Anyone that has played a pure mage specializing in destruction has definitely experienced this. Your early game starts out without too much trouble as you throw down Fury spells, use flames to roast enemies and conjure familars to smite your enemies. Eventually you get the Firebolt spell which allows you a bit more pew pew and a flame atronach to help you rain down destruction. As time goes on however, the enemies keep getting stronger and stronger as your spells do progressively less damage. Eventually it get to the point where you cannot kill a single enemy with you full mana bar and spend the rest of the fight watching your summon and Lydia to kill off whatever you were fighting while you wait for your mana to regen. Now your first reaction may be to claim that power of destruction spells is underpowered, however I believe this is definitely not the case.

Destruction's main issues I believe stem from the prohibitive cost of midgame spells which has a number of effects on the player's progression:
1) Destruction levels up too slowly - The progression of your Destruction skill is slow as you're required to constantly cast destruction skills to level it up. As Destruction's midgame spells are overcosted you are not realistically able to do this. This slows your progression to the next tier of spells as well as slowing your skillups in destruction which reduce the cost of spells in that tree. This leads to a frustrating experience for the player in the mid game who spends most of a fight waiting for mana to regen instead of fighting.

2) Dual casting perk is not worth it early on - The dual casting perk is not mana efficient and further exacerbates the mana inefficiences of the destruction tree dishing out 220% spell damage for 280% spell cost. This perk is actually worse for the mage to invest into until they have enough gear available to reduce the cost of destruction spells to zero/near zero and are able to unlock the Impact perk. This in part is the reason I believe a lot of mages experience so many problems with mana in the midgame. A tooltip that accurately describes what the perk does might help mages to avoid it until later in the game.

3) Enchanting is 100% required to be an effective destruction mage - Due to the overcosted nature of destruction spells the only way to play a destruction mage in a rewarding manner currently is to layer on gear enchanted to reduce the cost of destruction spells to compensate of the cost of the spells. This makes mages a pain to play until you get your enchanting to the point where you can put high level enchants on helm, ring, necklace and armour. Either tweaking the cost of the midgame destruction spells or increasing the availability of gear that reduces the cost of spells (Specifically destruction spells) in the early to midgame would definately deal with this issue.

On the flip side though, once you get past the midgame, have levelled your enchanting and have 100% spell cost reduction for the destruction tree the game becomes incredibly easy. I don't think having all your destruction spells become free in the late game is a good way to deal with the problem and would love an alternative which keeps the game fun. Possibly making the effect of the spell cost reduction enchants multiplicative instead of additive and tweaking the cost of all destruction spell costs would leave the late game mage fun to play while balanced.

TL;DR - Destruction spells cost too much so mage play style revolves around leveling enchanting to the point of making the spells free.

EDIT:
Had a few people asking about what gear to use to reduce the spell cost of destruction spells to zero. Full details http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1283388-destruction-is-not-underpowered-destruction-spells-are-overcosted/page__view__findpost__p__19376023.

why not just drink some magicka regenrating potions :/ cant really call your self a mage if you dont use the most basic thing all mages should know

Destruction spells are the bomb

-Cheers

If the cost is a problem, then why not enchant your gear to reduce the cost? From what I hear, it can stack to 100%.

Oh... sorry for not reading your whole post until after I posted. Still, if there is an easy solution for it, then why are you complaining? Both alchemy and enchanting fix it. A mage should want to take at least one of those anyway. A non-mage won't utilize destruction heavily enough to require constant use. Either way, it's not a problem.

http://youtu.be/3GrV3OZdjP8

its underpowered when a book in game tells u that fire is a trolls weakness yet it takes many firebolts to kill

Entire post made irrelevant by the fact that you can enchant your gear to 100% cost reduction. The real issue that Destruction spells do not scale at all. You get 50% damage from perks and that's it. Your Flames will do 12 damage per second at level 10 with perks when your enemies have 30 health, and it feels awesome. But when your Flames still does 12 damage per second at level 50 when your enemies have 3000 health, it svcks ass.

So it's not really viable in a battlemage build is it then? Damn.

P.S. how does one make a destro spellcost reduced by 1000%

The problem with a mage is getting to that point, after which the game is too easy. It's not a case of the game being difficult up until that point, just tedious. What I'm proposing is a change that keeps the game fun while requiring the same progression down the enchanting tree to get the spell reduction enchants.

It's problem as others stated is that it has little to no scaling options compared to any kind of weapon use. It doesn't matter how many times you can cast something when its going to take well over 20-30 casts to kill anything never mind a boss type. The other problem is how bad magicka regen is in combat.

I know it's long but can people please read the post before they respond to it.

The issue being discussed isn't with the end game mage who has free destruction spells. The problem is the midgame before you have the enchants to counteract the high cost of your destruction spells. I feel either making available spell cost reducing gear earlier in the game or tweaks made to the spell cost reduction you receive as your destruction skill levels up would leave the midgame fun and not affect the later game. I'm talking about the midgame, please keep the discussion about that.

Late game the scaling of your spell damage isn't as important as the spells are free anyway. If you enchanted your gear right you can keep everything perma-stunned with free spells, but that's a discussion for a different time.

I love your guys' logic. Allow me to translate to an oblivion context:

Post 1: "I cant tank enemies, they hit me a few times and I die. Isn't armor underpowered?"(Not really, just an example)

Post 2: "Can't you enchant your armor for 100% chameleon? Why are you complaining?"



...because it's not any fun to play like that. If i wanted to cast spells forever, i would press ~tgm and blow stuff up for a while. I play a game for a sense of reward, and running around flinging an infinite number of spells just because somehow my enchanted armor can violate the laws of magical thermodynamics doesn't appeal to the effort/reward system.



On a different note, i fully agree with this. I don't understand why they made Destruction have so much less in the way of useful perks when compared to, say, One-handed.

Comparison:


One handed Perks: Armsman(100% damage), Bladeseman(20% chance of doing more critical damage(assume 100% extra damage, so equates t 50% damage increase), Dual flurry(35% extra damage) dual savagery(50% extra damage), Savage Strike(25% damage), Fighting Stance(25% more effecient power strikes). Oh, and they can also do power attacks, that about doubles their damage while they can do them.


Destruction Perks: Destruction(50% more effecient), Augmented Fl/Fr/Sh(50% damage), Dual Casting(20% damage boost, 25% less effecient.)

Culminating in...

One Handed: 500% damage, 1500% damage when using power attacks, and 75% normal stamina usage And did you know you can power attack with even one stamina?


Destruction: 180% damage, and 70% magicka usage.


Do you see the problem yet?

Get the Black Star, kill a bunch of bandits, disenchant one of the hundreds of Destruction cost reduction enchants you'll find on random bandit mages, level enchanting to get 3rd perk to get 60% better enchantments, enchant five of your six pieces of armor with 21% cost reduction and your set with one enchantment left over for whatever you wish. This requires level 10 or 15 at the most, at which point Destruction damage is not yet pitiful.

If you would play with spells from other schools you would be successful.

I play a pure mage, level 25 and never had this problem. I always carry a stock of mana potions but rarely have to use them. The system works fine for me.

This sums it up.

Magicka potions aren't available in the quantities you need in the midgame to keep up with your mana requirements. Even if you take alchemy the ingredients you need aren't available in the quantities you'd need to make potions to keep up with your mana use. For each destruction spell you cast you'd have to consume multiple potions to just break even. Tweaking the amount of magicka provided by potions or the ingredients needed to make them might be another way to help deal with midgame mana issues. Imagine as a warrior if each time you swung your sword (Non-power attack) you'd have to consume 2 stamina potions to continue fighting and you get an idea of what mages have to deal with in the midgame before they have the tools needed to deal with their mana issues.

I've been playing a pure magic and magic seems fine for me. I'm level 16 and I can kill most enemy's in 3 hits or under, including trolls. Cost seems fine to, I rarely run out of magicka and when I do it regains pretty quickly.

I pretty much agree with the OP if the fix is an exploit to break the magicka system something is wrong especially since you have to level enchanting to make your skill useful and it is hard to pull off for 1/2 your game. Hell the spells on their face are fairly obviously poorly designed, I mean like random numbers thrown at a dart board would be better type design. Flame bolt does 25 damage and costs what 40ish mana when you first get it, incinerate does 60 damage and costs what 300 mana. A 50% increase in damage and the mana cost is almost rocking in at 10 times more expensive. Dual casting you spend a perk to be less efficient, for a measly 10% spike in power. And this is ignoring the scaling problems of destruction. The horrifically bad design should have been apparent if they had play tested it for anything longer than 2 minutes of game play.

OP is right.

I rerolled my destruction mage to archer because I didnt want fights to consist of 5 seconds nuking and 5 minutes kiting/running around for my damn mana to get back up.

You go OOM killing one enemy and have 4 left with full HP.

And I played altmer and pumped 2/3'rds into magicka.

As the OP states, the spells simply cost to much.

Early/Mid game you can flash the novice spells for a half second then wait 2 seconds while the damage ticks then hit it again for another half second. It takes virtually no mana but does the same damage as spamming it non-stop. This works until you can get the cost reduction enchants.

You should be using wall of flames instead of flames. Novice mages use notice spells. Expert mages use expert spells.

Melees characters don't use iron swords at level 40.

my khajiit destruction mage failed (at first, got sorta better over time) because of this, im going to ge a high elf mage with apprentice stone and give it a shot (that in itself should be waaaaaaay over powered but on master i still bet i will need potions)

p.s. when you wife cooks you a meal does that mana/stamina/health regan boost stay forever? if so then we could eat more meals than a khajiit takes skooma

If you guys are having problems with mana regen, use the formula of 5:1 magicka to health distribution and lvl up your restoration to get the bonus regen. Basically this means every 5 lvls, increase health, otherwise, bump magicka and get the resto perk for faster mana regen. You will have low health, but having Lydia or some other tank will help. Around lvl 20, start putting more into health. Also, try to not dual cast until you have a huge mana pool or have lots of destro mana reduction enchants. Use your other spells, such as conjuration and illusion, to help.

its a problem for bad players only in my opinion. Its pretty simple to enchant your gear and reduce cost and also simply... chugging potions. i mean theres literally 100s around. theyre easy to make.

So far ppl are running around taking out a dragons whole health bar easily. It is very easy to be successful as destruction and a mage and to level up your enchanting because you can enchant gear and one shot or two shot many enemies. from clearing a few dungeons and soultrapping you can literally get enchanting done up to your 50s easily not to mention selling everything makes easy gold because your gear is way less weighing. you just need carry potions.. many potions or soulgems.

that said I am playing on master and have been doing so since the beginning. I believe the OP and others complaining are simply novice and want everything easy and passive.

You have not invested in what the game offers.


edit: i have to add... USE higher lvl spells at higher levels. seriously... the vendor.. look at him. have you even gone to the college? i imagine this guy is running around using novice spells and crying now that hes higher level..