I console-d my magical skills up to level 100, and took all the perks, especially the cost reduction ones

Since I console-d my level to always revert back to six, my available perk points went through the roof, and so is my magicka and health points

The Setup:

100 in Destruction Damage, Alteration Armor, Restoration Ward, Illusion Not used, Conjuration ot used

All perks taken. Especially:
Augmented Flames and Destruction Dual Casting Maximum Damage
Mage Armor and Alteration Dual Casting Maximum Armor
All magicka cost reduction perks

Player level: 8
Health: 1030
Magicka: 430

Robes of Minor Destruction (12% Destruction cost reduction), Leather Bracers of Archery, because I can (about 20 armor points)
Saarthal Amulet (3% Magicka cost reduction)

The enemy was a Draugr Deathlord in Saarthal (how the boss can be a Deathlord is beyond me, I thought it'd be lower than that)



What I did:

Casted Dualcast Ebonyflesh, 100 armor points for 198 seconds
Put up Steadfast Ward (sorry, I haven't gotten the more powerful version), around 60 points armor rating? I put 'em up all the time

What happened:
Well, with 1030 health points and Ebonyflesh (with Mage Armor) and a Steadfast ward, I thought I can stand ground for quite a few hits

Turns out I couldn't stand more than 5 hits.

Of course, I purposely did not try to run away, but considering the amount of health I have, this is a bit discouraging

Tried to dualcast Incinerate. Works wonders, but with that I've lost quite a bit of magicka. Dual casting incinerate causes me to lose around 1/3 of Magicka bar

With 430 points of Magicka, that translates to around 150 points, even with Expert Destruction perk. On a side note, I didn't try to incinerate the Draugr Deathlord, but I did try to Dualcast Incinerate the Gauldur in Saarthal, it was a one hit KO, but since I was at level 8, I don't know how it should've worked

Another side note is that Steadfast Ward immediately falls before the said Gauldur's ice magic. I assume it's frostbite (because it can cast the magic continuously), and since frostbite is a novice spell, I was disappointed


What I think:
Destruction without a lot of Potion of Vigorous Magicka, or powerful Destruction enchantment, is truly not feasible. It does quite a good job at dealing damage by itself, but the magicka cost is certainly disouraging. Even 50% cost reduction does not help

Alteration can provide a decent amount of armor points, but it is simply useless against boss enemies, you'll need another damage sponge for that. Especially for mages that had to divide points in Stamina, Magicka, and Health. 1030 points of health is beyond reality in a vanilla game, and even with that I can't stand much beating. Banded Iron Shield and Shield Wall works much better at absorbing damage

What level of difficulty are you playing? Master?

Yes, Master

Eh, that probably doesn't sound right: Yes, I play on Master

Dual-casting is where the system is broken. Youd expect that for a Perk Point --a very powerful object in the game-- youd receive at minimum 300% damage for less than 300% Magicka cost but nope. IIRC, you only get 220% damage for 280% Magicka cost. Where the hell is the sense in that, Ill never freaking know. Also the incredibly nerfed Magicka Regen during Combat was a stupid move IMO.

As for Alteration and its defenses --and many other available Perks-- it seems to me Bethesda was just scrambling for ideas for Perks. Like Fists of Steel...

How would that work out for a warrior with just basic armor and weaponry, and no other resists, magic, or potion usage?

Dual casting is not cost effective if mana is a problem, so don't dual cast higher level spells if you are going to be in for a protracted fight, unless you have more cost reduction. Saying it's not feasible because of that is like a warrior not bothering to improve his gear with smithing and then saying that being a warrior isn't feasible. I also wouldn't expect you to be able to sit there and tank just because you have mage armor cast.

A deathlord is what, level 30ish? And you're playing on master level? I wouldn't stand there in real armor without blocking and expect to last several hits against a Deathlord on that difficulty. Taking 5 hits seems like a lot.

And you try and make balance adjustments? Hilarious.

Honestly, they should flip Dual Cast around: 280% Effect ; 220% Magicka Cost.
They should also get rid of combat regen altogether. Default is already 3%, nothing special.
This would allow mages to maybe invest their enchantments in something beside massive cost reductions.

You need to know what your doing, mages aren't supposed to take hits. I use ebonyflesh with vampirism+necromage, resulting in 375 armor rating for 300 seconds dual cast. If I then took the lord stone I'd have 425 armor rating, with greater ward (necromage) I get +100 armor rating so that's 525. 525x0.12=63% damage resist. Or I just throw up dragonhide for 80%, lasting 150 seconds as I don't use the lord stone.

Unfortunately mages don't get the +100 hidden armor bonus so the armour cap is 667. I can't take continual hits from high level draugr, but I can take a few with my 300 health. I use enchanting to reduce the costs (the biggest problem with destruction), to around 80-90% destruction reduction, otherwise I wouldn't be able to cast many spells with my 600 magicka pool.

Now my incinerate does 100 damage, +10 damage from the illusion perk. I can dual cast it but it uses so much magicka, I can take down most draugr deathlords in 5-6 dual single (not dual cast) cast incinerates on master. I may dual cast for the odd stagger if they get to close.

I also use spells like paralyse, fury and dread zombie to help me out against enemies. Wards are very useful to me against dragon priests, or high level mages, then I just spam incinerate with the other hand. Also remember how much damage flames does with the illusion fear perk, 22 dps.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1334745-big-boost-to-vampires-necromage/ < if you didn't know about vamp+necromage.
You get 33% magicka regen of what you have usually, not 3.

This character was a Light Armored warrior up until recently. With Studded Armor, Imperial Light Helmet, Leather Bracers, Imperial Light Boots and Banded iron Shield, with around 800 health points, she could defend about 6-7 direct power attacks from Giant

Of course, she had all the armor and shield perks, but that's what they're for, and I had Mage Armor as well for that. But I don't know how powerful a Giant's power attack is. Without the shield raised she could only take two power attack before running like hell (with the same setup)

This is a demonstration that Armor Points from Alteration is simply not enough when fighting against a boss. 1030 health points is not simply a lot: it is beyond almost impossible in vanilla (which has 910 HP as cap from levels, with only 100 magicka and 100 stamina) without using any enchantments or exploiting fortify enchantments.

Besides, many people claim that Impact makes the game too easy/boring, this demonstration proves that Impact will only be feasible if you exploit Free Magicka Cost, as even 50% reduction is not enough

Have anybody even try to say Destruction is not good at Adept? No. That's why.

And in which part did I try to make balance adjustments?

Well, I'm not the type that will go the lengths to min-max the armor rating. I'm simply using what is readily available at any point, so any playstyle can theoretically do what I did too. Like I said, I purposely tank to demonstrate how reliable Ebonyflesh and Mage Armor really is. The Draugr Deathlord enemy, while confusing as to how it can get there, proves to be useful, as this simulates what happens in high level game play

Illusion spells certainly cannot be counted, as it is more of crowd control than combat magic. It will certainly help, of course, but that's not the point. That's why I don't use Conjuration too

I worked up to that point though, I didn't power level any of those skills, just naturally leveled. I'm not really sure how useful your test is though, you aren't using magic as it is usually used. Illusion and conjuration are both combat magic, crowd control is combat. Even without being a vamp, ebonyflesh and mage armor, combined with 200-300 health will allow you to survive hits on master. Mages aren't meant to be up in the face of draugr deathlords, taking hits. Unless you use crafting heavily you won't be able to take hits from those with normal armor.

Also don't bother with that bcs guy, all he does is give abuse on this forum.

Another problem is that magicka does not regen while you're casting. Pretty much every spell takes a second to cast, and then you're casting again right afterwards, so your regen rate is basically 0 no matter what +regen rate gear you're wearing.

HAh, this made me laugh xD

yes, alteration is extremely useless. with all the damned armor perks and crap, your maximum armor for ebonyflesh would be a measly 300. Taking into account that mages don't have much health, that armor might as well be worthless.
And the biggest complaint i have for destruction magic isnt about the scaling, its that the expert and master spells are near to worthless; master spells are almost totally impractical, and expert spells soak up mana like a sponge. And wards are rather flawed as well, the manacost to sustain them is ridiculous.
I don't mind that mages are squishy and all, but if they are less adept compared to warriors in terms of defense, then they should have better damage or more cost effective spells, no? "glass cannons", so as to speak.

Right now, they're probably "glass peashooters" or something.

Read my above post, I can get 63% damage resist with clothes, every 1 armor rating grants 0.12% damage resist. The master spells aren't impractical, I find many uses for them, the blizzard and fire spell do more damage than stated as well, have you even used them?

I do agree with the expert spell cost though, they cost way to much. The expert destruction spells base cost is higher than conjuration expert spells!? You only need to cast that summon spell once, they force you to use enchanted gear to reduce cost for destruction. The damage is sufficient though IMO even on master, it's just magicka cost.

Hmm... I was just testing how really effective Alteration's armor is. As it currently stands, each hit from a Draugr Deathlord takes around 200 HP even with Ebonyflesh, Mage Armor perk, and Steadfast Ward. This means that Alteration cannot be relied upon to defend from enemy attacks, so you'll have to circumvent that


Which means a mage needs to rely upon a follower, a conjured being, actual armor, quick reflexes (no, not the shield perk) or even avoid combat altogether to survive. While I agree that crowd control is combat oriented, I meant "combat" as in "dealing and taking damage".


My test proves that "Mage Armor" is a crappy perk. For 3 perk points, I think I won't take this perk when I do play as a mage next time


This also emphasizes the "glass" part of "glass cannon" for mages, I suppose

That's true. Not only that: I don't really know when my spells are truly ready for launch. The sound plays a bit longer than the animation

From my experience (with that low level character), the damage is quite fine. Someone pointed out that Draugr Deathlord is around level 30. The cost, however, is awful...

I've read that Destruction, damage wise is alright up until level ~40, around 50-60, it starts to show its age

Well enemies stop scaling at level 50, I'm level 46 and my above post describes how much damage I do. It really isn't crappy, I believe the problem is people comparing it to overpowered armor.

'Alteration cannot be relied upon to defend from enemy attacks' the draugr deathlord is one of the hardest hitting enemy, they will always do a lot of damage on master, to anyone. I use vampirism+necromage for enjoyment and it enhances all my spells, like I said above ebonyflesh gives me 375 armor rating, then +100 for greater ward. You also have the lord stone to give you +50 if you want it, I prefer the atronach though.

Hmm.... perhaps I have to do another test? For some reason my Ebonyflesh only gives me 100 armor points. How did you get 300?
Also, what about Draugr Death Overlord then? Once they become the boss, Draugr Deathlords will become the minions

I'll also have a look at Greater Ward.

I think a good way to change it would be to rework magicka regen. I'd remove the "reduce magicka cost" enchants and replace them with something else. Then the natural regen which is 3% per second outside of combat and 1% per second in combat. I'd use instead 5% and 0% and I'd redefine "In Combat" to mean "You used magicka in the last 10s"

Along with a little reduction on magicka costs for high rank spells, and a BIG reboost of the master destruction spell effects so that they are at least as strong as dual casted experts.

Edit: and important, I'd play remove the Impact perk effect from the game! Not reduce chance or anything, remove stagger at all.

Draugr death overloads are very rare, they are the 'boss' version of draugr deathlords. You can't be wearing any armor for mage armor to work, maybe that's it.

Oh Crap! I forgot that I was wearing a Leather Bracers! Gonna have to try it again.

Thanks for pointing it out. Dammit, I thought something was off.

Default regen is 3%. It is multiplied by 0.33 when entering combat, thus dropping at 1%. Wearing a 100% increased regen robe would make it 6% out of combat, and 2% in combat.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Magicka

Yeah sorry ha, I realised what you meant earlier.

good to know. Thanks OP. BTW I was sadly disapointed in conjuration once I reach master (100). I found no new spells?

Talk to the Breton at the college, he will offer you the master conjuration spells after the quest. Dead thrall, flame thrall, frost thrall and storm thrall.

strange because aren't those adept to expert? I have those + dremora