I want to start a destruction mage, and I love the look and feel of ice spike.

However im concerned about the amount of Nords (50% cold resist is alot!)

Anyone using cold magic that can give some info from personal experience?

I wouldnt say useless but yes, if you are planning on perking only 2 of the 3 schools, I have to say without question ice is the weakest link, especially since draining enemies stamina isnt strong enough of a defence to risk melee and its the least damaging school (even tho its skill 50 spell is the most damaging of all 50 spells)
and there are quite a few nords, skyrim and all lol it matters.

That's like saying Lightning Magic is useless because there are so many warriors.
Use Flame for raw damage, Cold for draining stamina, Electricity for draining magicka.

From my experiences focusing on cold damage is NOT worth it. Fire is most efficient in damagedealing without a doubt.

What do you expect as response? Yes, there are freaking lots of Nords. Get used to it. Noone here will and give you an empiric statistic of enemies encountered in his playthrough.

Btw, Morrowind had Dunmer with Fire-Reistance all over the Place - But, I grant you that point: Back in the good old Morrowind (Morrowind > Skyrim), you could also deal magical damage not only via boring elemental-standard-RPG-Stuff (Ice, Fire, Lightning), but also:

- Magical Poison Damage,
- Drain Health,
- Damage Health,
- Absorb Health.

You could play a truly "evil" Mage if you wanted to, now there′s only the option to play an "Elemental Mage" when it comes down to dealing direct damage to foes.

No, it is not. The Lightning-Mastery-Perks makes Lighting-.Stuff superior to fire, both in total damage and efficiency. Use Stagger-perk for strong enemies, besides this, you should always combine fire and lightning cause of the fire-Debuff.

actually mixing fire and lighting is best, because fire gives the damage multiplier(and dot) while lightning have the higher damage range + execute (perk)
fire on its own or lightning on its own are both much weaker than chaining spells from both.

a comon mistake is to think only 1 spell or 1 schoold should be used.

ice always keeps warriors from rushing me it slows them down if nothing else that said i shock everything to death :intergalactic:

Yes, or you just use Double-casting-Perk and use lightning with execute-perk to stagger them to death instead... SO much stronger.

Anyways, Ice isn't weak despite it being really cold in Skyrim. Bethesda wouldn't design that aspect if it was intended to be useless but granted ice can actually look a bit..bland at times.

Fire is best because it gets a substantial damage boost from the illusion perk "Aspect of Terror". This is probably unintentional and it happens because fire spells have the fear effect in common.

You need more than 1 destruction spell, at least 2 minumum, to counteract enemies immunites to certain elements. i.e you dont use a fireball againts a flame atronarch, but you would against an Ice one etc....

true but im a star wars nerd :intergalactic:

people who want to take the most benefit out of a destruction buildup should use AT LEAST 2 schools, fire being mandatory and lightning more recommended for the second than ice.
they should also use at least 4 spells, place a two handed trap, kite/train mobs towards you and spray your wall spell, as you kite/train mobs around your trap and wall alternate between a fire and a lightning spell, finalising mobs with lightning when they get lower than 30% health, if its many mobs use fireball as damage multiplier or fire wall and chain lightning's if its a few of them use incenerate/thunderbolt cycles with fire wall.
thats how you get the most dps out of destruction...

using only one or two spells is much lower damage, let alone just one school...

Lightning is the best because no dragon resist lightning, if you only can pick 1

and to the OP question, imo, yes, I find more mobs resist cold than other schools

Question is then, can you dualcast two different elements? O.o

Edit: Oh and thanks for the help guys. Ill go Fire primary and frost secondary. I find the slow effect on frost spells priceless.

You can't get the dualcast benefit, but it's doablel to cast one spell with one hand and another in the other hand - though I've only tried that with the novice spells and can't guarantee it will work.

On PC, equip one psell per hand and press both buttons together..