Actually, just checked and my Conjuration is sitting at 17. So clearly I haven't been using it even as much as I thought!

I definitely plan to visit the ol'
How should I be using Enchantment? I've made a couple of fairly weak enchants so far - stuff like regenerate Magicka +6% or Destruction cost reduced 5%.

I don't necessarily want to reduce casting costs to zero as that seems just overpowered. But apart from that, I don't see a great use for Enchants with this character, since I'm not using weapons...

That's exactly what I plan on doing. I also want to make another pair of mages after 1.5 comes out, an Altmer pure mage and a Breton battlemage. For the Breton, I won't be using Conjuration, so that's obviously useful, but I'm not sure yet whether I'll use those neat toys or invest in the school itself for the Altmer. Opinions?

Also, I disagree with you on Illusion: if you're going to invest in it, you should. Otherwise, you're wasting three whole perks just to get ten points extra on your fire spells.

If you get into Enchanting, you could do lots of nice things. For one, you could reduce casting costs without being unfar: instead of reducing the cost of one or two schools to zero, you could cut the cost to three or four schools by about 30%. Not only is that not broken, but it's more useful IMO. There's also the obvious Foritify Magicka/Magicka Regen, as well as Fortify Health if you're particularly squishy.

In my particular case (current character) 10 extra points is everything since I'm making a super minimalist build; no more than a few points in anything but destruction (except for 30 pts and 3 perks in Illusion). It should top out at level 15 or 16 and all I plan to use is extra-augmented flame and a bunch of staves.

I'm a little confused on that one. You're spending an extra three perks on a minimalist build?

But hey, whatever suits you How is it working out so far?

Destruction skill has no (direct) effect on damage at all. As for your second point, they should've made all melee attacks require stamina (no stamina = no melee strikes).

Yeah, that may seem contradictory but those three perks save many more in enchant and others since they get me to a usable damage level without needing a lot of magicka or cost reduction. This is a 10 perk total build, 5 dest, 3 Ill and 2 enchant.

I'm doing great so far; made it to archmage at level 10 and no trouble at all with Labyrinthian or Forelhorst any Dragon Priests for that matter. Now at level 12 and leveling is slowing way down. I'm going to stop selling loot because speech is leveling me up more than destruction so I think about 3 more levels worth of destruction and that should be it; nothing else to level. When I get to that point, I'll decide whether or not to expand.

Interesting approach. I was wondering exactly where I would end up if I *only* levelled my Destruction from this point on. I won't, because I'm also working on Alchemy and a couple of minor things (Enchant and other incidentals, like from Speech or just reading books), but I'm trying ot keep it fairly minimalist anyway.

Currently at level 12, and things are still going very smoothly. Even boss fights don't require distractions, unless I'm also being mobbed. I haven't faced a dragon priest, though... still frightened by that prospect!

But dragons are pretty easy. I fought 2 last night; one with Delphine and another alone. No sweat.

Just got my Destruction to 50 and grabbed the Adept perk. Hello Fireball!

Whenever I use a mage character, that's always an important milestone

I did it to see how low a level was feasible without exploits (like not going into the level-up menu) and level 16 is certainly possible and, in fact, powerful because everything is scaled. However, there is a down side which I see clearly at level 12: my build is almost complete and I've only done about 10% of what I would want to do. I have no need for any loot because my equipment (if you can call it that) is maxed and I have enough money already with nothing to spend it on, not to mention that selling just adds to speech which gives pointless extra levels.

I have decided to slowly build up enchanting so that I have an upgrade path to moderate magic cost reduction apparel which will allow higher level destruction spells and give me some reason to explore and collect at least some kinds of loot. This should bring the build up to about level 20 which I think is reasonable.

The main thing for me is to stay below level 25 because with several past characters I found the whole feel of the game changes in a way I don't like around that level with noticeable loot creep and unreasonably strong basic bandits. I like the lower level contrast between easy to handle everyday enemies and Draugr Overlords.

Destructions magicka use isn't scaled right on master, I had to lower the difficulty to scale it with other damage dealing abilities.

I find that that contrast exists even at higher levels on higher difficulties.

If you're not satisfied, turn up the difficulty or maybe even find a challenging mod. But hey, if low-level gaming floats your boat, that works too.

Allow me to phrase it more stylishly: Why do I need to be an Alchemist to be a Battlemage?

Mostly true... but it really stings once you get to the soft cap and realize there's nowhere further to go in terms of damage (unless you're fine with spamming buff potions, which I am not). Then all of a sudden half of all the enemies are damage sponges. And then there's the Master Destruction spells... or rather the "blowing hot air" spells that only really do much against the weaker foes that are not a problem to dispatch anyway.
I guess they should have made the Fortify Destruction enchantment such that it increased damage rather than decreasing cost and made it as rare as Paralyze. That way the damage would be much more tolerable on the high levels and only there, since you'd have trouble stacking up multiple enchants beforehand.

Missed this, sorry