I think he's just not seeing it, for whatever reason.

Yes, Destruction can be powerful with the right setup, so he's right about that part, however a comparable setup for a weapon skill will yield a much stronger attack, as we've repeatedly shown. Destruction simply has no counterpart for excessive smithing, which is why there's such a gap; once the CK is out I plan to alter certain perks and enchantments to give additional boosts, so that Destruction actually can match the weapon skills in output. Yeah, it will probably prove a bit excessive, however Destruction still won't get the sneak-attack multiplier so it won't get quite that insane.

Weakness to magic can be stacked the same way
That's how the two fer - poison with weakness to magic, weakness to element works; its the same exploit;
same for drinking weakness to magic, with foritfy destruction.

I said that Destruction CAN reach the point, eventually.
And frankly, that is the only way to match physical weapons' damage output

Bobjim its become clear that its you in denial. You have yet to show any examples of where destruction magic can output the same level of damage as a weapon can.

Single cast is inferior to a single weapon
Dual cast is inferior to Dual wielded weapons

Please show one example for destruction out performing melee or even being on par with melee.

You can't, its impossible without resorting to exploits.

You don't need exploits. You can easily reach 6000+ damage in one melee attack without ever getting into that loop. Make a fortify smithing/enchanting potions, then smith and enchant your armor and weapons, and that's it.

Mages can do 1500 per attack, if they constantly stop the game, enter the menu and clung potions, and if they have the necessary gear. Melee can do 6000+ per hit (without even sneak, then they can easily do 36000+) WITHOUT ever stopping the game to use potions in battle.
The arguement that "damage over 1000 means little, over 6000 means nothing" is invalid. Yes, the difference between 1500 and 6000 means little when the enemies die in less than that, but the difference between 100 and 400 that exists earlier in the game does mean a lot... because apart from the first few levels, the gap between destro and the other damaging skills is always ENORMOUS. Yes, until you get the final talents, archery makes yu slow in combat and melee always forces you to be close to the target... however, until you get high enough enchantment, destruction spells drain your mana far before you manage to kill even the lowliest draugr, and before you get impact the enemies kill you before you can slay a single one of them.

Destruction is just underpowered. And no, to the one who said that, it's not the other skills that are op. When everything in a category of skills is more or less balanced, except for the one skill that is stronger/weaker, it's obvious that the normal is everything else appart from the odd one.
Archery, 1-h and 2-h are pretty viable from early one, and become very powerful with minimal effort at high levels, as one would expect from any rpg class/skill. Even conjuration, that is a hybrid damage/support skill, is the same. But destruction is only viable early on, unless you exploit one the game's major flaws, and even then it's only virtue compaired to the others is it has unlimmited "ammo"... It is also very limited, when weapons are fully customisable from parylisation to soul absorbsion (and that is another interesting fact: Beth didn't remove spellcrafting - they just placed it in the wrong spot XD)

Also, the difference between destro damage and the rest is so big that makes any "DPH =/= DPS" arguement invalid.

Dear Forumers,

The results are in: You ALL have valid points!! Gamewise, I'm noticing, at times, that the game goes into "God-Mode", and weather I use magic, shouts, melee, or archery...it doesn't matter.
I'm lvl. 80 (soon to be 81), 360 Elite, running around in Fur, playing with the tools on hand, and generally I do alright, tactically speaking; but every once-in-awhile, I can't even warhammer an Elk, the game just won't let me!
My point is, all is good for your own styles, however, some of the games flaws jumps up and bites ya in the butt every once- in- awile. My Alteration perk "Atronach" doesn't work at all, yet my Conjuration " Summon Arniel's Shade" has been a life saver. Hey, knocking a guy off a bridge with either an arrow, ice spike, or a shout is all good!!! Jam on!!
I just find it hard to believe, Mr. Howard doesn't believe it's realistic to have us running around backwards at full throttle, yet, I could swear the NPC's are doing just that. Makes ya think.

Not really want to argue about destro svcking but want to point out the over the top bad math you got there 6k dmg for realz The best hitting sword with the highest exploits rate goes only to 500-600 dmg for one sword. The dual skill perk works only when you have both swords equiped so your doing then:

500-600 dmg x2,5 (power attack + perk bonus) x2 (two swords - not sure if this bonus applies but meh) = 2500-3000 dmg per dual power attack.

This is nowhere near 6k and you wont kill an elder dragon with just one power attack without using orc racial or potions, while your already using heavely exploited weapons and enchants.

What I mean by exploits is going past 100 skill level + all relevant maxed perks combined.
Light exploit is using lowest gear + potions combined with maxed skill + perk to get better gear.
Medium exploit is using best gear + potions combined with maxed skill + perk to get better gear.
Heavy exploit is using synergy looped best gear + potions combined with maxed skill + perk to get better gear.
Over the top - using the resto glitch

Destro on the other hand can use normal bought dmg pots and stack weakness to magic / element / poison without even going into the crafting trees. You can get a 100% weakness to magic/element poision and some good weakness to poison poisions

They can stack, you can stack two weakness to magic effects if the poision aplies varied on the magnitued or number/effect aplied.
Furthermore using weakness to poison before apllying other posion effect makes them better for the percentage of the weakness to poison.
If you want the full info my post is in the faq of the 32k backstab thread.

All in all its true that destro dmg output is lower than other weapons but the reciving party dosnt mind if its get one shooted by a 20k destro spell or 100k sword to the face ( alt. 100k arrow to the knee )

Destruction is not under powered compared to melee. Due to the messed up crafting system melee is just insanely over powered. A Daedric bow can be improved to the point where it does almost 900 damage per shot when combined with fortify archery enchanted amour. Multiply that by 3 in sneak mode and you're one shotting dragons. Beth needs to fix the crafting and make some tweaks under the hood balance wise.

Given that zero cost spells are possible. Any Mage will automatically push the damage slider to max, magicka cost and efficiency be damned. You will need a total revamp to make spell making balanced.

Actually if u used potions and enchantments u can have a Daedric bow improved to 160 damage, and with a potion to improve archery
by 50% and 5 perks to improve it to 100% that's 150% which makes the overall damage about 400!
Oh I didn't mention armor enchantments to further improve damage!
bottom line is, if an archer and a mage fought the archer will win using poisons that damage magicka and stop it's regeneration and
u can have the two effect's in one poison.
and let's not forget sneak attacks and paralysis!

2500-3000 per dual power attack... BEFORE YOU FACTOR IN ENCHANTMENTS. Which could add another 3500 very, very, VERY easily... In fact, if you do it properly, you don't even need a glich-enchanted weapon - 2x 250 attack swords should be enough if you are a master enchanter and have just some basic fortify enchanting potions from vendor (not even taking into account what if you are a master alchemist too)
In archery, which I've tried, that thing would add about +400% archery damage, just from enchantments in hands/helmet/jewelery... So, with a good daedric bow and enchanted gear you'd do what, about 1500 per hit. Add in sneak bonus, that's 4500... add in the fact that archery is infinitely more accurate than destro, and infinitely less infuriating (no need to clung pots every minute)

The thing remains: the only reason to go destro is because you can eventually spam AoEs for 0 magicka... in ST attacks and result/effort ratio they are leagues behing any other damaging skill in the game, and that's a fact noone in their right mind could argue against...

My level 72 mage runs around in master alteration robes (because they look nice), mage's circulet and necromancer's amulet, and I use melee weapons because if i start throwing magic spells around, it feels too easy.

I could run in and try to battle this deathlord with my shield and sword, bashing and blocking and having a good time, or I could step back and just blast it across the room with firebolts in seconds, never giving it the oppertunity to even come close to me.

A pure warrior against a pure mage, the mage would win because they would jus stunlock the warrior.
A warrior against an archer, the archer could have some trouble if the warrior blocks all the arrows taking zero damage and closes the distance fast while blocking.
An archer against a mage, its a game of cover but if the mage isn't wearing armor the archer has an advantage unless the mage hits them with some ice storm or paralyze.

They all got good and bad traits. Mages got versatility. Warriors are straight forward close range, and archers are long range with only as much versatility as they got poisons or enchantments on bows.

Summoned minions at level 72 are useless. You can't thrall anything worth the magicka and dremora lords die so fast to stuff it makes casting it pointless.

Wrong.

Archer would kill everyone easily.

Bow enchanted with paralyse... just 1 hit and any opponent is down for the count... mage may have been able to pull out a luck hit or 2 before the first arrow lands, but once that does... no chance. The archer could then just take their time, put an apple on the mage and train their aiming.
Warrior would never have a chance to land a hit at all...

A melee/archer pushed to the max will always outdamage a mage pushed to the max. A poorly built melee/archer will always outdamage a poorly built mage. Whether this means that destruction is underpowered or melee/archery is overpowered is a moot point; the fact remains that in either scenario destruction is weaker than melee or archery. The math proves this, and math is about the only thing that isn't debatable.

For the people saying "Well, it doesn't matter if destruction is underpowered because I still completely wipe out enemies," here is a counterexample to your example: It takes me 15 dual-casted incinerates (which also happens to be the element that undead are weak to) to kill a single draugr deathlord at 50+. At that level, the game routinely sends 5-7 of them at me at once when in a dungeon. This is much longer than it takes melee or archery to do the same.

"But destruction can stunlock!" Sure, it can, and that makes destruction have a playstyle equivalent to shooting peas at someone who has a phobia of peas. They won't do anything back to you, but it'll take forever to kill them. All being able to stunlock someone means is that you can do 1 damage a hit and still be able to kill things. Essentially, it messes up balance and makes destruction do even less damage because hey, if they can't fight back, why the hurry to kill them? Impact is an abomination, and I'd rather have it removed and destruction damage increased, because not only would that make killing things more fun, but it would make staying alive more fun too, because then things will actually be able to attack you.

Anyone who says destruction is fine is either delusional, stubborn, or playing on adept.

Dual wielding completely destroys destruction magic, and everything else. My first character build I made a warrior with one handed skill tree maxed out, he was so powerful that everything died in one or two hits on master. He was so over powered that the game just wasn't fun.

My current build is a dark elf vampire battle Mage. I use destruction magic so the game will be harder and destruction magic looks neat.

So yeah anyway it's WAY under powered compared to weapons. Anyone how doesn't think so is either out of their minds or hasn't built a warrior class.

Having played all 3 archetypes (Warrior, Thief, Mage) to over level 50 here's what i believe; mages are not underpowered, everything else is overpowered.

Mages are just fine. If you think you can run up to a Deathlord on Adept/Expert/Master with 50 defense while shooting firebolts from your hands and lighting out of your ass, then get 2-shot that's your problem.
It's not how you play a mage in this game. You have to use at least 3 schools of magic to be perfectly prepared and in control of any encounter.

Now for the whole damage thing:

- Warrior damage is Overpowered,
- Archer damage via sneak is Overpowered,
- Dagger backstabbing is Overpowered.

This comes mainly via the Smithing/Enchanting/Alchemy ''combo'' or even only a combination of 2 out of those 3.

I call bullsh*t on the damage my 2h warrior does, even on Master difficulty. While i believe you're supposed to be strong at the end, i don't believe you should be that absurdly strong.
If mages were 1-2 shotting things left and right like everyone else, then what's the purpose; where's the challenge?

Yeah it's really in the players hands in terms of how difficult you want the game to be. I really don't understand why people do the alchemy/smithing/enchanting god weapons thing, boring.

I just use smithing, two enchantments and the 25% enchanting and 50% smithing potions from shops and that's enough. Plus I think alchemy is really boring and I hate it in the face.

What am I talking about? Oh yeah destruction magic, it looks cool.

Lore wise, Destruction is easily the most powerful of the damage dealing skills, as it is, its a joke at higher levels, for all the reasons that have been given since release.

As an elemental mage i use fire and frost as my destruction magics. I tend to stay away from storm magics.

The way i look into magic is to confuse or un-focus an enemy, how i do this is to use spells that confuse or disorientate my enemies which gives me time and space to work my elements.

So regardless of how strong your spells are if the enemy is not focusing on you them you have more then enough time to cause harm/damage to a target before they have a chance to focus on you.

And again: overpowered and underpowered mean "way stronger/weaker than the norm"

The norm is the 4 strong damage skills, not the one that is weak. If everything is too strong, then it's not that everything is overpowered - the game is just way too easy and does not have proper difficulty settings, that's all...

Magic never has crits.

Three simple things would fix magic in Skyrim:

1. Better rate of return on dual-casting
2. Better skill-based discounts
3. Smooth scaling of effects with your skill level, not perks.

I got 2 out of 3 done in a small personal mod. Magic feels 100% better, it's not godmode, but also not Wimp City either.

I don't understand why Bethesda has such a vindictive spite against magic-wielders.

Honestly, I think all this talk of Destruction being underpowered, not underpowered, or whatever -- it's just a little tiring. This bugs me in other games too, and it's part of why I've basically given up on MMORPGs. The idea of "game balance" does NOT (and SHOULD not) mean that all skills will be equally able to accomplish all things. A well-designed game should be beatable by a good player using more or less any combination of skills -- but it certainly stands to reason that you'll find the game harder to play if you focus on skills like speechcraft and restoration as opposed to other more combat-friendly skills.

I have yet to slay an elder dragon using the Restoration magic. That doesn't mean Restoration is "underpowered", it just means that it's not good for dragonslaying. So destruction magic is not, mathematically speaking, as powerful as Conjuration, when measured in terms of DPS. So what? Where is it written that it's supposed to be? You can certainly lay waste to your enemies using Destruction magic, and in very satisfying ways, too.

Everything I've read in this and other threads seems to be indicating that it's perfectly possible to do extremely well as a pure destruction-based mage, but that you need to augment with alchemy and enchanting perks in order to do "as well" as Conjuration, or melee, or whatever. If that's the case, I think that's terrific -- why isn't everyone celebrating that the magic schools are actually different enough from each other that you can't play the game the same way regardless of what skills you choose???

I definitely don't believe that the one-handed warrior is overpowered. It feels good on adept difficulty. Some fights can be very challenging. And you should feel pretty strong when you have all the one-handed perks. I certainly don't want every fight to be a war of attrition like in a lot of RPGs where you just sit there hacking on an enemy forever while the enemy's health bar slowly drains. That's very unsatisfying.

But I do think that destruction magic is underpowered - especially late in the game. It takes far too many hits for a dual-casted spell to kill many enemies even with all the perks that increase damage. If I didn't enchant my armor to make destruction magic free I would run out of magic before the enemies died in a ton of battles. I switched from playing as a battlemage to a pure warrior until I discovered how useful enchanting was.

There are mods that fix this by making destrospells scale with one's skill.