In the name of the spell school, thats where its written its supposed to do be powerful. Its Destruction magic, not "tickle them till they get bored and fall over" magic. Destruction is the primary school for direct damage dealing. All other schools should be second rate in comparison to it for direct damage dealing. Those other schools should require different approaches in how they are employed and should deal damage in different ways.

Conjuration requires you to do summons to do damage (either weapons or creatures), Alteration is defensive in nature as is Restoration but can be used to improve other styles or schools and Illusion is the "wild card" or "utility" school.

The current magic however means that of the 3 "combat" spell schools;

Conjuration pwns, Illusion pwns, Destruction..................gets pwned


This is a fundamental flaw in the game design that needs Bethesda to sort it out. We should not have to rely on mods to fix glaring issues like this. The mod also in no way useful for console gamers. But hats off to the peeps making it.

Destruction magic is not underpowered, and it should not be considered as a 'one-off' path to success.

Firstly, at the low levels, everything is underpowered...but a lot of people who want to play as a mage think that they should be able to walk out of a spell shop and one hit their way to victory straight off. Not so, develop your character, get up some time, and destruction magic is very effective...but the thing people forget is that it's not the spells that govern the power, but the skill and perks the character has to drive the spell, which means time is required to get those boosted up.

Secondly, there is an expectation that destruction magic on it's own is a viable path....mmmmm, I play as a fighter/mage and I use a range of skills. Even discounting the magic I do use, my fighting style requires a range of skills - one-handed, block, heavy armour, at the least. If i disappeared into the wilderness and deeps simply with a sword or axe my game would be over in very short time, same same with destruction magic alone.

And again, playstyle has nothing to do with the topic. When compared to the other 2 combat magic schools its underpowered. When compared to archery its underpowered. When compared to melee its underpowered. Its mathmatically inferior to other skills

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then its a duck.

Ergo; Its underpowered.

A valid conclusion... and very generous. One could argue that using too much destruction is actually harmful to your character, as it eats up magicka that you could be using to keep yourself alive. It's almost a svcker-trap -- like the devs designed it to see if we were dumb enough to invest in it!

I think the smoking gun in this anolysis is the fact that at high levels, you are required to have fully exploited out another skill (Enchanting) just to use it at all.

-Loth

I honestly can't understand why people would argue to the contrary. Its almost like some people havent bothered to try out alternate skills or are trying to theory craft. The facts are its mathmatically inferior to all other combat skills. The math does not lie and is not open to interpretation.

That's a completely silly assessment. Why on earth would you want to mod destruction? To make the game stupidly broken easy the way it can be with other styles? Why on earth would you want to do that? Just freaking turn on god mode if that's what you want.

Anyone who looks at destruction and thinks it needs to be modded so that it can be a broken skill like the other's is a fool.

I agree that it's kinda weak but that works well with my play style. I'm a battle Mage so I use distruction magic to weaken the enemy from a distance then go in for the kill with a sword.

I like being able to do everything in the game combat wise and there are more than enough levels to get enough perks to be good at any play style. I filled out most of the magic perks, have enough to be a straight up fighter and had enough to spare to max out smithing and enchanting. I even got some sneak perks.

I do think it would be nice to be able to up destruction damage with enchanted armor.

Lex: BTW, I noticed earlier in the thread where somebody was arguing that destruction can cause a bunch of damage by stacking poisons, and it was posted (I forget by who) that there is a 200% limit... but there is no limit if you custom-make the poisons. The game mechanics with weakness poisons has an exploit where similar effects will stack if the poisons in question also have a differing effect. For example, a poison that causes weakness to fire 30%/damage health 5 pts. will stack with another weakness to fire poison/damage stamina 5 pts. Using this expoit, you can blow the roof off of the game limits... kill Fire Atronachs with one Flames spell -- that sort of thing. I think in the thread we were talking about this a long time ago, somebody figured out that he killed an ancient dragon with something like 42000 points of damage from an ice spike... it was really ridiculous. This was with enchant/alchemy looped alchemy gear to make the poisons, of course, and I think the guy had the hardest time actually hitting the dragon to get the poisons going until he figured that a paralyze poison should go on first.

-Loth

As the game is not a competition against other players, or other playing styles, then it's not underpowered.

You don't like it, try something different...or perhaps your playing style is underpowered.

Using your logic, Telekinesis is an underpowered spell because I can't one-shot kill a dragon by throwing a fork into it....

LOL I'm your fool... sorry that I wish the impact perk wasn't OP broken and actually wanted to get some damage when I cast a destruction spell... a modest scaling doesn't ruin Destruction -- it brings it back into the game, and makes it worth doing. If you have ever played any other TES games, you might realize that Destro is supposed to be BOSS at high levels... having to dual-cast 32 Incinerates to kill stuff is not "boss". Make a high-level mage and get back to me.

-Loth

PS Did you know that enemy mages' Destro spells scale up?

Way to miss the point of the thead and completely skip the entire thing. Good job!

I have 5 characters all on master, and all unique. Four of which are level 50+. By your logic then if I had to use 5000 arrows to kill a drauger and a mage does it in one its all fine, because its not a competition. Logic fail on your part im afraid. As I have pointed out countless times, the math does not lie. Destruction is mathmatically inferior to all other combat skills. If you cannot understand the concept then that is your fault, not mines.

I think the argument here from one side is that they don't like having to cast a number of destruction spells at a target, but won't accept that (say) a fighter type character has to bash a target a number of times to kill it. 'Destruction should be stronger because it just should be'...well, I say Telekinesis should be stronger because I want to kill dragons with flying salmon!

Edit:

Fallacy: The math doesn't lie in comparison, but if an opposing argument uses comparison of playing styles then we will belittle you and claim you are going off the point.

You kiddies need to grow up.

Again, congratulations on completely missing the point. Your getting good at this.

Destruction - Damage increase perks x2 (50%) / Fortify Desctruction potion (110%) and dual casting increase damage.

Weaponry - Smithing damage increase (300% attainbale) / Fortify Skill potions (110%) / Fortify Skill Enchants (160%) /Weapon enchants (variable +80 damage attainable), 5x20% damage increase perks, power attacks & power attack perks.

Both can use weakness poisons to increase damage further, however the math is still stacked in weaponries favour regardless of this. And no exploits in sight.


So please do explain how destruction is NOT mathmatically inferior when the data clearly states otherwise.


Yeah ok buddy, no problem. Except I am no kid. I have grey hair, creaking joints, and bad back to prove it.

So this comment is supposed to make you sound mature? All the Straw-man fallacies you use to support your arguments are working just as well. At no point have any of us said something along the lines of "I need to kill something with a salmon!"

But yeah, now that you mention it...
-Loth

Alteration (the tree that the spell telekinesis belongs to) is not primarily a damage dealing tree, and thus can't be compared to other damage dealing trees. Destruction, which is a damage-dealing tree, is inferior when compared to other damage-dealing trees. Simple enough for you?

I used to think destruction magic was under powered like you, then I took an arrow to the knee.

I don't play games for mathematical superiority.

No, but I bet you play them for fun. Having your favorite playstyle be weaker than all of the others isn't fun. There, how's that?

They need to get those balance fixes they said they were going to do. Maybe that will settle these issues.

If they introduce mechanics to scale destro damage up like the NPCs get, then it will be a step in the right direction. Unless they really nerf spell costs, you will still need casting gear to make destro effective, though... assuming they also nerf Impact to be less than 100% proc chance (which needs to happen).

-Loth

I am shocked this was even a discussion.

-you can use 2 destruction spells, and combine the same spell for a much stronger one
-you can use destruction spells with a weapon in other
-you can use destruction spells and block with a shield, summon or heal with other
-destruction spells ignore armor rating
-area destruction spells can hit infinite targets as long as they're in range
-magicka recovers, arrows don't
furthermore on perks, aside from the ordinary +dmg%
-elemental spells can make the enemy take extra damage, damage magicka or damage stamina initially, arrows need to be enchanted to do that and it's still insignificant tbh
-raising elemental perks also raises the enchantment power of the elements on the weapons
-powered spells stagger enemies badly (I can usually take out high hp enemies without getting a single cut)
-they can set traps, thus adding a whole lot of damage WHILE you cast your own spells at enemies
-perks can make enemies run, paralyze or destroy bodies of enemies


I played both and I really don't see destruction being overwhelmed by arhery.

It honestly sounds like melee is too overpowered.

Oh, I can get behind this... but the good part is that it is OP when you fully develop crafting, and not so much on its own. Sadly, it can be considered "too easy" to level smithing/enchanting without imposing self-control or rule-gaming like "I'll only use what I find and loot to level crafting skills"... and that seems to work for the most part. Make sure you don't use standing stones to boost learning %, that sort of thing.

We had a thread in the Cheats and Hints sections a while ago discussing how to not trivialize combat in Skyrim, and we came up with "Do no more damage than it takes to with ten standing power attacks." Since that health number is 3500, and power attacks are double damage, that translates to a weapon that does no more than 175 on Adept (350 on master). As I'm sure you know already, getting a weapon damage up this high with a combination of smithing/skills/perks/enchants is ridiculously easy at high levels... you kinda have to go outta your way to not get too much damage.

The heart of the problem in melee with being OP is not the fact that there are crafting skills, it is the way that everything is multiplied against the base. Skill multiplies, perks multiply, enchants multiply... the smithing improvement effect is the only thing that actually just adds. The formula itself is the problem... too many things multiply instead of add -- this is why you can get a 500 damage steel sword, and so on. Nerfing smithing is actually not going to help that much... a smithing improvement only adds +1 or +2 for each improvement level at zero skill with no perks -- you can't really nerf it any more than that. What needs to happen is a fundamental shift in how damage is calculated... for example, making perks and enchants apply to skill instead of raw weapon damage would help, because skill level is halved before being multiplied against the weapon base.

-Loth

If you're only doing about 100 in damage for your Archery, you're doing something wrong.

Now let's assume you're using a Daedric Bow (Legendary) + Daedric Arrows (DMG: 24) a piece.

Add in the perk from the Archery skill chart named "Overdraw" @5/5 which gives you twice as much damage (assuming your damage is JUST 100--but now x2)
Add in Critical Shot 3/3 from Archery skill that gives you an additional 20% chance of a critical hit that does 50% more critical damage
Add in the perk from the Sneak skill set called "Deadly Aim" that lets your sneak attacks with bows do 3x's damage
Add in the perk for Enchanting skill set called "Enchanter" 5/5 which makes your enchantments 100% stronger (Bow skill in hands/head/ring/necklace piece is 40% more damage each).
Last but not least--pop in an additional enchantment for my Daedric bow (with that 5/5 skill of course) + the enchantment that allows me to put 2 skills per piece of item (fire & ice are 25 damage a second) giving me an additional 50 damage.

I'm a full-time archer with light armor and sneak skill in the assassin-esk form. I one-hit kills in Archery on Master difficulty >.>