Well you can do sufficient damage, look at my above post.

But I agree with your stamina point, mages can't cast without magicka. So why can archers shoot without stamina and warriors swing their weapon without stamina? They did it with block, you can only block with stamina, so why not bows and swords.

Also with stamina, you can use a huge power attack with 1 stamina (for example the 3 swing attack with dual wield 1h weapons), but you can't do anything with 1 magicka.

Because bows severly slow you down and are slow and melee weapons are, well, melee.

What it means (imo) is make it hard enough to kill enemies that you have to use that tactical, hunter part of your brain that gets a bit of a reward-system endorphin kick from a challenge.

It doesn't mean "make my guy as tough as the other guy" unless you are playing a game with PVP.

Mage level 57 playing on expert. There is nothing wrong with destruction magic. Increasing it more will trivialize the game.. Try paralyze and Wall of Fire if you want to see how bada$$ destruction can be. Lightning Storm destroys an ancient dragon in 7 seconds. I hardly call that weak.

This is without any damage adding percentages, this is with archmage robes and the archmage boots mod that also reduces % power but does not add % damage. So at level 57 and NO % damage modifiers on expert level I am still having no issues killing mobs even ancient dragons. Only problem is getting to close cause they one bite me.

Just imagine what a Mage could do adding the % damage modifiers!!!

Again, balance, I don't care if that means reducing weapon damage, But there are more factors going into weapon damage so my original post I took that into consideration and stated what would be the easiest to change. increasing the destruction spell damage. But if Bethesda wants to get into it, reducing the weapon damage works too. For instance, changing the enchants from 40% increased damage to 25% (Using the same math as the reduced magica cost enchants) and in smithing changing the perks from doubling the improvement of gear to only 50% better instead. I think with that, the weapons may still be stronger than the spells, but no nearly so overpowered as they are now... I kind of hate dragons being so weak against an axe. Especially when the Skyrim dragons look extremely well armored by their scales.

You can get a perk to reduce your movement with a bow. Your missing the point completely, read my comment again.

You people that constantly go "Godmode" in Skyrim and then complain about it being too easy, enemies being too weak, or anything else, have no grounds for complaining. Why the hell do you think your Daedric War Axe has so much ass behind a swing? It is because you made it that way. Bethesda gives you the ability to play as a God, but if you complain about it after doing it, that is your own damn fault.


EDIT: Btw, I take down an Ancient dragon in around 15 seconds (ten of which are trying to get it to land) with Chain Lightning. If Destruction is made too strong, then you are going to pout and complain next that "an arrow to the face won't kill a guy, but a ball of fire can?"

I've recently had a change of heart about Destruction (sorta).
Last night I was spamming Firebolts, running around trying not to get insta killed, and watching my mana burn out far to quickly but then I maxed my enchanting, 1000 iron daggers later, and without using alchemy made ~3 peices of -25% Fortify Destruction. I then quickly spent all my gold on Expert level Destruction spells and now I just spam ~200 damage Incinerates.

I went from being a pathetic hit and run [censored] to chain stunning monster. 1v1 no one can even get close to me and even if I have to go up against 2-3 opponents I don't have to freak out like I once did.

Sure ~200 is no where near the 1000+ melee strikes similer geared characters dish out but considering most NPC's only have 1-500 health total, at level 42, it's really not too bad. Should I be able to one shot enemies from 50 yards away? Your dam right I should and the balance is still screwed up but it's not as bad once your geared correctly.

Bethesda does not give you the ability to play as a Destruction God.

Lol, kind of funny my previous post that I was in the middle of typing when you posted this.

And you can get a perk that reduces magicka cost by half. It seems you're missing the point. Magicka cost is there to balance the spellcasting.

Melee costs nothing, but you need to be close to attack the enemy.
Archery costs nothing and is ranged, but you must have quality arrows.
Spells are ranged and have infinite ammunition, but they cost magicka.

Bows can be improved every bit as much as melee wepons, so... yea an arrow in the face can kill just about anyone.

I didn't compare spells to bows because I know that unless you have the perks upgraded, bows are slower than the spells and take both hands.

As I said previously there is no possible way to be Destruction God.

You can't rely on that perk alone to use high level destruction spells, you will only get about 4-5 spells dual casted at the most.

Arrows are so stupidly common, you can fire at the enemy for as long as you want with no drain on stamina (unless you zoom, which you don't need to do). Melee you can endlessly swing at the enemy with no stamina drain. Spells you are unable to use if you have zero magicka.

IMO there should be a cost for swinging an axe or shooting a bow, like there is for blocking and magicka. Not so high that you can only swing 3 times, similar in cost to blocking an enemy attack, which is reasonable.

Don't say I'm missing the point, just because you randomly talk about movement speed when I'm talking about stamina drain, you have missed the point when replying to my opinion. You keep desperately trying to seem superior on a games forum, give it up. You proved in your own thread how immature you are, so don't reply to this if your just trying to make me seem wrong, its my opinion.

Well you can exploit the system to have no cost for destruction spells, then stagger them until they die, you could kill a draugr deathlord with apprentice spells like this. I don't see the fun in being 'god' in any of the skills though, I did it for 1h in my first character, and it got boring very fast.

In a single player game balance should be against the content. That said, if all archetypes are balanced against the content they should end up being roughly balanced against each other. And, in my opinion, to achieve balance would take some of both, toning down some skills and improving destruction damage, so that they meet somewhere in the middle.

Also, bows only slow you down when not sheathed. Once my archer realized the power of tapping "r" to move, it was no longer an issue. And melee shouldn't get too tired to swing because they're melee? Huh?

Oh right, you're that guy. The Reading Comprehension guy. Well true then, no point in writing any more in here.

You always ignore most of the points in my comments, because you have no answer, you're clearly just a child based on what I've seen. So thats why you shouldn't post any more, go back to school.

It's funny because the only thing my lvl 43 destruction Mage needs to worry about is traps. On Master. Elder dragons? Frost trolls? Dragon Priests? Hordes of Draugr? Nope, no worries.

Stun lock and 0 mana cost = OP. trust me if we duelled, you would lose every time because Thunderbolt is an instant hit, and after that you're stun locked. Also, you can cast faster than you can swing unless you go dual wield.

"BTW, with the axe and enchants I mentioned, I've killed a regular dragon with one power attack. "

There is something wrong with this scenario. They should look at smithing and enchanting before destuction. Why make destruction OP, too?

Next month we're getting our first balance patch. There was an article confirming this, it hinted at the large out cry against how bad destruction and some other magic schools were. Though who knows what will actually be in it, it gives me some hope mages are getting a buff. Hence why these topics have slowed down from 100 topics a minute to a 100 a week.

Funny, I have an axe-wielding orc mage who uses Destruction more than his axe. Go figure. No problems, approaching level 50.

Well, if someone was to have atronach effect as well as 85% magic and 85% elemental resist, you would do pretty much nothing ha. But against normal enemies your right, destruction is valid for use on master. I don't use 100% reduction as its a bit cheap and OP, but I go for about 90%.

See if skyrim woul have added an online arena mode like it should have we coul easily prove which way is better.

I would just rub away shooting ice spikes and killing ur stamina while u uselessly flail ur sorry weapons.

Magic is the saving grace of skyrims combat. It requires the greatest amour of tactics, has the greatest variety, and emphasizes the games strengths like large environments.

The melée combat with enchantments just brings out the worst of skyrim. The laughable melée combat is something out of Monty python. Just stas next to each other and flail. No one moves just stare at ur enemy and swing. Add that to menu bombing with enchantments and you have the biggest snorefes of 2011.

In terms of makin the game easier sure melée and weapons are idiot proof but they are the least fun way to play this game.

So please don't change the magic it's fine the way it is. Change the sorry melée combat that plays like ps1 era fighter.

Is'nt that itself a bit overkill? How many enemies have that much HP?

Dualcasting with impact and spell cost reduction to zero makes mage gameplay very easy, even on master difficulty. And dragons are boss rank enemies(at least should) that i dont wont to "oneshot" anyway.