if enemy mages are anything to go by mages are overpowered my warrior with full daedric armor died in less than 2 seconds from an enemy mage

They're not.

how so

so im guessing some people havnt done 100% destruction reduction + impact that pretty much steamrolls over most diffcult mobs.

Only promble i have is with master level spell to long to cast in some cases worst one so far for me is dragonhide would of been better if it last more more that 45 seconds consdering how much mana it cost me.

Enemy mages spells scale, your do not scale.

Also if you have patch 1.2 you could be suffering from the zero magic resistance bug.

this was well before that patch

In that case your enemies spells scale yours do not.

what does that mean? isnt there different levels of each spell

There is but, their spells scale based on level making all of their spells more powerful. All of the sets of spells novice,adept, expert and so on.

Your spells do not gain any power based on level, like your enemies.

I agree with everything in this thread. One of the worst things is that this game is ridiculously easy when you exploit smithing/enchanting/sneak to create the ultimate melee character. But what's even worse is that its NOT ridiculously easy when you play a mage that cannot exploit those things. UGH! WTFBBQ?

yeah your spells probably need to level things will be more fair than and it would bother me as long as enemy mages dont get more powerful

I'm playing a level 38 Altmer mage on master level of difficulty and have found it to be too easy if anything. Repeatedly using dual cast lightning bolts combined with storm atronach, companions and lightning cloak wipes out most everything without too much trouble. Granted things might change as the game goes on but as of right now I would like another level of difficulty to make things a bit more challenging.

I've had fun with my mage, sometimes mass spamming lightning bolts gets a bit repetitive and spell creation would be a great feature, but all in all magic is a blast to play.

That would be nice.

Spell creation could fix a lot of our problems in the spell system. It would also greatly open mages options.

spell creation will probably be in an dlc if it is im probably going to make an imperial spellsword

Magic is awsome and balanced. The people who complain about it are just silly people who want to run around one hitting the toughest mobs in the game. They are allowed there opinion if they want to play on easy, but i will be disappointed if bethesda gives in and break magic. I wish the whiners would just switch to easy mode and stop complaining. Just because melee can become broken when you min max does not mean we should break something balanced.

Opinions are cool. They're also opinions.

I hope so, I still make characters how I wish even with the sub par system.


Magic has been reduced to fewer effects, it is pretty yes but our options as spell casters are limited. I have said numerous times that I want diversity and to have the option to make several different character builds with varying levels of power. Balance is not limitation and we are limited in our choices as a mage. We have a few spells to tinker around with and that is it. Game difficulty should not tie into a useful and deep system. Skyrims system is just a foundation for an epic magic system to be built upon.

It's funny with my brand new mage how much easier it is to kill anyone than with a warrior

Ice Spike
Base Damage = 25
+Augmented Frost 2 Damage = 37.5*
+50% Fortify Potion = 50*

A cursory examination of the Bestiary reveals that this damage is not enough to one-shot anything that is above level 6, and more than a couple of things below that.

Ice Mage
Level 19
275 Health
Uses Ice Spike as primary spell

Without using Poisons it takes a minimum of 5 Ice Spikes (or Lightning Bolts or Firebolts) to kill an Ice Mage. How, then, is it possible for an Ice Mage to kill a PC, with upwards of 200 HP, with only two Ice Spikes? Likewise, how does a Lightning Mage one-shot a level 26 PC with Lightning Bolt when it should only be doing ~50ish damage? How is it possible that any NPC using the Spike/Bolt spells can kill any PC in one shot when you have 100 Health at level 1?

The answer? NPC spells have damage that scales with level while PCs using the exact same spells do not get the same benefit. It is simply not debatable that this is a bug/oversight when physical weapons can be upgraded, at any time, in some cases to ridiculous levels.

*My math may be off here. I am unsure whether the +25% and +50% Augmented perks work on base or current damage (although I do remember reading somewhere in the Guide that these bonuses do not "stack" but replace each other), nor what Fortify Potions use for their multipliers. If I have miscalculated, then 70.125, rather than 50, may be the max damage.

If you think this then you've never played a mage who uses both Destruction and Conjuration, and can see the vast gulf in effectiveness between the two at higher levels. Here a test which, if you have a suitable mage, should be fairly simple:

1) Find a barrow or other burial location
2) Find a Draugr Scourge Lord (will usually be at the back)
3) Fire any Expert-level Destruction spell, note the pitiful amount of the DSL's HP bar it removes
4) Summon a Dremora Lord and watch it obliterate that same creature

If magic were balanced, the Destruction spell would be almost as effective as the Dremora summon in the same time frame, and it simply isn't. Sure, you can stun-lock the DSL and whittle it to death, but why bother when you can kill it 10x as quickly with a summon? In stark contrast to this is what happens when that same DSL faces a high-level well-equipped Assassin using either a Bow or a pair of Daggers- it dies instantly, without knowing WTF just hit it. I can't speak for how a 2H or Sword+Shield character fares as I don't play them, but it's likely to be a fairly short fight.

Unless you meant globally balanced, in which case you might be right, since the top-end summons are pretty powerful, especially in pairs. I doubt it, though, since you cannot massively boost Destruction damage the way you can Archery or Melee damage. Of course, it's hard to properly weight the relative safety of the stun-lock, since it can disable pretty much anything in the game but most folks probably can't juggle multiple opponents with it, so how broadly useful it actually is in practice is debatable.

That said, the case under discussion is Destruction by itself, and when stacked against Archery or Melee it's way behind in terms of raw output, which is what we're trying to address.

Destruction does not svck but it is broken. The damage is largely fine, scaling isn't needed because of high base values. If you want it to scale it would need to have lower base values. At the end of the day weapons need to come DOWN and destruction needs to have it's perma-stagger fixed. In addition to a whole host of changes to magicka and spell costs.

People cannot seem to grasp things about this magic system.

It must be Skyrims newness still.

I agree with this post.

I know there will be those in this thread that will recognize me as a defender of Destruction. :flamethrower:

However I do not thing it is "fine" nor do I find it is "bad".

It is very powerful, but there is a design for it that is very.. undesirable when it comes to spell diversity.

Runes and cloaks do not get an upgrade, and also the master spells pretty much svck. That does not mean that destruction svcks, it is very good but in the end it boils down to only using the expert level bolt spells.

This.

People, please do not mistake "boring" as "weak".

Destruction is not "weak", it is boring. Stunlocking enemies to death from range is very very powerful. It is uber boring though.

Two very different issues that require different solution.

Not damage scaling is [censored]. ALL spells from EVERY school should scale their effects to Skill Level. I know lots do, but there are also lots that don't (Ex: everything in Destruction). Needs to get fixed.