Archery can be improved with smithing, it can double in strength through perks, it can get a sneaking bonus that doubles or triples the damage it does, and a Bound Bow early on is easily one of the most destructive things you can find in the game at the start (With no perks it does more damage than the Apprentice level spells right away). Not only that, but it increases in damage as you level up, unlike Destruction.

Magicka-inefficient. Sometimes completely inefficient; I'm fairly sure wall spells are bugged and runes don't benefit from augment perks.

And the Master spells are laughable.

Enchanting simply reduces magicka cost. Playing an infinite peashooter isn't an attractive option.

And alchemy is ridiculously unbalanced for all archetypes and requires the player to chug potions every 60s.

Seriously, I have no problem with destruction damage on master from the start. My most recent mage (necrovamp, I'll get to that) is level 60 now and kicking draugr deathlords ass with destro spells.

I do agree destruction isn't a good skill for someone not being a 'pure' dedicated mage, but the other melee combat skills are rather weak without smithing and stamina investment. This isn't about comparison though, I'm just saying how I handle destruction and make it work on master, that ISN'T 100% reduction of cost and constantly staggering the enemy.

I usually use all 6 mage skills as a mage, and from the start you can aim to get the illusion 'aspect of fear' perk which adds 10 damage to all fire spells (flames goes to 18 from 8) and the first fire +damage perk. This gives you a firebolt with around 41-43 damage, which will make you overpowered as hell even on master at the start. You don't need to do this though, I usually just level my skills naturally and still have no problems I can't deal with using tactics etc.

I recommend investing in all the element damage boosting perks (not the additional effects though, like ice paralyse as they are rather useless) as many enemies have weaknesses to specific elements. For example draugr are weak to fire, so against draugr deathlords I use incinerate that does 100 damage per shot, 220 damage dual cast, that number is then increased due to their weakness. So I'm killing these draugr deathlords in 3-4 dual casts or around 4 dual single casts (8 single casts), do consider how fast you can use spells.

The biggest problem is cost, the adept and expert spells cost way to much in my opinion, you have to use gear that reduces the cost, but not to 100% as that takes the fun away IMO, no challenge. I am for around 80-90% reduction and the perk, and I get this from 2 enchant slots and the archmage robes at the moment (necrovamp). Then I can cast a good few spells but not endlessly stagger enemies.

Being a necromage vampire boosts every enchantment you have, and pretty much everything else by x1.25, there is a link in my sig that explains it better. So with 100 enchanting and the right perks (no alchemy, just some store brought potions) I can create good enough gear to reduce all the magicka schools to around 20-40% of the cost, and have a magicka pool of around 500. You can achieve this without being a vamp, but it's easier being a necrovamp as it boosts pretty much everything. Also note that I didn't power level any skills, I started of with crappy found gear, only have stuff this good now I'm level 45-60ish, which took a while.

Knowing enemies weaknesses is a huge help, frost dragons, draugr and most undead are weak to fire, dwemer machines and dremora are weak to shock, fire dragons are weak to ice etc.

If you're obsessed with dealing insane damage, my level 60 mage can conjure a bow and fire a poison, then drink a destruction damage potion and kill an ancient dragon in a few expert level casts, dealing at least 800 damage per dual cast. Destruction is more than viable for use on master at high levels, tired of people saying how useless it is.

That's pretty much it to be honest, if people post their concerns using it I'll try to answer them.

Master spells aren't laughable, I cast fire storm next to a draugr deathlord and it takes of half is health (master), it does more damage than stated, try using it and commenting rather than just making a blind statement.

Complain about magicka inefficient, then directly after that complain about magicka reduction enchantments..... You know there is choice between there somewhere between 0 and 100. Looks like happy destruction users use about 90% reduction. People who complain about magicka cost but don't use cost reduction enchants are the same kind of people who complain about lack of health but refuse to wear armor.

You only need potions occasionally for big boss fights. You would use 1 or maybe 2 fortify destruction potions in a dungeon. You really don't even need it most of the time. For me, 50 damage sword is good enough for a warrior at the end game, 100 damage is good enough for a bow/arrow. Yes you can get 6000 damage dagger, but only 12 year olds who like to brag on internet do that. I think 100 damage for single handed expert level destruction, or 220 for dual cast, is not only good enough, but it's pretty damn good.

Cast time. Can't move. Requires two hands. Needs you to be within melee range for optimum damage.

Draugr are also inherently weak to fire, so that's not much of an argument.

That's because the lack of proper magicka cost scaling creates a borked situation where you HAVE to have -% cost reduction or you'll end up with zero magicka in 4-5 casts, without taking in meatshield summoning, alteration, healing, etc. Then there's also the infamous "load up on cost reduction gear and forget about cost reduction perks" situation, which renders perks irrelevant. If there was inherent, organic cost reduction, there wouldn't be this mess in the first place. A mage should not need ridiculous amounts of reduction (90%? seriously?) to effectively contribute in combat.

As it is, two dremora lords are far, far more effective than Destruction.

Dual cast is 10% damage for 60% magicka.

Minor correction, Dwemer constructs are not weak to any element; in fact, they have 25% magic resistance.

Lets be smart about it?

1 handed damage - scales with skill level, can use enchants to increase damage
2 handed damage - scales with skill level, can use enchants to increase damage
Archery damage - scales with skill level, can use enchants to increase damage
Unarmed damage - does not have a skill to scale with, can use enchants to increase damage
Destruction damage - DOES NOT scale with skill level, CAN NOT use enchants to increase damage

Could be fixed by scaling with level, fortify destruction damage, or spellmaking.

Archery also fires at 1/4 the rate of destruction, the bound bow when found early on (before the 1.5 bugged arrows thing) will do around 40-50 damage, the firebolt spell with the illusion fear and the first destruction fire perk will do 43 damage, firing at 4x the rate at least.

The increase in damage as you level up is tiny, difference between level 15 and 100 is around +30%, that's nothing.

Sneak? I thought we were comparing archery vs destruction. Smithing?
Destruction vs archery alone, destruction wipes the floor. But as others have said, it's silly to compare skills just on their own, a pure 1h character would be just as rubbish as a pure destruction.

I do, however, find it a bit disingenuous to present an optimized Necromage Vamp build fighting Draugr of any sort as proof that Master-difficulty destruction is fine, since that fight is essentially rigged in the caster's favor. A non-vamp caster fighting opponents not weak to a given element is going to have a significantly rougher time of it, since there's no stacked bonus damage ticking away in the background.

You haven't taken in to calculation the damage increased by taking perks. By the time you hit 100 and have taken up perks you end up doing + 30% +100% given by perks. The perks in Destruction adds measely 20+ to your damage. And if you play on master you actually do half the damage that it tells you, you do. So really, all it does is tickle high level npcs without using alchemy. And this is without even taking in to calculation the high elemental resistence the high level npcs have at master level.

The problem with destruction is that there isnt any spellmaking.

The starting damage is high though, 60 damage for the expert spells. If you sort out the magicka problem, dual casting expert spells always outclasses archery (ignoring 800 damage bows), not for sneak though, but that's not where destruction shines.

This is such rubbish, I play using destruction all the time, level 67 on master. You obviously haven't read the OP though, maybe you should. Tickle high level enemies? 3-4 shot a deathlord on master is tickling? Rubbish.

A high level destruction mage, just like a high level warrior, should fear nothing.

Yes, by all means, lets argue this again.

My stars and gods! Draugr are weak to fire and you can boost fire damage with perks (known for months and listed on the wiki) and you didnt 100% reduce cost, only 90%, and those two numbers are totally different.

Destruction is fixed after all.

Yes, by all means, lets argue this again. My stars and gods! Draugr are weak to fire and you can boost fire damage with perks (known for months and listed on the wiki) and you didnt 100% reduce cost, only 90%, and those two numbers are totally different. Destruction is fixed after all.

First reply and we're already off to a good start.


This thread is going places. Intelligent places.


Nothing to see here, moderators, just civil discussion.

Actually, they're just not resistant to fire, and Shock isn't as efficient as fire in the damage/mana ratio department. They don't have a conspicuous weakness to fire any more than the average non-dunmer man/elf/beastfolk NPC does.