level 50 mage impressions : V - Skyrim

» Sat May 12, 2012 10:00 am

My typical battle:

Me and my hired mercenary stroll in. There is a whole heap of enemies up ahead. I call forth 2 summons. While my 2 summons and companion are up ahead fighting I DO NOT use novice level spells but instead use *gasp* expert level spells and cause immense damage. My magic regains ridiculously fast and I am quickly able to call forth thunderstorm. I will then use the remainder of the time casting smaller spells or resummoning. I don't sit there and throw novice level spells around. They are novice level for a reason. Should all of those fail. As a mage I have gathered many essential scrolls and potions as well as enchanted my Blade (which I carry around for extra protection just in case). My enchanted blade does not do very much on its own because of my low skill with 1H weapons but I've enchanted it with a powerful thunder enchantment and another with frost that hit like trucks.

Aside from that I have multiple protective spells from both restoration and alteration as well as the mage armor perk.

The arguement that magic is not strong is virtually pointless. At level 50 I am extremely powerful.

People who should not be allowed to speak on the subject:
-Someone who does not have experience playing a level 40+ mage

-Someone who restricts themselves for roleplaying purposes (I will never use a blade because I am a thunder mage and will only use lightning and will never use any other types of magic. Well I think my feety pajama wearing pillow fighter should also be a viable option and just as powerful as a fully clad warrior, but alas)
If you are going to restrict yourself and roleplay feel free to do so. But it should not be just as easy for someone who only uses destruction and neglects other skills.

-Someone who is attempting to use novice level spells past level 40. Novice level spells are for novices. You are not a novice. Use expert level spells.

I can say from first hand experience I have had next to zero trouble with the game. Yet I also don't go under some preconcieved mage notion. I have a sword in my inventory if I need it and many enchanted daggers. I'v put points into health and I do whatever it takes to survive.

If you are going to literally shirk all of the options handed to you then the game should be hard on you.

I guess we all have to play this game your way to be effective with magic, so much for freedom, thanks Bethesda.

And so I also guess that later on in this game a big chunk of your spells are actually been made neglectable, oh goodies

» Sat May 12, 2012 5:32 am

I think that's where we differ. Otherwise, yes, I think mages are a very viable class in the game, sure.

But I just don't get why my magicka regenerates so bloody slowly

Do you have master robes and hood? You can also enchant some boots and gloves for extra magic regain.

» Sat May 12, 2012 11:51 am

Do you have master robes and hood? You can also enchant some boots and gloves for extra magic regain.

They're destruction mages. They run around in full heavy armor because they don't believe in alteration.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:47 pm

Do you have master robes and hood? You can also enchant some boots and gloves for extra magic regain.

Yes I do. I have the Arch-Mage robes - 100% regen boost, and the Dragon Priest mask which also has 100% boost.

And it's still very, very slow.

The quid pro quo of choosing robes over armour was meant to be that your magicka regeneration was better. But it's either not working, or they've reduced the regeneration too far

All my opinion of course

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:33 pm

I guess we all have to play this game your way to be effective with magic, so much for freedom, thanks Bethesda.

I'm not so sure. Maybe we just have to use our heads, learn to use the tools we have, not simply wander around and expect the game to hand us power on a silver platter.

» Sat May 12, 2012 7:01 am

I guess we all have to play this game your way to be effective with magic, so much for freedom, thanks Bethesda.

And so I also guess that later on in this game a big chunk of your spells are actually been made neglectable, oh goodies

Who said anything about spells being negligible? (Neglectable isn't actually a word). I'm level 50 lol, of course novice level spells will be negligible. Iron daggers would also be negligible for a level 50 warrior.

Like I said. I want the freedom to play as a naked pillow fighter. I'm severely dissapointed that I HAVE to play a warrior that, you know, does warrior things like blocking and swinging a weapon and wearing armor.

Wanna be a mage? then play a mage. Not a robe wearing wannabe that tries to skate by with 1/5th of the skill every true mage has.

» Sat May 12, 2012 6:33 am

Yes I do. I have the Arch-Mage robes - 100% regen boost, and the Dragon Priest mask which also has 100% boost.

And it's still very, very slow.

The quid pro quo of choosing robes over armour was meant to be that your magicka regeneration was better. But it's either not working, or they've reduced the regeneration too far

All my opinion of course

Magicka doesn't regenerate when you're readying a spell to cast and takes a bit to start regenerating after casting a spell, and even in combat it regenerates faster when your put your hands down. Time your spells to best make use of the regeneration and supplement with potions. They're cheap to buy and easy to make, and you find them every 3 steps in dungeons.

» Sat May 12, 2012 5:27 am

Do you have master robes and hood? You can also enchant some boots and gloves for extra magic regain.

Which makes no difference because in combat magicka regen is 70% slower than when out of combat. Meanwhile Mr Warrior can still bash enemies to death even with NO STAMINA LEFT. So a warrior can hit as many times as he wants but a mage has to wait for a bar to fill up? How is that fair?

» Sat May 12, 2012 6:09 am

Do you have master robes and hood? You can also enchant some boots and gloves for extra magic regain.

Which makes no difference because in combat magicka regen is 70% slower than when out of combat. Meanwhile Mr Warrior can still bash enemies to death even with NO STAMINA LEFT. So a warrior can hit as many times as he wants but a mage has to wait for a bar to fill up? How is that fair?

» Sat May 12, 2012 7:57 am

They're destruction mages. They run around in full heavy armor because they don't believe in alteration.

Thanks for this, constructive.

As it happens I don't wear any armour. Alteration is one of my primary skills, and third highest in terms of skill level, and second in terms of perks used. It's fundamental to the way I play.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:40 pm

Okay ... this is an elder scrolls game, ya know?

» Sat May 12, 2012 3:02 pm

Nice post, nice to see at high levels I will still do as well as I am now

I really get tired of folk who play only on master then complain its too hard or their class is underpowered. The top difficulty level should be near impossible, it should be a challenge to complete after you have played the game several times through and know every in and out. It certainly shouldn't be something you flick on during your first playthrough and expect to breeze through using whatever build you like. On master I would expect to have to plan every single skill I level, every perk across several trees to compliment eachother, spend more time preparing for every battle with spells and potions and then still die 9 times out of 10. Same as on novice someone who has never played a computer game before should still be able to complete quests and manage. So many seem to think if they don't have master on they are lame, then get confused when its hard.

Also get tired of everyone who wants to win fights using only destruction. How many warrirors go around with only their axe and no armour whatsoever? How many rogues don't bother with any sneak skill and only level their blades? Sure if for some reason you want to roleplay a specific situation feel free but "only use destruction" doesn't match the world (even low level "Ice Mage" npcs use wards), so you can hardly expect the devs to balance the game towards your narrowed selection. Pretty much every game designer tries to make people use more than one tactic

» Sat May 12, 2012 3:05 pm

Magicka doesn't regenerate when you're readying a spell to cast and takes a bit to start regenerating after casting a spell, and even in combat it regenerates faster when your put your hands down. Time your spells to best make use of the regeneration and supplement with potions. They're cheap to buy and easy to make, and you find them every 3 steps in dungeons.

Absolutely. I appreciate there are ways round it. I should make clear that thus far I've not found being a mage to be overly challenging, and frankly if I didn't know any different it probably wouldn't be any issue.

But they are underpowered compared to warriors and thieves. Again, not a huge issue, it's a one player game.

I just don't understand why the magicka reduction has been implemented. It's a specific handicap that only applies to magic users. There is no equivalent penalty for the other classes.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:16 am

I find it funny how someone playing on modern games "normal" difficulties believes he is an authority on anything. Better yet he completely misses the point which is not difficulty, but balance, related. Warriors scales, thieves scale, mages don't. However much you can kill on a difficulty a baby could play on won't change that.

» Sat May 12, 2012 8:22 am

Which makes no difference because in combat magicka regen is 70% slower than when out of combat. Meanwhile Mr Warrior can still bash enemies to death even with NO STAMINA LEFT. So a warrior can hit as many times as he wants but a mage has to wait for a bar to fill up? How is that fair?

It might be designed that way so that we play mages like mages, and not like warriors with guns.

» Sat May 12, 2012 8:05 am

Magicka regen is not a problem.
Problem is spell damage that depends ONLY on your destruction skill.
20 lvl caracter with 100 destruction have the same damage output that 60 lvl caracter with 100 destruction.
If you cant understand such a simple thing, just believe me.

» Sat May 12, 2012 2:20 am

is not difficulty, but balance, related

This is my point. Why specifically handicap mages?

» Sat May 12, 2012 12:36 pm

Iron daggers would also be negligible for a level 50 warrior.

That's just wrong. if you have the right perks you can do 15 times the damage even with a dagger and that's not including one handed perks and enchanting boots. A destruction mage on the otherhand can't improve damage past a 75% boost and even dual casting will only take it to around a 150%. This means if you take a master level spell like firewall or whatever it's called) you end up with 500 or so damage dealt. Meanwhile a warrior or even a thief using a dagger can quite easily dish out 1500 damage per hit. Add to this a mage can't wear armour without nerfing regen while a warrior or thief can easily wear top armour without suffering damage output hits and you end up totally unbalanced classes

» Sat May 12, 2012 10:02 am

Nice post, nice to see at high levels I will still do as well as I am now

I really get tired of folk who play only on master then complain its too hard or their class is underpowered. The top difficulty level should be near impossible, it should be a challenge to complete after you have played the game several times through and know every in and out. It certainly shouldn't be something you flick on during your first playthrough and expect to breeze through using whatever build you like. On master I would expect to have to plan every single skill I level, every perk across several trees to compliment eachother, spend more time preparing for every battle with spells and potions and then still die 9 times out of 10. Same as on novice someone who has never played a computer game before should still be able to complete quests and manage. So many seem to think if they don't have master on they are lame, then get confused when its hard.

Also get tired of everyone who wants to win fights using only destruction. How many warrirors go around with only their axe and no armour whatsoever? How many rogues don't bother with any sneak skill and only level their blades? Sure if for some reason you want to roleplay a specific situation feel free but "only use destruction" doesn't match the world (even low level "Ice Mage" npcs use wards), so you can hardly expect the devs to balance the game towards your narrowed selection. Pretty much every game designer tries to make people use more than one tactic

I most defenately agree. And yes it is just as fun. You are absolutely right. If you are going to play a pure destro mage then go for it. But don't expect it to be balanced because you are limiting your own self.

Its truly incredible. The day a mage can walk around and call themselves a mage by only knowing one school is the day I stop playing mages in TES games.

You should not be viable only using destruction magic, that's not what a mage is.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:51 pm

Simply amazed at how badly you're missing the point. No-one has said Conjuration, Alteration or Illusion are underpowered. The issue is that Destruction, as a DIRECT-damage magic school, is vastly underpowered by comparison to the other (non-magic) DIRECT-damage skills - namely, Archery, 1-handed and 2-handed weapons. Completely ignore support magic for a moment, and consider the following scenario.

Character A has full, perked Heavy Armour. Therefore he is defensively in good shape. For attack, he uses a fully-perked battleaxe, with +damage enchantments.
Character B has full, perked Heavy Armour. Therefore he is defensively in good shape. For attack, he uses Destruction magic, with -magicka cost enchantments.

Character A will do a HUGE amount more damage than Character B. This is cold, simple and pure fact. Read the following:

Seems like a simple issue to spot - There are essentially 4 ways to directly do damage in the game:

1 - Archery
2 - 1 Handed Weapons
3 - 2 Handed Weapons
4 - Destruction

Sure, Conjuration and Illusion give you mechanisms by which damage can be inflicted, but you're not the one doing it directly.

First Perk of Archery, 1HW and 2HW is a 5 rank increases damage by up to 100% perk. First Perk of Destruction is a 1 rank reduces magicka cost perk. Destruction need 6 perk points spread across 3 perks in the middle of the tree to up Frost, Fire and Shock damage by 50%.

As your Skill increases in Archery, 1HW and 2HW, your damage goes up. As your Destruction Skill goes up, your mana cost by spell is reduced.

Archery, 1HW and 2HW can get a new weapon that increases their damage potential. Destruction has a limited spell spell selection, and does not have higher level versions of the same spell.

Archery, 1HW and 2HW can use the Smithing Skill to create and enhance their weapons. Destruction can not.

Archery, 1Hw and 2HW can use the Enchanting Skill to directly enhance their Weapons to do more damage. Destruction can not. Enchanting can be used to enchant other equipment to also enhance damage output for Archery, 1HW and 2HW. Enchanting can be used to enchant other equipment to increase Magicka regen and reduce Magicka cost for Destruction.

I could go on but I believe this list covers the main reasons why Destruction falls behind. Archery, 1HW and 2HW can all have their damage enhanced in a multitude of intuitive ways, and they all stack. Destruction has very limited ways to increase its damage potential, and it simply can't keep up with the weapon based skills in terms of sheer damage output.

My fix -
As your Destruction skill increases mana costs go down and damage goes up.
For each "Rank" perk (Novice, Apprentice, etc) mana costs are halved for that rank and damage of all Destruction spells goes up by 20% (stacking up to 100% at Master Destruction).
I would leave the element specific +50% damage perks as is.

Even with all this, I'm not sure Destruction would keep up with the extreme stacking capable with Smithing, Enchanting, Alchemy and a Weapon based skill, but I think it would definitely narrow the gap for most people, and be a whole more intuitive. You could use Alchemy and Enchanting to help boost your Destruction by a bit for more Damage, like you can with a Weapon based skill, but you still don't get direct enchantments on your "weapon" and you don't get new higher level versions of the same spells like you can with weapons.

THIS is why people are complaining. Not because mages are underpowered, because as you say, they can complement their playstyle with several other useful skills, like Conjuration, Sneak, One-handed, Archery, with whatever the hell they want. The ISSUE, and the reason the game is unbalanced in favour of melee and archery, is that Destruction does FAR LESS damage than the other DIRECT damage skills in the game. Whether or not other spell schools make up the difference is completely irrelevant, seeing as any character, mage, warrior or thief, can also take those skills. The simple fact is that Destruction falls far behind as a direct-damage skill; for that reason, if you want to play as a pure mage, you are FORCED to focus on indirect damage (see: Conjuration) or to stop being a pure mage by focussing on other means of direct damage (see: Archery, melee weapons).

The (very simple) solution is as follows:

There's clearly a graded damage curve for bows and melee weapons, whereby increasing your 2-handed weapon skill from 20 to 21 makes your battleaxe do a little bit more damage, and a battleaxe will do a lot more damage with a 2-handed skill of 100 than with a skill of 20, even without any perks.

Why can't the same system be applied to all spells? So (pulling numbers out of thin air here, just placeholders):

- Flames does 8 DPS at Destruction 20 (pulling numbers out of thin air here) but does 40 DPS at Destruction 100
- Summon Familiar summons a ghost wolf for 30 seconds at Conjuration 20 with an attack rating of 10 and armour rating of 20, but for 150 seconds at Conjuration 100, with an attack rating of 50 and an armour rating of 100?

It seems so obvious to me, but what do I know...

The extra "exploitative" damage achievable through Enchanting and Smithing could be balanced by introducing +Destruction damage/spell effectiveness/duration enchantments, which could then be stacked to make Destruction have the same sort of damage potential as Archery or melee.

Finally, please don't argue "I've played as a level 50 mage and I'm fine, so you're all wrong." This is a completely moot point unless you've also played as a level 50 warrior or assassin, at which point you would realise how much more powerful melee and Archery are.

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:52 pm

You should not be viable only using destruction magic, that's not what a mage is.

Your argument is just flawed though. It's possible for a warrior or thief to concentrate on one school of combat and kill everything with ease. It's also possible to exclusively use conjuration and just sit back and watch your creatures kill everything before them. So basically it's a case of every offensive type of combat being able to kill anything on it's own, all apart from destruction. Destruction should be the most powerful thing in the game. The balance would from not being able to take a lot of hits, you know like in every other rpg since the dawn of time

» Sat May 12, 2012 2:58 am

Which makes no difference because in combat magicka regen is 70% slower than when out of combat. Meanwhile Mr Warrior can still bash enemies to death even with NO STAMINA LEFT. So a warrior can hit as many times as he wants but a mage has to wait for a bar to fill up? How is that fair?

Use a staff? I carry two, easy enough to recharge them on soul gems. If I get into a long fight I just whip out a staff and smash away using the mana I get to keep me alive. Plus there is a spell (forget the name) to turn health into mana, it in one hand and a heal in the other and you end up with both bars 80% full in a few seconds. A calm, paralyze, summon or shout is all you need to get the few seconds you need.

Also daggers are held by every single ingame mage. I have one with soul trap the other with drain magic, so I hit people, steal their magic and get their soul to recharge the blades. I made a bow with the same effect for if I am in a sniping duel, a few arrows later and they have no magic and I am setting them on fire.

» Sat May 12, 2012 11:58 am

Iron daggers would also be negligible for a level 50 warrior.

You've just proved the point on why mages got screwed on levelling.

A dagger is a style of weapon. Light and quick.

As the game levels, you can get better daggers, that are more powerful. Exactly the same in style, but more effective

You wouldn't use an iron dagger, no, because you can get a glass, or deadric dagger.

However, you don't use Flame or Frostbite after level 10 because they're completely pointless

» Sat May 12, 2012 4:57 pm

If your going offensive Mage you should be a High Elf it has the best perks hands down for that Mage type. I wonder how many of you picked a different race than the Altmer.

» Sat May 12, 2012 1:08 am

That's just wrong. if you have the right perks you can do 15 times the damage even with a dagger and that's not including one handed perks and enchanting boots. A destruction mage on the otherhand can't improve damage past a 75% boost and even dual casting will only take it to around a 150%. This means if you take a master level spell like firewall or whatever it's called) you end up with 500 or so damage dealt. Meanwhile a warrior or even a thief using a dagger can quite easily dish out 1500 damage per hit. Add to this a mage can't wear armour without nerfing regen while a warrior or thief can easily wear top armour without suffering damage output hits and you end up totally unbalanced classes

Is anyone even suspecting that maybe - just maybe - the 1500 dmg rogue is the problem? And maybe all we need is a nerf to blacksmithing + enchanting, not a magic buff?

It seems to be that melees oneshotting everything (after massive expenditure of gold and perks and potions, still) is the real problem.

The idea here is: it's the mages who are too "weak" or it's the melee who are too strong?