To start off, I have always defended the magic system in Skyrim. When people said "magic is too weak at higher levels" I said "just utilize the perks."

Today I decided to play around a little with my level 50 Battlemage. To put things into perspective, both my destruction and one-handed skills are at 100, I have both of the augmented flame perks, and I have maxed out armsman and hack and slash (as well as having savage strike). I jumped into a falmer cave, and found that trying to kill them with just Incinerate ended up taking up just about my whole mana reserve (even with 28% reduction for destruction spells) to kill one enemy. My axe, on the other hand, took out baddies in 2-3 hits.

Now I really do hope Beth does something about this, at least in the next game (assuming there is one). Overall I love the magic system in Skyrim, but after a certain point (I want to say after level 40-ish?) it really does take a nose dive in comparison to melee. Hell, that would be a great thing to add to the DLC, some new spells, some kind of "nuke" spell. I figure Shivering Isles added spells to Oblivion, maybe this is something Beth should really consider.

PS: Before you suggest it, I'm console, no mods for me

Spellmaking would help. But then you have to consider nuke spell + 100% destro cost reduction would be insane.

No less insane than shadow warrior or the crafting loop though I spose!

A real easy fix for destruction magic would be to raise the damage of the spell the more you use it like how they do with weapons. How someone could be a master at magic and still only do 5 damage with flames is ridiculous. Even fireballs starting at 50 dam is pretty high since you unlock it befor you even get to level 5.

IMO, hybrid characters are weaker at higher levels than specialists. That said, I do agree that magic does seem a bit weak at higher levels. The main difference is the resistances - choose your magic attacks based on what you're fighting.

Unfortunately, Beth took out resistance to normal weapons - if that was back in, spells wouldn't look so weak by comparison.

For sure, and if I wanted to break the game I could (fortify destruction potions do a world of good normally, on a crafting loop they can make things pretty insane). In a perfect world I'd like to see more ranks off the augmentation perks in the destruction school (for example, hack and slash has three ranks, and armsman has 5, augmentation has two. Even one more rank of augmentation would make a HUGE difference.)


That's only if you don't know how to use them. It's easier to use a specialist at higher (or any) levels, but if you know how to use a hybrid not only are they as strong, they are far more versatile. The big difference is that in Skyrim there are no preset classes, so the player has to perfect the class themselves. It took me a couple playthroughs at least to perfect my Battlemage class.

Not only does augmentation have only two ranks, it's divided into the three elements, so you end up wasting 6 perks if you want to be efficient in all three elements.

I think you would have to use six perks to be efficient an all three elements even if they were split up.

Huh? You basically said exactly what I did, lol. They are split up already.

The problem is that you can improve the quality of your weapons, but you can't improve the quality of your spells. Some kind of "magical research" thing (not necessarily spell-making) in the same vein as the blacksmith anvils and enchanting altars would be interesting.Get a quill and some parchment, and a spell of your choice, and voila! An improved version of the initial spell, that could improve in quality at the same rate as improved weapons.

Yes spells should be like enchanting but where you have to hone your skills in that certain spell to make it more powerfull.

Yea I thought you were trying to say something else but yea if you want to be a master of all elements you should have to put multiple perks in those elements then give them more power with additional perks if you used 6 in those augmented slots. I personally stick with one of the destruction elements (if I even use one for my character) and only use that one without jumping back and forth. I would just like if I wanted to get the augmented perks for Lightning magic I didn't have to put perks in Fire and Ice magic.

Ways to increase Destruction damage:

1: Alchemy (Potions)
2: Augment Perks (2/2 = 50% damage boost)

Ways to Increase Melee damage:

1: Smithing (Improvements)
2: Alchemy (Potions)
3: Enchanting (Corresponding Weapon Type +% Damage)
3: Skill Scaling in Corresponding Weapon Type
4: Sneak Attacks
5: Perks in Corresponding Weapon Type that raises damage by +100% (5/5)
6: Perks in Sneak that raise sneak attack damage bonus by x3 (Bows), x6 (One-Handed), x15 (Daggers)
7: Enchants that add even more to weapons such as fire/shock/frost damage or paralyze etc.

I did not list stamina reduction/increased power attack damage/quicker attacks/elemetal fury for Melee or cost reduction for Destruction because it does not directly change the actual number of damage done by weapons or spells.

It's very obvious there is a SERIOUS issue here. Spells that COST TO USE have almost no ways of increasing their damage, while melee weapons that have no cost and can be used infinitely and are far far superior is a joke.

With 100 enchanting it's possible to get fire damage enchants on your weapons that do more damage than most of Destruction's spells can. The ENCHANT alone. There's something wrong with that.

I don`t use magic too much myself. But if they took the augment perks and changed them to 100% damage instead of 50% you might see a nice difference in your damage output. Or they could take the novice perk and do it like they did the weapons having a 100% damage increase while still keeping the mana reductions at rank 5 then being able to increase your augments by the stock 50% with 2 ranks. You would get an extra 100% damage from all your spells making them alot more worthwhile to use.

I tend to believe that Destruction is probably the only way to make the game challenging; all the other classes should be nerfed down to that level and have less improvements. It gets kind of ridiculous after a while.

As it stands, though, they really do need to find a way to increase damage/effects of the spells instead of making it capped like that.

I always wonxered why they never did a .5% increase in spell dmg every skill point in that class? Seems to be the easiest way, that way with skill points alone u go 50% then if u went the perk u get 100%.

That way that fireball that does 5 dmg would do 10..

Just saying..

Those are two seemingly easy fixes, increase with skill level and a another augment perk.

Just adding another augment perk to get another 25% damage would be very helpful without being game changing.

The adept level spells should be at least feasible havoc makers up to level 50. It stinks plinking away at someone with a . .22 when they fire back with a howitzer.

Yeah - I wanted to do a character that was magic heavy, but also wanted some melee skills. Without specializing, I found I eventually went all archery/one handed.

You really need specialized gear to drop the magic cost, and while I can do that, I enjoy the other hand to hand perks too much. So my enchants focus on that.

Magic is tough IMHO, to get right. You have to be a good role-player with the savvy to tweak and use it effectively.

But I agree, I wish spells could increase like other aspects of weaponry.

Its so clearly wrong because your spells do the exact same damage as you level up while at the same time the enemy health is increasing. Once you have all the required perks needed for a magic build you are hurting yourself by levelling up any further.

Thats a bit of a biased anolysis. Why do people compare the damage of one skill set, i.e. destruction, to the damage of a combination of skills, i.e. melee damage with smithing, enchantments, alchemy, sneak attacks. Well to get that damage number you are using 5 skills if you include the melee type skill (one-handed, archery). So people think that destruction magic on its own should be as powerful as the combination of 5 skills? jibberish. How come no one here ever compares the base damage of magic to the base damage of weapons, thats the proper comparision.

In your comparison you left out the mana cost reduction which is major advantage for a mage despite not increaseing damage. With the enchanting perks you can reduce mana cost to zero. Also, you convienient leave out the amout of damage increase alchemy can do. With the alchemy perks (5/5) you can create potions that increase damage 75% and thats without any enchanted gear. With enchanted alchemy gear and the alchemy perks you can increase potions strengths by 100%. This is all just basic without actual stacking. If you start stacking you can make potions as powerful as you want. Plus you have to remember that all of this is from a ranged attack which is a huge advantage, especially with the destruction stagger perk. Now you add a defensive school like illusion or alteration to the mix and things change even more. Plus with the dual enchant you can reduce the mana cost of a second school of magic on the same gear.

So again you cant compare one skill to the combination of multiple skills. A good comparision is of that to destruction magic to archey as they are both ranged attacks. I made an archer character and tried just using only the archery skill and perks and base weapon damage and just like destruction magic, it couldnt stand on its own. I had to augment the damage with poisions and smithing.

jcote: I think he's trying to say it's unfair where destruction is the only method of attck that can't have it's damage increased to the point of all the others. You get augmentation perks - that's it.

Melee gets those, AND the possibility of boosting them with enchanting and smithing - in the face of that, cost reduction isn't much recompense...

Actually with enchanting and alchemy you can increase destruction damage as high as you want. Regardless you can't compare a ranged attack to melee attack. To deliver the melee damage you have to be in close so without a high armor, smithing or block skill you are going to get punished by high level enemies. In order to be an effective warrior you need to be proficient in a number of skills, you shouldnt be able to achieve the same effectiveness as a mage with only proficiency in one school of magic.

And cost reduction is a huge advantage. I was playing my destruction mage with enchanted gear that brought the mana cost of destruction and alteration to zero. Just using destruction i didnt have much trouble but being able to throw on dragonskin at zero cost, paralzye my enemies and hammer them with destruction spells they didn't stand a chance.

I think what bothers me the most about threads like this is that they seem to be childish. Melee gets to do this and this but destruction magic doesnt. Thats unfair. Sounds like something a 5 year old would argue. Life isn't fair. Deal with it and use what is given to you to augment destruction or play a warrior character.

You can make potions that directly increases destro damage? Huh, learned something new...

Mages who use destruction for offense want it to be challenging, not a peashooter with infinite ammo. The whole cost reduction mechanic trivializes the mage's resource attribute - what's the point of perks when you can just level Enchanting and get -100& to costs?

EDIT: Basically, mages don't want to have to rely on enchanting and alchemy to make Destruction viable.

Jcote, I'm not sure you fully understand what they're saying. Of course you can kill anything with a combination of magics (Pacify then fire storm etc.) But this becomes very redundant, I have to cast 10 pacify spells and 10 master level spells (assuming I'm using 100% destruction/illusion reduction gear) to kill a common bandit where as I could be playing on my orc activate my berserker rage and do 1000+ dmg a hit with my maces. Even if you use a 75% destruction potion with say... incinerate you're only doing like what 125dmg? But wait, you can duel weild those spells so lets bump it up to say 300dmg a shot, you're still doing 1/6 of the max melee. (Without overly abusing loops)

Exactly! They've almost set up magic with the intent for you to have to abuse it to make it worth while.