The Questions
- What are my character's derived stats? (regen time etc)
- What will each magicka and destruction enchanting effect do to my overall character?
- How is my damage output affected by choosing different spells?
- How does cast speed effect my damage? (very important at -100% cost)
- 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?