Problem: Most people don't know how to efficiently utilize their higher level spells. Primary complaint is for destruction.

Proposed Solution: Alchemy and Enchanting.

Case: Now before you call it exploitative, let us anolyze the mana cost of a sample of expert and master tier spells.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction_Spells
Thunderbolt - A Thunderbolt that does 60(90) points of shock damage to Health and half that to Magicka, 294 base, 125 perked + archmage robes, 300 dual-cast
Fire Storm - A 100(150) point fiery explosion centered on the caster. Does more damage to closer targets, 1222 base, 519 perked + archmage robes

The mana pool difference between the Apprentice mage and the Expert mage is a couple hundred at most. My mage at level 45 does not even have enough mana to cast a single firestorm.

I hope this example has convinced you that Enchanting is a necessity in order to scale your spell casting at higher levels. I hold these trues to be self evident.


Starter's guide for enchanting Fortify :
There are 4 items that can be enchanted with Fortify . The helmet/circlet, necklace, ring, and armor/robes.
I for one will choose to stick with the Archmage robes because they just look too cool to stop using, so that leaves me with 3 places with which to enchant
100 Enchanting: 10% less mana usage.
w/ 5/5 Enchanter: 20% less mana usage.
w/ Insightful Enchanter: 25% less mana usage.
w/ Non-exploited Enchantment potion: 27% less mana usage.
w/ Exploited Enchantment potion: 29% less mana usage.

EDIT: For a 27% Fortify enchantment you don't actually need to perk alchemy, but you probably want to anyways!

So if we do the math on the different levels of improved enchanting 3 items + Archmage robes, the resulting percentage of base mana use percentage:
100 Enchanting: 27.5%
w/ 5/5 Enchanter: 12.5%
w/ Insightful Enchanter: 5%
w/ Non-exploited Enchantment potion: 2%
w/ Exploited Enchantment potion: 0%

As you can see, we must use our enchanting, but we must also use self-control, for getting your mana costs down to the right amount is a delicate balance, and is really left up to your personal preferences on how often do you want to chug mana potions.
It is possible to achieve 4% (with 25/25/27), 3% (with 25/25/29), and 1% (with 27/27/29) as well.

Personally I find anything less than 2% to be exploiting and not fun, but if you exploit to achieve 3% I think thats perfectly legit, I mean what the hell your using MORE mana!
I personally think the sweet spot is between 5% and 3%. Less than 3% uses such an insignificant amount of mana that it just isn't fun anymore. More than 5% and you'll find yourself emptying your mana bar to burn down a common enemy. If you're an alchemist and enchanter, play around with the combinations until you find a balance that you like. My goal is to have my expert level bolts consume 11 to 16 mana, somewhere in that range.
Its a pretty easy choice if you don't want to level alchemy! But theres some irony there because you'll need more mana pots than the alchemist will. :\



Scaling the effect of your spells:
So now that you're using the appropriate spells at a appropriate mana cost. What about damage? What about dragon priests resisting pacify? What about Dragonskin's meagure duration?
This is where you want to be an alchemist, because the only thing that ups your damage output or duration of spells are potions, and alchemists make the best ones by a long shot. I'll let the pictures do the talking, just the relavant potions:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2a6jlmd.jpg

Also a before and after shot of Thunderbolt damage with a destruction potion: (I don't have my destruction spells perked btw thats why the mana cost is a weird amount)
http://i40.tinypic.com/2dme42b.jpg

If you want to make slightly weaker potions then only wear the 25% alchemy gear.
This helps with many things mage related beyond damage and healing. This would allow you to summon creatures that will last the duration of a long fight, would allow Dragonskin armor buff to last the full duration of a long fight, boost destruction damage through the roof, allow your illusion spells to work on higher level creatures, etc. Alchemy allows you to be a much more diverse mage without having to be a fully invested master of every school, you can happily stay an adept at something and still be extremely powerful at it. Even destruction, if you didn't want to go expert tier and only want to use it as supplementary damage, chug a potion and do more damage with firebolt than you would with incinerate. So you can see that alchemy is a very important and extremely powerful tool.


Uhm, thats it really. Lower your mana cost, use your expert and master tier spells, and in those tough spots where [censored] just needs to die fast, use potions.

Hope someone finds this helpful. I'm not saying that the spell system isn't weird and kind of dumb, but by no means is it weak. Ideally you could effectively use spells without combinations of enchanting and alchemy but thats for an ideal world.

What makes you think this hasn't been tried and taken into account? I, for one, would like to see destruction that isn't heavily reliant on abusing enchanting and alchemy just to remotely compare to any other damage-oriented skill.

A good cost reduction doesn't require anything more than a decent enchant investment. Where the high damage melee is almost always coming out of legendary daedric weapons and/or sneak attacks. You can get a 90+ cost reduction on spells at around the same skill level that you can make daedric weapons.

People are too lazy for that. It's easier to get on here and [censored]. It's actually called just using your resources. I do that anyway, Destruction is fine for me.

Crafting should be supplementary to the character builds, not a requirement.

Exactly. C'mon complainers we've been doing this since Morrowind get with the program.

Many haven't tried it. With ONLY enchanting with just 6 perks in enchanting, plus archmage robes you can achieve very affordable expert tier spells. But as you can see the master tier mana cost is on a different plane of existence.

For people complaining about not being able to 1-shot dragons like a dual-wielding orc berserker, they can use potions. If you want to be a diverse mage at high levels, use potions.


I'm not arguing would/could/should, just teaching how to be an expert mage to those apprentices that are still using the firebolt spell.

I am the Archmage after all, it is my job to teach.

What about a set that has a cost reduction for two skills or a set that has cost reduction and a fortify skill for one skill?

With 100 Enchantment you can actually cast one or two spell schools for free. That ruins the entire game btw.

So what you are saying to be able to compete with non spell caster you have to use potions to deal any kind of damage with destruction spells (and apply them with weapons as a mage) , while physical classes can use the same potions AND enchants to boost their damage? And you are saying that master level spells do next to 0 damage and that strongest spell in game is dual cast incenirate and mages don't scale past 75 destruction which is something like level 15?

Wow I'm rerolling a mage right now!

Wasn't comparing it to melee.. don't know what you mean about this competing business in a single player game, but now that you mention it melee damage MAY do too much damage but they are also a much greater risk and only damage 1 enemy at a time. Mage can shine in the damage department like nobody else can when it comes to damaging multiple enemies.

And if incinerate or thunderbolt isn't enough damage for you then I don't know what to say. My mage is a chainsaw even without potions. If a chainsaw isn't enough then lower the slider or use a mod. :\

You edited so I have to edit:
You can apply poisons to bound weapons.
Also you don't need to have fortify potions up on every enemy. My god I can 1shot guards with a fortify potion why would you need that up all the time?

No seriously if you think that even with those buffs from alchemy mages can do same damage as warriors, well maybe they can, but you will have to spend a lot of time leveling alchemy, constantly apply weakness poisons on harder mobs (this means pure mages are not viable) and chug fortify potions 24/7 which any sane person will not do.

Well either that or install this http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=611
If you are on console then reduce the difficulty, it svcks but mages are greatly UP.

Amen.

Cost reduction enchant additive stacking is so bloody messed up concept. Strongest mages in Skyrim have 100 magicka and wear armor that stretches the 100 magicka to 100000000 effectively.

Well anyways, to my students that is it for today. Do not forget to study for your test tomorrow. Have tons of fun BBQ'ing your enemies. And remember, stop using firebolt, use incinerate!

I was under the impression that sorcery was weak even with 100% cost reduction, simply because the damage wasn't up to scratch. When people are DWing 200 damage 1handers with 100 additional damage in enchants...well yeah.

Not to say that magic is horrible, just that it really doesn't scale as well as physical damage.

Nice post. It's a great way to make damaging spells cost effective at later levels.

But I think the main complain is not about destruction not being cost effective, it is about destruction not being what people expect from damaging spells in RPGs. I mean, usually mages use their basic spells as a cheap source of damage, with some nukes and powerful AoE from the higher tier spells. But in this game in fact you have to use your strongest spells as your main source of damage, completely ignore the lower tier spells, abuse support crafting skills, and even so the strongest spells are not that much powerful when comparing to, say, a two-handed warrior. Melee toons and archers can improve their damage output by getting a higher skill level, better weapons, lots of perks, weapon enchantments and items. Mages basically only get a couple perks to improve their spell damage.

I don't think the way damaging spells work in TES games is right or wrong. But I agree it's at least weird and very different from what most would expect from damaging spells in a game.

Anyway, sooner or later people will come with great mods to scale spell damage (there are a few already), and everyone will be happy

Agreed but at the same time this is a role-playing game. Crafting for your trade or fighting style is relevant to that. Potions, Poisons, etc.

Skyrim really turns that rule on it's head. To be fair though, most of the "overpowered melee" relies on 100 smithing AND 100 enchanting.

I'm glad you're not saying to use -100% magicka cost, and are actually trying to create a way to play as a balanced mage. This pleases me.

At everyone else, he's acknowledged that it isn't as good as it could be right now, but this is just like my tip to lower your level using the console: it's currently the best way to achieve balance and immersion. Barring the possibility of a patch, if you want to be powerful and have fun with the class, this is a very good way to do it.

Thanks for this, it's an excellent guide.

That's SUPER-overpwered melee. Regular overpowered melee just involves dual wielding one weapon with soul trap and another with absorb fatigue for endless staggering power attacks. Smithing optional.

But more to the point: If making a mage playable involves reducing magic costs to 0 and chain staggering enemies, why not just TGM all the way to victory?

This could just be how I experience it and since I'm playing a Crusader rather than a pure mage I assume you mages will just ignore this post. But I'm gonna say it anyway:
At level 50 with only the 50% spell casting reduction perks up too adept I found that I could quicly blow away enemies up too the level of Draugr Scourge(on expert) by dualcasting(as in not overcharge it)fireball spell maybe 3 times. Sure it takes all of my magica, but I have 331 with enhancements. A mage that can overcharge and have extra damage from perks in addition too some magica-cost reducing gear(pre-made you can buy would probably do) could probably kill all but the strongest enemies in a very short amount of time at a very low magica cost.

Rerolling? Better get your damage meters going too. How do you even fight dragons as a mage without a tank and a healer? Classes are so imbalanced!

When did skyrim become a number crunching MMO?

You want to 1 shot everything with spells cause melee can? Use the developer console or just stop complaining about balance in a single player game.

It should be harder to dominate with spells than it is to pick up a club and smack something but plenty of people will testify its possible.

Brb going to complain to mortal kombat devs that noob saibot is broken and needs balancing

I think you're in the wrong post, because you're the only one talking about 1 shotting anything. The only thing destruction spells are dominating is in the unused category.

Well, not exactly. As the OP pointed out, it is a tradeoff and each approach has pros and cons. You may do more damage as a dual-wielding one handed weapon user as compared to a pure mage. However, you can only attack one enemy at a time and you must be in close proximity, both of which are serious drawbacks in some contexts and/or against some enemies. Mages can do AoE attacks and hit many enemies at once with good damage, plus they can do attacks that do "splash" damage (i.e., they do not have to directly hit their target and may still kill it with the "splash" damage). A non-pure mage (i.e., one who relies on both weapons and spells) may do both melee and casting effectively. Likewise, some casters may spec spells and perks that help a direct, in your face approach due to using wards plus attacks/spells.

The final point I have made many times is that looking at only damage is irrelevant because it doesn't matter if something dies by 1 HP or 1000 HP damage over their max HP. Dead is still dead (even if the latter amount may mean they are splattered into unrecognizable goo). Why use a nuke when a baseball bat works just as well? People are comparing only damage, thus failing to see the big picture/context of the balance issue. The outcome is balanced because the process is not solely about maximum damage capability.

The bottom line is that there are pros and cons, so it's a tradeoff.