If you use Destruction with no other magic as an auxiliary then its like playing as a warrior and running in without a shield and armor. As a mage, youll also need to make use of mage armor in alteration, or actually wear armor. Youll also need to use other magic schools to augment your character. I actually think destruction as a combat option is well balanced. On average difficulty i was able to feel powerful as i threw ice spikes, etc. Of course if you play on master, youre not going to feel powerful, which i dont understand why people would complain about that anyway... Thats why its 'Master' because youre a master of overcoming challenges and you can tell folks on here how easy master is to you because youre a great gamer

I'm level 40 with 100 health on Master difficulty, playing a pure mage. It's still easy. My roommate's archer character certainly more powerful, however.

Conjuration alone can win every fight.

You know, when my problems with Destruction was not running out of Magicka before I finish practically any non trivial fight while I barely never got hit in the first place, I'm not sure why you'd want me to sink more of my limited supply of MP into a mage armor spell that would protect me from nothing.

This, and I should add "and why would you want to"(plough through everything within a second).

I've played over 400 hours of Skyrim, over the course of several characters. I've leveled up every skill tree extensively.

I can say without a moment's hesitation that destruction is the most powerful damage-dealing skill in the game. There is no contest. I am very confused why people seem to have such a problem making it effective. I rarely even see the enemies I kill, when I see red dots on the compass I start launching fireballs until the red dots go away. It's so strong it's boring.

Play a destruction mage, then judge for yourself.

The problem with Destruction is that it is a completely pointless school, unless going for full mage dual cast impact reduce cost etc etc.(regardless of its actual efficiency, which i doubt is great on master, but whatever) See other schools, you can usually grab some useful things off them. Destruction is alone. Want to grill some chicken with Flames, while hacking mobs? No deal. Vampires weak to fire? irrelevant. Want to see cool fireball effects? pointless.

Destruction doesnt work as backup skill and thats bad design. For a TES game.

when my unperked archery at lvl 40 with an ebony bow does more damage per sec than my fully perked lvl 100 destruction tree expert spells something is wrong

You could say that, or you could look up the http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Spellsand do the math and see that the exact opposite is true. Weakest damage output in the game, whether you're counting firebolt, lightning storm, fire storm, or whatever. Every other damage skill does between 50% - 100% more DPS, not even counting power attacks, sneak attacks or backstabs. Yes, it's useful for killing a group of weak opponents that would be one-shot kills anyway. And it IS playable, even on master, but then again people have killed dragons with pick-axes on master. It depends on your idea of fun.

Or you could do what other people have suggested to (nearly) "even up" magic, like use a bow to hit an opponent with fire/cold/shock weakness poison, and then do decent damage. But you're better off at that point just keeping the bow out.

Play a melee/archery character on master, then play a destruction-oriented mage on adept, and you'd get about an equal experience.

Also it's worth mentioning that in previous Elder Scrolls games magic would eventually turn your character into an invincible demi-god.

The fact that you can't really do this without seriously boosting or exploiting in the current game has left many players who are upset with the prospect of not achieving a god-like state by level 30 with serious mis-givings about the magicka system in "Skyrim".

By level 30 in "Oblivion" you would simply run up to an enemy, tag them with a touch spell that hit them with a stupid amount of damage over time and run backwards as you watched them die.

That you have players screaming that Destruction is broken in the game is a huge compliment to the developers.

It's not broken. They haven't figured out how to use magicka effectively yet.

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword

lawl, no. And the page you link to doesn't support your false claim either. Try again.

If anyone's interested, I've got some destruction damage numbers. Destruction damage is more or less on par with well smithed/enchanted archery, either better or worse depending on how much you make use of crafting.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/rangedsynergy-1.jpg shows dual cast destruction vs. archery, and assumes that the player is keeping their smithing and enchanting skills at the same level as their archery skill, smithing the best bow they can and using the strongest fortify damage gear they can enchant, but not taking fortify smithing or enchanting potions, and not wearing any fortify smiting gear. Destruction out-damages archery for most of it, but ends up at almost exactly the same place by level 100.

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii167/bl3count/rangedcrafting.jpg shows the same, but assumes that in addition to keeping your crafting skills up, you also take the strongest fortify smithing and enchanting potions you can craft, and wear the strongest fortify smithing gear you can enchant. Archery and destruction are neck and neck up to level 70, but then destruction levels off while archery skyrockets.

So it depends on how much you're using your crafting skills. Destruction also lacks sneak attack bonus damage, which is another major factor.

*Edit - The X axis is skill level, the Y axis is damage per second (I tested it out, ranged destruction spells can be dual cast about 0.87 times per second, so these are actual damage per second numbers, not damage per shot.)

I am full destruction, and can kill fast.. yep I may need to down a pot or two, and yes my gear has the best enchants I can do. But it is sooo much fun just to blast with fire, frost, sparks from my fingertips !
The main reason I love Skyrim over both WoW (5yrs) and 6 months of Rift is.. NO ONE TELLS ME HOW TO PLAY MY MAGE . I don't know how much dps I do.. I don't know gear score.. All I know is mobs die scorched at my feet. And if I die and go back to a earlier save I try a different tactic.
I raided a lot in WoW.. had a very well geared mage.. Shaman.. rogue.. hunter etc.. was always in top 3 for dps often was top. But so much time was wasted while gear was inspected .. tactics were discussed..complaints being made about who was doing this or that the wrong way.. bio breaks...etc etc.
so now I just have fun, I have made a woodelf to be a rogue, sneaky thief type and a different kind of mage to become a vampire. I am also intrigued by the DiD and am very tempted to try that too.
My Advice ? enjoy the game.. have fun, make your character as individual as you because you are not going to upset anyone else if your hunter feels the need to go into a dungeon armed with just a dagger and glass helmet

I think its broken for a few reasons:

-very strict requirement for enchanting, unless you play on the easier settings, meh. May as well call it Destrenchtingtion.
-only 1 good spell for most of the game(expert bolt type) due to no spell scaling and horrible master spells. booooring. Not even horrible rpgs like DA2 have such a limited offensive spell selection.
-impact makes the game silly boring, not even the archery version is 100%

And yet again ppl say the same thing to try to defend that excuse of a magic school that is Destruction...

Offencive and Defencive skills are not tied to each other. What a destro mage can use, a 1-h warrior can use, and vice versa. That's why you can't say that a Destro mage has the advantage of other schools of magic - because a warrior or an archer can cast conjuration, illusion etc just as well as a destro mage. And your destro mage can use heavy armor and a shield just as well as a warrior. You are not compairing destro to 1-h, you are compairing magic in general to 1-h+block+heavy armor. And that is not what we are talking about.

Destro is independent to most of the other skills. It is supported by alchemy and enchanting, but melle/archery are just as well - and, in fact, enchanting has better effects on melee/archery than on destro, since destro is capped at 100% cost decrease, while the only cap on damage increase for weapon attacks is the max health of the strongest enemy in the game -whatever that is - plus it gives it more better side effects than destro can ever have, even with impact. And then weapons are additionally supported by smithing, and then it has far more damage due to it's talents and mechanics alone.
The gap is so huge that you can see it at your very first real dungeon (ie not Helgen) all the way down to Apprentice... when your perked and skilled destro spells can hardly move the hp bar of any Draugr -even on freaking Apprentice ffs!- but your conjured swords can obliterate them in seconds... that is how bad destruction is...

It isn't. People just like to whine that Bethesda dididn't consult them personally in order to tailor the entire game to their personal desires. HOW DARE THEY!!!!!!!

Destruction is only 'underpowered' when it is compared against groups of other skills.

If a player only uses one-handed skill, and only uses off-the-shelf weapons, then he will probably find the same difficulties as someone who only uses destruction skill.

There's no question, at the lower levels you are no worse off than the person with the sword or axe, and you have to tailor your tactics to your circumstance...at later levels, you are just as powerful...but along the way you should consider that you do need to use other skills, such as conjuration and illusion, just as the axeman uses the block skill, and the smithing and/or enchanting skills.

My character uses both blade and destruction magic, and to be quite honest, if i step into a cavern or hall with half a dozen drauger of various types, I know that I'm in for a hell of a brawl if I use the axe and shielf...just a couple of days ago I stepped into a hall with nine deathlords and wights, and spelled them down with fireballs and frost, only taking a couple of hits, and I'm no spell specialist, with only one upgrade to damage, and reduced cost up to expert, and I have a general 50% regen rate. I was really surprised at how easy it was to clear that room.

That's kind of what underpowered means, it has less power than everything else.



Nope, when Destruction failed my mage... as it so often did, and the enemy was right on top of me just pounding away on me, my 1-handed sword would save my life no problem since it produced so much more damage than what my mage's magic could produce.

What he means is that when people put up numbers for melee and archery, they always include maxed Smithing and sometimes even Enchanting. So they're comparing one skill - Destruction - against at least two, which is not and should not be balanced, because two skills are obviously better than one.

basically, players want to be nukers*. Skyrim won't allow you to be a nuker* - hence the non-ending debate
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*nuker = offensive magic user with the ability to destroy his target in one to three shots

I WANT TO BE A NUKER TOO! (*cryes a river*)

Because none of the 2 is feasible on it's own. We are compairing the max that the 2 can get from other skills, eliminating all skills that benefit both the same. So, we end up with smithed weapons and enchanted damage vs destruction magic with enchanted 0 cost. Because potions, armor, other magic etc are the same in both sides of the equation, so they are excluded from the comparison...
If you want to compaire base destro to base weapons with nothing else in the way then fine, go ahead and do it... weapons still win because with no enchantments the mage is out of mana after a single spell...





The problem is not that destruction is not a nuker skill, it is that it does 5+ times less damage than weapons, has less variety than weapons, and does not have any redeeming qualities over weapons, except from some negligible AoE capabilities. And that is why people are complaining, because it is vastly inferior to melee/archery on every single level.

Right, but that's part of the nerfing of Magic. If melee and archery gets damage boosts from Enchanting, then there should be the same boosts to damage for Destruction too.

Destruction should have one damage boost that is constant effect, but it doesn't... it has to use potions over and over. It is an inconvenience... it feels like harassment to require mages to go to the inventory all the time. Melee and Archery get not one, but two constant effect damage boosts in smithing and enchanting.

And then Enchanting is like having two constant effect bonuses available by itself as you get damage increases to the weapon and you can have rings, necklaces and clothing that boost the damage of weapons.

Where is my ring and clothing that can boost Destruction damage?

My Dagger has both Ice and Flame damage, why can't I have my spell that has both damage types?

Who cares if spells look pretty if you loath using them due to their being ineffectual and monotonous?

Why don't my spells level like weapons?


Why?

The answer to these questions and many more is that Bethesda chose to say "NO" to pretty much everything concerning magic even while it said yes to everything concerning other types of combat users.


Skyrim won't allow you to be a nuker?

...I 1-shoted a Ancient Dragon with a dagger the other day. Skyrim allows "nukers", it just doesn't allow magic users anything but knock-down-drag-out brawls.

This is absolutely the main issue.
What use are glyphs beyond level 15 or so?

Then there is the incredibly low amount of spells, not 5% of what was present in previous games, that really doesnt help.
There is only one spell of each elemental type per skill threshold. (novice, adept etc.)

Then there is that destruction is more or less reduced to a damage dealing school only.
Where in previous iterations you could hurt an opponents ability to use their weapons or even their weapons themselves, now you are stuck to elemental damage only. Granted, each type provides a secondary effect, but it is still a whole lot less than what was available before.

The lack of spellmaking ensures you cannot come up with situational spells.

You can use destruction, but you must perk it up. Highly reccomended also is alchemy to increase damage output, especially at later levels, and spell cost reducing gear.
It is usuable in the game, but it just gets old fast. It really isnt very interesting.
There isnt any variety, a mage is no longer a mage, someone who thinks up his own spells with the effects he knows, he is now purely a soldier. You get given your guns and you cant really improve or innovate on that.

Oh, and it looks pretty.

I'm a pure mage and I think the destruction skill is a little bit overpowered - even with master difficulty.

For example, my playing stats and "restrictions" are as follows:

- lvl 40 high elf
- Health 100, Stamina 100, Magic 500(ish)
- No armor
- No weapons (of any kind, including staffs)
- Master difficulty
- Lots of perks in destruction, enchanting (for robes and other clothes) and conjuration
- No restoration potions (ie. health, magic and stamina)
- No shouts

...and I'm almost invincible - give me a draugr death overlord and he is done in five seconds. (Mind, they can't even disarm you with shouts).

With more than two enemies, just conjure an atronach and then start nuking. Easy peasy.

So, in my opinion, even with my own restrictions and master difficulty, I find Skyrim way too easy. Removing that impact perk might be a good start.

Okay, you have no idea what you're talking about. Next.


Why do you people want Destro to be identical to melee and archery in every way?

And then you complain that as a mage all you do is cast same spell over and over. Seriously...

Melee/Archery takes low-damage weapons and increases their damage significantly with skill level and perks. Enchanting further increases the damage.
Destruction on the other hand takes high-damage spells and increases their damage only slightly with perks, instead focusing on reducing the casting cost. Enchanting further lowers the cost.

This is a good idea in principle, the only problem is that Enchanting benefits the melee/archery way too much at zero cost. But it's the Enchanting that's the problem, not Destruction.

Argument about nukers is just idiotic. So you WANT to be able to 1-2 shot Dragons? Then stop speaking about balance, there's tgm and save game editors for power-hungry kids like you.

I think staves complement the destruction mage in a similar way that smithing/enchanted weapons complement melee and archery, sure you won′t get the same instant damage, but staves have a much higher fire rate than other ranged weapons, destruction perks add to their damage and they can be charged indefinitely with the abundance of soul gems available.

I always drain my magicka completely and then go over the staff attacks...and I have less problem winning battles with this strategy than with pure melee (even with sneak and enchanted gear).