Just curious, how many of you who feel Destruction is underpowered are PC users who are not dual-casting? I play on Xbox where dual-casting is very easy and have no complaints about dual-cast Thunderbolts. Regular enemies go down quickly and even go flying off into Oblivion or are turned to ash. Stun locking, fortify Destruction potions, and Fortify Destruction enchantments support wonderfully. For really tough enemies, and for variety, I also like to alpha-strike with my Paralyzing Bow of Damnation dipped in a crafted poison. Playing a mage is a blast.

I've been reading complaints that Destruction only svcks at higher levels, only svcks at lower levels, that stun locking or alchemy or enchanting or actually dodging enemy fire shouldn't be necessary or that Destruction should be the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb at an Occupy Cyrodil protest. All I can say is that in my experience Destruction magic has been my primary damage dealer for 54 levels, on Master since 30, and if anything I'd like to be able to make the game harder.

i laughed on the inside

Honestly I have tried a pure mage twice and both times it went very bad. I understand the game, I understand not just walking up without any armor and expecting to stand toe to toe, I get that. The problem for me is simple, Mana. As a melee you can swing and do damage without stamina. You swing without a power swing and you don't need stamina and can do a nice amount of damage. With the mage you do damage only with mana. If there is more then one mob my spells simply don't do enough damage to win. Now this is at lower levels (I get frustrated and quite the mages after just a bit of time) and maybe it gets better, but honestly an arrow shouldn't do more damage then a good spell and yet I can one shot most anything with a bow and have endless ammo (basically). Mage is indeed broken no matter what anyone says. As someone else said, it's not un-playable but as a pure DPS mage it's bad. You don't have to learn 1H to be a viable 2H fighter in the game, you shouldn't have to learn conj to be a good dest mage either.

I am a pure mage as well. Instead of using mages robes, I use glass armor that I have enchanted. My enchantments are all the same on armor, helmet, ring, and necklace... Destruction spells cost 25% less. My best destruction spells cost like 7 or 8 magika. Also, I have the perk which causes enemies to stagger from destruction spells, so, if timed right, they should never get an attack off.

Man you got us pegged. <_<

Staggering/stunlocking someone repeatedly is just stupid!! Such a waste of time. I don't want a "win button" I want a fair fight!!!

what you have to understand is that most people on these forums are negative,, Level 53 on xbox destruction 100 only leveled up fire magic cuz i am a jack of all trades.. yet firebolt still kills people left and right on harder difficulty. Some people just have certain expectations for instance a fireball should kill everyone in skyrim lol. Destruction is fine people jsut don't know how to use it...seems like I am the only one who thinks this is the best game ever created..That includes better than morrowind and obivion

WOW! :facepalm: Moving while casting? Whoda thunk it? NOW all of the issues are fixed!

The problem, such as it is, is that once you maximize the damage you can do with destruction via perks, you can never, ever increase your damage output (excepting Alchemy.) Some of those high HP mobs on Master difficulty can be tedious to kill.

I don't feel that it's broken except when compared with the extremely OP bonuses you get with archery and 1H/2H (and that 30x dagger sneak bonus.)

But agreed, playing a mage is a blast.

Amen to that . . .but I was responding to someone who is complaining that Destruction Mages can't survive.

Destruction is fine, maybe if this was Dragon Age 3.

I do not appreciate only having 1 good spell for most of my play-time. I don't recall having such a low option in a RPG.


Master spells svck and the mega-hyped sprays/runes don't get use after 25.

Thankyou

Destruction's not hard...it's just incredibly boring because of spell spam. Impact means the enemy can't hit you back, but it also means casting spells is the equivalent of firing a glorifed pea-shooter because your damage is so low it takes tons of hits to kill higher level mobs. Way more than it should take. When I need to use 15+ dual cast incinerates to kill a single deathlord, which the game not infrequently sends at me in groups of 6 or more, it gets pretty ridiculously tedious.

No, you don't.



You play a spellsword!! (Light armour, heavy armour would make you a battle-mage.)

You may want to read my post in the context, I never said there weren't issues with it being boring or whatever. I was simply pointing out, and then explaining how, Destruction Mages survive easily.

I'm at level 43 with my mage, master difficulty. I primarily use destruction, and occasionally the Sanguine Rose if I'm in a tight spot, as well as a companion. I'm finding it to be pretty well balanced compared to melee and archery, which in my opinion are grossly overpowered at higher levels. Without the 0% magicka cost enchantments and 100% chance to stagger though it would be a different story. Magicka management needs to be rebalanced so that it works more like it does at lower levels - i.e. just enough to make it through most fights, rather than having to choose between removing magicka cost entirely via enchantments, or having expert and master levels spells deplete your magicka pool in one shot. The spells need to scale with destruction skills so that you can still use spells like Flames at higher levels, to maintain a bit of variety. There needs to be a companion hold button so that you can keep your companion from rushing in while you're using AOE spells like fireball - as it is master level spells are nearly useless due to friendly fire. The balance is overall OK but some design flaws make it a lot less interesting than it could be.

I don't use handheld weapons or bows in combat, I only use magic. The armor I wear is not indicative of the style of fighting I use, only my defensive choices. The way I looked at it is, why wear a robe with the same enchantment that I can apply to light armor, while the robe gives no defense.

Yeah, its either enchant or go home. Either way, have fun spamming 1 spell

Poor terminology then?

It does raise a questionable eyebrow about one useful spell in destruction.

The ruins and sprays are useless against more powerful enemies and that is pathetic, I was excited to see these new spell types and its disappointing they are so underwhelming.

Pure mages do not wear armour!!! Your terminology not mine.

Not broken at all. You want to rely on a single skill whereas that option is not available to any other type of play, unless we, guess what, learn to adjust the difficulty slider accordingly.

If you got to be really uber powerful destruction mage on master difficulty, the game would be a light breeze for a mage on this level, and there is nothing he can do other than to pretend. As a level 53 archer/warrior build on master, almost everything is easy as hell, and yet there is the occasional one shotters that take me out in a single blow. Ancient dragons and powerful mages can kill me easily if I don't use other options available to me as well to assist my skill as a swordsman. And personally I think the archer skill is a bit too powerful, as mages with their distance fighting is about the only thing that can harm me before I've killed them all off.

The difficulty setting is there to be used so everybody can have a great game. If you want to play pure anything, learn to adjust it. That way mixed classes don't get overly powerful with nowhere to go (which I think is already happening to my build). If earlier TES allowed you to play pure anything at high level with ease, I'm calling that bad design.

"Battlemages focus on combat using both magic (spell), blunt and blade weapons." Straight from The Elder Scrolls

Yes, quite. :biggrin:

This mod helps, I've been using it the past few days with interesting results.
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2275

Notable changes-
Impact has a 50% chance to stagger, instead of 100
In-combat Magicka regen increased (variable depending on which mod file you choose)
Improved [magicka] damage scaling with perks/skill level

It changes many other things, but those three are the most significant, imo.

what is your gear, enchanted with? how much magic regain on them, 2 mid lvl guys 56 death lords are butter wait till 81, what are you going to do with a room full of them shooting arrows that kill you in one shot or stop you from casting your fireballs how do you heal do you sneak or go in singing songs of glory. cause on master even with my bow and good armor and spells some times i still have to run away screaming "Im sorry i didnt mean to shoot your friend in the face"
what do you do when its a priest and a room full of death lords? two fire ball spells ok so you wiped out 2 deathlords what about the other 5 and the priest that is lighting you up like christmaslights with thunderbolt?
ive been there died there and said" Wek Ars Skol"

That mod owns, but no mod I've seen really has decent spell scaling or master spells yet. It's usually clunky.

Mostly because creation-kit is likely required for such things.