Being ignorant about smithed weapons values.
Take the smithing out of equation and we got


its 1k burst and 28 dps vs 1k burst and 28 dps.


Yet he still uses smithing to get the sword from 14 dmg to 100 dmg. Are you still sure about the fairness of not using 2 skill trees ?

I never said destruction doesn't svck... in fact I went so far as to point out it does 1/10 the damage of a 1h sword.

But if you had 4x cost reduction + 4x damage boost(40% each like weapons) and you didn't have the ridiculous crafting boosting going on it would be well balanced with weapons that received similar treatment(legendary upgrade + 4x damage boost).

I think he's assuming the 0% magicka cost cheat is being used in those calculations.

But its not, and magicka is severely lowering dps.

Wrong, you only need a sliver of stamina to do a power attack

Have no illusions,this is just lowering the difficulty slider.

http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=611 isn't half,...no isn't 1/10th as powereful as infinite magicka tricks.

Have no illusion, this entire thread is based off of an enchanting exploit that makes the game easier than novice and completely trivializes the whole point of playing.

There's many things we wish we have, but we don't. And it has been proven (seriously, did you read anything) that in the absence of crafting of ANY KIND, destruction still falls flat on its buttocks compared to melee.

So power attack is bugged and you are exploiting it, and comparing that to a balanced damage skill.

1H/2H/Bow/Conjuration all do more DPS than Destro and don't require an exploit

Theres a reason why people are mostly making destro mods and not melee/bow/conjure mods.

He doesn't use smithing. He's using this thing called math and percentages to show how the perks in the one handed perk tree improve your attacks, and thus why it is a daedric sword is doing 100 damage PER SECOND. Not per hit, PER SECOND. You are attacking faster than 1 hit a second with swords with the perks in the 1 hand tree. Hell, he didn't even factor in the elemental fury shout.

And for the record, those numbers for melee are TOO LOW. He didn't include the amount of damage improvement you get from simply leveling your 1 handed skill.

EDIT: Actually he does take into account the increase in weapon damage from leveling the one handed skill. Thats why the sword does 100 damage. However he did say that there is a possibility that his number was too low.

The point of a mage in nearly any other RPG is to have to either run away or die a LOT at low levels, picking up at midgame, and by endgame to be godly and clear out entire rooms, while only being vulnerable to things like mana burn/damage magicka.

Here are the maximim damages using fully enchanted gear for the various class/damage types:

Archer:

562 Damage. Sneaking: 1686

The archer, by his nature, can practically use sneak for every attack so his PRACTICAL damage will be 1686. If we add in potions, it becomes 3726

Fighter:

518 damage(one hand) Sneaking: 3108
605 damage (two handed) Sneaking:3630
1036 damage(dual wield) Sneaking: 6216

That's 518, 605, or 1036 practical damage. Adding potions, we get 1192, 1391, 2384.

Mage:

90 Damage, 180 dual cast (or is that 60/90 - I'm not sure)

The master spells aren't particularly practical due to their long charge times, and with the exception of firestorm, don't deal instant damage. No sneak bonus for magic. Mages are also limited by the fact that they could run out of magicka if they don't have their gear enchanted so that spells cost 0 magicka. This is by no means cheesy, as both warriors and archers are capable of using their attacks on an unlimited basis, and doing ridiculously more damage with them. Personally I find being an impact-wh*re to be cheesy, but that deends on your play style, and is a definite advantage. I also like using a shield, but I started out with the impression there would be a "flames" type close range spell at higher levels that being a heavy armored blockmage would be a practical build.

This leaves mages with either 90 or 180 maximum practical damage, and either 60 or 90 if they want to use a shield. This is a PROBLEM. This makes a mage not a viable character at high difficulty and mid to endgame. I will reiterate - pure destruction Mages are supposed to be "glass cannons". They have been downgraded to "Glass Joe".

How this could be improved:

Quiet Casting adds a damage bonus to stealth magic attacks (3x just like archery is fair)

increase the damage granted by fortify frost/shock/fire perks

increase base damage of adept and master spells


edit: The notion that the devs had NO IDEA people would make enchantments to lower their magicka consumption to zero or near zero is absurd and frankly pretty insulting.

Read for basic math on weapons stamina use http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1279078-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-3/page__view__findpost__p__19432824

If you want a fair math here then (still this is so biast in favour of meele 1vs1):

Basic sword 21 dmg with perk 42, dual sword power attack 126 dmg (21x2x2x1,5) a hit
Destro lighting storm master level 112.5 dmg with 47 mana usage per second.

We skip the realistic values of health:stamina of meele and magica of mage and go with the bogust 500 stamina and 500 mana values.
we go with 4 dual power attacks in favour of meele ( 72x2x0.75=108 stamina per power attack )

500 stamina gives us 4 dual power attacks that gives us 126dmg x 4 = 504 dmg per stamina bar
500 mana gives us 10 seconds of spell attack that gives 112.5 dmg x 10 = 11125 dmg per mana bar

Conclusion for non-mage race: 504 meele dmg << 1125 destro dmg

normal attacks take 65 mili-second to swing (altough Im not sure this works in an INT value, yes the animtion might be faster but is the dmg really too) one sword so we`re doing a constant 65 dmg per second.
spell dmg does 112.5 dmg per second but only for 10 seconds.

Conclusion for any mage race: 65 meele DPS <<< 112.5 destro DPS

There is the penalty of mana running out after 10 seconds but we are fighting one oponent and we are gonna kill him anyway if hes 1k health,
This dosnt take into account the value of disintegrate that kills an enemy that has less than 20% health. ( if enemy has 1k hp then he dies instantly if he falls below 200 hp, bonus of 200hp less dmg to deal per enemy )
Doesnt take into value racial bonus of 50 magica, with it the mana bar dmg would be 1237 dmg per mana bar.
This conclusion dosnt take into account +magica gear (to be fair, really ) and makes the mage naked while the meele build uses armor to not get 1 hit kill in close range combat

If we want to be a bit more fair then

500 stamina gives us 4 dual power attacks that gives us 126dmg x 4 = 504 dmg per stamina bar
550 mana gives us 10 seconds of spell attack that gives 112.5 dmg x 11 = 1237 dmg per mana bar

Conclusion for mage race: 504 meele dmg << 1237 destro dmg
If target has 1k health then we need only (1000/126*0.65) 5 seconds to kill it but need 1000 stamina <<<< [(1000-200)/112.5] 7 seconds to kill with destro and still have left over magica from the mana bar

Edit.
Corrected the one handed dmg value on deadric sword non-upgraded.
Corrected the time bonus for faster dual attacks.
Corrected the avaible power attacks based on test from this post: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1279078-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-3/page__view__findpost__p__19432824

This thread offers intended in-game mechanics to be a proper mage.

The first mod does nothing but increase the damage of spells by an arbitrary amount.
The second mod is a bunch of copy and past of the same spell at different levels to do more damage and doesn't support dual-casting.
The third mod is another one that just raises the damage of spells and lowers the mana cost by an arbitrary amount.

None of them are useful for console players and are effectively just lowering the difficulty slider.

This kind of depends on how you think the game is supposed to be, but a lot of people are pointing at broken 1-h damage and saying "LOOK THEY 1SHOT DRAGONS DESTRUCTION SHOULD 1SHOT DRAGONS TOO", which ofc is [censored] Rtarded. Its the result of people playing the game on the hardest difficulty expecting not to be required to use their resources. In oblivion if you did not utilize enchanting and alchemy with ANY playstyle you were in for hard times. In skyrim the expectation is that you should be able to kill everything in the room without having to use a mana potion or utilizing alchemy even on MASTER difficulty.
And if they can't? Apparently they will install mods to make the game easier for them, when in fact these people should simply be lowering the slider. I realize this may be admitting to themselves that they are not actually looking for Master difficulty challenge, but the fact is that they simply are not looking for a Master difficulty challenge.

If I were to install those mods, this game would be so ridiculously easy that I would not find it fun anymore. Why even have a difficulty slider if you're just going to ghetto-mod the spells to do more damage?
I would like to see an intelligent magic system mod, but these are just lazy first-to-press mods.
If you're going to mod magic, redo the whole magic system entirely.

I'm sure 39k backstabs and Oghma Infinium Book to max all skills to 100 were intended.

Not as easy as the exploits this thread suggests, fact. With those mods you still run out of magicka farily quickly.

With the cheats you suggest the game is simply far far easier than those mods


lol wut? all math figures show the opposite, and actual gameplay shows the opposite. Have you played a dw character?

So are you going to factor in the damage increase from leveling up one handed skill or are you okay with 15 skill in one handers doing ~83% of the damage a master destruction mage can muster? Either that or maybe its time to buy a better sword material than Iron...

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/One-Handed

Everything factored in. 100% from arsman and 50% when dual wielding power attack.

Oddly, I prefer the novice level electrical spell the most
Looks like the Sith Lord lightning, and is extremely cheap and effective even at around level 25ish

Except you didn't factor everything in. That link shows nothing but perks, and you made no mention of attack speed increases. Furthermore, weapon BASE DAMAGE is not what you need to use, but weapon damage after figuring in 100 skill in 1 handed.

Pro tip: a daedric sword does more than 14 damage at 100 one handed skill without taking any perks in the one handed tree.

Well, unlike a lot of the replies to this thread, I thank you my good sir! I was having problems with my mage, and when I roll another mage character out later (I saved over the previously mentioned mage by accident ) and I'll make sure to heed your advice

weapon damage increases as one-hand does , and the base is higher


There is a MOD that scales the 3 sprays a bit higher, so u can use them up to I think 40. I forgot what its called search on the NExus

Yeah missed that it does 21 dmg with 100 skill in one hand, my bad.
Attack speed increas doesnt do much because were going per full stamina/mana bar, its just gonna use the bar quicker.

Your non power attacks consume 0 stamina. Faster attack speed increases your damage per second substantially. If you don't understand what this means, take more math classes. If i have a weapon that does 100 damage per second, and I decrease the amount of time needed to swing said weapon by 35%, I've just increased my damage per second by 35% which is a fairly hefty number. Increasing attack speed has 0 effect on power attacks and the rate at which it drains stamina.

Going "oh oh I do 200 damage a hit" when you hit every 2 seconds is worse than saying "I do 50 damage a hit" when i attack every .35 seconds.

Faster attack only works for dual power attacks, take some reading comprehension classes yourself. We have a finite stamina and mana bar and a finite hp pool on the enemy - our speed dosnt change anything. The weapon does dmg per hit not per second, so yes you can make more dmg per second with dual wilding but your still limited with the stamina bar.

Just going to ignore it?

Again, why should I play my game by your rules? I don't want to play your mage, I want to play mine.