It seems that every skill I have goes up at a normal rate if not really fast. My one-handed goes up at a pretty good pace. My sneak was 100 by level 30, and archery is in the 80's now and i'm level 36. Everything is going well but only one thing is lacking; destruction. I use destruction spells and destruction spells only when I fight dragons, and those fights last about 30 minutes or more. I use fire runes, firebolts, lighting bolts, icespikes, etc. The skill goes up 1 level every 6 hours or so in real life time. As much as I use it, I would expect it to go up higher. Is this a glitch or am I doing something wrong?

Btw, I'm playing on legendary mode.

Magic takes more usage to level up each time than the last, and levels up a lot more slowly than Warrior/ Thief skills.

It's not a glitch and you're not really doing anything wrong that I'm aware of. Compared to other offensive skills destruction levels much more slowly. For instance, on a legendary game with a 1h or 2h character, my skill level will raise at least 10 times during the helgen tutorial. In that same time frame only using destruction I'm lucky if it goes up 1 or 2 times. Unfortunately it seems to be a design choice of some kind

All you can do is just keep using it as often as you can, it's just notoriously slow to level up.

Ok, thanks for the quick replies guys

My recommendation : buy training

This is the only skill I ever do this for

Destruction xp gains are based on the base magicka cost of the spell. In other words, the bigger the spall the more XP you get from using it. The most cost effective and IMO all around best spells are the Expert level spells.

Especially playing on higher difficulties, it will level quicker due to the fact that you are casting more spells per enemy than at lower levels.

It seems that this is not the case. Ideally one should be on Adept for the most efficient leveling of the skill.

I plan on doing that.

From UESP:

The XP gain for Destruction skill is dependent on the base magicka cost of the spell and the damage inflicted on a target. Thus, increasing the difficulty level will slow down skill development, as your damage output will be lower. Lowering the difficulty below Adept (gaining bonus damage) will not increase the XP gains. Dual Casting does not increase XP gain.

Wait a sec... when was that edited to read that way? It's always been based on the base magicka cost and just the fact that you HAD to deal damage. Not that the damage output had anything to do directly with the XP gain formula.

Unless I just misread that from 18 months ago.

Runes against multiple targets seems to be the fastest way. I found it easier than raising weapon skills personally, but only once I started using runes.

Alternatively, AFK with a channeled spell and your mouse held down against a target that won't attack or die - shadowmere seems to be the favorite skill training dummy.

I don't have a desktop of my own plus, that seems like a cheap way of leveling up. I stopped doing that after my first playthrough.

I don't look at any of the grinding as being cheap. I mean it's really just training. NPC's do it all the time. The mages at the college do it. More so in Oblivion as they would always be casting something at the guilds.

Oh... what a min. You were talking about the AFK thing?

No I mean about repeatedly doing something. I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I do it for smithing; I hunt a lot of animals then make pelts and smith leather armor. I also go mining for iron ore, then use transmute to turn it into silver/gold to make jewelry. But that requires work. Casting magic is just standing there and doing it over and over.

All of the crafting skills are a grindfest, to make them effective. Some people play them out and call it "leveling normal" but I can't buy into that, as you are still making a product by collecting the material and just hitting a button. It doesn't make any difference if you do 10 every two hrs or 110 in 2 minutes. But what ever makes them feel good about it, I guess.

So is batting practice in a cage.

"wax on. wax off."

You have really made your point here XD. I will see if it feels right when I go back and play Skryim tomorrow.

Skills simply won't raise at a reasonable pace leveling normally - some level absurdly easy/quick and can be abused to gain tons of quick levels by cheesing the new "legendary skill" feature, while others are painfully slow "I never want to do this again" kind of grinds.

This is why I wish they'd just take a hint from the Fallout system, it works WAY better and is much less of a grind.