Is destruction truly underpowered? Or is it just considered underpowered when compared to overpowered players who abuse smithing, alchemy, and enchanting?
What I am asking is, can a mage who only uses destruction to attack be able to beat the game on normal difficulty?
No Destruction is underpowered for the player, why do players do less damage with spells then some of the mages you come across randomly in the game? I remember an Argonian bandit chief that could 2 shot my Breton Paladin/Tank build with lightning spells... apparently 25% magic resistance and the 250~300HP at the time wasn't enough. But a player casts Thunderbolt, with +50% damage, that's only 90 damage, against the 25% magic resistance too, it'd hit for ~68 damage. That is a lot less impressive...
There is a bug with the illusion tree that might be responsible for that, or NPCs actually do have more base magic damage then players... either way there are some issues with the destruction school being generally woefully underpowered. It'd take only 1 cast of fast healing to recover that damage... so it's pitiful. NPC Destruction spells need to be nerfed slightly while player Destruction spells need to be improved. I'm assuming that Destruction is one of the things that will be looked at but I'm doubting it'll be a major fix rather just slightly more damage and being left broken, just not as broken as it is now.
Still with the Construction Kit now due in Jan, I think I may just make my own re-balancing mod... There is a lot of irks and irritations I have with the perk trees. Some are useless and some are too powerful. Getting the Master Perk in any magic tree is pointless, when you can go for enchanting and get free spells instead. 50% off or entirely free, which do I want?