With 0/2 Augmented Flames

Fireball damage: 40 single cast/96 dual cast

Firestorm damage: 100

1/2 Augmented Flames

Fireball: 50/120

Firestorm: 125

2/2 Augmented Flames

Fireball: 60/144

Firestorm:150

2/2 Augmented Flames and Aspect of Terror

Fireball: 70/168

Firestorm: 160

Conclusion:

Fireball is a far superior spell, boasting almost the exact same damage when dual cast--with a negligible difference or even being stronger with 2/2 Augmented Flames and Aspect of Terror--while costing significantly less, having a much shorter casting time, allowing for mobility, triggering Impact, not getting weaker with distance (allowing you to deal full damage without hugging an enemy), all while maintaining a smaller (but still respectable, IMO) area-of-effect of 15 feet. The smaller (but still useful) AOE, in fact, may be seen as a good thing: you can use the spell without hitting allies.

The difference in damage between the two spells got higher as their respective power increased by the same percentage, the difference being 4 points at a 0% increase in power, 5 points at a 25% increase in power, and 6 points at a 50% increase in power. Aspect of Terror adds a number--not a percentage--to all fire damage (+10 points), and 10/60 is a bigger fraction than 10/150, which explains why Fireball benefits more from that buff: it gets a higher increase in percentage than Firestorm (16.6% versus 6.6%). This means that Fortify Destruction potions will further pronounce the difference in power between the two spells, where Firestorm will always be stronger.

Still, unless we're always going to use potions to cast spells, I don't think that a maximum 6 point difference in power is enough to justify immobility, long casting time, enormous casting cost, and a damage drop-off at a distance. For that matter, 150 points of damage is not nearly enough to justify being defenseless and close to your enemies for as long as it takes to actually cast the spell.

As long as they have the same increase in damage (+0%, +25% or +50%), the other two elements deal more damage than Firestorm with their master spells, with Lightning Storm outdamaging it in less than two seconds and Blizzard dealing more total damage (a minimum of 200 over ten seconds, which is higher than Firestorm's maximum). Isn't fire supposed to be the most damaging element?

What gives?

this is why destruction as a whole needs patching. master spells are terrible because of cost and the cast time. the cast time of master spells needs to be reduced, and damage increased all around.

If somebody on PC can test Firestorm to see if the listed damage is the minimum, with closer enemies being damaged significantly more, I would dearly appreciate it. It would be great to be wrong about this and have Firestorm actually be a useful spell.

There needs to be more change than that. Blizzard and Lightning Storm are great spells that deal damage well worth the cost (and Blizzard has a huge AOE); it's only Firestorm that has the problem.

There are other nuisances, like that there are no expert-level AOE spells (the walls and projectiles are essentially stronger novice and apprentice spells), no better runes or cloaks, an inability to place more than one rune, and the fact that runes, cloaks and walls do not benefit from the dual casting or Augmented [Element] perks. I mean, am I the only one who finds it outrageous that cloaks only ever do 8 points of damage per second at melee range for one minute regardless of dual casting or damage increases?

Yeah, I agree that destruction as a whole needs some work done to make it worthwhile.

This is just one thing that really stuck out to me. Normally, my Altmer arch-mage (100 Destruction with 2/2 in all Augmented [Element] perks) does perfectly fine with Destruction, then I saw a thread about it and got to thinking about this. It's ridiculous.

I just sincerely hope that the listed damage is the minimum with an increase for closer targets rather than the reverse, where the listed damage is the maximum at the minimum range. Someone on PC please test this quickly for me.

Yeah, either the spell cost needs to go down....severely, or the damage output needs to go up dramatically....one of the two.

My Mage has no cost to his Destruction spells. I play on master, and Destruction still is, (even without any cost) not a effective way of killing someone. Not even remotely close to be.

Lightning Storm does almost no damage to the high end bosses. It's reeeeally useless. However. I'm almost sure that the listed damage output for Firestorm is the minimum. No chance in Hell that Firestorm does less damage than Fireball. If Fireball should do more damage then something must be wrong with my skyrim.

The only master spell worth of having is lighting storm although the preparation time is far too long.

A 100 point fiery explosion centered on the caster. Does more damage to closer targets:

• Cast on self; large area of effect
  
• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fire_Damage, 100 pts in 100 ft
  
  • Sets targets on fire, dealing 40% of the immediate spell damage over 4s.
• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fire_Damage, 75 pts in 65 ft
  
• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fire_Damage, 50 pts in 25 ft
  
• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fear, 99 pts for 7 secs in 100 ft; if the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Intense_Flames perk has been unlocked
  
• An enemy standing within 0-25 ft of you would be hit with 225 fire damage, at 26-65 ft they would take 175 fire damage, 66-100 ft 100 fire damage, all before augmented flames

You must be joking. Fire Storm has larger AOE and the damage to close targets is increased...

I was so happy when I did the master destruction quest without looking online for help - one of the most satisfying moments of skyrim for me, imagine my disapointment when I actually used the master spells ... its the fact that you cant move that makes the firestorm spell so crappy. No enemy stands still close to you for 5 seconds while you wave your arms around charging up a spell.

Fire Storm is my favorite among destruction master level spells. On adept, most low and medium level enemies die with just one hit. Boss characters die with 2 or 3 hits. It's risky and you die when you don't time your spell right, or when your victim is alive after the explosion, but when it works it's pretty awesome. The damage number does not look good on master. I haven't tried it yet. Maybe I'll use it after I soften up the enemy a lot with other means.

A have been less impressed with blizzard and lightning storm, strangely enough. Blizzard seems to do pretty small damage because people move out of the damage range when they can. Maybe I'm just not using it in right situations, maybe I've been using blizzard against frost resistant enemies. I like the damage rate of lightening storm, but I don't like how I have to stand still while casting it.

Sadly it probably won't happen because it seems Bethesda doesn't give a damn about magic anymore. They removed Spellmaker, but the added Smithing.

I use fire storm with become ethereal. it's pretty fun way to kill. you stay immune to damage until you pop your spell.

The reason (in my opinion) that firestorm blows isn't just how little damage it does but how long it has to charge when is that practical in combat....










NEVER!!!!

Maybe it was the turn of non-magic users to be able to make their own toys

I'm only jerking your chain, it is weird that it's missing...

The result of victory broke my chains.

This is absurd. You are invariably wrong.

112 points per second is not "almost no damage" to anyone. That, and you must not be good with magic if you have to reduce spell costs to 0 and still complain about it.


So with Intense Flames, it does a maximum of 324 damage and a minimum of 199 damage? What about with Augmented Flames? And finally, are you on PC and able to test?

Thanks for the info.


I use Lightning Storm most against flying dragons and distant enemies, while Blizzard excels in dungeons, Yes, from the common bandit Nord to undead, a lot of enemies resist frost damage, but Blizzard is well worthwhile, too. I use it mostly in dungeons where it hits lots of enemies hard, especially non-Nord bandits. Even if someone resists 50% of its damage, you're looking at 150 damage plus all that stamina damage, which is very useful. It's also quite fun to Dragonrend a dragon down and force it to endure a Blizzard.

I hope I helped.

I think it's okay. Fire is the most universally useful elemental damage type anyway. It's frost that needs real love - there are just too many baddies with resistance to it.

if i want to be an effective, interesting, fun mage then i go back to oblivion/morrowid (not even for spell creation, although i can make a better spell than bethesda can, there is just nothing good about the magic in skyrm), although i wish bethesda would get their heads straight and remake magic so i could be a mage in skyrim.

I've heard rumors that the next dlc, will be heavily magic based, I certainly hope they add spell creation. I loved my mage in oblivion for exactly that reason! They def need to be better about magicka cost on created spells, if i can create it I should be able to use it. Definetly agree though magic needs more love.