Yeah, the lack of damage scaling means magic is only really viable in the early and mid game. By the time youâre level 40 or 50, the damage potential for magic has dropped off so drastically that youâre basically forced into using other styles.
Because with every other style of combat in the game, your damage scales based on your level. A higher One-Handed skill means you do more damage with one-handed weapons. But this isnât the case with magic. With a higher Destruction skill, you simply use less MP to cast your Destruction spells. But the damage of those spells doesnât change. Which means that as you level up and enemies begin to get stronger, you need to cast more and more spells to take them down.
If an enemy has 30 health and youâre doing ~8-10 damage per hit, that means you take them down in 3 or 4 hits. And if your damage scales based on your level, maybe youâll be doing 80-100 damage when the enemies have 300 health. Itâs still 3 or 4 attacks to take down an enemy. Higher stakes, but youâre hitting harder. But that isnât the case with magic. If you have a spell that deals 20 damage, it always deals 20 damage. The only thing that changes the damage is the enemyâs particular resistances. So if you cast a spell that deals 20 damage, youâll initially take that 30 HP enemy down in roughly 2 hits. But then when that enemy has scaled to 300 HP, youâre using ~15 casts to take it down.
And on the surface, this seems fine. After all, you have more MP now, and youâre using less MP per cast. Except that each cast takes time, which means that enemy is getting 5x longer to wail on you. And the enemies do more damage now too, (because their attacks scale to their level), so now youâre getting downed in 3-4 hits and canât effectively kill anything before it reaches you.
And sure, the game has other ways to mitigate that issue. Armor spells like stone skin, wards, turn undead, etc⌠Except all of those are just ways to prolong or avoid a fight. They donât actually help you end it any faster.