I believe that Destruction is generally considered the bread and butter of most offensive minded mages, correct? The use of elemental magic seems the most practical means of harnessing magic to attack one's enemies, especially in situations where Conjuration would be either impractical or dangerous to the caster. But considering the various ways of counteracting conventional spells - reflection, absorption or outright resistance - wouldn't more experienced users in Destruction seek out a more advanced means of engaging their opponents? After all, magic is about playing with how the universe works, so one would think there are more advanced applications for Destruction than making a bigger, stronger fireball.

Would it be conceivable for a mage to use their magic in creating plasma, for example? Even a small amount, properly contained and manipulated, would not be affected by the sort of spell resistances that might make elemental magic ineffective, and would cut through armour like a warm knife through butter. Alternatively, would it be possible to saturate an area with enough frost magic that, even without hitting one's opponent, the sheer cold would kill them? It just seems unlikely that highly practiced Destruction mages would leave themselves open to the possibility of having their spells bounced back into their faces.

I appreciate any insight you fine individuals may be able to offer on this matter.

Fire is itself a plasma, so yeah. As for the cold, makes complete sense, just we don't really see it used in gameplay since it's a slightly slower way of killing folks than just stabbing them through the face with a billion icicles .

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Ice_Storm does that already, and the previous area effect spell in Oblivion did the same. http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Blizzard takes that up to 11.

That's basically how it worked in Daggerfall. No amount of Resist Magic would save you from getting hit with a flaming ball of fire, because well, it's a flaming ball of fire. Fire is fire, and resisting/absorbing magic won't save you from fire. You'd need Resist Fire to protect against fire-based spells and such.

Its makes a lot of sense, elemental effects are elemental, they are only magic in casting not in effect, magic resistance/ weakness should not protect against poison or elemental effects who can also be non magic.

It would protect against all magic effects including destruction ones.

Note that this nerfs weakness / resistance to magic.


As for dangerous destruction spells, the real dangerous one combines weakness with damage or other effects.

If elemental magic is all about manifesting that element physically, one can't help but wonder what reflect spells would actually be good for, then. Still, some interesting things to think about with all of this. Thank you, all.