More and I now think that bows are overpowered and destruction is underpowered. How about some balance?

:D

If you sneak, go bow. If you don't, go destro.

A bow is a great assassination tool.

Destro is good for when the enemy can see you (and reach you quickly).

Bows have scaling damage. Destruction does not.

The choice should be obvious.

I think archery is only OP if you exploited crafting and used high level arrows. I used the exploits (not full blown, maybe only about 2/3's) and my bow is only really killer when i'm using high-level arrows. Ancient Nordic arrows do pretty reasonable damage, Ebony/Daedric are sick.

also with bow you aren't forced to use 1 enchant which breaks the entire magicka system

'

Plus you can use alchemy to add things to the arrows too I think

:D

The bow works pretty well when they can see you, too. If not better.

The bow's 50% stagger isn't as nice as Destruction's 100%, but with scaling damage and whatnot, I think it comes out on top.

Bows Take to long to wind up and kill, even when your archery is 100

Cheers

Critical strike perks is what makes bows awesome.

Coming from a destruction user, bows, destro had be good but it also cant, bow [censored] no matter what.

after enough perks I was able to charge right into a room full of enemies and go buck wild with my bow. Nobody would touch me.

Magic svcks so bad. So bad. I tried. So bad.

imo.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you.

When you're in sneak mode, and they don't know you're coming, it doesn't matter how long it takes. If you use a bow when the enemy is on top of you, you're doing it wrong - that's when you switch to a 2H sword or something.

Just to give you an example. Yesterday I was doing the next to last mage guild quest in a dungeon. The last "boss" was a priest - pretty high level. I hit him with 3X damage while in sneak, 3X damage while in sneak with a critical hit, and 3 shots regular damage because he saw me. He never got close to me when he died.

I rarely have any opponent come close enough to me where I have to complain about how long it takes to pull the bowstring. And, there's a perk - if I remember correctly - that allows you to speed that process up.

Even though I prefer to use a bow, destruction has more options in how it can be used.

Destruction can be used in one hand allowing use of a ward, quick invisibility, or another type of destruction spell.
Destruction uses elements and that helps against enemies weak to an element.

Bows are two handed and slow to move while drawing an arrow. And the damage is dependent on how far the arrow is drawn before firing. Sneak is really necessary with a bow because a mage can really hurt if you have no ward up or magical resistance.

Higher level bows draw slower. Also the quick draw makes a HUGE difference. With several enemies running straight at you, you can slowmo and take them all out.

I really love that perk. Been considering getting the second stage of it. Does it make a significant difference?

If you are just interested in min-maxing, then archery is probably better. If however, you wish to role-play a mage...

This isn't an MMO. There is no one else in the world you need to be balanced against. In other words, everything not SUPPOSED to be balanced with everything else.