is destruction underpowered?

[ShadowGambit]

Ok people, I wanted to open a new thread to not pollute the great thread from Angry Half-ling

Overpowered Spells | Skyrim Forums

A lot of people are saying that Destruction spell are underpowered compares to what we can have with melee or bow damage.

I don't think that Destruction is.

First of all, people refers to damage from melee or Bow when they either sneak or fully upgraded the weapon with Alchemy, Smithing and Enchanting COMBINE.

So lets compare what is comparable at the beginning, should we?

if we take only 1 skill as a reference, let say Destruction and One-handed. Let say for the sake of the discussion that we took both of them to level 100, and that you can miraculously BUY/Find a deadric weapon

The most powerful spell in term of single damage (I won't even come to the AE damage spells, because there is nothing to compare them to) is either ice Spear, Incinerate or Thunderbolt, all doing 60 pts of damage and lvl Expert (75).

Even with Armsman 5/5 and 100 (and not 75) in One Handed, there is NO ONE HANDED WEAPON NOT UPGRADED that can match that amount of damage. Note that there is no bow either. Only 2 handed weapon can match that.
Also, with One-handed I have already spend 5 perks points, when with Destruction 0.

If I spend 4 perks in destruction, I get Dual Casting and Augmented (type of damage) 2/2. But now, my spell doesn't do 60 dmg anymore, but 198 (60*150%*2.2 for dual casting).

At that point, only sneaks attack can do more damage. But that means developping a 2nd skill and investing even MORE PERKS. And sneak is situational.

Well, fully upgraded weapon can do that amount of damage or more, no need to sneak, a lot of people will say

Yes I agree. But that also means that you need 100 Alchemy, 100 Enchanting and 100 smithing with at LEAST 15 perks point to do that. So we are not comparing One Skill line with another anymore, but 4 fully develop skill lines with 20 perks points compares to 1 skill line and 4 perks.

Looking at this, I don't see how Destruction is underpowered. And that's is without counting that armor rating doesn't have effect on Magical damage. Only resists do. When Physical damage can be lowered by a max of 80%, depending on your armor rating.

Oh, And I almost forgot, destruction always does 2 type of damage, not just only one.

Granted, at higher level then destruction is underpowered. But under lvl 35, I'd say destruction is pretty overpowered.

Feel free to share your opinion and debate though

 

[Xarnac]

There have been charts made and everything how vanilla destruction cannot keep up, and in the end boils down to spamming impact at higher levels, on higher difficulties. This has been known since week 1. Couple in all of the quirks and long casting times of master spells, destruction becomes a kiting joke. You are forced to use other skills that may not be in your repertoire, effectively lowering the viability of more nuanced builds that rely heavily or solely on destruction. The only way to raise it's damage is with potions and again, it may not be in your characters fold to use alchemy/potions. Pretty much why there were so many mods to "balance" it.

 

[Zatam Zar]

No i dont think that it is i just think people get it in there minds that if it looks so cool it must be equally as powerful, but how much fun would it be to kill everything easily in one or two spells. If you want it to be more powerful turn down your difficulty.

But in the late game it is not very wise to have destruction be your main attack.

 

[Streets]

The reason is because:

• Skill level improves melee and bow damage, but not destruction damage
• Enchantments on armor improve melee and bow damage, but not destruction damage
• Melee and bows can be enchanted themselves with extra damage
• Smithing improves melee and bows but there is nothing to permanently improve destruction aside from the 50% perks and the glitch Aspect of Fear perk
• You can make +destruction% potions, but you can also make +melee and bow% damage potions too
• You can make weakness to element potions for destruction to add damage that melee and bows can't
• Destruction gets the Impact perk, but melee and bows can use paralyze enchant/potions, and have paralyze or stagger perk effects as well as a power attack stagger and vegetable soup shield bash stagger
• You can reduce the casting cost for destruction spells to nothing, but they will only become so powerful before capping off
• Melee and bows are able to get sneak damage multipliers, destruction is not

I'm sure there are a lot of things I missed others can fill in. You can still have a successful mage, you just won't be one-shot killing everything, like with your Daedric Super Smith Enchant Alchemy 9000 weapon. If you think Destruction is weak, you can make +destruction damage% potions. I think you can get up to about 160% or so?

 

[Xarnac]

Then couple in the fact that magic (especially destruction) is more powerful than weapon skill, lore wise. At higher levels you can sit there and spam 10-12 expert spells just to kill one decent leveled enemy. And unless your taking advantage of heavy magicka cost reduction, your probably close to running out of magicka by then.

A mage, and a lot of magic user for that matter are glass cannons. As of now, he's glass alright, but his destruction just isn't a cannon.

Destruction is a damage dealing school, and the magic users "weapon skill". It is the same as 1 or 2 handed, archery etc. But, compared to them it can't keep up and fades the longer you play. We do not want to one hit everything regardless of level etc. like some seem to think. We just dont want to have to sit there and spam a dozen spells just to kill half a mob.

In the end, weapons are faster than casting, weapons are not restricted by magicka. Destruction is underpowered at higher levels, on higher difficulties. The most hilarious part? That the enemies destruction damage does level up, but not yours.

 

[M'aiqaelF]

Lightning Storm, enough said! That spell just mows down anything. And it only costs like 28 magicka. Although you do have to get Destruction up to 100 and do a few quests for the destruction lady at the college, it is certainly worth it.

 

[Nathalean]

Just because there is stuff that is MORE OVERPOWERED than destruction, doesn't make it useless. If you like destruction like I do, you can be perfectly fine with it even with a 100 health High Elf mage on master difficulty... Being a mage is all about versatility. Pair your destruction with some illusion, conjuration, alteration and alchemy and you are powerful to no end. You have by far the nastiest stuff at your disposal as a true mage: invisibility, deadra lords, AoE frenzy, bound bows, lightning storms and mass paralysis.

 

[Xarnac]

Destruction is underpowered at higher levels, on higher difficulties. ES never had this problem before, since spell creation made up for any Beth balancing issues. Fortunately mods fix this and make you into the destruction master you should have been.

 

[Dagmar]

Lightning Storm, enough said! That spell just mows down anything. And it only costs like 28 magicka.....

Without the Master Destruction perk or Fortify Destruction enchanted gear it costs 82 magicka per second.

 

[Stereofanic]

Xarnac coverd this whole thread well but thought i might add.

When you use destruction primarily is Skyrim you start to fall behind about level 30 and everyone else gets more powerful while you sit there casting your fireball spell because you're storm spells take to long to cast.

However as hostile mages level up they get even more annoying. They also seem to cast the right spells. If you are a nord I find most are fire mages, On the other hand a Dunmer will usually get ice mages. A warrior will get enemies with ice spike and frostbite and a mage will get enemies with sparks.

This is very annoying and makes me avoid mage lairs at lower levels lest I lose my temper because I can't reach any due to ice spike while a fire mage casts his damage dealing fireballs at me.

Ward spells are a good idea but cost way to much unless you have a few perks and a lot of restoration skill.

Destruction magic is unfair to us Dovahkiin's and that's why I usually am a nightblade when I wan't to use magic.

 

[ShadowGambit]

It would be very nice that Beth scaled the damage for Destruction spells like they did for melee or archery : depending on your actual level in Destruction and gives perk to increment the damage (like overdraw/armsman does). Also, if we want it to be scaled, then you have either lower your initial damage from spell, or apply a multiplier of only 0,2 instead of the 0,5 for melee and bow.

Also add enchantment that do +x% destruction skill, then increasing damage, but not lowering your mana consumption.

The problem is doing this will make Destruction "special" as a Spell line. Not really a spell skill line, but more of a damage skill line. The 4 other lines works fine the way they do though.

 

[Stereofanic]

Just bring back spell making, problem solved