Mage power do not raise by damage.
At first I was saying the same thing than you but then I realised how it works.

In fact, your damage do not raise, but as you level, you will realize that you canno't use higher spell until you get a certain amount of magika / regen.
In fact, when you get your super Fire Ball / Ice Tornado / Chain lightning (srry I don't know the exact english name I play in FR) and you only do not have enough mana to spam them, cuz u realise their damage is 1dmg for 1magika (roughly).
Which gives u 2 choices,
Fireball (rank3) for more damage but my mana will melt like an icecream on the road in august during a shiny day
Firebolt (rank2) for more "damage per magika", I won't wtf pwn my ennemy but OVERALL I'll do more damage.

Then you get more mana / mp5 / reduce mana cost and you finally can spam Fire ball.
Soon after this point u can get rank 4 spells which still cost WAAYYY too much mana.

But after some point the scenario will repeat and u'll be able to cast these spell like.

Finally u get the super omg spell (Master).
But they cost so much mana that u don't do them unless there is a lot of ennemies.

And then, if u invested somewhat some time leveling enchanting, you should reach 100 enchanting quite soon. When you get 100 enchanting, u enchant a ring / a neck / ring+neck for double destruction spell cost (but 75% reduce should be enough otherwise u make ur perks mana cost reduced useless).

And then... fine, u're damage don't scale.
But think about it.

fireball rank 4 = 90dmg
90x2 = 180dmg
consider dual casting (I think it's 50% dmg bonus... if someone could confirm)
u do 260dmg every 1.5sec.

And u're not even in melee, and u stunlock ur target, and it's aoe.

So u're power do not comes from "damage itself" but from "mana" cuz higher is your mana (or lower are the cost of your spell) more u can spam, and trust me,

When I have my frosty tank
+ Blizzard
+ Spamming Ice lance
+ running around with my frost aura.

It's freaking awesome how EVERYTHING DIES at the speed of light (and do no dmg cuz their stamina is at -100)

Mages are fine, but I agree, the leveling can be though against high hp ennemies cuz "u don't have enough mana".
Lowering some spell mana cost could be great.

Read the freaking thread dude, you're only level 25+. this is about level 40-50+ mages. Jesus the ignorance in replies is astounding

Step 1: get enchanting to 100
Step 2: Enchant 25% destruction and restoration magicka reduction on 4 pieces of apparels.
Step 3: take Impact in the destruction tree
Step 4: Chain-stun enemies with dual cast (I've soloed blood dragons on master lvl difficulty with ease just lolspamdualcast fireballz at them till they drop)
Step 5: Profit!


only downside is your follower tends to die alot ;/ oh well collateral damage is collateral

Yes, you can spam them to death, but who really like to kill something by slowly signing its eyebrows for 20 minutes when you could just run up and stab it.

I made a post on a similar thread. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1274043-this-is-a-single-player-game-balance-does-not-matter/page__p__19283046#entry19283046

To sum it up. You have abilities that pure warrior and pure stealth characters don't have. You also have weaknesses. If it was possible to one-shot enemies, then it would be possible for enemies to one-shot you. And that would make mages OP, and then non-magic folk would complain. Of course, I'm just a level 10 battle-mage, so perhaps I don't understand the problem as well as you do.

I don't get why people are saying this, being my mage has been kicking butt. Either dual cast with a heal spell on one side and firebolt on the other. or just use dual firebolts. Always remember to take the augmented perks, and half magic use perks.

arent we all through with this now? yes skyrim unlike oblivion doesnt let you spam destruction magic and win it was only not so lame in oblivion because we could still wield weapon and shield at the same time! If you could one shot anything with just one, freaking one skill that's ridiculous!

now I agree destruction alone is somewhat not on par with other damage dealing skills and need revision. personally I'm all for spell making mods but playing the game as a mage is totally different matter. No class depends on one skill alone no matter their dealing skill is OP or not. I mean a warrior weapon damage is only OP when you "master" 3 crafting skills and a weapon skill right? same thing for armor add that up its 5 skills. If a warrior sticks to one hand alone he is going to DIE even on adept difficulty so many times skyrim is just goint to give up on this dovahkin to save their world.

that's the problem with destruction. if destruction alone is powerful enough to tackle enemy alone even before they can get to you a mage can literally cakewalk the game just with one skill. with warrior even if one hand is good it still needs armor and all other kinds of thing cause it has to be up front the enemy. give mage a ranged weapon that can own anybody? that's what I call broken.

my level 30 mage relies on destruction first and conjuration second.. i have yet to encounter an issue with my fireballs being "weak" .
most enemies go down after 1, or 2, tougher enemies 2 or 3 shots double casting.. and dragons? around 7 or 8 fireballs doublecasting..

and this isnt even includeing mixing the magic such as fireball in one hand and blizzard in another (slowing the opponent allowing more frequent spam of fireballs..)
or placeing my lightning runes on the floor before entering battle (taking a third of their health)
ALSO not includeing that you basically have an endless supply due to potions of restore magicka,

bottom line.. i bet your one of those kids that fight standing still, and dont even use your hotkeys...
idiot.

Wait for the mods. I'm planning something......

I'm playing the game on Master difficulty. I'm level 30. I've specialized in Destruction, Enchanting, and a bit of Conjuration. I completed the College of Winterhold quests at level 20. I don't use dragon shouts, smithing, or any potion besides ones that restore health and magicka.

Between my robes and enchanted armor pieces, Destruction spells cost almost nothing, and my magicka regenerates ridiculously quickly. I am very vulnerable to physical damage but I can blast off around 15 fireballs without a pause. I destroy everything, but I need to keep my distance to survive.

It's easy for me to kill a companion because my area damage spells hurt them, but that's fair since they generally get all the attention and keep me alive (having a companion rule where dead is dead is the only way to keep them from breaking the game as a ranged mage).

I am still at Destruction level 73 and thus I do not have Expert or Master Destruction spells, but I still feel very overpowered. I can kill a dragon with a quick blast of 10-20 fireballs and am rarely hurt by one. However, if I didn't have +200% Magicka regeneration from equipment and that Restoration perk, this would not be the case.

If you are too weak, you aren't realizing that the amount of Magicka you have is the limitation in your power, though you do need to get the perks for half magicka cost. You should be using magicka enchantments instead of anything else, and definitely do not want to be using armor (the magicka bonuses are pathetic for armor).

If you are overpowered, you don't have to be using enchanting to make crazy equipment that soups up your magicka. I certainly wish that the game were a bit more balanced in terms of making it so Destruction spells use up all the magicka for an armored character but do a lot of damage per hit, while a non-armored character using enchanting can't get overpowered so easily (Archmage robes and Morokei have made every opponent seem weaksauce since I got them).

However, it's your choice to take advantage of the systems available to you currently. I'm probably going to transition into being a robe-wearing Spellsword just to make things a bit harder at this point.

Again, this only applies at high levels. People who cay "just dual cast fireBOLTs" for example have literally no idea what we are talking about. Eventually, as your battle mage you will get to the point that you never fire your spells anymore because it does not do enough damage to justify the time you could have spent hitting the enemy.

Also, Archers can do absolutely massive damage in comparison to mages as well.

Destruction magic has ONE purpose. To deal damage. To destroy. It is purely and only a DPS skill, so the fact that it can not dps at high levels means that it is totally worthless to ever spend perks on it. Which implies that it is not working as inteneded.

What if I am playing a light armor, speech, enchanter who can sneak and pickpocket, but wants to use destruction as the primary damage type? Your doomed at high levels, and you do not have enough perks to get those "other mage advantages."

This is suposed play as you want, and I want to kill stuff with lightning, not summons or other things.

You have to remember, that putting points in destruction does not mean that you are going to be a pure mage, nor does it mean that you want to have other magic skills. You can say al you want that it is not inteneded to stand on its own, but if it does not stand up at all, then there is no point in ever using it, so now we have a game with 17 skills instead of 18. Broken mechanic. It needs to be fixed.

Stop getting on these and pretending you have the high moral ground when you do not even use the skill.

Ah eloquence. So refreshing.

Lol really? I find destruction to be very powerful .. especially when dual wielded ..

have fun at level 40+

This is about high level mages, the 30's are when you will start to notice an odd decline in your power (but not unmanageable), at level 50 you will feel pathetic.

If you are not talking about high level mages, stop posting.

That's why the give us the beautiful luxury of being able to choose from more than 1 skill. So much freedom, eh?

Get all the elemental boosting perks. Then enchanting is your friend. Fortify you destruction damage constant effect.

You'll be doing well over 1.5 times damage.

Seriously?

Destruction = Mage personal DPS skill.

Success or failure of a DPS skill = If it can DPS

Destruction can not DPS at HIGH levels = failure of a skill.

You always intend to reach high levels while play an rpg, it is part of the progression.

Please stop writing the same thing over and over. (edit: in response to seeing this exact thing on several different threads. It is not constructive, this is about a skill needing to be fixed, not just accepting that and taking another one instead)

There is no fortify destruction damage constant effect, that is exactly what I am saying they should put in the game.

Conjuration is quite useful as a mage, but that's about it. Destruction is the primary combat magic, so you'd think it'd be about on par with the other two forms of combat (melee and archery) but it really doesn't come close, and it has a limited function in combat due to the aggressiveness of enemies and your comparably small magicka bar.

The irony of the entire thing is that Mage NPC are ridiculously powerful, and simply dont seem to run out of magicka.



To be honest, if the construction set was out, I'd wouldn't be here complaining, I'd be fixing the problem that bethesda is evidently too lazy to fix.. so I wish they'd hurry up and do one or the other.

The modding community will fix it, but it would be nice if Bethesda would do it instead so that they could spend their time on other interesting things lol.

So.. many.. of these.. threads! :dies:

OP: They need to implement a +Destruction Damage Enchantment. That should solve everything.

so lets get this straight..your a destruction ONLY mage. you rely on playing a 600+ hour game soley on one skill??? your only tool of the trade for getting things done is a fireball? or lightning bolt? one simple button over and over and over?

...and your complaining that its too hard to play that way from lvl 40 to 50...?

do you realize how this argument truly makes you sound? have you ever tried slaying a giant with a dagger naked?

I would fix it, but the damn creation kit isn't out yet. So many dungeons are inaccessible to me due to the ridiculously powerful bosses, and frankly kiting backwards down hallways frantically trying to regenerate magica really doesn't make for a fun game, which svcks because I don't really want to start a new character right now. Especially since with a stealth character I could easily one-shot that same boss with a dagger.

And when I lower difficulty, then suddenly the other 80% of enemies become way too easy, so that's not really an option either. Im sure once I get a summon dremora lord spell I should be quite capable of handling most enemies, but in the mean time these mega-dungeon-bosses are just killing me mercilessly because my puffs of flame dont do an inch of their health away.


Yes, that is unwise, but the numbers are quite obvious. destruction is drastically inferior to one handed, two handed, or archery weapons.. being that destruction is the primary combat magic, just as those other three skills are the primary melee combat and primary archery combat, destruction should at least be up to par with them.. but frankly, it's nowhere near that point.

you must be a lower level mage.. its really hard for the first 10 or 15 or so levels...trust me i couldnt count how many dungeons i had to leave because i wasnt strong enough.. once you hit the adept spells itll get easier again.

And then get even harder once you hit level 40.