I played through the game twice at Master level difficulty as a mage. Both times I was disappointed with the effectiveness of Destruction. My third time through I played a sneak archer and can mow down pretty much anything.

Did Bethesda ever do anything to improve Destruction, maybe in the DLCs?

The point of the question is that I may play it again, maybe with Legendary difficulty, but I'm not sure I can go back to having to hit things to many times.

Thanks.

no, they never improved destruction to my knowledge....

Mods do that, I love the Better Magic Mod. Bethesda has not touched Magic at all.

in my experience, if you really want a casting character to be viable at higher difficulties (Especially legendary), you really have to be good at mixing and matching all schools of magic on the fly..

Dragonborn adds some non-disenchantable armour that increases destruction damage.

Personally I prefer to just use alchemy, to make potions that do the same.

Destruction is viable, alhtough a bit bland and repetitive, if you use it in conjunction with the perks that increase damage and alchemy.

If you think about it, it's actually not fair to compare sneak archer to destruction, since you are utilizing 2 skills in sneak archer's case, and only 1 in destruction's case. Maybe you could add alteration with paralysis or conjuration with summoned damage output to aid destruction to be fair. Or alchemy plus destruction as others suggested.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1342463-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-10/ did a great job compiling a good bit of information from other testers when the game released. Although he continually slaps the face of the franchise with the use of the term "mana", as that is another game entirely and not part of the TES world, it is still a well detailed wealth of information. This is part of the segment on Destruction and how effective it can be with or without the use of Alchemy.

At a base damage potential of 235, it is on par with the damage output from a developed 2H weapon. Then when you add Alchemy to the mix, it excels at 615.

The major difference, other than sneak attack bonuses, between Destruction and weapon damage is that Destruction is capped while the oversight of allowing Smithing to continue to allow weapons to be improved beyond Legendary is allowed and remains unhindered.