How do you figure?

As a mage you have conjuration to augment your damage dealing, only the damage is done by your summons.
A two-handed warrior only has his sword and so on.

Might I ask, have you played on Adept or expert mode with your fully maxed out uber destro mage? Tell me was it as hard?

If they balanced the game for the hardest difficulty mode they'd be morons, the game would be TOO easy ALL the time.

It's the same in any other RPG game, like for example Dragon age origins, you have to start micro managing and making use of everything you have on hardest to survive.

This is what no one here gets, you can't play on the master level without expecting to use other spells and everything you got, you can't expect to kill uber bosses in one magicka bar.
This is WHY it is hard difficulty.

Many have said playing pure destro is a lot easier on normal or expert mode.

Yet a conjuration mage alone IS powerful enough. Funny how that works out.



The other archetypes do not have forced damage type playstyles. This is silly, stop telling people to go conjuration or go home.

BTW, a 2H,1H,or BOW player can all take Conjuration as well, and be far better character than Destro + Conj.

But you can do all that and more! ... with a warrior; master was easy with one and only got easier with all the super equipment you can make. :laugh:

maybe you'll like it better to nerf warriors? :laugh:

"Stop rolepalying guys, this is the way you're supposed to roleplay"

If I want to focus almost solely on two-handed abilities, the game lets me and it's a totally viable option. If I wish to invest heavily in destruction, the game becomes impossible at higher levels. Do you see the problem here?


If I only use destruction, then Im only using magic. What is a pure mage? It's somebody who only uses magic. If I only use destruction, then Im noly using magic, therefore I'm a pure mage. (though thats not the case anyways) irregardless, the only two useful spell types in mage combat are summoning and destruction... woad spells simply prolong your inevitable death; actually they dont even do that, they just waste your offensive capabilities and you die in a equal volume of time. Unfortunately, in summoning a creature you waste magicka, and if that creature simply gets wiped out or outright ignored by your enemy, then you've only got a half magicka bar to use destruction spells with, and when that's gone you theorically have nothing.


Lets look at the obvious here:

- Fighters can deal superior damage to mages, and they dont rely on their magicka bar.
- Fighters can block with a shield or weapons for no stamina cost, wheras an equally effective "shield" for a mage drains magicka very quickly.
- Fighters generally have more health than mages, so for that reason they can afford a lot more "up close and personally" health abuse, wheras mages are reliant on keeping distance
- Fighters can choose to wear no armor, light armor, or heavy armor, or even mages robes for a magical boost. It's a necessity for a mage to wear mages robes and nothing else

agreed

I'm a little put off by this. Do pure mages not use Staves? Does Smithing/Enchanting do nothing for staves? I'm only asking because I plan on playing a Mage my next go through. I planned on a pure mage, But now I'm thinking of doing a Battlemage.

A "pure" warrior doesn't need to use all 4 different weapon styles. He just needs either 2H, DW, Sword and board, or Bow. Doing more than one is simply for fun, but NOT required.

There is no "zomg u have to take 2h and bow" for them.

First off we are talking PURE classes here, not a warrior with conjuration.

So you admit that Conjuration has a lot of additional power, you even say that it is all you need to win.
So how is it not REALLY powerful using both conjuration and Destruction?

Yet again, if playing on hardest difficulty setting you need to do this.
A warrior class many times uses Archery as well to pick off an enemy or two before the rush up to him and he starts using his two-hander or one-handers.
He also needs to invest in heavy armor etc, he needs to have enchantments to augment his defense, since he has to fight toe-to-toe.

Without using any companions, think here for a moment. Which class can put out most over all damage dealing abilities over all.

One lone two-handed warrior that tires down to zero stamina after ONE enemy and then just deals base damage cause the stamina keeps draining.

Or a mage that just summoned two atronachs and then after a little bit starts using his destro damage on top of it all.

I think it comes down to this:

If playing a glass cannon which a mage usually is, and on the highest difficulty, you need to micro manage and make use of all your possible abilities.
Which includes using summons to act as your tanks and meat shields to try and remove aggro from yourself since you are WEAK at protection.

Then you augment that with your own damage and you finish off enemies that have now got reduced health.
Not only that but in this game you have shouts that can help you out.
For example your magicka is depleted and an enemy coming for you, why not shout "etheral" and you are invulnerable until your magicka is back, or you can use the force-push one to get them off your back.

As a warrior, you have to try and make your armor as high as possible cause that is what keeps you alive, you have not summons to tank for you or a mage killing from behind the scenes whilst you tank.
You probably have to use a lot of health potions or the health spell, you might want to start with archery to whittle down an opponent before going up close.

In other words no one can expect and easy time on hardest difficulty using only ONE thing. If so then the game is broken.

So please play it on a lesser difficulty if you want to RESTRICT yourself in a NON-viable way on the hardest difficulty, I'm sure that on expert or adept you are probably perfectly viable as a destro mage.

The astounding thing is if we say "no, our damage is too low at high levels", you'll insult us. So basically, our opinion, which is based on experience and math, can't convince you guys.

Funny, that.

Being a pure mage doesn't mean you run around naked with just destruction spells and expect to be able to handle any situation as easily as any player using 6 different skills. Being a warrior requires less thought, it is certainly not more powerful. (Yes, it can achieve higher damage output per hit per target, but that does not mean it is more powerful.)

PC Pure Warriors need other skills like smithing, block and armor, and even then they need to be very creative to kill npc mages.
PC Pure Thieves need light armor, sneak, and lots of potions. Killing dragons and other un-sneak-attackable opponents requires creativity.
PC Pure Mages need enchanting, multiple schools of magic, and patience if you are refusing to use potions. Potions help a lot though.

On higher difficulty settings, destruction is hurt more than melee items since it has less possible multipliers. Destruction can still be very powerful if you mix it with alchemy and enchant however, which is the same way that melee players handle the higher settings. And also, this difficulty setting weakness is offset imo since conjuration and illusion become more powerful.

Lastly, if your refusal to use any weapons at all is because they are all influenced by the combat tree, then playing a pure thief would be far harder than a pure mage, since they would only be able to kill via pickpocketing poisons into inventories and/or leading people into traps...

I don't have 100 conjuration. Do you intentionally make your posts come off as hostile, or is that by accident? Double summons is a capstone perk, and I obviously could not repeatedly summon the atronachs over and over again, because, surprise, they cost magicka. I should not need a capstone perk in order to not die 300 times to a boss on a slightly hard difficulty while barely chipping off any of it's health.

I'm not saying other schools aren't viable either, but I don't think a warrior would face nearly the same problem as a warrior does not need to have their damage output reduced to zero when they run out of stamina.

If it was EASY to play a warrior on the MASTER difficulty level then HELL YES I want a nerf.
Where would the challenge lie if on the highest difficulty the game is "easy".
That would mean the base game is broken, think for a moment how utterly devastating you'd be on normal mode then.

This would actually make playing a mage even more attractive cause it is actually balanced for HARD setting.

Nobody's freaking saying that. Stop creating imaginary arguments if you don't actually understand what is being said. Really frustrating -.-

You clearly haven't play a mage, so stop talking about mages. :laugh:

and what is this, a mage can use shouts but a warrior can't? a warrior can't use restoration?
you don't even seem to have an idea of the rate of regeneration of magicka in combat.

I can certainly say I have an easy time on master with a warrior, does that make you a horrible player? :laugh:
lets nerf everything to the ground to destruction's level :flamethrower:

First off, blocking uses stamina it also still causes damage to come through the block, so WRONG.
One or two power swings and you have depleted your stamina, stamina is a warriors magicka bar, only difference is that YES a warrior can still swing and do damage BUT it is at a much reduced damage value.
When fighting several enemies you usually end up with an empty stamina bar in the first two swings and the rest of the fight you struggle with base damage.
Of course a warrior can take more damage up close, it's what the WHOLE CLASS IS BASED ON.
You do know what melee is right?

If a warrior playing master difficulty level can wear nothing but common clothes then the game is broken, that is how simple it is.


Before anything else, what [censored] LEVEL ARE YOU PLAYING AT????

If it is too hard playing at master then LOWER the [censored] setting, and voila you can now play a DESTRO ONLY MAGE.

If playing on Master as a warrior only using only two-handed and nothing else and it is easy, I'd argue that it is warrior that is BROKEN.
Hardest anything should never be easy.

There are just TOO MANY points I can make that say mages overall are underpowered compared to warriors that I can write a book on it. Here are just a few

1. Destruction never gets stronger.

2. Mage spells are either too weak or cost too much mana to sustain in a fight.

3. Mage runs out of mana, has to run. Warrior runs out of stamina, continues to pound heavy damage.

4. Mages do less damage than warriors AND are 10-100x less durable in battle.

5. Master level destruction spells take 5 seconds to cast, cost too much mana, and don't get stronger after you get them at level 50 while monsters get stronger.

6. Warrior late game can have insanely strong legendary armor and weapons that do 500 damage per regular swing without power swing and tank like a god, mages have the 100 damage master spell that takes 5 seconds to cast when they are vulnerable.

7. Warriors can faceroll through the game with 2 skills and two hack buttons. Mages need to constantly switch spells, run around, drink potions, use shouts, use lydia, ect just to get by.

8. Robes with magic regen/cost reduction is nowhere near as good as the armor that makes warriors unstoppable late game.

9. Warriors with heavy armor and weapons can whip out their flame spell anytime and do as much damage as a mage while able to tank so much more, mages who want to fight with swords end up getting [censored].

10. I have yet to find a pure mage at any level able to complete the main quest line, I see warriors level 20ish complete it easily.

11. A TON of people complain about destruction being underpowered and mages in general compared to warriors. No one complains about warriors be underpowered, only overpowered.

12. This is a TES game. Players should be able to play how they want. If they want to focus on destruction without much help in other magic fields they should be able to do that. Game favors warriors heavily to faceroll through the game.

13. In even decently balanced games, warriors can always tank more damage while mages do much more damage and can nuke from afar. Mage destruction spells are mid-close range spells and can't nuke while warriors do more damage. In league of legends we see spell casters like ryze who die instantly and move slowly but can nuke so well and does more damage than tanks like malphite who are very hard to kill but barely do any damage. Imagine if malphite did more nuke damage than ryze. Who in their right mind would want to play ryze then? Everyone would want to play malphite. Same thing is going on here. People play the more balanced characters and like to play by what is better. This is an elder scrolls game and people should be able to play how they like but instead are forced to be melee or struggle through as a mage.

seriously guys if you dont have a high level mage, stop posting about this immediately. its insulting to the community and makes the whole community look worse for it

Whats just as insulting is the people saying I have to take conjuration, even though I never do that style in any RPG, including Morrowind and Oblivion.

there are higher level spells, but they ultimately get outclassed as well as you level because they don't improve with you. they're great when you first get them at the approrpriate level, but once you're at lvl 30-40 the world has leveled beyond a point where that destruction spell is useful.

and to the poster who demands evidence: The others arguing this HAVE given evidence, but here's even more if you want it.


destruction spells DON'T LEVEL. What does this mean? it means that while a warrior can consistently improve his sword/mace/axe etc. through better and better gear. smithing and enchanting a mage cannot.

there'll come a point when even the most powerful destruction spell is useless against enemies with large amounts if HP.

now a warrior can continue to improve his weapons through enchanting and smithing, there's no end to that. But there's no way a mage can do that. He can't make better destruction spells due to no spell creation, the spell doesn't improve as your destruction spell improves, there is no scaling for destruction magic. It is completely useless after level 25 or so.

So after lvl 40 your destruction skill stops increasing entirely? Are people dramatising or is this actually a serious problem?

What about a staff as a backup weapon, combined with some enchanting to keep it charged.

And would enchanting increase the dmg?

As far as I know, staves use the same set of spells you're using.
So if destruction spells do crap- then destruction spell staffs are probably crap too. :laugh:

I was playing at expert, but lowered the difficulty when I was continually getting mauled by sabre-tooth cats and bears. Im not touching the main quest, Ive been exploring mostly and doing side-quests so I can generally run into quite the difficulty-variety of enemies.

Ive had no difficulty dispatching cats and bears with my dual-wielding character, on as higher difficulty no less. Simply put, if a mage was completely naked and only had their magic, a naked fighter of comparable level would have less trouble in combat. Both of them can run, both of them can use potions, both can wear enchanted clothes, but the difference is fighters/hybrids have a fallback. Once that "first line of defense" is vanquished for a pure-mage, they have no means of defense beyond running away.. but a fighter is also capable of that.

The simplest way I can describe this is that Ive played both a pure-mage (using conjuration and destruction in combat) and a melee/stealth hybrid, and even on a higher difficulty, the hybrid is playing in permanent babby-mode. "Theoretics" dont work in this argument, the fact of the matter is the game has been designed for hybrids/fighters, and pure mages have extreme difficulty in combat due to their lack of a fallback defense.


I've since gone from pure-mage to a combat/archery/mage hybrid, using dual weapons and my bow as my last line of defense. it's a workable solution, but my point still stands that pure-magery is not a viable combat option, especially against multiple foes or bosses (who tend to ignore creatures I conjure up) simply put, the game doesn't allow you to effectively play as a pure-mage, wheras playing fighters or hybrids is simply far, far easier in both a micromanagement sense and a difficulty sense.

Yet i can come up with a perfectly viable mage on master difficulty, by using my brain, what does that say about you?

A warrior SHOULDN'T coast through the game on hardest difficulty, what part of that don't you understand, it would mean the game is broken and unbalanced.

ALL clases should be HARD on HARD difficulty.
The thing here isn't that mage needs a boost, it's that warrior needs a NERF.

Why don't you play an all destro mage on Adept or expert game mode, come back and tell me/us if it is still impossible?
Exactly, give it a rest.

I've read that some people have played all mage just fine on hard, and completed it, it wasn't easy, which is shouldn't be on hard.
I actually DREAD playing a warrior and it is just easy mode and over-powered no matter what level, that is NOT fun at all.


One hit killing everything as a warrior would be a BORE, what would be the point, no more epic challenging battles where you actually duel and have to block with your shield and time your hits.
So I take hard mage over silly easy mode in master any day...

I'm almost positive I saw a perk in the enchanting tree that increases the effect/dmg of enchants. Would it work with a staff? Can they be disenchanted/enchanted with other effects?