As the topic says, I'm wondering how many people actually want their opponents to flee in combat. It's a very disappointing final perk in the fire destruction tree, in my opinion. I don't want to have to chase anyone down and potentially alarm new enemies. It seems to me like it's more of a hindrance than a perk. Thoughts?

I agree completely. I've avoided it entirely. It's quite silly that mages have to use 3 perks to get specials like this, anyway.

All three are just neat at best. If I ever make another mage I'll definitely not be taking them. Quite disappointing to be the end of the elemental lines indeed.

I don't.

I don't even use Turn Undead with my cleric in D&D unless I know for sure I will be able to destroy them since I don't want to chase after them when they flee.

well i would like humanoid enemies to not be suicidal blood knights and know when a fight is hopeless. given the nature of dungeons, i think surrender would work much better than fleeing so they dont "aggro" everything they run by, though i dont think it would be terribly difficult to script them to just... not aggro when fleeing. enemies ALREADY surrender, its just that i guess bethesda never finished that mechanic so they just get up and attack you again.

It's just one of many reasons why shock is better instead of them running they instantly die.

I hate it when enemies flee. Not only do I have to chase them down, but they usually find reinforcements.

Fleeing dragons are a pain in the butt when you try to beat them with your melee specialist.

In fact, I'd rather one of those damn perks make it so that I don't knock enemies fifty thousand feet in a direction so I don't have to spend years running just to loot them.

Totally agree, early on in the game I made the mistake of picking up an enchanted sword, it was the first enchanted item I found in the game...and it was the fear enchantment... it was incredibly annoying having to sprint after my enemies all the time. It never ever proved useful. Not even once, it was only ever a hindrance - unfortunatly it was the highest damage sword I had for quite a while and the enchantment never ran out! I mean if it was enchanted with lightning or frost damage(i.e a useful enchantment) you can bet your eyeball that I would have to recharge that svcker all the time - but in all the time I had this sword the enchantment just plane refused to go out...I mean GHAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR *ahem* I'm glad I got that off of my chest.

Fear is useful especially if you're playing a dead-is-dead mage. Illusion is incredibly powerful (maybe the most powerful) when you take the perks that allow you to cast on higher opponents. But as destruction, you want to destroy.

Battle Cry has saved my thief's ass more than once. Fear has a LOT of use.

So, it might be a good fail-safe to bring an iron dagger with a fear enchant, with a low charge count, just for tight jams. It could prove extremely useful. But making your main weapon make every enemy run for the hills? That's not the point of fear, nor will it ever be.

I dont use it often, but a couple times it has totally saved my life/a ton of frustration. When I was a lower level I ran into the dungeon where you need to fight with vilkas to join the companions guild. There were like.. 2 archers, 2 regular sword-guys and 2 or 3 guys with greatswords. They beat the [censored] out of me like... 5 reloads in a row and i was about to give up. Then I thought of my Nord Battle-cry and used it. It bought me the time I needed to take down some of the guys that normally surrounded me and gave breathing room. Used it in a couple other similar situations as needed.

With the fire-magic perk though I could see why it would be less-wanted.

I absolutely agree that illusion is the most powerful school of magic - However when you have Frenzy, Calm and Invisibility Fear seems useless to me, your better off just calming everyone, that way you don't run the risk of them alerting reinforcements, then you cast frenzy, then you turn invisible, then you watch the Hilarity ensue.

I gave up on anything that makes them run away. First off, you then have to track them down and kill them or they skulk in the corners until it wears off then attack you from behind; Secondly, your companions race off hunting for them and that's a pain in the butt.

I have found that it does help in some cases when you scare off the mob, and just leave the stronger one, and you can concentrate on him/it.

I don't mind opponents fleeing from me, makes them more human. but as for the fire destruction perk, i agreed with OP, making enemies flee at less than 20% hp is just lame.
I like their idea for the lighting perk, reducing enemies to dust, somewhat like a magic finish move. Fire should turn enemies into a burned corpse.

Depends really, if it's a group of bandits outdoors then yes I love the thrill of hunting them down with my trusty bow, but if it's indoors then no, I don't need them running into some bone-chimes then waking up god-knows-what or alerting their buddies.

It can be useful if it's an area spell and you're surrounded by draugr, but other than giving you some breathing space it has no real benefits.

i like it, knowing my enemys fearme is always good imo and if they bring even more guys then so be it, i will kill them all :chaos:

Although there is a glitch I think with illusion, if you have the fear fire perk, and the illusion perk that increases the fear part of spells. It increases the damage of your fire spell, I think its double IIRC. But other than that I agree with you , but I don't really use destruction.

If there's two (or more) enemies, cast fear on one of them then focus on the other(s). Also if you're facing a particularly strong mob you can cast fear and chase it down, dealing some free damage. Although as far as weapon enchantment goes fear is probably a hindrance if anything.

But surely in that situation it would be better to cast frenzy, that way not only is the enemy you cast on distracted (so you can get free hits as you said)- he's being distracted by y'know...murdering his own friend. Likewise you could just use calm, that way you don't have to track the guy down afterwords...I honestly can't think of a situation where fear would be more useful then frenzy or calm. (there all in Illusion remember..so if you have the level in fear to successfully cast it on opponents then you'll be able to cast calm or frenzy as well)

I think an actual surrender option, and not just submit, might actually be really cool. So long as they knew they had to fork over the loot in the process.

It'd be an easy way to allow players to choose how they want to respond to a situation.

Maybe a bandit leader surrenders after giving you one helleva fight, you could allow him to leave with his sword, send him packing down the road in his bday suit, or just chop his head off depending on what sort of joe you are.

I NOT talking about a morality based dialogue option either, once they threw in the towel, you could just put away your weapon and "speak" to them and have access to their inventory.