I couldn't go through the whole game using one school of magic, it would just be boring :/

A pure destruction mage is not simply a mage that only levels Destruction, it means a mage that uses Destruction as its only means of dealing damage (some would say that pure mages avoid armors altogether too). As you can see, it doesn't necessarily mean that a pure destruction mage can't be a blacksmith or a thief

Some mages do not get past 35, that statement is true, but it doesn't mean the game should be made around that, as they make warrior skills scale nicely to higher levels.

EDIT: I don't necessarily have to play a mage to state that, as there are already tons of threads talking about that. If that's not the case, there must not be that many threads about that

im pretty sure i can run around naked and just use shout to beat the game, do i prove anything? nope, nothing, other than i drag a fight 100x longer than you use a sword.

cant i kill stuff at level 50 with destro only? yes! would i enjoy casting 30 fireball in order to kill 1 enemy? no

That is the problem

agree with this guy .

No offence OP but its kinda silly explaining how destruction gets weak after lvl 40 , then saying i didnt get to 40 its fine . Can't you see what a silly statement that is?

sorry didnt give you a number, change "higher level" to "level 40+ " but pretty sure you get my point.

It would, if everybody is like you. Now, let's see... do they...?

Surprise! Not everybody is!

I would have a tenancy to agree with this statement. I think you've convinced me that damage scaling should be changed for destruction mages in the later levels but in the meantime if I do level other skills and push past level 40 I'll just reduce the difficulty and continue using destruction. (Although I'm not saying anyone has to do that its what I'm going to do.)

Edit: "sorry didnt give you a number, change "higher level" to "level 40+ " but pretty sure you get my point."
I did get your point, you missed mine, as in why should your level ever have to go above 35-40 if you are only using destruction.

If its silly explain how a mage using only destruction reaches a level higher than 35-40. You are going to max at almost four skills before reaching level 40, so that covers most of your incidental skills. So how do you go above that level using only destruction? The answer is you don't

Yes, that's one of the possible workarounds for now. At least until Beth addressed this issue 9if they think so, that is), or they rely again for modding community to do what they please :sadvaultboy:

You train other skills, as long as you keep Destruction as your only damage dealing skill. Meaning no Conjuring, one-handed, archery and two-handed. Take pickpocketing to high level to get the carry bonus. Take lockpicking for the better loot bonuses. There's plenty of secondary skills that are compatible with a "only Destruction as damage dealing skill" mage build.

Even if you max out 4 skills Destruction/Lockpicking/Pickpocketing/Alchemy and another 100 points into incidentals like speech and sneak you won't be over level 40. (Pure theory-crafting as I'm not maxing pickpocket and locksmith is an incidental to me.)

My mage had destruction, conjuration, and enchanting at 100. Speechcraft leveled to 50 because me selling trash somehow makes me more popular. I'm level 35. If you raised 4 skills to 100, I'm fairly sure you'd be at, or damn close to 40.

I don't have 4 skills maxed out nor do I plan to max 4 skills, I plan on maxing 2 skills and the rest will be incidental I was merely responding to the reply that said people would want to max pickpocketing and lockpicking. My reply was to merely show even if I maxed those (which I don't plan to do) I won't be over level 40.

See guide to higher level spell scaling in my signature, very detailed.

You want to enchant but you don't want to enchant too much.

This thread will now divulge into a "destro svcks use mods to fix it" thread.

:disguise:

My mage got Destruction, Smithing and Enchanting to 100 along some other used skills (mostly Restoration, lockpicking and speechcraft along with a little conjuration for soultrap but not much) and is level 45+ so it can be done.

I personally don't see a skill tree scaling lower at later levels to even BE a problem... It seems to me that ALL the main damage skills do that. At level 1, you can kill an enemy with a sword with 2 or 3 hits. At level 40, you cannot. Thus, 1-Hand scales lower at high levels. However, 1-Hand COMBINED with sneak/smithing/etc. becomes quite powerful. This game is ALL ABOUT the interactions BETWEEN various skills you may choose to develop. It is highly illogical to assume that any one tree BY ITSELF should be able to kill anything in the game. Besides, how fun it is really to just spam-cast fireballs all day, when you could summon an atronach, turn invisible, send your enemies fleeing in fear or enrage them until they fight each other, all from the safety of your personal warding field?

You forgot something : at level 40, without smithing you probably didn't even find yet a daedric weapon, maybe ebony at the very best. Also, you didn't get the best "one-handed does more damage" gear you could find yet either (Peerless +40% ones on 3 armor parts) whereas for Destruction your damage per spell is at cap since you learn the expert spells and got the two perks for that element.

Mage is fun because it's hard. Thats what quicksave, mods that will fix and balance the class, and playing on PC is for. PC or no PC AOE calm, AOE fear, AOE frenzy, should all be maxed out by level 40 anyway. No character has more control over a situation and a battle more than a pure mage with high illusion. You can sit back and play god. This isnt World of Warcraft so why are people crying waaaaah my class doesnt do as much DPS as other classes, when actually your frenzied pets do about 10x more damage than the most broken melee character in the game. Sounds to me like the people complaining dont know how to play mage. I dont want it to be easier it's fun exactly how it is when you can go around 1 shoting everything that isnt my idea of fun.

Do you even know about what's happening here? :confused:

If you level up your one handed skill, every one handed weapon's attack rating will go up. When you level up your Destruction skill, the magics don't suddenly become stronger. That alone warrants another testing

This game is NOT ALL ABOUT HOW SPARTANM73 PLAYS THE GAME, this game is all about how each player wants to play the game. You DON'T make a game centered around a particular playstyle when you advertise "play as whoever you want, play however you want" as the slogan. That's outright lying and very bad for corporate image

Read: my post

Here, folks, we can see an example of someone who doesn't seem to understand that not everyone wants to be a summoning monster and have all his lackeys do the work for them and goes on to say that if you don't play that way, well damn you don't know how to play a mage. As if there is some "right" way of doing things.

Please, do enlighten us some more with your brilliance.

The problem starts to creep in before level 40. Even at 35 with FREE destruction spells, the fights with the slightly beefier enemies drags on forever. And this is dual cast spamming thunderbolt. If you didn't have free spells, you'd be S.O.L. One of the BIGGEST problems at the moment is how plain inefficient destruction spells are in relation to how much damage they do.

I know you haven't experienced this, and probably won't, but there is a point where continuing to level MAKES YOU WEAKER as a mage. This is.....just absurd. I know that you'll probably say something to the effect of, "Well you don't need to level that high" or, "But you are not just using destruction then" but realize how foolish, FOOLISH it sounds that you would get weaker from leveling up. This goes against all common sense.

Here's a fun example, if you've ever played Pokemon. Do you know the moves sonic boom and dragon rage? They are very similar, except that dragon rage has double the damage of sonic boom, one does 20 damage, the other does 40. At the beginning of the game, where you are most likely to encounter these abilities, they are...fairly respectable, if only because they do a set amount of damage and ignore weaknesses and resistances. But at the middle or end of the game, you'll never use them. EVER. There are far more damaging moves you could learn. Even if you could spam them endlessly, they would be worthless, as your opponent would have killed you with much stronger moves. Firebolt and incinerate are good anologs to sonic boom and dragon rage. They do very well at first, but they are very impractical later when you take into account abilities that scale with other attributes.

There's a saying that common sense is not always common

OP is basically contradicting himself in this thread.

"Destruction is fine"
"DONT LEVEL PAST 40 OR ELSE!"

My experience playing pure-Destruction is that things got difficult to the point of near-impossibility until I used enchanting to make my destruction spells free, then it became trivially easy. See my thread if you are interested: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1294339-playing-as-a-destruction-only-mage/

Destruction spells do too little damage to keep up with the increasing health of enemies as you level. They cost too much magicka and your magicka pool can't keep up. Enchanting is the only solution. By making the spells free to cast, you can take ridiculous advantage of the Impact perk to stunlock everything to death. The low damage output becomes irrelevant because you can cast as many spells as you need. Potions? Magicka regen? Not needed.

My mage is pure Destruction. No stealth, no followers, no summons, no illusion magic, no armor, no shield, no weapon. She's level 41 and combat presents no challenge.

No challenge, but I want to stress that it's NOT because of Destruction, it's absolutely because of Enchanting.

(Besides, how fun it is really to just spam-cast fireballs all day, when you could summon an atronach, turn invisible, send your enemies fleeing in fear or enrage them until they fight each other, all from the safety of your personal warding field?)

Because sir, sometimes its just fun to watch things burn... or shoot them in the face with big ice spikes... or to go nova like a jedi or to just try and blow the whole place up and see whats left standing 8)