I feel the same way. There were already plenty of avenues to become a demi-god in the previous titles; this time around, you have to avoid core functions of the game to prevent it.

Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. It just tells the devs that it's okay to make similar design issues in the future because they know they can get away with it.

I play on Master and I went 50/50 magicka/health with a cloth wearing mage.

Doing two schools at 100% magicka reduction is a waste. The only real school that needs magicka reduction is destruction, since you need to cast constantly.

I went with alteration, illusion, destruction and minor points in restoration for heals and its supplemental perks. I didn't do conjuration because I feel that it is far too powerful. Dremora Lords are insanely powerful on master difficulty for some reason. A pair of dremora lords, shouldn't beat a royal flush

For destruction I only invested in the fire damage boost and lightning damage and the disintegrate. Fire because it has the best damage and there are some enemies that are weak to it. Lightning because it forces spellcasters into melee, it also hits instantly so it is great versus dragons in the air and for sniping. Frost is a rather poor choice since skyrim is full of nords and cold resistant/immune creatures and there are far better cc options in both alteration(paralyze) and illusion is basically all cc.

With magicka boosting gear, both regen and additional magicka, I have no problems with magicka costs. In fact the only time I need to use magicka pots is when I get spammed with lightning.

If only destruction either did more damage, or had much lower magicka costs, the only reason you'd need to use high magicka reduction cost gear would be for hybrid builds with a limited magicka pool.

That's why I said focus on the real problems and not stuff, which can safely not be used and therefore ignored... Srsly dude...

And you dont.
Takes a bit to get to enchanting 100 you know, and no-one forces you to level it at all.

You complain way to much. I made an open statement and you had to try to find fault in what I had said.

You're kind of coming off as that one guy people know that has to go around and find a negative in everything. There's a word... Pessimist I think.

"has about as much logic as _____ pie."
You should really consider trying to pass english class before taking any activism in a forum. Jerk.

Destruction Damage NEVER scales

It practically needs to be free to cast to allow mage to be viable on harder difficulties.

My Archer is shooting fools for 70 damage

My Fighter swings for heavy 60 damage strikes

My mage flings.... 25 dmage firebolts???? Oh, ok I CAN fling Fireballs for 50 damage... but just shy of the perk so it costs me too much mana to spam (I have 50% off destruction and half cost perk... so 25% magicka cost for firebolts... but 53% cost for fireballs)

As any combat skill increases... the damage caused by related actions increases....

except with destruction.

As Destruction increases... the magicka cost to cast goes down. Your damage NEVER goes up.

IMO They should have added Destruction Damage scaling....

then of course free spells would need to be addressed.

But as it is it's kinda a requirement to playing a mage.


Oh yah.... and you don't regen Magicka even while casting free spells.... so if you cojure something then spam fireballs for 2 min straight..... you still haven't gained any magicka back from that summon. You can only summon, heal, etc so much before you run out of mana when you never have a chance to regen it.

I guess you can get better DPS ratio using bow and it's sustainable until you run out of arrows. I'm playing non-overpowered mage, but I have to also use other magic schools, because otherwise I'd be screwed. Playing pure destruction mage is really not viable, since you often have to resolve to kiting and waiting for a bit of magicka. If someone wants to play destruction mage, this may be the only option and I don't see why to make it impossible.

I have no further questions.

ya sadly this is sometimes an issue at high levels, unless you use mods.

The .25% cost reduction from each point in Destro and the 33% regen rate is kinda crap and makes stacking reduction enchants the most valued thing - becoming the top "strategy" spammed in every destro thread.

I'm using a mod that makes it .65% and regen to 75%, works wonders.

Yeah, I haven't got to this point yet, but I do plan on nerfing myself. I'll probably stop at 60% reduction and put the rest into mana boost. Sounds boring otherwise.

Sadly, the -100% magicka enchants are pretty much necessary if you want to play for any length of time beyond the main quest on master. When it takes 15+ dual casts to kill a single draugr deathlord, and tougher dungeons send up to 6 or 7 at you at a time, there's just no way to keep up with the absurd magicka costs of the expert level spells used to kill them without at least 90% reduction. Any less than that and you'll quickly run into the boring world of 1/3 magicka combat regen.

Bethesda doesn't need to state "this is intended" for it to not be an exploit. Exploit, in a game sense, means to abuse (typically) fringe mechanics to operate within the system in a way which the designers never intended. Standing on "that one chair there" so "melee monsters can't path to you" would be an exploit. Enchanting four pieces of equipment with an enchantment the designers put in the game is not an exploit, it is a perfectly acceptable use of the mechanics they provide to you.

I am not saying it is balanced. I am saying it is not an exploit, a person is not cheating by doing this, they are merely making the game less enjoyable for themselves.

If you don't like the -100%, then don't deliberately put that on your armor. Put something else. It's like people just find ways to exploit something, and then complain about it.

I agree with The Visitor. You just about need -100% to keep up in a lot of fights. I have it, and I still struggle more on my mage than on my pure warrior who didnt use smithing.

This is pretty obviously intentional, too. It can go on 4 slots and each reduces 25%. The math is just too convenient to be a mistake. Alchemy/enchanting feedback loops, now thats a mistake.

Also getting 100 enchantment isn't easy if you're not forcing to level it up.

Yep. "Just" 100 Enchanting.


Between raising your Enchanting up that high, and then deliberately making the items.... seems like getting "free" spells takes a good bit of effort. Definitely not something you'd just fall into accidentally. No-one's twisting your arm to do that.

Seems kind of like 100% Chameleon in Oblivion. Yeah, you can do it, if you put the effort in. Yeah, it's overpowered. Yeah, it's boring.
Easy solution - don't do it. I think I tried it once a looooong time ago, thought it was silly, and then never bothered trying again. Why do something that makes your game boring? Seems like a silly way to play.

(I've never played a mage yet, but I suspect that if I was - and had high Enchanting - I'd put a mix of enchantments on my gear. Maybe some extra Magicka, maybe some elemental resists, maybe a mix of mana reductions, so that I could cast several types of spells at a more reasonable cost, rather than one type for free.)

This

It breaks my immersion when I have to conscientiously choose to not do something because I know it'll break the game. Aka going out of the way to not break the game is METAGAMING an activity that should be avoided in any RPG at all times.

But what is normal play for someone who is an enchanter? I think it's another problem that enchanting is even a skill (blacksmithy, too). If you're an enchanter, you enchant things. There isn't any way around "forcing it" since the only way to level it up is to, surprise: enchant stuff.

There's another problem, too, in that you need around 80 enchanting before you're making anything decent or useful. You can't be an enchanter without doing this.

I'm going to have 90% reduc on Destruction magic (on half cost spells thx to perk... so 5% cost) That's 3x 25% bonus and 15% from Archmage robes

Thing is... with my pure mage... Destruction is just MY personal damage attack... I'm still casting loads of other spells and will want to spread around magicka savings, as well as boosting magicka, for my other enchants.

It NEEDS to be dirt cheap to fling your primary single target and AoE spells....

Otherwise you OOM on every fight with more than 1 enemy.

I think you have to "go out of your way" to do things like Oblivion's 100% chameleon, or Oblivion's spellcrafted million damage super-magic-weakness combos, or Morrowind's/Skyrim's recursive crafting loops, or Skyrim's 100% mana reduction. Unless you've got a pathological need to min/max everything (which, honestly, is metagaming rather than gaming), then it isn't something that'll "just happen" to your character.

They scale based on difficulty so a master difficulty dremora lord is buffed to hell. @_@

You and people like you are everything that's wrong with the mainstream gaming

It makes me sad that people no longer care about a challenging game. One the not only pushes you to make the best character possible but once you are at your "best" it just pushes harder. Hordes of casual games have ensured that developers make sure you can be content with mediocrity and making the best character possible just trivializes the entire game instead of making the hardest difficulties possible.

I fart in your general direction sir.

Morrowind - a ton of different ways to min/max exploit and create a "god" character
Oblivion - WAY LESS ways to min/max exploit. Ended up everyone creating the same character type and using the same items. (Thief/bow/magic)
Skyrim - -100% magic cost = everyone maxing STA/Health and spamming magic and being the exact same character.

Obviously the MORROWIND system was superiour because it offered variety. Obli/Skyrim .. if you want to min/max there is really only 1 choice.

Right, you missed the point I was making though, you don't need to abuse the system to have that type of character, you just have to put the time in. I agree with everything you said.

Except there are such few meaningful choices for a character that you could say there's only one choice. It was brought up above that there's only on enchant that applies to specific spell schools and that is magika reduction - so if you're playing a specialist wizard of a certain school which means you have a primary spell school and enchanting as your crafting profession, if you're aiming to be the best at that school you're going to eventually run into -100% magika.

If there were tradeoffs to be made (spell penetration, elongated effects, flat damage increase, etc.) then I'd say "You made the choice to cast free spells" but now I'm saying "You made the ONLY choice,which is to cast free spells". It breaks the immersion because I took the only path available to me and I find it borderline OP - I can't really "Choost not to do it" and Roleplay effectively.