kymlaar, that was a nice reply I enjoyed reading it and I'm sad I didn't notice what he said about then grabbing a dagger (and forgot how much damage the summons/companion can do)

So adapting to the game is waiting for modders to change it? I hardly call that adapting to the game, that is what is called CHANGING the game. But anyway... If you know the modding community will fix this problem for you, and you know that other people don't seem to have any problem with the way magic works in the game, why keep complaining that it needs changed?

A far more constructive use of your time would be posting a poll/thread in the mod forum asking for whatever mysterious "challenging combat" changes you want. But then, I'm not entirely convinced your intentions are constructive.

My intentions are for my own game, you made the assumption I would wait for someone else to do it. Some people don't seem to have the problem but then again most of them are a fairly low level at 20ish and it doesn't happen till a bit later. I also see many more people posting about wanting destruction to scale than those saying it is fine as it is (and then saying you also need to use other spellschools in the process)

You're wrong.

Magic is indirectly scaled: you are unable to use more damaging spells until you have the requisite amount of magica. It is true that no single spell becomes more powerful as you level up, but it is also true that you are capable of casting more powerful spells as you level up. The only difference is that mele damage is directly increased by leveling up, while magic damage is increased by something else (magica) that increases by leveling up. Hence, even with magic, it is true that a player deals increasingly greater damage as he/she levels up, because the player is wise enough to upgrade his spells when he becomes more capable.

Your point is therefore incorrect.

And when you stop getting new spells you become useless, but hey even the master level spells are kinda useless to begin with

That logic (somewhat) works up to the point where there are no more spells to buy.

they got that idea from just about every other D&D type RPG out there

The problem I am seeing is that most of you, even if there are groups of you with the same thoughts, seem to think others want the same experience you want. Realize this with me people: this is not an MMO. You do not have to be on these forums. Plenty of people are enjoying not telling anybody how to play or listening to people tell them about how their struggles are irrelevant or unneeded. This thread is about why the magic system doesn't scale and how it falls below other sources of damage. I personally see no problem in nightshade's post. He is playing the game and using magic to the fullest. So what if he wants to stab a few things? He's allowed. This is a single player game.

I think mages are fine, but I won't attempt to convince you. The reason is that I'm not fully sure they are fine. But I think they are, and its a game where the player creates the experience, so that satisfies me. The min/maxers and the people trying to prove others who do math wrong will argue, that's the nature of these things. I'm just here to tell you that arguing is not going to get you anywhere other than "You are all right. Destruction is underpowered. I'm going to concede defeat and go enjoy my single player game now."

Do not fool yourselves. That's how this will end.

Sounds to me like Gary believes radiant AI makes infinite amount of spells as you level up so you will deal a good amount of damage with them and won't have to rely on the base 10-15 in the destruction school.
Magicman, which is why even if they don't put in true destruction spell scaling they should at least put in an enchant to increase the %dmg it deals, that way it doesn't interefere with those that don't want to play with destruction being decent at higher levels.

There's a cap on melee damage too -- even if you allow for enchantments and so on. So, unless the melee cap is higher than the magic cap, you have nothing to complain about.

Gary, read what destruction damage does, then see how much damage you can deal with a melee weapon that has been upgraded.

This whole argument about "there are only so many spells, and then your damage is capped" is only sound if the cap on melee damage (yes, it exists) is higher than the cap on magic damage.

Yes, there is a cap on melee damage. Just suit up your character with the best weapon setup and fit ever part of his outfit with some melee-enhancing enchantments. There is a finite cap on the damage that can be done by such giddups.

No, you are wrong...


A warrior can do more power attacks as their stamina increases AND each attack will continue to do more damage as they buff their damage from other trees(enchanting, smithing). Their regular attack cost NO STAMINA and will still out damage even the best destruction spells.

A mage will ONLY be able to increase the number of spells they can cast over time, while the spells continue to hit like a wet noodle. To put it another way, a destruction mage can make their wet noodle longer... wow, really great there....

Seriously ffs, the FACTS have already been posted many times.

Read my profile status posts and comments. Then you'll see where I'm coming from. You'll see that all of my arguments derive from well reasoned logic and a strong background in academics.

I think a simple fix would be to have Apprentice -> Master levels of every single destruction spell, so that they don't need to 'scale', but you can have the high damage spells late in the game when you've earned them. Instead of Flames doing 10 fire damage per second it could do, say, 100 at Master level.

Are we talking about the melee cap where you can forge 2742 damage swords and then dual weld them for over 16,000 damage ?
and not forgetting 2469 armor sets and 90% magic resistance