wut? summoning/destruction/alteration is a pretty sick combo, playing a pure mage now...working out well

Some seem to think that when it is something they do not like, it is therefore broken. Why? Idk, but I don't mind the magic system in Skyrim.

I much Prefer Skyrims magic system over Oblivions...

I do miss spell crafting though...

Cue: "Yes but destructo mage on its own is not as powerful as melee warrior or sneaky archery".

Followed by: "But if just use one-handed by itself you won't be very powerful, you also need to take armour/smithing. Same with destruction, you also take conjuration/restoration".

And then: "With enchantment/alchemy, you can do heaps of damage with destruction."

Finally there's "So destruction svcks because you need all these support skills to make it viable, but you don't need them with melee"

lol werd. my altmer mage is proving to be quite the worthy opponent for the denizens of skyrim

Destruction is a POWER HORSE... Well, after you got some % reduction with Enchanting... you can simply Stun Lock every single enemy in the game, including Legendary Dragons, to death. Now, melee is great, but can you kill a Legendary Dragon WITHOUT taking any damage whatsoever? I don't think so...

What difficulty are you playing on?

Try master or legendary with destruction as your main damage source... The simple fact that cant be debated is that Melee damage is far far superior to spell damage.

+1

Heh.

/thread

Not me. I much prefer Oblivion's magic system. Spell making plus over 200 spell effects to play with compared to less than 40 in Skyrim. I enjoy Skyrim's necromancy spells -having to find bodies to raise is a nice touch. but overall, I prefer The variety you get with Oblivion magic.

Destruction's biggest problem is the way it scales with difficulty.

At Adept, it's perfectly viable, and indeed, extremely powerful. Sure, you don't get the raw power of Melee or Archery damage, but the ranged and essentially "Unlimited" nature of Destruction makes up for that pretty well. Also there's the guaranteed stagger-lock when you take impact.

You run into problems at Master and Legendary difficulties. Melee survives the transition because of Smithing and enchanting, Destruction requires a lot more micro-management though, and the "Stagger Lock" becomes a bit dull because of the length of time it takes to actually kill things.

Just to give raw numbers, an incinerate spell is doing 90 Damage(Before burn effect) when single-cast on Adept, but it's only doing 45 Damage at Master. This skirts acceptable damage, and with high-optimization (Enough reduction gear) the effect can be mitigated. But remember a lot of enemies have magic resistance as well, and few have any elemental weakness (I think every Playable Race should have at least one elemental weakness) to make multi-elemental investments worthwhile. This changes the feel of magic though, from expensive-and-powerful to "Kill it with bug-bites" absolutely killing the pace of combat.

There's also an issue with enemy design here, most enemies just turn into HP sinks at higher levels, which hurts destruction much more than Melee because again, destruction doesn't scale well. Some HP increases are needed, but Skyim enemies almost entirely neglect meaningful armor levels in favor of boosting HP. It would have been a great way to change the feel of Melee-Mage if enemies got greater defenses at high levels, making melee suffer considerably, while Magic goes right through their armor. As it stands now, the Perk "Resist Magic" in it's first iteration (10%) results in a greater damage reduction against mages, as a fully-armored enemy's AR results for against a melee character. (That actually might not be 100% correct because of the hidden armor bonus now that I think about it)

With all that said, I still prefer Skyrim's magic system to Oblivion's or Morrowinds, lack of spellcrafting being the painful tradeoff that killed any chance of "Perfection."