Maybe noone's given you exact info, because noone has the exact info on base Health values (And how much it scales with difficulty setting) of every creature in the game That is, until the Construction Set is released. Dee dee dee

Alright, let me lay out why destruction magic is not very fun to play with as a logical argument:



First: Premises you have to accept as true to see this argument:

1. The only ways to increase the damage of destruction spells is through potions and perks.

2. Perks will increase destruction damage by up to 50%.

3. Dealing damage through weapons can be permanently increased far more drastically through their perks, skill increases synergy with sneaking, enchanting, and weapon improvements.

4. Weapon damage can also be temporarily increased by drinking potions, so magic has no advantage there. (Also guzzling a potion before every fight is few peoples definition of fun, but that's more an observation than a fact)

5. Many enemies in the game get stronger as your level increases.

6. When you gain more powerful spells you don't get an improved version of your old spells usually.

7. The more damaging the spell the more costly it is to cast.

8. Magicka does not regenerate very quickly in combat.

9. Skill increases and Enchantments will reduce the cost of spells. Stacking enchantments can reduce it to 0 magicka.

10. Destruction spells can chain stagger opponents.


Alright, if you agree with all of those statements, then we can draw some conclusions from them:

Conclusion one: There is a hard cap on the absolute maximum number of damage you can do with a destruction spell that is relatively easy to reach, but enemies will keep scaling up well beyond that point, meaning that the amount of damage you inflict relative to an opponents hitpoints will begin to decline as the game goes on. The same applies to weapons, but since weapons have more ways of increasing their damage they can keep pace for longer.

Conclusion two: The only thing you can increase after you have maxed out your destruction damage is how many spells you can cast. You can create enchantments that allow you to cast an infinite ammount of spells, but this appears to be more of an exploit than an intended mechanic since it renders the entire magicka system as well as all the dozens of other ways of decreasing spell cost, and higher cost for better spells pointless. Also every levelup you ever sunk into magicka is wasted.

Conclusion three: Since your damage will begin to be relatively low as you progress in levels it will take more and more spells to kill an enemy, even if you have used the 0 cost enchantment exploit. Killing an enemy will begin to take a very long time.

Conclusion four: Since you can chain stagger opponents they cannot fight back, even if it takes a really long time to kill them. This makes fighting as a destruction mage extremely boring, as there is no challenge to winning, but at the same time, every fight takes forever. Fighting without chain stagger is possible, but not very satisfying either. since you have to land so many successive hits to kill an enemy it gets bothersome if they aren't immobilized for most of the fight.

Conclusion five: If you have a favourite destruction spell (For example Runes) that isn't a master level spell you never get to do master level damage with it, so which spells you get to cast if you want to be effective is highly restricted by the fact that spells don't rank up along with you. If Flame is your favorite spell to use the game simply doesn't give you the opportunity to keep using it unless you want to do even lower damage than even high end destruction spells will do.

Conclusion six: If you don't use the 0 cost exploit you will eventually hit the point in the game where you simply cannot defeat an enemy encounter before you run out of magicka. At that point fights will start taking easily five times longer than before, and start consisting mostly of running away while you wait for more magicka, or getting killed horribly because you most likely won't have very high hitpoints if you heavily invested in magicka.



So there you go. That's why destruction svcks. It's primary lifeline is a cheesy exploit. If you do use the exploit you might become damn near invincible, but you won't have any fun with it, since the only challenge left at that point is landing a first hit, and not messing up while pulling the triggers simultaneously.


One sidenote: Since it's relatively easy to evade dragons while you regenerate magicka destruction is one of the best ways to kill them, even without using the exploit. Enemies that can't be thwarted by cowering behind a rock are not as easily dispatched.

There is your answer, you say destruction damage isn't sufficient at high levels, well it is even on master.

I have a level 50+ character with all the archetypes and I find that my pure mage is the strongest of the 3. Using only destruction I can take out pretty much any enemy (Dragon priest, Ancient Dragon e.t.c) without getting hit.

I never said destruction wasn't playable if you heavily spec into cost reduction, just that it wasn't fun or overly challenging.

Also "I only use 92% cost reduction, so I can't endlessly spam stagger" ... Ultimately heavy cost reduction is still the only way to make destruction viable at all, whether you go all the way or tiptoe around full on exploiting. Without that enchant that character would still flop, and even with the enchant it's not as interesting to play as a sword and board fighter that can pull a variety of moves both offensive and defensive...





Sure, but which of them is actually the most fun to play? I mean, I guess maybe you love watching an enemy twitch and buckle under a barrage of spells and die without being able to fight back, and there is a sort of smug satisfaction I get from that too, but honestly, it's just not as satisfying as the crash of catching an enemies blow on your shield, bashing them in the mouth with it and then bringing down an axe on their head. Magic doesn't give you that satisfaction of having genuinely outplayed an opponent.

You can do it perfectly well without enchanting. Ring + neckless of peerless destruction, 25% each. Master robes of destruction 22%, thats 72%. Then the perk, results in 14% magicka consumption.

How can you say its not fun? Even with that high reduction spells still cost, so I still have to think whether I have enough, or I need to kite to restore some magicka. At the moment you can only use destruction at a high level with heavy cost reduction yeah, this will hopefully be patched. But like I said you don't need to invest in enchanting to get that reduction.

A variety of moves? Nothing is more mundane in this game than sword and board. You hit, block, hit, block, exploit the crafting system and then complain destruction damage doesn't suffice. There is no skill involved in blocking, you just hit the block button, the same with slashing.

Destruction you have a variety of spells, I use all the adept, expert and master spells (except the wall spells and the master fire spell). I'm level 59 on master, and I have a variety of ways to kill the enemy.

When I play my mage I don't just spam dual cast impact incinerate, in fact I never took the "impact" perk because it makes destruction OP. I use a variety of spells and combinations to take out different foes. I find it far more tactical and rewarding than my warrior who just blocks their attack then hits back. Block, hit, block, hit, bash, hit. Personally I don't find that satisfying at all.

Also, I didn't use and cost reduction enchantments (just perks) and destruction is more than viable; just put your level up points into magic. The various spell effects > the different attacks a warrior can do.

This is the crux of the matter IMHO, I, and many others, do not consider this an exploit in any way at all. The fact that fully filling the enchant tree allows exactly 100% reduction, without any alchemy, restoration or other synergies, is no coincidence but rather a fully intended capability that balances the magic schools. I have no doubt that reduction and destruction were balanced to be used together.

Magic provides much more variety than the mundane shield and sword combo. Completely agree. Well you'd struggle using the high level spells on master with only 50% reduction, I hope in patches they will reduce the magicka costs to a more usable level. At the moment level 100 destruction has a 40% reduction compared to level 15, I think this should be at least 60%.

I am almost certain it is an intended feature but it is definitely an overpowered feature, similar to 100% chameleon from Oblivion.
That said, being a single player RPG I am fine with them adding overpowered features for when people want god mode and aren't on PC.

I entirely disagree that magic provides more variety than weapons.

Sure, there are more spells than there are weapons, but do they really add more variety? I have a pure mage on master difficulty at level 36, set up with 3 levels in magicka, 1 level in health and so forth, no cost reduction enchants and he's wearing robes. He can slog through all the content, and it is challenging, but there isn't much variety to the fights. You find a strategy that works for you, and then you just stick with it. There is really no reason to ever switch it up.

What gives a sword and board fighter more variety than a mage in my opinion isn't the fact that the mage doesn't have more options of how he wants to defeat an enemy, it's the fact that he doesn't have a big spectrum of how a fight progresses once he has formulated a strategy that works. With a fighter you go into every fight with a variety of variables. Am I going to be able to dodge heavy blows? Will I be able to block light ones? Will I get staggered? Will I be able to stagger my opponent? Whether you do good or bad depends on how many of those factors you can decide in your favor throughout the bout. With a mage the dynamic is quite different. Usually when you go into a fight with a mage you use the same tried and true spell combinations that have served you well a hundred times before, because there is no reason to change them up. There is no way to cast a spell particularly well or particularly badly, the result is always the same, so there is never a real reason to change what you're doing as long as it works. If I can kill one room of bad guys by mindcontrolling them then I can kill the next room of bad guys the exact same way. If I can kill one encounter of enemies by summoning a dremora and a bound bow then I can kill the next encounter in the exact same way as well. Of course you might say "But aren't you killing all the enemies in the exact same way if you kill them with a sword?" Yes, in a sense, sure, but the moves I have to go through to achieve a kill with a sword are different in every fight, they aren't with spells.

I guess it depends on how you play the character. Personally I have maxed out all the magic schools and use everything at my disposal. I don't use the same tactic/combination against every opponent I come across so for me, magic has lots of variety.

I wish we had more options as mages.

Destruction does not scale that good. You have to have alchemy and enchanting to be able to use your spells effectively and that is stupid.
You should be able to use your higher level spells without having to rely on another skill set.

It sounds as though you're turning it into a metagame to try out different spells against different opponents, which is fine, if that's what you enjoy. more power to you, but at the end of the day the ways a mage can use to actually reduce an enemy to zero hitpoints are:

1. Summon something and watch.
2. Enrage something and watch.
3. Hit it with destruction spells.

Hitting someone with destruction spells is the only one of them that actually takes some amount of skill because you need to aim to some degree at least, but even then you simply can't claim that there is an equal amount of inherent complexity and skill in casting destruction spells as there is in fighting in melee. Destruction spells are like playing a really basic shooter with a gun that has a slight chargeup time, while melee, especially when aided by a shield, is a pretty complex dance of moves and countermoves.

Mages have less variety than previous games in the series.

We used to have a slew of other spells.

Water walking
Jump
Slow fall
chameleon
Open lock
lock
detect key
detect enchantment
summon several types of creatures
posion
damage health, magic, stamina
dispel
reflect
absorb
resist magic
reflect damage
command creature/humanoid
levitate
mark/recall
intervention

and so on.

Then we lost spell creation too.

Sword and board has the following way(s) to fight an enemy:
1) Block, bash with shield and attack with 1h weapon.

2h has the following way(s) to fight an enemy:
1) Block, hit with weapon.

Dual 1h has the following way(s) to fight an enemy:
1) Keep hitting them.

Archery has the following way(s) to fight an enemy:
1) Shoot with bow.

Is that more variety that destruction? Illusion? Conjuration?
List the 'complex dance of moves and countermoves', I'd love to see your insight into sword and board that isn't bash, block and slash. The most mundane way to play IMO, involving very little tactic and complexity.

I think all 1h, 2h and archery should have a stamina cost to use that weapon, it would help balance the combat skills.

Melee is much more intricate than that.

Your moves are Block, Dodge, Bash, Slash, Power Attack, the enemy can do the same.
Power attacks have to be dodged, slashes have to be blocked.
Bashes will stagger you opening you up for an attack.

With spells your moves are Dodge and Cast Spell, you can do both at the same time without penalty, and most enemies can't respond effectively to it.

Those enemies who can cast spells back at you don't end up producing an interesting fight because trying to actually engage them in a two way Ward duel will always end with you losing on account that you don't have a bazillion magicka from levelscaling. It's more effective to just dodge their attacks until they run themselves dry, then kill them like every other enemy. Ranged enemies are the one other thing that can effectively fight back against you, and they tend to become pretty damn nasty because of levelscaling as well, mostly because they end up doing more damage than you and having a lot more hitpoints.

You don't get it. It's not about being level 81. You can't be a lvl 81 destro mage without other skills. You can only get to lvl ~20 going straight destro. Again: level ~20 is tops for pure destro mage. If you want to progress past lvl 20 and learn new/more skills, you are no longer a pure destro mage and need to figure out how to use those new skills to survive.

You do not get what I want.
I want mages to have the options they used to have we do not, that is a fact.
Destruction should be viable without enchanting and alchemy it is not.
It should be useful on its own it is not.

We need option as mages.
Destruction and alteration are pathetic.
We need the old spell types back.
Then we need spell creation: then I would be happy.
Magic is not what ES scrolls magic should be its a husk of what it used to be, its simple.

No. I get what you want. But that's not how this game works.

So it's not so much that destruction doesn't scale, it's that it doesn't conform to your desires. And that's okay. Just stop saying it's broke.

Being pure any one skill svcks. Ever try to be a pure lockpicker?

Its not broke I did not say that I said you had to have another skill to make it viable and you do have to.

The desire to not want more is lost to me, have you played the other games at all. We had so many options.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Magic
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Magic

I will not post Daggerfall or Arenas system as I have not played them but they offer more than Morrowind.

Destruction is not broken that means unusable, and its not that its dumbed down.

Since destruction doesn't scale(well, for PCs anyway, NPCs do) I think "weakness to" AoE spells would have been nice....or something. Last time I checked, there is no weakness to in this game.

this is like saying it doesn't matter if you use one handed you'll use block to do damage and if you want to use one handed it caps at 20+ so don't use heavy armor block and every other skill.

This is the heart of the problem.

But yes, there is "weakness to"--available in poisons, which you have to apply somehow, since you can't poison spells, and you have to level alchemy besides, in order to get the poisons in the first place.

I tried a pure mage on my first character and ended up deleting that one around level 20 because I got tired of all the juggling required if I wanted to kill things quickly (juggling different spells, juggling poisons/bow and arrows to apply poisons, etc).