Scale the power of Flames, Frostbite, Sparks to players leve : V - Skyrim

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:25 am

Agreed. Do it Beth!

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 12:13 pm

Those 3 spells do about 8 DPS...even at destruction level 100....wtf....

these 3 spells should be the bread and butter of any destruction mage, but since they are super weak they are pretty much useless at about level 10

thats my opinion anyway, what does everyone else think?

Use a potion. I can make em to increase destruction damage by 42%. At least it's something.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:33 pm

I like the damage spells as is. If you're a mage, you're going to dedicate your perks to spell cost reduction and power output. SO, yes, they do "scale" IF you take the perk (specialize) in that school of magic. Same with healing, etc. This allows for "dabbling" by druid-type characters, or thief-type characters in certain schools WITHOUT making them too powerful in that school.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:10 pm

I realize the animation isn't quite the same but Flame Wall is pretty much the upgraded version of Flames. You can spam it at enemies and it pretty much obliterates anything. Think of it as Flames that leave a pool of death in its wake.

I was doing the Mage questline and got to the part where you have to kill the 10 Ice Wraiths and even with my -100% Destruction cost Incinerate just wasn't cutting it. I thought I would stand on the bride and lay down a wall at the entrance so it killed them as they tried to get to me and I just ended up spamming it on them as they moved around. Worked like a charm I got from level 71-74 Destruction in les than a minute from the spam.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:18 pm

There are two good solutions that I can see:

1. Add spell making
2. Add spell upgrades at every 25 quarter point. So flames can get upgrades at 25, 50, 75, and 100 destruction. Incinerate can only be upgrades at 100 since you get it at 75. Need to make ur level 100 spells better too. This option is much easier to inplement

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:14 am

This is the sole reason I haven't played a mage yet.

I played Dragon Age Origins before this, and I LOVED how my spells became more powerful on their own as I increased my Magic attribute. I really had assumed that Skyrim would do something similar since this has always been a problem in their games. High level mages were all but unplayable in MW without way too much micro managing.

And yet, Bethesda blew this in Skyrim. I just can't image how they did not know this would be a problem. Thier perks and such that lower mana use are useless. Honestly I wouldn't care if there was no mana at all and all spells were free to cast. They are just not powerful enough.

Next game, remove mana altogether and add more perks that bump up damage output.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:25 am

wall of flames is basically the same as flames except its 50 dps and the flames stay on the ground for a minute...obviously it burns up alot more magic but it's something

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:02 pm

They should just make novice/apprentice/adept/expert/master level versions of all spells, obviously excluding the lower ranks for spells starting at higher ranks.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:58 pm

Use a potion. I can make em to increase destruction damage by 42%. At least it's something.

What is the effect called? Fortify Destruction?

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:35 am

Scaling would make it too mana-efficient, but there should be higher-skill equivalents you can learn.

IMO the higher level spells are too mana inefficient. Flames, even a scaling flames is in the just right category. Hell assuming it scaled 100% by the time you got your skill to 100 it would still only be 16 damage a second(24 perked, 34 with fear perk bug for flames) while powerful that isn't that much better than firebolt spam, and if that scaled it would still be weaker. Just not as pointless as it is currently. Though I just want the spell creator back.(with all the lost effects)

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:09 am

Scaling would make it too mana-efficient, but there should be higher-skill equivalents you can learn.

Mana efficiency is a moot point, when the only enchant to improve destruction is to lower casting costs and you can use 4x2 to make it free to cast for two schools of magic.

Destruction should scale to skill level, its bloody obvious that it should I am really suprised at Beth for not making it do so from day 1. As a mages "go to" school for damage, its put to shame by the other schools. When direct combat skills like 1h/2h/Arch all scale to skill, have more damage increase perks, have more attacking options, enchantment & potion buffs vs destructions 2 damage perks and only a single potion buff its clear destruction needs to scale to skill.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:37 pm

Do people not realize that the Wall spells work EXACTLY like the thrower spells, except that they have lingering ground effects as well? I use Flame Wall for an uber flamethrower all the time.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:05 am

Why should it be the same?

One-Handed and Archery rely on skill level and damage perks as main sources of damage. That's because the base damage of weapons is low.
Destruction relies more on higher-level spells than skill level and perks. That's because the base damage of spells is high.

Imagine this: Halve all damage bonuses from One-Handed skill tree, but instead double base damage of all weapons. Effect - you're doing same damage, but the skill "plays" differently, as you need to focus more on finding new weapons than simply increasing the skill with your old ones.

And this is exactly how Destruction was designed - since spells don't have upgrades like weapons do, there's really no problem in swapping them with new ones - so there's less focus on skill level, and more focus on getting new stronger spells.

Different? Yes. Worse? No. Just different.

Unfortunately the selection of spells is so limited at the moment that the melee equivalent would be like removing all weapons except dwarven swords and iron daggers.

They should just make novice/apprentice/adept/expert/master level versions of all spells, obviously excluding the lower ranks for spells starting at higher ranks.

This would work, the problem though is that you can't sell obsolete spells like you can obsolete weapons. Scaling would mean all of the spells in your spell list would be useful, rather than 80% of them being obsolete clutter.

» Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:00 am

Do people not realize that the Wall spells work EXACTLY like the thrower spells, except that they have lingering ground effects as well? I use Flame Wall for an uber flamethrower all the time.

I did not realize this I thought they were just surround spells with melee range.