At first I believed the description when it says that it does 150 damage, but I just cannot find a way to deal that amount. The lowest damage I can get it to deal is about 270, which is near the end of the AOE range. If you are standing roughly within two sword away it seems to be doing 350 damage without any boosts (other than the +50% from perks).

My testing method was to use a city guard in Whiterun and also my Companion. I would use the command "getav health" to determine their health before casting, then immediately on finishing casting I would verify their health. On Master difficulty (-50% damage) near point blank takes the city guard health from 340 to about 165. On Adept, the guard is instantly killed (as expected). For reference, Incinerate takes the city guard health from 340 to ~295 on Master and ~250 on Adept (as expected). Keep in mind these are approximate because I am not including the burn damage after, which adds another 40-50 (-50% on Master = about 20) damage from fire storm resulting in the guard having 141 life remaining on Master.

The further away the lower it gets to 270 being the lowest number (without the additional burn) I was able to achieve with primitive testing. I tested the same thing on several other NPCs with the same results. I know the description says it deals more damage at close range but this is actually a LOT more damage. Therefore it takes about 4 Incinerates to equal one cast of Fire storm if you are in close range, although the incinerates are still slightly cheaper and slightly more damaging. That's http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1295613-equilibrium-spell-not-working-as-described/page__p__19517367__hl__equilibrium__fromsearch__1#entry19517367 spells in the game that I find the description not matching reality.

Nice research. Could be a display error, like the Blessing of Talos bug (0% is shown but 20% is the actual value given.)

So everyone how about that destruction being underpowered?

Especially with those spells that hit multiple enemies.

Don't turn this into one of those threads.

Good luck getting enemies close enough without being 1 shot.

Slow Time.

I supposed you asked the archers to nicely come up to give you a hug? Seems they've been ignoring my pleas lately.

Look at you you're part of it now.

Also, try corner camping with it, or killing off archers first. >.>

A no brainer really.

A nice discovery, but unfortunately does not make up for destruction's poor damage. A dual cast expert spell does about 200, and it takes me 15 to kill a single draugr deathlord on master, so that puts them at about 3000 health. This will do roughly a tenth of their hp in damage for an absurd mana cost. I'd still rather kill them with spamming incinerate, as it is more reliable than trying to get 10 5 second casts off to clear a room, but either way the damage is pitiful and unrewarding.

Keep in mind your 200 damage spell on Master is doing 100 damage (so the dragr deathlord is about 1500 by your estimation) but you definitely have a great point. A very slow casting, interruptable (and needs to be near point blank to achieve most damage), high costing spell which does not stagger versus a fast casting spell which does better damage/magicka and may be used to stagger. My current setup does fairly well against most monsters I see using fire storm but I'm just doing it for the challenge of making it work rather than a serious attempt to do the best possible damage.

The only time fire storm shines is with groups of enemies, which is where I am using it but at the cost of having any companions with me At the moment I do the following setup:
Blessing of Talos + Amulet of Talos
Become Ethereal
Bunch of Destruction cost reduction gear at 62% (not 100%, and not interested in getting 100% so I have not used enchanting whatsoever so it sits at a pitiful 23 skill with no perks)

In battle use Ethereal to get into position. Since you are allowed to prepare spells while ethereal I use this time to prep my Fire storm and aggro guys and then release. Rinse and repeat until entire room is dead. If there is a tough enemy I prep some daggers with 35% weakness to magicka poison and 66% weakness to fire poison as well as chug a 110% fortify destruction potion. Usually those tough guys fall pretty fast.

This of course assumes no enchanting perks and only alchemy and just buying +alchemy/destruction gear from stores when available. I find it fun at least, which is what counts All on Master of course.

Become Ethereal....

FUS ROH DA
right off there pretty high horses

I did some testing on the Blizzard spell today and found that the damage is a lot more damage than all other destruction spells. I first used the spell (with +50% damage from perks) on a Mammoth, which has 931 life total. Blizzard states it does 30 damage per second so one would expect the Mammoth to have ~ 630 life on Adept and ~780 life on Master difficulty (due to -50% damage of Master) after 10 seconds. What I found was that it has ~330 life on Adept and ~630 life on Master, which means that it is doing DOUBLE the stated damage.

With my current setup I can make Fortify destruction potions which add 110% damage. After drinking this potion my spell states that it does 63 damage per second so one would expect that it does 630 damage by the end. I tried it on a Mammoth and it slaughtered the Mammoth far sooner than the spell expired. I then used the console command "setav health 3000" on the Mammoth to give it 3000 life and then re-tested. After casting Blizzard, with 110% Fortify destruction, the Mammoth had 332 life on Adept and 1665.65 life on Master remaining.

The implication above is that the spell is doing 2668 damage over 10 seconds (1335 damage on Master). If we accept that Blizzard base value is actually double the displayed value, then we would expect the 110% potion to bring the damage from 60/s to 126/s but instead it is 267/s. Thus it appears as though the fortify potion is being applied TWICE, let alone to a DOUBLED base value!

i.e. Base = 30. Damage ~= (30x2 +110%) + 110% ~= 267

Yet http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1307527-fire-storm-does-more-damage-than-stated/page__p__19669006#entry19669006 which is not doing as stated! Also it is definitely bugged.

EDIT: Due to revelation below, it appears as though Apprentice stone causes Blizzard to do 100% more damage and hence the reason in my game the base value seems to be doubled.

Nothing in this game works as intended. Not really a surprise.

ah ha! i knew bein a cryomancer would pay off

Makes me thinks the master spells were just tagged onto the game late.

That is cool though that some of the master magic isn't bad. Too bad the casting time is awful and you can't move while casting it.

I wasn't even planning to test this, but after I added the 110% potion and slaughtered 3 Mammoths, 2 Giants, and a Dragon before the spell ended I knew something wasn't right...

Not seeing the same thing. In fact mammoths are 33% resistant to frost. My blizzards hardly dent them.

What platform/version? Did you add a fortify potion on top?

Not entirely true, but a bit accurate.

Cheers

PC latest version. I didn't add a fortify potion on top of it because mine boost it by 162%
It just seems to be doing the listed amount is all.

Strange. I'm on the latest PC version as well and you are right, I tested my Blizzard just now on a guard in Whiterun with 3000 health and it killed him outright so the Mammoth is resisting some of that damage and it's actually doing more than I thought. I should note that all other spells are doing the expected damage.

I just figured out why mine does a lot more damage. It appears as though Blizzard + Apprentice stone = 100% damage increase. Once I went off that stone and tested again the damage was significantly smaller. Tested on Mammoth with same setup as before: 931 health to 775 health (Master) which means it did ~156 damage, as expected (no potion), though with Frost resist it is actually higher so until I choose a better target it seems it's still doing more than you would think. Repeated with 110% potion: 931 health to 263 (Master) which means it did ~668 which is still far more than it should have.

Well there you have it folks. Apprentice stone causes Blizzard to do 100% more damage as well. Theoretically, any potion which also reduces your Magicka resist would increase Blizzard damage as well.

There you go! Keep people bummed out! Who does the OP think he is just try to have fun? Pleas keep an eye out for ANY opportunity to trash the game and keep up the bad work.

Bethesda Defense Force detected.