I see a lot of people saying passed level 40 Magic is gimped, but you do know at this level you can get 100% magic reduction so all your destruction spells are free right? :shrug:

I mean it's not WTF overpowered like Shadow Warrior, but I'd say it's not gimped either.

It just requires some planning on your part to make destruction powerful.

Well that confuses me too.. I have a lvl 32 pure mage with %92 magick reduction for destruction. And i dont understand how destruction is UP. I never run OOM and everything dies with max 2 shots of expert level spells ( except giants, dragons etc ofcourse) . I have come to a point where i cant level up because all i use ( and all i need ) is destruction spells and its already 100. Its amazing how ppl hit the level cap without getting bored.

Tell me about the hundred percent magic reduction please.

Usually people are talking about playing on Expert/Master, and are comparing it to a Dual Wield Warrior build (which is hideously overpowered by itself, nevermind with enchantments). Magic simply doesn't do enough damage per second to even compare to melee.

People love to complain about things being nerfed/underpowered/overpowered/unbalanced/streamlined/consolized/dumbed-down etc etc.

Whenever you see a complaint thread, just ignore it, the extreme majority of the time they have no substance to their 'point'. I've played a fair bit of a mage character and it seemed so balanced to a point where it didn't even make me think about balancing issues.

its underpowered compared to enemy spells, because enemy destruction spells can hit for over 400 damage (according to other members here) but yours are much weaker

but on it's own i dont see how it is underpowerd, i 1 hit kill a lot of things useing a charged firebolt. somethings need a bit of smarts to beat (there was a little boss that could drain your magicka 20 points a second, but he is the only things iv seen do that)

I dont agree its UP but i do agree that at lower levels ( till you get your enchant high enough to lower the magick of the spells ) it requires the need of conjuration or illusion for tanking and crowd control.

I have not created a pure mage yet how do you get the magic reduction?

I have some options:

1) Use destruction and cast 150 damage incinerates.
2) Swing my 1h sword for 1000 damage
3) Shoot my bow for 1500 damage.

Why should I go with #1 again?



Either find or enchant your gear with -magicka cost.

The problem comes down to this. Destruction gets +50% damage and that's it. Weapons get +100% damage in addition to usually other benefits then they can get +200% more from enchanting. You can use smithing to take a 20 damage sword and add another 129 base damage which then gets boosted by the before mentioned buffs. You can then chug a potion to further jack your damage up by something like 500%.

It really all comes from the alchemy/enchanting/smithing path where you could do 500 physical damage with the right upgrade path and drink a potion before combat and this is also where the 100% mana cost reduction on destruction comes from. Overall it doesn't really matter since this is a single player game and magic users(destruction) can drink a similar alchemy potion for roughly twice the damage too, so it's not like it's something unique.

Basically the problem is that both physical damage and magic path both do roughly the same damage, ball park values which makes it balanced, people are just expecting a large damage boost playing a magic user, overall this is still true because if someone charges you in full daedric armor you would still do full damage unless they had magic resists on it.

You need "fortify destruction" enchant for your items. This enchantment can be cast to 4 item types ( rings , amulets , helm , armor ) and drops spells magick cost by a percentage. With 80 enchantment its possible to enchant one item to drop your destruction magic cost %24. Thus with all items enchanted you get -%96 magicka cost. ( which is gamebreaking imo )

From what I understand, after level 35-40, destruction magic is locked. The problem is that the enemies are still leveling up with you. So as they get stronger, your magic is in effect getting weaker(even though the cost to use is going down). I hear that enemies health bars hardly move at high levels which makes destruction useless. It does really gimps mage characters(I am one, not at that locked in level yet) who wish to specialize in destruction magic. I hope it gets patched soon so it levels up with you.

Yes thats what i asked. We really need to define "high levels". I have completed the main quest , companions , mage college , imperials and dark brotherhood quests and i have a lvl 32 pure mage. Does this makes me high level ? Because as i said earlier i need to power lvl some skills to level up now since my destruction is 100 ( by forging armor i will never use , enchanting items i dont need or creating potions just to sell ). I dont want this... This is where i disagree with the " destruction is UP" idea. If i can see the end game with a pure mage easily using destruction. How is it UP ?

Can you enchant robes of any kind. I also never wear helmets.

It is extreme I must admit. I have not dabbled heavily in enchanting yet.

Yes you can enchant any chest piece. By helmets i meant head pieces. Like hoods , masks etc..

I want this too, the spells should be leveled with you so nothing is useless. They should have that, or rather put in spell making so we can craft our own spells.

That would be great Bethesda!

Just because you can break the system to remove magicka cost alltogether doesn't mean it isn't idiotic that you have to.

One shoddy design choice that circumvents another one makes two shoddy design choices, not one good game. Two wrongs don't make a right, even in game design land.

Just wanted to make sure I do wear hoods so that's good. Just double checking. Thanks.

You can't "make" Destruction powerful. No amount of planning makes up for terribly implemented direct damage spells that do less damage than bows over time, or even less compared to sneak attack bow shots. Reducing the cost of your spells doesn't make it "powerful" either, it just means you can cast indefinitely. Most spells that matter still have too long of a casting time.

The problem with destruction at higher levels is you basicly need to dedicate your character entirely to destruction for it to be viable, this means only mage armor and every single perk... up to adept it's ok, but expert and master spells are underpowered and eat too much magica.

1- It makes them too much powerful. You have iinfinite amount of stagger effect on a ranged attacking skill. There is no save or probabilty for this either. It means you will ALWAYS win any 1vs1 combat without taking damage.How isnt this powerful ?
2- Only master level spells casting time effects the game. And they can be extremely useful with using shouts or a tanking npc with you while casting.

The thing that makes Magic absolutely sub par in Skyrim is simply this:

It's restricted by magicka, and if you break the game and remove the magicka cost from your spells... It still does less damage than weapons.

It's just badly thought out in every way.

It's Morrowind all over again. Spells have huge costs associated with them and then just get resisted, reflected and swallowed by huge health pools while weapons suffer none of those issues.



And yea, the stagger chains are very powerful, but honestly, there is absolutely no fun or skill in staggering an enemy over and over until he dies. On that account, it's still a design fail.

Just because people found a way to make melee Overpowered doesn't make magic under powered.

Destruction svcked at high levels, with Oblivion too. And it's true, that not spending any magicka does NOT make it more powerful. So, you can whittle away at the boss and never run out of magicka? You won't get the chance to...it will kill you first. With no heavy or even light armor and no shield, and little health, because it all went into magicka at lower levels.

In Oblivion I supplemented Destruction with Illusion and Conjuration. But even command and control spells became less effective at higher levels. The only thing that DID NOT become less effective was Invisibility and Chameleon, and in the end I didn't even try to kill the mobs, because they would kill me. I just ran past them invisible. If I HAD to kill something, I used Conjuration. Because the summoned mob levels scaled like the mobs level. I'd summon one, then turn invisible.

But now it's been decided that Illusion made the came too easy, and they nerfed it, so you stuck with a destruction cap, and fewer options to supplement it. You try to use invisibility now, and the mob can still hear you and attack you like normal. And you can't cast control humanoid to make them stop. You can just cast rage/fury spells...which makes them madder and they still keep killing you.