A weapon "... of Depleting" does 40 points of Magicka damage. Is it "magical damage" or "damage magicka"?

Also the enchantment "15 points of Magicka Damage", what does it do exactly?

If you hit someone, they lose magicka. Good for fighting wizards.

does dmg to someones magicka (what you use to cast spells) can be usefull against mage opponents if it wasent for the fact that they don't run out of magicka (at least it never happend for me)

It damages the enemy's magicka. Quite confusing at first but you'll get used to it.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Magicka_Damage

Magicka Damage reduces the value of the target's Magicka. It does not affect their health.

Sure they do. At higher levels though, enemy mages have WAY higher magicka than health. Using a certain staff that drains magicka FIRST, you can see when enemies run out. Then they start losing health. It takes a long time later on, but early levels it's pretty easy to catch.

Thanks. The whole confusion came from an unusual word order for that effect.

really? i dw two daggers each with 40 points of dmg magicka and after hitting a necromancer 6-7 times she still blasted spells away like nothing. most have an insane mana pool

Which is one reason I suggest that particular staff. It doesn't also do damage. With a lot more health than magicka, and you doing MORE damage to health than magicka (I assume) it's pretty easy to see what's going on.

I promise they can be drained, but I also promise it takes a while. It's one reason lightning spells "don't work." since they'll kill before depleting the enemy mages.

It's good to keep them at a distance first, and dodge their spells. Then once they draw a dagger you can KEEP them drained. That's how I use the magicka drain stuff anyway.

Magicka damage is, in my opinion, the most useless of features in the game. Sure, spell crafters rely on magicka, but they wear no armor, and taking them out with pain is much easier than trying to drain their spell crafting source.

Frost or fire (or both combined). That's all one ever needs.

The magicka damage part is kinda beat, but the "instant" travel time is why I use lightning. That and I can't stand most of the frost spell sound effects.

Magicka damage is pretty useless after low levels unless it's excessively high. I know this from creating http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=17353; this is what I found:

- Because higher level targets like Arch Warlocks are still using lower level spells with perks that scale them up to do more damage, once you get to the 30s and up, they will effectively never run out of Magicka unless they take a significant hit to their maximum mana or mana regeneration as well. Being brought down to zero won't matter; within a handful of seconds, they will have enough to continue casting their apprentice and adept spells.
- Many caster class enemies carry staves, especially warlocks; seems to be about 1 in 2 of them. Staves can be cast regardless of the user's magicka, but still benefit from the perks, so if the warlock is carrying a staff of the same spell they use anyway, you just did nothing of worth except reduce the charge in the loot you're about to get.