Wow,you can get an iron waraxe to do 90 damage without a single perk in smithing,alchemy or enchanting?

I agree there are discrepancy's that allow boosting mellee weapons that destruction does'nt have.

But don't all of the magick skills have these same discrepensy's.

Wanna-be witty post desperately wants to be witty.

You shouldn't use the fact that archery and melee can become overpowered as a point to why destruction is weak. If anything wouldn't that make destruction the most balanced skill in the game?

Something else i just thought about.
Does the fact that we can have these boosters for melee and not in destruction mean that the unbalance is in the crafting skills and not in destruction?

A mage character is perfectly viable. No, you cannot make it as OP as other damage types, but when you exploit the game to make a sword that does 300 damage it isn't fun anymore anyway. If playing a warrior who never smiths is viable, then a detsruction mage is. I am loving my destrcto-mage right now at level 26 and counting. Very fun.

It's always been viable. You can't Leeroy Jenkins enemies from level one, but it's plenty viable IF you use most of the other schools of magic. If you're playing a mage-mage you'll want to focus on more than just destruction magic anyway.

End game you summon two dremora lords, frenzy mobs of people, throw on dragonhide, paralyze the boss while your dremora wallop him, and incinerate the snot out of anything left standing. You just need to focus on gaining as much magicka as you can (unless you go for 100% reduction cost in two schools which is lame).

It would be nice if destruction magic was a hair more powerful, but playing a all out mage is completely viable and incredibly powerful.

ETA: Go Altmer. The Highborn magicka regen power will save your ass. Especially early on.

I agree it could use scaling.

I have played many destruction users and never used a single one of your 'loops.'

It is true that their is a lack of crafting to increase destruction damage (like a %increase of fire damage or whatever, like a % weapon dmg increase)

But I play vanilla on xBox and never thought anything about it being underpowered until I started reading a million threads about it. Like dual-wielding incinerate/lightning bolt etc, does plenty of damage. However, your point about runes could not be more true, they are so useless in the late game.

So many of these threads keep popping up, it's ridiculous. It's blatantly obvious that there is a problem with Destruction. Why do NPC's destruction magic scale and ours doesn't? It's silly. We also shouldn't be able to lower spell costs to 0, it's just dumb. Not only does it make every point we've spent into magicka pointless for up to two schools, but it also renders the perks that reduce magicka costs useless as well. It's such an obvious oversight I don't get how Beth missed something like that. Increasing your skill in a school of magic lowers the magicka costs of the spells in the corresponding school. On top of that, there are perks to lower the costs. So they thought that the enchants should also lower the costs, and damage should stay the same at all levels? Now that's just silly.

Also, alot of us don't want to level Conjuration and Illusion. Both schools beat the game for you without you ever lifting a finger. Want to test it? Make a character that uses ONLY Conjuration. Dremora Lords and ranged damage pets will beat anything in the game for you. Illusion will make quick work of any room full of enemies without you doing anything. How does this change the state of Destruction magic? It doesn't. As for those saying they don't use enchanting/alchemy to make Destruction viable on Master difficulty. You're obviously not at a high level yet where enemies out scale your skill. You're supposed to get stronger as you level, but by the time you're in your upper 50s your Incinerates will only tickle the strongest of enemies. Nobody wants to sit there and whittle down a mob for 5 minutes straight, that's not fun, that's torture.

Now what if we want to make a battle mage? Then we add stuff like one-handed and heavy or light armor into the mix. Our destruction is doing crap damage while our sword is making quick work of foes. Why even bother with Destruction in a build like that?

Again, I stated this in other threads: All other forms of damage have a way to become overpowered, if the player sees fit. Oblivion also had plenty of ways to become overpowered, and Beth was aware of it. They did not change them or take them away because some players actually enjoy being overpowered. There is no such way for Destruction magic because there is almost no way to make your spells do more damage, and there is absolutely no scaling. Now tell me, why should a player be punished if he only wants to use Destruction magic in conjunction with other skills that don't consist of Conjuration/Illusion?

There are four main direct forms of damage in this game:

One-Handed
Two-Handed
Archery
Destruction

The first three not only scale up in damage as their corresponding skill level increases, as well as having a plethora of perks to boost their damage, but other skills benefit them greatly as well. Sneak allows them to do more damage. Enchanting/Smithing/Alchemy all allow them to do additional damage.

Destruction's means of boosting damage? Alchemy, and 1 perk per elemental type, damage unaltered by skill level.

None of those are needed, the only requirement is fortify magic enchantments for higher tier spells, which you can find without investing in enchanting. 90 damage spells do more than enough damage, considering how fast you can fire them.

You have no idea how effective destruction is, you clearly haven't used it for long, you just jump on the hate bandwagon blindly. How strong do you want the 90 damage expert spells to be? 150 damage? If it was 150 damage you could probably kill a deathlord in 2 dual casts on master, if they increased damage they would overpower it.

The problem is the magicka cost, not damage.

Nope. Archery and One/Two-Handed can be quite balanced if you don't abuse every single craft in the game. It's just that players have a certain mentality to take every single Armsman/Barbarian, etc type perk possible, along with smithing and enchanting and find themselves having ridiculous damage. You don't have to play like that if you don't want to.

Destruction has to take every perk available and get their costs down to be viable. You can use a One-Handed weapon with absolutely no perks ever invested in the tree and it will still do better than Destruction can ever do.

If damage got to the point where I can kill stuff in 2 casts, I would simply take away my 0 casting cost enchantments. I'd like my magicka to mean something, and if it means I can kill a Death Lord in two casts but one cast takes away 75% of my magicka pool, I would be perfectly fine with that. Or I could just use a lower damage/cost spell. That's how magic should have been.

Weapons can 1-2 shot stuff too, so why shouldn't Destruction be able to as well? Most people who play melee builds don't let their character become god-like because it would become boring then. You should be allowed to either be balanced or overpowered with Destruction in just the same way.

The difference between 1h level 15 and 100 with a simple axe would be 10 damage at most, which is nothing, the most you could get a one hand weapon without crafting is around 40. This is such a terrible argument against destro, the base damage of the spells is already high, 60 (90) damage per spell is a lot, considering how fast you can fire them from range.

Destruction outclasses archery in a non-sneak situation every time, you can cast a good 3-4 spells in the time you shoot an arrow, so 360 damage in the time you fire your bow? Archery is weak in comparison, except with sneak bonuses, but even then it struggles due to the attack speed.

If the damage is too weak for use, then how do my character use it fine on master without alchemy, never used a destruction potion in the entire game (level 60+), once I get around 80-90% reduction (which you can get from found gear+perks, you don't need enchanting) I can pump out 90 damage expert spells at v.fast speeds, decimating pretty much everything I come across on master.

Ancient dragons? They're weak against either fire or ice, so you get a damage bonus there.
Master Vampires? Weak to fire.
Draugr deathlords? Weak to fire.
Most ice enemies? Weak to fire.

Most tough enemies have a weakness, which is essentially a damage boost, so I'm pumping out 90+ damage expert spells now. Answer me how I use it on master, without crafting, without alchemy, dealing plenty of damage (far more than archery) with little problems? Anyone?

I see what your asking for now, you want destruction to be exploitable to the extent of 1 or 2 hitting everything you come across on master, like to can do with melee when exploiting crafting.

If you play on adept, you would be able to 2 hit a deathlord with dual cast incinerate, on master it's about 4. The damage is more than enough, the problem is the cost. Read my above post, I play fine on master using destruction on a variety of characters and i've never used 100% reduction or alchemy to boost it.

Why would anyone in their right mind argue AGAINST destruction scaling? Its almost as if some people are blinkered and do not want anyone else having fun. If desrtuciton is scaled as are other direct attack skill how would this be a BAD thing?

And its clear that in every instance of this debate Bobjim will consistantly argue against any form of tweaking to destruciton magic, like its his baby or something.

The cost is the problem, yes. But as I explained in a previous post, there needs to be a sense of progress. You get weaker as you level, instead of stronger. I personally do not lower the cost of schools by more than 50% so Magicka actually matters for me. I'm playing the game as it's supposed to be, not lowering the cost of spells to the point where every increase in magicka you ever used is rendered useless. So on Master difficulty, my magicka runs out much quicker.

Nobody's reasoning was "I want to one-shot stuff." We just want Destruction to scale properly, as it should, that's all.

In Oblivion, spell making was the cure to it. However, in Skyrim there is no way around it except to "use other schools of magic." I find this to be a terrible solution. Anyways, going to bed. Will check in tomorrow.

Not really, I'm in favor of slight damage boosting but I worry they will overpower destruction, by changing the damage perks to 100% for example, this would result in destro being too strong. I want them to fix the magicka problem over anything else.

As I've said before, the extra damage you get for levelling 1h is pitiful, it's the perks that make the difference.

I'm allowed my opinion, I don't want it to be overpowered. You make blind statements like "bobjim will argue against any firm of destruction tweaking", the fact you said that shows you haven't read what I put, and likely that you just jump blindly on the "destruction is weak bla bla" hate wagon.

Bobjim in every thread of this nature you have consistanly stated the same flawed arguments again and again. All the while completely ignoring the counterpoints to you arguments that prove them flawed.

Yes of course you are allowed an opinion, but you stating you opinions as fact which is ludicrous.

Weapons scale alot and they get alot of "extra" damage through perks. Does magic get any extra damage through perks?

Also, people are arguing that mage needs to employ all schools of magic in order to do well. Let's do a comparison to melee then. Does a 1H+shield character need to bother with dual wielding, 2H weapons, archery, light armor AND heavy armor, all to do well?

Not really, I did very well with my thief using only dual wield + bows. I'm not even going to mention the armor since mages need to use robes just as melee needs to use either light or heavy armor. But again, light+heavy armor is increased via perks... what about cloth armor? Do you get any perks that increase the effect on worn cloth armor?

To me, being mage seems like alot of, as others mentioned, hoops to jump through just to be even close to competitive with straight up melee.

Magicka is eaten up too fast.
Need to rely heavily on crafting (enchanting / alchemy).
Need to use every school in order to be comparable.
No way to scale up the damage as there are no perks that alter it.

Overall it seems to be a gimped playstyle which is best used as an accessory to your melee build. Using restoration for healing yourself and companion, or fearing undeads and so on can be useful.... but by the end of the day the mobs die by the sword (or axe, or mace). Everytime I tried to use destruction the damage is pitiful. If I blow away half the magicka on destruction spells on a fairly tough mob they might be at half health... then I slam a mace in their face two times and they die, at nearly no stamina cost. Why would I go through all the hassle of having a dozen favourites slotted when a simple mace does a more effective job at killing the enemies?

The whole point is... why bother with the destruction when other methods (bows and melee) are clearly more effective and nearly effortless (compared to all these hoops you have to jump through to make the spells do their job properly).

And to be honest, sometimes when I'm fighting Hagravens, even with Resist potions active, it feels like their fireballs are doing twice the damage that my own does. What gives? Dunno if anyone can confirm or figure out how much damage they do compared to player fireballs... but would be fun to know.

Flawed? In every thread of this nature you make bland statements with no backing, I at least explain my opinions, which I base on my experience of playing the game, not following everyone else's opinions on destruction.

The counter arguments are things like "it's not as strong as melee can be", which to me is pointless discussing, I don't play the game with 200 damage weapons, I use melee without crafting heavily, I don't want destruction to be that strong. Yet I always play on master, plenty of times with destruction, without feeling that I'm doing barely any damage.

It just seems like you say the same old crap as everyone else, without actually trying it for yourself.

Stating it as fact? When have I done this, that's me putting my opinion forward, which is the same as what you do. Your argument is flawed.

FYI expert level fully perked dual cast destruction spells do 200+ damage.

I have already shown many times that mathmatically destruction is inferior to all other direct damage skills, this is fact. It the crux of why people dont like the damage and magica usage of destruction because its mechanics are terrible. Your point is that you dont want strong magic, and no one else should have it, thats it. There is no logic behind this statement. Mages are the definition of glass cannons, able to deal out insane levels of damage but fall to pieces when in physical combat. However in Skyrim is the complete opposite. The no longer dish out the damage that melee or ranged combat does, even WITHOUT exploitation of broken mechanics that weaponry has.

By every measurable way Destruction is inferior not only to combat skills but to other schools of magic. The thing the majority of gamers want is BALANCE not uberleetness. One way of adding that is to give the players the SAME scaling destruction damage that the NPC's already have.

So it boils down to;
1.) Desctruction isnt balanced proprely ~ PC vs NPC
2.) Destuction isnt balanced properly ~ school vs school
3.) Destruction isnt balanced properly ~ damage per magica
4.) Destruciton isnt balanced properly ~ Combat vs magic

So no Destruction magic is not OK.

And explain how a damage increase or scaling would negatively impact YOUR gameplay? If you dont want to do more damage you can easily handicap yourself as you clearly do with melee/ranged combat since you consistantly say that anyone using crafting skills to increase damage/resistance as they are intended to be used is exploiting the game.

I don't just mean illusion, but there's restoration, alteration (shields), conjuration to take the heat off ect.

Perhaps destruction on its own isn't great for most, (although I've never had a problem with Destro).. But magic is very viable.

DUDE, look at the damn skill trees before talking....... augmented fire, frost, lightning...... (INCREASE DAMAGE!!!!) LOL

Plus, mages don't need to wear robes, there's no penalty for wearing armor

Ya I have had many mages with heavy armor lol