Just some random thoughts. I have a feeling this topic will sink very fast but whatever, I like sorting things out.

It is common knowledge (among we mage players anyway) late game destruction svcks while conjuration is the only way to go. Destruction spells which have a static damage throughout the game is the main culprit. I also noticed that most of the people complaining about this play on Master difficulty.

So now I can see there are two facts which make melee overpowered while magic underpowered:
1. There is almost no cap on melee damage improvement, so you can make god slaying dragon butchering blades of doom and kill stuff very fast even if you play the game on Grandmaster or God difficutlies (if the game has them).
2. There is zero improvement on equipments for spell damage.

Next, about the game difficulty. After some testing, I find what the difficulty actually does (novice and apprentice are ignored):
Adept: 100% damage dealt on you, 100% damage dealt on NPC
Expert: 150% damage dealt on you, 75%~80% damage dealt on NPC
Master: 200% damage dealt on you, 60%~66% damage dealt on NPC

I think the main reason gamesas provides the expert and master difficulty is they are for players who exploited the system out like hell and still wants the game to be challenging. i.e. the guys who used fact 1 above. Because if you use OP system like fact 1, in which you more or less scale YOURSELF up like 500% in strength compared to NPC, then upping the whole game's difficulty seems the only way to go.
Meanwhile, for mage players who rely on destruction magic, it seems (sadly) the default adept difficulty is the only way to go, if you still want the game playing "fair". Because with the broken scaling system with spellcasting right now, magic users are not just gimped by not improving in damage power while NPC arescaling UP, the magic users may actually scaling DOWN (compared to NPC).

Also, there is one very interested aspect that shouldn't be ignored regarding the difference between adept and master. Apparently, the NPC damage reduction applies on all NPC, including your summonings/followers. Which means on higher difficulties, your summonings and followers are MUCH more tougher than on adept or lower. That is one of the main reason why you can and shall rely heavily on summons in higher difficulty levels (the other reason is of course destruction svcks at higher difficulty levels fighting creatures which have essentially three times their HP). You can try to let Lydia fight something tough on different levels. On master she may tank against 3 mobs perfectly well, but on adept she may get slaughtered by some stray saber cat.

This means that if you play on Expert or Master, conjurations and followers will make you feel yourself pretty worthless because your spells can do only pathetic damage while your friends happily tanks and slaughters them, but if you are play on Adept, your minions would fall fast if you don't help them, and you CAN help them because your spells can still do OK damage at adept.


Some advices:
1. Play on adept if you want to have fun (maybe not the full fun, but at least slightly better) as a destruction mage. No reason gimp yourself further by giving a further 40% penalty on your already static spell damage while NPC are already getting higher and higher HP thanks to level scaling.
2. Again, play on adept if you dislike relying on conjuration and followers ("I AM the chosen one, not YOU!"), because they are benefiting from the higher game difficulties while you are suffering from it.
3. It seems many people don't know there ARE ways to increase destruction damage - alchemy. There are potions which can increase your destruction damage by a good percent (at least 20% even if you've never bothered with the skill), and there are weakness to fire/frost/shock/magic poisons. Drink a pot to increase your destruction damage for an extra 40% damage can really help while tougher enemies (it's at least better than drink a dozen of magicka potions during the fight), and if you can get a weakness poison hit on a boss, even better.

STATEMENTS:
The points I've given above do NOT mean I think the game is not broken. Playing as a melee is still much easier than playing as a mage, due to:
1. There are MANY MORE ways to increase melee/archery damage than spell damage. Alchemy, smithing, enchanting, skill levels, perks!
2. There is NO way to increase magic damage permanently. Smithing doesn't help, enchanting doesn't help, skill level doesn't help, perks help, but only at +50% max while physical damage have 100% bonus.

So either:
1. Slap physical damage with the mighty NERF STICK, so warriors and archers and assassins and thiefs will cry that their weapons can't kill dragons because their damage are CAPPED, HAHAHAHA
2. Or, give reasonable permanent bonuses with enchanting for mage skills, so mages can have scalable damage.

Now I think of it, why FORTIFY DESTRUCTION on equipments can only reduce spell cost, but on POTIONS they provide (siginificant as well) bonus damage? I think it's even possible there is a bug involved, like the damage bonus got overwritten because there is a enchantment which reduce spell cost and they have a same enchantment name...

Inb4 Newcomers, Noobs and Trolls chime in with their " destruction is overpowered, stop whining and use conjuration!!11one!"


On-T: Good information, this is pretty helpful if its true

destruction is underpow......gawd dammit

Excellent post, this covers just about everything, and your testing revealed some interesting things as well. I wish all posts were this well thought out! I do agree, however, that spells should scale with level. Even a novice spell in the hands of a master should be quite dangerous; even more so the actual master level spells.

If you can rely on fortify destruction potions, then destruction can still shine in later levels. I dunno the max +% bonus it can provide, but dual casting the best damage spells with a +60% damage potion with -100% magicka cost can still net a pretty good DPS. Maybe a bit imbalanced but hey at least it is better than daggers with 2k damage!

I wonder how many sub-level 20 destruction mages will come in here talking about how they melt face and how us level 50+ mages should stop whining.

Actually, in all TES games there is no mechanism for spell damage scaling with skill. However, that is redeemed with the spellmaker system, as you can make more powerful but costly spells when you feel bottlenecking in power. The biggest crime gamesas did on Skyrim is removing the spellmaker.

While in Daggerfall and Morrowind, spells are still svcky at usage compared to melee, at least with careful planning you can play as mages very effectively and fun. Levitating in the sky raining fireballs down in Balmora is so much fun. And the -100% reduction in magicka cost actually originated in Daggerfall - in it once you reach over 100 in a magic skill with the help of enchantments, all spells in that school cost only 5 magicka to cast, even if it's silly overpowered stuff like disintegrate in 10 ft around yourself.

destruction level doesnt improve spell damage. please learn about this stuff before posting

He never said destruction skill level improves spell damage. He says that with fortify destruction potions, destruction is still pretty good at later level.

How about you read and not be so condescending?

Hahaha, actually I think that shows one of the potential problem: as soon as someone see the skill "fortify destruction", they immediatly dismiss it as yet another magicka saving effect and never bothered read its content.

But now the anti-mage league may have something new to whine at us though: "YOU MAGES HAVE POTIONS TO INCREASE DESTRUCTION DAMAGE NOW STOP WHINING"

I did the levitation thing in Telvani's town forget the actual towns name. Also did it with endless poison arrows (arrows from Mornhold) in Solstiem. Those little blue guys would reflect some of the poison effects back on you.

Most of the time I would load a save game after doing this.

I miss levitation.