Think of it this way: a fighter uses a weapon skill to deal damage, right? So One-Handed, Two-Handed, or Archery. You'll probably have enough perks to dabble in a second skill, whatever, cool. It's fun to play a warrior and it should be. Now, let's say you're using One-Handed. As your skill goes up--whether or not you put perks into the One-Handed tree--your damage with one-handed weapons increases. So your damage constantly goes up whether or not you get new weapons. Of course, you will get new weapons, because you're not an idiot, and they provide a nice leap in damage output every now and again.

Cool!

A mage uses Destruction to deal damage. The equivalent of getting a new weapon for them is getting a new spell. But here's the problem: spell damage does not increase as the Destruction skill does. At all. Not one point. So eventually, after you've gotten all of the available spells, and you're level 40 or higher, your damage will never increase again. Ever. You can't enchant your gear to give you, say, +20% fire damage from spells. You can't rely on your increasing Destruction skill to increase spell damage. Once you have the best Destruction spells in the game, that's it. That's as good as it'll ever get. But enemies will keep getting stronger, and keep having more health.

I know it's easy to say, "Use all of your spell schools!" And that's right, you should. Just like a warrior should use Block, an Armor skill, and probably Smithing to be the best he can be. But a warrior can still rely on his weapon for damage no matter how high his level gets. Destruction is a mage's weapon, but eventually, it can no longer be relied on to do damage.

This is a problem because, without exploiting Alchemy and Enchanting, spells cost magicka. And yes, power attacks and blocking cost stamina, but you can still do something when your stamina runs out. A warrior with no stamina can still use regular attacks while his stamina regenerates. If a mage has no magicka, he has absolutely no recourse. He can run, or he can die. No amount of Conjuration or Illusion spells will help with that, because they cost magicka, too.

Do the complaints make a little more sense now? All we're asking for--literally the only thing--is for Destruction spell damage to get better as Destruction skill gets better. We don't want to be able to use crappy level 1 spells the whole game, but we do want to be able to use the best Destruction spells to deal decent damage after level 40.

I never really touch magic in TES games, but I understand the complaint, and agree

That svcks I was planning on playing a mage in my next playthrough... I just assumed that, like weapons, the spell damage increased as you levelled up, but apparently that isn't the case? Damn.

Well put, but I'm afraid your effort will be in vain, because improving Destruction in any way would ruin the game for many players. How or why? I don't know, but it must be that way, because a lot of people are very vocal about that skill being perfectly fine the way it is.

Just reread all 8 pages and I'm seeing the problem.

You have a faulty premise that "as your level goes up, your damage increases". In this game your damage (relative to the monsters you fight) stays pretty much constant throughout the game. Also... I don't notice much gear that says "adds % damage to melee attacks".

I completely agree with your post, well done. I just wanted to add something to this part though.

When a warrior has no stamina, he can do normal attacks at normal damage. Even with a warhammer (slowest weapon) he can deal over 100 damage with every hit (without crazy enchantments), with no stamina left. You can hit once every second or so, meaning that you can still do 100 (ish) DPS with zero stamina.

A Destruction mage, on the other hand, can do ZERO damage with zero magicka. At his absolute best, the most damage he can cast is around 225 (150-base power Fire Storm spell, with +50% Fire damage perks) - but this has a 3-second-plus charge-up. This means that he does 225 damage over 3 seconds, or 75 DPS. This is the most he can do, even with a full magicka bar. At zero magicka, he can do a maximum of precisely zero damage.

Just a little addition.

right now im lvl 31... and i honestly feel a bit over powered... i have full dragone scale armor with -cost% and more magicka enchants and if a mob comes at me i make it rain fireballs like nothing and seriously 1 or 2 shot every single bandit or random enemy i see... the onyl thing that takes a few fireballs are dragons right now and they never touch me cuz theyre stun locked the whole time... the only way ill have trouble is if i get attacked by a mob of dragons from the looks of it

I will add here that some of the spells from the different tiers (Novice, Adept etc) have different functions - they are not straight upgrades. They are all useful (or should I say they should be) in different situations: the cloak has a purpose, the Spark has a purpose, chain lightning has a purpose etc. They should not be compared to iron sword, steel sword, daedric sword etc. This is for all the people that keep saying: use only Expert spells later if you want to damage cause warrior upgrade their weapons, too - it's not the same thing.

Second, the Impact perk should go or have a percentage chance to apply. That perk is the most imbalanced thing in the game and unfortunately the only thing that makes a Destruction mage viable. This couple with % spell cost reduction in Destruction school, so you can spam all the spells for 0 mana. This is not fun... and shouldn't be forced unto the people that want to play a DPS mage and not a Conjurer.

I am tired of the people that try to prove to us (that are playing high lvl. Destruction mages, and know it's not fun) that we're wrong and don't know how to play the game.

This is not a DOTA game, I don't want balance at any cost between classes. I want a FUN game experience. And for now, playing a Destruction mage is not that fun...

End of story.

also warrior can spend 5 perk point to gain 100% more damage with swords,mace and axes, mage need to spend 6 point to get 50% more damage with ice,frost and fire.

Maybe that is inteded? A 'real life' mage would face the exact same problem once they run out of mana.

Try not playing on adept.

^ well if you make the game harder... its gonna be harder... that simple... iplay the game on its default settings.. .and my mage works perfectly fine... why make the mage stronger to make higher difficulties easier??? defeats the purpose

since this is a repeat topic, can i just ask because ive heard that conjuration scales so ive decided to go des/conj.
what exactly does conjuration scale with? is it only the bound weapons?

Especially when, even with the ridiculous stunlock which is the only crutch for a Destruction mage, a Conjuration mage can still do more DPS. It just doesn't make sense.

Dont get started that mages need to buy scrolls now to!! ffs. can people stop being ignorant and see the problem here!

I hate all the

"Im level 20-35 and I have no problem as a mage"


This has nothing to do with that....yes it s fine then, its the later levels when you've maxed out your perk tree and are stuck dealling the same damage as you face stronger and stronger opponents.

That's the point, a decent mage wont run out of mana, it will just take forever to kill anything because nothing does noticeable damage.

Spells should increase in strength with your skill level, not decrease in mana cost.

how is this explaining the complaints more clearly?
its basicaly repeating whats been said all over again....

single target dps is weaker than other attack trees, but it does what no other tree can do in return... would it ben ice to be able to scale them? yes, sure, but how much? considering that you can not only do all the things destruction does rather than just doing damage, and that you can chain spells into high bursts of damage, I wouldnt want to be able to scale my seplls more than 10-20% from enchants or the like.

spells scale with new ranks in damage, and with chaining spells and their effects, where the more relevant spells scaling comes from is your ability to spell flin them around without worrying too much about mana.

destruction is fine, only the dual casting perk has too high a mana cost multiplier for such a low damage multiplier, either than that I am loving playing my full cloth destruction mage in master lvl 52
and I dont get the people who say its fine at 20-30 and where its broken is at 30+.... for me it was way less fun and more chalenging to play my mage at lvls 1-20 than to play it at 30-50, simply because in early levels its hard to get a strong mana pool/destruction skill to spell sling with, while at later levels you get that same ability from gear and enchants.

Well magic bypasses armor, whereas physical damage done by warriors will be reduced by the armor that enemies have.
Magic is also ranged, whereas melee is melee. I suppose you could compare it with archery.
Magic is supposed to be strong because you can exploit an enemy's weaknesses. Like using fire on a troll.
And what's this I hear about stagger? How about the freeze effect of frost attacks, isn't that constant? Seems like there are many "stuns" that destruction magic can do, from afar.
Magic can also do aoe damage. Melee cannot.

I don't think you can ever completely compare the 2. Even if the warrior can do more damage, you cannot say destruction magic should do just as much damage. Both have different mechanics.

I still feel that you all may be missing something. I don't believe the devs could have made such a bad oversight.

ive heard enemies stop scaeling after lvl 40... and im 31 raqeing right now so hoenstly i see clear skies ahead of my mage... all of you playing on like master or something need to realise what your asking for would make expert adepts and master expert... so whats the point?? if you raise teh difficulty... guess what? its gonna be harder

Fool! how would you feel if you warrior couldt swing an basic attack without stamnia? cuse thats how it would be in real life to!

Actually that might make those spells way too powerful probably.

But fear not, knowing Bethesda, in the first DLC they release they'll add some new completely unbalanced and overpowered spells, so the status-quo will return

I'm playing on master as a mage using Illusion, alteration, and conjuration. I don't have any problems and when I reach level 40 I still won't.. as long as I don't invest in destruction.

Ya, but when a real life mage expends his entire bar of mana, a lot of [censored] is gonna die...... Example... It is only gonna take me one lightning bolt to fry the biggest dude you can think of. The mana bar is a cost of having incredible power. As of now, mages have the mana bar with weak power. Not fun