It's coming up on 2 years since the release. The game has been torn apart and dissected into the smallest of parts to to fully understand the mechanics of it. The only reason to purchase the guide, or any guide, is for sheer reason of being a collectable item.

Every aspect of the skills, to include the most efficient XP gains, is openly displayed in detail on several sites. Namely, the UESP.

That being said, the only way to increase Destruction is to cast a spell that actually does harm to an enemy. Even then, the XP gains are directly related to the magnitude of the spell and it's magicka cost. The most efficient "bang for the buck" is casting Expert level spells.

On a side note, I see no harm in questioning the intent of some of these topics. Ones that chime in with no purpose but to scold the questionable comments, is more offencive than the harmless prodding of the initiate. In fact, stepping in as a moderator figure is far more arrogant. The fact of the matter is. some of you are just too thin skinned and boast a history of lashing out at anyone that rubs you the least bit.

Difficulty has no bearing on XP gain.

so i could get more XP from killing something on legendary mode than i would from novice

like say fire bolt vs conjured familiar on novice its a 1 hit kill on legendary its a 4-5 hit kill. so if i were to use legendary difficulty to train, conjure familiar + fire bolt would be more efficent than doing so on novice ?

I'll accept that on my part. I have been a bit touchy lately. RL issues are no excuse for being confrontational.

Indeed. By the enemies being tougher, you get more hits in per enemy. That holds true for leveling any damage skill. So, in a sense, the difficulty will have bearing on leveling. That is indirectly of course, as it doesn't have a direct effect on the amount of XP gained from each individual hit.

That wasn't focused towards you directly, my friend. It was more of a general statement.

It's when others get overly stringent and are all but arrogant and condescending in their own right. I see no problem with sharing an opinion, but the line gets crossed when some become too domineering and try to police the situation. It's one thing to opine towards a topic, no matter if it's for or against. It's another thing entirely to chime in and try to correct those that may disagree.

Like the grammar nazi's. Who are they to correct someone else? It's the same thing, as far as I'm concerned. To find fault in a subject is still relevant to the discussion. To attempt to govern and parent the faulted comments is leading off topic. I admit to being guilty of that myself, I'm afraid. In fact this very line of discussion can be viewed as such.

Awesome, for those who own this guide, is it worth it? How advanced are the tips? Are they just super obvious things or do they get super detailed with all the calculations and stuff?
And is the map completed with all findable locations or is it just all the major cities and holds?
I'm considering spending 35$ on the hardcover edition.

I'll be honest. Guides are never really super specific or show numbers. I would go with the uesp.

I would get it just for collection purposes. But, whatever floats your boat.

woah $35.00 for hard cover? thats how much paper back costed me :/

any way if you like maps its great (personally prefer the physical map of the world with eveything on it over the UESP's also has roads drawn in as red lines an entire section for alchemy ingrediants (so in regards to uesp i pesonally think its faster to usewhen ust looking up wha potions can be made with igrediants you have)

also with guide i dont have to go to my room check something on uesp then go back living room and go to game and then go back to uesp and rinse repeat much better to sit with book on me

also no waiting around for your internet to load with a book (gets mighty fustrating when want check one thing but your service decides to go nope for an hour or more

also all the images in he book are really cool i mean the way they were taken some times you get a sky view (which on 360 is impossible view to get) and looks like they were meant to be desk top wall papers instead of small images to match the text for a guide) (some are large tho) and then is all the maps which look better than the ones on UESP