level 50 mage impressions : V - Skyrim

» Sat May 12, 2012 3:20 pm

Thanks then, this data is very helpful. I am starting to wonder however if there is a bug in the game that causes improper spell scaling, because my maxed out destruction mage at level 40ish is not experiencing this at all. Mobs take a LOT more than 3-10 spells to kill.

No problem. I wanted to see just how hard was playing a mage at 50 and pure destruction(with the help of enchanting).

As far as I'm concerned it seems that if you can get a mage to 50 you would be using more than just destruction by that point.

Where am i talking about survivability? Whats wrong with you people?!
God i am tied...20 lvl mage with 100 destruction have THE SAME damage that 60 lvl carater with 100 destruction.
You think it is normal?!
Think again then.

By the time you get to 60 you would have the mage branch maxed out (as in you have leveled up each mage school to 100) and be well into one of the other branches. You aren't a mage at that point.

Furthermore, I never said it was okay. Infact, I say on page 4 of this thread that there should be some way to increase spell damage if only just to put it on the same level as the other damage trees. This doesn't mean that Destro is bad it's just that the other damage trees can one shot whereas Destro cannot.

» Sat May 12, 2012 11:57 am

That would be because they both mastered destruction... I don't recall the last time gaining a level increased damage at all...

EDIT: The difference being that the lvl 60 character would have other skills leveled to back it up. Otherwise they wouldn't be lvl 60.

I agree, if you make it to 60 surely you must have been leveling skills you wanted to use in combat. At which point there is no reason to use only destruction at that point. You can max Destruction and enchanting by level 25. That is your level cap if you're only interested in destro.

» Sat May 12, 2012 12:41 pm

Bethesda obviously wants to force you to be an all-around mage, not based solely on one magic school.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:12 am

Nail on the head.

And to the people critizing the OP for using summons and mercs for his magical protection needs... seriously, wtf is wrong with you? No, I don't have a counter arguement or something more eloquent than that, just: wtf.

Warriors are dudes who pick up axes and over time learn to use them. Mages and thieves are people who have to carefully hone their craft, a more difficult way of defeating an enemy by not running right at them, but finding a way to exploit something outside the norm. If you don't find fun in what your doing, because you know one day you'll be a BAMF for it... well then you are on the wrong path.

Another person who misses the point 100%...

Take a Warrior...any Warrior and give them enough mana to cast those same two summons. Watch what happens. Stop trying to defend an obviously broken system. Destruction is crap in this game.

I find it hilarious when people who say DESTRUCTION is fine, yet then go on to say:

1. I used Paralyze (Gee really? You could have simply punched the enemies to death after using this)
2. I used Mayhem (Gee really? How does this make Destruction fine? You could have just punched everything that was not attacking you)
3. I used two summons and a companion. (does this really need an explanation?)

What do these three points have to do with Destruction being awful? Yeah, nothing at all, so stop trying to combine every other school into Destruction and then acting like you're just talking about a single school that cannot function on it's own. A "Mage" would be better suited by simply focusing on Conjuration and Alteration. You end up with an Arcane Warrior who can tank better than a standard Warrior, can deal similar/same damage and has a pet that can tank better than they can. The kicker? It requires BASE mana (if you picked High Elf), so everything else can go into Health and Stamina. The downside? You can't chain stun enemies for the 20 minutes it takes to kill them while draining all of your mana. Oh, but I guess that's what mass paralyze is for...

» Sat May 12, 2012 2:11 pm

Because pure destruction mages were overpowered in Oblivion. That's also why Bethesda didn't implement the spell-making altar. Bethesda wants you to use all magic schools to survive and win as a mage, to find a combination, not to "easily" become the undefeatable destruction mage as it was in Oblivion. They made it that no one can play based on one magic school alone.

LOL, I can level up ONLY Conjuration and wipe the floor with ANY mob at the MASTER level. Period. End of story. So please, don't say they want us to use ALL schools of magic. They messed up Destruction, plain and simple.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:07 am

LOL, I can level up ONLY Conjuration and wipe the floor with ANY mob at the MASTER level. Period. End of story. So please, don't say they want us to use ALL schools of magic. They messed up Destruction, plain and simple.

Well, if that's really the case, then they did mess up destruction. Why "overpower" other schools of magic and not destruction? Why make it that "weak"?

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:32 pm

To be an efficient warrior, and lets say we SKIP block.
You still need one handed or two handed, you must take smithing, you should take enchanting, you must take restoration to survive you must put skill points into armor.

If you add someone wanting to use a shield from time and again.
Its literally 5 schools that you must take to be competative.: Weapon, Block, Restoration, Smithing, Armor. Add in Enchanting and Alchemy which is rather essential as a warrior too, and thats it.

A mage and player believing they can manage the game in 1 or 2 schools is a joke and us also not enjoying the game to its fulliest.

I say as a mage, there are 3 major schools that is must have: Conjuration, Destruction and Restoration. As a 4th I would say Alteration for better survival.
Add in a weapon and you suddenly have 5 schools, which is the bare minimum for a warrior.

» Sat May 12, 2012 2:00 pm

Nightshade,

I question if you are even playing a level 50 mage.

Some of your descriptions are off. The whole things about multiple runes ? How do you have multiple runes since you can only cast one at a time?

I'm playing a mage. Are you?

» Sat May 12, 2012 1:28 pm

Well, if that's really the case, then they did mess up destruction. Why "overpower" other schools of magic and not destruction? Why make it that "weak"?

It just needs to have it's damage scaled correctly. Hopefully modders can fix this.

» Sat May 12, 2012 12:35 pm

To be an efficient warrior, and lets say we SKIP block.
You still need one handed or two handed, you must take smithing, you should take enchanting, you must take restoration to survive you must put skill points into armor.

If you add someone wanting to use a shield from time and again.
Its literally 5 schools that you must take to be competative.: Weapon, Block, Restoration, Smithing, Armor. Add in Enchanting and Alchemy which is rather essential as a warrior too, and thats it.

A mage and player believing they can manage the game in 1 or 2 schools is a joke and us also not enjoying the game to its fulliest.

I say as a mage, there are 3 major schools that is must have: Conjuration, Destruction and Restoration. As a 4th I would say Alteration for better survival.
Add in a weapon and you suddenly have 5 schools, which is the bare minimum for a warrior.

Enchanting works for Mages too you know...just nowhere near as well as it does for the other classes. Same can be said for smithing, so you don't have a case here. You are also wrong about how many schools a Mage actually needs to finish. They need a single school: Conjuration. That's it. Nothing else is needed to beat the game on Master.

» Sat May 12, 2012 7:59 am

I expect the guy with the numbers made a typo reading this thread.

» Sat May 12, 2012 9:55 am

That would be because they both mastered destruction... I don't recall the last time gaining a level increased damage at all...

EDIT: The difference being that the lvl 60 character would have other skills leveled to back it up. Otherwise they wouldn't be lvl 60.

No, the difference is that a level 60 character is fighting against enemies with exponentially higher HP and defences than the level 25 character. As Destruction spell damage never increases, the skill has therefore become exponentially more worthless as the character has levelled up - isn't levelling up meant to make you MORE powerful?

I see the point you are trying to make, but it is incorrect. You explained it your self. Warriors have three ways to deal damage: one handed, two handed, and archery. In my opinion, you would only ever choose either one handed or two handed, but I guess you could use both. The same goes for assassin with one handed and archery, thought you could count alchemy and sneak because they allow you to do more damage. Now with warrior or assassins, their stamina goes down as they use their weapons. However, you can still use melee weapons to limited effect even with no stamina left. For archers, you cannot fight without arrows, but you can easily control how many arrows you want to bring with you, whereas a mage has to level up ton increase his magicka.

A mage has three ways of doing damage: destruction, conjuration, and illusion. His magicka level decreases with every spell use. However, he cannot attack at all when his magicka runs out. To compensate, the amount of magicka used per skill decreases as that skill increases. This makes it necessary for the mage to use all three skills in order to win. He is being given the ability to use more and more magicka as he levels up, so he needs to capitalize on that skill. If he continues to focus on a single skill (I.E. destruction), he will fail because the damage does not increase, the magicka does.

There are two different systems for two different playstyles.

Three things:

1) The mere idea of it being "necessary" to use three different skills to win is an absurdity in a game that is supposedly about free choice of playstyle. In this situation, every mage is forced to "specialise" in all three schools of damaging magic (direct or indirect damage) to be effective - therefore all mages will be the same. How is this fair or balanced when warriors and assassins have so much more choice, as you yourself noted?

2) As it happens I disagree with your statement that it is "necessary for the mage to use all three skills in order to win." If you want to use Destruction, you NEED Conjuration to back it up, because Destruction alone is not strong enough. However if you want to use Conjuration, you do not need Destruction at all, because Conjuration is powerful enough on its own. THIS is the crux of the argument (for the coherent ones among us, anyway). It is not a good system if mages have no effective way of dealing DIRECT damage. You can say that mages "have never been about just using Destruction" as much as you like, but that's not what any of us are saying. We just want it to be a viable option for a mage to deal direct, magical damage, just like it's been possible to do in every other TES game.

3) I have no problem with magic cost decreasing as the skill raises, I think that's perfectly sensible. What makes no sense to me, however, is for Destruction to be the ONLY direct-damage skill in the game that DOESN'T scale with the skill.

» Sat May 12, 2012 2:58 pm

No it's what a CONJURER does.Illusion is powerful, conjuration is powerful, alteration is powerful and destruction is weak as hell. Play without using conjuration and see how you get on. And while you're getting your ass kicked picture your average skill less warrior wading in and trouncing everything in it's path with no thought to tactics. It's imbalanced. There is math to prove it. Math = fact. End of argument

Actually, math = probability, not fact. Check Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and other areas of modern theoretical physics. The idea that math and "fact" are objective and absolute is precisely why so much quantitative research fails in real life contexts.

If you want to worry about DPS and OP, fine. Destruction is fine for killing stuff (not for other areas such as healing or buffing, though).

Destruction for ingame spells was also pretty poor in prior games, so people claiming that it should be able to do huge damage like previous games need to check their facts. It could do huge damage in prior titles but ONLY via custom spells.

In Skyrim, relying on Destruction as your primary offense is feasible, but you do have to plan. Likewise, relying on sneak attacks as your primary offense is going to be problematic whenever you face multiple enemies, and you'll have to plan. Relying on melee as your primary offense will be problematic if you face ranged attackers that you can't reach or attackers that cause problems at close range, and you'll have to plan accordingly.

For myself, I play pure casters plus Alchemy and Enchantment. I don't like weapons, even those needlessly bulky staves (where are my wands, blast it?!)

Let's see what Beth does about this topic, okay?

» Sat May 12, 2012 12:52 pm

*snip*

Thanks so much for this. I'm about halfway through my initial run through as a Thief, but I was planning on attempting a pure Mage build for later (as well as pure Warrior), and it was discouraging reading what people wrote about their Mage experiences. I figured it was all [censored], but it's nice to see your post at any rate. Thanks!

» Sat May 12, 2012 2:07 am

So if I understand OP correctly:

Use 2 Summons and a Companion
Play at normal difficulty
Brag on forums about how Destruction is fine (despite the fact that you don't actually use Destruction to kill stuff) ?

Blow that for a lark. I'll just wait till the modders fix the game for Beth.

» Sat May 12, 2012 3:19 pm

I'm not worried about it i'm playing on Apprentice right now and i don't think i will play higher than Adept , and when i do play as a Mage i'll be smart enough to have a good edged weapon for last line.

Doh! i have quoted wrong guy sry. It was in reply to a reference mages did not having good mana recharge

It does if you have Archmage armour the mask from the labyrinth and enchant armour rings and trinkets to recharge mana plus potions, At lower lvl I used a Sword in one hand and Majik in the other but with better gear and more skill the sword became a redundant.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:37 am

To be an efficient warrior, and lets say we SKIP block.
You still need one handed or two handed, you must take smithing, you should take enchanting, you must take restoration to survive you must put skill points into armor.

If you add someone wanting to use a shield from time and again.
Its literally 5 schools that you must take to be competative.: Weapon, Block, Restoration, Smithing, Armor. Add in Enchanting and Alchemy which is rather essential as a warrior too, and thats it.

A mage and player believing they can manage the game in 1 or 2 schools is a joke and us also not enjoying the game to its fulliest.

I say as a mage, there are 3 major schools that is must have: Conjuration, Destruction and Restoration. As a 4th I would say Alteration for better survival.
Add in a weapon and you suddenly have 5 schools, which is the bare minimum for a warrior.

This is simply not true, and moreover is completely missing the point of the discussion.

Firstly, a warrior needs two skills to be powerful enough to beat high-level enemies - a weapon skill, and an armour skill. That is all. Block is not a necessity (trust me, my character does not use it). Enchanting and Smithing are not necessities. You can find armour on enemies and in chests which is powerful enough to make your character viable. Alchemy is completely unnecessary unless you want to do the crafting exploit, which is in no way a requirement if you want to be powerful enough to tackle high-level enemies. Restoration is a luxury at best, seeing as potions are plentiful in chests and dungeons.

Secondly, in order to be powerful, a powerful mage can be made using only Conjuration, and possibly Alteration. A powerful mage CANNOT be made with just Destruction and Alteration, because Destruction's perked damage output is far worse than other direct-damage skills like 1-handed, 2-handed and Archery - and even worse than Conjuration, which is supposed to be a means of INDIRECT damage.

Thirdly, and most importantly, no-one is arguing that a mage should be all-powerful after levelling up just Destruction. EVERYONE BAR NO-ONE realises that Destruction will never afford a mage any defensive capabilities. That is what skills like Alteration and Restoration are for. What we are arguing is that, as Destruction is a direct-damage skill, it should be powerful enough to compete with the other direct-damage skills, namely 1-handed, 2-handed and Archery. At the moment it is not, because the damage does not scale with the skill level. If you want to use Destruction as a primary skill, you NEED another damage skill to help you deal enough damage. All of the other direct damage skills are strong enough to survive on their own merit.

And fundamentally, if Conjuration does more damage than Destruction, then what's the point in having the skill? The ONLY point in Destruction as a school of magic is to deal damage, and it's not even the best magic at doing that.

» Sat May 12, 2012 6:52 am

A lot of this discussion seems to be predicated on the "fact" that Destruction magic doesn't get better as you level. But I remember that when I started out, my Flames spell did 8 damage. Without taking any perks (I'm a Nightblade, so I have different focuses), it now does 15. All I've done is level the skill.

Edit: Also, I completely agree that it's idiotic to talk about people "roleplaying" Destruction-only mages. If you want to roleplay an idiot, don't expect the game to forgive you.

» Sat May 12, 2012 9:58 am

Tried an area that had a mage and some archers. I can see why people are having problems with Destro. It's not even damage that's the issue it's the fact that one arrow/spell/mace can one shot you.

I went here.
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546839687/48B15B5E7C305507CFBFA2A1A09F846448E41433/[/img]

I only used Ice Storm and Fireball.

Cleared out the Entrance with Fireball. Had to deal with two archers.
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546837227/A978BD149A3F4B5A2907A10DAC8007A5B94A1FBB/[/img]
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546836679/4287868989A7EFF74D0658273D9D437D030DF2DB/[/img]
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546840085/C8CCBB1EB06E706C964A3D6E72204BA03B21013F/[/img]

Went inside the tower and faced a Mage and Warrior. I just spammed Ice Storm from around a corner since I have no defense to speak of.
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546841938/C0841D63DBC2D7C89B86A04EDD825B3BF01D51CA/[/img]
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546838707/6BC63145192C2A75CA1E49B157D3835AC94B77D3/[/img]

Encountered an Archer and Warrior. They both went down fast.
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546842934/052A254F609F247FA6D7E3ADD13D01336B946C96/[/img]
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546838202/FF555B4D92145024646F0C4BF5EA9FF5CEDAB6F4/[/img]

and finally fought the boss.
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546839140/A51E858E3B31749A67C9E7B5CC6B282FA4D15C4A/[/img]
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546840522/2412C1E1CDF8D7BBD75BA87352A25B993ADCCCC4/[/img]
[img]http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/648745380546841009/F50F9BBE0A5B473E107CEECA6D8A2499C87D2C95/[/img]

The boss went down in about 10 hits. Pretty easy since I could just stunlock it too death. Impact vital if you want to go pure destro, the slow from using ice attacks isn't slow enough.
This was also on master difficulty.

» Sat May 12, 2012 3:28 am

Read my post number 133, if you cant undersant that, i cant help you.

A lvl 20 with 100 one-handed does the same damage as a lvl 60 with 100 one-handed. The motivation to level your mage is to unlock different spell tiers and increase your magicka pool/regen.

» Sat May 12, 2012 1:22 pm

His point was that he is all strong and powerful, yet he utilises followers to hinder enemies. Mages are meant to be fragile, avoid getting hit? What about spells that fortify HP, the magical shield that necromancers use? I don't care about the power of destruction. Surely a powerful mage would be able to cast protective spells and then blast enemies with magic.

And I fail to realise how *in another context* is remotely the same as what I said? Surely the other context would be what I referred to. A warrior or an archer for that matter, using companions as a shield/fence.

I think your itching for an argument and misinterpreted my point as a result. My issue was that he claims to be all powerful (from whatever magic) yet he hides behind companions. If he was an all-powerful mage, surely he would use some of the things I mentioned above instead. There’s no real challenge if enemies aren’t attacking you. So in that respect I agree with some of what you said “Distracting your opponents/utilising the terrain is part of the playstyle”, because you have to run and out manoeuvre enemies, not just fire into a mass crowd that ignores you.

Its effective for a warrior to get into close quarters / its effective for a mage to keep enemies at arms length. 'Where possible' applies to both of these so obviously there needs to be a little flexibility built into both builds; a warrior should have some form of ranged attack (keeping a bow and some arrows handy for example) and, as you said, a mage should have those spells on standby. But surely, the ideal thing would be to free up magicka for pelting spells at people by not having to put (and keep) all those defences in place? IMO where I can distract enemies as a mage, I will gladly do so.

And believe me, if I'm itching for an argument, you'll know. My language and attitude take a very sharp turn for the worse. I was merely being part of the debate and I apologise if I caused any offence in doing so.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:32 pm

A lot of this discussion seems to be predicated on the "fact" that Destruction magic doesn't get better as you level. But I remember that when I started out, my Flames spell did 8 damage. Without taking any perks (I'm a Nightblade, so I have different focuses), it now does 15. All I've done is level the skill.

Edit: Also, I completely agree that it's idiotic to talk about people "roleplaying" Destruction-only mages. If you want to roleplay an idiot, don't expect the game to forgive you.

You got the perk that improves fire damage. That's the only perk that increases spell damage.

» Sat May 12, 2012 9:05 am

You got the perk that improves fire damage. That's the only perk that increases spell damage.

He specifically said he hasn't taken any perks...

» Sat May 12, 2012 1:13 pm

What we are arguing is that, as Destruction is a direct-damage skill, it should be powerful enough to compete with the other direct-damage skills, namely 1-handed, 2-handed and Archery. At the moment it is not, because the damage does not scale with the skill level. If you want to use Destruction as a primary skill, you NEED another damage skill to help you deal enough damage. All of the other direct damage skills are strong enough to survive on their own merit.

I believe Bethesda did that on purpose. Since destruction magic is range based, it has an advantage over 1- and 2-handed close combat attacks. And, IMHO, destruction magic is much easier to use than archery. That is, it is much easier to hit the target. So Bethesda purposely weakend down the destruction magic, so it's not too easy for the player in the end to kill enemies with it. 1- and 2- handed weapons might deal more damage after all, but it's always close combat (so you get hit too, obviously). And archery, even though more powerful than destruction magic, is harder to use; harder to hit enemies with a bow.

If destruction magic ultimately would deal as much damage as archery and 1- and 2-handed weapons do, in relation, it would be overpowered, because it is easier to hit the target with it than using a bow, and you don't get hit yourself in fights like melee based players. So they weakend the destruction magic down for balancing reasons.

» Sat May 12, 2012 12:39 pm

People seem to be comparing 'builds' like this is an MMO or there is PvP involved. You're free to do that but I can;t help but wonder whether you will enjoy yourself unless the destructo-mage is all powerful.