Because people spout out same nonsense time and time and time again, I am making this post so I can just link to it in the future 500 "Destruction doesn't scale at high levels" threads instead of writing same thing over and over. You really needn't reply.

Base balance

Base damage of a Daedric Sword is 14. You get 100% increase in damage from 5/5 Armsman and 50% increase in damage from 100 One-handed. 14 * 2.0 * 1.5 = 42 damage. Swords swing once every second. That's 42 DPS.

Base damage of a Daedric Bow is 19, damage of a Daedric Arrow is 24. Again, you get 100% increase in damage from 5/5 Marksman and another 50% from 100 Archery skill. (19 + 24) * 2.0 * 1.5 = 129. Firing speed of a bow is always at least one second(nock arrow 0.4 second, recoil 0.6 second) plus extra time to pull the string all the way back which depends on bow's weight. Complete formula for firing time is: 1 + [ 0.4 * (1 + 0.1 * bow weight) / Quick shot perk ] seconds. Quick shot perk reduces draw time by 35% so that's 1.35. For Daedric Bow with weight value of 18 we get final firing time of: 1 + [ 0.4 * (1+ 1.8) / 1.35 ] ~= 1.83. So our bow fires once every 1.83 seconds, which gives us DPS value of ~70.48.

Finally we have Destruction spells. Incinerate does 60 damage. The damage can be increased with 2/2 Augmented Flames by 50%. 60 * 1.5 = 90. You cast almost every spell(except for stream spells like Flames) once every second. That's 90 DPS. You can, of course, cast it with both hands to double that value to 180 DPS.

Melee: 42 DPS.
Archery: ~70.48DPS.
Destruction: 90/180 DPS.

So Destruction does most damage per second. By far(very far).

Legendary balance

Let's Smith our weapons to Legendary. Legendary Daedric Sword base damage is 24. 24 * 2.0 * 1.5 = 72 DPS. Legendary Daedric Bow does 29 damage, so the damage formula becomes (29 + 24) * 2.0 * 1.5 = 159. Attack speed doesn't change, so we get DPS of 159 / 1.83 = 86.88.

Legendary Melee: 72 DPS.
Legendary Archery: ~86.88.
Destruction: 90/180 DPS.

That's right - even if you max another non-combat skill and upgrade your weapons to Legendary, Destruction will still deal most DPS without even resorting to casting it with both hands.

OMG Destruction is imba

So now instead of "Why is Destruction so weak" you might ask, "Why is Destruction so strong"?

Simple. The combat skills are balanced not only by how much DPS they do, but also by many other factors.

Melee: Does least DPS and does it only at very close range, but doesn't require any resource to do it. Press attack button, receive DPS, always. Also has power attacks to slightly increase your DPS for a few moments.

Archery: Does more DPS than melee and does it at range. Hovewer archery relies heavily on quality arrows to do damage, and the difference between arrows in damage is huge. Iron Arrow does 8 damage, Daedric Arrow does 24 damage - 3x as much. In comparison, Iron Sword does 7 damage and Daedric Sword does 14, which is just 2x as much. So to deliver good DPS you need to use good arrows, which aren't very common, especially Daedric ones; you will almost certainly be forced to buy them, which means you spend a resource(money) to keep doing high DPS. That's a way to balance higher damage output.

Destruction: Over twice as much DPS as Archery and it's ranged, but again, you're spending a resource. Now theoretically the resource doesn't cost you anything, as Magicka regenerates completely for free, but as anyone knows the regen rate is much slower during combat and as any mage will confirm, running out of Magicka during combat is a Bad Thing. Balanced? Yes; it's a sort of high risk - high reward combat style.


Other things to disprove:

High level Destruction spells are far too costly to be used constantly.
That's why there are perks to reduce casting costs and the skill level itself reduces it further, and mage gear reduces it yet again and incresaes your Magicka pool/regeneration which helps again. From perks and 100 Destruction skill alone, the casting cost of Incinerate will be reduced from 171 to 51.3 Magicka. For a mage with 600 Magicka that's over 12 casts(your Magicka does regenerate even during combat; with 600 Magicka it's 6/second during combat, which means you get enough Magicka to cast another Incinerate in 8.55 seconds). And again, that is all without any mage-specific gear.

But I don't have any stuff that increases my Magicka or reduces the cost. And I spent all my points on Health and Stamina.
Do you also expect to be a good warrior or archer without a weapon or armor and Health/Stamina? This is stupid.

You get 300% damage from skill/perks in melee/archery and only 50% damage increase from Destruction skill/perks so it svcks.
Irrelevant, because the BASE DAMAGE of Destruction spells is much higher than base damage of weapons, so it doesn't need to be increased as much with skills/perks. Look at the numbers again, a Legendary Daedric Sword does 24 base damage, Incinerate - 60 base damage. That's 250% damage of the sword. You might just as well argue that Incinerate is overpowered because it does 2.5x times the damage of a sword, completely ignoring the fact that damage of the sword can be tripled with skills and perks; see just how pointless that is? Destruction works differently from martial skills, deal with it.

You say that you need to buy arrows which is a balancing factor for Archery, but since there's no problem with money in Skyrim that's not really a problem.
But that argument works just as well for Melee and Destruction. If money is not a factor, buy yourself Stamina potions to spam power attacks over and over or Magicka potions to cast Destruction spells forever.

But you can use power attacks to increase your DPS/I can stagger enemies with Power Shot/my every attack in the game ever is a sneak attack(lol).
I also ignored Impact. 'nuff said.

You're ignoring the fact that you can Enchant th-
Yes. That's because Enchanging is a broken skill that is in a dire need of a severe nerf. Or if you're one of those roleplaying people who can't comprehend balance, or giving the player viable options, in an RPG, which is all about giving the player viable options, it's a skill that should never be used. You could print this page and take a dump on it and that would be a quite accurate metaphor to what Enchanting currently does for the balance in the game.

Great post. Just because destruction cannot be boosted through the crafting looping exploits to one-shot dragons on master difficulty does not make it inherently weak. It makes it balanced.

I've always known the real problem was Enchanting. Yet despite your views on Enchanting, it exists as a skill. You can't just tell people to ignore it. Most people still use it.

I agree with this, destruction is not as bad as some people say, and when it's used right, it's damn close to be OP (Stun locking enemies, including dragons)

Bout time someone took the time to find out the dps of the different combat types and point this out... I JUST started playing a mage and I'm not seeing anything that underpowered about Destruction until my Conjuration hits a high level with Destruction still low... That's mainly because my actual level is higher than it should be compared to my Destruction skill...

The argument on Enchanting however is kind of a waste since most people tend to be power gamers that want to do nothing more than gain as much power as possible so that they can take on master difficulty and then turn it down to novice or adept anyway... I'll admit I use it but in my case it's because magic bloody hurts on master difficulty which is all I play at higher levels so I can keep the game interesting when I start using too many skills on a character...

I think you're partly right but not completely. You run around and kite a lot and that makes it time consuming and feels weak. Other times it's too easy.
Here's a formula for determining mage destruction balance:

(time_spent_running_around_in_circles + (frustration_factor_of_not_having_spellcrafting * number_of_times_getting_oneshotted) - pulverizing_everything_from_distance_with_doublefireball) / endless_kiting

You're welcome.

OP, great read, thanks.

I have a pure destruction mage and haven't had a problem yet. I guess it's all how you play your character.

PS: Did you play WoW? Your thread reminds me of the things I used to read on elitistjerks.com - a great website for WoW min/maxers. I've build many a character based on posts over there.

I played a destruction character up to around level 50, and I agree, incinerate does a good amount of damage, I felt a lot more challenged than with my fully smithed and enchanted melee characters, but could still get through fights just fine (actually it was a cakewalk due to the stunlocking, but that's about as broken as enchanting imo.) The trouble is that incinerate is a level 75 spell. The next one down the line (not counting fireball due to it being AOE and therefore unsuitable for use around most companions/group fights) is firebolt, a level 25 spell that does 25 base damage, about 40% of the damage that incinerate does. It starts out dealing a competitive amount of damage, but gets progressively weaker and weaker as your enemies gain higher levels, and you're stuck with it for 50 skill levels. It's also a distinctly different type of spell tactically from flames and fireball, yet Skyrim's fixed spell damage system means that each higher level spell makes all the ones before it obsolete. It'd be nice to be able to use flames at high level for short range damage dealing, firebolt/incinerate for slightly lower damage ranged attacks, and fireball for ranged AOE.

http://www.gamesas.com/destruction-versus-one-handed-statistics-t156210.html

Pretty much counters all OP's points.

What I meant was not "Don't use Enchanting", but rather "Don't use Enchanting and then come whine on the forums how the game isn't balanced". Obviously, you're free to use whatever you want in your game.




You're kidding, right?

- Bladesman doesn't result in net 20% damage increase. In fact Bladesman is infamous for (like all specializations) being almost worthless. That's because it only calculates the base damage of the weapon. So 3/3 Bladesman will have 20% chance to do additional damage, which will be 50% of the base damage of the weapon. Base damage of the Daedric Sword is 14, so half of that is 7, so if you do 7 additional damage every five hits your average increase in DPS is... 1.4. One point four. This cannot even be represented as a percentage because it ignores almost everything else that boosts your melee damage.
- Damage bonus from skill level is completely omitted.
- Dual Flurry and and Savage Strike can't be included in this calculation because they affect only power attacks. Is every melee attack a power attack? Even the author himself doesn't seem to think so, as he states just below that "they can also do power attacks". But he includes them anyway, and then triples the value(after saying that a power attack "about doubles their damage", no less) to represent the final value of a power attack.
- Dual casting is not 25% less efficient, it's 80% less efficient(40% if you want to count spells separately, but then it does only 10% more damage, not 20%).
-Casting cost reduction bonus from skill level is completely omitted.
- Effects from different sources in Skyrim are multiplicative, not additive, so you can't just add everything up.
- How did Destruction end up with 70% stamina usage is beyond me.
- He completely ignores attack speed of... well, everything.
- He assumes that everyone is dual-wielding.

Do you want me to continue?

So you expect mages to use enchanting but not warriors? Hmm that's odd. Mages must use enchanting to get 0 cost but warriors and archers don't use it for their gear?

Sneak attacks do most of the initial damage, poisons add to your damage per second and enchants on your weapons give you big dps. Let's not leave some things out.

Enchantment buffs on weapons do add huge bonuses to a warriors weapons and armor. That's a good point.

My concern with magic is the higher level spells magic cost. The cost is ridiculously high for the higher level spells even with the reduction perks. You basically have to have magic reduction gear to be able to effectively use your spells and that should not be the case. You should be able to use your magic without having to rely on enchanting.

Where did I say that?


Again, where did I say that?

OP, have you timed casting? Subjectively, it feels like I can cast faster than once per second.

I don't see the mage vs. archer/melee posts as valid arguments for two reasons: 1) they don't compete directly in-game, and 2) I've found Destruction to be pretty fun to play and not overly difficult (although somewhat tedious at master difficulty against a very few enemies.)

Also, I'd consider the characters that are 1-2 shotting powerful enemies to be completely overpowered and broken. Might as well 'tgm' and call it good.

Destruction needs some work to make it more fun, but that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be more powerful overall.

Enchanting is powerful as it enables 4 * +40% damage buffs for weapon damage,
secondary it gives you 4* +25 in smithing.

Main benefit of archery is that you can easy get the 3x sneak multiplier.

Oh so you are doing damage per second but not factoring in that you can only cast about 10 spells? So it's just damage per second for the first 10 seconds then. Okay I got you. You already mentioned magicka regen is the pain. Well guess what? That brings you down to 0 dps when you run out of it. So I don't see how destruction is stronger.

Another thing that did make me laugh though was this.

"So Destruction does most damage per second. By far(very far)." What happens when you dual wield weapons? What happens when you use daggers which swing a lot quicker than one second and aren't that far behind in damage to swords? What about dual flurry and dual savagery? Gee so many things that can affect melee yet destruction has a couple perks and a potion. With JUST the poisons and weapon enchants you do more damage than destruction. That's not even counting the weapon itself.


The bottom line is that destruction is not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. It is nowhere near on par with the other combat styles, including some in magic. If chain lightning was the top spell and did the top damage it would be okay.

In my opinion....... give 1 or 2 more damage perks to the spells, max cost reduction to 50 percent and reduce impact to around 35 percent and it would be a lot better. I don't even care because it's something that can and will be fixed (at least for pc) but I just find it funny when people try to say all the combat styles are equal. One is slightly underpowered and the others are way over the top overpowered.

You know I read the OP, and it makes sense, but it doesn't change the fact that mages get owned at higher levels. Maybe it's enemy resistances? Course melee has enemy AR to deal with.

I don't know, but whatever.

I love using ramped up dual wielding shock magic on dragons. Shoot from a distance, instant attack (no dodging missle like destruction flames/frost or arrows flying about), does the trick.

Destruction does have pretty high base damage, the issue with destruction is that it simply runs out of steam a few seconds into the fight unless you are heavily geared to make it usable. Does melee or a bow suffer the same problem? No, not by a longshot.

Skill Synergies for weapons work favourably for weapons, combine them with the sneak skill and you at least tripple your damage potential, Destruction doesn't really work at all as a primary means of attack until you enchant all your gear to make it one.

Also Destruction svcks because its spells don't ever level along with it, so you will simply not get to use your favourite spells once you progressed beyond them if you want to continue doing high damage.

That's not a fact. My mage in the high 40s is overpowered to the point where I have to self-gimp on Master.

Your mage is not overpowered, Enchanting is overpowered.

Welcome to the internet, where people get completely bent out of shape when views [fact or fiction] differ from their own. This is a game fella, nothing more, nothing less. Read your arrogant first two sentences. What you neglect to comprehend is that forums by their very nature, can be a mess of duplicated threads, that become very inefficient to search through when seeking accurate advice. Searches become ineffective due to duplication and unless the topic is stickied by an administrator, the thread won't hold up under scrutiny.

Precisely why I don't spend much time at all on game forums. They're a mess of 101+ ideas; yours is simply another one to add to the mix. Waste of time dealing with annonymous immature children and young advlts.
I posted to this thread simply to remind you where you stand.

I find your argument unconvincing. For a start, switch to two-handed weapons. I'll bet you're "dual wielding spells". Then just because you don't like enchanting, doesn't mean you can ignore it. Without getting to 100, you can still put 20-40 point enchantments on a weapon. And even if you don't enchant, you can FIND high damage enchantments out there in the field. Lydia was using a Dwarven axe I didn't enchant for quite a while because it was better than I could create.

Once you add those things in, you're back to asking why is magic so weak. At the least your DPS values become questionable.

It's a good effort though, and it's worth taking a crack at the expected damage values. I just don't think you're all the way there yet.

OK, let me load up my mage to check what I am wearing. I have Enchanting at 100%, but only the five base perks, not the higher ones that give you extra strength & double enchants.

Level is 47, Magicka is 610. Archmage robes reduce all costs by 15% (not Enchanting). Enchanted necklace reduces Destruction by 20%. Ring and circlet does the same. (Don't always wear these.) Sneaking is boosted by 110%, 70 of that due to Enchanting. In my inventory are boots of elemental resist of 40%. I don't have anything else that I enchanted that is useful in combat. However, I have some nice stuff that I bought or found, including high elemental resist necklaces.

What is most OP in my enchanted stuff is the magicka cost reduction, where I can put on three items of 20% reduction to go with my archmage robes. That adds up to 75% cost reduction for Destruction only. However, the circlets you can find in the shops go up to 25%, higher than I can enchant.

This character became overpowered when Illusion, Conjuration, Destruction and Alteration all hit 100 and I got all the spells. I duel Ancient Dragons on top of the Archmage's Tower and am only worried that hardly lose any health. I go into bandit camps and frenzy everyone and set Dremora lords on them. I hit dragons with Lightning Storm and watch them disintegrate. (I don't have dual cast in anything.)

This mage is like a god on Nirn, sorry to contradict you.

I have underleveled a destruction/alteration mage (lvl 32 master/no companion) with both destruction and alteration at 100. I've spent about 200 hours on a level 32 character so I know a bit about destruction as a damage dealer and frankly staying alive while doing it. I think where they messed up was allowing stunlock and mixing up potions and enchantments that fortify destruction (I also think they messed up by making masks armored but that's a post for a different thread. If enchantments increased the damage cost of destruction rather than potions and potions reduced cost you'd get much more DPS out of your mage and don't have to rely on stun lock.

I'd fix the game by reversing alchemy and enchantment fortifications and removing stunlock 100% of the time I think it should be like 75% or something like that.

To counter OP's points I'd like to state that he is completely ignoring casting costs which for a mage they have to use enchantments on reducing cost because they can't kill stuff fast enough whereas a warrior can use power attacks with 1 stamina and can use enchantments to absorb health deal more damage etc

Are mages more difficult to play than warriors and Sneak Archers? Yes but the game shouldn't be changed, mages are more difficult to play.