I think the point is that you can't summon a stronger dremora lord either. There's only one version of the spell and it gets you a specific result. There are other spells that get different weapons that do more damage, just like you'd summon a different atronach at a different level.

But there aren't any other spells that summon a different one handed weapon. Only the sword. (And the dagger if you have the DLC). Where's the bound war axe or mace? Those could have come with higher damage/magicka cost. What use is summoning a battle axe (which also has nerfed damage) if you fight one handed. There are woefully too few options in the game, especially where magic is concerned. If it weren't for the CS I would have been done with Skyrim by now. Vanilla Skyrim is too simple and lacking in diversity for my tastes. Modded is another story.

But then I'll argue that a flame atronach uses a different elemental attack than a storm atronach, and muddy the waters, too.

You're using the weapons as a Conjurer, not as a one- or two-handed fighter, although of course, you're both.

(It's a floor wax, it's a desert topping, it's both!)

As a conjurer I expect to be able to summon clanfear, daedroth, spider deadra, xivalai, wraiths and gloom wraiths, bone walkers, winged twilights, liches, etc. Skyrim's only one summon for each type of elemental attack, plus one weak melee wolf and then overpowered dremora lord twins as the reward for slugging though 100 levels of conjuration is just too limited for my tastes. Dawnguard helped some by adding a few more summons but you have to slug through that questline to get them and deal with random vampire attacks on my cities. Overall, Skyrim suffers from lack of variety in spells, and it is particularly noticeable in conjuration.

Actually, the character I had that used bound swords was more of a nightblade than a conjurer, using illusion for invisibility, muffle, and quiet casting and conjuration for bound swords. Worked great until the level scaling made the enemies outlevel the damage from his bound swords, then it kinda svcked since he could no longer kill much of anything with a sneak attack cause all of a sudden everything had too much health, cause of the leveled/scaled world.

That's what I meant earlier when I said your character gets weaker as you level up. Same character I'd been playing all along -- who at lower levels was a badass, all of a sudden is no longer badass. He can't kill anything the way he used to be able to since most of the enemies he was facing all of a sudden had more health. It's a product of a leveled/scaled game world and a weapon that does not have a good method of scaling damage.

Oblivion had the same issues of an over scaled world and limited ways to beef up your character's damage at higher levels, and they did not really fixed the issue Skyrim. Well, they sort of fixed it since you can use smithing to scale the damage of your weapons as much as you want, but when it comes to bound swords, they nerfed it.

Sure, he could switch to summoning atronachs and dremora lords and such, or he could switch to a nightblade who uses physical weapons, but that's a poor solution. If they are going to nerf bound weapon damage in relation to physical weapons, there should be an option in the game world for a more powerful conjurer to summon a more powerful weapon (at a higher magicka cost). I suppose you could argue that one handed enchants do just that, but that's only a partial solution. The route I eventually chose was just to mod the heck out of the game so my game looks nothing like vanilla.

Heavily modded is pretty much the only way I will play Skyrim these days. And the game is a dream with the right mods.

No, I don't. Conjuration perk improvements are mostly duration-related, not greater-damage-related. In all of the magic schools, you improve your spell strength by going to the next-higher version of that spell. Bound Sword is a novice spell, Bound Battleaxe is an apprentice skill, and Bound Bow is an adept spell.

The Bound Sword damage rises as your one-hand skill rises, and you can dual-wield it. The base damage of 14 (mystic perk) is equal to that of an unsmithed daedric sword, so it's not bad. And perked, it can soul-trap and banish summons.

Considering that it's a mage weapon, not a warrior's, it's pretty good, in my opinion.

except of course the very perk that increases damage, Mystic Binding.

Those are three different spells that require use of three different weapon skills. Following your logic, all high level conjured weapon users are stuck with being archers or having to deal with pathetically low damage numbers. There should be a higher level version of both one handed and two handed melee spells. You should not have to switch to a bow to get a decent damage out of your bound weapon.

And physical weapons can be dual enchanted with soul trap and banish, or a variety of other even more powerful enchantments.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but my opinion is quite different. My opinion is that base damage 14 deadric unsmithed is quite bad in a game balanced around smithed weapons. That may be as much a critique of smithing/game world leveling/scaling as it is of bound weapons. But five measly points of base damage (going from 9 to 14 with the perk) is pathetic in a world where you can smith your weapons.

I asked earlier why should my character get weaker as he levels and your response was just summon dramoras or storm atronachs. That's not much help to a nightblade that uses bound weapons. Now instead of a nightblade, he has to be a summoner? Or an archer? Great.

I don't see any reason why mage weapons should be less powerful than physical weapons, when your mage is basically summoning daedric weapons, which are supposed to be the best weapons available, but turns out they are not even as good as a smithed steel weapon. That seems very wrong to me.

We can debate whether it is good or bad all day, but the fact remains that bound swords do dismally low damage when compared to physical weapons because of smithing. That's the reason many people don't like bound weapons in vanilla Skyrim -- because, even with the perks, bound weapons still do way less damage than smithed weapons and you don't even need top tier gear or even that much smithing skill to get there.

my only gripe with the bound bow spell is that it summons a bound quiver on top of a bound bow. That makes it evident that you are just using a regular daedric bow with a unique FX. It would be more magical if there was no quiver and the (magical) arrow only materialized upon loosing the string.

This is something else I have a gripe about with Magic. Why, when buying spellbooks, do they NOT say "Novice", or "Adept", or "Master?" Only after purchase will you get ANY info on the spell. Considering the price (at lower levels), a little guidance would be appreciated