yea i agree with this guy. im playing a pure mage and not having a problem. i can kill dragons and giants and trolls. and im level 15. just takes a little user skill. also try to bask in the glory of the game and not fly through it. do the side quests. if you try to fly through the main story line to qick you will get overwhelmed.

Melee's ammo (if you want to cal it that) is unlimited too. "Shocking the hell out of them" can be translated in game as "shiny effects that do pitiful amounts of damage". So in your logic, melee, and magic should be the same, and archers should do more damage. And I think a fireball on the arm would hurt more than a sword in the gut, you obviously have never had a burn wound. Calling magic an unlimited regeneration resource is true, but your words make it seem better than it is. Magic in combat regenerates pathetically slow no matter how much + magic regeneration you have. Further more, saying that it costs money to upgrade weapons is idiotic because you will end up swimming in cash no matter what path you take. And lastly, your health, if you are indeed a mage, is very much NOT unlimited. Its low, real low. If an enemy touches you, you are dead. Now I think that this is the way it probably should be, however, you burn through your "unlimited magic" so fast trying to kill the stronger opponents that unless you start to cheese the AI or break the game with enchanting (which you can do with melee as well mind you) your enemies WILL reach you.

Or you can kill them in 5 seconds with a sword.

You do know that is crippled in battle right? It only applies when you don't really need it! Fair huh? <_<



Come back when your level 40+ and see what you think then.

This I disagree with what hurts more a sword in your gut or a grenade thrown at you? Well the sword I guess because with a grenade you probably wont feel a thing my point is "Fire Hurts" don't believe me go ask any burn ward victim and see what they would of preferred.

Also Stamina is a unlimited regenerating resource that regenerates faster than magicka

It's obvious that every single poster in this thread that says magic isn't under-powered hasn't actually tried it.
I have a 42 dual wielder and my mage just hit 40. Both on master difficulty.
The damage from a power attack puts magic to shame: regenerates faster, costs less, also staggers.
There is no risk being in melee either, you can afford to put more points into health since your skills don't literally cost 500 stam to use, and they are just going to be stagger-locked until death anyway.

I suggest using one of the several mods that improve magic... that are already out, before the construction set is even available... because of how horribly under-powered it is.

This is pure logic! Lol!!!

Let's do an experiment. Have someone shove a sword in your gut, then have them use a flame thower in your face setting your entire body on fire. Afterwards you tell me which "hurt" more...

Free spells? Highly doubt it



. Where did you read that?

Through enchant/blacksmith/alchemy, you can achieve -100% magic cost in any school of magic. Destruction is the way to go.

Having your spells cost 0 magic doesn't help them do more damage. First off, if you're using enchanting to break the system in order to say "everything is fine" then let magic break it the way melee does when you mix it with crafting. Secondly, congratulations, you now have enough magic to cast the 13 dual casted thunderbolts to kill the dragon. Pray there's nothing else in the area that wants to kill you because you can only lock one enemy down at a time. Using frenzy from the illusion school has more damage potential than unlimited magic with destruction, which is sad either way you put it. Its destruction, it has only one purpose.

Mmmm still doesn′t make it "free spell".

Use the Improved Destruction mod. Problem solved.

This is the most concise illumination of the problem. It's also the same scenario that all of the "U HAS STUNLK EVERTING IZ FINE L2P" trolls conveniently dismiss as existing in their vacuum world.



No, the problem is not "solved". The damage only goes up 35% over vanilla and it requires you to spend an extra perk in each element you want to use to reach that point. Damage needs to go up 0.5% per character level (somehow through Destruction perks) and 1% per Destruction skill level before it's even remotely close to enough. Physical classes have access to tools that allow them a much easier time on Expert and Master difficulty. Destruction has nothing anywhere near the same galaxy.

You know, the argument going on in this thread reminds me of MMO balance threads.

Except this isn't a MMO. This isn't even a stinking CO-OP game.

If you don't agree with someone else's opinion, you don't need to insult them for it or make it your goal today to argue them off the internet.


It would be nice if Beth would fix the silly issues with both smithing and magic cost enchants.

It would also be nice if they balanced the rest of the game around not having either, and you simply scaled better with skill level.


But it isn't going to be world-ending, because just like ES4, ES5, FO3 and FNV modders are going to pick up the slack and fix everything from the bugs Beth won't fix to the balancing they won't do. It's annoying in that it will take longer, but it will be done.
I don't think Beth is going to do anything at all about balance at this point, but that's just my opinion. Everyone is welcome to theirs.
Likewise, if any Beth dev reads this, I love you to death but you don't have a good reputation for fixing these post-release issues.

Abusing the hell out of Enchanting to make Destruction even remotely viable isn't entertaining.

this would all be viable , if it was true.

think about melee though is that it is close combat and therefor you are in harms way.

but what you said about the mages just isnt true, my friend plays a mage and she could quickly get the arch mages robes (sience the guilds are like 4 quests each WTF!?) along with many high enchanted trinkets.. now she can heal and flame everything around her to death without even making a dent in her mana
and as soon as she stops casting it almost instantly regenerates, it basicly regenerates faster than she can waste it while being able to kill things while healing herself.

But if they get close they do supr damage right? NOPE, big two handed swords barely hurt her either because melee attacks on the enemies are pretty weak. Not only that but the enemies pathfinding is so pathetic in this game that ranged combat is auto win in it self, any corner/table/rock you come by can instantly make you unable to be harmed by melee enemies at all (most ranged enemies cant aim for crap either though).

Antoher thing, ive had plenty of burn wounds in my life, and i can tell you none of them hurt as much as a knife stab.. and that was on the arm, in your gullet you should be DEAD.. one fireball would realisticly not instantly kill you, hurt you? yes, kill you? right away? no. A sword cleaving over your head or a mace bashing into your skull? youre pretty dead pal, same with an arrow through your heart. I'm not saying magic shouldn't hurt at all it's just strange everyone goes ape because magic doesnt do more damage than actual physical things just because they are used to be the special little snowflake.

Sticking a sword through someone is very different from someone dropping a localized thunderstorm on your head. A fireball spell isn't a burn wound, it's hurling explosive magical fire that torches everything within 15 ft with supernatural flame.

That said, combat magicka regeneration is negligible...and I really don't know what sort of difficulty she's playing on if 2h warrior npcs do negligible damage.

And I think it stacks with your perk 50% reductions, so 2 of them 98% reduction if you are fully perked, so you could get 4 skills down to 98% reduced cost. If you break the enchanting system with potions you can get it to 29% per item so 100% off of 4 schools. I think it is clearly an exploit and has about as much validity as the 4,000 damage attack people talking about how OP melee and archery is. The difference is this brings magic in line with the normal output(not exploited) of melee and archery.

Since it may be asked, I think it is a clear exploit because the idea to intentionally design an item that fully bypasses your resource mechanic that people were investing in every level is such a freaking moronic game design that I can't buy it.

A mage with that 150dmg spell. Could kill any twinked out warrior on skyrim that hit for 1000dmg.. you do realize mages stunlock and you kill dragons without them even being able to move or attack....

One broken perk in a lackluster tree isn't very impressive. You need to abuse the hell out of enchants to even make chain stunlock viable, unless you want to spend your entire mana bar hurling stunlocks and hoping the enemy's health will deplete faster than your magicka.

Eh, you can get pretty much almost free mana cost on spells lol