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Destruction magic tips


marciosilva

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All my previous Skyrim characters have been melee, so I'm playing a mage now focusing on destruction magic.

 

For now, I have a level 26 imperial, with destruction at level 73 with all fire-related perks.

 

Now comes my question: some enemies are insanely elite to kill (dragon priests, and even a light armor mage in a cave thas was 2 hit killing me spamming fireballs). So I play on the Novice difficulty level. Sad, but true. Anyway, I don't want to be switching this setting all the time, so most of my enemies are easier than butter.

 

Bearing all this in mind, then why do the Dwarven Spheres need 3 fireball hits to get killed??

 

- in Novice

- fire spells have all the perks available

 

I feel the overal game is not very well balanced. If I play on Adept or even Apprentice, some enemies are just plain impossible (unless I get a pack of 100 heal potions per boss...).

 

My character wears the Vampire light armor of Minor Destruction, and she has both a necklace and a ring to regen magicka (also, the feat to regen magicka at rank 1 from the restoration perk).

 

I feel she is more than optimized for magic combat, but there must be something escaping my attention. Any tips for improving my character?

 

Note: as a melee backup, I have Dawnbreaker, for those harder mobs... And I don't mind to use a mod or two to help me improve the magic combat overall system.

Edited by marciosilva
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I sound like a broken record (because I've posted this in several related magic threads), but if you are playing the vanilla magic system without mods... Bethesda did not balance it properly and it seems you are experiencing this imbalance as you play.

 

Bethesda opted for a "higher levels = less magicka needed to cast spells" vs. "higher levels = more powerful spells".

 

This is why it takes way too much magicka to kill things at higher levels... Because the spells cost more, but aren't doing the proper amount of scaled damage they should be to off-set the increased costs.

 

The worst part is like most people, you don't realize this since at lower levels the magic, especially destruction, is more than enough to take care of most threats, but as you gain higher levels, even with the perks, you are not doing "better" with the spells, you're just getting slight reductions in how much certain spells cost to cast... Which is negated by the insanely high amount of magicka required for mid-to-high-level spells, anyway.

 

This is why you need mods to reverse/overhaul the current magic system, so as you level up your magic levels up, too, as far as spells doing more damage (overall) and/or spells lasting longer e.g. Alteration, Conjuration, Illusion, etc.

 

By the way, you don't have to go this route, but if you stick with the vanilla system, your goal will be magicka cost reduction via potions and enchanted gear. This is where the game breaking practice of getting magicka cost to zero came into being out of necessity until mods started to appear that overhauled the system entirely and made magic scale properly. So, the choice is yours. Most people, myself included, prefer "higher levels = increased spell magnitude" vs. magicka reduction because it's more intuitive and has more benefits at higher levels, obviously.

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Your best bet for a simple, vanilla-style tweak of the magic system rather than a full-out overhaul is something like the ThirdRace Skill Overhaul. It's an entirely modular reshaping of the vanilla perk trees for the magic skills, and adds perks that keeps a school's effectiveness scaled to its level - the higher your destruction level, the more powerful all your destruction skills become. I'm using it on my own mage playthrough, and I've only touched the combat difficulty control once - I started at Expert, and bumped it up to Master somewhere around level 40 (I'm level 47 now).

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Here are my go-to mods for Magic balancing/overhauling:

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4374/? <-- Better Magic. It's an oldy, but still goody and covers all the DLCs, too.

 

In conjunction with this, I also use...

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/45021//? <-- Simple Magic Rebalance. This is what flip/flops the cost reduction with increased magnitude as you level.

 

Both work well with one another because they compliment one another in what they are trying to do. They also don't radically alter the skill trees and keep the perks as close to vanilla as possible with obvious benefits, of course.

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All my previous Skyrim characters have been melee, so I'm playing a mage now focusing on destruction magic.

...

Bearing all this in mind, then why do the Dwarven Spheres need 3 fireball hits to get killed??

...

 

Well, why do dragons need more than one hit to kill? Some mobs are stronger than others. Hint: Try Shock spells on automatons.

 

You seem to have the impression that a mage should be able to 1-shot anything, like warriors can. They can't. This isn't a "broken magic leveling" issue; its a playstyle mechanics issue. I find it interesting that so many mods exist which enable the "1-shot everything" desire of so many players. Where is the challenge? Its not necessary to 1-shot all enemies, its only necessary to usually win. Mages "usually win" when played like mages and not OP warriors. If you just remember that (pure) mages are "squishy", they become OP. Its about playstyle, not "broken" magic.

 

Take a hint from magic using mob AI behavior; stay back and move around. Mobs get a "boost" on their attacks, but on Novice you are more powerful than most non-boss bad guys. Remember, one advantage of magic is that it ignores armor. That's one reason Destruction spells are less "powerful" than smithed up weapons. Your Vampire armor is not helping against the cave mage. You need Magic Resist, instead of or in addition to plain armor. Its why most of my mages are Bretons. Related to that is Health; with no armor, mages are easy pickings for melee types and archers. On Master and above, I usually get health ONLY on level up. My 26th level destruction mages will have +300 health, just to stop most (not all) 1-shots. Magic gear and standing stones give me extra magicka, or lower magicka cost, or increase magicka regen rates. A good mage build can do a LOT with very little base magicka.

 

My "optimized" Destruction mage would be (or be working towards) a Ward Absorbing, Atronach Stoned Breton Agent of Mara with gear either reducing magicka cost or increasing magicka regen rates with a FEW perks in Destruction and a LOT of perks in Illusion, Restoration, and Alteration to increase Destruction efficiency and power Ward Absorb. They are basically immune to magic attacks, use strategy against Boss melee types, and, in general, routinely Incinerate most evil denizens of Skyrim. With a tank follower, they can beat the game on Legendary with no armor and no weapons. Mages are not "broken" in Skyrim, people's conception of how you play them is.

Edited by Lord Garon
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Bearing all this in mind, then why do the Dwarven Spheres need 3 fireball hits to get killed??

 

- in Novice

- fire spells have all the perks available

 

 

Several reasons.

Some creatures and monsters are much tougher than others and have a lot more hit points.

Some creatures and monsters have resistance to certain types of damage.

Some creatures and monsters even have weaknesses to certain types of magick.

 

Dwemer constructs are ancient, very advanced machines forged from metals for which the recipes have been lost. It would be likely that they would have some sort of resistance to Fire and maybe Frost.

 

But they would also conduct electricity. :D You might be better off using Shock spells, even with no perks in it.

 

My first character was a 500+ hour level 60+ unarmed and unarmoured Druid specialised in Fire and Lightning magick (based on AD&D). She didn't have too many problems on Adept, as long as she stayed out of melee for as long as possible. Impact is your friend, especially if you are kiting backwards.

 

There are a lot of enemies in Skyrim with 50% Resistance to Frost, such as every single Nord you come across. But there are few with Resistance to Fire. Dunmer have 50% Fire Resistance, of course, so I'd use Shock spells against them. Some, like the Spriggan, have Weakness to Fire. Even fewer have Resistance to Shock.

 

You should probably invest in some perks from the Shock damage branch over the next three or four levels.

 

 

~.~

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Mages are not "broken" in Skyrim, people's conception of how you play them is.

 

 

 

Exactly.

 

There's an excellent YouTube video showing a proper Mage play-style. It is much more Hide, Lure, Destroy, and certainly not "Charge in with Fireballs a-blazing and then using weapons."

 

People can always play a Nightblade, Battlemage, Spellsword, Paladin or Death Knight if they want to mix magick, weapons and armour, but I see SO many people talking about a "Pure Mage" when they are using weapons and armour and not in any way playing like a Mage at all.

 

Even Gandalf spent most of his time running away!

 

~.~

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The magic system may not be broken, but it is counter-intuitive and the majority players would rather have increased damage at higher levels (character level, difficulty level) than have spell cost reduction. That's just majority opinion, and it's because every other RPG does magic LOGICALLY in this regard. The higher levels you achieve, your spells do more damage. This isn't rocket science and it doesn't mean people expect to one-shot kill things, either.

 

It wouldn't be so bad using the cost reduction system IF the spells were worth their cost... But a lot of them aren't at Expert and Master Level for what they do. This is also because they don't scale like magic does in other games, so people don't like this system, overall. You can call it the further "dumbing down" of Skyrim, but here is a text book case of Bethesda trying to be different for the Hell of it and this is why you have so many mods that overhaul it to a more logical and familiar system.

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All my previous Skyrim characters have been melee, so I'm playing a mage now focusing on destruction magic.

...

Bearing all this in mind, then why do the Dwarven Spheres need 3 fireball hits to get killed??

...

 

Well, why do dragons need more than one hit to kill? Some mobs are stronger than others. Hint: Try Shock spells on automatons.

 

You seem to have the impression that a mage should be able to 1-shot anything,

 

(...)

 

 

Well, I do not. I'm not even saying that the dwarven spheres were too hard at all. Altough easy to destroy, I still need to keep an eye on them, they are fast and can do some damage if I'm not paying attention, even on easy settings.

 

I specified that I was using the lowest noobiest dificulty setting, with all the fire perks available, and casting the strongest spell I had at the moment.

 

Before that experience with the dwarven spheres, I had a very unpleasant meeting with a lower level mage in light armor (lower than the dwarven spheres, I mean), in a tight cave, and as soon as I showed up in front of him to fire my spells, he started spamming Fireballs all over the place, apparently with endless Magicka potions to keep his mana flowing. Thus, when I tried that quest, I was still on Apprentice difficulty setting. This guy was doing damage to my HP about 80% per hit, so was 1 hit, plus a bit more, killing me easily. And yes, I was trying to escape and hide from him as a mage should do, instead of charging straight up like a melee. The tight passages in that cave were making Fireball blasts even worse, because every blasts in the wall, floor, ceiling, were being directed to me. I was killed several times, without even see the blast itself !

 

Now compare both situations and don't tell me this is not even a bit, unfair, at least. The only way I managed to kill this guy, was BOTH reducing the difficulty setting to Novice, AND changing my attack method to melee with Dawnbreaker, with the help of Unrelenting Force shout, I just stood there slashing the guy until he stopped moving, and hoping he wouldn't get up to send a fireball at me... Makes no sense, when a mage needs to draw a sword instead of using spells.

 

I don't like when my enemies only need 1 hit to get killed, and I don't like either when MY OWN CHARACTER only needs 1 hit (or 1 hit and a light push) to get killed, because thats what was happening.

 

Regarding the Melees VS Mages question, I have to say one more thing. I've played a LOT of MMORPGs where we can pick sorcerers / wizzards / fighters / paladins, etc. And I always see this:

 

Fighter / Paladin = have melee but normal attacks, strength, good defense

Sorcerer / Wizzard = have ranged but strong attacks, buffs, weak defense

 

So in every RPG styled game, where is given us a chance to choose between a sword or a spell, we already assume that the spell user will have a much stronger attack, to compensate the lacking defense (without armor, only clothes). Likewise, a sword user will have a medium / high attack, but very good defenses and resilience.

 

So, if any character at all should have a 1 hit capability, it should be a spellcaster, not a sword fighter. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all classic "knight or mage" style RPGs follow these rules. Try Dungeons and Dragons Online, for example, and you will see who are the only classes doing 1 hit kills...

 

Btw, thank you everybody for the input.

 

I've installed that mod with a slight change to vanilla perk tree, and I feel a bit better now, at least I managed to enchant a few items, and also the spells are a bit more effective. I still feel the difference from the easier enemies, to the harder ones. Still playing on Novice, since on Apprentice, the harder ones are REALLY hard and don't let me even take a breath... But I feel the game more balanced than vanilla.

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