I didn't mean OTT next to mages, I meant OTT next to each other.

Why on earth would you bother with a 2H, save for style, next to a 1H? A 1H which I can either have more defence with a shield, or just use two of them to go nuts.

Lets not talk about the daggers 15-30x multipliers >.<

This is a game, style is more important than anything else basically.

After experimenting yesterday I discovered that you don't actually need to perk alchemy in order to achieve a 27% fortify spell school enchantment. Updated OP.

You've conveniently forgotten that you can swing a Daedric 2H sword about 3 times in the time it takes to charge up a Firestorm spell once. That Firestorm spell will do 150 damage, if and only if the enemy is stood RIGHT on top of the caster, which is pretty unlikely given how easily mages get killed at melee range. To put it another way:

Daedric 2H sword has roughly 210 damage per second.
Firestorm (most powerful spell) has roughly 50 damage per second, absolute maximum (assuming 3-second charging time).

On top of that a 2H sword can have its damage increased by power attacking, and then doubled by sprint-power-attacking. This can also be done repeatedly, and the 210 DPS figure remains intact even when the player runs out of stamina. Conversely, a mage HAS to use the -100% magicka cost exploit in order to be able to cast Firestorm more than once, because of its punitive magicka cost. If the mage runs out of magicka, his DPS goes from 50 to absolute zero.

EDIT: I've just realised you were talking about Lightning Storm, instead of Firestorm (which has the most base damage of any spell). Lightning Storm still has an absurd magicka cost and cannot be cast when the mage has no magicka left - which will happen very quickly UNLESS you use the magicka cost enchantment exploit. Even if you do, DPS is substantially lower than melee, at a maximum of 112.5 DPS (which is less than my level 35 character does with his battleaxe, not even using top gear and with 70ish 2-handed, 85ish Smithing and 70ish Enchanting, and no +Smithing enchantments).

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1287831-bugged-illusion-perks/

o/ yeap, illusion is destromages best friend and "scaling"

Conveniently for you, you use the master spells with long time against a 2H sword. An expert spell double cast like thunderstorm can do 200 dmg in the same time it takes you to swing your 2H, the dmg is even. Your doing a power attack ? that takes longer than casting the spell and your vulnerable and use a lot of stamina (that you wont have much). Doing a sprint and power attack ? Even more stamina drain and its hard to hit anything ( ppl say its bugged too ).

A dualcast will stagger enemies while you need to hit the enemy with power attack to stagger him.
Destro is long ranged while your 2H is close ranged your in a disadvantage. I can hit the 2-3 times for free before you even get close to him.
Chain lightning while a bit lower dmg has the advantage of chaining on 3 enemies at a time. Couple that with the disintegrate perk that kills an enemy with less than 15-20% his full hp point and you get free kills.

You can easily buy/find/enchant less mana destruction gear and couple that with the 50% mana reduction perks your efficiently can cast a lot of high level spells to kill anything in a fight and you dont need to spend any perks in enchanting. You can even use casting time and dmg spell potions from in-game merchants to help you out.

Dual casting is a waste of mana, and I think we can all agree that chain staggering is as big of an exploit as enchanting for 0 magicka costs. Furthermore, being in close range as melee is NOT a disadvantage. I promise you the melee guys are wearing armor, and can take far FAR more blows than your mage can. The melee guy also doesn't have to play 'dance around the table' with the boss drauger for five minutes in order to kill him.

You sharpen your blades don't you? You enchant your blades don't you? The only exploit here is when you reduce your mana usage to 0%. Master robes reduce mana cost by 22% normal destruction enchantments reduce by 25% each, with 50% mana perks you're looking at 18 mana firestorms, or 60 mana firestorms with Archmage robes.
Use robes of archmage and 27% enchants (possible WITHOUT perking alchemy and using only STORE BOUGHT alchemy gear) and you're looking at 24 mana firestorms.
Don't reduce your mana cost to 0 and there is no exploit.

And now we need a comparison between a Destruction mage with all cast-cost-reducing enchantments versus an archer with all archery-damage-boosting enchantments.

God this system is just moronic. Having to play how much of a certain enchant is an exploit so you can balance the game is freaking stupid. I have no desire to have to fine tune my enchants up and down to find a place that is a challenge and yet not tedious. And this is disregarding the entire concept of how much this makes skills worthless to level without certain gear for people not focused on the subject but just want to be okay in a school and how lame it makes certain perks.

You're missing the point and you are way out of touch with melee skills.

The point is WHY DO MAGES NEED ENCHANTING IN ORDER TO BE VIABLE DOWN THE LINE? Mages should be viable without enchanting. Enchanting should only make you overpowered should you decide to go down that path. Melee DOESN'T need enchanting OR smithing in order to be viable but those same skills will make them overpowered. See the difference?

Also, having to close quarters as melee is hardly a big deal, you have sprinting and various shouts to deal with that. You're also wrong that melee can only attack one thing at a time. There are perks that will allow them to attack enemies that are directly in front of them in a cone. These comparisons are made in a single player game for reference (at least in my casse) not because of "competition".

Yeah you waste 80% more mana than normal 2x1h but you get a 20% more dmg too, you are a mage you got mostly magica and a bit of health. Your wearing robes that give you less mana cost on spells, +magica and +magica regen. Your using looted/enchanted gear with mana reduction and coresponding perks so you can afford to dualcast. The stagger perk is more than enought for that mana usage, and no chain lighting isnt an exploit you only stagger the first enemie that gets hit not them all.

chain staggering is as big of an exploit as enchanting for 0 magicka costs

Like I said chain lighting isnt an exploit, as isnt the 0 mana one either because you can get that with basic enchanting, no need for special enchanting pots.
Your 200 dmg dual sword is already using synergies betwen alchemy/smithing/enchanting to get to the 200 dmg value that in itself could be called an exploit but I still use that value for reference because I believe its ok to get to it with basic pots/gear avaible from looting/buying/basic enchanting/brewing.

Furthemore my mage with robes can get the same level of dmg and magic reduction as your heavy armored buid. The only difference is you will be close and get damaged while I wont because im long ranged. The boss wont be a problem either because I gonna stager him

But in a game where you should always be albe to play as you want to?...

There should be lot's of viable ways to make a mage, not just one. If someone wants to be have fearsome spell damage, they should be able to do so. If someone wants to be unparralelled in summonings, they should be able to do so. If someone want to be a master of illusions, they should be able to do so. Furthermore, If you decide to focus so heavily in one school over the others, there should be some kind of perk or bonus for specializing since many of the other schools would take a hit. THAT is the pro/con of being a specialist, no?

And somehow, you're NOT forgetting that mages have to expend the same amount if not MORE points just to fall somewhere UNDER you... /facepalm

This is more an argument that melee is stupidly broken with its support skills than anything. Mages with enchanting and potions can also become unfun in that your mana bar literally disappears and does not appear on your screen, but not ridiculously overpowered just from enchanting alone.
With potions and poisons yes a destruction mage approaches the overpoweredness of fully tradeskilled dual-wielders. (not in terms of overkill damage, but in terms of bosses getting dropped in 2 seconds)

Should mages do this overpowered damage all the time? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Just stop listening to the people that say it takes forever to kill things with destruction, they literally don't know what they are talking about.

You can trivialize a boss fight if you want to with destruction just use your potions. If you want to trivialize bossfights 24/7, thats up to you. Run around on master difficulty one-shotting everything with dual-wield, why not go for it.

Me, I do not want to do [censored] damage with destruction. I do TONS of damage with it already, If you want even more damage then I dare say that you aren't looking for a challenge even though you're playing on master difficulty, you really want to be playing on novice difficulty.

So removing the only restriction on mages (magicka bar) isn't an exploit? So then removing fatigue is just fine and dandy?

And lets talk about that heavy armored build. You are going to put perks into three skill trees, and only 3 skill trees. Smithing, Heavy armor, and one handed (dual wielding). None in enchanting. You get one weapon of your choice with soul trap, the other with absorb stamina, and pick up azura's star while your at it (black or white version, doesn't matter). When you level up, you can put EVERY POINT into health, because thanks to absorb stamina, you always have 1 fatigue to use your power attack. Using no other enchants, you just turned a character into the juggernaut, no joke. I didn't even say what guardian stone to use, though it really doesn't matter.

This build removes the fatigue bar from melee combat, just like removing the magicka bar from mages. The difference is that the melee build can very much just jump into the middle of a group of enemies, and kill them all without even breaking a sweat. A mage who put every point into magicka just to be able to cast some of the stronger spells will die in one hit with some enemies. And what does he gain for this disadvantage? The ability to stun lock an enemy to death? If I wanted to stun lock something to death, I'd play a rogue in WoW. The destruction perk tree doesn't consist of "interesting choices", it consists of mandatory perks. Every LAST one of them (save for increasing the range runes can be cast). Dual casting that staggers your enemies (up to, and including dragons) is cheap, no way about it. +50% damage to three types of magic damage is a joke when enemies later in the game have at least +400% health than they used to. More than that I'd wager. The minute you reach 100 destruction, you have plateaued in power. That is the strongest you'll ever be. It is very literally downhill from there, and that is a fact.

Breaking the game with enchants, and then saying, "See, I can do okay" doesn't mean it is okay. If destruction magic was weak in Oblivion, would you say the solution was to enchant a 100% chameleon suit of armor so you could attack without ever being attacked? If destruction magic was weak in Morrowind, would you say the solution was to soul trap glich your way to godhood? Besides, why have 0% destruction spell costs, when you could have 0% restoration costs, or 0% conjuration costs? Free heals, or even better, free minions! This is the problem! Every school of magic, with the exception of restoration (which has no damage moves) and alteration (which also has no damaging moves) will have a higher damage potential at 100 skill than destruction, a school who's only purpose is to hurt things. This is wrong.

All this problems can be fixed with a minor adjastment in a patch.

*Add passive destruction dmg on the expert-adept -ect perks

*In-combat mana regen same as out of combat mana regen when on full cloth

*Reduction of base destruction magicka costs of Master lvl while increasing their base dmg to justiy their long casting time/preparation.

It's like adding 3 lines of equations to the game's code.At least to help us poor people on a console.

People have to stop trying to get people to stop complaining... it will never happen.

Your missing the point here - mana reduction is the only thing we can do with perks and enchants while meele can only get more dmg. Its balanced that way so if you perk and enchant your gear/loot gear that makes you deal more damage then its fair for mages to reduce they`re own mana drain. Furthemore meele can hit unlimited times , only power attacks need stamina while mages need mana to do anything so its natural that we have the ability to choose 1-2 spell trees to cast for 0 mana.

There are no stamina reduction enchants so no you should not be able to make a non-stamina power attacker this is just a bug your using for your own benefit while mana reduction is something planed by the devs.

A mage who put every point into magicka just to be able to cast some of the stronger spells will die in one hit with some enemies.

A mage can have half a meele health and same dmg/magic resistance so no I will not die in one hit, I can go into the fray and slash my sword while still casting spells. You think that your good just because your using a bug and dont need to have any stamina, if the bug didnt exist you would need a good amount of stamina to health versus a normal mage. A 0 mana casting mage on the other hand can have the same amount of health as your 0 stamina meele.

Dual casting that staggers your enemies (up to, and including dragons) is cheap, no way about it. +50% damage to three types of magic damage is a joke when enemies later in the game have at least +400% health than they used to.

If you say so then staggering enemies with power attacks that cost 0 stamina is as cheap as 0 mana casting. So your just playing it the cheap way as a meele and are angry at ppl who do the same being a mage O.o
+50% isnt maybe so great but that doesnt just stack for destruction spells, it works for staffs and elemental enchanted weapons stats.

Breaking the game with enchants, and then saying, "See, I can do okay" doesn't mean it is okay. If destruction magic was weak in Oblivion, would you say the solution was to enchant a 100% chameleon suit of armor so you could attack without ever being attacked? If destruction magic was weak in Morrowind, would you say the solution was to soul trap glich your way to godhood? Besides, why have 0% destruction spell costs, when you could have 0% restoration costs, or 0% conjuration costs? Free heals, or even better, free minions! This is the problem! Every school of magic, with the exception of restoration (which has no damage moves) and alteration (which also has no damaging moves) will have a higher damage potential at 100 skill than destruction, a school who's only purpose is to hurt things. This is wrong.

Im not breaking the game with enchants, I dont even need to enchant my stuff to deal colosal dmg for low amount of mana. Its you the meele build who needs to brake stuff to even come close to my dmg range.
You need to smith your weapons using gear and pots to even come close to my dmg radious. Then you need enchants on your gear to get to the same level as I am.

I think that you should have more of a say as to just what sort of caster that you want to play as I spoke about earlier instead of HAVING to take certain skills in order to be viable. It kinda defeats the purpose of having a concept in your mind only to find out that you can't have it in a game that has ALWAYS been about playing the way that you want to play. What happened to that?? I think it would add a lot more depth to this game if you could specialize in one or two things and get bonuses or perks as a reward for specializing for a sacrifice. I.E. - You are a master of destruction with a minor in alteration and restoration. Everything else is average/low. In fact, I never really played oblivion but didn't they have something along those lines in that game?

Yeah, still does not change the fact that additive stacking of mana reducing enchants feels soo cheesy.

So stacking mana enchants is cheesy but stacking meele/ranged dmg enchants or dmg/magic resistance enchants is not O.o
They are there to use its not like we moded them in, they`re were designed by the devs in that way.
Guess playing as a mage and getting the archmage robes as a reward must feel cheesy to you. (+15 mana reduction too ALL spell trees)

I know that magicka cost reduction is the only thing a mage can do. That is one of the problems. Why we weren't given +% do damage is a question I would like answered.

It was a slight exaggeration to say that a mage will die in one hit. A mage won't need any points in magicka because he can cast free spells later, which if you spend just a mere moment thinking about it, is stupid.

You don't have a 100% chance to stagger enemies with melee power attacks, or maybe then my melee power attacks are broken as I haven't seen every power attack stagger an enemy. As it stands though, you DON'T NEED melee power attacks to stagger because you're more sturdy than an Abram Tank. I'm not angry at how anyone plays their game, but I'd rather not be a one trick pony and be pigeonholed into staggering my enemies to death with incinerate or what have you.

That bit you said about enchanting is wrong. If you're a mage, you are using enchanted gear. You have to, unless by massive damage you mean you just spent your whole mana bar casting one dual cast thunderbolt. Good job there. Melee doesn't need enchants OR smithing to be viable, destruction magic does. The best thing a destruction mage can do to help his damage is to pick up conjuration and stop casting destruction spells. Get it through your thick skull already, I'm tired of sounding like a broken record: destruction magic as a source of damage is out shined by other schools of magic, when destruction ONLY HAS ONE PURPOSE.

The diference of the above unlimited stamina/magicka is that unlimited stamina WILL increase melee ranged output but unlimited magicka (which can be achived now) does NOT increase destruction magic output.
All come to defend the melee output as if someone said that it needs re balancing.Most mages want only for destruction magic feel more DESTRUCTIVE on higher difficulties that the default and on higher levels that level 30.
Destruction skill needs a fix and that is a fact.People unable to see it haven't use destruction seriously other than running around on cities and killing npcs there thinking they rock.

Magicka isn't the problem, it never was and it never will be. The problem is damage scaling, or the entire lack of. Using the currently ridiculously powerful (and pretty much broken) Enchanting to reduce/remove Magicka costs doesn't stop a Destruction Mage having to stand around hitting a target 10+ times on NORMAL difficulty to kill it.

Fail thread with a fail solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Honestly even if Magicka costs were a problem this thread would only go in aiding the point that Destruction is terrible at the moment. Anything that has to make use of Enchanting and/or Alchemy and/or Smithing to be viable is in dire need of improvement.