Scaling would fix many of the issues for the older spells as well. Also more spells would be nice if they are not going to re-introduce spellcrafting.

Forum etiquette...

I'm using Destruction as my sole source of DPS in the game, and--Destruction is fine. It's not perfect, but it's a viable playstyle, even when considering the lack of damage scaling (and the bad Master-tier spells.)

What's so stupid about my choice of playstyle? Because it does less damage than someone else's playstyle? Destruction should be equal to melee damage? Why not ask for a smithing/alchemy/enchant exploit while you're at it? :rolleyes:

This would be a convincing argument if archery didn't flat out own destruction in damage department. And the implementation of impact perk also kills the idea of "interesting and challenging combat" because it just isn't when your enemies are stun locked.

The only saving grace for destruction at that point is that thunderbolt is instant, which makes other elements have zero purpose.

But I'm not going to argue that destruction needs buff because functionality wise, stun lock makes it very much viable. I do, however, think that it needs some serious tweaking to keep it interesting. But then again, that goes to almost every aspect of combat in this game for me

Its not just mages who can take a lot of hits, many enemies can. Bears, cats, bandit chiefs, bosses. It can become ridiculous. I always cast two fireballs or firebolts one after another when faced with a ward. The first breaks the ward and the other spell hits them. Still I find it is much easier to melee them, I do more damage and I dont run out of the ability to attack. Which is really the real issue....when you go out of mana you cant even attack...and it takes forever to get more mana. The damage does not bother as much as the dependence on a mana pool that depletes so fast and never fills back up. With enchanted gear this is all fixable, but this is why I say it is an over reliance on enchanted gear. Just to play your mage normally should not require a collection of crafted or found gear.

I think it's to weak.. Your master spell takes 10 minutes to charge and doesn't do a lot of damage.. :thumbsdown:

I think the problem most people have not that destruction isn't useful, but that it does very little damage comparred to melee or archery. And probebly the fact tha NPC mages have their spells scale while we don't.

Wait for it... WWwwwwwwwwHHhhhhhhhhOOOOOOOOOooooooosssssSSSSSHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh, lol!

But archery is slower. You hit once, and there are three or four seconds (draw time plus re-aiming) before you can hit again. Magic is constant damage.

In other words: Archery = Pump Action Shotgun; Destruction = Automatic rifle

What proponents of bulking up destruction magic are effectively asking for is an automatic long distance shotgun. That would be easy mode.

If the modders are making it equal to the crafting exploit with melee, then that is overpowered. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be killing dragons in one hit, and I wouldn't be surprised if they fix the exploit in a patch, so people shouldn't get too used to it.

If people are just saying that Destruction is weaker than a weapon made with the crafting exploit, then I would agree, but that's not "broken". It's the crafting exploit that's broken and overpowered, not Destruction being underpowered. When I say I think Destruction is "fine", I mean it only takes me a few seconds to kill most things, and I easily blaze through almost every combat with no problems. That's not underpowered. If anything, it's sometimes too easy. I'm starting to think people are just hung up on the numbers and not the actual gameplay, after hearing about the crafting exploit and making uber-weapons. Do people find weapons more powerful without the crafting exploit, or is it only the exploit that makes Destruction seem underpowered by comparison?

I want to see this mythical rule that states that magic should be less damaging than melee? In a single player game where your only competition is yourself WHO CARES???

You speak as if melee types can't dodge or block? Let's not forget that you can get some pretty ridiculous armor down the line!

Then your premise is that destruction magic SHOULD be overpowered. That's fine. I agree with you that in a single player game it doesn't matter. I wouldn't find it as interesting to play as a mage if that was the case but to each his own.

Players that favor weapons and a mix of some magic won't really need the impact perk.Matter of fact, my first toon was too overpowered after I had dual casting with destruction spells plus impact perk. Pretty much the enemies won't touch you as you will stagger them over and over.

I am not sure how much slower archery is really. The higher level mage spells are pretty slow to cast. I never use archery as my sole attack anyways, it is always backed up with melee when enemies close on me. Mages should be able to use spells to create distance, imobilize, slow, and snare enemies and so forth. In this game you would not have enough mana to do these things and still kill the enemy afterwards. I would not mind using the weak destruction spells if I had enough mana to cast them and I had enough to cast utility and defensive spells. Heck I cant even cast a oakflesh it reduces the amount of mana I have for offense...and I need every bit of mana I can get. I just opt to kite and use the extra mana I would have used for oakflesh for an extra firebolt or two.

The very very small mana pool and poor regen abilities (especially early on) make it impossible to fillu utilize other mage schools to compliment destruction. I don't even like using illusion spells for CC, because I don't have enough mana to kill anything after I CC stuff. It just this whole cost to damage ratio is very bad. It really restricts and hampers mages too much. A warrior can still attack and block with zero stamina, a mage cant do anything. I like the idea of being forced to use all the mage schools to develop interesting strategies to overcome enemies, I'd rather this than just OP destruction spells so they kill everything one hit, but what we have now is a seriously restrictive mana system for mages.

You go OOM you are no longer a mage really. You cant do anything. But run and kite...which looks and feels ridiculous. Like I said I keep a staff of fireballs fully handy, and sometimes I can just spam that to get through a bad fight..but sometimes that is not even enough...it runs out of power. The only reason I can play without too much of a difficulty is because I keep Beron with me, and I just heal him and massage my little mana pool as I can.

15+ hits to kill a draugr deathlord on master at 50+, game pits 6 or 7 of them at me at once. No matter how you spin it, that is a lot of spam. Destruction isn't hard, it's incredibly boring. Once you learn your enemies there's no risk because you can keep them stunlocked the entire time. Takes the fun out of trying to survive. At the same time, your spells do the damage of a pea-shooter, so you can't even enjoy your stunlocking of foes to death.

Destruction is definitely in need of a fix.

My example was exploit free using the Bound Sword.

Destruction is weak!

I don't even take that perk. Because I feel obligated to run with both hands on one spell all the time. Also it does not increase damage that much for the cost. Much better to not perk that and cast two firebolts with both hands. That is way more damage than dual casting and not a tremendous loss in efficiency. In fact you would gimp yourself with dual casting in destruction once enchantments made casting destruction spells too easy. You can do more damage without the perk. Not to mention if you are dueling a mage you can cast a ward and cast spells with he other hand. I mean you can do this with dual casting but it seems like you waste a perk.

You can't make destruction spells broken overpowered with crafting so it's not viable. lol

To be fair, though, destruction spells are very underwhelming early on for how fast they drain your magicka. At levels 10-20 you cast 5-6 spells and then you're completely out of magicka, have no way to attack and have an enemy with 3/4ths of his HP chasing you around the dungeon. You rely on companions and summons A LOT early on. Once you get some cost reduction gear and or level up enchanting mages are definitely viable and probably similarly overpowered.

Is is having actual usefull master spells overpowered?

That would be fine if balanced, excepting: 1) the spells obviated by hier-tier spells (firebolt->incinerate), and 2) Master tier spells which would never advance.

And this is the main problem and probably the source of much angst. You play a mage early on and it svcks, you have no mana and no way to kill anything. Later on you can make mana trivial. The curve needs to be much less severe, and arguably the cost reductions need a cap towards the later levels so you just can't cast into infinity.

Not true. I use a mod that scales my destruction spells. Guess what? Even though flames still has it's uses, I use other damaging spells depending on the situation. in fact, having the spells scale OPENS up options instead of limiting them!

To not have to cast into infinity, however, destruction needs a damage buff. Otherwise, you'll just end up running out of mana again because you didn't do enough damage to kill the enemy.

So you honestly fought something that you could kill with three hits of your sword, but you had to hit 24 times with your highest level Destruction spell? I've never seen anything like that in the game. Maybe you were casting Fire spells on something with Fire Resistance?

Well I have not reached max level yet, but you can get to 100% reduction is spell schools. That is obviously too much imo. I think a cap of 90% reduction would be a very good compromise. I am thinking 90% spell reduction costs would still allow high level mages to kill stuff?