I don't think anyone wants to just use destruction, without investing in anything else. I think they just mean as a main combat style.

How well does destruction synergize with other spell-schools???

Cast paralysis.
Enemy is down for 5 seconds... just when you have regenerated the mana to cast a fireball!

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But then you craft gear for free alteration and destruction spells.

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And realize that your two-handed warrior could cast the exact same spells with his 100 mana pool, using the exact same enchantment.

Do the math on what? Damage values are completely worthless without enemy HP values to compare them to.

I have a 100 damage Incinerate. So [censored] what? How much HP does enemy have at level 51? 200? 500? 1000?


I asked a simple question: what level you are, how many of what destruction spell it takes to kill what enemy.

NONE of over twenty posts in this thread answered this question. The closest I got was eggrock saying that level 40-41 Deathlords take six seconds to kill with Fireball. A round of applause for that man for he learned the ancient art of reading comprehension.

Those who "kindly attempted to give me some insight" either repeat same [censored] that's been repeated on these and all other forums since the game release with NO evidence to back it up, or give me advice I didn't ask for and don't need. [Edit] Like the post below. QED.

its very boring (1 spell most of the game) and strictly requires 1 type of enchant.

Ancient dragons have around 3000 health, so they require 14 dual casted 100 damage incinerates on novice difficulty. Chain lightning does 112 damage per second, so can you work out by yourself how long it will take to kill the dragon? I gave you data on how much the expert spells do, you can easily find the other spells on the internet.

Are you asking for a complete list of every enemy, and their health depending on your level? Why the hell do you need to know the exact health, you won't find anything with much more health than the ancient dragon I mentioned above. Destruction is usable at high levels, you can do enough damage to survive, as I mentioned in my above post, stop acting like a 5 year old.

Your clearly a spoilt kid who has had everything given to him for nothing, and when someone helps you, you show no appreciation. Good luck in life with that attitude.

I have around level 60 destro with the majority of my perks there and about 20 one handed with no perks and I do more damage with a base steel dagger than I do with upgraded dual-wield impact flames.. I play on novice as well.. this means the system is flawed. why so much emphasis on cost reduction and not damage increase?

Thanks. Good luck to you too, you're going to need it if you don't understand written word.

The flames damage is over time, so with the right perks you will do 12 damage per second, dual casted this is 26 damage per second. The base damage for a steel dagger is like 7, so what the hell are you talking about.

just relaying personal experience

Nice use of the english language, 'you don't understand written word', you're clearly a child with no idea about how life works, so don't attempt to patronise me as its laughable.

Thanks. Wish I could say the same, mr. "Your spoilt kid".

Thanks, that was really for my benefit and not the OP's.

I take it back about the Deathlord - level 42, Adept difficulty and it takes 5 hits to kill them with dual Incinerate, so 3-4 seconds in all. Not exactly a rough day at the office.

People can read just fine. Using a bigger font only makes you look like an attention-seeking kid.

Why don't you get off your lazy ass and find some numbers yourself. Why do you need health numbers? Duel casted Incinerate does 200 damage, Duel wielded ebony swords can do more then that, they also don't need to be channeled, and don't cost a reasource (Magicka) to do their damage. They can blow Destruction way out of the water once they start using their power attacks and their reasource (Stamina). Destro needs the % reduced cost to cast spells... Without it you run out of mana very quickly. It also needs the stagger perk, because you are going to get 1 shotted by everything. Using Conjuration, Alteration and Restoration helps with the survivability problem, but they you are using your magicka on survivability rather then your offensive ability. Warriors and Rogues do not have this problem.

I think it is less Magic being underpowered. Its more Destruction is usless for your main killing tree; it cannot output the damage a melee weapon or bow can. It gets even worse once you factor in that you need to use Magicka to buff yourself so you don't die in a shot, and to summon your friends (That end up doing more damage than you...). Mages have NO upside, and are weak compaired to a Warrior or Rogue. If the Warriors and Rogues were toned down, I think there would be no problems.

Also: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1266212-2469-armor-3199-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-31-perks/
You think Magic can come ANYWHERE close to that damage with that defense? Even using all the potions in the world, you would need to get your incinerate up to ~8 000 damage to match the numbers he got using a sword... Thats without duel wielding, or taking backstabs or powerattacks into account. That was also done WITH NO TRAINING in the 1 handed perk tree.

Destruction spells are about damage over time, crowd control and armor penetration while melee and ranged weapons are all about raw damage.

My suggestion is max enchanting and get the perk that allows you to put two enchantments on an item. You can reduce your mana costs to zero. That with destruction perks makes things alot easier. Personally I supplement destruction with alteration. Paralyze in the left hand, destruction spell in the right, no mana costs, I dont have a problem with any enemy (dragon strategy is different).

Axes can deal Bleeding Effect (damage over time)
Maces can ignore damage (armor penetration)

Two Handed Weapons (and carefully executed dual power attack) can deal damage to more than one target (crowd control)

The utility part of Destruction is already covered by melee

Just in case you don't know

Dual casted incinerate does 220 damage, destruction is ranged and has a very fast fire rate (provided you have the magicka). So you can't really compare 1h to destro effectively, they do different jobs. You can say stuff like dragons are much easier to kill with destro because swords can only hit them on the ground which can be difficult (until you get dragonrend).

1 shotted by everything? Using destruction doesn't force you to not wear armor like a 1h warrior would, I use clothing as its more fun for me, more challenge surviving. But you can use heavy armor with no drawbacks to casting.

Just because you can't hit 1000 damage a hit with a destruction spell it's useless, your talking absolute [censored]. Do you honestly find the game fun one hitting everything on master with a 1h weapon?

With my destro potion (of which I have plenty), I can do ~500 damage per dual cast incinerate, which you can fire from range at a very fast speed, which is good enough to play effectively on master. That will kill an ancient dragon in ~12 hits on master, how is that underpowered!?

You obviously like a game with no challenge, so you do massive damage and take barely any damage, that for me isn't fun. I do more than alright playing with destruction as my main combat skill on master.

The mace perks are pretty useless at high levels, enemies have low armor rating but huge amounts of health. The axe bleeding effect damage is pitiful, it's really not worth taking.

Destruction is a ranged combat style, so how is it covered by melee?! You can compare it to archery fine, but IMO it's ridiculous comparing it to 1h and 2h. Your saying you can hit a few enemies in front of you with the sweep attack, you can hit everything around you with the master fire and ice spells. The adept destro spells also hit a few enemies at a time.

The Master spells are impractical due to crap damage and long cast time and mana cost.

Destruction damage should be viable without mages having to drink potions every 30 seconds or abuse the hell out of Weakness potions...which aren't even covered by a magic skill. Nerfing stunlock and letting Destruction scale appropriately would be a step in the right direction.

Why didn't you use your legendary comprehension of the written word to pick up on the 'getavinfo health' command listed on the first page of the thread? I honestly would have taken a few seconds out of my day to console-command and/or nuke-down a few level ~43 enemies for you, but after seeing such a bad attitude on display, you can go find out for yourself.

I acually play mages, and stay away from the melee combat. No need to call me out on something I never said... You also didn't read my post, where I said that Warriors and Rogues should be toned down to match a mage's power level.

Next time, please read what I said before you start throwing out assumptions and insults. The point I made in my post still stands, Destro, for a main combat ability, is weak compaired to the Warrior and Rogue equivalents, and they need to be toned down to match Destro.

Honestly, Alchemy, Enchancting and Smithing are the biggest problems. But I still think Melee and Bows need some tweaks.

What are you talking about? I read what you said, and answered it. You said destruction is useless (not weak, you said useless) as your main combat skill, which it isn't, even on master. You said that you will usually be 1 shotted by everything, I pointed out that you don't need to wear robes. So maybe you need to read your own post, then read my response.

IMO the way to balance the combat skills, is to have a stamina cost for 1h, 2h and archery. Every swing of your weapon or pulling the string back on your bow should have a stamina cost. Then change the +damage enchantments to reduce stamina cost. Cap the [reduce stamina/magicka cost] enchantment at 85% so you can't exploit it.

Also they could remove the fortify enchanting potion, stopping the alchemy/enchanting loop. You can still make powerful weapons/armor using enchanted alchemy and smithing gear, but not to the extent available now.

One last thing would be increasing the extent to which the destruction perks increase that elements damage. It should be +20/40/60/80/100%, 5 perks in total that covers all the elements, this is how the other combat skills do it. If they made destruction damage scale I think they would overpower it. With those perks, you can cast an incinerate with (60x2+10) 130 damage, which would be dual casted for 286 damage, its not a huge jump but it's a little more.

Dual-casting isn't worth the mana cost.

For being a mage crafting skill, Enchanting is far more interesting for a warrior or rogue type than a spellcaster, since you can't craft and enchant your own staves and robes; and the only enchantment worth it for mages is the one that turns you into a peashooter with infinite ammo,

Mage is definitely viable. I can take down Ancient Dragons with Chain Lightning (without the magicka cost exploit) without refilling my magicka