This post is in good faith that people will maybe read before posting that "Magic/Destruction/Mages are fine, L2P" thread.

Damage increasing stuff:

1) 1h/2h/bow get improved damage as your skill goes up. At 100 1h skill, any given weapon does more damage than at 20 skill. Not a single magic school gets more damage as skill goes up.
2) 1h/2h/bow have +100% damage perks (in general) as well as other damage enhancing perks (bow +crit chance, for example). Magic has +50%, nothing else.
3) You can Smith to increase damage for 1h/2h/bow. You cannot up magic damage with Smithing.
4) You can Enchant with + damage to 1h/2h/bow (+25% at least per piece if you can find/make them). You cannot increase any magic damage with any enchantments, ever.

Magic works amazingly well from level 1-35ish. Level 35+ it starts falling fast, since there is no way to increase the damage after that, period. No new spells, no enchants, smithing, or perks.

The problems would probably be completely mitigated if magic damage scaled with skill in that magic line. Mods will probably fix it in time. Be patient.

This thread contains facts. Those stating "destruction is OP!" are level 20 mages and don't listen to facts about how weak level 50 (edit: destruction) spellcasting is.

Seems like this really only applies to destruction magic.

Which means I should be pretty fine and dandy with conjuration bounded weapons and illusion/alteration support magic =)

nope. conjuration bound weapons are fixed in damage. they are somewhat equivalent to daedric weapon and that's good! only it can't be enchanted or improved by smithing. I don't know if armor enchantments increasing weapon damage apply to conjured weapons, but its clear that conjured weapon cannot compete once you get to enchant and craft/improve your weapon on your own.

Doesn't increasing a magic skill reduce the magicka cost of the spells in that skill?

irrelevant to topic

This is true. But that is a long ways away for my character, and by then, I should have enchanting high enough with good enough enchants and I should also find some daedric weapons by then. But that is far away for me. And it doesn't change the fact that I'll have two dremora (or maybe even something better) taking the hits, crowd controlling spells, and other things to make my adventuring cool and interesting.

Honestly, I don't see what the fuss is. If you are such a min/maxer that it governs what you play, then enjoy your warrior. I highly doubt mages are going to crumble to complete [censored] just because they don't scale. And even if they do, I call that a challenge =)

you see all these posts saying his magic doesnt even leave a scratch in enemy's health bars and still think that way?

Right. Because challenge should happen at the high/top levels where you are supposed to be stronger than before.

/facepalm

Just out of curiousity. Are you guys level 50+ and have destruction mages and experiencing this?

its not irrelevent if it means you can cast the spell twice as much

Unlike some posters, yes. We actually know what we're talking about through experience

There is a lot of [censored] being thrown around these forums is why I ask. Hell, one guy even said "magic is fine, I get killed by mages all the time, they do a lot of damage".

I'll take what you say into consideration for sure about the scaling. I'm playing a conjure/illusion stealth/assassin character, and I was debating about where to allocate perks down the road after I was satisfied with conjuration. It is clear that one-handed was indeed the correct choice

Uhhh? Use potions then, it'll weaken your enemy and therefore make your spells more effective. Use different potions to make your spells more powerful and your enemies more effected by a certain type of damage. Easy.

You won't live long enough to cast it more.

are there enchants to increase destruction damage by XX%?

Bethesda dropped the ball when they forgot to replace spellmaking with something useful. The flash and fluff of the new system doesn't even come close to making up for the utility of being able to make you own spells. Spellmaking is what gave mages in previous games the ability to manipulate spell effects with strengths and durations. It enabled upper level mages to craft spells to their play style or cast a spell that is more in line with their skill level than the vanilla skills could do. Since they removed spellmaking I assumed there would be something that allowed the mage to manipulate spells without the need to make new spells.

I thought: Surely they would not be so stupid as to eliminate all semblance of control for testing and playing around with spells....as all sweet mages like to do....

Surely they are not that stupid....

take the restoration ward in another hand use alteration! the problem i saw in oblivion was that i could survrive purly on destruction, it doesn't seem to work in skyrim

Where did people get the idea that Spells scale with level? when they never did that? oh look something spellmaking was used for, Opps whats that? where are all those folks beating the drum about how happy they were spell making is gone?

i miss spell making too

No, which is what these threads are all about.

I have a level 50 mage and I face little to no difficulty staying alive. True damage doesn't scale but by level 50 you should have a decent destruction skill allowing you to cast everything an enormous amount of times.

You should, by then, have a repetoir of spell schools to call upon at any given moment. I don't know about this spells not leaving a mark in enemy health bars...Mine do.

If i'm dual casting and summoning I can take down anything with the master level spells. Still having magic left over.

How in the hell are you guys struggling so much actually? there are thousands of options to approaching any one battle and destruction magic is extremely powerful. I don't use many or any novice level spells actually. I have a crap ton of alteration spells many illusion, many conjuration, and some heavily invested restoration. My master robes soak up almost all of the casting I do farely quickly.

I'm also never just standing around either. As a mage living in skyrim I am not stupid into thinking I don't need some gear. I always carry a blade with me AND a bow even though i'm not very good with either they are handy in some situations.

I have a slew of potions and scrolls as any true mage should and have tricks up my sleeve for every situation.

I feel extremely powerful as a mage, summoning fire storms and blizzards on command. Paralyzing enemies and turning them against one another.

You guys sound like naive mages who run out there with two destruction spells, no companions or anything, and try to just fire away and then start running when you run out of magic.

I have shield spells that offer really good protection also combined with mage armor AND use restoration protection spells. Sometimes I even carry a shield if I find a good one and feel I might need it. all depends.

There are just TOO MANY points I can make that say mages overall are underpowered compared to warriors that I can write a book on it. Here are just a few

1. Destruction never gets stronger.

2. Mage spells are either too weak or cost too much mana to sustain in a fight.

3. Mage runs out of mana, has to run. Warrior runs out of stamina, continues to pound heavy damage.

4. Mages do less damage than warriors AND are 10-100x less durable in battle.

5. Master level destruction spells take 5 seconds to cast, cost too much mana, and don't get stronger after you get them at level 50 while monsters get stronger.

6. Warrior late game can have insanely strong legendary armor and weapons that do 500 damage per regular swing without power swing and tank like a god, mages have the 100 damage master spell that takes 5 seconds to cast when they are vulnerable.

7. Warriors can faceroll through the game with 2 skills and two hack buttons. Mages need to constantly switch spells, run around, drink potions, use shouts, use lydia, ect just to get by.

8. Robes with magic regen/cost reduction is nowhere near as good as the armor that makes warriors unstoppable late game.

9. Warriors with heavy armor and weapons can whip out their flame spell anytime and do as much damage as a mage while able to tank so much more, mages who want to fight with swords end up getting [censored].

10. I have yet to find a pure mage at any level able to complete the main quest line, I see warriors level 20ish complete it easily.

11. A TON of people complain about destruction being underpowered and mages in general compared to warriors. No one complains about warriors be underpowered, only overpowered.

12. This is a TES game. Players should be able to play how they want. If they want to focus on destruction without much help in other magic fields they should be able to do that. Game favors warriors heavily to faceroll through the game.

13. In even decently balanced games, warriors can always tank more damage while mages do much more damage and can nuke from afar. Mage destruction spells are mid-close range spells and can't nuke while warriors do more damage. In league of legends we see spell casters like ryze who die instantly and move slowly but can nuke so well and does more damage than tanks like malphite who are very hard to kill but barely do any damage. Imagine if malphite did more nuke damage than ryze. Who in their right mind would want to play ryze then? Everyone would want to play malphite. Same thing is going on here. People play the more balanced characters and like to play by what is better. This is an elder scrolls game and people should be able to play how they like but instead are forced to be melee or struggle through as a mage.

If this is true, why would bethesda do it? How could something so obviously problematic be ignored!!!

I really wish we could do spell making now!

Could a patch fix this?

battlemage anyone? im 43 and sure they could buff it or make it scale a bit but damn, all this complaining lol.