Ok, I haven't really tested it, I always thought the perks were pretty much a waste as well, but in a way, its almost like increasing your damage. For the lightning spell it especially is, as your enemies will die at 15% less health, but even for the fire and frost ones, they make your enemy stop fighting at an extra 20% less health Yea, you have to finish them off, but with them paralyzed or running in fear its not too hard since you don't have to worry about the threat of an attack, which neutralizes them, making it easy to mop them up. it gives you time for your magicka to regenerate if need be and you can just wipe them out.

I know a lot of people don't like the fear effect from fire, but as a mage, fear is one of the best effects you can use, same with turn. Going into a Draugr dungeon with a turn undead spell in one hand and a destruction spell in the other is great. As a mage having your enemies turn tail and run just gives you more time to line up your shot and blast them down with a spell.

anyway, just a thought I had, agree/disagree?

Who said they are useless?

Not as useful as the infinite stagger perk that beats legendary dragons even if you are only an apprentice destruction mage, however.

Hah, I dunno, I know a lot of people have said that in the past. And a lot of people DO say that destruction is underpowered, and figured this is a way to make it more powerful because I don't think most people see those perks as having that effect, well outside of the lightning one.

The reason a lot of people don't like fear is that many people play an "in your face" type style and don't want to have to worry about chasing enemies down. They want to beat the crap out of enemies and hack them into pieces 300 style.

I had a spellsword that used the turn lesser undead spell purely as a stagger for high powered Draugr

The lightning one has the most noticeable advantage, suddenly turning an enemy into ash ala laser weapons from fallout 3.

But the stagger perk is truly all you need, as long as the amount of enemies is matched by your amount of magicka.

Destruction is actually a lot like the other spell schools, not all that hot by themselves, but great when paired with another school, or another form of attack. I think people get frustrated when they try to substitute destruction for archery or one-handed and get frustrated when it doesn't match up.

The fire fear one isn't worth taking IMO, it has a level limit. It won't affect most higher levelled enemies.

I love playing 1h + destruction spell, they sync up great. Fortify destruction gear affects the enchantments on your blade, and the elemental cloaks are affected by the disintegrate/deep freeze perks.

What is the level limit on that? Just wondering.

1h/destruction works fine, you using destruction for distance, and the cloak spells, and then I usually drop the magic once they get close, for that all important weapon bash.

are you sure about that? On UESP it says it is Intense Flames Rout: 99pts for 15 seconds. I would imagine the magnitude is for levels.

I've experienced the fear effect not working, I'm not sure of the level cut off though.

Even if the fear effect worked, I don't really want my enemies running away tbh. The only time I find fear useful is lower levels on melee characters against highly damaging melee enemies, bandit chiefs etc.

I used to not be big on the Fear/Turn spells, but they are awesome. They make dungeons a breeze, they allow you to focus on the tougher enemies, as anyone that you can affect with the spell can be easily taken care of. Of course, if you can turn/rout every enemy, things will get kinda boring, which is why I usually stay away from illusion.

There is a bug, if you take the deep freeze perk and use Necromancy. Enemies killed while frozen can still be frozen if raised as thralls, so perhaps best avoided for destruction/necromancy builds.