People who are against scaling, please explain to me why you think your destruction spells should do the exact same damage at level 25 and level 50.

I don't care if you think it's "viable" I want to know why you think that is a good thing.

Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. See my previous example - it takes me over 15 dual casted incinerates to kill a draugr deathlord. On my new character that I started who is now at level 50, it takes me about 3-4 power attacks with only smithing, no exploiting loop. The discrepancy is ridiculous.

Who said anything about killing dragons in one hit? Something that apparently COULD happen btw with weapon+enchants+smithing. I said that what I use scales the spells FAIRLY.

The base damage of an ebony sword is 13. The power attack will double the damage to 26. Dual casting adept level spell chain lightning with all perks will do 120 damage, so where are you getting the rest of your damage from with that ebony sword, considering you said with no perks? I do agree with you though that destruction should give damage increase to spells as one handed does.

Because my mage is nearly impossible to hit anyway. If my mage was unhittable and damaged like a mini-gun I would find it boring. My damage is lessened but my survivability is improved so I plan for encounters around that premise.

Does anyone consider taking Magicka restoration potions before going to a dungeon? If you are running out of magicka too fast, then you probably are not playing with a breton or high elf or did not allocated points into the Destruction tree. The Firebolt spell requires more magicka than Flames, if you don't have leveled Destruction enough to get the Apprentice perk, you are going to run out of magicka very fast.

That is not MY premise. I'm saying just what it says. If anyone wants to play such a character in a single player game, once again - WHO CARES? My premise was as I mentioned earlier. Fair scaling and more spells or spell-maker.

Sorry, I wasn't clear about that in the post. No, I'm castling lower level spells because the higher ones make the game "take my sword away". (Run out of mana.)

At least with physical weapons I can keep swinging.

And before anyone brings up "drink mana potions to replenish it", I say, then sword bearers should have to drink stamina potions when they run out just to swing!!

Same poop different pile.

Yeah I think it occurs to everyone once they start running out of mana. People who are having problems are people who are investing in destruction with perks, I think that goes without saying.

I don't know, maybe I'm unique, but I didn't have that experience at all. At very early levels, it was difficult, I agree. I had a backup weapon and used Bound Sword and a staff, and sometimes wore armor. But once I got to level 6 or so, it started getting easier and I eventually switched to wearing cloth. I joined the College of Winterhold around level 8 or so I think, and became archmage at like level 22 if I recall, and the items I got from there plus the Expert Destruction Robe that I bought were enough to stop me from having mana problems. As I got into the high thirties and forties, I enchanted custom gear so I have a -75% cost on destruction spells and more magicka and magicka regen, and I seem to be fine.

To me, it was all pretty balanced, with one or two difficult fights (which I enjoy; I would hate this game if it was all a cakewalk), and having a limit on magicka forced me to do different things like use staffs and potions and minions, which is more fun. (Seems that some people who are complaining that Destruction is boring because they cast the same spell over and over are also the people saying that Destruction will only be useful if they're able to do everything by only casting one spell over and over)

No I love destruction. You're definitely not the only one.

Cheers

I thought that was what I had been doing, guess not o.O

1) Destruction spells dont scale. That means that after you get the spell and the one perk that boosts its damage, its done, over, you are never gonna deal more damage. So as you level passed 40, every level sees you weaker and weaker (compaired to who you are fighting) instead of stronguer.
2) That in turn leads to ridiculously long fights. We are talking 15+ incinerates to kill a Draught Deathlord.
3) Spell costs for Expert and Master are out of this world and basically requires you to use cost reduction enchants, which a lot of people consider an exploit (free spells).

Of course, most of those are problems you see around level 45-50+, since prior to that you are still "scaling" by getting new spells. So yes, if you are lvl 20-35, you will never have experienced this problem and will think/argue that destruction is fine. Thats why the forums are so contradictory: its not ppl who think its fine vs ppl who think its broken, its low level players vs high level players.

P.S. Destruction + Conjuration isnt at all like Sword + Armor. Its more like Sword + Bow. They are both offensive trees. Needing conjuration as a nuker is akin to needing to snipe people as a warrior: its out of character and just doesn't fit the build at all.


What games have you been playing?!? its one of the most traditional of archetype and its present/viable in just about any single freaking RPG ever made.

And you find spamming low-damage spells to be fun? I wish I had the same low standards as you so I could enjoy my game.

I think there should be a cap on max level spells but being completely helpless svcks. I think as a compromise you should be able to get to 100% on up to Apprentice or Adept level spells and maybe place a lower cap on each level as you get higher. My main problem is being completely defenseless; even when a warrior is out of stamina he can put up his shield or flail his sword around for some serious damage.

I knew it was going to get mentioned eventually.

One thing to try would be to play for a while without your Atronach and compare how many hits it takes you to kill things.

Raising the difficulty level increases the damage done by things-that-aren't-you. Counterintuitively, this includes your summons. So your Atronach may be delivering a greater fraction of your total damage than you realize.

On the subject of sword damage vs Destruction damage: if they were equal in damage, that would represent an imbalance in favor of the caster due to range. Design-wise, you get to output better damage if you take on the gameplay challenge of routinely letting things get in melee range of you.

That said, yes, they messed up difficulty scaling. Players can choose how restrained to be in their use of crafting synergies for physical damage. There's no anologue for magic damage.

depending on the situation, I dual cast when I am only fighting one or two mobs, but if I have 3 or more, I have to change tactics and be more defensive

I don't disagree I think that lower level spells should be spammable. There should be some kind of basic magic attacks that you can access even with no mana. I was thinking they needed to add a spell for base attack or something but making some of the lower level spells able to take advantage of 100% reduction is not a bad idea really. But that does not help lower level mages, where I suspect most of the problems lie.

But the thing is, with the right armor standing in melee is no big deal unless you decide tanking 10+ mobs is a fun thing to do. As a mage, it is a requirement that you stay at range, because if you don't you will die. I don't see how the argument of "well melee has to get close, so they should do more damage" is tenable. They have to get close, but they're built for that with armor. Mages aren't built for that, so by necessity they have to fight at range. Either way, they both have their tools to survive, why shouldn't they do comparable damage?

I love it when people turn a spirited debate into personal attacks. I wish I had such a meaningless life that I could get so worked up over the mechanics of a video game. See what I did there? Did we accomplish anything?

Maybe we should stick to the debate and leave the insults out. How does that sound?

damage must scale. it doesn't make sense that it doesn't scale. i can use an iron sword i found in the tutorial through the whole game and be fine. i can't do that with flames.

the mana nerf in combat must be removed. why do i regenerate mana so much slower in combat?

or

mana cost must be seriously reduced.

spells become obsolete, weapons do not. why? scaling!

given the limited number of spells, it is bad design to make spells obsolete.

note: to draw a bow full takes 3 seconds. with perk, it takes 2 seconds. with perks, archery is very powerful, and i haven't even touched enchanting or smithing. not as powerful as one hand or two hand, but better than destruction without a doubt.

destruction...i'm not really destroying anything unless it's a wolf. it should be called 'erosion' instead. i erode enemies health, i certainly don't destroy it.

i shouldn't have to rely on cost reduction enchants to to be able to hold my own; 100% reduction is not good game design either.

I completed all the main questlines very easily using only destruction. then again, i play on novice lol

I'm trying to do the math in my head, but I feel like in the time it takes to do 4 power attacks, I could probably cast 12 incinerates. The power attack animation takes like 2-3 seconds, whereas incinerate takes about a second. It doesn't seem like that big a discrepancy to me. Either way, 5 to 10 seconds longer to kill one of the strongest boss monsters in the game doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

You hit once and it dies in one hit.

It's slower than destruction casting, but ultimately comes out with much higher damage.

And yes straight up damage buff for destruction is a poor way to go about it. Destruction needs tweaks, like removal of impact for better damage and more unique element roles. Right now frost is COMPLETELY pointless, with fire being close to pointless.

Impact stun should go, frost should really be king of movement control through excellent snare (if you put perks into it), fire should offer excellent AOE and lightning can pretty much do what it does now.

Well I'm sorry that you construed my post as getting worked up. I'm simply stating that some people are more easily entertained than others. A fact, is it not? I actually find my standards for games rather cumbersome because then I nitpick over every fault of the game, and that to a degree prevents me from enjoying it. If anything you're the one getting "worked up" for taking a comment so seriously.



It's actually not a true boss monster, not at those levels. In my example I said I faced 6 to 7 at a time - they acted as the lesser enemies that accompanied the dragon priest who was the real boss. Also with the dual 1H style I play as power attacks don't take very long - maybe 1.5s-2s at most. That's 8 casts in the time it takes for 4 power attacks. Essentially that means that destruction does half the damage of dual 1H since it takes 15+ casts to kill one.