Where my mages at? (dragonborn)

[Venvin]

Been looking forward to these new spell damage masks for a good while, I imagine my fellow mages have been as well. I've almost reached master level destruction on my lightning mage. Which means hello lightning storm with an added twenty five percent damage. I expect to see a lot of ash piles.

Have you guys gotten yours yet? If so how is it, have you noticed any major changes? I'm currently downloading atm. I'm also looking forward to some spider crafting Also one thing to note, the mask also effects your enchants. So if you have a sidearm with the right enchant, it will be doing twenty five percent more damage apparently.

 

[wrighty]

I've been looking forward to getting these too, more destruction damage is badly needed especially as it doesn't increase with level.

 

[MrDSL]

Just be careful making all your enemies dead bodies ash piles cause they can be hard to find and loot sometimes..I've even lost some dragon ash piles before.

I mostly only use it for dragons by cities so their bones aren't in my way.

Once the spell is cast you can only move it side to side...you can't adjust your aim so on moving targets its not very effective unless they're really big like a dragon.

 

[Dagmar]

I've been looking forward to getting these too, more destruction damage is badly needed especially as it doesn't increase with level.

They only increase damage by 25%. I don't think more damage is needed. With the Destruction Dual casting perk and 2 Augmented perks the Expert level spells do 198 damage. An Elixir of Destruction will increase that to 297 and a custom made Fortify Destruction Magic potion can increase it to 518.

 

[wrighty]

yeah but if your not using alchemy and even if you are, then destruction is much weaker than using one or two handed or archery because they increase in damage every level, you can make potions to up the damage, you can take 5 perks to increase the damage by 100% and you can enchant increased damage.

in comparison alchemy aside because both benefit, destruction has +50% from perks and a possible +25% from 1 peice of enchanted equipment.
The other combat skills can get +100% from perks and without exploits and without any fortifying potions they can enchant 4 peices of equipment with +40% damage, thats +160% compared to 25% and +100% compared to +50%. With fortify enchanting and alchemy gear they can make fortify enchanting potions to increase it further and with the falmer helmet they can add another enchantment and have five 40+% damage increase enchants compared to one +25% enchant.
Also if you haven't reduced destruction cost on some pieces of equipment(which you could be using for an alternative enchant) then destruction is useless at high levels, the magicka cost is just ridiculously high in comparison to damage done, whilst a melee warrior can keep attacking with stamina or no stamina.
End game your just spamming your attacks and relying on stunlocking every opponent, without enough cost reduction this won't be viable either and you'll be even more underpowered.
I'm saying this from playing on master, on adept it's less of a problem but it still is a problem. I often just give up on destruction and summon 2 dremora lords instead, it's much quicker.

 

[Dagmar]

Stating that weapons can do more damage than spells hardly makes the case that more damage is desperately needed for Destruction Magic. All that establishes is that it's not that hard to overpower weapons and make the game boring, predictable and without challenge.

You can have up to a 330% damage bonus to your Destruction spells with just 3 perks. Magicka cost is easily mitigated by any combination of perks, enchantments, potions and food. The fact of the matter is that it's easily viable to make a pure mage build that can deliver 198 points of damage that constantly staggers your enemies, and if you can't handle what the game throws at you with that build, even on Master level, then (i) you're doing something wrong and (ii) an additional 25% on top of 330% isn't going to make much difference if you actually believe more damage is badly needed because that hardly qualifies as filling the gap.

 

[Vinven]

Guys, don't let your bloodshed spill over into every forum thread. Take it elsewhere.

 

[OrexxerO]

Idk why I never thought of fortifying with potions :-/. but anyways, mana cost is moot when you can specialize a certain school of magic down to 0 mana use. I wasn't that impressed by the new dragon priest masks....I like my home crafted Daedric Armor better.

 

[wrighty]

Stating that weapons can do more damage than spells hardly makes the case that more damage is desperately needed for Destruction Magic. All that establishes is that it's not that hard to overpower weapons and make the game boring, predictable and without challenge.

You can have up to a 330% damage bonus to your Destruction spells with just 3 perks. Magicka cost is easily mitigated by any combination of perks, enchantments, potions and food. The fact of the matter is that it's easily viable to make a pure mage build that can deliver 198 points of damage that constantly staggers your enemies, and if you can't handle what the game throws at you with that build, even on Master level, then (i) you're doing something wrong and (ii) an additional 25% on top of 330% isn't going to make much difference if you actually believe more damage is badly needed because that hardly qualifies as filling the gap.

You say 330% like that will be the damage increase in every fight, to achieve that you need a lot of alchemy perks, 100 skill and you need to collect or buy the ingredients which are not available to purchase in any significant number, 95% of the time people won't be using fortify destruction potions before each fight and many people don't use alchemy.
Without alchemy as a master of destruction, the most powerful directly offensive mage, you are sitting there throwing expert level spells like they are snowballs. Whilst a warrior that invests the same amount of perks in a combat skill even with no enchantments etc is much more powerful.
Either magicka cost needs to be reduced significantly (for adept-expert spells) or the damage needs to be increased or you should be able to keep casting a low damage spell even with no magicka similar to how warriors attack with 0 stamina. It's ridiculous how long it takes to kill even non-boss enemies like draugr.
But we'll agree to disagree, I don't want a debate I just think that a master mage should be more powerful.

 

[MrDSL]

I don't know much about numbers but I know weapon damage can be easily abused with smithing etc..

Its ridiculous how powerful weapons can be compared to magic..

I really try to limit how I improve my weapons and enchants on them so they dont get crazy damage and make things too easy.

 

[Dagmar]

You say 330% like that will be the damage increase in every fight....

It will be.

...to achieve that you need a lot of alchemy perks, 100 skill and you need to collect or buy the ingredients which are not available to purchase in any significant number, 95% of the time people won't be using fortify destruction potions before each fight and many people don't use alchemy...

No you don't. As I clearly stated above 330% damage bonus comes from 3 Destruction perks. There is no Alchemy involved and you only need 60 skill, not 100. Therefore your claim about needing Alchemy is completely false. Your claim about Master Destruction is invalid on its face as the perk has nothing to do with damage bonuses.

...Without alchemy as a master of destruction, the most powerful directly offensive mage, you are sitting there throwing expert level spells like they are snowballs. Whilst a warrior that invests the same amount of perks in a combat skill even with no enchantments etc is much more powerful.

3 Destruction perks give a 330% damage bonus. 3 weapon skill perks give a 60% damage bonus. Even if you factor the scaled damage bonus from weapon skill at 100, which is 50%, the aggregate damage bonus is 240%.

Either magicka cost needs to be reduced significantly (for adept-expert spells)...

The game mechanics allow you to do this in a myriad of ways. It's not rocket science. The game mechanics of spell combat and weapon combat are intentionally markedly different but that doesn't make spell combat less viable. Basically what you want is to dumb down the game so that a person who knows how to make and use an effective warrior build can make an effective mage build pretty much the exact same way instead of learning how to use existing game mechanics. You also want the ability to overpower spell damage permanently like one can do with weapons. That's your prerogative but it doesn't really support the notion the Destruction damage is inadequate.

As an aside Draugr are supposed to be tough. They're supernatural undead warriors and they have disproportionately high health compared to their living counterparts. If you're finding them tougher to beat then you're experiencing the game as it was intended to be experienced. These not so subtle distinctions are easily missed with the use of overpowered weapons that one hit or two hit almost everything in the game.

 

[mrlymric]

Oh man you all making me feel like changing my lvl 67 stealth archer to a stealth mage ( destruction/conjuration ) to be a let down

I am changing over to stealth mage for a change of pace, i do not use alchemy and will not being using it or potions to up my destruction damage in battles. I am taking the perks i know that will benefit my playstyle, enchanting all my gear to destruction cost less and fortify magicka, so nothing über, playing game same way as i play my stealth archer, just taking points out of archery and few other skills and throw them into destruction, conjuration and alteration, my fights will be destructive spell in one hand then twin souls in other hand so i have 2 pets out when I in bad trouble.

But way you all talking it seems I'm heading for a let down of fun lol, which i hope it doesn't

 

[MrDSL]

Oh man you all making me feel like changing my lvl 67 stealth archer to a stealth mage ( destruction/conjuration ) to be a let down

I am changing over to stealth mage for a change of pace, i do not use alchemy and will not being using it or potions to up my destruction damage in battles. I am taking the perks i know that will benefit my playstyle, enchanting all my gear to destruction cost less and fortify magicka, so nothing über, playing game same way as i play my stealth archer, just taking points out of archery and few other skills and throw them into destruction, conjuration and alteration, my fights will be destructive spell in one hand then twin souls in other hand so i have 2 pets out when I in bad trouble.

But way you all talking it seems I'm heading for a let down of fun lol, which i hope it doesn't

I really enjoyed my conj/dest build..I only used my dremora lords because they are just bad ass and I love hearing

"There could be no other end."
"I smell weakness"

 

[mrlymric]

Lol, Awesome

 

[Vinven]

mana cost is moot when you can specialize a certain school of magic down to 0 mana use.

I don't do that, it feels cheap. Instead of having 100% magicka reduction for one school, I run about 50-70% in reduction for multiple schools. Add in the fact that I modded myself to have zero magicka regeneration while being an atronach, and it's pretty fun and challenging. I just got a new video card in and can't wait to get cracking.

 

[OrexxerO]

Wells, I cannot mod anything since I have the 360 version ^_^.