I love how eloquently you put that.

To put it simply, you missed the point. Sparks was just an example. I used it because I thought people might want to start a new character before they start messing with console command.

Go ahead and replace sparks with any spell you like and then perform the above. The result will still be the same.

The point is, the destruction skill does not influence damage, and it should.

What happens when you get the most powerful "Master" spells in the game? These are obtainable when your destruction skill reaches about 50. What then? Going from 50-100 makes no difference. That is the most damage you will ever be able to do with that spell for the REST OF THE GAME. Meanwhile, enemies just keep getting stronger.

Your conjured frost atronach will get stronger as you level up. Destruction does not.
Your sword will do more damage as you increase in skill. Destruction does not.
Your bow will do more damage as you increase in skill. Destruction does not.
Your other combat skills will give you critical hits. Destruction does not.
Your other combat skills do more damage with enchantment. Destruction does not.
Your other skills get 100% or more effective with perks. Destruction requires a larger investment, and only gives you a max 50% boost.

That is the point I was making. Destruction simply svcks because it has no way to scale with the rest of the game. Every other combat choice is better by far.

you won't feel that way for long, especially near the end of the main quest line. I honestly don't see how any pure destruction mage can get past the last 3 main quests, heck I don't see how any pure mage can do it. You will struggle, and you will struggle bad unless you're playing on a difficulty below adept.

Thank you for explaining it in a non whiny way, its the way people present their argument that usually bothers me.

and I do agree with the Op to a point, i just like playing devils advocate.

But i am curious what do you do with all ur extra perks if your gunna be a pure destruction mage with no other types of magic?

I'll be honest I haven't read all five pages but here's the gist:

If you come across a top notch warrior, he's using Heavy Armour, Single-Handed Weapon, Block.

If you want to fight back you should be using Alteration/Conjuration, Destruction and Restoration. Alteration can provide shield spells or Conjuration could provide a magical armour of some description as well as a distraction.

Anyway the point is if you think you can get by using only one skill you're being extremely over optimistic. A guy in the IGN live stream used Ebonyskin (Alteration I assume) with a perk that granted 3x magic multiplier giving him 300 armour rating. With this and double destruction magic you shouldn't be having any real problems unless you're doing something wrong.

You missed my point completely. I do wear the Archmage's Robes and Morokei mask. It doesn't help.

ONLY APPLIES TO OUT OF COMBAT!!!! OUT OF COMBAT!!!!

How often do I have to repeat this. The regen bonus is only outside of combat. Even if we can get infinite spells it doesn't stop them from all being wimpy as [censored]. Oh noes guis I can cast 50 fireballs to kill a dragon. Then the rogue sneaks in and backstabs for x30 damage instant killing it. The warrior lolz at it with his super sword which does 400 damage a swing and his armour which makes him immune to pretty much everything.

Mages work all game and for what? To be [censored]tier than the other play styles? If magic was this crap in the world of the elder scrolls why spend decades doing it when any stupid idiot can raid a dungeon and start the chain to get new gear making him god like. WHY!!!? It makes no sense. Even if you diversify into other spells your still not as good as the other classes. Is that what people want? To spend all game to be almost as good as or worse then the other play styles? I'll save everyone the trouble now by telling them to pick up some daggers and the sneak perks or go enchanting for uber warrior.

Warrior: Can beat the game with one weapon of his choice and an armour of his choice. Enchanting is optional for th elulz because it makes it so easy.
Theif: Can beat the game with daggers and sneak.
Mage: Has to use every [censored] skill in existence. Damage isn't high enough. Need to have a distraction. Summon things to fight for me. Oh noes I focused too much in destruction and conjuration. Now I need to pick up healing and potions. My magic is now stretched thin. TROLLL magic regen bonuses only apply out of combat. Now I'm in some serious [censored] here. I need to add some sneak attacks in there to survive, but magic can't do that. So I need to go with a bow. But now I'm squishier so I need alteration for the buffs. There by usiong all of these skills and dragon shouts I can sort of crawl my way through the game at a snails pace. It only took me presumably decades to learn how to first use magic since it's so complicated.

*Theif and Warrior snicker in a corner.* as they go around one hit killing things or being invincible avatars of destruction. *mage cries himself to sleep believing he's balanced*

Best Destruction Spell: 100 points of damage. At higher levels it can kill nothing and takes up most of your mana to cast once.
Best Sword: 400 Damage deadric sword of death. He doesn't have to stop swinging ever.
Rogue: Two handed daggers x15 damage with the unique item that lets him get x2 to sneak attack for a x30 bonus and one hit kill dragons.

Just to put it into perspective a little bit.

No one is saying to only play as a destruction mage. Your Destruction is your Single-Handed Weapon compared to the warrior, correct? Now imagine if that single handed weapon did no damage. That's what mages are dealing with at around level 30 and up. Their weapon no longer does any damage. So your warrior is left with Heavy Armor and Block, and your mage is left with Restoration and Alt/Con. Too bad that he doesn't have enough magicka to use either of them, yet the warrior is still mostly invincible, while mages are getting one hit killed by goats they accidentally angered with cross fire.

You are a funny man and exaggerate, but there is truce to what you say.

i agree skill should influence the dmg/healing of your spells (atleast a bit)

300% armor doesn't solve the Destruction Scaling issue.

No one wants to get by on destruction alone. I don't think a single person here has made that argument, and if they have, it is misguided.

The problem is that destruction is a combat skill, it is not supposed to be a supplement skill. People expect it to be a combat skill, and they have every right to. The destruction school holds all of the classic pop-culture wizard spells. It should be the bread-and-butter of wizardry. Instead, it becomes largely useless as anything more than a pea-shooter after level 40.

No one expects a one-handed warrior to be forced to raise another combat skill to get by. Yes, he will use other skills (block, enchanting, etc), but he is, at the end of the day, a one handed warrior and can get by that way.
No one expects a two-handed warrior to be forced to raise another combat skill to get by. Again, he may use other skills, but he can get by with two-handed as his only combat skill and he will do fine.
No one expects a conjuror to be forced to raise another combat skill to get by. Yet again, he may use other skills, but he can get by just fine letting his familiar do the fighting for him.
The same goes for archer and thief.

I don't understand why it is unreasonable to expect destruction to carry the same weight as a combat skill as one-handed, two-handed, or conjuration. Destruction PALES in comparison to these other combat skills in its ability to scale properly, and becomes a second rate backup after level 40.

When people say they want to be a "one-handed warrior", they don't mean they want to use that skill and that skill only.
When people say they want to be an "archer", they also don't mean they only want to use that one skill.
But for some reason, people seem to think that when people say that they want to be a "Mage focusing on Destruction", that is the only skill they want to use. Those people ARE using other skills...in fact they are required to fall-back on them, because destruction becomes damn near useless later in the game. It simply does not scale, so a "mage focusing on destruction" slowly is forced to become a "mage focused on conjuration" or a "mage that uses a sword".

A lot of people expected to be able to use destruction spells in the same way they would use one-handed, two-handed or archery. It is supposed to be the primary combat skill for mages, and it easily could be if it scaled a little better.

It is a quick and simple fix to get it to the point where this skill would be useful again, in the way that people expect it to be. It is a fix that wouldn't impose on the playstyle of anyone who isn't bothered by this shortcoming. I don't understand why people appear to be getting deeply and personally offended by this.

I disagree here. While these spells seem underpowered, especially when comparing them to Oblivion, which when at certain levels when one focused on one skill set, it was too powerful. If you're at a high enough level, where you get the "Dual Casting" perk, you can do some serious damage. I used fireball and lightning bolt/ice spikes which can be cast from afar and owned the enemies. Not only that, since I focused heavily on Conjuration, I summon an ally that the enemies begin to focus on and it is made all the easier. Considering I hit them from afar and that I can kite them, I don't die. Not only that, if their health gets low, the perks make them flee or staggers them from dual-casting. Now, add the fact that you can have a companion with you that is focused on archery, and it can be real easy. I am at level 46 and I focused on Destrctuction, Conjuration and Restoration, mixing a little here and there and I am breezing through it. All I did was grind through the game to level up and am now concentrating on any quests.

Why do all these threads assume the only way to play Destruction Mage is to point at things and they die.

What fun is it to 1-shot everything in the game?

Get the right gear: You want decreased % spell cost. Things like the Ring of Destruction. Combine that with a little +magicka if you have it. Spells cost too much? Well gear to lower the cost.

Next, IMPACT! I can Impact spam anything to death. I'm level 21 and I just impact spammed a Giant with ease.

All I did was shoot exactly 5 double-Firebolts at the Giant. Boom, dead, done.

Destruction is fine.

I currently am mastering Destro,Alteration,Resto. Gladly the latter two are very usefull, and im practically unkillable.

Now my offense is just trash though due to scaling. Yes I get by, but its NOT FUN getting weaker in DPS as I level when all other DPS-Skills get stronger as they leve.

Great post, but it is entirely too reasonable, logical, and factual.

I'm betting 100$ ganen and xeth zenn3k and the gang are going to misinterpret this post. These posters do not like these three qualities. They live in a bubble, ignore math, and ignore the actual argument being made.


No, you can't. You'd know this if you listened to those who are high level, or were a high level mage yourself. Facts are facts, people. ffs this is getting mind numbing, its like im at a republican convention

It seems obvious to me that destruction will be fixed in an upcoming patch, but it baffles me that nobody at bethesda actually noticed that... I guess there is a major reason Blizzard always has their long ass beta phases... Did nobody at their headquarter quickly made a lvl 50 mage on master difficulty to try out how destruction competes? Weird. What would be fun is if someone could make 2 videos showing how conjuration + destruction + smithing and enchant svcks when compared to conjuration + 1 hand + smithing and enchant, it's such a non contest it's not even funny. As someone pointed out, in the conjuration + destruction setup your minions will actually outdamage your destruction on max difficulty at higher levels...

Most of the people defending the system in place are under level 20 and still are missing the point entirely.

Yes I agree. I've been reported already for posting facts and understandably getting frustrated when people ignore the facts.
I think all of us who know how the game works at higher levels should stop replying to these topics. We may want a logical and reasonable discussion, but it is not what the other side wants to do.

You're taking out of context the functionality of the skills. Honestly, I don't like playing the pure warrior type, but I do like playing a battlemage type though. I prefer playing pure a mage most of the time. But, why should magic be rewarded the same strength of damage as a sword/mace/axe. Remember, certain enemies are supposed to be able to resist magic spells and even heal themselves. A sword pierces the body, so, why shouldn't it do more damage. Have you used a magic staff yet? Some of those are more powerful than the hand-helds. Honestly, I think the balancing is pretty good overall.

So 1 Hand/2 Hand damage increases with every level it goes up.

Destruction doesnt increase with every level.

Damage stays the same while every mob in the game increases damage and health.

You must be really dense to not see how thats broken.

Except this isn't politics and I personally abhor the pubs, anyhoo. I don't need to listen to anyone. I am saying the dual-casting works from my actual gameplay experience, not because it somehow become less functional out of some kind of disappointment, please separate the two.

Warrior
Sword
Shield block
Armor skill

Mage:
Destruction
Conjuration or illusion
Alteration

now conjuration or illusion acts as a shield in that it diverts attention form you (either through summons or mind control)

High end Alteration can MASSIVELY increase your armor rating if you're wearing not normally wearing armor, Conjuration can also cover for destruction as your "weapon" if you really want it to, but if you go that far why make a mage in the first palce?

now i didn't add restoration or enchanting to this list, both are generally usefull to everyone and as such don't belong in any particular branch.

----

now on destruction: 60 destruction and 3 perks invested will allow you to gain a 50% damage increase, with one element, add this to dual casting for another perk and i'd dare say you're getting competetive, my swordmage with a damage rating of 34 before armor, with the 50% and dualcast increase your low tier destruction spell (comparable to a steel weapon) would cause 24 before resists.
She is dependant on stamina, vs you being dependant on Mana, so there really isnt much difference there, yes i can continue without my stamina, but power attacks really mean the world to a warrior, and no stamina means no pwoer attacks, which means no stagger which = me dead.

now at 4 perks and 60 rating in my weapon i can have +80% damage, or +60% and a dual wield or weapon specialization perk (the prior would give up my trusty shield/spell hand though)

What happens when i run into a giant? Splat.
What happens when i cast a +60 armor spell before i run into a giant? Splat
I am level 24 with 260 hp in epic orc armor with wielding a (superior)dwarven mace, and it takes giants and mammoths three strikes to utterly decimate me, three strikes between which i am lucky if i can get one heal off, or take mroe than 20% of their HP from them, healing potions just don't cut it, and lydia tends to get crushed during those fights as well,.

but... if i take on said giant (or a mammoth) by a rock formation and use my completely unskilled novice frost spell with some smart jumping around, i can easily take them on, though the battle takes forever, but again using a non perked frost spell, natural regeneration and some jumping around coupled with my grade 2 unrelenting force shout.
(did this when grabbing a mammoth tusk for ysandre or whatever her name is, the npc that teaches a rank or two of speech to you in return)

Destruction scales by the use of more powerfull spells, which requires a minor investment of perks to reduce their mana cost significantly, if you're using the novice spells at level 40 then you're doing something wrong, that would compare to a warrior still using steel at that level, not at all usefull.

---

also remember if you're wearing light or heavy armor and focusing mainly on spellcasting, you won't have the huge mana regeneration benefit that most caster cloth in the world grants, this impedes your casting ability significantly, and while it doens't increase your initial dps, that amount of regeneration does pay off.

the bottom line is, a repetition of what a lot of other people have said:
don't just focus on one skill, TES never rewarded anyone for that, you need a skill set of 3-5 skills to really make a well rounded character, which ones? that is entirely up to you.

Lol, apparently the mana regen +% boosts don't work during combat.
....whhhhhhy

Whaaaat? Why should magic be rewarded the same strength? Because it's called balance? I'm... out of words. Every damage dealing trees should be at least remotely similar in their damage capacities. What's the point of playing destruction if your damage is so low that your minions or your freshly summoned bow will outperform?