Since most of the threads I've seen on this subject end up hitting the post limit, I figured it was time for another one. It might also help to have the dps figures in the OP for everyone to look at, so I'll (re)post them here.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/rangedsynergy-1.jpg

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/meleedamage-1.jpg

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/meleesynergy-1.jpg

These plots show destruction/melee/archery skill level on the x axis, damage per second (not damage per shot) on the y axis. The melee/archery numbers also take skill perks, and improvements from enchanting and smithing into account (it assumes your smithing and enchanting skills remain equal to your combat skill.) They don't take magicka cost/regeneration into account.

*Edit - Fixed archery plot to include arrow damage. Woops.

*Another edit - I was calculating the dual wield power attacks wrong (it's a bit more complicated than I was thinking) so here are revised numbers, that include applicable power attack perks. They're a lot lower, only a slight improvement in dps over dual wield double attacks.

*Yet another edit - Just to keep things together, here are the crafting synergy/no crafting plots I posted later in the thread. The melee/archery damage shown in the first three plots shows 100 level smithing and enchanting improvements, but no fortify smithing gear or potions, and no fortify enchanting potions. The plots below show both zero crafting (just better weapons from loot) and crafting plus the fortifying gear and potions.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/rangedcrafting.jpg

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/meleecrafting.jpg

I'm reserving my right to counter on this thread after most people have posted.

Please take note that destruction magic is far more powered than my ability to one-kill a dragon with telekinesis and a spoon.

Destruction needs scaling and nerfing at the same time (Impact perk is OP) to be more fun, IMO. I've said it a million times already, but the two sides to this argument are hilarious in that they are both right for different reasons. Does Destruction work? Sure... it's even OP without the Impact perk if you decide to use stacking poisons with weakness to poison/magic/element. You can do thousands of points of damage with one Novice spell if you stack poisons on your target first (even use a Fort Destro potion). You can use it as a support skill for your summons, or use it to clean up after a Mayhem... the possibilities are endless, really. If you're careful, and good at kiting, you can even use it for primary damage well into end-game as long as you have casting gear that helps to lower cost, or if you don't mind running away to hide/regen or spam magicka potions. It's just my personal thing that I would like to see Destro be a little more beefy on its own... just a little bit more would be really nice.

-Loth

Why is the firebolt once below 60 and once above 60 ? Spell base dmg dosnt change with skill progresion.
Firebolt is 25 dmg base 37 with perk 50% dual cast its 81 dmg so it cant be below 20.
Fireball is 40 dmg base 60 dmg with 50% perk and and Incinerate 132 dmg dual cast nothing below 120.
Incinerate is 60 base dmg that 90 with perk and 198 dmg with dual cast nothing below 180.
Why is there a dual wield x 2 when your talking about DPS ? 2 swings is still close to 2 seconds.
Why do you take smithing and enchants for more dmg on meele and archery but no weakness magic/poison/element poison on magic when you can buy them from vendors easily with no need for alchemy ?

Yeah, agreed, what I found with my destruction mage was a big gap where I felt ineffective, to the point where I was about to give it up - I wasn't using fireball because I didn't want to fry my companion, and firebolt's damage gets pretty pathetic when you hit higher levels. Then I went online and saw there were higher level versions of the firebolt/ice spike/lightningbolt spells available once you hit 70 or so destruction skill. I trained up to 70 and got the spell, and everything was fine after that. Level scaling would smooth out that dip, and make more spells useful.

Those plots take the elemental damage boosting perks into account, assuming you take the perks as soon as you have the required level. So if you take all the destruction damage spells, and the elemental damage perks, the curve is relatively smooth. But fireball, imo, really shouldn't have been treated as a replacement for firebolt, its AOE so it has an entirely different use.

The plots are also damage per second, not damage per cast. I went in game and timed how many fireball dual casts I could get off in a minute, and used that number to get attacks per second (it ended up being like 0.87 attacks per second or something, so dps is slightly lower than spell damage.)

*Edit - Oh, it also uses flames for the damage at destruction levels 0 and 10.

Why is there a dual wield x 2 when your talking about DPS ? 2 swings is still close to 2 seconds.
Why do you take smithing and enchants for more dmg on meele and archery but no weakness magic/poison/element poison on magic when you can buy them from vendors easily with no need for alchemy ?

It looks like the spells are plotted as DPS, and since dualcasting is not 1/second, the firebolt lies under 25 for that reason. I'm assuming he plotted destro spells scaling upwards with skill in regards to when better spells can be bought with appropriate perks at 25/50/75 skill levels, and also takes into account when the various +damage perks can be had at the right skill levels.

-Loth

He said a spell is 0.87 sec casting and he has elemental dmg in place so a firebolt should do 42 dmg dps with one hand and 92 dmg dps dualcast
If the base is 25 dmg there is no way it can be marked as below 20. Even if he did it like this 0.87 x 25 its still 21 and its not correct. 1/0.87x25 = 28 is the correct value

You already know about the DW speed being dependent on the left hand, and how you can tag with both weapons at once... remember the Design Freedom Threads? You were all up in those, IIRC.
And if we factor in poisons, you have to admit that archers/melee can get the same thing, so you kinda have to draw the line somewhere, right? Taking alchemy out of the picture seems pretty reasonable to me when we are comparing the mechanisms underneath what alchemy can do for everything... but you're definitely right that alchemy effects can make a huge difference in these charts in that the numbers can go much higher.

-Loth

Edit: Dualcasting takes longer, doesn't it?

The dual wield x1 and x2 represent, for x1, the damage from just swinging with your right hand weapon. It's the same attack as sword and shield, except you get a speed bonus from the dual flurry perk. For the x2, it represents swinging both weapons simultaneously (by hitting both mouse buttons simultaneously) which doubles damage but slows attack rate, with the overall increase in damage shown in the plots.

This plot assumes you're dual wielding swords, so it uses the sword attacks per second number. I'm pretty sure though that dual wield attack speed is determined by your off hand weapon, so the x1 damage/attack speed might be higher for someone that has a dagger in their off hand and sword in their main.

Both destruction and the combat disciplines have fortify damage alchemy potions, of the same magnitude, so if you want you can just scale up the graphs to show their effect.

There is no poison to weakness to bows/meele but there is to magic/element and it can be upped with poison to poison weakness aplied before the rest. Its totaly viable route for a mage.
As for the dual wield x2 its not a power attack its just 2 swings at once. What your talking about is the dual power attack x2 that I dont question.


I know thats why Im not taking them into consideration. Im talking about poison that dosnt buff normal non-element swords but buffs enchanting. From the graph I can tell your using upgraded weapons and one-hand enchants on gear but no elemental enchants on weapons.

Weapons can use the same potion and poison effects as destro, so it's pointless to mention them...

the blades used in the graph are not enchanted and even if they were they wouldnt benefit as much as the mage spells would.

To be fair, the weakness to fire/frost/shock/magic potions help mages out more than warriors with enchanted weapons, since 100% of the damage is elemental (though I guess I should point out the melee can further enchance damage via weapon enchants, not shown in the plots). Those poisons are a bit of a hassle though, I don't know if its reasonable to assume a mage is going to use one on every enemy they face, so I left them out.

No, but you have poisons doing extra 80 or so damage, which is pretty much what you'll get with a good weakness to magic poison and a good spell...

BTW, how exactly can you apply the poison when you are not using weapons???

Even if you enchant a fire and frost enchant on a weapon its gonna give an additional 50 dmg to the meele and bow dmg. if we use poison to magic and element we can get 200% bonus. Thats 25 dmg x 3 + 25dmg x 2 = 75+50=125 dmg for a warrior or archer. For a mage its 198 dmg x 3 = 594 dmg. This is a big thing for a mage so why cant he use it but a warrior/archer can use 2 crafting skills to buff his dmg ?



Normal or the lowest bow/dagger and dont say we cant use it becuase we are mages the bow/dagger isnt used to dmg its used to poison.
And both party can use poison that dmg health its no alternative to weakness to magic/element

People have to realize, you can drink a weakness to magic poison yourself, then drink a potion of fortify and or restoration/marksman

Alchemy should not be factored, because it just gets stupid. quick.

No, you're right... but you need a skill of 25 (considering the rules of this graphing) to use a firebolt spell. Sure, you can cast one before that, but if we take this into account, you could also cast a fireball/incinerate with zero skill, and the whole point of the graphing is lost. I could also get dual Daedric Maces and use them at zero skill.

-Loth

Edit: It's probably best for the sake of all our sanity to leave alchemy out of this.

So we both agree those graphs are wrong
Edit just noticed all skills start from 15 so you cant really start the graph from 0 skill

Haha... I'm sure he used "Flames" for the skills under 25 -- he said as much earlier... in an edit, I think. But you totally busted him on the zero skill part...
-Loth

It's probably unreasonable to require mages to poison all their targets prior to attacking in order to be viable, I for one would go nuts. But dps matters most when you're facing a tougher target, so if you saved those poisons for dragons and trolls and bandit chiefs it might be OK. I personally probably wouldn't design a magic system around that requirement though.

Still, I though destruction was pretty reasonable (without weakness to x poisons.) It's clearly stronger than archery. What I think is out of whack, both from the graph and from playing, is dual wield. Yeah, you have to be face to face, but mages still have to face archers from time to time, so they aren't completely immune to damage.

*edit - Yeah, if I were more anol I'd probably go adjust the range of the graphs from 10 to 100, but... not that big a deal.

Well I just noticed it now that got me too Anyway goodnight

So, back on topic:

Good job on these charts, Imp! This is the kind of hard data that makes threads go beyond the usual bantering and such. Destruction isn't terrible... here's the proof.
-Loth

Once the CK is out I'll probably make my own set of changes to magic, not sure if I'll release it since there'll probably be a dozen other big balance overhauls coming out around then (and I'll have my hands full with my planned hunger/thirst/sleep mod,) but I still needed some numbers to work with.