it seems like a lot of people complain that magic isnt as powerful as warriors or stealth characters
However, the real complaint seems to be that destruction isnt as powerful as the entire discipline of being a warrior or assassin
This is because destruction isnt the only aspect of magic. My pure mage at level 30 is at least as powerful as my level 40 warrior. Using conjuration and destruction together i can have two dremora lords attacking my enemies while i launch incinerates at them. From this standpoint I find mages to be at least as powerful as other disciplines and more powerful at low levels. If yu want to use just destruction in combat dont complain you feel underpowered-you are using only one part of the mage discipline. The same would be true if you only used one combat skill or stealth skill.

On the other hand I dislike the butchering that has been done to our options regarding magic in this game. We can no longer open locks with magic or remain unseen through magic (as invisibility equates to about 10% chameleon from oblivion) The spell structures are much more rigid and there is no more spellmaking. Although I will applaud the look and feel of magic when it is used.

its not the fact that its balanced or UP, its that you cant focus just on destruction, you also have to grab conjuration. The mage armor in skyrim is also extremely lacking, and you are better off grabbing light armor than using mage robes

i agree with the robes are useless but it's not that mages are UP it's that destruction does not scale it does the same dmg at lvl 1 as level 100 while other skills improve and it does not have a 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% damage increase like the other skills also conjuration does not scale well at higher levels also and basically your going conjuration destruction and conjuration and destruction both become useless now what?

It is. Somewhat. Destruction kinda is underpowered the more you level up.

Cheers

i dont think mage armor is really a problem-you're a mage-dont get hit and yea its hard to focus on just one part of magic and be really good-that makes sense. It would be the same if you made an assassin who only uses blades and never bows-you would be discovered a lot and it would be much more difficult

they really dont become useless-if you send in enough dremora lords, whatever you are fighting will eventually go down

Destruction is, in my opinion, too weak. It should be at least as effective as the damage that can be dished out with a weapon. Other skills like armor skills and conjuration are irrelevant. A swordsman can use conjuration too, as can a mage wear heavy armor. Sneak is biased towards weapon attacks.

are you kidding? with high sneak it's laughably easy to kill with daggers and the problem is mages don't have any real direct combat skill to rely on other than destruction if your a warrior you can go one handed or two handed assassin daggers or bows sure conjuration but sitting there watching your summons kill everything is boring so basically If your a
warrior and one handed doesn't work you could switch to two handed if your a assassin blades don't work switch to bow but if your a mage destruction doesn't work switch to conjuration and when you have conjuration it's basically sitting there letting your summons do everything which is boring not to mention alot of your spells become useless at higher levels for pretty much every magic school other than illusion and maybe restoration

dragur deathlords lvl 50+ one hit dremora lords at high levels..... and dead thrall level cap at 40 also for dead thrall you can't give your thralls armor

i was thinking more when you start-but even that really isnt that good of an example because you are using two skills as opposed to just destruction
and how is magic useless at higher levels-nothing I have encountered has been to hard to take down with two dremora lords and incinerates
also if you dont like conjuration dont use it-but then dont complain about being underpowered thats like having a warrior, deciding armor doesnt look cool, and then complaining because you die all the time

Focusing in nothing but two-handed, I have a battleaxe that does over 100 per hit and can be used infinitely, and with 2 or 3 steps of sprinting, for double damage.
Focusing in nothing but destruction, I get an Incinerate that does 90 damage per hit, and can be used somewhere in the region of 4-8 times before having to recharge (Since 0 cost gear requires going to a second skill).

Even if we diverge, I have three skills to improve my weapons damage (Smithing it, Enchanting it (and other gear), and using Fortify Potions).
Destruction only has alchemy to boost its damage output, and enchanting to give you a better magazine size (to borrow FPS terminology)

Though I don't think magic is underpowered so much as weapons are overpowered. Along with scaling being the "Dump 2000 more hitpoints on this bandit chief and call it a day" variety, which really hurts flat rate damages like Destruction uses.

yeah i guess that would be a problem-i havent really encountered that because after maxing conjuration, destruction, and enchanting my mage levels very,very slowly, actually how is your mage above level 50?

how else am I supposed to play a Mage destruction? I am dealing with 50+ mobs and a room full of them

conjuration+followers=your own mob

alteration conjuration enchanting and illusion are maxed but I have trouble with illusion because they attack my summons and I think calm spells are cheap

No you do not.

What you do for defense is completely besides the point. Alteration supplies you with magical and physical defenses along with paralyze. At 100 skill it also has a maximum armor spell that gives you 80% physical defense. Wearing armor has its pros and cons, and require points in them and are extremely awkward to level.

Out of curiosity, for those of you saying destruction isn't enough offense, what difficulty level are you playing at?

All the mages problems could be solved with spellcrafting. That level 1 flamethrower spell not working? For the right price, you can make it so!

i have had 2 thralls a follower a dremora lord and an ice atronach die to 10+ high level dragur I tried to summon a dremora lord but I had the atronach stone and the alteration perk I couldn't use necromancy because all of the enemies were to high a level and I was helpless I mass paralyzed and revived my thrall cause I couldn't find my other one and I had to repeat this process several times you could imagine it was extremely frustrating if I was able to do damage with destruction or if the dead thrall level cap was removed i wouldn't be in that situation

I was playing on apprentince and was 40+ I tickle high level dragur while my master necromancers can kill a high level dragon priest with three one handed blizzards

At apprentice you should be doing 50% more damage than normal.
What spells are you using? Are you dual-casting them? Did you perk their extra damage? Using the right damage type against the monsters?
If perked and using incinerate (undead are weak to fire) then you should be mowing them down. I play on master difficulty and I would not say that my incinerates 'tickle' the undead lords. Hell with a pot and poison I killed the end boss in like 6 seconds with ice spears.


Difficulty | Damage Dealt | Damage Taken
-----------------------------------------
Novice | x2 | x0.5
Apprentice | x1.5 | x0.75
Adept | x1 | x1
Expert | x0.75 | x1.5
Master | x0.5 | x2

I don't use destruction paralyze Is more effective IMO than Infinite stunlocking

It does extra damage though. If you're looking to do a lot of destruction damage you should dual-cast. You don't have to perk impact for the stunlock, thats up to you ofc.

Also necromage boosts destruction damage against undead by 25%. Also the Aspect Terror perk in the Illusion tree boosts fire damage by a bit, though its probably a bug.

Combine all these and "dealing with 50+ mobs and a room full of them" becomes really really fun. Dual-charge fireball them back to oblivion.

It's alright. The damage for the higher spells does not justify the amount of Magicka that they use though. It's ridiculous if you don't use enchanting to lower the amount that it uses. And the fact that you can't move when casting the master spells makes it impossible to use in battle anyways.

The entire magic system is a joke and it lacks depth. The old spells alongside spell creation gave us depth and options.
Without it mages are all the same.
They cannot study their craft.
They cannot be diverse and unique.
We have a depressing shell of its former self.
Its like giving a warrior a stick and telling them that is their sword.

I'd like to add that the Master spells are unusable because they strike your follower and conjured / undead friends.