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Skyrim talk:Destruction/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past Skyrim talk:Destruction discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Removed Perk

I didn't bother including one of the perks in the table. I couldn't comprehend what it meant.

"Novice for 50% magicka etc."

If you can actually figure out what that means, please re-write it before adding it. --AKBTalk Cont Mail15:24, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

It refers to the perks introduced for Illusion:
- Cast Novice spells for 50% less magicka
- Cast Apprentice spells for 50% less magicka
- Cast Adept, Expert, Master etc spells for 50% less magicka (more levels this time around)
This is from the perk post found around the web. I think it is originally fromthis forum post. --Alfwyn 15:34, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I just figured that out as well. Thanks anyway. --AKB TalkCont Mail 15:37, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Winterhome

Winterhome is the mage college, you can train destruction here as well as enchanting. — Unsigned comment by 66.188.62.207 (talk) at 22:28 on 15 November 2011

Please sign posts with four tildes (~) while on talk pages. It makes it much easier to understand who wrote what. — Unsigned comment by Pengepi (talkcontribs) at 09:36 on 4 December 2011
Oh how ironic 203.19.254.143 06:28, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Perk: Disintegrate Target?

According to the perk chart, one perk allows shock spells to have a chance of disintegrating a target. What exactly does disintegration do? Would it kill the target AND the corpse so you can't search? Or is it just an ash pile or something of the sort. Thanks for the answer. --Shm0key 01:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)shm0key

It reduces the target to a pile of ash (much like energy weapons in fallout)
the ash pile is completely lootable.
Funnily enough, it works on dragons. The Dragon will disintegrate and you will still absorb the soul from the ash pile.
Malachar, a random user answering a question 24.246.152.183 19:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Do the ash piles ever despawn? Bloated save files are a problem. 81.233.217.129 00:20, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
On the same subject, how often does this actually occur? I've been using lightning much lately and was looking to pick up this perk eventually, but I also rely on necromancy much for my mage. (Conjuration being my highest skill and with only the Magicka reduction/necromancy perks being taken.) Medivh 02:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Disintegration and Necromancy are *not* a good combination. You'll end up destroying many corpses you may have wanted to reanimate, as you suspected. 209.66.120.3 18:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Not necessarily; choose your spells wisely. Usually fire is the better choice--it takes so long to actually drain an enemy of magic that they're usually dead before they run out of magic. My bigger concern is actually that it makes Chain Lightning useless in a pinch--being able to takeout 2 enemies and then, in short order, reanimate both. The risk there is if the second target was different than intended--you could disintegrate your follower and lose yourself a packmule as well as a temporary replacement. That said, I don't suggest getting that perk--paralyze (combined with staggering) is much more useful. --67.248.246.4 03:15, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Leveling this skill faster

I have found this skill levels faster when you have the runes, fire rune/frost rune/ lightning rune. Simply cast and keep forcing whatever is chasing you to run over the rune. You get more practice when runeing and running from a mammoth/giant and defiantly alot of use when dealing with the falmer/dwarven mechanisms. It's something you can cast on the run and don't have to worry about aiming. Just don't use it around any friendlys as they can be hurt as well as your enemies and it deals pretty hefty damage. — Unsigned comment by 50.132.36.59 (talk) at 13:20 on 17 November 2011

Or how about using two spells together such as reanimate corpse and sparks/frostbite/flames? Works perfectly.--Dro'Bakha 13:23, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
The Runes actually make this go by a lot faster to be honest. Getting the Perk Rune Master allows you to cast rune much father away, at a greater distance than the perk for casting a summon farther away. Besides you kind of have to aim with sparks/frostbit/flames and use reanimate corpse. Rune just lets you practice kiting for a mage too, which means cast and run. You can work with Summon Fire Daedra or Storm Daedra with runing as they are ranged and annoy enemies. Frost and Dremora Lord are melee and die fast to Mammoths/Giants — Unsigned comment by 50.132.36.59 (talk) at 13:26 on 17 November 2011
Yes but with Rune you have to cast and hope it hits the target, using reanimate corpse means the target stays in one spot as you blast it.--Dro'Bakha 13:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
No it doesn't have to hit the target. He just has to come within range of it. It's a trap and its' why it levels quicker with melee guys as they have to run over it and they are so mad at you they don't think to look where they are running. It's not something you cast onto the creature, you cast it anywhere and lead them over it or cast it in their path of travel. It's how I was able to kill Giants and Mammoths at level 9. Can you say that with your way? Not without being turned into a golf ball for a giant or pancake for a mammoth. — Unsigned comment by 50.132.36.59 (talk) at 13:32 on 17 November 2011
Not really saying anything offensive, but I was able to kill a giant and a mammoth at level four using frostbite. Speaking of frost, it provides a great way to level up Destruction, slowing down enemies and draining their stamina so that they can't hurt you too much. Works well on, yes, giants. Giants do provide good amounts of loot, and are great training targets for destruction and other magic.--Shm0key 03:09, 19 November 2011 (UTC)Shm0key

() In my experience leveling this skill goes fastest by just using the novice level spells and hitting enemies a lot. I tried with a troll and loaded every time to check out the progress of the skill and it went fastest using sparks and frostbite at the same time (to not combine a spell). I experimented with runes, fireball, and all combinations of flames, frostbite and sparks. Flames do extra damage to trolls so frostbite-sparks seems like a logical conclusion for a troll. — Unsigned comment by 94.227.40.167 (talk) at 15:04 on 17 November 2011

all those methods have the weakness of the target dying and you having to find a new one, that may be remedied with a heal other spell.— Unsigned comment by Ataei (talkcontribs) at 07:55 on 18 November 2011
My experience at level 45 is the opposite. I was trying to level destruction by casting low level shock on the torture victims in DB hideout and it was going *extremely* slowly. After this I tried (as I have mentioned on the Magic-Overview discussion page) using the highest level spells I could (with -100% cost enchantments) and got 14 skill increases in a single (large) dungeon. I am certain that higher level spells give faster increases, which is how Oblivion should have been, but due to oversight, was not. Billw 14:49, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
This is the original poster. My current character is at level 30 and I tried the same experiment again on different targets and each time it shows the skill gain per target is higher when you use the most rudimentary spells. I do believe that skill gains are scaled in a way however, time-wise it might be more efficient using the most advanced spells especially when magicka and enemies are freely available.KhalDovah 11:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Are you on PC? I am. Going to use console and controlled environment to thoroughly test this right now -- Billw 13:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Okay test complete: using Ice Spike (Apprentice spell) vs Ice Spear (Expert spell), Ice Spear gives close to 10 times more skill increase per use. I haven't done an accurate analysis yet but at least with these spells on the PC this is the case. If you wish to try the same test you can download my test file here: http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1477 You may need to quickly go in console and turn off the dragonpriest's combat AI so he stays still (I already took all his magicka and gave him loads of health). I'm going to document this as fact on the main page until someone can prove it otherwise. -- Billw 13:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Agreed per usage this is correct, however they cost more to cast AND per hit they take more health away from your opponent. I still find that relative to magicka usage or damage done the novice level spells being frostbite, flames and sparks give more level gain per killed enemy. Since finding enemies - in my opinion - is the most time consuming factor in leveling combat skills I disagree that expert spells are the most efficient. When we talk about the single spell ones I say you're right, expert beats apprentice. However, the "fire rate" of the novice spell is substantially higher which leads to higher level gain assuming you don't have unlimited magicka and your opponent doesn't have unlimited health. KhalDovah 17:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
So, if you can use a high level spell but deal little damage, then you will level destruction very quickly, right? This trick is from my 3 times playing mage experience, assume you have 100% magicka reduction, buy Wall of Frost and Icy Spear and Heal Other spell. Set the difficulty to master, find a mammoth and stay in a safe spot(Sleeping Tree Camp seems to be the best place as far as I know) and cast Wall of Frost and Icy Spear at it, when its health is low, cast Heal Other. While showing to deal 50 damage/sec, I find Wall of Frost (or any other elemental walls) deals very little damage, still it's an Expert spell so it gives more exp than Frostbite. Mammoth also seems to have high resistance to cold so Frost Wall + Icy Spear deal little damage to it, still they give you huge exp. Using this method, I am able to raise Destruction from 60 to 100 in less than 20 minutes.117.5.240.114 04:16, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I can confirm through experience that using frost rune on mammoths is a pretty effective way to level up the skill. I can't say one way or the other if you gain more experience using frost spells opposed to some other elemental spell, but I can say they are quite resistant to it (or/and because of a big health pool), which allows you to spam the spell over and over again. And like a previous poster mentioned, it isn't like it's some big task to make sure they are hit by it. You can literally stand still and target the ground slightly in front of them and the trap will go off immediately, just as if you hit them directly with the ice spike spell. One thing I'd like to add to this is that I believe the trap has a bit of AoE, and thus hitting multiple targets with the spell nets more experience. Therefore it's probably better to train with multiple mammoths and/or giants if you can handle it. I personally put on a set of 100% fortify destruction/restoration gear on (double enchanter) and just healed and spammed frost rune to level it quickly. In addition to speaking to Faralda every level to train it further since I had the gold (Winterhold College). I admit it would be probably better to attack something that won't die like Shadowmere or a torture victim, since healing whatever your hitting will take a fairly significant amount of time while leveling the skill.--69.205.180.81 12:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

() The torture victims at the end of the dark brotherhood questline make ideal targets for leveling this skill effectively. Sparks in conjunction with healing hand gives you a permanent target to level off of.Skyrim:Torture_Victim — Unsigned comment by Rhiom (talkcontribs) at 23:23 on 10 December 2011

I have been playing around with destruction leveling and am seeing a huge rate of return for dual casting wall spells on horkers and bears (using -100% destruction enchants). 360 user here, so if somebody with access to the in-game console could test this it may be a fast way to grind the skill. — Unsigned comment by 99.251.238.118 (talk) at 14:05 on 13 December 2011
The most effective method for training Destruction. -- Step one: Get artifacts/apparel that increase magicka regeneration. (Notable Artifacts: Arch-Mage's Robes, Morokei, Ring of Recovery, Necklace of Recovery, Master Robes of _____. Try getting your regeneration rate to at least 200%) Go to a Dwemer ruins and find any Dwemer spider. Cast high level ice spells on them (They are completely resistant, but you still gain experience when casting on them) You won't have to worry about healing them, but you will have to heal yourself if you're a low level and can't take the damage. (Personal best method, enchant dragon armor (light or heavy) with magicka regeneration, wear morokei, and wear magicka regeneration amulets/rings. This way, you can take the damage and freely cast ice spear on the Dwemer spiders without healing yourself.) Please shorten/tidy this explanation and post to the main page if you feel it's worthy. There is alternately another method, using giants and exploiting a game mechanic to make them run back and forth, but it's very tedious. Aeonex 19:48, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
The reason why I really appreciate you guys' input on this is because, obviously, levelling destruction = more perks to spend. Different methods have been described on this page:
1) frostbite on Dwarven spiders - didn't seem to work for me.
2) flame/healing combination on a horse, described below - levelled slowly
3) Jumping in the forge at Riften - didn't do anything for me
4) mammouth electrocution. You can avoid running about if you stand at the highest point at Sleeping Tree Camp. It was quite fast but still a bit of a grind (especially without potions to boost magicka imo).
5) blasting torture victims - I'm not doing that.
You are limited with how much you can use an NPC trainer - 5 times a level - but destruction really needs it (in my opinion - along with archery and restoration.) 80.229.165.251 23:16, 16 December 2011 (UTC)anon
Best way I've found is same as other attack skills, take Shadowmere to a remote area and blast her away. She has a lot of health and regenerates very quickly, I've never had to worry about killing her. — Unsigned comment by 173.57.8.120 (talk) at 05:37 on 21 December 2011
In hob's fall cave, at level 60, I found a master necromancer in a little alcove. If you position yourself just right, you can throw runes up onto the box she's standing beside without her being able to attack you. Once she gets down to about 2 or 3 hits from death, she'll heal herself almost completely, allowing you to just repeat the process ad infinitum. 174.25.16.188 22:08, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Why do a couple of posters keep mentioning magicka regen? Get or make an offset of gear with Fortify Destruction enchants instead and reduce the cost of all destruction-based spells. Should be way more efficient this way.--69.205.180.8102:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Or get gear with both; disenchant robes of destruction (+50% magic regen, -15% destruction cost) and start enchanting that onto your armor. --67.248.246.4 03:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Scaling

The page mentions that Destruction doesn't scale, but this is both directly and indirectly false. Directly because of course there are perks increasing damage, plus doublecasting, and indirectly because the limiting factor for spells is almost always magicka - which does scale. This note should be removed as it may lead people to think destruction is unviable at high levels which is untrue. — Unsigned comment by 41.135.18.167 (talk) at 14:50 on 18 November 2011

Define "viable". Sure you can kill stuff with spells if you want, but it takes forever.178.183.245.220 20:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be better to say that Destruction spells scale very poorly. Yes, you can increase the damage of every spell of one element (or two or all three, depending on how many perks you're willing to spend), but the point remains: a Fireball or Chain Lightning spell that does 60 damage at level 20 will still do 60 damage at level 50. However, while your spell damage has remained static for these hypothetical 30 levels, enemy HP has continued to increase.
On the other hand, with all three weapon skills, damage increases passively with each point spent in the governing skill tree and where there is a single 5-point perk that increases all damage of weapons of that type by 100%. Then there's another 3-point perk that further increases damage for a particular weapon type, either through the critical hits of bows and swords, the DoT from axes, or the armor-ignoring damage of maces and hammers. Compare this to a Destruction mage's three sets of two-point perks that increase damage of one elemental type each by 25/50%, and where the Novice through Master Destruction line of perks do nothing to increase damage done.
Furthermore, while both weapon users and mages can use Alchemy to make potions to increase damage, Smithing lets you increase the damage of your weapons by use of a grindstone AND increase their weapon damage by 160% or more at the high end of Enchanting. Mages don't have an Enchanting effect that can increase the damage of their spells, and they most certainly can't stick their hands into the grindstone to increase spell damage. To be fair, the "-x% <<school>> cost reduction" enchantment, when stacked to reduce the magicka cost of spells to 0, does remove the limiting factor of one's magicka pool (there is still the limiting factor of your HP, though: no casting spells when you're dead). But that still doesn't make that 60 damage Fireball do any more damage, it just allows you to cast it infinitely. Is Destruction usable? Yes, especially once you've picked up your Master-level spells and even more so if your spells cost nothing to cast. Is it anywhere near the level of any of the three perk-able weapon styles (or four, if you consider daggers & Assassin's Blade a style)? Not by a long shot.71.119.58.243 01:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
This made me laugh quite a bit, it very obvious that u never play a mage and prefer a strait warrior character, which is fine. But I think you have it backwards, where as with destruction I spend 3 points to fully upgrade my spell damage and specialty(freezing,burning)you have to spend 5 points on damage and then another 3 for specific type and another 2 or 3 for critical hit upgrades. Either one of damage types is ineffective at high levels if you do not invest heavily in the perk tree, which is true for any skill. As a mage I can cast 90 damage ice spears from each of my hands as quickly as I can click with 300% magic regen. HP becomes a non factor because no enemy comes close to me due to having no stamina from frost damage and the quick death by magic. I never use master level spells due to cast time, but upgraded properly there is no reason a mage would be any less effective then a warrior, or a stealth character. Pages should never have information on them such as scales badly based on opinions and builds of individual people, it should describe the use of the skill and the way to maximize its usefulness. also for the record I play all types, I currently have to use blades because decapitation it the most hilarious thing ever--Lord.Baal 02:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Agreed with Lord.Baal. Also I typically I find myself turning to magic to take down the tougher enemies because the spells allow me to soften them up before close range. This could just be because my build type is a bit more averaged out over spells and one-handed, but in my case the blades seem to take a lot of effort and perks to do a lot of damage. --Cdevine 03:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I found that Bows, and their ability to take paralyse poison * master stealth is very broken You can take so much health off with a sneak attack, from massive distances, and they be paralysed, then restealth with perk and repeat. That casters cannot use poisons and have much more difficulty attacking targets at range puts them at disadvantage against physical damage, long before you look at enchanting and smithing.Faluzure 18:17, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

() What I think he is getting at is if you do take the time to fully upgrade all of your magic, your still only doing 90 points a pop (for free with master enchanting) where as my character who mastered smiting/alchemy/enchanting can max the percentages on each of the gear go craft a potion of smiting 144% and proceed to make a one handed weapon that can one shot dragons(right now i have about 61 one handed skill with 4 damage perks and a full set of 48% damage boosting gear and my war axes do 450+ with no enchantments). Spells, not so much unless you carry around destruction potions and even then you have to make a huge stack just for it to be viable weighing you down to further that some spells, cloaks and walls probably the best spells to use, considering that master spells wont allow you to move while charging AND take like 4 seconds to charge, don't even get boosts from anything potions nor perks, so yeah I kind of agree with damage for different classes don't quite scale right. — Unsigned comment by 152.7.34.23 (talk) at 05:28 on 6 December 2011

What he is getting at is wanting to modify the page based on his personal opinion about what it better which is an OPINION, and along with it not taking forever which is another opinion. He is simply very narrow minded about what skills to use. Any character would benefit from using a variety of skills to adapt to different situations. If a dragon is flying around for 10 minutes and not landing I dont think having swords with 500 damage are going to be an effect tool for attack. Unless you plan to throw them. As for magic not scaling, it is assumed you will use a variety of schools of magic to augment attacks, a fear or calm spell with destruction is much more powerful then destruction alone. I also would like to point out I dont like my comments being deleted on a talk page by an IP because he does not like them--Lord.Baal 05:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I apologize if you misinterpreted my last post, though I must ask that you stop putting words in my mouth. Firstly, the assumption that I favor melee characters is false - I posted specifically because I'm frustrated at the discrepancy between melee/archery and magic damage output at high levels. It is practically necessary for a mage character to use at least either Conjuration or Illusion to supplement their Destruction magic, something that a weapons user does not strictly need to do. But in any case, it is either Conjuration or Illusion that is doing the heavy lifting. Destruction damage becomes supplemental to your summoned, reanimated, or essentially mind-controlled creature(s). If you're going to summon two Dremora Lords to fight for you or dualcast Frenzy to make a group whittle itself away, casting Destruction magic is unnecessary. Illusion and Conjuration are strong enough on their own. For example: a perked, dual cast Incinerate/Icy Spear/Thunderbolt will do 198 damage ((90 x 2) x 1.1), but I can easily push 300+ with an enchanted legendary Daedric bow ([(47 x (1 + (100/200)) x (2) + 10) x 1.88] plus enchants). The only thing Destruction magic has going for it in that case is the secondary effect (damage stamina & brief slow, or damage magicka) and/or the perk effects (fear/paralyze/disintegrate).
And as I've said, Destruction magic is still perfectly usable. Dualcasting for ~200 damage at once is far from terrible, or 90 + 90 damage if you cast with each hand. It's just that you have two ways to change those numbers in any way at all: 1) boost your magicka regen rate/reduce cost of spells to 0 or 2) keep a ton of +x% Destruction magic damage potions on hand.
Secondly, I'm not trying to make an argument that melee/archery is better than Destruction. I'm trying to point out where and how Destruction is lacking in its current iteration, and I'm hoping Bethesda will patch the game to change how Destruction magic works to make it scale better at higher levels. At the very least, it would be nice if spell damage scaled upward with skill in the same way that magicka cost scales downward with skill. If, at 100 Destruction (compared to 15 Destruction where all the base values come from), your spells did 33% more damage, that same perked and dualcast Expert spell would do about 260 damage. Still not quite as good as weapons, but you have so many other tricks as a mage that doing exactly as much damage as a weapons user isn't necessary. The problem now is that the "tricks" can outperform the main damage source to the point that you could conceivably ignore Destruction entirely and just be a Conjuration/Illusion mage.71.119.58.243 07:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I just want to point out a fallacy here -- you've said that Destruction is weak because it needs to be supplemented by another school of magic and that weapons don't have that weakness. Then you go on to describe your massive weapon damage using a weapon that was improved with both Smithing and Enchanting. Not a fair comparison at all. 108.212.210.179 20:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

() Melee is far superior endgame to magic later levels when it comes to damage output, simply because of enchanting/blacksmithing. At lvl 45 sneak attack from my dual (Epic) Daedric Swords does ~3600 damage, and one shots Alduin and all Ancient dragons (It actualy one shots every creature in the game.) As for "dragons endlessly flying", please see "Dragonrend" shout. Yes, it's difficult to get a sneak attack on a dragon, but not impossible, but the 600 damage from my dual (Epic) Daedric Swords is not negligible and far greater than 200 from dual casting a destruction spell. Add too it that this was incredibly easy to achieve with 100 blacksmithing/100 enchanting and a single Enchanter's Philter and a Blacksmith's Philter (purchasable moderately often at potion shops), and that thanks to iron daggers Blacksmithing to 100 is perhaps the easiest and least expensive skill in the game, and thanks to picking up a banish enchant moderately early on my daggers sold for 600 gold at low levels with a petty soul enchant (mats for an iron dagger with a petty soul enchant cost about 260g from a vendor) Not only was it easy and quick to get blacksmithing and enchanting up to 100, it also made me tons and tons and tons of gold. For the record I have only 4 points spent in one handed perks (3 in damage improvement, 1 in stamina cost reduction) and a skill of 62 in the same at this point. Sneak/Blacksmithing/Enchanting account for MOST of the extra damage, without which Magic and Weapon attacks would be roughly balanced. The lack in scaling is not the fault of the perks in either Destruction or the weapon specialities, but in the lack of a damage increase for magic enchant for armor or clothing (I have +40% One Handed Damage on every slot available for my armor) and lack of the ability to improve a spells output with the same (I have a fully enchanted set of blacksmithing-improvement gear to stack with my blacksmith's Philter for the grindstone/workbench). While magic is indeed viable in the endgame, it's hard to say that it is at all balanced compared to being able to 1 shot everything while being completely invisible to the enemies unless you want to be seen. I do not know, but hope, that Sneak Attack bonuses apply to Illusion - silenced destruction spells as well. If not, sadly, there just is no comparison between to two, no matter how much anyone thinks being able to spam 200 point fireballs is uber. — Unsigned comment by 174.24.147.156 (talk) at 19:23 on 6 December 2011

Which is an excellent indication that the scaling of melee is far too powerful, rather than that the scaling of destruction is far too weak.— Unsigned comment by 121.45.157.68 (talk) at 04:23 on 11 December 2011
I don't think the problem is with melee being too powerful; it's with Smithing being too good. You don't even need all the perks - Elven Smithing is more than enough to be able to smith up some max armor and uber weapons. If Smithing didn't scale linearly, the effectiveness of stacking Smithing buffs on top of each other and improving your weaponry would be greatly reduced. I think it'd still be ahead of Destruction damage due to the lack of a "power up" Destruction enchant, but not by such a large margin. --Fluff 07:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Exactly. In the end, from a power-gaming, dps-wise perspective, Destruction pales in comparison to any kind of weapon specialization. This problem, however, stems from a faulty crafting system that is easily exploitable, not from the designers' oversight on Destruction. There is too much interaction between Alchemy, Smithing and Enchanting for these skills to be given free reign without consequences in game balance. There are no skill caps, "fortify weapon damage" effects multiply raw damage output, and some skills can exponentially increase each other. Instead of suggesting that Destuction be tweaked to compete with weapons, as has been done some lines before, I would rather limit the usefulness of enchantments and set skill caps so that we fix the game rather than break it further. It would still take me some time to take down that Ancient Dragon with my pure mage, but that's how it should be in the first place regardless of the degree of player choice in a single player game.--FSerge 10:34, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Some people here like to say how powerful their weapons are, then conveniently forget all the other powers and skills they have to use in conjunction to make this happen. One-handed weapons are no great shakes if you don't have any other perks. Yes, 3600 damage is impressive, but you had to take high-level perks in FOUR trees (One-handed, Sneak, Enchanting, Smithing) to make that happen. And you compare that to the damage output of ONE tree of magic (Destruction)? Preposterous. If we compare your four trees to four trees a mage might use, the mage has just as easy a time dispatching an ancient dragon or whatever else you want to throw at him. My mage has NO perks in Enchanting, Smithing, or Sneak, and she does quite well for herself, I assure you. How awesome would your melee character be if we took those away from him? If we must have this discussion, let us at least use fair comparisons. Thanks. 108.212.210.179 20:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
You're missing the OP's point (which I think I agree with). Weaponry can vastly outdamage Destruction magic in the end game. No amount of extra perks due to only using a single perk tree can affect that. In fact, that's part of the problem. Weaponry can get tons of bonuses from everywhere: smithing upgrades, armor enchantments that fortify the skill, weapon enchantments that increase the damage, and perk support. Meanwhile, Destruction magic gets a few perks and that's it. The enchant just reduces the mana cost (which, of course, is useful, but does nothing for increasing the damage output).
So yes, a fair comparison. We're not talking about 'ease of dispatching enemies'. We're talking about 'raw damage output'. In this, there can be no argument. Destruction magic vastly lags behind compared to any weaponry in the end game. --Fluff 23:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
If you can multitask you can attack much faster with magic though, also dual-casting blizzard does huge damage:)RIM 23:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

() The comparison is fair endgame wise. With 100% of whatever increases onehanded damage(namely "One-handed","Smithing", "Sneak" and "Enchanting") and 100% of what increases the destruction magic damage("Destruction"), the onehanded perks and damage increasing availabilities outdo whatever destruction can get by far. Onehanded damage output can simply get so many and much more to buff its damage, that destruction magic damage alone is totally in vain compared. By the percentage the comparison makes perfect sense. Someone said that you need those four previously stated perk trees to get that far, and while that remains the fact, it is totally irrelevant endgame, because when a onehanded damage user can, why wouldn't he/she get those perks. Saying that he/she would need to go very far to get them is totally irrelevant endgame, because in endgame, it is simply a part of the damage they do. It is an obvious part of the path anyone who uses onehanded damage would take. This comparison for those who "defend" destruction magic is using the logic of going destruction magic playstyle, and then use all perks in trees totally irrelevant to destruction magic, and then complain about not being able to do much destruction magic damage. Because by the percentage of what increase damage in the 2 different playstyles(Onehanded and destruction magic), when one get 100% of what makes onehanded do damage, and 100% of what makes destruction magic do damage, the onehanded win by far with immense pure damage output. Destruction magic can then go to the 2 other trees, but it ain't as effective as onehanded taking "Sneak" or "Onehanded"(duh) or one of the the 2 last that onehanded would pick. — Unsigned comment by 94.145.243.77 (talk) at 00:51 on 29 December 2011

That may be true but destruction magic can be used at long range as opposed to one-handed which means that you have to come right into the middle of battle. Also, lightning drains enemy magicka and frost drains their stamina which makes it impossible to run or use power attacks so even if one-handed does more raw damage you can't say it is much better without taking into account the other advantages of magic such as practically infinte range which also gives it the ability to hit in 3 dimensions, bonus damage against stamina and magicka and spells such as cloak, rune and wall which are very useful.RIM 10:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I think the point is that weapons make them dead, in one hit. who cares how much magic or stamina they have if they are dead. And as far as ranged goes, just use bows. Oh look everything's dead with one shot each before it even got close... yeah your not getting the point of the argument. Destruction is a viable damage source weapons are 10x better period because destruction lacks the ability to be boosted and even some of the best spells don't get a boost from the perks: walls and cloaks. — Unsigned comment by 152.7.34.23 (talk) at 06:29 on 14 January 2012
Just my $0.02 on the melee vs. casting - I like my battle caster with a sword in one hand and electricity in the other, with an Antioch standing by for additional support. Soften them up before they get close, or if things get too hairy, I'll break out a shield or go two-handed wielding. The point being that it doesn't have to be one or the other, you can make a rather fun "Swiss Army Knife" character.98.165.130.46 05:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Do Destruction perks synergize with summoned Atronachs?

I didn't pick up Destruction on my Breton, since I didn't see any passive effects like Restoration's increased Magicka regen and I opted for melee and Conjuration for my offense. It's unclear if the perks causing enemies on fire to flee or the ones increasing fire damage affect your summoned Atronach's attacks since they're indirectly being cast by you.

I'm going to test this myself, but the idea just popped up and it will take some time to level Destruction so much later in the game. It seems unlikely since it would skew the balance of power between zombies and Atronachs but still seems plausible, to me, at least. — Unsigned comment by 99.245.114.246 (talk) at 16:03 on 20 November 2011

I made a destruction/atronach mage and it seems that the only thing that enhances atronach damage is the elemental potency perk and storm atronachs never disintegrate enemies, frost never paralyzes, fire naturally has a chance to fear enemies at low health even without the perk.
There is a benefit to picking up perks to the element that is the same as the atronach you like to use. The atronach has 100% resistance to whatever element it belongs to. For instance if you use the storm atronach, you can cast it in between yourself and the enemy, shielding yourself, then switch to chain lightning and shoot your own atronach. The lightning will harmlessly arc off the atronach and hit your opponent. This is particularly effective since atronachs tend to be large and slower moving than most opponents, the flame atronach is an exception of course.
Don't try this technique with patch 1.2 as that patch broke resistances.
--Berserkenstein 15:31, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Self target destruction spells

The note about being able to 'self target' destruction spells is confusing. As far as I know, you can't do this, unless it's talking about the 'cloak' type of spells, in which case it should be reworded to indicate that some destruction spells are 'self-target only'... I wasted some time trying to figure out how to target a flame spell on myself. --Vilhazarog 19:20, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Destruction bug?

I have found that jumping up and down in a forge not only damages you but also increases the Destruction skill. Needed 3 150 health bars for it to go up one skill. (healed and kept jumping) If anyone else can confirm and add this to the main page. — Unsigned comment by 89.37.112.6 (talk) at 10:21 on 22 November 2011

Edit: Yes it does but very slowly. — Unsigned comment by 175.156.226.213 (talk) at 15:41 on 24 November 2011

Higher Level flames spells

I am finding conflicting information "flames" is a short range DOT spell. People keep saying " get firebolt that's the next level spell" No... That's a totally different spell. Can you get, for example, apprentice level flames? I wonder this for all magic, like an apprentice level fury ? Or is it the case that this type of spell simply becomes useless as does the playstyle with it at higher levels? — Unsigned comment by 71.202.180.235 (talk) at 11:02 on 22 November 2011

I have only seen one version of each spell, i.e. no Adept version of Flames. There is a very similar Expert level spell that sets the ground on fire doing 50pts of damage per second to any enemy that steps in it. It also appears to do the same damage if cast directly onto the target. Possibly cumulative with the damage from the fire on the ground as well, but I didn't experiment with it much. There are the perks that will increase the power of spells in each school, but Flames only increases to 12pts damage per second with them all unlocked. --Billw 17:39, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, the illusion school perks Aspect of Terror, Hypnotic Gaze and Rage increase the damage of your destruction spells by ~double, each for one element. One of the many bugs in the game, but flames damage can be upped to 27 damage a second with Aspect of Terror and the damage boosting perks from destruction tree. — Unsigned comment by 88.193.156.169 (talk) at 11:58 on 23 November 2011
You should document this on the Destruction page as its a useful tip. I don't know anything about Illusion so not really qualified to do it-- Billw 13:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Flames is the Novice-level spell. Firebolt is the Apprentice-level spell. Fireball is the Adept-level spell. It goes on like that -- every new level has a different spell that functions differently. I also tested out the Illusion perks but the only one that seemed to buff anything was Aspect of Terror which did, indeed, double the damage from fire spells. Narzul 16:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

So far unexplained bug?

I have encountered on many occasions flames erupting and doing me damage when equipping fireball in the favorites menu. Has anyone encountered this before? I made sure to check there weren't any enemies nearby or if I perhaps walked over firerunes. I think it happens most often when the spell candlelight is active (on self of course). KhalDovah 11:57, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Certain areas in the game, mostly ruins and caves, have areas that are filled with flammable gas. If you see what looks like wavy lines in the air and it doesn't look like fog and you enter that area with a torch or fire spell in your hand, you'll ignite the gas. Treat this trap like you would the puddles of flammable liquid on the ground: Ignore it by keeping fire away, or ignite it before you go into the hazardous area and wait until it burns out. — Unsigned comment by 75.34.55.137 (talk) at 05:36 on 21 January 2012

Fire Rune Bug

Fire Rune damage does not increase after getting the Augment Flames Perk. This is clearly a bug as fire runes damage does get in creased by fortify destruction potions. — Unsigned comment by Mushkilla (talkcontribs) at 07:23 on 28 November 2011

Not just Fire rune, all runes and cloack spells are affected 94.21.212.234 16:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Also walls don't get any boosts from potions or perks. I think this might be a bug but I'm not sure. — Unsigned comment by 152.7.34.23 (talk) at 22:23 on 4 December 2011

Do staves benefit from destruction perks?

It seems like Fortify Destruction enchants use less charges and allow more uses for staves. Would using destruction staves also benefit from destruction perks? — Unsigned comment by 98.177.250.144 (talk) at 21:35 on 28 November 2011

Yes, in Skyrim staves charges/uses are directly effected by how skilled you are in that school of magic. Fortify skill will lower the amount of charge needed for each cast the same way if you were using the spell in your hand. Although the damage seems to be set by the staff, I am not sure someone might want to test if you could possibly freeze/disintegrate enemies with staves --Lord.Baal 19:14, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Moved Note

"It is also possible to level destruction simply by jumping up and down in a blacksmiths forge. Becarefull not to kill yourself though as you will take damage but this can also allow you to level restoration at the same time."

I moved this here because it seems unlikely, and even if it does work, how or why hasn't really been explained. Kitkat TalkContribE-mail 11:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

it works, at first i didn't believe it but i tested it and it did increase my destruction skill after nearly killing me many times, i need to use the healing spell a lot Mr.Scryer. 21:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I fixed the Notes section again, I also dont believe it works, and if it does it belongs in this area, where people can discuss techniques to level skills--Lord.Baal 21:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
it does indeed work and as i said i tried it myself and after healing myself a couple a times, my destruction leveled up, i do realise it is a strange way to level up the destruction skill as i had believed only casting destruction spells on a target levels it up but it works. try it out. Mr.Scryer. 21:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
It does indeed work, but it is possibly one of the lousiest ways to level destruction, it is a decent method to level restoration however.--Berserkenstein 02:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

What does the skill effect?

So far I can't tell... does the skill actually directly affect magicka or damage? — Unsigned comment by Cdevine (talkcontribs) at 17:02 on 4 December 2011

It reduces the magicka cost of using spells, it has no effect on damage.RIM 17:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
It also affects the charge consumed by staves and weapon enchantments derived from Destruction (which includes most weapon enchantments that have no apparent home, such as the Absorbs). Aetryn 19:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge pages?

I feel like we could put the page for destruction spells on the page for destruction? I came to the destruction page looking for destruction spells. — Unsigned comment by 173.18.99.191 (talk) at 10:05 on 7 December 2011

I feel like this should be done for *every* Skyrim magic page- they're still setup like it's Oblivion, and that doesn't really help anyone. The two pages should totally be merged for each school. 209.66.120.3 01:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
The Destruction page is about the skill itself, not the individual spells. The many different spells would seriously clutter the page making it harder to locate individual items. I see no problem with using the pages in the current format. And the pages for magic skills are set up similar to keep everything uniform. That is why Skyrim's Destruction page is similar to Oblivion:Destruction and why that one is similar toMorrowind:Destruction and so on. Eric Snowmane 01:35, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
While I understand re: keeping everything uniform, Skyrim is a bit of a different story than Oblivion or Morrowind- it has *much* fewer spells in each school. The Skyrim pages for the spells are short to the point of feeling unnecessary, and it seems like they could easily be merged without creating a page that's too large. And while it may be in keeping with older articles, listing "Spell Effects" on the main page is a bit odd, as you can't learn individual spell effects like you could before. They also use the old icons, which feels wrong to me. Just my 0.02. 209.66.120.3 17:34, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't mind using the old style but I do agree that listing all the effects makes no sense, you could just replace that with the actual spells because as said above, you cant make custom spells so I would say either remove that section or just replace it with the spells page. I also agree that because there are so few spells it would not overwhelm articles to have them listed--Lord.Baal 17:59, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
LOL well I changed my mind, I was just making a new character to be a mage and kept wanting to check magic skills and realized it would be really nice to have the spells on the main magic pages! ha, also it would be nice to have them above the perks tables cause I realized the first thing I wanted to see was spells then what perks were involved.--Lord.Baal 18:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
I would also like the spells to be on the actual skill pages. As has been mentioned, the tables aren't that large. However, I also think the effects should stay on the skill pages. Anything that uses those effects is affected by your skill level in a particular school. For example, the expenditure of charges and the magnitude of the effect on a weapon enchanted with Fire Damage or a Staff of Fireballs depends on your Destruction skill and/or perks. --Fluff 19:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, if that is what everyone wants then one of you can go for it. His Immortal Majesty, Eric Snowmane 19:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

() I put it on the Admin Board that that a consensus was forming over this discussion. We can just see what they say about it. His Immortal Majesty, Eric Snowmane 19:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Now that I've found the actual discussion page.... I think it would make much more sense to use a transclusion if you think that the spells should be displayed on the individual spell pages. That would allow the spells to be visible on the skills page, without having to delete the existing pages or inconvenience users who are used to using the existing pages. --NepheleTalk 21:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Transclusion was a good idea. I think I've fixed up all the affected pages. --Fluff 21:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
And you deserve a big flagon of mead for your efforts- the tables are very well done, and the pages themselves are now much more complete. A very welcome change... thank you very much! 209.66.120.3 22:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Charges on Enchanted Weapons

The way that the destruction skill conserves charges on staves, does it also do so with enchanted weapons? If so, is it limited to Fire/Frost/Shock or does it extend to Absorb Health and the others? — Unsigned comment by 24.191.79.6 (talk) at 07:02 on 9 December 2011

Yes about the weapon charges. Fortify Destruction affects Absorb Health, Absorb Magicka, and Absorb Stamina, and Fortify Destruction 100% will allow you to use any of those enchantments without using charges. 209.66.120.3 18:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
As said, anything that reduces the cost of Destruction effects will work on weapons enchanted with Destruction effects. For a full list of the Destruction effects, see the Magical Effects page. --Fluff 18:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Destruction spells questions

I have several question about the destruction spells.

  • First, why the Elemental Wall spells do only 8 pts/s while the description says they do 50 pts/s
  • Second, the Blizzard spell is working very weird to me, it seems that the spell's effectiveness is based on my magic resistance. My character has 72 % resist magic and 52% resist frost, when I use Blizzard on a Bandit who had 170 health, it did pathetic damage even though it should have killed him as the total damage it should have done was 300 pts (infact, it did 51 pts). So I decided to remove the 52% frost enchantment, now it did more damage (100.25 pts) on the same target. Finally, I remove 52% frost and 22% magic (the rest 50% of mine comes from abilities), it did even more damage on that same target (this time, it killed him). So my question is: is that how Blizzard works or a very stupid bug?
  • Finally, the page said Lightning Storm will Disintegrate the target if the Disintegrate perk is unlock. However, my Lightning Storm ALWAYS disintegrates its target even though I do not unlock Disintegrate, all the other Shock spells only do so when the perk is unlocked. Again, is this a bug or the special feature of Lightning Storm.

117.5.240.114 06:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't really have any good answers.
  • My guess on the Elemental Wall spells is that there's some extra factor that has to be taken into account when converting points into damage. Maybe those spells do 8 damage/square foot, and a typical enemy is ~6 square feet in size? It's probably going to take in-game testing to confirm exactly how much damage is being done.
  • On Blizzard, I'm curious what patch you had installed when you noticed the problem? Because the patches have introduced some glitches to resistances
  • It's possible there's a glitch with Lightning Storm and Disintegrate. At this point, I can't figure out where exactly in the game data that perk is applied, so I can't test whether the conditions were applied incorrectly. We may have to wait until the Creation Kit comes out to check that info.
--NepheleTalk 07:21, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
My patch is 1.1.21.0. And I just discovered another problem with my Blizzard: it can damage Frost Atronach, all the other Frost spells are still resisted. I heard about the 1.2 patch broken magic resistance, but this not seems to be the case.
And about Elemental Walls, I can confirm that they only deal 8 pts, regardless my target is Wolf or Mammooth.
117.5.240.114 16:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for checking on the wall damage. Looks like it's another case of a Bethesda typo then: the description is manually created, which is one reason why it can be useful to double-check against the actual effect magnitudes. --NepheleTalk 17:07, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
I gave J'zargo the lightning storm spell using an npc editor, he does in fact disintegrates targets with the spell. He has never disintegrated targets with other spells. --Berserkenstein 03:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Possible Bug

There are several reports in these forums about spell resistance of the caster reducing the effect of spells being cast (see Conjuration talk). There may be a bug in the implementation of spell resistances and casting. It seems unlikely that the intended design would be that a caster with very high resistances would be useless at casting spells. Mudeye 22:36, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if you were to take a potion that makes you vulnerable to damage of that type, then, if you could kick up the damage? This would be a useful way to deal with high health enemy, perhaps, esp melee enemy, if it works, and it would be a good way to test the issue as well.— Unsigned comment by 66.18.49.84 (talk) at 20:31 on 16 January 2012

Scaling Part Deux

There is a fairly long discussion of Scaling of Destruction compared with Melee weapons. The increased damage of the weapons seems to be due largely to smithing to enhance the damage, where the smithing is enhanced by wearing enchanted gear and using potions. In addition both the enchanted gear and potions are made stronger by enchanting and potions. In the smithing talk sections it seems like this could go on indefinitely and produce almost infinite damage from a pea shooter. It might be interesting to find out if anyone has tried this approach to make some kind of Dragon Flame Hotsauce potion to fortify destruction. Mudeye 23:01, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

It's also just due to the better multipliers. Non-power attack Weapon damage is increased by A) skill rating, B) 100% from perks, C) Enchantments, D) Potions. Smithing increases the base damage underneath all those multipliers, so it has a significant impact even when not bolstered by enchantments and potions. Conversely, Destruction spells are affected by A) 50% damage from perks (except some spells that don't even get that), B) Potions.
In addition, the enchant-alchemy loop is pretty short if you have them both at 100 skill with all perks anyway. It's not an infinite process of improvement like the Morrowind potions could be. Before long you hit the point where the potions don't get any better, which stops the whole process in its tracks. Note: I am assuming you are not abusing the "Fortify Restoration" bug which will almost certainly be patched out at some point (the bug is that Fortify Restoration potions affect all permanent enchantments if you put on the enchanted item while under the effect of the potion). Aetryn 23:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
More correctly, Fortify Restoration fortifies all Restoration effects, including Fortify Skill effects on armor (which is basically all armor enchants). I don't see this as a bug, but I'm sure it is an unintended consequence of the system. As a similar example, Fortify Destruction potions fortifies the damage done by Destruction effects, whether cast by the user, from a staff, or enchanted onto a weapon.
Aetryn describes the 'problem' with Destruction magic exactly. In answer to the OP, yes you can create a potion to increase Destruction damage, but you can also create a potion to increase weaponry damage. According to Alchemy Effects, the weaponry potion won't be quite as powerful, so score one for Destruction magic. However, the numerous multipliers that weaponry can get probably makes weapons unfortified by potions more powerful than potion-enhanced Destruction magic. (Not to mention that a weapon enchanted with a Destruction effect can double-dip and use both Fortify <applicable weapon skill> and Fortify Destruction for increased damage.) --Fluff 04:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
It depends on whether you consider probable design oversights as bugs (this is distinct from clear design choices that I may not agree with). I would also consider the non-capping of Smithing and infinite scaling of Morrowind potions as bugs (even though the latter was never officially fixed).
This is not to suggest that Destruction magic doesn't have a place or isn't worth using. I personally think to use Destruction magic as a primary weapon you pretty much have to commit to lowering the spell costs with enchantments, taking Impact, and chain staggering stuff (preferably a whole room at once with an AE spell). It may take you longer to take things out, but it doesn't really matter if things can't hurt you and you don't run out of Magicka. Destruction is also great as a secondary weapon if you don't want to mess with Archery (and aiming bows can be a bit wonky if you don't use it regularly to learn the way it curves at different ranges / shot angles). It's also a fantastic "boss killer" with the right poisons - there are no poisons to double incoming melee/arrow damage, but you can easily do so with a poison. It's almost ironic that Alchemy is the stealth support when its potions and poisons do more to make magic powerful than Enchanting.Aetryn 06:26, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
It is quite frustrating that half the spells are not affected by the +% damage perks, for example the wall spells and the rune spells. However what is more annoying as a mage is you spend so many points in magicka in the early game that are an absolute waste as soon as you get good enchanting. This ultimatly makes investing in magicka a bad idea. This would not be the case if fortify destruction increased damage instead of reducing cost, as well as if increasing the destruction skill increased damage like (archery, two-handed and one-handed) rather then reducing cost. It's a lot more fun shooting of one or two fireballs then having to stunlock a target and shoot ten. Not to mention if destruction scaled in this way magicka management would be an important skill and there would be higher risk reward when you miss/hit with a spell. All in all this would make destruction a lot more fun to use (on all difficulty settings). Mushkilla13:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
That's not entirely true, unless you want to constantly be changing out sets of gear. You can cast a max of 2 schools free at any one time, leaving three schools which still consume Magicka unless you change your outfit. I don't know about you, but I have no desire to change out clothes *every time* I want to cast another school of Magic because I opted out of Magicka upgrades and only have 100 base Magicka. Also, I'm at level 62, and most enemies that aren't Dragons fall to a couple of dualcasts of Incinerate, if not one. While it may not do 90,000 damage like some oversmithed weapon, it's still *perfectly* capable of taking out enemies with ease. YMMV. 209.66.120.3 17:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I personally find Destruction and weapons balancing perfectly fine. Yes, you can output large amounts of damage by maximizing your weapon and related skills/perks more than you can Destruction, but that doesn't stop the fact that weapons require you to be in melee range or use ammo. Granted, that's not enough to balance weapon vs. magic, but then magic also has great synergy with the other schools and perks that affect the spells in ways other than damage. A warrior type can go up to a dragon and destroy it with weapons but at the same time a mage type can make use of perks such as Impact and lower spell costs through skill/enchants to completely stunlock that dragon from a range with the exact same skill as an archer, which is aiming.
Different playstyles have different strengths. A warrior synergizes best with some sort of armor skill due to requirement of melee range and to further increase survivablity when combined with high health. A mage using Destruction synergizes best with other schools such as Restoration or Alteration where you can get armor-capped through spells (Dragonskin) or increase your Magicka regen due to already having higher Magicka pools to cast Destruction spells. Furthermore, in a situation where a warrior type could become immensely outnumbered, a mage can easily bypass this with Ethereal Spirit and a Master level spell. On the other hand, a warrior fares better against a giant due to blocking, high armor and the fact that they don't have to move much to survive, as apposed to a mage who needs to run if the giant gets too close. They both work perfectly fine, it just depends on how you play. Medivh 02:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
That's the thing destruction spells do not scale, especially on any difficulty above adept. I'm not talking about doing 90000 damage, I just think it would be far more interesting to have the option to increase destruction damage rather then reducing spell cost (as spell cost reduction makes no sense). Don't get me wrong I'm not a min-max player, I like running around in hide armour and using steal daggers. However destruction magic is quite frankly uninspiring, magic should make you feel powerful, it did in all the other elder scrolls games (even in morrowind where magic was pretty terrible). All the other schools do this on their own, illusion, Alteration, Restoration, and Conjuration are all strong and scale well independently.Mushkilla 07:58, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

() I'm not personally interested in powering up any abilities to extremes. I do think that sometimes Destruction damage output needs a bit of a boost though. My original question was to find out if you could cycle up destruction potions. It looks like you can.Mudeye 17:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

My main question has always been why, what purpose does abusing the game system to have 100000 damage swords serve. If I wanted to have no challenge and kill everything in one hit id put it on novice difficulty, or use console commands to give myself level 100 destruction at level one. This reminds me of oblivion, 100% resist magic/100% reflect damage..boring--Lord.Baal 01:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Lord.Baal I completely agree, you don't have to use the best gear etc. In morrowing I would run around in netch armour for the whole game because it looked good. That being said I do find it frustrating that unless you invest in more then 2 schools investing in magicka and the cost reduction perks is for all intents and purposes a waste. That is why it would be better if destruction skill level and enchantments increased damage rather then reducing cost, it would not lead to the ridiculousness that is smithing/enchanting, whilst at the same time giving magicka a purpose and destruction a bit of extra ummpf. Mushkilla 14:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to approach this from a different angle: it's not Destruction that's underpowered, it's enchanting that's ridiculously overpowered. Since enchanting only works with melee/bows damage-wise, it boosts their damage to ridiculous levels, making Destruction look just silly in comparison. A simple example: Legendary Daedric Sword does 24 damage. With 100 One-Handed and 5/5 Armsman, that damage is multiplied by 3. So you do a total of 72 damage per swing. Now, twin-casting(not dual-casting) Fireball deals 80 AoE damage with fire effect for some extra DOT. You can say, swinging a sword doesn't cost you anything - true, but Fireball is a) ranged; b) an Adept level spell, while 100 One-handed and 5/5 Armsman is clearly a Master level stuff(And let's not forget about 91 Smithing you need to even get a Legendary Daedric Sword); c) used in the example without the Augmented Flames perk which would increase the damage to 120. It's pretty clear that without enchanting, melee/magic/archery is balanced reasonably well. 178.183.234.118 08:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes and no. Enchanting itself is fairly well balanced, even at buffed levels. The Fortify Smithing and Fortify <weapon style> effects are the powerful ones in this example. It's not even those two effects: it's that you can stack them onto yourself four times. A single enchanted buff would still be well balanced. The Fortify Smithing would add an extra 6 damage to the sword's base damage (up to 90) and the Fortify One-Handed would increase that by 40%, so you'd end up with 126 damage. In contrast, with full stacking the sword's base damage ends up at 144, and the Fortify One-Handed enchants take that to 374 damage.
From the looks of it, I wouldn't mind a enchanted buff system that only took your highest enchanted buff to a skill instead of combining all of them. At least then you wouldn't waste perks or level ups on magicka at end-game play with mages; since you can currently just enchant four pieces for zero magicka cost in two schools, there's no real need to have increased magicka or the cost reduction perks (unless they're prerequisites). Then again, I've never played an "all four schools" mage. I generally just pick a school or two and use those.--Fluff 14:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
You can max out your magic resistance, fortify one-handed by 160% or reduce casting cost of two schools to 0 using Enchanting skill alone. No Smithing, no Alchemy, no stacking. You yourself suggest that only the highest enchant should work, basically implying cutting the strength of enchants by 1/4. How can you then say that Enchanting is "fairly well balanced"?178.183.219.87 14:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Also the time it takes to twin-cast fireballs the sword user could powerattack, meaning he would be doing 148 damage a swing, not to mention the other advantages of powerattack. — Unsigned comment by Mushkilla (talkcontribs) at 15:02 on 15 December 2011
As one who *is* a five-school mage, I can promise you the cost reduction perks are not worthless. Granted, they would become useless in the two schools I use most (Destruction and Conjuration), but only after Enchanting is at level 100. I may not need those perks now, but they helped me get here, so I don't regret it. Perks in Restoration are still useful since I don't want to keep swapping gear. Illusion is the red-headed stepchild of Skyrim magic IMO. I *might* save up the perks to max out its strength and actually make it relevant, but for now, I can only calm or fury someone I could take out with one swing :-( 209.66.120.3 17:34, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

() Meh, this is TES, you're supposed to become a demigod. Melee/ranged gets ridonkulous damage/resists/armor, mages get free permanent stunlock, calm/fury, summons, wards etc. They're both an absolute cakewalk in endgame - as with any TES game. And before endgame they both scale pretty similarly. If anything melee is the weakest this time - dragons are horrible early on.--41.135.18.128 17:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I keep trying and failing to play a destruction mage. It's embarasing when Lydia does more damage to a dragon with a friggin steel sword while I am: 1. out of magicka, 2. worried about resistances, 3. potions, and 4. what spells to use. Luckily my first and main character is a heavy armor, 2hander powerhouse. Seems like many RPG games, including Oblivion, seem to be paranoid about overpowered 'fireballs' or whatever.
-So, having playing many role playing games I have learned my lesson never to play a pure magic damage type character. Pets ok, hybrid ok, but never Wizard. With Wizzy type characters its: will my spell be resisted? When will I run out of magic? Will my spell hit a tree instead of target? Will my spell hit a friendly? Will my fire burn me if I step into it? Will my cloth pajamas rip when a giant attacks me? Fighter type: usually no resistance to worry about, no little bar draining, stand there in your platemail and go get a beer and come back. Having said all this I do like a challenge so I sympathize with those who take the hard road. I do like conjuration. Oblivion and Skyrim have great pets.— Unsigned comment by 67.164.33.239 (talk) at 06:37 on 18 December 2011
Killing dragons easily as a destruction mage:
1. Quaff a nice destruction potion.
2. Use highborn (you DID pick high elf, right?).
3. Spam doublecast impact firebolt or ice spike (whichever the dragon is weak to), or even lightning bolts. Laugh at the stupid stunlocked dragon, then pick up your bones/scales/soul.
Even easier than as an archer, really. Even got wards to shrug off his breath.--41.135.18.128 19:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I cant believe this is still going, and the second to last post made me laugh a lot. If you play poorly then you will fail as a mage. As the guy above me stated with the right style it works great, actually any play style is great if used correctly. I would also add to that list wearing master robes that give 150% regen and 22% reduced cost. Final point, you mentioned watching running out of magic, as a warrior you have to worry about running out of stamina for power attacks (all my weapons are enchanted with absorb stamina for that reason)--Lord.Baal 21:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
So playing a mage is easy as long as you pick a specific race and quaff a potion every time you want to kill something? Not counting using the racial power? Sorry but that's not a very compelling argument. 178.183.217.162 06:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I've got a Breton who's specialized in Destruction, Conjuration (Necromancy only), Restoration and Alteration and I do fine. The weakest ward is capable of blocking most dragon breath attacks with one hand (Which is probably aided by 25% resist magic), dual cast destruction spells stun if you want that and Eternal Spirit is a best friend for running from a weakened/Dragonrend(ed?) dragon and regenerating Mana. The only thing I really have to worry about is the frontal melee attack as it's capable of getting a one shot flourish kill on me without any armor spell active. It's no different than melee at low levels (Who are limited to ranged until a dragon actually lands, which can really suck since they seem to like to hover instead of actually landing) except lightning spells can at least hit dragons while flying. The only time it becomes radically different is at higher levels because by then melee can max out enchanting and completely decimate anyone with the recursive buff stacking. Without buff stacking, they're pretty even. My Nord in full Daedric armor/greatsword and good enchants+legendary smithing can kill a dragon as fast as my Breton spamming Incinerate. (Which is very fast in both cases.) Overall, I think enchanting deserves a bit of tweaking. No cost Fireballs/Incinerates and one shotting enemies with two-handers is kind of boring, but I guess there's no reason someone could just not stack those enchants. Medivh 01:43, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Easy Training [Destruction + Restoration]

This is an exploit using horses, much similar to the Shadowmere exploit. Assuming you have just started the game and you want to increase Destruction and Restoration rapidly, buy and equip healing hands and flames in your left and right hand respectively. Buy a horse (any horse, it need not be Shadowmere) and just cast both spells on the horse simultaneously. Do this until you reach any desired level. Another further exploit is when you are able to get your hands on Wall of Flames and Heal Other. Same concept as the Flames+Healing Hands, just cast Wall of Flames on the horse with one hand, but in the other hand keep healing the horse periodically. I was able to reach 100 Destruction and up to 60 Restoration in under an hour, because I didn't have any enchanted armor that would make my destruction cost be 0, so I had to wait every once in a while for my Magicka to recharge. Hope this helps! — Unsigned comment by 82.155.79.236 (talk) at 22:52 on 15 December 2011

Spell efficiency

Or how much damage do you get for your Magicka? Many factors are omitted, so take it with a grain of salt.178.183.219.87 11:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This is an important topic that doesn't really get much attention. This can highlight lower level spells that are far more efficient than the higher level ones, example, Firebolt could be cast 3 times and achieve more damage for less magica than Incinerate, combine that with the available perks at lower levels and it makes obtaining the higher level spells almost pointless.(139.130.94.66 06:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC))
I wouldn't say it makes them pointless, as higher level spells still have more both continuous DPS and burst DPS. Let's say you're fighting a Frost Dragon. He lands and you hide behind an obstacle. You know you have one Destruction spell to cast before he will breathe and you will need to hide again. Would you rather that spell be Firebolt or Incinerate? 178.183.231.16 06:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
The loser is the one who runs out of health the first. For example, say you have enough health, health regen, armor, fire resistance, and so on to survive X seconds of attacks. If the enemy can survive your attacks for longer than that then he wins. Your casting rate doesn't increase as you level up, but the damage of available spells does. Using higher damage spells will increase your damage per second(dps). Increasing your dps output will decrease the length of time your enemy can survive.
This only becomes a problem if you run out of Magicka before your enemy is dead. You can dramatically reduce the magicka costs of destruction spells using enchantments and potions (without using exploits). The same is true for raising the level of your Magicka and regeneration. These improvements allow you to go a far longer time before running out of Magicka. Raising dps has fewer options. Perks can only raise your dps by 50%. Potions can raise it another percentage around 25-50% without exploits. Enchanting can't raise magic dps at all. The inefficiency of the high level spells is a lot easier to overcome than the lower dps of low level spells. Mudeye 22:37, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Master Spells

I've only played with them a little bit, but I think the Lightning spell is worth the cost, in the right situation. It has very good range and extreme single target damage output. Against ranged opponents in outdoor areas, it is highly effective. In particular, I have used it to great effect in dragon slaying. It's not as effective as perk-enhanced expert spells of the type the dragon is weak to, but covering both fire and frost is more costly in perks than just shock. Daedalus Echelon 16:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I just got these last night. I agree that Lightning Storm is the most powerful, but Blizzard is *definitely* my favorite. It has to be the most destructive spell TES has ever seen, in terms of property damage.
One casting and a whole house looks like it's been through a hurricane or a major earthquake. 209.66.120.3 21:25, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
While i do love Blizzard animation, i hate how it deals damage. Using it against very weak bandits yet it only did 1/3 their total health and took 10 seconds plus preparation and interruption time. Lightning storm is the most useful, especially when i can use it to shoot dragon to death before it can even land. But dragon only, meelee and archer interrupt me while i shoot them, and the spark explosion block my view so i don't know that my enemy has chosen another spot to attack me and i am shooting at the blank wall.117.5.240.36 10:05, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Dual-Cast Runes

Is it just me, or are runes possibly the best double-cast around, since you only get one at a time, and can let your magicka recharge. It then gives you somewhere to retreat past. Triaxx2 01:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Resistances and Magic vs. melee

Thought I would start a new thread on resistance. I'm thinking that lightning is the least resisted of Destruction spells and good for just about anything in the game. Any thoughts? Rant starts now... I really HATE resistance. It seems to be an evil invention of game makers going back many years, almost a prejudice. Yea I know, it adds some challenge. That Fire Monster is made of fire so it wouldnt be damaged as much by fire, blah blah blah. What about swords? True some games have melee resistance too, but that seems to be pretty rare. Everything in Skyrim for example can be cut up with a sword. With magic you have too many things to worry about (aim, cost of spell in magicka, what spell to use, how to regain magicka) and then, as if someone is laughing behind your back, your gigantic magic draining super-nuke spell was just resisted and your out of juice, tuff luck. A fix might be to scale all Destruction spells similar to melee. The more points in destruction (not perks), the more damage. So that jet of flame spell that looks really cool when your level 1, can scale up to the end game. — Unsigned comment by 67.164.33.239 (talk) at 06:52 on 18 December 2011

Er, melee resistance is called "armor". --41.135.18.128 19:50, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
In the case of THIS particular game, it serves the specific aim of encouraging diversity. Without that, there is very little justification for spending the perks to improve fire, frost, and shock magic, in a game where perks are scarce. As it is, resistances are often counterbalanced by a corresponding weakness, meaning that a dual fire/frost build is competitive with a pure shock build, because you can hit enemy weaknesses. Having sensible alternatative perk builds is a good thing for game balance, replayability, and diversity. Also, most resistances are logical: anything that looks like it's covered in ice or snow, or has "ice", "snow", or "frost" in the name is strong against frost and weak against fire. Draugr, which relentlessly use frost spells on you, are strong against frost. Dragons are pretty obvious too. The only non-obvious resistances are the Nord and Dark Elf racial bonuses, which you can see in character creation and are reminded of in loading screens repeatedly. That doesn't make it any easier to identify whether random bandit #27 is in fact a Nord (it's generally not too hard to recognize Dark Elf NPCs), but since this is Skyrim I tend to assume that unless I can positively identify an NPC's race, if it's not a mage, it's probably strong against Frost. Aetryn 17:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
It's probably frustrating too for Melee fighters that have mages and archers on the walls shooting down at them from all sides. They have to run up to each one and hit them while taking constant damage. Or consider the sneaky archer that gets mobbed by Melee fighters.Mudeye 23:05, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Stacking Cost Reduction?

I couldn't find the information on this anywhere else, so I thought I'd try here. Do the cost reductions from the perks (cast expert level spells for 50% less magicka, etc.) stack multiplicatively or additively with the fortify destruction armor enchants? (Cast destruction spells for 25% less magicka.) 174.111.248.187 19:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

perks stack multplicatively with armor enchantments. so your 50% armor with cut the cost in half from the perk level cost which is already 50. total cost is 25%--Lord.Baal 21:34, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
So this means that it is not necessary to take the perks reducing spell cost if you have 100% spell cost reduction gear, since it would just reduce 0 with 50% ? 83.89.30.240 17:01, 20 February 2012 (UTC) De Genius
Correct. If you're planning on wearing a set of 100% reduction gear all of the time, it is unnecessary to take the perks for those magic schools. --Theothersteve7 17:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

"On Fire" debuff and Flames

Everyone knows that all fire spells apply an "On Fire" debuff which makes enemies take minor additional damage(and, possibly, make them take extra damage - this needs further testing). Hovewer, this is of limited use because the effect is applied only after the enemy has been hit.

Hovewer someone on Bethesda forums discovered that you can use the Flames spell to apply this debuff over and over. While normally Flames is onle of the spells which benefit least from the debuff(because it is applied only when you finish casting, which with Flames normally happens only when you run out of Magicka), by simply casting Flames over and over - by pressing and releasing then pressing again the attack button -will apply the debuff several times in short amount of time.

Some simple testing shows that the results are absolutely devastating. I was casting Flames on Hadvar in the Helgen Keep. With 110 Magicka, Destruction of 15 and Novice Destruction perk, when casting Flames with both hands continuously, I reached another Destruction skill level just as I was running out of juice. By using the "stutter cast" described above, I gained a Destruction level with over 70 Magicka left. Since skill increase is based on damage done, that would make the "stutter cast" about three times as effective as normal continous cast!

As I said at the beginning, while the tooltips say that "enemies on fire take extra damage", tooltips are not always true and the "extra damage" could be referring to the fire damage from being on fire. If enemies set on fire do indeed take extra damage from all sources, then continuously casting Frostbite with one hand while "stutter casting" Flames with the other would absolutely destroy all but the highest level enemies. 178.183.231.16 10:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure enemies on fire do take extra damage. My mage-warrior typically lights up an enemy with Flames, then bashes them in the face with a mace. I notice much more mace damage while they're on fire. --Fluff 14:38, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Summary is nice...

...but can we stop pretending the game is balanced? Fire all the way, Frost on whatever has fire resistance, Lightning - never, because a) only half damage done goes to Magicka and b) mages have much more magicka than health. They'll be dead before you actually manage to drain their Magicka pool. 178.183.219.105 14:32, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I generally agree, but you have to remember that those mages that you're shooting lightning bolts back are using magicka to attack you too. You don't have to drain all their magicka, just the part that they haven't used yet. --Fluff 14:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
While this is somewhat true, the extra damage caused by Fire is fairly negligible unless it's a foe weak to Fire. Technically, Frost is the most powerful, as it does 2x damage (health and stamina). Shock does 1.5 damage, which is still more than Fire's 1.1 or whatever it works out to. However, your point about using Shock to deplete a mage's Magicka is pretty spot-on, and Fire is by far the most common elemental weakness. Frost is still quite useful for its slowing effects, though- I use it almost as much as I use Fire.
And I like Frost's ultimate perk the best- Fire just makes them run away and take more time to kill (or possibly lose them entirely), while Shock can cause some major bugs if their ashes disappear. Frost's Freeze effect is the perfect middle ground, IMO. 209.66.120.3 20:14, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Not to turn this into a forum, but do we just pretend that damage is all that matters? Lightning is instant, which makes it much easier to target enemies at longer distances and much harder for faster, less predictable enemies to dodge even at mid distance. I started using lightning and I can't do fire anymore... the delay is so annoying. Plus, far less things in Skyrim are resistant to shock than to fire/ice, so if you were to only pick one element to specialize in, there's a very good argument to be made for lightning over fire/ice. In fact, I find fire to be the weakest of the three elements. It doesn't do anything besides damage, and since it's a destruction spell, it's damage will be far far outpaced by any weapon. Ironically, the higher the difficulty, the less health-damage matters, since most serious battles will last fairly long anyway, and controlling enemies via magicka-drain / stamina-drain or just Impact-stun becomes not only viable but vital for a mage.— Unsigned comment by 144.211.101.118 (talk) at 21:56 on 21 December 2011
Erm, et's not forget that the enemy dies when his Health reaches 0. Not his Stamina or Magicka, so saying that Frost does most "damage" is kind of irrelevant. Good arguments though about insta-hit nature of Lightning(enemies can actually dodge slow projectiles!) and the Deep Freeze. 178.183.236.36 06:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
The enemy may die when his health reaches 0, but that's only one enemy. "Frosting" up a tougher opponent can leave him drained of stamina to give you time to focus on his weaker buddies. Likewise, disintegration is a great for taking out enemies when around necromancers (especially a lot of necromancers- ever have a necromancer raise a necromancer who raised a mage who summoned an atronach? I have). Someitmes, the perks (both literally and in-game) of the other elements will allow you to reduce an enemy's health to 0 before they do the same to you, and sometimes you can get away with impact fireballs on a whole group: it's contextual, and luckily for us, Skyrim likes to mix it up a bit.MadocComadrin 06:59, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

() I have to say, this is not an entirely true post. Flames does in fact seem to cause the most intense amount of damage, if studder casted, while Frost seems to be the best for fighting against hordes of enemies due to it's property to slow down enemies. In fact, while using Frost against an Ancient Dragon on Master, me and my girlfriend realized that using Frost seems to eventually almost prevent movement. We noticed that as I continued to use Frost against the Dragon's face when he was on the ground, he quit taking damage... and he quit moving. We realized that the complete overlap of the ice shards seemed to make sort of a "barrier" that the Dragon was not able to walk through. When the ice went away, he progressed forward. But I digress. The... let's call it an "Ice Barrier" exploit should be further investigated. Anywho, Flames are totally useful against single enemies with high health, such as Dragons. Frost is useful against targets that are fast, such as Giants (Considering they can clear a short distance quickly), or against cluttered hallways where you may be against multiple targets (Any Drauger tomb, for instance). Lightning seems to be useless against Mages, since it's true their health is far less than their Magicka and they will die before being exhausted. However, as I've stated before on other talk pages, Lightning also depletes a Dragon's "Shout". Again, from my experience, a Dragon's "Shout" is not actually a "Shout" but more so a "Spell". In terms of the game's lore, yes it's a Shout; The Dragon is literally yelling fire or ice at you. But in terms of game mechanics, using Lightning continuously eventually prevents the Dragon from using their Shout entirely, for a short time. I feel personally that it is best to merely ignore the Destruction Perks; Intense Flames and Disintegrate. The reason is because when I am about to kill a target using Flames, I don't want them to run away and have a chance to recover. That defeats the purpose. When using Disintegrate, I do enjoy raising the dead. Not for their often-useless aid, but for extra experience. If it takes (Say) 8 hits to kill them with a weapon, now they are alive again and you have a chance to kill them, you've just had to dish out another 8 hits, meaning you've gotten twice the experience for a single enemy... Deep Freeze is useful though, as it allows you to paralyze an entire room (If done correctly) in a matter of seconds... If it's not apparent, my favorite "element" is Frost. : ) 4:06 PM 26, Dec 2011 (CST).— Unsigned comment by 50.103.46.55 (talk) at 22:10 on 26 December 2011


Augment of Frost

Seems this perk do effect leveled item you get? Have a lv55 mage char with 2/2 of this perk Just got a Chillrend with 45 frost damage(normally 30 at the level) on it...havn't tried on fire/shock though. — Unsigned comment by Templarphoenix (talkcontribs) at 06:46 on 27 December 2011

Yes it works. Having a higher Augmentation will also allow more damage to be placed upon Enchanted Weapons. — Unsigned comment by 50.103.46.55 (talk) at 02:14 on 28 December 2011


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