Now I love my dremora lords but that's the point: they are stronger than absolutely any other conjuration in the game giving no variety to fighting with conjuration. C'mon the master spells are glitched for Dead Thrall (at least for my 360) where my permant followers eventually disappear making it pointless for me to über them up with gear. Also dead thralls don't regenerate their health so you lose track of your bodies eventually. And perhaps one of the dumbest things ever: you can't use it on city guards?! Good grief..I thought dead thrall was a brilliant idea but in the end practicality determined dremora lords were still much much much better.

So what about the other permanent thralls? Flame svck. Frost are too huge to be in dungeons with you (and svck too for their damage output). Storms are much better and probably the ONLY more useful conjuration than dremoras for dragons but storm thralls do not regenerate their health either. But even so, dremora lords are way better than storm atronachs for any battle situation besides dragons or ranged opponents that cannot be reached. Those situations are always exceptional tho...so dremora lord for practicality still pwns the storm atronach.

Now what about these ridiculous conjurations Dawnguard and DLC added? Truly I mean ridiculous especially with DLC since NONE of the new ones like Seekers or Ash Spawns are affected by the conjuration tree for twin souls or duration. And then on top of that...they still stink compared to dremora lords! Seekers don't do near the damage and have roughly the same health. Same with ash spawns.

Now what about Dawnguard? Mistman? Give me a break. Boneman? As horrible as the skeletons you fight that you can kill with a few hits with your bare fists. Wrathman? Now HERE we got something finally! The Wrathman is actually about just as strong as the dremora when you compare its weaker damage (but with dragonbone weapons it's still decent) but much higher health. Indeed Wrathman would be more useful than dremoras for players who want summons that can tank really well.

But even so for the high level players (so long term wise) who fight on high difficulties and summons cost them hardly any magic, dremoras are still way better than Wrathman practicality wise again for their sheer damage output. And it's not like a Wrathman is any different with a fighting style compared to a dremora. Only difference is less damage but more health.

So there you go. I suppose the ONLY other conjuration that has a sufficiently different style than a dremora but equally as good in its own way for battle purposes is the Ash Guardian. But you can't conjure it friendly without mining all day long to get tons of freaking heart stones!! How stupid is that? If it costs something to summon an ash guardian then it should certainly cost you something else to summon dremoras. Now truthfully the ash guardian is still useful to use an store heart stones with whenever you want THREE conjurations (you can conjure an ash guardian beyond the twin souls perks so you can three summons out using it) but that's again only for exceptional circumstances.

So..there is only a couple of other summons that have better use than dremoras for EXCEPTIONAL circumstances. Over all though, duel casting dremora lords pwns absolutely all other conjurations.

My big takeaway is I still love dremora lords and will continue gleefully watching them decapitate guards screaming "No match at all!" but Bethseda did a horrible job with conjuration VARIETY once you get over level 50 because duel casting two dremora lords is king over pretty much anything.

Yes you're quite right, you just can't beat the Dremora twins!

I've had pretty good success with Ash Spawns, though I primarily use them as meat shields so that I can pummel the target with bound arrows.

Test them against a dremora and guess who will win in the fight? I suppose ash spawns are useful for doing both ranged and melee attacks and their health is good indeed but their damage is no comparison. Dremoras could tank just as well for you yet actually do huge damage with you too.

Oh and back to my OP I forgot about gargoyles which are probably equivalent from their decent health and damage output (still not near as much though) but mostly from the fact they absorb health with their attacks making gargoyles the ultimate tanks. And that makes them very useful for vampire lords but then that's why dremoras practicality wise crush their usefulness: you can only use gargoyles if your vampire and only in your lord form.

So I rest my case.

Dremora Lords aren't overkill. They are intended to be high-tier, late game summons. Something's gotta be the best, and they're it.

For the record, I agree that half of the master level spells svck Dead Thrall is beyond good if you use it on the right people, but the rest are disappointing. I also would've liked to see more variety in all levels of conjurations like we had on Morrowind and Oblivion. Though the necromancy aspect has been improved greatly.