Why do people equate Destruction Mages to Fully Armored, Fully Enchanted, Fully Alchemied, Fully weaponized warriors when the equivalent would be an armorless, enchantless, potionless, dual wielding warrior who runs in and gets 1 shot by anything using a 2h power attack or magic.

Even if you ignore the enchantment and just take into account armour and basic weapons with perk boosts a warrior [censored] all over a destruction based mage. Because of magicka costs a mage has to wear robes and no armour to keep magicka topped up enough to be able to dish out damage consistantly. But crucially destruction damage becomes weaker as you progress as enemies level with you but destruction damage does not scale. Warrior damage scales with level so it stays balanced.

I really don't see how you can't understand this argument

Tried mage, to a fair level. The damage is amazing.
The, I went with a dual wield orc in heavy armor, focusing on smithing for sharpening weapons and making weapons and armor.

Its not even a competition. Melee, especially dual wield and with weapon skills such as enchanting and smithing. Casters are not behind, they are a dimension behind in damage output.
Anyone even considering thinking casters do as much damage as a dual wield warrior with the correct matching skills is joking, trolling or simply dont know better.

Spell casting is very viable though and definately alot more safe then melee, but thats why melee do more damage too, due to the risks it involves.

By the Julianos! You dont even understood what are all these complaints about! How could it be?!
Warrior/Thief have motivation to lvl up, warrior for instanse need 5 skills mastered minimum: 1 weapon skill, 1 armor skill and 3 craftings skills that improve his weapon DAMAGE and his ARMOR RATING, combined together these skill works in synergy. Thief need even more.
Mages hower benefit ONLY from alchemy and ONLY from 1 TYPE OF POTION (bust of destruction damage ,we are talking about destro mages here.)
If you want play pure destro mage, you need to master destruction and enchanting, because if you will lvl up futher you damage output WILL NOT IMPROVE, but the mobs WILL BECOME STRONGER.

The problem with destruction is that the spells dont scale and new spells cost too much mana, i noticed it too and rolled a new character. Its a thief with a bow and i already kill things faster than what i did with my mage.

We don't. The general lack of understanding here deserves a study

The point being made is that as an offensive skills - LEAVING ALL OTHER ISSUES ASIDE - Destruction is less powerful relative to other offensive skills such as one handed, two handed and archery.

Why is that so difficult?

but you are aware that magic regen items and potions are buged and there effect dont work in combat for player character right?

Indeed. That's the other thing that people don't seem to get

personaly this is my biggest promble for mage once mana regen is work the way it meant to i think a mage playstyle will be more useable but right now what is a pain tho is that its only your chacter that mana regen doesnt work on enemy mages are getting the effect prefectly fine

i would like some scaling for actual spells tho so that they dont becomes usless to the net spell up but mana regen is my main promble right now

They do work but just not enough to actually matter. So yeh I do realise that but really that just means it's even harder to be a destruction mage. This means if I want to be a mage I either become a conjurer or I go down the battle mage route and use enchanting. I think we both understand this so not much point debating it

Basically destruction is a useless form of offense in the game once you get past level 20. This IS A PROBLEM

Nerf Mages.... Er I mean... *Cough* :bolt:

Mages that only use destruction aren't even supposed to be called mages but oh well.

Because the crafting skills offer no where near as many benefits for mages as warriors/thieves, and because mages have set damage spells that dont get any stronger whether you are level 10 or level 80. Whereas the damage for a warrior/thief is dependent on skill level.

Yeah I wonder that too, of course those that 'get it' do not. If you simply equate Destruction against any single other damage dealing skill it is woefully inadequate. That would not bother me but at the end of the day I am just not finding it (destro) fun. To call destruction lack lustre is really an understatement, essentially it is broken. It has a couple of secondary abilities like slow and mana drain but they go no way towards making up for the severe the lack of damage. I know I can summon pets and run in circles while they kill but again that is not the point.

Presenting your point the other way, I also wonder why people say 'well you can use potions and summoning or use a weapon', sure you can but that does not fix destruction. That's the trouble with forums lot's of muddled thinking which results in muddled arguments.

There was another thread where a L54 mage suggested a couple of tips with a play style that sounded like it would suit me, it gave me hope where there had been none. Then he then he spoilt it all a few posts later with his top tip:- 'never leave home without a bow and a 1H weapon and use destro to mop up'.

Personally I think I'll wait for the fix/mod. The thing is whether to play another 'archetype' (I quite fancy stealth based) or to hang out in Arkham for a bit.

Heh, already two skill sets vs one.

You could just enchant your heavy/light armour with magic stats.

One thing I've noticed though, is that mages level relatively slow if you're not using more skills than destruction. On a play through as a Breton destruction only cloth wearing mage I had no more problems getting through the first few bandit quests and getting the first dragon killed than I did on my warrior or archer.

But I was 4 levels lower after wards because I hadn't leveled up stuff like Armour skills, sneak and block.

It's not about 'mages' it's about the Destruction skill tree being broken (pretty much its sole purpose is damage). Sure 'mages 'can use daggers or summon or use a bow but none of that makes destruction viable as a damage dealing tree.

And this is where the arguement become's invalid for everyone who says this.

The objective of the mage is NOT to put out as much damage as possible. That was never the case. As I've said numerous times, I'm probably one of the most balanced characters in this game right now. My 1 handed, block, destruction, restoration, archery, and sneak are all tied together. I'm lvl 27 now and I NEVER have an issue with magic. Magic is what buffs my damage actually. I hit them with fire, and the single swipe with my fire enchanted blade finishes the job, because the blade does extra damage to opponents already on fire. I set up runes, and discover ways to take out numerous people in the shortest amount of time. And yes, magic + blade or archery is quicker then just walking around and bashing everything. And I know even with the heaviest armor, there are still some caster foes in the game that put out tons of damage on me, especially with ice.

So please cut out the Mage Vs Warrior BS of who's stronger. You guys are so closed-minded that I don't even think you're obtaining a full grasp of how the game's machanics can be truely observed.

Destruction is(n't) nerfed - It's just depends on the right or wrong mindset.

Maybe not, but it sure is the objective of the Destruction school of magic.

Not entirely.

Errr spells dont scale, but neither do weapons. Periodically, a warrior will have to refit his character or wind up horribly weak. Strangely enough, a mage will have to update his inventory in a similar fashion.

Also added to this, a mage expecting to win a fight purely on the strength of one school of magic is like a warrior eschewing armour as he reckons his weapon should be powerful enough on its own - absolute misguided folly. Magic regen potions aren't great? Neither are health regen ones either, go in loaded with magicka RESTORATION potions and your problems cease. A wise warrior has lots of health potions for tight spots after all. Horses for courses people.

I guess a lot of people are forgetting that CLASSES were removed. There is no such thing as a Destruction Mage. This is a self-inflicted restriction. Yes, if you fail to cast spells from other schools during combat, then yes.... you are woefully weak, but that is not the games fault. Personally, I don't feel that people who play on Master level difficulty (that includes myself) should ever be griping about how difficult a game is.

You chose the difficulty level. If you can't handle it, then turn it down. Griping because you are purposefully restricting your playstyle because of role-playing or other purposes and then griping that the game is too difficult for you on the HARDEST difficulty is not ok. If you need to roleplay a mage that ONLY uses destruction magic to defeat your foes, then TURN DOWN THE DIFFICULTY level. Master level is really for those people that want a challenge while pulling every rabbit they own out of the hat. Making it so that destruction magic can simply wipe everything in a master level game simply means that you have cheapened the difficulty of the game since clearly all the other spell groups are then useless.

I think if anyone else says "why are you only using destruction then?", or words to that effect I will actually kill myself

Do people just read what they want to read?

They do if you craft them yourself.

If you max smithing and use potions/enchants to buff your smithing skill you can create stuff that's a lot stronger than anything you can find. Coupled with how percentage damage adds works you can do bat[censored]crazy damage. There is no equivalent for destruction since you don't craft spells and can't enchant +dmg.

People are whining spells aren't equal, and they aren't, but I don't see why you'd want them to be either. It's a little like using a god mode cheat, and seing how skyrim is a single player game the only one you're cheating is yourself.

Self-crafting is just like buying a new one though (EDIT: to a point, if you can buy something equivalent to the best you could craft, then why craft? As we cant, we'll never know) surely? It didn't gain more damage over levels in Oblivion as I remember, but the cost went down as your Destro skill improved.

Anyhoo, I stand by what I said - one school of magic alone isn't enough to win a fight. Spells taken on their own aren't equal to what a fully kitted out warrior can do but as I said before thats an unfair comparison as the warrior is utilising everything at their disposal and the mage isn't. Stands to reason that the warrior would have an easier time of it. My experiences as a mage taught me that Illusion is every bit as useful to a mage as a thief. And Alteration is a wise move if only for oakflesh.

Destruction aoe is awesome. Of course you need alteration or restoration for defense, and enchanted equipment to boost mana regen to support the spells. You wont run out of mana if you switch to staff to allow regen.

Single target damage is lower, aoe damage can't be matched by any other skill though