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.

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.

This is not a very smart thing to say. If you follow your own logic, you would say melee combat svcks because it relies on having a weapon, skills in one-handed, a shield, skilles in blocking, 4 pieces of armor, skills in heavy or light armor, smithng, enchanting, etc.

Destruction is perfectly fine without any enchanting, you lose some magicka, and good reductions, but it partly makes it up by keeping your level lower. People play one-handed without enchanting fine. People play destruction without enchanting fine, too. Yes, enchanting makes destruction more powerful. But it makes every style more powerful.

Can a sword hit 5 enemies simultaneously?

Ahh, I see now. The two-handed sweep.

I'm talking just about combat. In combat, you can just use a sword and be fine. Since there is no degradation you don't need drakes or need to rely on the Armorer skill. Mages however have to use enchanting to use the higher level spells effectively, either that or Alchemy. Warriors don't. Blocking,armor etc. is completely irrelevant to my point.

you can effectively have zero cost magicka, but that still won't change destruction's primary drawback. Cost to damage ratio is out of whack.

My lvl 63 character is focused mainly on destruction and he has worked out fine. I still only use lightning bolt which is one of the lowest level destruction spells. I duel wield it because it shocks the enemy which gives me enough time to get away from them and stall them again. Then can never hit me. It is cheap if you have a lot of magika too.

Which is what Destruction gameplay comes down to. Chain stunning everything to a slow death with Impact.

It is possible to play the game as a Desctruction Mage (I've gotten two Destruction Mages to high levels) but it is nowhere near as powerful as Archery and Melee, even before Smithing, Alchemy and Enchanting come into the picture.

It takes more patience to play as a Destruction Mage which is all it comes to. You will have a lot of down time at the early stages of the game and will generally take a long time to kill things at higher levels. There is no real reward given for putting up with the slow crawl at the start.

I would not reccommend using destruction as your main damage output if playing on master difficulty, at low levels it can kill fast but the fixed amount of damage will mean at higher levels you have to stand and launch silly amounts of fireballs to kill the same bandit that went down in 2 hits earlier on. With the impact perk and 100% reduction cost is is very easy but oh so very boring.

Well i tried playign with destruction, the damage is not great plus you have to pop potions most of the time, run away and like i said much slower to.