I was expecting the 'ultimate' max level destruction spells to seriously stomp some face, but it seems like there is no practical application for it. Lightning storm and blizzard both take way too long to cast and do way too little damage (lightning bolt deals damage almost 3 times as fast) and the fire one does an almost sufficient amount of damage (nearly equal to a 2 handed blast of incinerate) but the cast time makes it utterly useless. In any situation where firestorm could be useful I find a fireball spam twice as effective.
What is the deal here? Why are the ultimate spells that I had to max the skill out and do a quest to obtain svck so bad? It almost seems like they are just for show.

I actually find lightning storm quite useful for killing larger enemies like dragons.

I found it useful when i used it as an opening spell to kill Alikir and his soldiers from hammerfell killed everyone and left him with half health, but aside from that they are indeed not that useful and they are usually companion unfriendly.

I love Lightning Storm. And Fire Storm I like to use when I can get the drop on a group.

Blizzard... I used it a couple of times. It has a really neat effect in that everyone seemed to start moving really slowly. Maybe they were all nords, but it seemed to do bupkiss for damage.

If i give a armor set to a follower with 100% resistance to a element type, if the spell hit him, he will yet go hostile to me after a while? I'm using here the bases of infinite enginy of Baldur's Gate, where no matter if i did or didn't damage a person if a hostile act touch someone there, he would go hostile.

I think that they would still complain but i'm not sure, if they do the only spell that i think would make then go ape-[censored] on you easily would be blizzard, since it's and DOT AOE spell.

well, i'll wait for a better position so, cos i pretend to rush a mage soon, and, i'm really going to be mad if every companion (a mage need some tank) start to turn against me for the misuse of my spells.

well i would cut the troat of the guy that just fired 30 fireballs on my back... you can't really expect then to go " oh no problem dude, you just gave ANOTHER scar, but that's fine"

Yes, people started to notice this practically on day one.

Its a real shame we lost spellmaking, seeing what we got in return.

I find all of the Master spells relatively useless; especially Illusion and Conjuration at high level. Why is it that I can't calm a guard at all with Harmony or duel-casted Pacify when I'm level 65? Or used Dead Thrall on an Ancient Vampire? Useless at this point.

yes, i expect exactly that if the companion is immune to that element type. what i want to know is:

A 100% resistance cold companion will complain about a blizzard being cast on him? Cos a frost anatorch (if i spelled right) will not.

Magic and elemental resistances cap at 85%. It's only creatures like frost/fire atronachs that have complete immunity.

Didn't know that TT, there's no place where i can see all the caps of % on the game, gimme a link plz if you can. Thx.

Another question, has no item that give an aura to reduce magic res of enemies?

Does the magic resistance cumulate with elemental resistance to defend the person from magic elemental skills?

A natural res, if added with elemental res from items, can pass from 85%? Like a Drummer with racial res to fire of 50%, with fire res from itens for example.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1310006-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-6/ has a lot of useful info.

Short version:
Spell absorb is checked first. This is an all-or-nothing chance to completely negate the incoming spell. Practical cap: 80%. Bretons can hit 100 with Dragonskin for 1 min.
Magic resistance is checked next. This works like armor reduction. 85% MR reduces spell damage by 85%.
Fire/frost/shock resistances are checked last. They will reduce the damage already reduced by MR.

So, you have 85% magic and fire resistance. You get hit by a firebolt for 1000 damage.
Magic resistance reduces this to 150. Then fire resistance reduces this to 22,5 points of damage.