With the removal of spellcrafting I thought that this was kind of going to be made up for by having an awesome duel casting system. What I was expecting was being able to combine all sorts of spells for cool effects, which you would have to discover and figure out as you learns new spells, but all it does is increase damage/duration

I still can't quiet understand why they didn't include spellmaking in skyrim, it would fit so well with the new spellcasting system!
Eagerly waiting for the modding pack so that someone can start creating something like that

Yeah such a big disappointment.

Wow, that idea is cool to combine effects like that, I hadn't thought about that honestly.

For me though I enjoy dual casting I usually rp my combat as a mage and cast each hand in sequence because it feels just awesome tossing fireballs left and right at my target and then finishing them off with a super fireball.

but yea now you got my wondering... with if combined my destruction spell with a ward spell and shot it at a mage holding up a ward? it would encase the fireball and if the ward was strong enough meet the other

ward with equal force canceling it out and BOOM the fireball hits it mark. Or fire and ice... wet the target finish up with lightning sounds pretty awesome...

Even though destruction is somewhat gimped, dual casting is very useful with the Impact perk. You can stall opponents easily with that perk and wait for your shouts to recharge or summon to finish them off. Or just toy with an enemy. Let them get close and about to charge then dual cast and watch as they drop to their knees. It's very useful actually, and that's with the (arguably) weakest magic skill.

Yeah, it's shoddy. The shouts are overall more interesting than what you find in magic.

Come on construction kit...

It's useful, but it's a gigantic gimmick and even becomes a crutch if you don't level up enchanting to get mana redux for destruction. It just seems really bland compared to the other games especially since they removed spell crafting in hopes to make it more balanced when all they've really done in my eyes is removed options to make interesting spells.

Don't get me wrong, duel casting is functional it just didn't live up to its expectations for me.