I know a lot of people have been complaining about destruction being woefully underscaled for higher levels, but lets look at some numbers. (im still a newb as far as some of this goes so be kind please) incinerate, fire expert level projectile deals 90 damage, almost 200 damage dualcast.

sure it eats up a lot of magicka, and if its not enough to kill your target quickly, there are alchemy potions you can have ready that boost destruction spell damage, ive made one with 94 alchemy and no enchantments boosting potions made that gave a 60% boost to destruction damage. so now you're looking at ~320 damage dualcast, 130-140ish single handed.

add in the max alchemy boost from enchanting that will be ~120% boost to damage resulting in ~440ish damage per cast. is it really that underpowered when you include what appears to be destruction magic's real support skill, as opposed to using just enchanting to help with it?

Honestly destruction is overpowered with the dual casting stun effect, if you use enchanting to make it free to cast that it.

well yes but i like to 'cap' myself with reduced costs enchants, making the spells free takes some fun out of the game. well a lot of it for me actually. I usually dont go above 60%-75% on reduced costs.

I dont go above 30% for differnt reasons though, I play spellsword so I dont need that much magika

That doesn't make it OP, that's just clear exploitation of both Impact and Enchanting.

Exploitation- Op... lets not split hairs. We would complain/ consider something exploitative if it doesnt give a certain sized advantage.

well to be fair it is still tedious at higher levels with bad damage output, and yes alchemy seems to remedy that, but a lot of folks either don't know or don't want to. Personally I think it's silly that to use destruction effectively I have to use level shenanigans or rely on two other skills JUST for destruction (alchemy and enchanting). If it just scaled as the NPC's magic works I'd have no problem with it.

^ actually just exploiting one enchantable effect, alchemy doesnt have anything to do with the zero cost spells.

Dual casting free spells to stun enemies into submission sounds like exploitation to me. Sadly, it's what a destruction mage has to do, but it's pathetic they have to stoop that low just to get by.

admit-ably, i might use 100% alteration costs on my argonian if i make him a wolf, but that would just be due to no points into magicka.

My bad, I meant to say Impact, not Alchemy. Don't know what I was thinking.

Is it any more OP then wearing three items of fortify 40% one-handed/archery/two-handed?

I have actually never even needed to use those enchants, maybe i would use archery if i could ever be successful with it as my primary skill, i dont even enchant my one handed weapons, the elemental fury shout is incredibly powerful for dual-wielding.

Yes but to kill with a sword you have to get into sword swinging range which kinda mitigates it a little bit. I think the main problem is the lack of variety COUPLED with the fact that this is possible.

I have actually almost stopped using enchanting with most of my chars now. the limitations on it just bug me. i miss being able to put an armor enchantment on ANY piece of armor, not just this one piece, or this enchant is just for this piece. but i admit i never thought alchemy would boost destruction till i saw fortify archery/onehanded effects appearing on ingredients, then i started exploring the possibility of it. i would imagine a fair amount of players would put two and two together with that one. tedious as it is, so is levelling smithing to get ridiculous numbers on their weapons.

The problem isn't damage, 90 damage is enough.

Let's say we're facing a bandit marauder on master, 900 health so you need 10 expert spell to kill him or 9 spells if you have 100 damage incinerates (aspect of fear illusion perk adds 10). The spells can be fired so fast that I can take down that bandit in 2-3 seconds dual single casting.

Let's look at a draugr deathlord, without the necromage perk or aspect of fear it will again take 2-3 seconds. But if I have the necromage perk and the aspect perk, due to the deathlords weakness, I can take it down in 1-2 seconds, before it even looks at me.

Let's look at an ancient dragon, huge health pool so even with a 25% weakness to ice/fire it's going to take quite a few spells to kill one on master. But even with a 200 damage two handed weapon, it will take a while on master, these enemies are designed to be tough to kill. I've never played with a 200 damage two handed weapon, because it's too overpowering, so my melee vs destruction is always balanced. That being said I bet I could take one down in under 10 seconds with the expert spell it's weak to.

The real problem is the cost of the spells, not the damage. If you get 80-90% reduction and a decent 200-300 magicka pool, you can use the expert spells regularly and it will not be underpowered on master, I do it all the time.

You can reach that 80-90% without enchanting, using robes or using armor. If anyone wants some help using it, I'll be glad to help. What's sad is that you have to have that 80-90% to use destruction at higher levels, the spells just cost too much, but the problem isn't damage.

Also, warriors can keep on swinging those weapons. Archers can too, as long as they have arrows. Mages however, at higher levels of Destruction, require ridiculous charge times. Why they did that is beyond me. I don't want to sit there for 5 seconds yelling "Kame...hame...HA!" Not to mention it is IMPOSSIBLE to not get friendly fire with master level spells! You don't see Warriors forced to not use their cool sword because they don't want to kill a team mate and have to use a Steel Sword. I ONLY use Adept spells and it is quite sad that I have to do so for a good damage:cost ratio, to hit things at a distance and not stand there looking like a buffoon.

I'm not going to bother with the tedious process of leveling alchemy or enchanting just to make destruction magic svck a bit less. Without any points in smithing I can go into sneak and one shot enemies with a dagger, or smash faces with a giant 2-handed weapon for as long as I want whilst using no resources whatsoever.

ok this may sound weird but i have a lvl 53 sorceress dunmer character and maybe its not the strength of the spells but.... maybe its the enemies ?
they seem to lvl as the character does .

maybe this is good maybe this is bad ... some players like to kill in one hit with a spell once they have reached master ....
and some like the challenge .... maybe if we killed them in one hit the game would get boring

maybe thats the genius behind bethesda .

My Lvl 56 Argonian Mage (Vampire) does pretty damn good with his Necromage and equipment. His equipment/passives grant him 18% Fortify All Spell Schools, 62% Fortify Destruction (80% with Fortify All Spell Schools), +293 Magicka, +341% Fortify Magicka Regeneration, +37% Spell Absorption, +62 Armor Rating, +85% Resist Magic, +31% Resist Frost, +26% Resist Fire, +100% Resist Poison, +100% Resist Disease, and +92 Fortify Carry Weight. I also use the Blessing of Talos for -25% Shout Cooldown time, and since i don't wear Armor, just enchanted clothing, i gain 375 Armor Rating from Ebony Skin, for a total of 437 Armor Rating.
Overall, he has 230 Health/100 Stamina/813 Magicka. He regenerates 105 Magicka per second outside of combat, and regenerates 35 Magicka per second in combat. My Thunderbolt costs me 20 Magicka per cast, my Icy Spear costs me 19 Magicka per cast, and my Incinerate costs me 17 Magicka per cast.

Alchemy is a good boost to damage even though I have been avoiding it for a while. And as for the stun Kill I don't think its necessary to use it all the time. For instance a lot of times if something is charging me quickly like a giant, I just use ice spells to slow it down. I try and use the stun as little as possible or only as a last resort. Even for enemy mages I just use a ward if they are doing really high damage. With some reductions for it of course or it would be to high cost. There are other ways around using stun if you have other magic schools.

Um when your one shotting these enemies with your dagger your using sneak+one handed that is still two skills. just like alchemy+destruction

That is an annoyance, I find that sometimes when I am fighting dragons in a town. all the helpers are just slowing me down. I don't know if they should change it because it is a area of effect. but yes only mages have to deal with that problem unfortunately.

Destruction posting? Try searching-

I.e. Alchemy is known and this thread already exists at length.

Assassin's Blade only requires 50 points in sneak and none in one-handed weapons. I only need to level one skill to use it. Even when I'm not in sneak I can melee all day without using any resources. It's not the same thing.