I can't make up my mind between fire and shock. I want to only concentrate on one. I like fire but shock seems better able to hit fast moving targets like dragons and help vs mages. Which do you prefer?

Fire type dragons have 25% weakness against frost spells. Frost type dragons have 25% weakness against fire spells. Also the frost spells slow the dragon a lot. Lightning spell has that sweet disintegration perk. It feels good to kill off a Legendary dragon with 1000 health left with just a splash of sparks. Such value!

But sometimes when you are leveling up, you want the damages to be inefficient and the battle to last longer. Well I do at least. I sometimes find myself using incinerate on fire dragons and icy spikes on frost dragons for that extra XP gains.

Your original question about the specialization perks though. I usually don't take any of the specialization perks. Spells seem strong enough without any damage boost on adept.

I go with Shock most often, as while there aren't many things weak to it... there are only two things with any amount of resistance to it: storm atros and netches. Plus, the projectiles hit instantly.

Plus, your moniker given by the Greybeards is Stormcrown. Shock damage is evocative to imagery. Shock damage for the lightning, Unrelenting Force for the thunder.

Fire:

• Both cheaper and more damaging to shock, for significantly better cost:damage ratio


• Deals extra damage to vampires and frost trolls

Shock:

• No travel time


• Resisted by almost nothing


• Can prevent dragons from shouting (the magicka drain is not enough to stop mages, as most have much more magicka than health)


• The master level spell is arguably better than fire's master level spell


• The special 'trigger on low health' perk is arguably better than fire's

It looks like shock is much better but I pick fire just because the first point is a very big bonus over shock.

Unless your aim is perfect, the first point of shock gives a more practical cost efficiency boost over Fire.

another disadvantage of shock spells is their short range. thunderbolt 188 feet, lightning strike 141 feet. Icy spear/incinerate/frost bolt/firebolt 469 feet.

Again, unless your aim is perfect, those are not exactly practical ranges to be slinging those non-Hitscan spells at. Switch to Fireball and aim at surfaces in their vicinity since you have AOE blasts to compensate a bit for aim. Or get a bow with faster projectiles and a sneak attack bonus since at those ranges they're likely unaware anyway.

Thank you. I think I'll specialize in fire then. I like the effects better anyway.