In vogue with all the destro svcks threads I decide to play a battle age. I NEVER play mages.
It was fun, an ha Breton with 1h, destro, and resto.
About level 30 I hated him. Spent too much time smithing my armor and only had destro up to 65 with not enough mana.
So I started over a Breton spelksword.
Got destro and 1h up to 25 before I left Helen.
Killed some thalmor first chance I got and started wearing elven.
I decide to concentrate on destro only and carried a mace just for back up. Along the way I wore my novice hood and destro robes, so I only have boots and gloves armor wise. For a while I lowered my level to novice because I was getting my ass handed to me to much and I wanted to raise destro faster. Joined the TG so I could steal some stuff to pay for my destro training addiction.
Now I am level 16, just got the oghma, bought the riften house and still haven't progressed much in COW or TG.
Once I got the impact perk destro was fun!
People [censored] about it but hey, I am standing there naked with basic health and I am being attacked by something with big ass teeth, claws or a weapon the size of a tree trunk. If I want to burn up my mana by glazing your eyes for a few seconds so. Can run away or regroup. Then so be it. That is what a destruction Mage is all about. Yes I can see it being abused, but if that is my only defense. (no armor, wards, flesh spells or summoned sponges) then that is fine.
I realize now that I am playing a pretty much pure destro Mage without intending too sure some of my other schools are creeping up, like LP, conjuration ( from soul trap) etc, but it is FUN!
My plan was too eventually craft up my armor and illusion, but for now I am at 66 destro and I need to get some destro reduction gear.
I am spoiled by the speed I can move at with no armor and lighting bolts are FAST. Much faster then bows. Killing deer is so easy i can feed the imperial army with my venison and cloth all the forsworn out there with my leather

You can move at the same speed with any armor too, given the right perks or standing stone.

Yes, you can kill deer all day with lightning, and I'm sure it's great fun. Against deathlords? Well, you tell me when you get there.

4 hits should do it!

Four dual-casted fireballs ought to do almost as much damage as a blocked hit with a sword, but of course you don't have enough magicka to cast that many of them Well, that's slighty exaggarated, about as much as one unblocked hit

This would probably be more fitting in one of the threads you talked about, rather than making a new one. There are already too many threads on Destruction, let's try to limit them at least instead of having 50 of them floating around.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1375214-magic-is-destruction-viable-now/

4 hits should do it!

Nahh. It has nothing to do with 90% of the thread which is just whining about destruction and talking about every other school.

Your reason for making this thread was because people are complaining about it and you think it's just fine? Seems like reasonable input to me, but okay.

I'm trying a destructo mage atm, and like you, I started with a 1H backup. My favorite character type is a sneak archer, so I had a bow too and grabbed a personal bow trainer as a follower early early on. But I made myself a couple of rules to make it a real challenge for me: no potion quaffing (I'm an alchemy addict, so this was REALLY tough on me at first!), no armor, ALL of my level up points go into magicka, and ALL my perks into a magic school ONLY. I'm playing a high elf for the first time in ANY TES game (going back to Daggerfall), but I made him as Dunmer-looking as possible and gave him a backstory that he was half Altmer, half Dunmer. Definately an eye-opening experience!

At first, I seconded in resto for wards, but then figured they were too much of a pain for me (literally - arthritis makes holding the button down for long periods of time difficult), so I switched to conjuration (atronachs) and went through a progression of meat shields (Benor from Morthal has been with me for quite some time now and I just love him!) I started off replacing my potion-quaffing with food-munching, but quickly found it was (just slightly) unrealistic to eat a full-course meal in the middle of battle. I ran away alot in the lower levels, and yes, died a few times early on! But that early investment in resto paid off after all.

I became Archmage at level 23 just for the robes, and my followers get whatever equipment I can find for them. I DO upgrade their equipment at the smith when I can, but if it's already enchanted when I find it, they are out of luck (I think my smithing is in the mid-30's now, and my level is 51 or so). I train every level if at all possible, so I have serious cash-flow problems (thanks for the cheap house, Balgruuf!) - normally by this level, my characters are rolling in dough, but with this one I usually have under 5K gold when I leave town. This is why I've also done alot of enchanting, even though I've barely perked it (it's now maxxed) - and found myself picking up otherwise useless stuff, like clothing (so when I train with a mage, I can get some of my gold back by selling stuff to him).

Since my resistances were crap (I don't like switching alot of gear mid-combat, so enchanting hasn't been of much help with that), I switched again from Conjuration to Alteration, which quickly became maxxed through training and -flesh (oakflesh, etc) spells. This allowed me to pour points in to resistances and the atronach perk, which has helped a great deal. If I go through this type of character again, I'll probably avoid conjuration altogether (except soul-trapping).

The fun part about combat for me now is figuring out which destructo school to use against the various opponents. Mostly, I go with lightning, since it's my most powerful sub-school, but I have fire perked as well for times when I really need it. I skipped over frost because, you know, it's SKYRIM - too many things are frost-resistant. I do not have either fire or shock perked to their max (I don't like their end-of-the-line perks because I don't want the baddies to run when they're low on health, and I don't want to disintergrate anything and cause bloat), but I did make sure to get dual-casting and Impact as soon as they were available. That's worked out really great for me, once I figured out the timing.

My main problem? Running out of magicka! Yes, Elsweyr Fondue is my favorite dish, but that's not what I mean. I mean when I run out of magicka and the bad guy is in my face, I don't pull out a blade - I've totally forgotten how to do so! It's funny as hell to me, I'll panic and run away from a low-health opponent rather than pulling out a blade and finishing him. I think my 1H skill is in the low-20's. This is why I love Benor so much - he has saved my ass so many times, I'm actually considering marriage for the first time in the game!

My character that uses destruction uses it as a backup or really a first strike so its power isn't that important as long as it weakens the enemy so I can just give it a smack with my warhammer. I really havent seen any problems with the power of destruction. I don't use it as a main source of combat mostly because it gets boring just spamming a spell but it is stupid how people complain about how it is weak but if Beth did something about it the same people would complain about how it is too strong.