After playing stealth up to level 30, I switched to mage focusing on destruction and necromancy. Stealth is overpowered, to the point where I wasn't enjoying the game anymore. I haven't put a perk in to smithing or enchanting yet either for the same reasons, I find relying on dropped loot makes me want to dungeon crawl more, but will probably perk up enchanting soon when I hit level 50. I use a bit of illusion (also an overpowered skill) when I get in real trouble

I am enjoying the challenge, and am still able to take on a camp of giants, dragons or whatever, as I used to. I have to use my mind much more in a tight spot, and fights can feel more rewarding than sneak up, and press left mouse button. To me, it seems destruction is okay, and other playstyles that can get overpowered. I think the thing to do at higher levels, is go alchemy. Hit someone with weakness to shock, down a fortefy destruction etc.

One thing with destruction, as someone else mentioned, is that it would nice to have scaled versions of ALL the spells (eg a master level version of frostbite), as you end up having only a few useful spells at high levels.

Magic still irks me somewhat, due to the missing spells and missing spellchanting, hopefully a mod is coming soon, but its actually very fun and rewarding to play with.

This threads are pointless becuase they arent ment to prove that destro is weak compared to other combat dealers they are just here to whine that ppl cant easily ( enchants your stuff and smith it only once ) get a pernament one hit kill spell

Heres a tip for you whiners out there: bind mouse1 kill

No - it is not pointless, but thanks for your input.

It can help people figure out whether they are maximizing their use of magic, and maybe Bethesda will even consider this as a problem as they patch the software.

R

The only thing they might consider from this threads is that they need to nerf all the crafting trees.
If you guys wouldnt be blindfolded by the exploited gear you would notice that at maxed not exploited smithing/enchanting levels - meele and bow dmg is at the same level as destruction dmg. I dont have a problem with ppl exploiting but dont go exploiting and then whining that destro in weak becuase it exploits actualy need the user to work a bit ( not perma exploits, you need to poison and use destro potions )

that what I do for the most part.....Use Firebolt to conserve your magicka and with my 500+ magicka reserves I can keep anything including ancient dragon stunlocked.....

But archers and mages are 2 different play styles entirely, so why on earth would you want the two have similar qualities? like i said in the other thread, no one is at a disadvantage whether they're playing an archer or a mage, as there is no PvP mode, so how powerful an archer becomes has no bearing whatsoever when you're playing a mage.

Or am i missing something here, are you and others not happy that you're not one or two shotting enemies when using destruction? Is that the desired outcome? Becasue as far as i can see, the boards are littered with people complaing about crafting skills being over powered and how it's easy to become a demi god using an archer or melee character, yet on the other hand people are basically insinuating that the same can't be done with destruction, so destruction is broken.

The issue isn't with destruction's killing power, the issue is with the magicka system and the lack of variety when it comes to spells in general and with how the crafting skills make it easier to play one play style over another. Because i don't use smithing when playing a mage, the smithing skill becomes irrelevant, becasue I'm not coming up against other players that are using it to their advantage, nor is it required when running around in cloth gear.

Oh jesus, the debates at the Vatican are still going, LET IT DIE PEOPLE, AGREE TO DISAGREE. This is not going anywhere.

UNARMED SKILL FTW!!!!!

I think you should be able to enchant your fists.

UNARMED SKILL FTW!!!!!

^{I like to role-play as a Falmer Nightprowler by turning off the screen, guiding myself by sound, and using destruction as my damage source. This is extremely challenging in Skyrim!!! Bethesday must make me [email="whole!@#$@!$"]whole!@#$@!$[/email]@!!!!!!}

This is about the 50th time this topic has been discussed and while I have no interest in taking sides - these threads seem to be long on words and short on videos.

I'd like to see a level 45+ destruction mage on master difficulty taking on a typical cave with multiple deathlords and draugr using predominantly destruction as their damage dealing method.

Nope, at maxxed out non-exploited items, the damage is 5-10 times more than destruction. And that is a FACT.

1. There are no touch destruction spells. So if you get into melee you're sunk, since spells like chain lightning are only useful at a distance and the ones like spark are almost useless after about level 10.
2. You get no sneak bonus for destruction spells. So an arrow or backstab is much more powerful as you get better weapons.
3. The entire hotkey limitiation, even on the PC, makes it hard to quickly access enought types of destruction spells of the right level and type to allow for all your foes.
4. There are no critical perks for destruction. Weapons have critical perks fairly early on and once you've got behead you're much more likely to kill a foe quickly.

The wall spells act like flames and sparks.

Games I play with fantasy archtypes typically go like this.

Warrior - pressure + durability
Archer - nimbleness + kiting ability
Mage - long range spike damage + utility
Assassin - short range spike damage + stealth

Mages were always glass canons, but in Skyrim they seem to be more like the typical archer.

This is the same argument postulated each time someone doesnt understand that smithing and enchanting do NOT need to be exploited in any way to create powerful gear. As I have to constantly point out, crafting gear can be bought and un-perked smithing can be utilised to create gear well above what is would be considered "normal" improvement.

In short; You dont need expoits to make destruction look weak, it does that on its own.

Archers and mages are 2 different things indeed. However, archery and DESTRUCTION magic are exactly the same, as far as utility goes, in that they both have one reason of existance and one only: to kill things from a distance. And archery kills the 5 times faster at twice the distance. Simple as that.
The problem was never wanting to 1-shot things - it is wanting to do reasonable damage so that it doesn't take forever to kill even the weakest enemies. Now, you need to shoot flames on a draugr for like a minute when a sword could kill them in less than 5 seconds. I don't care what is the best balance of power, the 1 minute or the few seconds - however, 2 skills that have exactly the same purpose should be overall equal. It doesn't matter if they are both weak or both all-powerful, their pros and cons should always roughly balance out. dual one handed does the best damage of all, at the cost of no block and melee range. 2-h does less damage, but allows some block. Archery does a bit les than 2-h and has no block, but has a huge range. And destruction does have some moderate range but does not have the customisation of weapons, and on top of that it REQUIRES magicka, while the rest are practically free to use. So, destruction should have damage compairable to dual weilding to balance out... however, it is 5-10 times weaker, which is way beyond acceptable.

The wall spells don't really do that much damage. If you expecting them to kill anything before it kills your mage in melee your wrong...

Maxed exploited sword with all perks and skills and exploited enchants is 5xx something. An expert spell is 90 a master spell like lightning storm is 112 dmg.So we got a difference of 5 comparing normal destro with perks against totaly exploited sword and gear. So how does the non exploited gear get 5-10 times better ? Does that mean that by exploiting you make your gear weaker


The answer to the above quote is the same answer to your post. Yeah you can use non perked smithing with smithing gear and potions but your not going past the normal level before you hit 100 smithing and perks that those smithing gear and potion start to exploit what should be called normal. And even max normal gear with smithing is still not above expert spell dmg.

So what your saying is that by using the system as intended players are exploiting the system? Perking and then subsequently using crafting gear and potions in and effort to create better gear is not exploiting. Using broken potions to make a sword with 10k damage is exploiting. There is no "max" exploited sword damage, thats the point of the exploit.

Using the system as intended is not exploiting, and in doing so you can create weaponry that exceeds the base damage of destruction. I for instance have a warrior who has a daedric greatsword that has 490+ damage per attack, and also has further weapon enchantment damage. That can then be supplemented further by the usage of skill potions and weakness potions to far and away outstrip destruction magics absolute maximum damage output. And I have never EVER used any kind of exploit. All I have done is use the system as its intended.

That's your opinion. They work just fine for me.

Fireball is fine at any distance. I don't know why you think you need a touch spell. If a mage is touching anything, he's probably dead.

A pure archer can also not really engage any monsters. They reload too slow. So the only way that they're effective is by staying a long ways away, preferably hanging out in the shadows, and plinking at the enemies from afar. Mage spells reload fast enough that they can get somewhat closer, even if they probably should stay out of sword's range.

If you're using flames any time after L10, it's your own fault. Fireballs blast away normal draugr's in 1 shot, 2 max.

If this is your definition of "as intended" and "exploiting" then a mage can double-hand a spell after quaffing a fortify destruction spell and using a "Weakness to X" poison for bucho damage. That's also non-exploiting and roughly equivalent.

No because both of those additions you are using is to "catch up" to my base damage (490). If I also use both of those supplemental increases (+skill/weakness potions) I then outstrip your damage and it is no longer comparible or even roughly equivalent. And thats not counting my weapon enchantments damage which iirc is 20 lightning damage and 20 frost damage respectively. So my "base" damage is 530+* without those supplemental potions. So it would be 530, then 100+% to one handed skill, and then 100%+ of weakness on my oponent. A fruther 100% + 100% elemental increase above destructions ABSOLUTE maxiumum.

* I believe its 493 damage my weapon has. If you want I can fire up the console and take a photo with my phone to show it exactly

There's a "weakness to melee" poison?