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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?

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  • @sjohnston thanks for "effect" to "affect". I never get it right :)
    – Asdafgh
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:32
  • Simple rule of thumb: Affect verb, Effect noun. The exceptions are for the most part weird enough that you'll never screw it up unless you're a psychologist.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Dec 18, 2011 at 17:04
  • 1
    A person can affect an effect. If you can remember that sentence, the words in question have to be in alphabetical order for the sentence to make sense.
    – Gumbz
    Dec 19, 2011 at 12:11
  • effect is also a verb meaning "cause to be", but it isn't common. The verb effect goes beyond mere influence; it refers to actual achievement of a final result: "the new administration hopes to effect a peace settlement." merriam-webster.com/dictionary/effect
    – flies
    Jul 8, 2013 at 20:17

1 Answer 1

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+150

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).

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  • 4
    ...VBA? Are you... sure? That thing's my nightmare fuel. On Error Resume Next nightmare.
    – badp
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:11
  • Yep :D. I wasted the time I had on silly things like trying to ensure the UI was soft-coded. I also had a hellish time dealing with VB6, as I am used to VB.NET
    – Asdafgh
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:19
  • and as someone who just occasionally knocks out a few lines of code for fun I don't have the discipline of a pro, and I fell foul of feature creep. 300 lines of VBA trying to be flexible to make the final functionality easy to implement. Zero end-user functionality...whoops!! :D
    – Asdafgh
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:29
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    Eh. I'm hardly a pro ;) Don't listen to me, just do what you like to do, then learn Python and look back in shame :P
    – badp
    Dec 18, 2011 at 16:43
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    the link says the file has been hidden by the author. I looked into registering to see if that'd help, but I'd have to pay for that (just 1 GBP but still).
    – flies
    Jul 8, 2013 at 20:21

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