I can't help but wonder why they made the upper level destruction magic so weak in Skyrim. I'm over 180 hours into the game in the upper 40's now and my Destruction is at 100 but I feel incredibly weak as a magic user against anything but the weakest foes. Power wise there is very little difference between the lower level spells and the upper ones especially when taking the amount of Magicka used into consideration. Along with that there is no gear to enhance damage output of spells. Spell damage does not scale properly with level advancement. I know when I picked up my second level of spells I was a bit underwhelmed at the power increase they provided but the third level was just pure disappointment considering the enemies I was then facing.

I have put all my points into Magicka so I would have enough for the upper level spells which require a very large pool to be useful at all. What I wear has no armor so I can easily be one shot by many enemies in the game. My feeling is that this inherent weakness should be balanced out with an abundance of power. Instead I have to fire off twin pop guns to stun my enemy into submission while killing them...very slowly. Multiple enemies can easily become a lesson in frustration. With no good way to stun them all (other than chain lightning which will also kill my allies), and very limited power at my disposal, I'm forced into retreat, or dependence on a conjured ally. My companion is as weak as a fluff of cotton and drops to one knee after a single blow by most enemies even though she is in full Legendary Daedric armor and equipped with a high level weapon. She is a useless tank which is something for another thread but needed to be mentioned here.

I love being a caster, and I appreciate a challenge, but I do feel that the magic in this game needs an overhaul. I don't want to one shot everything but I do feel the upper level spells should be more than what they are. I hope one day to have a better PC where I'm sure magic will be modded to be more effective but for now I'm on the 360 and Bethesda is my only hope. So Bethesda if you happen to read this I hope there are changes on the way. The end game magic in this game is pathetically weak and really needs some tlc. The best way I can see to remedy this issue is to provide enchants and gear that increase magical damage just like the items melee and ranged users have to increase their damage. Skyrim's casters have not been treated fairly in this regard and it is time to correct that problem. If that cannot be done then please rebalance the damage output of the currently available spells in the game so that they are properly effective. Thank you.

Is this a case of over-specialization? You're all attack and no defense

I believe there is a mod on PC that makes spell damage scale with level and skill level.

You need some way to keep the mobs off you. Conjuring is what you need as a pure Mage. I put an Atronach, or these days a couple of Dremora Lords into the mix. You need this capability as you will never be a tank and rightly so.

Now my Battlemage is proably what you want. He is a tank and the Arch Mage all rolled into one. A tough build and after some 130 hours in him I am pretty well done with the battle part. The Mage is now leveling up well.

How tough is he? Well a Frost Dragon landed right on top of him yesterday and he killed it with the big sword. Blew my mind. I kill lots of Dragons but not like that ever before.

could you try to find a link for that? I would love it

I'm not having a problem with what I'm doing in my vanilla game and the kind of mage I am, Destruction/Alteration spells mostly, no swords, sometimes staves. I'm going to post my numbers so you can compare to yours in case there's something in there. Along with these numbers, I have the Arch-mage robes, plain Muffle boots, no armor of any kind so I can use my Mage Armor perk with Stoneflesh and Ebonyflesh spells, a Ring of Replenishing, 3 levels of Magic Resistance along with being Breton for another 25%, Mage's Circlet adds 60 more Magicka and Necklace of Extreme Magicka adds 60 more. I conjure and have taken each perk at every level that reduces Magicka cost and augments Destruction. At Level 44, 300 hours now, it's been a long and slow build. My conjuring now includes the Dremora Lord and that really keeps the enemy off of me, no more one-hit kills on me, plus I have Argis as a Follower. I'll go look at my stats and edit if I've missed something.

Illusion 43 (want to do an Illusion mage on a future build, didn't take a lot of perks)
Conjuration 80
Destruction 73
Restoration 64
Alteration 81

Magicka 320 (enhancements not included)
Health 230
Stamina 180

Good luck...I hope you'll find the answer from someone!

Just a question, are you using Alteration to boost your defense?

I notice, as a mage-type, I'm definitely lagging behind weapon users, but so far with stoneflesh I'm doing alright for myself. I have been mixing in health with magicka at levelup, though. Of course, I'm still at low levels.

Personally I use this mod

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4374

It doesn't change too much and is relatively balanced. There are many more famous ones such as Midas magic which was a standard in oblivion. But those are as yet, limited by the lack of the construction kit, and far too unbalanced.

Why did you level up stamina? What use do you find for that as a mage?

Also, at level 44, 300 hours (my god) why are your skills so low? What difficulty are you playing at? I ask, b/c I don't skill grind at all and roleplay and don't use fast travel (just the carriages) and I have my destruction at 68 and I'm only level 21 or so???

Just curious.

Run Conjure up to 100. The rest are optional. Destruction is a waste of perks over the expert level. Also you might find mid level destruction spells more useful than more advanced ones. I only use lightning bolts myself. I can dual cast them forever and they stagger anyone. The higher ones do very little more damage but use up manna.

The ability to cast two Dremora Lords will kind of end your problems with baddies.

Conjuration, One handed (or 2 handed, your choice), Alteration, Illusion. Your welcome in advance.

I did not care to persue the battle mage build. I thought about it but decided against it.

With the magicka cost on the spells going up drastically I also couldn't see wasting points on health that should be going toward my magicka pool which was already lacking. And honestly, with effective mage armor I shouldn't need to increase my health. Of course I don't find the mage armors to be all that effective either but they are better than nothing. I do use the Dremora Lord now since that is the only viable tank available to me and he is extremely helpful, but I feel I have to depend on him more than I should. Using 2 Dremora Lords would totally defeat the purpose of even having this character. But regardless of build, or survivability, I still feel that the high end spells themselves are much weaker than they should be.

One thing I have noticed is that the NPC's don't seem to have the same issues I do. Their spells seem very powerful in comparison to mine. Even using the same spell an enemy mage can often one shot me and yet I use the same spell on them and it does almost nothing. Why is that? I'm talking about a clear shot on them when they have no warding. Even on non-magical NPC's I often see very little damage occuring even from my highest level spells. These are spells that can drain my entire Magica bar in 4 to 5 shots when double casting my highest level damage spell and that doesn't even kill one enemy at times.

I just feel there is bad balance on the magic side of things when my most used spell is double cast fire bolts which is one of the lowest level spells I have. Destruction should be a viable build. I should not have to fall back on illusion or conjuration to make it possible.

Sure, that's how we learn different ways to play. Difficulty setting is Adept. I like to level slowly...it's a huge world and I really didn't think about skill points; I just played and used what I liked. I chose Stamina every few times because I also like Archery (59) and I didn't mention it but I have a Sneak skill of 90. If I don't have to fight, that's fine with me but I've fought plenty. For me it's about the story and the exploring and the loot, not the fighting. I'm a loot lover. I've gotten 4 fully-furnished houses and it takes a lot of loot to buy those. So my focus was on that and I built my mage carefully I think. If I was getting killed too often, I'd make adjustments in what I was doing and this is where I am now. I don't fast-travel as a rule and I'll use carriages sparingly. I'm having a blast and still have lots to do. How about you?

I agree 100% but be prepared for the bethesda fan crew to come to rescue and blame you for the game's faults.

It's a case of terrible game balance. Warriors and Archers have more attack and infinite more dfense.

Exactly. Also you will find players pointing to the fact that enemy mages are powerful, they will then say that you are playing the game wrong. Fact is destruction doesn't level with the player, thankfully Beth said they may rebalance some skills so there is hope. Until then I won't be playing as a mage.

There five useful attributes for a Mage. Expecting one of them to be all you need is not going to work. Destruction is about right. My Mage is parked because he is way too OP.

Destruction does not scale with the world. Please people. If you keep saying things like this Beth won't fix the obvious problem that is preventing many players such as myself from playing a mage. Mage is my favorite class and it kills me to see a magic system worse than oblivion that doesn't even work right!

Haha not Conjuration...lvl 100 = potentially 2 dremora lords = epic destruction.

The problem with destruction is that the skill itself only reduces mana cost while FORTIFY DESTRUCTION actually increases damage of the spells.

I think magic is OP myself. If you just want to use Destruction for everything I can only shake my head and ask you if you even know what a Mage is. A Battlemage is a whole different kettle of fish and the one I am building now escews Destruction because he does it by hand. As I said I built a Mage that is so powerful I parked him.

What they need to do is bring the weapon and armor balancing genius from Obsidian for a day to the TES team. He did miracles for the weapons in FO:NV it was amazing how he managed to make every weapon well balanced. Im positve he could to something with the weapons armor and magic system of Skyrim to make it fair for all classes to be able to play. Im tired of being pwned by random mages because my Warrior/Assassin for some reason cant seem to take a hit from magic. Seriously im like a hotdog on a damn roticerry being fried by mages. Its even worse when im ganged against 3. So id imagine for a Mage PC it must svck not being able to take a hit or deal one none the less so i feel ya. Someone get Josh Sawyer on the phone, we need him!

I won't stop saying what I think about the skills because I don't want Bethesda to change things. I think we have to work on our builds and get them to be where we want them and that's what I've been doing. Some people complain and say it's dumbed down but then when you have to work to use what we've been given in the game, they want it handed to them instead. I don't see how someone can have it both ways. If someone wants to change the way the game is played by running off and getting a mod that will do the work for them, fine, do that but don't change the difficulty for the rest of us. It's fine the way it is. Just mho.