You can compare dest to 1H and remember that destruction has the advantage of range.

sure-as far as efficiency is concerned-but we're roleplaying here so a mage is probably going to use destruction and its really not bad when supplemented with other magic schools
yes you could probably be a bit better using a warrior or stealth character in the schools of magic-but I wouldn't because there is really no need too and if you think destruction isnt good enough, just turn the difficulty down-my point was destruction with the other magic schools works fine

The next time you say magic is not powerful specifically destruction, go play my character and piss off a mage. See how long you last without magic resistance and massive amounts of potions. I cant fight mages without playing the lets hide behind a closed door game until he opens the door i hit him and close it again.

That is cheap stun locking is not the answer my whole point is magical diversity and we do not have the level we had in older games its just that simple.
Its very lack luster we could have had so much more than we do with the current system.

Nothing in this game is balanced right now, people need to stop trying to argue with pointless contrarian statements like this. Magic isn't balanced, melee isn't balanced, archery, crafting skills, etc. etc. are not balanced. Just because you can beat the game with X doesn't mean X is balanced. Impact is obviously overpowered, while destruction's scaling is broken. Other magic schools being overpowered does not somehow make destruction balanced either, this game is not limited to archetypes. I can skip destruction entirely in lieu of a different method of dealing damage, and it's worth doing unless you want to abuse 100% casting cost reduction or alchemy. Or I could just use conjuration and only use destruction to stagger lock things while a dremora lord hacks them up. Doesn't mean destruction is somehow fine.


The whole combat system is such a mess it's impossible to even make many balance judgements, other than in relation to other skills. I'd say the hierarchy of skills is something like:

Alchemy
Enchanting
Smithing
Sneak
Illusion
Conjuration
Archery
Light Armor
One-handed
Heavy Armor
Alteration
Block
Restoration
Destruction
Two-Handed
Pickpocket
Speech
Lockpicking


The top 5 can augment multiple other skills into being incredibly overpowered. The next two can kill almost anything without the aid of other skills just due to AI being so limited. After those things get a little more arguable but Light is > Heavy and One-Handed is clearly the best melee skill. Alteration beats restoration due to paralysis being overpowered and restoration being made obsolete by alchemy. Block is a solid protective and disabling skill, but inferior to pacify and paralysis/mass paralysis for this role. Destruction is the worst of the damage skills for dealing damage, and while overpowered for control, doesn't have as much utility as other control skills. Two-Handed is the weakest combat skill due to being slow and unwieldy, and because One-Handed eventually deals almost as much damage and has so much better versatility. Not to mention you deal so much damage with any weapon eventually that a Two-Hander would be overkill if it were more competitive for damage. The last three are obvious, and pickpocket is ahead only due to being able to take weapons - while that's still kind of pointless when you can use sneak to one shot most things anyway, still has some combat use, Speech and lockpicking are completely obsolete even for non-combat since nothing good is found in chests and no perks are needed to open them anyway, and money stops being an issue quite early in the game and so by the time you get a high speech skill what little purpose it'd serve is definitely not worth wasting perks on.

you are absolutely right good sir-my title was a bit off-its not really balanced (nor does it matter really); the point I was really trying to make was that destruction's inferiority to melee weapons should not cause you any real problems in your game if you use other skills to augment your abilities and that the problems with magic have more to do with a lack of diversity than lack of power for destruction-things like spellmaking and a wider variety of spell effects and types that were in previous tes games

Arguing about balance again? Stuff it.

It's not even about "balance;" it's the issue of destruction being feeble and declining in relative power as the game progresses making it superfluous to a dedicated mage/wizard.

Fun fact: NPC mages scale differently than PC mages. They seem to have an almost infinite mana supply, nigh-impregnable wards and spells that actually *hurt*.

You can completely negate them with resistance enchants/potions and/or perks/racial/quest reward/stone though. It's easier to cap magic resist than armor, but until you get somewhat close to it they deal absurd damage while still being as durable as armored NPCs for some odd reason, and they have way more magicka than the PC.

It's easier to play a high level mage than a high level warrior (I have a two-handed, a one-handed warrior and a mage; never played a stealth class). It is not possible to use only one perk tree with each of them (...why the heck would someone wish to do such restricted things??) As a warrior you need at least 3 perk trees (a weapon, an armour or the Blocking tree and the Smithing tree; Enchanting in addition is better and necessary if you don't use paralyze weapons; Blocking is also almost a need together with armour), as a mage you need two (Destruction and Illusion or Destruction and Alteration; better are three of course, Conjuration is a rather mighty tree). As a mage you need also some good items, especially for magicka regeneration. I don't like yielding for flowers, so I add Restoration to all my builds (it's a lot more difficult to use than simply clicking potions however).

If you don't have Enchanting at 100 (you don't need high Enchanting as a mage necessarily), you cannot enchant armour well enough with magicka reduction and magicka regeneration. So it's better to wear robes which have both. Or use potions, it's for a reason that Alchemy is in the mage part of the trees. Play with your foes using Illusion and/or Alteration together with Destruction, they never come near to you (exaggeration ).

It is not possible to use a one-handed or two-handed weapon without mighty attacks and without Smithing, armour and/or Blocking (and Enchanting) against a multitude of high level enemies, as someone has suggested. You have to stand near the foes and would get hit too many times. With dual wield you need enchanted weapons imho, best is paralyze and health absorb (I don't like dual wield and tried it only a short time, so my experience is rather limited.).

yep this is ridiculous what's the point of drain magicka on shock spells when npcs never run out and they have really good scaling for destruction dmg

the main argument from those defending destruction is 'to use other magic'. this is a poor argument. do i have to use a bow or two handed weapon to supplement my mace damage? or to even make a mace viable?

mana regen is awful. i have yet to hear the explanation of why mana regen is so heavily nerfed in combat. i would really like to know because it makes no sense to me at all.

having to enchant for 0 cost casting is just abysmal game design. perpetual stun lock is, again, abysmal game design.

my favorite destruction spells are flames, sparks, and frostbite. but after level 10 or so, they become obsolete (unless i'm fighting wolves and rookie draugrs). limited spell options plus spells going obsolete equals poor game design.

combat in skyrim is pretty bad in general and destruction is the absolute worst combat skill of them all.

You don't have to use other damage types than destruction spells as a mage. You have to use more than one perk tree however. So it's comparable.


I think to make it not all too easy as a mage. It's annoying in some situations and at some levels. Use some items later in the game.



Making destructions spells so powerful that you would need nothing else would make for a better combat system? I don't think so.



Believe me, I also had to leave my trusted iron sword alone after some time as a warrior. There are funny other spells than Novice ones, like flame ball, in the later game. One thing I have to admit: the Expert spells are not the best spells in the game.


I like it more than that in TES 3 or 4. It's a matter of taste perhaps. Spellweaving however would be nice, although I don't miss it that much I feared.

My problem with magic in this game isn't necessarily its power. Consider that in other TES games you would use all variants of spells as early and late as possible. The flamethrower effect was really fun but the spell becomes 99% useless in the mid and late game. It's just so boring to battle with spells this time around.

Magic is unbalanced.

Magic is unbalance when you consider what the damage inflicted from melee weapons... 2751 from a dagger. Even if you consider it an exploit to do so, it is still in the game and if Bethesda was going for "balance" it wouldn't be. This is because Bethesda wasn't trying to balance anything, they were trying to gimp magic. They succeeded.

Magic is unbalanced when you consider the damage per second [dps] needed to take out 3-4 Falmer/Forsworn before they're all on top of you. At the highest levels, destruction magic only offers ~200 dps with potions. This needs to double at least, preferably w/o the need for potions.


This is true, but Destruction magic is the only magic that the player wields as a weapon to join in the fight [Conjuration just has the player sit back and watch as if Skyrim was some sort of RTS]. Destruction is the Mage's version of 1-Handed, 2-Handed or Archery. Destruction may be in the magic category, but it should be viewed as a combat skill because it is the means by which the Mage fights. Unfortunately, Destruction is too weak to be effective as a combat skill and deadly to the user if used against multiple enemies.


...As for Spellmaking, there was no technical need to remove it as the proper interface is there for Enchanting and all the effects such as damage, damage over time or area are already in the game.

Spellmaking was removed because Bethesda spent a lot of time nerfing magic [...and nothing else] and all that work would be quickly undone if spells could be made.

Draugr Death Overlords are the mini-boss of draugrs and they go only to 45 level. Two Dremora Lords can tag him without player help.

Same with Dragon Priest.

Only ancient dragons (even dragonrended) totally own Dremora Lords due to their non-existent magic/elemental resistances.