I have one question...

Why do higher level spells have a worse cost/damage ratio than lower level spells? Look at firebolt vs. incinerate. Firebolt does 25 damage for a base cost of 41, which is about 0,6 damage per magicka point. Incinerate, the "more powerful" spell, does 60 damage for a base cost of 298, which is only 0,2 damage per magicka point.

This effectively means that higher level spells are significantly weaker than lower level spells. I don't understand the balance here?

Lets say you have destruction at 100, which means 41% spell cost reducement, +50% cost reduction from perks which is applied first . Firebolt = 7 magicka, Incinerate = 87. Now lets say you have the full augmented flames perk, 400 magicka and are fighting an enemy with 1000 health points. With using incinerate, you need 12 hits. 12x87 = 1044 magicka. With Firebolt, you need 27 hits. 27x7 = 189 magicka! Of course you could argument that Incinerate needs less casts, but you wont be faster because you have to let your magicka regenerate, or drink a lot of potions.

Oh and another example, when I dual-cast (without perk) firebolt I do 74 damage for 14 magicka (in the above example), whereas a single Incinerate does only slightly more damage (90) for 87 magicka.

Wouldn't it be more balanced if spells of higher rank have the same cost/damage-ratio as low-level ones? As a mage, I really dont feel like Im getting stronger with higher destruction level, on the contrary.

destruction lacks scaling and is known to be the weakest school of magic in vanilla skyrim.


destruction is totally easy to fix. 10% more dmg with every novice up to master perk you take. got a mod that adds 15% scaling and i think it becomes a bit too strong this way. so i am sure 10% would perfectly fix that.

Wouldn't it be better just to fix magicka cost, so all spells of one element deal the same amount of damage per magicka point?

Then the point of better spells would be what?

hmm... i think this is intended, because you can reduce magicka cost via enchanting. if not, you get a high magicka pool anyways. if they make them cheaper, they still have a huge lack of dmg compared to normal weapons.

if the dmg is higher you need to hit less. my mage has only +magicka enchantments and does not get any problems in the 30s. normally you start to struggle in the 30s as a "pure" destruction mage(i do use alteration and restoration, but nothing that does dmg in some way).

More damage per cast?

Honestly, I'm all for equalizing the damage/magicka ratio on destruction spells, as well as slightly increasing their damage. However, I'd also have to advocate for a cap on magic school cost reduction enchantments in that case.

I feel that the higher level spells should take some time to cast, but be more efficient in the mana/damage ratio. It makes sense in that you would need the concentration to cast the spells, but it feels silly when you're casting firebolts at 100 destruction.

Ehh, Ive never been a fan of the casting mechanic on the Master Level spells. I much prefer to be a mobile caster.

Honesty, increasing the cast time feels a lot like a nerf to me, which destruction DEFINITELY does not need.

That would be okay too, but the way it is now the higher level spells have a far far worse mana/damage ratio. That just seems silly. Getting the specific rank perk should make it equal or better in this aspect than lower level spells.