Can magic really compete with traditional weapons?

[majormittens]

I wonder why people find it OK to have weapon improved to hundreds damage through enchanting, smithing and alchemy and use that weapon to slash out all enemies in one or two hits but consider having 100% destruction reduction through enchanting and walking around spraying fireballs boring and no tactic? If you take away all crafting skills, that is: weapons and magic only improve damage through relevant skills, you will find how underpowered weapons are compared to magic.

 

Why would you even discuss that? Any kind of leverage automatically excludes the whole basic idea behind this debate. I don't understand why you'd even consider enchantments or any other thing that would lead to superiority, the whole gist of this was to discuss which class would be better with regards to their original abilities. Birthsigns, enchantments, perks or whatever shouldn't even be pointed out because there's no real even ground then. It's not okay.

Edited September 17, 2013 by majormittens

[blacksupernova]

 

I wonder why people find it OK to have weapon improved to hundreds damage through enchanting, smithing and alchemy and use that weapon to slash out all enemies in one or two hits but consider having 100% destruction reduction through enchanting and walking around spraying fireballs boring and no tactic? If you take away all crafting skills, that is: weapons and magic only improve damage through relevant skills, you will find how underpowered weapons are compared to magic.

 

Why would you even discuss that? Any kind of leverage automatically excludes the whole basic idea behind this debate. I don't understand why you'd even consider enchantments or any other thing that would lead to superiority, the whole gist of this was to discuss which class would be better with regards to their original abilities. Birthsigns, enchantments, perks or whatever shouldn't even be pointed out because there's no real even ground then. It's not okay.

 

That's my whole point, people tend to consider crafting skills for weapons but choose to ignore them when it comes to magic (you can read the OP's post, and many others' which says magic is useless). People need to place the two skills in similar context to compare them, but they usually don't do that. I am against that ( my final line said to take away all crafting skills) Now I must say I'm sorry because I thought you were among them. I misunderstood your sentence:

 

But in a standard vanilla version of the game mages are really squishy and the main reason a weapon-wielding character would defeat a mage is because of the raw damage he can dish out whilst being protected from spells via potions and such.

Let's forget the fact that you mention potions for spell protection (mage can wear armor for damage protection), I'd like to argue with your statement of weapon's raw damage dishing out spells: when you max out your skill and have all power-up perks (I know you said no perk, but without perk, weapon would look even more pathetic since they get 100% increase while spell only get 50%), the most powerful onehanded weapon (dragonbone mace) would do 51 damage per hit, the most powerful twohanded (dragonbone war hammer) would do 84 DPH and the most powerful bow (daedric) would do 78. Only 2 of those are slightly stronger than adept destruction spells and all are weaker than expert spells. You can cast 2 spells per second but only do 1 or 2 hits per second with weapon. These make spell's raw damage higher than weapons. Since I see that weapon damage is lower than spells, I thought you counted bonus from crafting skills when you said weapon damage is higher.

Edited September 17, 2013 by blacksupernova

[Bozzz123]

Look, when I played my vanilla mage, he was unstoppable. He was rarely even touched. I don't care about potions, weapons, enchantments or perks. In the end, if designed well, your mage can absolutely be overpowered.

[majormittens]

 

 

I wonder why people find it OK to have weapon improved to hundreds damage through enchanting, smithing and alchemy and use that weapon to slash out all enemies in one or two hits but consider having 100% destruction reduction through enchanting and walking around spraying fireballs boring and no tactic? If you take away all crafting skills, that is: weapons and magic only improve damage through relevant skills, you will find how underpowered weapons are compared to magic.

 

Why would you even discuss that? Any kind of leverage automatically excludes the whole basic idea behind this debate. I don't understand why you'd even consider enchantments or any other thing that would lead to superiority, the whole gist of this was to discuss which class would be better with regards to their original abilities. Birthsigns, enchantments, perks or whatever shouldn't even be pointed out because there's no real even ground then. It's not okay.

 

That's my whole point, people tend to consider crafting skills for weapons but choose to ignore them when it comes to magic (you can read the OP's post, and many others' which says magic is useless). People need to place the two skills in similar context to compare them, but they usually don't do that. I am against that ( my final line said to take away all crafting skills) Now I must say I'm sorry because I thought you were among them. I misunderstood your sentence:

 

But in a standard vanilla version of the game mages are really squishy and the main reason a weapon-wielding character would defeat a mage is because of the raw damage he can dish out whilst being protected from spells via potions and such.

Let's forget the fact that you mention potions for spell protection (mage can wear armor for damage protection), I'd like to argue with your statement of weapon's raw damage dishing out spells: when you max out your skill and have all power-up perks (I know you said no perk, but without perk, weapon would look even more pathetic since they get 100% increase while spell only get 50%), the most powerful onehanded weapon (dragonbone mace) would do 51 damage per hit, the most powerful twohanded (dragonbone war hammer) would do 84 DPH and the most powerful bow (daedric) would do 78. Only 2 of those are slightly stronger than adept destruction spells and all are weaker than expert spells. You can cast 2 spells per second but only do 1 or 2 hits per second with weapon. These make spell's raw damage higher than weapons. Since I see that weapon damage is lower than spells, I thought you counted bonus from crafting skills when you said weapon damage is higher.

 

 

I get your point, really. But then we're at square one again, disregarding everything such as perks, potions or w/e it just ends up on just preferences, nothing else.

Both classes set at the same amount of skill would just even out, lets not forget stuff like power attacks with melee weapons whilst spells only have a standard attack option, there's really no way to compare it when you take everything in account.

Edited September 17, 2013 by majormittens

[pheo3309]

Look, when I played my vanilla mage, he was unstoppable. He was rarely even touched. I don't care about potions, weapons, enchantments or perks. In the end, if designed well, your mage can absolutely be overpowered.

 

I would like to point out that it doesn't work out that way on all difficulties, through all enemies, or through conditions met. And I'm speaking strictly vanilla. If you're not caring about the perks, enchantments, potions, weapons, or any other conditions met, no offense, I'm finding this hard to believe for the simple fact that no mage is 'unstoppable' just like a melee character isn't unstoppable (even those archers are quite squishy). These things do matter. While they're based on numerical value, they also play into tactic. So if you didn't care about them in the first place, I'm going to assume that you didn't use over half of these things other than maybe perks and a potion here and there. Also, were you playing on anything above Adept Difficulty? Try your vanilla mage on Expert-Master levels with the same claim at being unstoppable without dying once. I've never in my life seen anyone create an unstoppable mage in any game without the use of cheat codes, they were on easy difficulty, or they had a mod rebalancing something of the game, whether it be spells, NPCs, or combat. Dying and reloading the game does NOT make you unstoppable.

 

 

 

I wonder why people find it OK to have weapon improved to hundreds damage through enchanting, smithing and alchemy and use that weapon to slash out all enemies in one or two hits but consider having 100% destruction reduction through enchanting and walking around spraying fireballs boring and no tactic? If you take away all crafting skills, that is: weapons and magic only improve damage through relevant skills, you will find how underpowered weapons are compared to magic.

 

Why would you even discuss that? Any kind of leverage automatically excludes the whole basic idea behind this debate. I don't understand why you'd even consider enchantments or any other thing that would lead to superiority, the whole gist of this was to discuss which class would be better with regards to their original abilities. Birthsigns, enchantments, perks or whatever shouldn't even be pointed out because there's no real even ground then. It's not okay.

 

 

The thing is, there's not really classes. There's Magecraft/Magicka, Ranged Melee and Melee. Each one of these groups use a slew of skills and those ARE considered their original abilities. I'd like to point out the OP's original question: Can magic really compete with traditional weapons? I'll quote it for you.

 

 

Could a player who had truly mastered magic (both having the spells and knowing when and how to use them to greatest effect) compete with a player who had mastered the non-magical weapons?

I'm asking because my guy has gotten up to Level 50 and now has all of the Master Spells. I was expecting that, once I'd gotten savvy to the use of the Master spells, I'd be able to fight as with magic as well as I fight with swords and the bow. But I can't.

 

Now you can't use Master spells without perks. You also can't use Dragonbone weapons without perks or console commands. So your whole argument about "It's not okay!" is not okay. These things are very relevant to the OP's post and how BOTH of these mechanisms work. I will state this again, these are two completely different paradigms that people are trying to compare. You can't compare Magecraft with melee because Magecraft goes where melee can't and vice versa. I've not once have seen a decent argument that states otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

I get your point, really. But then we're at square one again, disregarding everything such as perks, potions or w/e it just ends up on just preferences, nothing else.

Both classes set at the same amount of skill would just even out, lets not forget stuff like power attacks with melee weapons whilst spells only have a standard attack option, there's really no way to compare it when you take everything in account.

 

 

Again, I really suggest re-reading the original post of this topic. Because this is the thing that ties all this relevant information together. Perks do matter. In both Magecraft and any kind of weapons. So do enchantments. You're basing numerical things when they're more based on tactical things.

 

 

Also, . . . just in case it changes things, . . . when I talk about using weapons, I'm talking about using seriously maxed-out weapons. I upgrade my weapons Smithing Experience at 100 with some of the Smithing perks. And I double-enchant everything I have with Enchanting Experience at 100 and all of the Enchanting perks. So my weapons (and armor) wind up pretty darn amazing. :smile:

Thanks for reading.

All responses are genuinely welcome (even the flames :smile:).

 

I don't mean any offense or anything, it's just that I know the original post in and out and I had to point this out.

Edited September 17, 2013 by pheo3309

[Bozzz123]

 

Look, when I played my vanilla mage, he was unstoppable. He was rarely even touched. I don't care about potions, weapons, enchantments or perks. In the end, if designed well, your mage can absolutely be overpowered.

 

I would like to point out that it doesn't work out that way on all difficulties, through all enemies, or through conditions met. And I'm speaking strictly vanilla. If you're not caring about the perks, enchantments, potions, weapons, or any other conditions met, no offense, I'm finding this hard to believe for the simple fact that no mage is 'unstoppable' just like a melee character isn't unstoppable (even those archers are quite squishy). These things do matter. While they're based on numerical value, they also play into tactic. So if you didn't care about them in the first place, I'm going to assume that you didn't use over half of these things other than maybe perks and a potion here and there. Also, were you playing on anything above Adept Difficulty? Try your vanilla mage on Expert-Master levels with the same claim at being unstoppable without dying once. I've never in my life seen anyone create an unstoppable mage in any game without the use of cheat codes, they were on easy difficulty, or they had a mod rebalancing something of the game, whether it be spells, NPCs, or combat. Dying and reloading the game does NOT make you unstoppable.

What I meant by the "I dont care about" statement was that those things are just so nitpicky and everybody else is focusing on them too much. My character absolutely used good perks and enchantments. Otherwise it would be hard to make an even decent mage. And about the difficulty I usually play on expert level difficulty. Now that I look back at my previous statement I can see how you thought I don't use enchantments, perks, or weapons because thats pretty much what I said :laugh:. But using the right enchantments and perks will give you an overpowered mage, even on higher difficulies.

[pheo3309]

 

What I meant by the "I dont care about" statement was that those things are just so nitpicky and everybody else is focusing on them too much. My character absolutely used good perks and enchantments. Otherwise it would be hard to make an even decent mage. And about the difficulty I usually play on expert level difficulty. Now that I look back at my previous statement I can see how you thought I don't use enchantments, perks, or weapons because thats pretty much what I said :laugh:. But using the right enchantments and perks will give you an overpowered mage, even on higher difficulies.

 

 

I still haven't seen an overpowered mage. With certain leveled lists, yes. But as from experience over the almost two years of playing Skyrim strictly as a mage, I've always had instances where it didn't matter how much power I had under my belt. From DCO: When you run into a dragon at full health you're guaranteed you're gonna have a bad time. Plus those one shots that Giants get is hilariously common. And this is on all difficulties on vanilla, then tested with spell packages and AI revamps along with on all difficulties. The only way one can be truly overpowered is by outsmarting the enemy AI package that it's set with whether by vanilla or by mod every time. Now there are enemies that are extremely easy, I'm not going to deny that. But I'm also not going to deny the potential that they can get the upper hand. I had an instance where I was out of health potions, my magicka was still rebuilding and a skeever ended up getting a kill shot because I busted into a room I thought was safe.

 

But then again what many define as overpowered is high damage and effects. There's more than that in terms of Magecraft. Especially throughout the years in the Elder Scrolls. Morrowind had game breaking spells. So did Oblivion. It's why we no longer have Levitation, Chameleon, Damage and Fortify spells, and many many others. And I used those in the not so cheating ways (for instance with Damage and Fortify spells in Morrowind, you could easily make a character more powerful than the deities that were part of the world). Effects wise, many different groups of melee packages can be just as overpowered. For instance archers one shotting you. Poisons that make you want to pull your hair out in frustration. Weapons that at an appropriate crafting skill or obtainable through a quest can easily get you an upper hand on a mage. It's all about the tactic used in every instance. Sure you can spam spells, but what happens when you're out of Magicka and you haven't any Magicka potions, and enchantments to support Magicka levels and Magicka regen? There's definitely drawbacks. Definitely. Being truly overpowered in a full on aspect usually means for me max levels in everything, perks appropriate to the max levels of said skill, and having a huge potion base. The only thing that could be really debated wise, is the semantics on how overpowered is defined.

[blacksupernova]

 

 

What I meant by the "I dont care about" statement was that those things are just so nitpicky and everybody else is focusing on them too much. My character absolutely used good perks and enchantments. Otherwise it would be hard to make an even decent mage. And about the difficulty I usually play on expert level difficulty. Now that I look back at my previous statement I can see how you thought I don't use enchantments, perks, or weapons because thats pretty much what I said :laugh:. But using the right enchantments and perks will give you an overpowered mage, even on higher difficulies.

 

 

I still haven't seen an overpowered mage. With certain leveled lists, yes. But as from experience over the almost two years of playing Skyrim strictly as a mage, I've always had instances where it didn't matter how much power I had under my belt. From DCO: When you run into a dragon at full health you're guaranteed you're gonna have a bad time. Plus those one shots that Giants get is hilariously common. And this is on all difficulties on vanilla, then tested with spell packages and AI revamps along with on all difficulties. The only way one can be truly overpowered is by outsmarting the enemy AI package that it's set with whether by vanilla or by mod every time. Now there are enemies that are extremely easy, I'm not going to deny that. But I'm also not going to deny the potential that they can get the upper hand. I had an instance where I was out of health potions, my magicka was still rebuilding and a skeever ended up getting a kill shot because I busted into a room I thought was safe.

 

But then again what many define as overpowered is high damage and effects. There's more than that in terms of Magecraft. Especially throughout the years in the Elder Scrolls. Morrowind had game breaking spells. So did Oblivion. It's why we no longer have Levitation, Chameleon, Damage and Fortify spells, and many many others. And I used those in the not so cheating ways (for instance with Damage and Fortify spells in Morrowind, you could easily make a character more powerful than the deities that were part of the world). Effects wise, many different groups of melee packages can be just as overpowered. For instance archers one shotting you. Poisons that make you want to pull your hair out in frustration. Weapons that at an appropriate crafting skill or obtainable through a quest can easily get you an upper hand on a mage. It's all about the tactic used in every instance. Sure you can spam spells, but what happens when you're out of Magicka and you haven't any Magicka potions, and enchantments to support Magicka levels and Magicka regen? There's definitely drawbacks. Definitely. Being truly overpowered in a full on aspect usually means for me max levels in everything, perks appropriate to the max levels of said skill, and having a huge potion base. The only thing that could be really debated wise, is the semantics on how overpowered is defined.

 

I would say mage being overpowered because my vanilla mage can single-handedly defeat draugr death overlord, dragonpriest and giant at about level 10 on legendary without using potions, none of my archer or melee warrior can do that.

[pheo3309]

 

 

 

What I meant by the "I dont care about" statement was that those things are just so nitpicky and everybody else is focusing on them too much. My character absolutely used good perks and enchantments. Otherwise it would be hard to make an even decent mage. And about the difficulty I usually play on expert level difficulty. Now that I look back at my previous statement I can see how you thought I don't use enchantments, perks, or weapons because thats pretty much what I said :laugh:. But using the right enchantments and perks will give you an overpowered mage, even on higher difficulies.

 

 

I still haven't seen an overpowered mage. With certain leveled lists, yes. But as from experience over the almost two years of playing Skyrim strictly as a mage, I've always had instances where it didn't matter how much power I had under my belt. From DCO: When you run into a dragon at full health you're guaranteed you're gonna have a bad time. Plus those one shots that Giants get is hilariously common. And this is on all difficulties on vanilla, then tested with spell packages and AI revamps along with on all difficulties. The only way one can be truly overpowered is by outsmarting the enemy AI package that it's set with whether by vanilla or by mod every time. Now there are enemies that are extremely easy, I'm not going to deny that. But I'm also not going to deny the potential that they can get the upper hand. I had an instance where I was out of health potions, my magicka was still rebuilding and a skeever ended up getting a kill shot because I busted into a room I thought was safe.

 

But then again what many define as overpowered is high damage and effects. There's more than that in terms of Magecraft. Especially throughout the years in the Elder Scrolls. Morrowind had game breaking spells. So did Oblivion. It's why we no longer have Levitation, Chameleon, Damage and Fortify spells, and many many others. And I used those in the not so cheating ways (for instance with Damage and Fortify spells in Morrowind, you could easily make a character more powerful than the deities that were part of the world). Effects wise, many different groups of melee packages can be just as overpowered. For instance archers one shotting you. Poisons that make you want to pull your hair out in frustration. Weapons that at an appropriate crafting skill or obtainable through a quest can easily get you an upper hand on a mage. It's all about the tactic used in every instance. Sure you can spam spells, but what happens when you're out of Magicka and you haven't any Magicka potions, and enchantments to support Magicka levels and Magicka regen? There's definitely drawbacks. Definitely. Being truly overpowered in a full on aspect usually means for me max levels in everything, perks appropriate to the max levels of said skill, and having a huge potion base. The only thing that could be really debated wise, is the semantics on how overpowered is defined.

 

I would say mage being overpowered because my vanilla mage can single-handedly defeat draugr death overlord, dragonpriest and giant at about level 10 on legendary without using potions, none of my archer or melee warrior can do that.

 

 

If you die a lot I don't consider that overpowered. If you're dealing the same if not less damage, that's not overpowered. There's a difference between being overpowered and skilled. Like I said, with Magecraft, playing a mage has a lot more conditions involved for being overpowered than people are thinking about. For instance in Neverwinter Nights, Clerics were INSANELY overpowered. Owl's Wisdom + Implosion = One heck of a DC check. It not being Death Magic after the 1.66 patch, there's no immunity. There's also a +3 on the DC. Most stock characters won't have a fortitude high enough unless they're a Paladin, Blackguard, or they somehow have a high Fortitude which is not only rare, but I've only seen it 3-4 times in the years playing NwN from 2002-2011.

 

With you mentioning Legendary, I'd love to see gameplay of this. If you're doing that, that's skill. Not damage dealt. Especially at Level 10, no cheats, no potions... No offense, but I've talked to a loooot of mages. I've also built a looooot of mages for Skyrim. On Legendary, it doesn't matter what you are at level 10. In the game's eye, you're 'fresh game' as the Argonians would say, so forgive me, but I'm VERY skeptical of this claim. Especially if it's a vanilla game. It's going against what the majority of people have been complaining about pre- level 25.

 

Edit: There's loads of gameplay footage and Let's Plays of mages 10+ on Legendary guzzling potions when going against only against bandits. And they're skilled Magecraft players to boot. Dragons, Draugr Death Overloads, and Dragon Priests? Yeah, no offense, but I'm finding this difficult to swallow due to the footage already out there. Half of these vids I'm seeing have the perks in the right places and are being slaughtered when they run out of potions and this is a long WITH tactic. Sorry, but I'm going to remain very skeptical of this until I actually see some kind of proof being that there's proof otherwise on YouTube.

Edited September 18, 2013 by pheo3309

[Bozzz123]

I would say mage being overpowered because my vanilla mage can single-handedly defeat draugr death overlord, dragonpriest and giant at about level 10 on legendary without using potions, none of my archer or melee warrior can do that.

 

 

 

 

Ya Im finding that hard to beleive. The only way thats true is if you are either playing on adept or below, or your character is much higher than a level 10. Ive played enough mages to know when you can start killing those tougher enemies, and level 10 isn't it.