Should a mage just completely forget about the destruction tree? I was contemplating a hardcoe conjuring mage with summons and bound weapons and all.

What is the solution for a magic wielding adventurer if he can't shoot fireballs and bolts of lightning?

Change destruction with a mod and it should be fine.

I'm on console. :confused:

turn down the difficulty if the game is too hard for you.

If you are on console use Conjuration.

I haven't gotten that high level yet to tell if destruction is truely underpowered, but I have severe doubts that it could be bad enough that it would make a pure-mage unplayable. Mages have the largest variety of useful ranged spells and abilities... so long as you keep your wits about you you should be able to handle anything the game throws at you. Comparing the DPS of different class builds is moronic when you consider how many other aspects to combat there are.

It was an honest question. I was only reflecting the many posts I've seen of people claiming that destruction is next to useless at higher levels. I was just wondering what the solution might be for people who like to play mages. That's all.

The only people who claim its useless at higher levels literally think they should be able to use Destruction, and only Destruction, in achieving every possible goal in the game. They ignore Conjuration, Alteration, Illusion, and Restoration, then complain mages lack spells and power.

Yeah it's pretty bad, every thread of people complaining about destruction, they're all talking about mages as if they were exactly like warriors in every way except that they use spells instead of swords for damage. But there's so much more to it then that. You probably have to be a little bit more clever to survive as a mage, but isn't that how it should be anyways?

Think about this. A warrior puts on some heavy armor, and a couple of points into the relevant tree, and tanks damage pretty well with little input on his part.

Now a mage puts points into a crowd control/utility tree and uses the related spells at the right time to avoid certain death. What is the mage's reward for playing more skillfully than a warrior? Poor damage output. If mages are squishier and take greater skill to survive, there should be a reward for that. There isn't. After all, aren't mages traditionally glass cannons?

Yeah, let's ignore the fact it's a valid play-style that has always been effective in TES up until Skyrim. How about there are more play-styles than yours? Just because you don't like playing the game that way doesn't make it wrong.

Restoration in left hand and fist in the right. Haha idk

Cheers

I'm sorry, but do any of your posts ever have any meaning or a point? Honestly not trying to be an arsehole, but I keep seeing stuff like this from you.



:thumbsup: Thank you.

Depends on the mage. In other games DoT mages are not nukers and can be quite resilient. Anything that has a good life drain spell or protection spells can be very resilient. Playing as a full on destruction mage should make you a glass cannon but it seems that there is much discrepancy on whether destruction is a cannon or a paintball gun.

just play on adept or something something, people complaining are almost always on master difficulty and role playing pure mage so they get one hit because they still have 100 health and wear robes.

Well even if you are investing in Restoration and Alteration with Destruction as your main source of damage you are going to have problems.

Destruction is fine, hell the master level spells are awesome. also i have enough enchantments that i have 100% reduce cost on destruction so all my points are in health and stamina instead.

I've been levelling as a stealthy mage guy. My main skills are sneak, destruction (specialized to shock spells), and illusion(invisibility) with a bit of dabbing in archery. I play on expert and the only problems I have with killing is running out of magicka if there's 5+ guys, and I'm only in a situation like that if I fail to assassinate them all properly, or kill them all at once.

So as a destruction user, I have no problems with it.

And there's my two cents

Er difficulty only solves it for destruction only users. If you tone it down for say a pure Mage then yes destruction is usable but now conjuration completely steamroles by itself. If I had to choose between destruction n conjuration or archery n conjuration I would go with the 2nd choice just because destruction is so weak. Also what's the point of being a battlemage if your one handed weapon rules over destruction. Sorry for my lack of grammar btw...

Thus your main source of damage is not Destruction, which is where the problem is. You said it yourself "if I fail to assassinate them all".

Exactly. My 56 mage playing on master difficulty has gotten all his kills with destruction spells.

The only problem seen with destruction on the forums is a small group of people who want a seriously gimped, 1 dimensional, badly played character to be 'balanced'.

Just ignore them and have fun.

A conjuration mage does very well, I use bound weapons and an army of permanent pets. Just remember you really need Alteration and Restoration to back you up for sure.

You can make destruction work just fine. I play nearly all encounters with destruction, it is a beast. See my guide in my signature for how spells scale in this game.

You will find dissenters that will tell you destruction is horrible in nearly every single mage thread. At the same time, you will find plenty that will tell you that it is perfectly fine.

It boils down to a matter of differing opinion's on how magic should work. Many a forum goer fancies themselves a video game system's designer and are very opinionated on how they would like it, to the point of telling others to not use destruction or to install a mod that "fixes" it. (of which most of the mods have been the equivalent of lowering the difficulty slider)

I'm now level 54 on master difficulty with destruction as my primary source of damage, and I don't see the problem. If anything, the game may be too easy.


Granted, you'll never do http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=Ltnrl9UOdAQ&annotation_id=annotation_533564&feature=iv&v=zunhTv0GsdA kind of single target damage with destruction, but really most people will agree that smithing removes any challenge from the game. And you don't want that anyways.

:foodndrink:

How can a high level character be one dimensional? He had to use those perks and raise level in something to get to said level. Its only a handful of fan boys that are defending destruction.

Just ignore them and have fun.

You really think these people are playing with ONLY destruction. Really?

You know what, I give up. I guess it's TOO simple a concept to understand. Destruction is the direct damage school, it lacks in doing that.

I'm done trying to reason with... people.