Healing - reconstruct billions of cells which exist in hundreds of types, and place each one of these cells in a specific position.

Firebolt - randomly excite a bunch of molecules in front of you.

HMMMMMMMMMM, I WONDER WHICH IS HARDER TO DO?

At the College of Winterhold, Colette Marence (the Restoration trainer) is looked down upon for studying Restoration, an ‘inferior’ school of magic. But why is restoration regarded as inferior? I’d say restoration is among the most impressive schools of magic, if not the most impressive, simply because the mechanics behind a healing spell are just so complicated. Also, the non-healing parts of restoration have much in common with alteration (ward spells) and illusion (undead fleeing spells), and neither alteration nor illusion are considered inferior.

I’d say destruction is the least impressive simply because the explanation behind a destruction spell like firebolt or ice spike (simply de-excite the molecules) is just so simple.

Because with Skyrim, Bethesda is marketing to the average gamer which means Destruction is far more interesting than utility This is marked by the decrease in versatility of the interesting spell lines (Alteration, Restoration).

Funny. I have a character who only uses Alteration and Restoration (in conjunction with one-handed maces). And I don't feel like the game weights Destruction more heavily. Destruction's always had more spells than other schools, due to the elemental nature of the spells, and all that happened in Skyrim was the elimination of a lot of superfluous effects.

Let's be fair, if you're gonna look at it from a mechanical or scientific perspective, then they're all INCREDIBLY AMAZING. Manipulating energy and matter is always awesome, and I could easily argue that illusion can be far more impressive because of the intricate brain manipulation you can perform on other people, or that conjuration is more amazing because you literally create inter-dimensional portals and can reach through and use the objects of said dimensions as you please.


P.S. If you try to see the mechanism behind it, healing would not be cell reconstruction and alignment, but just accelerated cell growth and replication.

I also enjoy using emotes instead of making a valid argument.

I think Alteration is the most impressive, Think about it, it's the manipulation of matter in the world around you. In theory a strong enough alteration mage could do anything

The most amazing thing about Restoration is that it does this without giving you cancer.

Recent tests at the College have actually shown that prolonged exposure to Restoration magic causes irreparable groin-cancer. Deadly.

I have not done much with Alteration in Skyrim because I don't like the way they did mage armor. Three perks and an expert level spell to get less than 50% of the protection that any bumpkin soldier can get? I was mightily disappointed. Whenever I get my Alteration to 100, I may give Dragonhide a try, but since none of my characters bother with mage armor spells because they cost so much magicka for so little protection, that is going to take quite some time.

i think it would be more like:

Healing: speeding up the process of healing wounds to the point were it's near instant.

destruction: transform the arcane energies to the medium in question, f. eksample heating until ignition (fire) or by ionize the air (lightning)

I was talking about more in theory. Just the concept of alteration not bound by game mechanics.

Thaumaturgy?

2 sticks = fire

Your argument is invalid.

That's a good point. In fact, this is probably how restoration actually works, since the mechanism I mentioned before seems too complicated. Which does make restoration a whole lot less impressive than what I claimed. But still no more less impressive than any other school of magic.

Ah yes, I forgot the long lost art (besides the sload of course) of teleportation.

to the OP, I can't believe you put so much thought into this!

I have to admit still being confused about some crossover between alteration and illusion. Then again I don't think categories could ever be crisply defined....even if we had a new, "Defensive Arts" school for say, wards and banishing and commanding to flee etc., there would be crossover with physical manipulation and mental influence.

Now that I feel I've built up a good war chest of spells, perks (mostly cost reduction), and apparel, I'm trying to do entire dungeons in different combinations of using just 2 schools. It can be really interesting!

Restoration is a very impressive school of magic.

Colette just has some personality "issues". (not uncommon with mages)

All magic is mindblasting because, ohmygod, it's MAGIC, but I actually think that Conjuration's the most extreme type of magic. You're not just superheating the air or speeding the regeneration of cells - you're dealing with actual consciousnesses, with animal and human minds. When you spawn a familiar or an atronach, you're dealing with a real creature. You can bring the dead to life, for goodness sake. That's huge.

FYI just today I triggered the Alteration Ritual Spell (dragonhide) by hitting 90. Upon completion Tolfdir offers Mass Paralysis for sale.
With the proper perks and just mage robes, the cost is like a novice spell (double-enchantments can bring it to zero, but I prefer the Arch-Mage robes to keep it interesting).

When you conjure a familiar or atronach, you aren't creating what you've conjured from scratch (although you might be when creating a sword/axe/bow). You're just moving the summoned thing from one place to another place using a portal (between planes of existence I think they're called?). That doesn't seem that impressive.

On the conjuration set of reanimate corpse spells... are you REALLY bringing the dead back to life? Or are you just manipulating the movements of a dead body like a puppet master? It seems like the latter is the case, but that doesn't seem that impressive.

I'd say the structure of the brain is pretty darn complicated. So anything that manipulates free will would be pretty impressive. That would be most illusion spells, making illusion the most impressive.

Colette is just mad because Skyrim apparently banned touch spells, fortify skill spells, fortify attribute spells, fortify health/magicka/stamina spells, absorb spells, resist spells.......

Pretty much everything that made Restoration awesome.

Look, I don't even need to make a valid argument for this. One only need look at all the countless threads about destruction in Skyrim.

Well, then it's a good thing that there is nothing wrong with destruction. Absolutely nothing. Nada.

On topic: I prefer Alteration myself but I use a restoration quite a bit. It's pretty awesome. However, in my mind, all the schools of magic are equal.

Absolutely nothing? How about the fact that spells don't scale up with your skill level, rendering spells like Flames and Firebolt effectively useless at higher levels? And that's not even considering the lost spells like Disintegrate Armor, Absorb Health (Vampiric Drain doesn't count), etc. I personally love the spell Flames but it's pointless to use it past level 10 or so because it becomes underpowered.