Ive been studying destruction magic heavily lately, its my best friend in combat. However, i currently read a post that is making me question my understanding of it. This is how a battle tends to go. I have a TON of magika btw so i know its a lot. I cast spells to make up for the lack of other enchantments.

Nighteye (if needed)
Feather (if needed)
Fortify Willpower
Shield
Summon (if deemed necessary.)
Weakness to what ever element i plan i using
Destruction spell of the appropriate element.


I read recently, however, that if i make a spell of relatively low direct damage, but a significant amount of weakness to that direct elemental damage, i will actually do more damage. the reasoning behind it was that the weakness to whatever element im using STACKS???

Example:
Spell: 40 fire damage on target &
100% weakness to fire for 6 seconds on target

1st cast:
100% weakness
2nd cast
200% weakness
3rd cast
400% weakness
4th cast
800% weakness

This is of course assuming that i hit it 4 times within the 6 seconds that the weakness to fire effect will last.

Is this true????

Thanks in advanced!!!
P.S. I play on xbox with all DLC's and no mods.

I've never stacked weaknesses with spells because they are normally not my primary attack, but I know they stack as weapon enchantments. I do a similar thing on some weapons, stack fire+weakness to fire+ weakness to magic. I think I read somewhere that you need weakness to magicka as an effect to allow the other weakness spell(s) to stack. Not positive about that though.

Here's how I use it:

I have two spells with the exact same effect.

The first is called Get Ready to Burn!
Weakness to Fire 100% for 10 seconds

The second is called Get Ready to Burn Part Deux!
Weakness to Fire 100% for 10 seconds.

(my spell names, are well, different lol, I like to add levity to my names)

The reason I have two different names, is that the timer would start over, once you cast the same spell twice.
I cast the first one.
I cast the second one.
I cast the fire damage spell, for devastating effect. And note, that you do not need to create an uber damage spell, the magnifying effect from the initial weaknesses can make even the Flare spell a killing spell.

You can create more weakness spells that will add to the stack, however I find it difficult in the midst of battle to get three weakness spells in there first, before dealing the damage, within the time frame.
You don't want to put the damage spell in with the weakness, as the timer will reset. Cast the damage spell after you cast the weaknesses. You will know if you successfully hit your target with the weakness, as they turn a deep blood red color... when you see it you'll get it.

It's possible to combine the weakness effect(s) with the damage and make an all-in-one spell, as long as Weakness to Magic is part of the package. That effect is the key.

Here's a quick 'n easy proof of concept you can try out. Head to an altar and make this spell:

-Drain Health 100 pts for 1 sec on Target, Weakness to Magic 100% for 5 secs on Target.

Now, go out and find a baddie that has more than 100 Health. Keep casting it at the baddie. Sooner or later, it'll drop dead. The spell does no permanent damage whatsoever to the target, but each successive casting of the spell upon the target (provided you don't allow the Weakness effect to expire) amplifies the magnitude of the Drain Health effect. So on the second casting, the Drain effect becomes 200 pts, and so on and so forth.

Now, that particular spell might prove to be a bit clumsy for serious field use - even though it *will* eventually kill off a high health enemy like an Ogre, it might require a lot of castings to finally bring it down, especially at higher levels. But, it's a good starting point for more complex and expensive self-amplifying spells.

1. I wouldn't bother with Fortifying Willpower, all it does is increase your regeneration. Unless of course you are suing a mod that makes it more useful. In the vanilla game though it's not particularly useful.

2. Now about your question, it depends on the weakness. Weakness to elemental damage and Weakness to Poison only stack if they come from different spells. Whenever you cast a spell on a target that is still under the influence from a previous cast of the spell, the new cast repalces the old. That probably sounds a bit confusing, so let me give you an example.

Let's say you cast a spell that does 10 fire Damage for 10 seconds on a Bandit. Then after 5 seconds you cast the same spell on the same Bandit. The total damage that the bandit will suffer is 150. When you cast the spell the second time, it first ended the spell that was still on him and then it started again from the beginning.

So you can't cast the same elemental weakness spell over and over to make the weakness more potent. But if you have one spell that causes 100% Weakness to Fire and another spell that cause 100% Weakness to Fire, then if you cast both spells on a target, that target will indeed have 200% Wekaness to Fire.

Weaknes to Magick on the other hand does stack with itself. That's because it makes the target vulnerable to all hostile spells, including Weakness spells. If you have a 100% Weakness to Magick spell (with a sufficently long duration) and you cast it twice on the same target, the target will now have 200% Weakness to Magic. Cast it 3 times and the target has 300% Weakness to Magic. Cast it 7 times and the target has 700% Weakness.

If you have a spell that combines 100% Weakness to Magic and 100% Weakness to Fire (or another element) theWeakness to Fire also gets amplified. So after 3 cast the target has 300% Weakness to Magic and Fire, which in turn means it takes 16x damage from Fire Damage spells ( [1+3] x [1+3] = 4 x 4 = 16 ).

But there is more. If you make two different spells that combine 100% Weakness to Magic and 100% Weakness to Fire it gets even deadlier. If you cast the two spell one after the other, the target will already have 300% Weakness to both Magic and Fire. If you then cast the first spell again the target will have 600% Weakness to Magic and Fire. Then if you cast the second spell a second time the target will have 1100% Weakness to Magic and Fire. At that point any Fire Damage spells you cast will have their damage multiplied by 144. If you cast Flare, the weak little fire spell that everybody starts with, it will do 864 damage. Unless of course the target is a Flame Atronach (or another creature that has 100% Resist Fire) in which case it will take only 792 damage.


The main issue here is the time it takes to layer on all the weaknesses and the fact that if you miss a shot it can screw up your sequence. It's probably best to add 10 Fire Damage to the Weakness spell themselves so you're already doing damage while you're stacking weaknesses. So you'd have two spells that have 100% Weakness to Magic for about 8 seconds, 100% Weakness to Fire for about 8 seconds, and 10 Fire Damage. You'd then tie them to two hotkeys. You'd also probably want to make them area of effect and aim at your target's feet.

When you cast the first spell for the first time you do 10 damage.

When you cast the second spell for the first time you do 30 damage.

When you cast the first spell for the second time you do 160 damage.

When you cast the second spell for the second time you do 490 damage.

If 690 damage wasn't enough to kill your enemy and you cast the first spell for a third time you'll do 1440 damage.

If 2130 damage still wasn't enough to kill your target and you cast the second spell for a third time you'll do 3240 damage. Or you could cast a 100 Fire Damage spell to do 32400 damage. Kind of excessive, but a friend of mine likes to say that if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. :chaos:


If you make a touch version of the same spell, it's also advisable to throw in some Absorb Magicka and Absorb Health. They'll only be magnified by the Weakness to Magic, but they'll keep your Magicka and Health up.

My favourite destruction spell is shock damage 50, weakness to shock 100% for 3 sec, weakness to magic 100% for 3 sec on target.
This drop most enemies fast, has some options of it, one add silence for 3 seconds, very nice against mages who might summon something in who block the spells, the other is to give the weaknesses a 15 foot radius but drop the weakness duration to 2 seconds, this is very useful against groups, you target one enemy and the nearby ones also get the weakness, then you switch target the enemy will have a stacked weakness on him and dies in one or two hits.

Personally I think the spell switching is too hard to do well in a combat situation, an all in one spell is far easier to use, can even block and cast to increase rate of fire.

You can increase the lethality of this spell significantly by adding drain health 100 for 1 second.
You can also adjust it by changing the damage so it fits your mana pool better.
And make a fire version of it against undead.

One other tips:
My pure mage has a weakness to magic, this gives her problem fighting liches and other creatures with reflect spell, found that weakness to magic and a dagger with some potent poison solves this problem, a combination of weakness to poison and weakness to magic works even better, but has the downside that you might easy end up with a weakness on yourself, but if the lich is busy fighting your summon it’s a low risk.

Touch of Death:

Frost Gollum
Disintegrate Armour 100 points for 1 second
Deminish Health 100 points for 1 second
Fire damage 100 points for 1 second
Frost damage 100 points for 1 second
Shock Damage 100 points for 1 second
Sword. Poisoned.


Jems.