Having taken the 2 levels of each element and impact is there anything I can do to improve my destruction damage? I'm casting the area affect spells using the lower level ones only if firing into a crowd etc. Guess it goes without saying that i'm dual casting those also.

There is a rather broken way(without the restoration loop) to do it, but I've forgotten how. The other is through mods.

Destruction is overpowered unless you change the difficulty to Adept or higher, then it just svcks royally as spell damage doesn't scale with skill level. That 111damage Incinerate ain't gonna 2 shot anyone.

You can get Dragon Priest masks in Solstheim that increase damage by 25% I think. You can also create fortify destruction potions. I was VERY disappointed with the way destruction damage was handled in this game.

If you're on the PC, you can try a mod. I tried Balanced Magic once and that improved Destruction. I believe there should be lots of magic mods by now.

There's also a perk in Illusion (Aspect of Terror) that improves fire spells.

Make sure to get/make some good Alchemy gear if you go with potions.

Anything is overpowered below adept.

It's the way Skyrim handle higher difficulties and the lack of enchantments to increase damage that cause problems for Destruction. I know there are some mods out there that revamp magic but I prefer to keep it simple by using mods that allow me to change how difficulty works like http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/30505/? or http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51988/?. This way I can keep the outgoing damage at adept difficulty but damage taken at master difficulty.

Ways to increase 1H/2H/Archery damage in vanilla Skyrim:

• Base skill increase


• Root-level perks (5 perks for +100% damage from skill and material tier calcs for all aspects of each kill skill)


• Critical hits


• Smithing


• Fortify skill apparel Enchantments


• Weapon elemental damage enchantments


• Fortify skill potions


• Eight graduated weapon material tiers (nine with DG)


• Power attacks (which happen as long as Stamina >0 even if the amount normally consumed would push it below 0)


• Poisons


• Sneak attacks

Ways to increase Destruction damage:

• Dual casting (which drastically reduces mana/damage efficiency for a paltry gain in DPS)


• Higher tier spells (which have increasingly inefficient mana/damage ratios)


• Fortify skill potions


• Perks (6 perks for +50% from base spell magnitude (NO skill factor)for all elemental effects of Destruction)


• Dragon priest masks that only affects one particular element each (from Dragonborn) and also are not disenchantable

Ways you CANNOT increase destruction damage

• NOT base skill advancement


• NOT sneak attacks


• NOT having sufficient mana for ANY casting


• NO critical hits


• NOT apparel enchantments


• You can't weap-enchant a spell


• You can't smith a spell either


• Poisoning's out too

So... eleven ways to boost 1H/2H/Archery damage, and five ways to boost Destruction damage, only one of which doesn't have any caveats or shortfalls compared to any 1H/2H/Archery counterparts (IE: fortify potions).

Destruction does have a mobility advantage over Archery when preparing to fire... until that Ranger perk is acquired. Destruction lacks the sustained-fire ability of Archery, for the aforementioned magicka inefficiency problems consume magicka at an alarming rate, and the game throws arrows at you like confetti. And that mobility advantage vaporizes completely with the shining exemplars of Destruction's ineffectuality: the Master Spells, which root you in place when preparing to cast.

Speak up if I missed anything.

If Todd doesn't want the player to do "spreadsheet magic", then the onus is on the developers to do it for us. This is why Destruction is weak in the vanilla game: they didn't do it for us.

I agree 100%, but you forgot about blessings. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Blessings, 2 effect weapons and one effects magic (restoration).

Blessing of Auriel: You are 10% more effective with missile weapons.

Blessing of Boethiah: One-handed weapons do 10% more damage.

Blessing of Mara: Healing spells restore 10% more.

EDIT:

Also as a reward from http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Book:_The_Sallow_Regent_%28Quest%29 quest you can chose:

Seeker of Might: 10% more effective combat skills

I heard somewhere that the restoration loop for improving things like enchanting to silly levels had been stopped by one of the later updates. This may be true because I tried it recently and it didn't work...unless I just did it wrong!

Personally, I struggle with magika of any sort. Even the master level spells are hard for me to use...they take so long to brew up while your pc is waving their arms about like a lunatic that the target has either moved or killed me before I can release them.

I tend to try to get around this by enchanting my gear like mad, especially when I have 100 and all perks in enchanting and alchemy. I stick double enchantments on anything I can wear that will take them. If I was focusing on destruction I'd have a couple of fortify destruction enchants and as many fortify magika regen and fortify magika as I could squeeze into my armour and jewellery. Then I use spells below master level and fire them as quickly as I like, knowing that my magika is not going to run out on me while casting things like stoneflesh and doing sneak attacks wherever possible.

Then again, I'm no mage and I die a lot trying this, so maybe it isn't something that would work for you. Magika for me is...well it's like magic...I don't understand it!

There certainly are apparel enchantments that help with destruction magic. You can lower the cost of destruction magic casting to zero if you enchant your equipment. This means you can burn everyone and not lose any magicka.

"Enchanted items reduce the http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Magicka_%28Skyrim%29 cost of Destruction spells, from 1% to as much as 29% per item (through the use of Necromage and being a Vampire this is actually 36% instead when enchanted appropriately). It is possible to completely remove the Magicka cost of Destruction spells if the total of Fortify Destruction enchantments are equal or superior to 100, for example with 4 equipment pieces with -25% magicka."

I tend to rely on the conjuration tree to help with my offense. Bound weapons and summonded creatures give me good weapons (with soul trap) and allies that can at least help take the brunt of the attack. Destruction is a secondary skill along with restoration. Useful, but I don't rely on it.

It's not you; the Master-level spells are worse than useless. They root you in place, depriving you of the main advantage Destruction has over archery as a ranged kill skill, and their magicka/damage ratio is abhorrently inefficient compared to anything else.

But Destruction enchants don't increase damage.

Crafting abuse is what makes 1H/2H/Archery overpowered. Are you saying that crafting abuse and 'sploiting is needed to make Destruction viable in the first place?

Destruction is supposed to be the mainstay kill skill for mages. That it's a "secondary skill" is quite indicative that it got neglected bigtime. As for those bound weapons... ultimately, you're still using 1H/2H/Archery as the actual kill skill.

As I said before... if Todd doesn't want the players doing "http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/299182-todd-howard-gi-interview-transcript/", the onus is on the devs to do it for us.

Can't argue with this. Bound weapons do indeed rely on the other skills.