How does regen vs magicka vs reduced cost affect the efficiency? What is the destruction spell damage

the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim

The Questions

  1. What are my character's derived stats? (regen time etc)
  2. What will each magicka and destruction enchanting effect do to my overall character?
  3. How is my damage output affected by choosing different spells?
  4. How does cast speed effect my damage? (very important at -100% cost)
  5. What is my effective spell cost after perks, equipment and skills?

Soon after I started playing Skyrim I wondered whether it was more efficient to get more magicka or more magicka regen.

How should I balance them? Ahhhhh

I then started delving more deeply into it, and started also considering issues like sustainable damage output (from regen) vs. high initial damage output (from a large magicka pool). I also was no way near being able to enchant -100% cost equipment, and so I still had a major trade-off to decide on.

Higher ranked Spells get more magicka inefficient. I then had to try and see how much additional DPS that extra cost was worth, and how it effects my sustainable effectiveness.

Choices, choices and choices.

I attempted to answer these questions. In the spirit of sharing useful information, I have uploaded my spreadsheet where you can see how your own character is doing – what her vitals are!

And dispelling myths over destruction: DPS with Thunderbolt is ~187/s, at range – not too bad, eh?

Best Answer

Edit: various rebalances in patches since the below was posted (such as a particular spell's damage per cast) has made it inaccurate. I am afraid, therefore, that it seems that the author of the spreadsheet has taken down the link.

A Solution

I developed a basic spreadsheet that allows you to find out all the above questions, and more. V1 provides a full workup of magicka and all related enchanting effects, and provides detailed damage info for destruction spells.

A better VBA model I was 30% through is on hold while I enjoy a DLC to my favourite game :D

An basic example with my current mage: Magistra Circe

enter image description here

Mirror 1: SkyrimNexus

EDIT: the sheet is locked to prevent accidental deletion of a formula. You can unlock it (no password) under the "Review" Tab (in Excel).

Related Topic