So I thought this was interesting and wanted to share. I finally got my enchanting up to lvl 100, and in combination with an enchanting potion (25% stronger) i enchanted a full suit of deadric armor with fortify destruction. Well, each peice added 28% less cost (only 4 pieces could have the enchantment) and add that to my lvl 100 destruction skill, and every destruction spell has 0 cost, even the master lvl spells. Needless to say, im above lvl 50 and I'm not having trouble holding my own.
Tried this with robes and stuff and works as well if you don't want to wear armor.
Anyways, just an opinion, as I know there are people unhappy with the magic system and the lack of spells.
Cheers

:facepalm:
Guess I'm one of the last few to figure this out lol, just saw some posts on it...

You surely must be the first person to discover this. Thank you for sharing this new information.

:wink_smile:

Just wait.. soon there will be a post screaming "omg, but you shouldn't have to exploit the game to make it work" despite the feature being quite blatantly and obviously in the game.. I mean.. have you ever met a necromage NOT wearing a mana reduction robe.......

Actually...it was new to me. I haven't been keeping up as much with the forums. So thank you so much for sharing! There is some hope for my mage afterall.

Granted I'm not 50 yet but 40something, but even without resorting to enchanting tricks ect., I don't see what the big problem about mages is supposed to be. I play as a pure mage, so no weapons, and granted, some fights can get hectic, but I certainly don't feel underpowered. The only thing I think is a bit annoying is how weak the higher destruction spells are. I'm basically still using that one fire bolt spell I learned early most of the time as the other spells are either not strong enough or take away too much magicka (even with all perks in destruction ...)

It's a bit unbalanced, I can summon a dremora lord who destroys everything and keeps me out of the action for very little magicka, but when I want to cast some spells which don't even do that much, it drains the bar like there's a hole in it. And then I miss the moving target ...

You are correct, this has been one of the most debated topics on the forum since the game came out. Fundamentally though, this Enchanting exploit doesn't really solve anything. Destruction is still weak as wet noodles against top-level enemies no matter how much magicka it costs, meaning that you spend 2 minutes blasting weakly away at an enemy that you could take down in a quarter of the time using an unperked bow.

Moreover this exploit invalidates all the "Novice --> Master Destruction spells cost 50% less Magicka" perks in one go.

Everyone knows about this cheat by now. Its faster to use console commands, same game breaking results.

No, it shouldn't used to gauge Destro's balance. It's like gauging melee balance by ench/alch/bs looping. Btw the damage still scales like crap, and using 1-2 spell for most of your offensive game-play is horrid.

I find the title confusing. So you think it svcks?

Professor: It's interesting to note that in many languages, two negatives make a positive -- but there aren't any languages where two positives make a negative.

Heckler: Yeah, yeah.

I'm level 55, don't wear armor, and also don't use the 0% spell cost feature. And I still have fun even though my magicka drains like normal (well I do have like 60% cost reduction.) But I still never have problems with magicka running out very often. Probably helps that I put about 50 out of 55 levels into magicka...

+1. I read the title over to ensure I wasn't half asleep.

@ OP. You are not the first to realize this. Not by a longshot. It is very nice that you have daedric armor, good for you!

As said above, the big problem with destruction is damage scaling, not mana. A HIPS illusion/sneaker or any weapon user gets more offensively powerful over time, mages need to depend on summons or stun locks at later levels.

Course for PC there are mods to balance this.

I had more fun on my mage than on my first character (sneak 1handed bow) but fights are terribly disappointing even on master difficulty.

I use the %cost destruction enchantments, since I didn't find any other useful enchantment to put on my items but am not at 0% cost and don't need to. Level 39 atm with about 90 destruction. I got 100 enchantment only by doing stuff for me and Lydia, and sometimes doing enchanted rings to sell when I needed money (well, when I needed 25k for my house tbh...).
Enchanting is horrible. I know many spells but can only enchant my items with silly effects I found on random items, what's the point of being a mage? Anyone could do that... I'd like to be able to create nice enchantments based on which schools I master the most, to create a robe that offers me some magical armor, a staff that would let me summon my minions without using magicka..
Think I'll do another character, without enchantment just because it svcks and doesn't have enough variety of effects. Most of the enchantments I have would be useful to warriors (fire/ice/shock dmg, life steal, paralysia), to thieves (sneak increase, lockpick increase) or to anything that's not a mage. Except for the -%cost things. If magic regen worked in fights it could be a viable option too, but even with +125% I run oom after 3-4 spells and spend the rest of the fight running till my mana regens enough... Or I drink 13 potions to refill my pool.
Not that fun...

Impact perk is way too powerful and shouldnt trigger at every double spell cast, so I usually use two hands to cast the same spell but not doubled. I don't have anything useful to cast during fights, summons are casted at the beginning, as well as armor buff. I don't use fear or calms since my spells one shot most little mobs.

I think destruction goes up way too fast, while other schools are slow as hell. Used summons for every fights (except random wolves or bears outside), and captured as many souls I could, still my conjuration (? dunno english name don't play english version) is at approx 40 while my destruction is at 90. I could use summoned armor or weapons, but I'm a mage and it doesn't fit my RP.
The solution may be to not use destruction at every fight, but spending 2mins to wait till my atronach kills that wolf isn't very fun, since I could freeze it or make it burn easily and go do something more interesting.

Staffs are incredibly useless, the only reason I equip one from time to time is because it looks nice. As I said, I'd like to create my own staffs, Magnus did and I'm an arch-mage too so why can't I?

Also I thought academy would be the guild with the most puzzles, where you would have to spend time thinking and searching for books to increase your knowledge and solve things. Well I searched for books, because Urag asked me to go to X cave to get Y book. I did one puzzle at ocularium, spent lots of time on it till I understood my spells were too powerful....
Am not finished with secondary quests on academy yet so it might be interesting (got good hopes on one or two things I'm working on) but got me disappointed a lot for the main quests.



The most difficult thing to do in a fight as a mage is to keep Lydia alive, I find myself pressing F9 after half of fights till I find a way to keep her alive. Guess that could be called challenge. Or bad design, dunno really. This girl can take few hits from a mob that one-shots me, but one AOE spell from me and 60% or her life is gone, even with 70% resistance to that dmg type.


But these problems will be solved once CK is available, shouldn't be that hard to fix and given the huge work done on magic on mw and obli I got good hopes on that.