I used to think Destruction, when worked in synergy with other magic schools, was perfectly viable in its own right, but then I came across a thread where a poster (I believe the OP) mentioned using both Destruction and Alchemy in their build.

As a former alchemist, this got me to think about certain potentials.

See, some players cry foul at Destruction, claiming it is underpowered and that it can only be made useful by getting 100% cost reduction or close to it, or spamming Impact, both of which make it more a chore than fun to use. Others, like myself, assert that a mage needs a varied arsenal of spells and schools in order for Destruction to make a difference, and point out that it's not like Archery (not point-and-click) and instead has some defensive and tactical value, like in the case of walls and runes. But nowhere have I seen an argument that favors Destruction and Alchemy, and after some thought, I believe that these two skills synergize wonderfully well and have the potential to make Destruction one of, if not the, greatest source of damage in the game.

To begin with, Alchemy can restore magicka, increase your magicka pool and buff regeneration. Already, this can mitigate higher Destruction costs. To add to that, Alchemy is the only source in the game that can actually increase Destruction's damage output. Feel free to correct me, but the weakest potion I've seen available for purchase that increases the damage of Destruction spells is 40% for 30 seconds. That's a huge buff for a long time, IMO, and it only gets better: given use of weapons or Pickpocket, one can poison almost any enemy (other than undead, that is) with weakness to [element] poisons, weakness to all magic, and weakness to poison itself (and yes, these stack). Again, the weakest for-purchase versions of any of the poisons that I've seen are 40% weakness for 30 seconds, an enormous debuff.

Given the above, competency in Destruction and Alchemy can give us spectacular potential.

Fireball is an Adept spell that we're all probably familiar with, and with two ranks of Augmented Flames (because we are, after all, concerned with damage output and skill competency) does 60 points of damage in 15 feet, plus whatever DOT it does. Here's what that spell looks like when dualcast after drinking the weakest "+Destruction damage" potion (+40% damage with Destruction spells):

60 x 2.2 = 144 --> 144 x 1.4 = 201.6

With just that one dualcasted Fireball, we're already doing significantly more damage than the equivalent Master spell. If instead we had our Fireball spell on our offhand because we were whacking enemies with our mace and decided to poison them, we could have 40% weakness to magic, 40% weakness to fire, and 40% extra Destruction damage, amounting to a whole 120% extra damage output from a fire spell--in other words, the equivalent of dualcast damage with just one hand.

Of course, none of this is considering "weakness to poison" poisons and enemies who already have elemental weaknesses, or stronger, custom-tailored potions and poisons, for that matter

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Here are a few build ideas that work to support a character who uses Destruction and Alchemy primarily. Obviously, we don't care much for Restoration in these builds, given that Alchemy is a perfectly viable alternative for survival. Race is always up to the player, and I don't care to put up my preferred races for the builds (because I would probably say Khajiit every time).

Stealth Mage: Illusion, Pickpocket, Alteration

There are a lot of powerful advantages to stealth-centric mage builds, foremost among them (given Alchemy and Destruction, of course) is that the guilds who would favor such a character are overflowing with alchemical ingredients, even at the beginning of their questlines.

With Illusion and Destruction, we won't have any need of Sneak. There are no sneak attacks with magic, and Illusion provides a means of subterfuge, as well as Quiet Casting (and other nifty tools, assuming you don't make invisibility potions and don't have muffled equipment).

Pickpocket offers a whole lot of options to stealth-based characters in the first place, such as premeditated defenses and a means of income, but for a Stealth Mage (who doesn't have any weapon skills), it also means we have a way to poison NPCs--and a way to follow up poison with a quick dualcast!

Alteration, while seemingly out of place, offers protection, tactical value and more subterfuge. Obviously, there are the armor spells, but beyond that, we have a silent(!) Paralyze (which works well with Pickpocket and any form of damage dealing; almost game-breaking), silent life-detection, silent Water Breathing for escapes, and even silent Telekinesis for long-ranged larceny or throwing bear traps and sweet rolls at people. And there's nothing wrong with silent armor spells when preparing an ambush, either.

Battlemage: One Handed, Heavy Armor, Enchanting

Battlemages are always a force to be reckoned with, and this one is no different. Weapons provide a means of poison use, armor for protection, and Enchanting...for everything.

When a build makes use of Magicka, Health and Stamina, Enchanting is a must-have skill; throwing buffs to attributes on your armor is a lifesaver that helps to mitigate the fact that you're spreading yourself thin every level. On top of that, we have such wonders as "weakness to fire" poisons applied to flaming war axes, served with a side of Incinerate. Toasty!

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Thoughts? Criticisms? I want feedback of any kind; discuss!

This is where I shake my head at Destruction and modded in my own spells. I never agreed with the use of Alchemy as a way to power up Destruction. It is just more confirmation that this school seriously needs an upgrade. In the previous games, Destruction did not need "help" from other schools/skills to be useful.

Agreed. Why do I need to level Alchemy just to use Destruction?

Destruction to me seems well balanced. Probably the best balanced damage skill as it forces you to stay focused on skill development to make it useful on the highest difficulty. Playing as a stealth archer or whatever, I don't get the feeling the same level of commitment is required. But still, combining magery types is still highly valid and easy, and a "pure archer" with no supporting skills would probably have been hard as well even if you deal more damage.

OP, excellent post. This has inspired me to make another Dunmer evoker:

Destruction
Alchemy
Illusion
Alteration

I'll leave out Pickpocket though - and, as a bit of a criticism, it seems to me that trying to level up Pickpocket without Sneak would be quite difficult. I've never tried, mind you, but without Sneak you'd never get close enough to baddies to pick their pockets, leaving you to pickpocket townsfolk for practice, which just leads to jailtime if you're not reloading after each failed attempt.

WIthout reverse-pickpocketing or a weapon skill, poison delivery is out of the question (why, oh WHY don't we have "weakness to X" as a destro spell effect?!?!), but augmented, dual-cast, potion-enhanced fireballs seem like a pretty decent option.

Only problem is the magicka drain, which I guess can be mitigated by enchantments (requiring another skill) or spamming restore magicka potions.

Seems like a fun approach, though: See a crowd of enemies, open up with frenzy, gulp potions, fireball, then impact or paralyze or fear for any who get too close (don't forget the Aspect of Terror synergy with fire spells - I haven't had a chance to try that out yet myself).

My last Dunmer destro mage seemed fairly underpowered, but I never got him much past level 6 or 8, and he jumped into a Falmer cave rather foolishly around level 4. Those guys are just OVERpowered.

You two are making highly invalid presumptions.

Yes, Destruction on its own is not powerful, but what are you comparing it to? Why shouldn't you augment your Destruction prowess with Alchemy?

On its own, Destruction is far, far stronger than any other offensive skill. Use One Handed, Two Handed or Archery without any help from Smithing, Sneak or Enchanting and then compare before you cry foul for me saying that Destruction and Alchemy are a good pair.

Sheesh

Thank you, but I disagree. As I've said, the suggested Stealth Mage build circumvents need for Sneak. There are spells, potions and equipment for muffle and invisibility, which is essentially all you need if you're not going for sneak attacks with weapons (and, by definition, I would suppose that the Stealth Mage prefers sneaky offensive magic). Though I would be against doing so, there's also Paralyze for cheap pickpocketing. And obviously, no need for Shadow Warrior when you can be invisible anytime; I would suppose the only utility the Sneak tree would have with this build is in the Light Foot perk, because you wouldn't be wearing armor or using weapons or be seen at all, but then again, you can simply avoid traps.

Correct on Destruction buffing (though you forgot to mention Shalidor's Insights as a Destruction damage buff)

The point that people complain about is that they are pigeon holed on Destruction, where they are not on other skills.

Examples
-You can reach armor cap in a variety of ways of skill build planning (smiting, armor, enchanting, conjuration, blocking etc...)
-You can increase weaponized output damage equally in a variety of ways (smithing, weapon skill, enchanting, conjuration etc...)

In Destruction magic, you have a bug. Aspect of Terror in Illusion for fire magic, and you have potions... after that, it is weird contrived builds that compensate for the short comings of desctruction by taking perks from skill trees you aren't actually gaming with. eg: I power leveled skill X for perk X to do along with Destruction, but I do not use skill X at all when actually playing the game.

The real complaint is Destruction magic is terribly implemented and not conductive to good build concepts. This complaint comes from players who tried to figure out why they keep failing while trying to be a "Destruction" mage, when things like "One Handed swordsmen" builds work fine for them.

Not to mention the fact that I wish I could do 1/2 the stuff with destruction magic that low level NPC peons do... in otherwords, it was apparent that destruction was completely broken balance wise, so rather then fix it, they allowed NPCs to cheat instead.

That is frustrating.

How does Conjuration increase your armor or weapon capabilities?

I dunno; any *single* skill in the game is going to be pretty silly if you just use it by itself. Take any of those much-vaunted magic skills. Illusion is very useful, sure - you can get enemies to kill each other, muffle/invisibilify yourself, make people run away or calm... but you can't actually *directly* kill anyone, e.g. that last foe standing. And obviously it works better if you have at least a little skill in Sneak.

Conjuration is the magic skill everyone seems to claim is the best. And yeah, it can get you quite far. But if you use bound weapons, you're also using a weapon skill. Summons are great, but letting them do all the work and refusing to fight yourself will either be fairly boring, or result in you scurrying away while your summon kills the bad guys.

Destruction has its weaknesses - I'd like to see some variety & increased usefulness of rune/wall spells, for one - and yeah, it is hard if that is *all* you do. Probably about as hard as using an unimproved, unenchanted sword and refusing to use armor, block, sneak, or use any other skills.

ResidentPianist - true, Illusion can help you with stealth, but isn't invisibility a fairly high-level spell? Until you get that (plus muffle), you don't really have a way to get close enough to pickpocket enemies, unless you're using Sneak. I guess you could postpone your Pickpocket skill until you have those spells, but Pickpocket is so annoying to work up that I wouldn't want to wait.

And you're assuming I have not played an archer. I've done that, without smithing help, nor enchanting. Of course I've used it with my non perked sneak(skill only). Im sorry that you think I'm one of those smithing exploiters that make +200% damage enchants or whatever craziness that does.

I've played destruction for a long time now. Long enough to know that it pales in comparison to all except obviously restoration and alteration. Illusion is actually the number 1 skill, with conjuration not being too far behind. Paralyze is a instant win button, or just have them kill themselves by using frenzy. How about get rid of their aggression and THEN kill them with pacify? The dual dremora can solo anything. Give me a break.

Coupled with the fact that enemy mages's destruction is what our destruction should be from the start. I'm not going to make potions to make this school stronger, that's totally unnecessary.

So you made this topic with the exact purpose to argue with those who have an opposing opinion/feeling I guess. My feelings on the school are not "invalid", they are justified, and I wouldn't feel this way if I wasn't met with this fact every time I fire a damn spell. I just don't do whatever else does, which is complain about it on the forums. I did something about it myself, and never looked back.

Why would a fighter/archer need Smithing, just to use his weapon of choice?

Well gameplay wise: it's not a magic skill.

Smithing on the other hand...

...is not directly used to do combat with, either. Or a poison, crafted on an alchemical table. But the whole thing isn't about Alchemy, or Smithing.

If Bethesda releases a patch tomorrow, allowing Destruction magic to gain a direct damage increase through Enchanting, everybody will forget this discussion ever took place. What I don't know, is what would happen if they replaced magicka cost with damage increase so, it might be better to watch out what we wish for.

I'm sory but with such logic you could say heavy armor skill doesn't allow you to throw a plate mail toward your enemy therefor is not a warrior skill as well. A pure mage shouldn't need a skill from out-side his tree (although using one might prove very effective of course), that's simple realy. Smithing is a part of pure warrior build while alcemy is not part of the "pure" mage build. Also don't forget alchemy enchances melee just as well.

Smithing, a part of Pure Warrior Build... now, that's something a lot for Battlemages with light/heavy armor specialization would like to think about

And what exactly is, the Pure Mage? I find it hard to believe it's only the Destruction tree...


Alchemy's beneficial part, improves pretty much everything: heavy armor, light armor, magic skills, lockpicking, pickpocket, destruction spell damage, melee/ranged damage, you name it.

Like I said, it isn't about Smithing, or Alchemy. It was about Enchanting all along

Because I don't want to use Alchemy? That argument could be applied to any skill. Why should I have to use Alchemy to use Destruction, I repeat.

Alchemy compliments Destruction nicely, yes, It does this to practically everything. The problem is, unless you feel like sitting there stunlocking something to kill it, you need Alchemy for Destruction to be effective. Now, ask yourself, does any other skill need this? I can't think of anything. That's Destruction's problem, it's extremely weak without Buff potions, but I shouldn't have to take Alchemy to get decent kill times. The only thing that saves Destruction from being laughably useless is Impact. Unless your idea of fun it sitting there stunlocking enemies to death, Destruction is a bad skill.

Destruction is powerful enough as is, so long as you invest in the Destruction tree. You can't just skill it to 100, buy some spells, slap on some Destruction Spell Reduction gear and think you're going to do well. Investing in the destruction tree allows you +damage, lowers your casting costs, and allows you to attach effects like stun/stamina drain/magicka drain/paralyze/damage over time/fear/disintegrate to your spells, (depending on the spell type and spell level). Destruction (and mage-build in general) is Skyrim easy-mode. I'm level 55 with 155 hours in the game and the game is a freaking cake-walk. All enemies can be stun-locked with dual casting direct-damage spells with Impact. Dragons can be taken down in mere seconds while they fly around using lightning storm...how much better do you want these spells to be??!!! If you gear yourself the right way (read: level enchanting to 100, don't max "lower casting cost" for any particular school, have plus magicka regen included in your enchantments), you will never run out of mana. Toss in an indestructible follower like Mjoll the Lioness and you're invincible.

None of this is true. Investing in the two augmentation perks increases damage, but what about after that? It's still a flat skill, no level scaling. You can't attach effects to Destruction spells either, where'd you get this from? You get some of these effects from different spells from different schools of magic, though.

And the ONLY reason Skyrim mage is easy is because of Impact & 'Reduce Magicka Cost from X School enchantment'. Imagine it without it. Like I said in my previous post, I shouldn't need to use Enchanting to use Destruction, it should be perfectly fine on it's own.

I like to focus on Destruction with Alteration for Mage Armor and Restoration for Magicka Regeneration. And then later in the game I may advance in Conjuration and Illusion. I want to be a pure mage, even though you can consider Alchemy/enchanting to be mage skills I think of them as separate non-battle skills. I just hate the thought of having to use potions to make me more powerful or enchanting gear to make me powerful. I like to find the equipment that I wear so enchanting isn't what I usually do. I usually only use potions for healing/magicka if I found them as well. I just don't like to create my own potions/enchant gear with this character. This is just my style, I like wearing robes and putting points into the Magicka attribute only. I like the thought of a Glass Cannon, deal ridiculous amounts of damage but at the cost of dying very easily by a single mistake. I don't like having followers because they usually get in the way of a spell and waste my Magicka. I like to focus on finding equipment that gets my Magicka regeneration really high, unfortunately during battle the regeneration isn't great.

@Destruction is Fun What are you talking about? You're obviously unaware/ignorant of mage classes in general. Deep Freeze attaches paralyze to ice spells. Intense Flames attaches Fear to fire spells. Disintegrate attaches Disintegrate to lightning spells. Impact attaches the ability to stun-lock an enemy if you dual cast certain spells. And claiming you should need enchanting to use Destruction is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Other skill trees can and should be used to enhance a given skill tree. There are ways to pure-mage play without Impact by the way.

I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying you could create spells with these effects.

Also, Deep Freeze, Intense Flames, and Disintegrate are a rather large waste. They only occur when the opponent is almost dead, so why do you need fear on him when you could just hit him with one more Incinerate? Some goes with Deep Freeze. Just need one more Ice Spike. Disintegrate is purely cosmetic in nature.

Also, concerning Enchanting, I said the opposite of what you think I did. I said I shouldn't need enchanting to use Destruction properly/

It's called summon something. It's called get a Follower that doesn't die from a cast spell. Impact isn't really needed.

You could get along using dropped gear I guess and be fine with Destruction. So you don't *need* enchanting, but it's helpful. Just as it is helpful to other skill trees.