In all honesty I totally disagree. I'm playing as a Dunmer destruction focused mage. I'm a pretty low level and I just dual wield sparks and flames and I am killing enemies in seconds! (On normal difficulty). It's actually feeling too easy and I think I might raise the difficulty.

Not at all.

I don't think that you're being fair to my original post. Warriors aren't complaining about anything because weapons are decidedly powerful and effective at dispatching foes. Destruction magic, as everyone and their dog is attesting to, is not.

Do you have the perk in conj. that reduces the amount of mana the spell costs by half?

The perks to reduce mana cost are required to be a mage from what I can tell.

its actually a really simple concept. mages are squishy in all games and thats never gonna change. from what i understand there are two play styles for mages in skyrim. battlemage (one hand weapon in one hand and spell in the other) or pure mage (requires you to use resto, conjure, illusion as well as destro). makes sense to me. and with the majika issue, ull find plenty of enchants that will help u with regen and add majika to ur mana pool. i havent added a single lvl into mana but i have a full mage set enchanted and it works just fine for me

Well, at the risk of a "that's not my style", I got to say, try a little shadow wizardry. It is insanely effective. You want some detect life (I still haven't gotten around to getting that yet) though you can use your eyes if you sneak carefully to spot enemies before they spot you.

I went on the first Dark Brotherhood mission and for the mission to take out Alain Dufont (the bandit leader in the dwemer ruin of Raldbthar), I approached wide in the night. Seeing the stairway from a distance as I scouted the location, I realized the most covert approach was off to the right far against the mountains on the side (never approach a place from the most obvious route). I stole up the side far to the right until I finally seen them at a distance. Three bandits guarding outside. One cast of fury got the other two to kill one of them (and drew out the second one I didn't see. One more made the two survivors fight to the death. One arrow to finish off the weak lone survivor and all three were dead without ever knowing their killer, though a single electric bolt or fireball would've done him in also.

Inside, I found my target dining with two other bandits. He died at the hands of his followers and the second guy fell the same way before the survivor finally caught on and came rushing towards me. I stood up. It was over before it began. He died in flames, because I ran him through the fire trap. I was level five. The guide suggests level 12, but as I've discovered long ago, subversion and treachery make up a large part of any gap in raw power. Just a thought. The best way to not die to multiple enemies is to not face them all at once. Without stealth, this can be a bit of a challenge, though the suggestion of conjuration can probably go just as far in evening the odds. I know people here all hate MMOs, but to use some of their terminology, the important thing is controlling your aggro. By that I mean let them spot your conjures or fury them unseen first before engaging. Then they have other problems than just you to focus on.

My melee character uses 1hs (offense), block(defense) and light armor(defense)

I would be in the same boat if I were to only use 1hs with no defense. Magic is the same way. OR if that's not your tea then put on some armor and heft a shield and use that as defense.

Im a pure mage lvl 29atm and i'm playing on expert since lvl 1 was really hard to play as pure destruction in the start, going out of mana and kiting like crazy but then i got a companion and he tanks most damage. When i finnished mages guild around lvl 20 it's awsome you're mana regen is insane with moraki and archmage's robes. at lvl 29 atm its pretty easy 2-3 shot stuff with expert spells. But mage's are pretty [censored] so rerolled a thief/warrior lvl 18 atm but i am way weaker then my mage so i'm thinking of going full warrior.

I agree with this too, Destruction is underpowered.

but again, if you use all your schools of magic you'll survive.

another idea you can use is to make poisons that makes the enemy weak to a specific spell.
I know you're going to think "well that's not what a pure mage does" that's what I thought too. But, and it is a stretch, but in Skyrim you have to accept it,

DON'T use a dagger as a weapon. ONLY use it to apply a poison that makes your enemies weak. THEN, after they're poisoned use your destruction spell.

for example: I like frost spells. I use a poison that makes enemies weak to frost magic, I hit them once with my dagger, then I put it away and light up with my frist based magic. The same applies to Fire, and shock.

also, you can't really make yourself speciliaized in one form of destruction.
Shock- use on other mages
Fire- use on undead, frost atranochs
Ice- use on humans, fire atranochs, animals

@Nightshade Assassin: is there a detect life-spell? I thought they got rid of that. Also, if you're using UESP, don't. The UESP is not accurate at this time as the game is brand new and thus will take a while to finalize any theories, strategies, or basic info.

I have a 325 % of magicka's regeneration and i'm a destruction. I rarely run out of magicka. It's just a matter of build.

Seriously. I started out mixing my magic up but more and more I find myself letting my companion and atronach handle enemies without me. Destruction has problems.

You guys don't seem to understand, or refuse to understand, that destruction does not scale. You may be rocking @ low levels, but once you get around 35-40, you won't be because the skills do not scale.

Am I the only one who is not having a hard time with Destruction? I'm level 22 now, and my Pure Altmer Mage is whooping absolutely too much ass. I'm seriously considering changing the difficulty to Expert because even boss creatures are falling before me.

Seriously, I have a much more difficult time as a Thief or Warrior. There are a few enemies I can't take on, but that's because they're just a tougher creature. Even then it just means I might have to use a potion or two.

What is happening to create such different experiences. Am I simply more skilled in the actual combat, maybe we visit different dungeons, or Radiant Story is effecting something?

Edit: Keep in mind that I'm only level 22, and I don' have experience with anything of higher level than that. It could be very different.

Dur why i no be god moad wif onli wun treez ofz perkz n skillededz bethesduh? why? u no liek me?

Are you basing your opinion of how mages should be from Oblivion? I have yet to play Skyrim, but any mage from Morrowind knows how 'nerfed' it can get (can someone compare Skyrim's magic to Morrowind's, please?)

Bethesda made mages extremely powerful in Oblivion to compensate for their weakness in Morrowind. To be honest, though, I enjoyed Morrowind's magic system more than Oblivion's because it was a challenge. I had to use my illusion spells to hide from enemies when the going got rough; I had to summon a lich every once in awhile, etc.

Im level 40 and having no problems but then I put some perks into blocking and heavy/light armor and Im using a Dragonplate shield as I cast.

According to the list of spells in the game guide, detect life is an adept level alteration spell. Need to try and track it and a few other useful ones down. Haven't really went spell shopping yet. Been feeling the game out in general. I've already started over once and had a more interesting run of it. I passed on the stone to speed up skills and stayed low level a good deal longer (allowing me opportunity to use things like fury which only affects up to level six).

Main thing is, for any character, information and planning are gold. Even if stealth is not your forte, scouting things out can still be done to an extent and trying to have a plan of attack can be something decided before being detected. Finally, don't fear the save feature. It is a tough new world out there. I got caught off guard by the three hired thugs from a theft. Wound up hopping on top of a house and using my vantage to thin the ranks first, raising first one I killed for help with the remaining two.

I'm veeeery sorry can u explain better? Do you mean that the skills themselves do not improve?

Well i know your intention is to only rely on destruction as a way of playing the entire game which is fine play how you want. though you might want to look into spending a few points into restoration it has magic Regen perks and also a nice perk that can fully cure lower to mid lvl players once a day. Also spend some points in Enchanting and enchant your gear out the butt would help as well im sure.

I'm a level 30 Destruction mage. I've been working mostly on Destruction, Light Armor, and Restoration. I've been evenly putting points into health and magicka, and have gear that gives me extra regeneration rate(it only takes a couple of seconds to fill back up during battle). So tell me this: Why can every enemy I come into contact with one hit kill me? I lowered the difficulty to novice and the problem persists. I can unload fireballs, lightning bolts, frost shards/etc on an enemy and they are unscathed, but if I get hit by a single ice shard or stray arrow I instantly die. Or how about the fact that every mage, regardless of if they are a Fire Mage, Ice Mage, Storm Mage, or Necromancer casts every single form of spell, completely ignores/absorbs my spells, and has an infinitely powerful and recharging Ward Spell that nothing I have can pierce through?

Skyrim is the first game in the Elder Scrolls series that says "If you don't wield a sword and shield with heavy armor, you will not beat this game." Level scaling makes me angry enough as it is, because it completely negates any use in leveling up, but when you tell me that my play style that has worked for the past 4 games is now completely obsolete thrown in with more glitched and broken quests than in any other game they've made(besides New Vegas)I get angry. They have made mages completely useless in this game.

Having a 100 in destruction won't make your Flames spell do any more than 8 damage per second(it's initial damage rate), yet having a 100 in weapons increases the damage and effectiveness of them. If you're using master level spells, you have no magicka, but if you use anything lower, you have no damage. There is no equal trade off.

it's actually very similar to Morrowind in that regard as Mages are, again, quite weak. You have to use all your spells,

and that';s the way it should be, yes, I agree with that.

what I don't agree with is shooting oyurself in the foot by taking away your most immediate means of combat.

a lot of you guys claim it's like a warrior not using a sheild. Big whoop, deal with it, etc etc.

no
you know what's it like?
it's like taking away the warrior's sword if you takke away your sword you're not going to do [censored] against your opponent. And yes, conjuration helps, but it's the same as simply making a warrior with no sword rely on his partners.

Destruction does not scale, this is why it's broken. When you reach a high level, and thus the rest of the world is a high level, you're still stuck using weak destruction spells. EVEN expert destruction spells are weak at higher levels.

Now I understand why spell making is so important, I never used it before, but if it were here now I'd sure as hell be using.

Ok, i understand thanks. In that case i agree. It's not fair. I'm level 20 and i don't get this difference by now... but when i'll reach higher level.... there's gonna be many problems... :S

Mages who go conjuration/destruction do fine most of the time. You can't get by with just destruction though.

I honestly hope you don't only use destruction. It's an Elder Scrolls game for christs sake, you have 17 other skills you can utilize. Only using destruction is like only using alchemy and being under the misconception that you can now take down any enemy in the game.