You may be right. Some of the master spells dont even calculate correctly. On uesp, I read that the "wall" spells only do 8 base dps instead of the intended amount. I wondered why they weren't that great on my first character.

What do you mean face it? I'm not the one using Destruction. Also you didn't give enough info such as spells/equipment used. Lastly, I am saying Destruction is viable, not better than say your "dual wielding". Now instead of attacking people help out the OP.

When I used destruction, I always used the 2nd tier spells. Apprentice, is it?

@ virtuous
We are playing a game called Skyrim.
So long as you have the destruction perk which lets you stall people when duel wielding, destruction will always be better. No necciceraly the fastest way the kill but at least no one will be able to hit you.

Even my master of illusion, conjuration, and destruction arch mage never bothered with the master level skills, they just weren't worth it.

@ Ninja Smoove: I'm not even going to bother with you.

Im using a sword and shield character ATM and she is not using anything aside from smithing to make her weapons stronger, and on master, her hits are hurting just as much as destruction, if not weaker, the only thing that is the problem is the cost, and if you use enchating, as a mage should, then making the spells cost less or increasing your magicka should fix this problem. If you use the alchemy enchanting smithing loop, well that will obviously beat out destruction in damage.

I dont think he was attacking you really.....but anyway, to the person who said it's fine but not necessarily the fastest way to kill: I'm looking for the most effective / fastest way to kill. I guess I'll go with archery then. Destruction just seems like it's worse by comparison. They make a good point that there are less ways to scale it than weapon skills. Any further suggestions are welcome though, as I'm still mulling this over in my head.

With my level 50 mage, 100 in destruction, 600 magicka, and 12pt magicka cost for fire storm, and 1pt magicka cost for fireball, my character pwns everything

This proves why Destruction svcks. You rely heavily on enchanting, so this is a merit for enchanting, not destruction. Let's see how you play without those low costing spells. Don't mistake this for an attack, I do the exact same thing.

Good! I won't have to stick around long then

If not destruction then, One handed, conjuration, illusion. Together you can kill pretty effectively.

If you want a one shot kill then: archery, smithing. Then finish them of with a melee.

All destruction needs is an enchantment that fortifies the damage.

Well using the phrase "face it" definately is attacking, because he was attacking my opinion. Meaning my opinion was that destruction was viable and that his was that destruction didn't help him "mow down" his enemies.

Anyways I am glad you made a decision, I am just going to stop posting my opinions because they always seem to be attacked on this forum.

Thats like saying try to use 1 handed weapons without smithing, they svck as well. Enchanting goes hand in hand with destruction, just like smithing with weapons.

You're right, but the problem I see is that weapons have more variety when it comes to quality, so as you level up you'll find ones that are more effective. You can smith them to improve them further, and enchant them to improve them even further. Destructions seems to have less ways to improve itself....

In this light I agree, there needs to be an enchantment to increase destruction damage, if anything minutely. So people dont enchant it to do 400 percent damage and things like that, personally, i dont have a prob with it cuz my chracter has 1200 magicka. with a 300 percent magicka regen speed.

That is a fair comparison, however, one/2 handed are completely viable without smithing. Hell, I didn't touch smithing until sometime this year. Destruction, on the other hand, are forced to use enchanting to use high tier spells unless they want to forgo 5 perks for a 50% reduction just to lessen a master spell's cost.

That is the problem, the cast cost, not th damage, a daedric one handed sword will do around 50 damage tops without smithing, and thats the best of the best, and the best fire spell (incinerate) does 90, the only problem is the cast cost. Not the damage. Now there SHOULD be an enchantment to buff destruction, just as there is for all other skills. And of course you would take the master destruction perk, if you didnt, that would be like leaving out the top 1 handed perk or two handed perk, a big mistake gimping your char.

That ability is totally ineffective against multiple foes.

I disagree. My level 55 uses only gear found or purchased in the game. No enchanting at all. I was able to reduce casting cost enough to make Incinerate cost only 12 Magicka. The real problem is that there is no way to enhance the spell's damage output. Who doesn't smith? Yea some people don't when they want to make the game harder, but the fact is that it's there and you can smith if you want to which dramatically increases your melee damage. Not only can you smith to increase damage but you can also enchant. Spells have nothing equivilant to smithing or enchanting to permanently increase spell damage. You can use potions but so can melee. Anyway potions are temporary and are a pain to keep up with. The ones that have to be applied, the poisons, require either up close combat or the use of archery both of which take either extra time or put a mage at high risk of dying. I don't consider alchemy to be a good solution for the problem of destruction's overall weakness. There needs to be something similar to smithing and enchanting where a person can permanently increase damage output for all spells. Obviously the people who don't use smithing/enchanting don't really care about this or see a need for it. The people who enjoy making overpowered characters and blowing everything off the face of Skyrim want something that puts destruction magic damage on par with melee damage. Ok even if you don't want to go overboard with it, it would still be nice to have that little extra oomf that you can get with a bit of smithing/enchanting. YOu guys know what I mean.

Yes I think there should be enchantments that increases the damage of Destruction spells and make it where melée weapons should consume a certain amount of stamina. Also make it where magic scales base on skill level.

Sounds reasonable.

Care to come up with some numbers?
Incinerate is 90 damage per shot 200 dual cast.
Fireball is 60 damage per shot AoE damage. 132 dual cast. This has longer effective range than an arrow.

When I play an archer, I'm usually happy with 100 damage which goes up to 300 with sneak damage, although I can boost it up to 300-400 with smithing and enchanting.
When I play a sword and board character, I usually go with 50 damage, although I can boost it up to 200-300 with smithing and enchanting.

Style I use for playing a destruction mage is somewhere in between a sneak archer and a sword and board. More forward and less sneaking than an archer, but more distance and more planning than a sword and board character.

I find all 3 styles play fun, although lately I have been on a destruction kick. Before I started playing with destruction, I was concerned that I might not have enough magicka or enough damage if I played without doing enchanting, but it turned out that destruction was perfectly fine without any crafting.

Well, it may be fun, but we're wondering if it's viable in comparison. It just seems like there are way more ways to improve the other combat skills while destruction lags behind.

Edit: And there's always the problem with the wall spells being miscalculated. It's a big difference.

I agree with this. Many people, such as barrettsfloyd, fail to comprehend the fact that one can have a much more focused build with destruction compared to any other style.