I play on my dark elf, and everytime I cast a spell I think to myself, "wouldnt matter if I hadn't cast that spell". I end up switching from fireball to incinerate only to remember that takes only a pinch of a giants health. Destruction is like the least legit thing to have in your other hand. If your not dual wielding spells, then theres really no use. Unless you feel as satisfied as I do when you see a bandit ragdoll when you finish them off with a spell. Other than that, my enchanted weapon is way more practical than a spell.

It is overpowered.

I only use destruction as a last resort when playign as a mage. I'll only take spells up to adept, along with dual casting and impact. Being that I primarily use Illusion and Conjuration, if a giant or bandit chief gets past my summoned minion, then I'll duel cast a fireball to stop them in their tracks.

Probably now it is, because you can mod the hell out of it

I haven't done anything to magic yet.

I started a sorceress a couple of weeks ago and I went With fire and dual casting for destrcution Magic. Once I got impact I abused the animation time between each stun With firebolts on the enemies to a point they couldn't do anything. I play on normal though as a high elf using highborn, but I found it very easy

Gee, I wonder how much duhmage the enchanted weapon do.

1,322,174+

since magic doesn't get sneak bonuses, it can be seen as weaker. Since a low tier weapon performing a sneak attack can do more than a high level spell...

Magic + shouts working together can be scarey powerful though, so don't despair learn to think tactics and go from there.

Utterly useless on Legendary in my experience. But on Expert? Stagger Dragons with fireballs that do more damage to those on fire? Yes please.

The consensus seems to be that it's underpowered unless you dual-wield it, perk it out, and use either Highborn or lots of cost reducing enchantments. Then, it seems to become a beast.

I've never really gotten that far; I seem to get better results with Illusion.

It's perfect for me, scale wise.

hence why I always play vanilla magic on adept and melee and sneaking on expert/master personally find it more fun that way.

Have you seen the spell making mod?

By the nine that mod is awesome.

As for the topic, I almost never used destruction because it bored me to death on console's but, I think it's okay. The enemies that use destruction however....those [censored]ers have some insane magic damage.

I think you're confusing destruction magic with sneak archery

Had it scaled with perks like every other skill then it would've been fine but Beth hates magic like they hate battleaxes.

: face desk : I came back to these forums to just check what was on the front page, and I almost died when I saw this on the front page .

TBH, I don't even know how you typed this with a straight face. Destruction is anything but overpowered. In fact, it is a barely shell of it's former self. Destruction needs to actually live up to it's very name...without abusing the system to achieve zero cost magic. It falls flat on all accounts.

Expert Incinerate spell+ Augmented Flames 2/2 + Aspect of Terror = 100 dmg a pop, plus lingering. Dual Cast adds 220% more damage for ~240 dmg a pop. Toss in 0-95% cost reduction, stacking damage, a Destruction potion, and the Impact Perk

aka absolute chaos

this is why it is op. yes it is a player made choice, but still...

fixed the cost reduction part.

It's only weak by itself I'd say, and I think everything else is weak by itself too.

I'm sorry, your comment still doesn't make any sense to me. Abusing the system that Bethesda put in place is a choice the player makes yes, but here's the thing, had Beth not gutted a school of magic that wasn't broke to begin with, they never would've had to include zero cost magicka via abuse of the system in order for it to be a viable school of magic.

Destruction suffers from the problem that not only does it scale like absolute [censored]...basically meaning not at all, and the cost to damage ratio which is so far out of whack, once you get to the higher level spells, they're not even worth bothering to use.

The problem is that destruction can't stand up alone like the other attack skills can, you need no enchanting or enchanted gear to fire arrows at will nor do you need potions to make sure the damage stays on par later in the game...all you need is the perks within that skill, unlike destruction.

What's the highest destruction damage that you can do with a potion created by alchemy without the use of other booster potions to create the fortify damage potion or any other similar exploits?

Cost reduction is in no way an abuse; it is an integral part of Destruction. The Devs carefully structured the perk system to support it at 100% with fully developed Enchanting alone; no requirements for anything else like potions or other fortifications. No exploits needed.

Here's what I don't get. If it isn't doing well for you, why don't people just down the difficulty? Destruction magic is great on expert and decent on master, but better with enchanting. If you can't enjoy it on master, go to expert, or even normal. No one should have issues with it on normal.

I would most certainly call 100% cost reduction an abuse of the system. Like I said, had Beth not chosen to gut the magic system, things like 100%cost reduction wouldn't be necessary.