Hi,

Few noobish questions here, the problem is that I can't find answers anywhere:

1. Is Aspect of Terror Glitch still in the game?

2. What is the full effect of dual cast in game? Stagger and damage increase?

3. Raising destruction skill will not directly raise spell damage, but what about spell cost? Is higher destruction giving any discounts?

4. Disintegrate perk - worth it?

My version of the game is full patched (steam).

I am trying to play as puremagebeingjerkabusingsystembywearingheavyarmour:)

1. Yes.
2. Dual casting destruction does a little more damage but is magicka inefficient. You need dual casting plus impact to cause stagger.
3. Increasing destruction skill causes a relatively small decrease in casting cost. You need perks or enchants for a big decrease.
4. Opinions on that differ. I don't take that perk because they never fully fixed the problem with ash piles not cleaning up properly.

I don't know if the unofficial patch changes 1 or 4, but I would expect modders have fixed these by now.

Another question:

I play on standard difficulty, enchanting gear to make destruction cost less - do you think that spells only approach will be valid in late game?

Or I will be struggling?

I was horribly scarred by trying to play puremage in Morrowind....

I've played two pure Mages on Adept difficulty to higher levels, one into the 40's and one into the 50's. That's "late game" to me. I had no more trouble staying alive than I did with any other character I've played. I enjoyed both Mages immensely.

Good...

Still I think I will try to tweak Expert Destruction and Master destruction Perks to give some bonus damage (like 10%) to everything.

Now they are just useless:/

You can also boost the damage of your destruction spells by wearing one of the Solstheim Dragon Priest masks.

I'd also recommend Ahzidal's Ring of Arcana. The spell Ignite becomes particularly nasty after getting Augmented Flames 2/2, Aspect of Terror and Ahzidal's mask. You get more bang for magicka compared to Incinerate and the damage stacks as well.

Before you even think about booting up Skyrim again, install the unofficial patches. Seriously. You would not believe the huge number of bugs and oversights in the game that these unofficial patches address.