I'm a level 12 mage. I have had no major issues at all with destro. People really need to learn to adapt and adjust their game. The game has so many builds/options..think outside the box. Try something original. Experiment. That to me is half the fun of playing..all the possiblilities.

Most people complain about destruction mages after level 40 or even 50, not level 12.

Attention [censored] is frowned upon on the interwebs my good chap.

Lower levels won't have trouble with destruction, it is higher levels that do. This is because destruction spells do not level scale like other weapons...EX: as you level up, axes, swords, and maces you find will do more and more damage, while the destruction spells are stuck at a certain damage output

I'm lvl 51 destruction mage, no complains here either. Gameplay is still without problem, although i must admit it would be more logical if the dps would at least raise abit when leveling up.

I can't say anything then. I just can't see with the amount of options available how any class can "svck"...but maybe I will understand more after I am higher in level

Well, the question is, how much spell cost reduction enchants you got? And also, most of the pain comes from increasing difficulty a bit.

I must say so far, my two handed smith (no enchanting and the like) has found Master difficulty about as hard as my destruction mage found Adept ...

If you start having trouble, I have a guide to utilizing your higher level spells in my signature. You'll want to ditch flames and firebolt eventually and use incinerate instead, which uses a lot of mana, but not to worry, there are ways.

Mages don't svck, people are just a bit frustrated because the destro mage damage stops scaling after level 35, while warrior skills don't. Essentially this means warriors dish out like 10x more damage at level 50 compared to mages.

Playing a mage is still perfectly viable at any given character level and on any difficulty. Just takes more patience and planning which by itself is more rewarding than playing a lawnmower warrior anyway.

I was going to redirect this to the existing thread, but it's beyond 200 posts so I'll re-open this instead.

Can anyone confirm if patch 1.2 increased the base damage of Destruction spells? I heard someone claim Flames now is 18 damage per second.

I decided to max out the destruction tree on my level 70 and promptly loaded my previous save after seeing how pathetic Destruction was on Master Difficulty even with the best spells in the game.

It's horrible.

No amount of strict exploit builds or "adapting" will change that most spell types hyped by Todd end up being useless for most of the game unless you don't level past 20, including most Master ones.

No nothing has changed

Huh....then can anyone explain http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1298975-start-a-new-game-with-the-new-patch/page__view__findpost__p__19563825 statement?

He lied.

If you want to make sure just run your own game and see. With the perks it's 12 damage per second.

1. There is only one, maybe two possible builds for a mage that do not svck.
2. Spells do not scale, meaning that the first two tiers of spells become obsolete quickly.
3. Master level spells are useless due to long casting time, low control. Much better off firing two adept spells.
4. The dual wielding perk makes it so you get less damage per mana than you would if you fired two of the same spells simultaneously.
5. Magicka regeneration does not work during combat.
6. The sheer poverty of the number of spells that you can use basically means youre stuck with 3 spells for the entire game.

Honestly..

I haven't had any problems with Destruction. I'm level 44 and it has been my primary method of combat through the whole game. I am only playing on Adept, though, so that might have something to do with it.

I'm disappointed with the Atronachs in Conjuration, though. For some reason, they can barely do anything. They mostly just punch, and when they do use their elemental attacks, they usually aim for the floor. It's quite sad.

That's odd. I'm around the same level, using mostly destruction. I have to limit my use
of atronarchs because they are way powerful! I certainly don't want them scaled down,
because I like having such a powerful tool available from time to time. The fire atro for
my character is aggressive, and favors ranged wild fire ball attacks. The lightning atro,
just awesome. It aoes when a few NPCs converge, and favors ranged lightning attacks.
Maybe a bit more aggressive than the fire atro. They seem to have low aggro though, I
most often am the focus of enemy attention due to my destruction attacks. The frost
atro is the most aggressive, and seems to have the most aggro of the 3.

My character is extremely high magic, low health/stamina, extremely high conjuration and
destruction. Maybe a factor in conjured atronarch behavior?

Could be. I have destruction maxed with all the perks, but I only have 50 Conjuration now, working my way up the Atronach and Undead perk trees.

You need to lvl to see. At your lvl everything is a piece of cake. Im 33 now, at my lvl you will see, how poor the magic is. I have been using nearly the same spells for the whole time. This game offers you like 4 spells from each school of destruction magic.. seriously what 4 is? There is the basic one, the stronger one, the even stronger one, and the strongest. You have also runes, cloaks, but they are just for support.

1. Illusion, Conjuration and Destruction are all very powerful... in fact you'd have a hard time building a mage that DOES svck unless you go pure destruction(with no support skills at all).
2. They get replaced by better and more powerful versions. Iron daggers will never measure up to Daedric daggers just like lightning bolt won't measure up to thunderbolt.
3. True.
4. Yes it's less damage per point of mana but it's higher damage per second. That's the tradeoff... it also leads to one of the most game breakingly powerful perks in the game: Impact.
5. It works at 33% of it's original value. It's pretty bad but thankfully cost reduction is there to pick up the slack.
6. This I agree with 100%. Hell I get through things with 1 spell. It's really really sad.

The irony is that because of the problems with mages currently you HAVE to change to certain playstyles. One True Buildism? is not an indication that everything is fine. It's an indication everything is not fine. The current relative worth of school trees, the preeminence of Smithing/Conjuration/Enchantment skills, mana cost scaling, damage scaling and damage scaling comparison of weapons to spells doesn't suddenly not exist as issues with an adjusted playstyle.

-He's right about limited builds for Destro compared to all the other damage types, which can all also take conjuration and illusion and enchanting for FUN/PLAY-STYLE - not as a requirement.

-Not true. Only the bolts types replaced, noone hyped or cared for those. I'm still waiting for official spray, glyph, cloak, wall, and pbao replacements that are viable at medium-high levels. And wall spells don't replace sprays, they have stunted direct damage. I've tested them vs. a a mod that gives new spray ranks of the same exact damage. Sadly these mods are clunky and weird due to no creation kit, otherwise I wouldn't even care.

My Altmer mage feels more powerful at 42 than he did all game. He has mid-90s stats for Destruction, Alchemy and Enchanting, and specializes in Shock damage. Thunderbolt and Chain Lightning are his primary damage dealers, and he usually wears three Fortify Destruction enchantments despite his 500-ish amount of Magicka. He always dual-casts and has Impact and Disintegration.

I haven't played any other characters so I can only compare him at 42 to his previous levels, but he definitely feels most powerful now. I've been playing on Master since he was 30, Expert before then.