Ok. I';;m not here to argue or start some sort of meaningless argument. I'm just asking if I was to take destruction, and use it with a 1h weapon, and dual cast it from time to time, is it worth it? I would also be taking the augmented perks, AND wearing Ahzidal's mask from Dragonborn. Would it still be useless? I would only limit myself to -30% reduction cost on spells as well.

Not in Vanilla Skyrim, not even by a long shot.

At 30% cost reduction....eeeeee....you may want to rethink that.

If used as the only means to kill things, yes it's "underpowered." Used in conjunction with Conjuration, Illusion, a weapon, etc it's fine.

You won't survive on Destruction alone. You won't survive anything with only 1 skill.

Destruction is meant to compliment a magic user. Sure as an offensive use, use it with other skills.

Destruction damage doesn't level, so that svcks but it doesn't make underpowered.

you should be fine.

Alright, so it would work well with melee tied in? Or if I was to use Conjuration and melee with it?

It always makes me laugh when people say "I dont want 100% destruction magic cost reduction.....". Its foolish and something a real mage would never do if he/she had the power and/or capability of reducing magic cost. Its like going to war with a gun that holds 30 rounds, and deciding to only load 5 rounds instead of 30. Imagine playing COD and unlocking a gun's extended magazines, but choosing (if the game allowed) to only load 5 rounds in the LMG instead of 100. Or, Lebron James only shooting and dribbling with his left hand. Its the same with magic cost reduction. If you have the power and/or skill to reduce it, REDUCE IT!!!!

Destruction is NOT underpowered. The smart, thinking man's, intellectual mage uses it with no problem at all. Used in conjunction with conjuration and/or illusion and its far from being underpowered.

The thing that scares me is that I plan to level this character to about 70-80, so if I'm fighting Legendary Dragons, it's still going to be useful?

This opinion keeps popping up and I find it erroneous. To address it: Destruction is akin to a weapon skill, a ranged weapon skill at that. You don't need a secondary weapon skill when you're an Archer, though. Once Dragonrend is obtained a melee character doesn't need a secondary weapon skill (you don't technically need a ranged skill period). You do need a secondary damage dealing skill if going the Destruction route.

Unless you want 100% cost reduction so you can stun lock everything to death. So boring...

Well since you plan on using it alongside a weapon, and possibly conjuration, it will be very effective.

It could still be effective on it's own, with a bit of magic reduction. So in combination with other skills, I have no doubt that it will still be useful.

Yes. You can stun lock them so they can't use their shouts. If you use shock, you'll drain their magicka pretty quickly so they can't shout that way either. I play a Mage on Legendary difficulty. Dragons don't give me any problems at all (then again, I do have two Storm Atronachs helping me out...they mainly serve as a diversion).

You'll want more than 30% cost reduction though.

Of course. By that time, you would have learned to use it properly.

Yeah but, where's the challenge? Every fight would just be spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam. Is he dead? No? spam, spam, spam, spam... Boring.

Legendary. Use runes, use cloaks, conjure helpers, raise the dead, etc.

Same with a melee character - block block block block hit hit hit hit block block block block hit hit hit hit.........

A thinking mans mage will always reduce the cost of at least one school if he has the power.

Ahh you're playing on Legedary. You would need to spam to no end. Sorry for my mistake.

Point is, there is no need to spam constantly. If that is how you play, then maybe you should try a different build.

No need to, I play on expert so most enemies die with a reasonable amount of hits.

The topic of Destruction being underpowered has been discussed to death

The result?
Yes, Destruction is underpowered. To make it even, reduce the cost to be negligible, spam staggering Impact, and summon a powerful dremora lord that can absorb damage, dish out damage, and distract enemies all in one fell swoop (this part is important).

In short, Conjuration is better than Destruction, so since you will only have one slot for your hand, take Conjuration

The problem with Destruction is that compared to every other direct attack skill (Archery, One-Handed, Two-Handed), its damage does not scale as it levels. Sure, you can pick stronger spells, going from Flames to Wall of Flames or from Firebolt to Incinerate, the same way you can pick a stronger sword, from Iron through Dwarven to Daedric. Sure, you can pick a few perks to increase your spell damage, the same way the very first perk of each weapon tree eventually lets you double your damage. However, while the base damage of weapons also gets multiplied by your skill as you get progressively more experienced, the spells remain the same eternally, experience rather decreasing their mana cost.

This reduced damage output per strike is compensated by the ability, through the Impact perk, to reliably and continually stun enemies, and through enchanting to massively reduce spell costs. This leads to a very boring game of attrition where fights against tougher opponents consist of standing and spamming your strongest direct damage bolt until they keel over.

To function on par with other damage skills,

A) Destruction damage should also have increased along with the skill's level, same as weapons.

It would also have helped to invert the effect of Enchanting and Alchemy, where it would have been Enchanting which would have increased effectiveness, same as Smithing for weapons, and Alchemy which would have reduced mana costs for a time, so you could have used a potion to set yourself into spam mode for a difficult fight.

C) Finally, Impact and the elemental capstones should have been reworked. The current capstones affect enemies that are already dying, adding style but nothing more. A much more useful version would have had fire inherit Impact's stagger at a reasonable but not absolute chance, ice could have had a similar chance to freeze opponents, and lightning could have knocked back. Not guaranteed, something along the line of a 10% chance, but both more useful than the current capstones while being less abusive or monotone than Impact.

Now, this doesn't mean that Destruction, as is, is useless. After all, I am playing a pure Wizard right now. But it works better as a supplement to your other casting disciplines. Once Lydia and a Frost Atronach have charged in, once you buffed her with Rally, once you Soul trapped one of the enemies, once you shouted Marked for Death, then you snipe Firebolts just so that whatever your cohorts are fighting stays locked down and easy to beat up. It is definitely not the charge in, tear stuff up style of a sword and board fighter.

Since what you want to make actually looks more like a Battle-Mage, my best advice would be to skip Destruction altogether. Go something like...

One-Handed

Heavy Armor

Restoration

Conjuration

Smithing

Enchanting

Use Restoration wards as a shield and battle alongside your summons. Perk up One-Handed's two weapon fighting branch and summon yourself a second, soul-trapping, minion banishing sword when you want some more damage.

The other Khajiit hit this spot on, the system where increased skills reduced casting cost worked well in Oblivion as you had lots of spells and you could make your own.

Skyrim has few spells and few ways of increase damage over basic.

In some ways magic and weapons has switched place since Oblivion. In Oblivion you had an fixed upper limit on weapon damage and it was low, you had to hit an high end enemy a lot to kill him while an spell using weakness effects, you could increase weapon damage with enchants and it was common that the magic damage from weapons was higher than the physical damage.

Destruction magic's fine, just dont go burning doen any villages.

Destruction alone is usable on adept and lower. any higher and you need to combine different schools of magic.

I dunno a weapon skill without any block or armor skill seems a bad plan to me. Also, not having a ranged skill is a significant disadvantage in tons of situations. If they close with you you sure as heck need some close combat skill. I skill wonders seem a really hard way to play the game to me.

This opinion keeps popping up and I find it erroneous.

You don't need 100% cost reduction or stun lock to be a viable destruction mage. You don't need a secondary damage dealing skill. Like warriors, it is advised you have complimentary skills, like a warrior would take an armour skill and block if they went with melee. Or a ranged character electing to compliment their archery with sneak.

Is Destruction underpowered compared to the other damage-dealing skills?

No.

Destruction is only under-powered compared to other damage-dealing skills when you start exploiting out the wazoo. At least in this humble poster's opinion.