I never understand this comparison argument. Destruction may be broken I don't know, but in any case, why does it have to be equivalent to melee or archery? Isn't the idea that you play a different way for different characters? It reads to me like people wish to play the same way just with different named weapons.

I'm confused.

My main character is a Dunmer Destruction Mage. Pretty much every other skill was left rotting, I healed occasionally, but really there were no problems I could not blast through. Especially with Morokai and the Arch-Mages Robes. Then I got my enchanting high enough that I could reduce my magicka use substantially (and now it's zero) and I can't see how it's even possible to lose.

My spells hit at massive range, there's no need to account for drop like arrows, no ammo requirement and no need to learn smithing. But nothing can even land a hit on me. I kill Dragon Priests before they can get a spell off and the toughest Draugr Lords don't even get a chance to shout in my direction. I don't even bring companions cos they tend to suffer from friendly-fireitis.

As a result of this I made collected a suit of Glass Armor and started running dungeons as a melee type (about 30 1h skill when I started). Its still easy, but it's a change of pace and I can always switch back to Emperor Palpatine mode if folks get too uppity.

I'm intrigued by the suggestion that melee types can be even more devastating, as my mage is entirely unstoppable.

All I know is that I'm not having any trouble getting through the game as is on the default difficulty (although the +140 magicka and +65% magicka regen rate from my gear probably helps). Why worry about how much more damage I could do if what I have is good enough already? And as for not having to spend magicka, I'm practically drowning in all the potions the game keeps throwing at me, and I have enough gold to buy several vats worth more, so that's not really a huge concern.

This has nothing to do with skill. So stop accusing everyone who knows that destruction is weak of svcking at the game. Destruction damage is pitiful. I should br able to dish out damage that actually dents my opponent. And yes, I did use dual cast, and it still took a crap load of hits to kill my opponent.

Look above your post to see many saying they are doing just fine. Other than gamer skill, how do you account for it? I'm willing to admit I'm a mediocre gamer. It's not like admitting to embezzlement or something.

The only option a mage has is to render their resource bar completely negligible to be viable. A peashooter with infinite ammo is still a peashooter. I've got to wonder if Beth playtested the perks, considering OP is ridiculously overpowered while Destruction spells themselves do pathetic damage.

Because according to some people, that would make it overpowered, which is bullcrap.

***casts fireball at feet***

All of them.

Playing Destruction only, level 41, zero problems.

Well, there's one problem; I can't one-shot every mob in the game. Oh, wait, that's not really a problem.

Snd look above you to see how many people aknowledge that destruction still does miniscule damage. Its not about fine. Its about pitiful damge out pit. And I don't buy that all those poeple are dping fine with just dest.

You do realise why that is completely different. It would be more like this "Damn it, I don't want to join the DB" and voila, you don't have to. If I want to play as i want, i used to be able to rely on TES for that.

I really think it should be mathematically impossible to do more damage with a steel dagger at skill 20 with no perks, compared to Flames with dual casting and impact. It just doesn't match up to my experience at all. Back when I was using Flames I was frying those wolves and skeevers easily. Wouldn't have done any better with a dagger.

In the end the whole thing is about anecdote and opinion, so there is no point worrying. As a level 43 mage, Destruction seems fine to me. In my opinion

It's savage and it's cruel
And it shines like Destruction
Comes in like the flood
And it seems like religion
It's noble and it's brutal
It distorts and deranges
And it wrenches you up
And you're left like a zombie

Best memory i have from my destruction period in the game is blow a bandit highwayman of the roof from a tower with a chainlightning

Op, you should add a poll.

Ok, I won't tell you that...


...but only if you keep calling me a liar.

I think it was all the posts by people who don't play mages asking them not to make casters too powerful. That and redundant balancing just in case any power slipped past their initial efforts.

I've had about six restarts with my mage, each time being more and more careful to avoid skillups in extraneous abilities to avoid outleveling my destruction spells.

I know many folks like some of the rebalancing mods, but I don't really want to use one until I know whether Bethesda is going to tweak regen/spellpower/cast times for fear that a patch will not play nicely with my mod-based save.

So you know, I've mostly played on adept difficulty, and really don't have any trouble. and for all those that call enchanting and such an exploit or cheating. It's built into the game so it's stupid not to take advantage of it. But taking off my enchanted weapon damage armor and the axe still does about 130 damage not including enchants and costs nothing to swing. Considering the fact that you can run out of magica, I think the damage before enchants should be comparable if not having the magic a bit higher. If then the enchants increase the damage of the weapon higher while reducing the cost of the spells to 0 That would be fair.

And again I am not saying that it's hard to play as a destro mage, I'm just saying that the damage should be balanced, I shouldn't be able to kill a dragon with a single hit with an axe when it takes nearly half a dozen hits of the highest damage spell to do the same.

Read my idea for fixing destruction here:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1313799-mages-dlc-wish-list/page__fromsearch__1

Between your original post and this, it's quite obvious that you want magic to be as ruthlessly overpowered as melee, and I can only disagree.

Destruction has problems but 'fixing' it should not include making magic as hideously overpowered as the other playstyles.

No, but it should include doing good damage considering its the damaging school of magic.

sounds like a good idea to me

Incinerate, expert spell that does 60 base damage. If you have the two +fire destruction perks and the illusion fear perk, it will do 100 damage. So thats 220 damage dual casted, considering how fast you can cast spells (much faster than bow+arrow), you can achieve huge damage over a period of time. It might not be as powerful as a 2h sword that does 1200 damage per hit, but destruction is less exploitable by crafting.

But if you add a +120% destruction potion to my dual casted incinerate, you will be hitting 484 damage per dual cast. You will then be killing ancient dragons in 7 shots on novice, 14 shots on master. Also remember how fast you can cast the spell, so it won't take long to decimate anything.

Thunderbolt will do 90 damage single casted, 198 dual casted. Thunderbolt is more accurate as its instant though, incinerate is a missile so you can miss.

Lightning storm will do 112 damage per second, 246 damage with the potion. That will be ~12 seconds to kill that dragon on novice setting.

The problem is the magicka cost, thats why you HAVE to enchant, or use brought equipment to help the cost. I have ~92% destruction reduction, which isn't so high that I can endlessly stagger the enemy, but I can get a good few spells of. You can buy neckless+ring of peerless destruction which add +25% fortify destruction each, and a +22% from master destruction robes. So thats 72% reduction, you will be casting for 28% of what you did before. 14% if you take the perk.

You say that you can kill a dragon with one hit with an axe.

And you see no problem with that.

You see no problem with the fact that you can kill a dragon, which is essentially a boss enemy, with one hit.

No. The problem you see is that you cannot do the same with magic.

But keep at it bro. It's amusing. For now, then it will just become sad, but until then... do tell me more about your balance ideas.

For the record I don't think that the issue with destruction is that it's impossible to get through the game if you use it. The issue is that slowly chipping away at boss health pools and having to remove yourself from combat every couple spells isn't fun. Nor is guzzling potions.

I'd also like to know why, if Beth thought low power and resource starvation would be fun, they didn't build all the archetypes that way. Make melee unable to lift their weapons if they run out of stamina and balance stamina costs in a way that has forces them to perk/enchant reductions in stamina cost rather than increased damage. Instead they designed the class with the highly limited resource to do less damage ...

Ive found that destruction works well at lower levels but at high levels you are almost defenseless. I just played my pure mage and i pretty much rely on conjuration

balance doesn't mean make the strong aspects weaker it means make the weak aspects stronger!