What's the fastest, most efficient way to NATURALLY raise Destructive Magic?

[Blk_Mage_Ctype]

I've been playing for over 30 hours now, yet my Destructive Magic Rank is still extremely low, (Novice) regardless of the fact that I've been using Destructive Magic almost exclusively for the past 10-15 hours once I noticed how slowly it was leveling up.

I've tried searching online, but have yet to find a satisfactory solution because it seems like every response is strictly how to cheat/cheese to increase your rank.

However, I actually want to play the game, so cheating/cheesing doesn't appeal to me, I'm simply seeking an optimal or otherwise more efficient means to raise my Destructive Magic while playing the game as usual.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Drunkenstein]

Create a Drain Fatigue for 1 sec on self spell and cast it repeatedly.

[Tresh]

I'm at Journeyman in Destruction and I'd say Destruction is definitely the magic skill that I cheesed the least (For everything else, I've just been spamming low-level non-offensive spells like light and detect life), but I would have to see how you use destruction magic to see why you're levelling so slowly. Using it almost exclusively should help you level up your destruction relatively reliably, unless you basically avoid combat at all cost.

[Martial Autist]

Make a spell with [damage health 3 pts 1 sec on self & restore health 3 pts 1 sec on self], or just any spell with a destruction effect that you can just keep running without killing you or being completely out of magicka. Then just jam the cast magic button if needed. Go take a leasurely $hit. Come back to a few levels of progress.

Or since you said no cheese; during actual gameplay just keep casting damaging spells at enemies, and when traveling just keep casting the low cost spell. Maybe take some levels in destruction training.

[Blk_Mage_Ctype]

Originally posted by Tresh:

I'm at Journeyman in Destruction and I'd say Destruction is definitely the magic skill that I cheesed the least (For everything else, I've just been spamming low-level non-offensive spells like light and detect life), but I would have to see how you use destruction magic to see why you're levelling so slowly. Using it almost exclusively should help you level up your destruction relatively reliably, unless you basically avoid combat at all cost.

Like I said, every time I encounter an enemy, I've been exclusively using Destructive Magic, namely "Weak Fire Ball" because that's the most powerful spell I have obtained by progressing the Mage Guild quest line. I don't know if buying/using more powerful spells would give the skill more experience per kill, but I figured it would actually be better to use weak spells since it seems to grant XP per hit as opposed to per kill, ergo I presume that more hits = more XP per enemy defeated, and I don't want to waste gold on mediocre spells when I can save up for when I've completed Advancing my Mage Guild Rank.

[Vagrant]

Leveling magic in this game is crazy grindy. You absolutely need to abuse Trainers.

[lonetrav]

Novice means skill < 25. Expect that such skills take time to increase (because the skill is low, not because "Leveling magic in this game is crazy grindy").
On the other hand, magicka regenerates automatically in Oblivion. Which means that you can cast spells almost constantly, if you want. Like others have said, casting a Destruction spell on your character is probably the easiest and quickest (but also boring, I suppose) way to get the skill up.
You can use trainers, too, if you can pay them - but you don't "absolutely need" them (I never used a trainer in all the years I played Oblivion).

The main question (in my opinion) is what kind of character you want to play. If Destruction is among the skills which are most important for your character, make it a major skill for your character, and you will start the game with a character whose Destruction skill is above Novice from the beginning. If you play a character for whom Destruction is important, but you haven't made it a major skill, you'll have to accept that increasing the skill will take time initially.

[Nite69]

yea I made destruction one of my nmajor skills and reggreted it cause its just way too easy to kill anything it takes forever to get up

[Tresh]

Originally posted by Blk_Mage_Ctype:

Originally posted by Tresh:

I'm at Journeyman in Destruction and I'd say Destruction is definitely the magic skill that I cheesed the least (For everything else, I've just been spamming low-level non-offensive spells like light and detect life), but I would have to see how you use destruction magic to see why you're levelling so slowly. Using it almost exclusively should help you level up your destruction relatively reliably, unless you basically avoid combat at all cost.

Like I said, every time I encounter an enemy, I've been exclusively using Destructive Magic, namely "Weak Fire Ball" because that's the most powerful spell I have obtained by progressing the Mage Guild quest line. I don't know if buying/using more powerful spells would give the skill more experience per kill, but I figured it would actually be better to use weak spells since it seems to grant XP per hit as opposed to per kill, ergo I presume that more hits = more XP per enemy defeated, and I don't want to waste gold on mediocre spells when I can save up for when I've completed Advancing my Mage Guild Rank.

As I understand it, stronger spells give you more exp per casting compared to weaker spells, so there is a reason to use the stronger spells you can get your hands on. Would explain the difference in our experience, since I also started with destruction as a nonmajor skill and been using it since the beginning in conjunction with bow and arrow for when my magicka goes too low.
I've been using snowball for the majority of my novice time, switching to flare only for enemies that are resistant against cold damage.

[Cattastrafy]

Each destruction spell you cast that lands on a valid target gives the same XP as any other. An expert spell gives the same abysmally small amount as a novice spell if they make contact. This is not true in the remaster, but true in goty.

With that said, casting Magicka efficient but relatively small damage spells on enemies (so you get more casts per enemy) will yield more XP per encounter.

It's not organic, but you can make training spells like others have suggested to fill in the gaps. Not sure why people make spells that damage themselves, a drain skill or attribute or weakness to (whatever) for 1s on self will work all the same and not require healing.

If you made destruction a major skill, itll rase a lot faster, if you specialized in magic, it'll raise slightly faster, and if you did both itll give you slightly more than double XP.

If you did none of these things, choosing destruction skill as a non specialized, minor skill, as your main source of damage was probably a mistake.

Making a couple grand destruction enchantments will help with Magicka cost (but not allow you to use higher tier spells till you reach the actual level) if it helps.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Tresh:

As I understand it, stronger spells give you more exp per casting compared to weaker spells, so there is a reason to use the stronger spells you can get your hands on. Would explain the difference in our experience, since I also started with destruction as a nonmajor skill and been using it since the beginning in conjunction with bow and arrow for when my magicka goes too low.
I've been using snowball for the majority of my novice time, switching to flare only for enemies that are resistant against cold damage.

This is incorrect; skill gained per spell cast on a valid target is independent of the spell's cost or 'power.'

Also, it isn't clear that Snowball (Frost Damage 10 points on Target) is actually a 'stronger' spell than Weak Fireball (Fire Damage 5 points in 5 feet for 3 seconds on Target), especially if we aren't accounting for practical considerations like area-of-effect frequently being of little to no value (particularly when the AoE is as small as Weak Fireball's) or damage-over-time effects often being substantially worse in practice than in theory since lingering effects of a spell or enchantment get overwritten when the spell/enchantment is re-applied to the target.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by Tresh:

As I understand it, stronger spells give you more exp per casting compared to weaker spells, so there is a reason to use the stronger spells you can get your hands on. Would explain the difference in our experience, since I also started with destruction as a nonmajor skill and been using it since the beginning in conjunction with bow and arrow for when my magicka goes too low.
I've been using snowball for the majority of my novice time, switching to flare only for enemies that are resistant against cold damage.

This is incorrect; skill gained per spell cast on a valid target is independent of the spell's cost or 'power.'

Also, it isn't clear that Snowball (Frost Damage 10 points on Target) is actually a 'stronger' spell than Weak Fireball (Fire Damage 5 points in 5 feet for 3 seconds on Target), especially if we aren't accounting for practical considerations like area-of-effect frequently being of little to no value (particularly when the AoE is as small as Weak Fireball's) or damage-over-time effects often being substantially worse in practice than in theory since lingering effects of a spell or enchantment get overwritten when the spell/enchantment is re-applied to the target.

Well, quess I learned something new. I went mostly by magicka cost, and as I said, this was also just an assumption on my part. Clearly I assumed wrong and I am now wondering whether maybe, the only reason I didn't get stuck in the same hole as OP is that I am playing as a Dunmer, which according to the game have a natural affinity towards destruction magic, whatever that means.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Tresh:

I am playing as a Dunmer, which according to the game have a natural affinity towards destruction magic, whatever that means.

That's just a reference to Dunmer characters having a +10 bonus to their Destruction skill at character creation. It's no different, really, from the in-game descriptions calling Altmer "the most strongly gifted in the arcane arts of all races" or Nords "highly talented warriors" or saying that there are "no finer archers in all Tamriel" than the Bosmer.

Originally posted by Tresh:

I went mostly by magicka cost.

The Weak Fireball spell that you're given as part of the Skingrad Recommendation quest is actually significantly under-costed, at least according to the spell cost formula that the game uses for custom spells; if I recall correctly it's a bit less than 50% of the magicka cost of an identical custom spell.

[Jay_square]

Just spam cast the custom self-damage-fatigue for 1 point 1 sec spell. cast while blocking has a faster animation.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by Tresh:

I am playing as a Dunmer, which according to the game have a natural affinity towards destruction magic, whatever that means.

That's just a reference to Dunmer characters having a +10 bonus to their Destruction skill at character creation. It's no different, really, from the in-game descriptions calling Altmer "the most strongly gifted in the arcane arts of all races" or Nords "highly talented warriors" or saying that there are "no finer archers in all Tamriel" than the Bosmer.

Originally posted by Tresh:

I went mostly by magicka cost.

The Weak Fireball spell that you're given as part of the Skingrad Recommendation quest is actually significantly under-costed, at least according to the spell cost formula that the game uses for custom spells; if I recall correctly it's a bit less than 50% of the magicka cost of an identical custom spell.

So yeah, being a dunmer would help speed up the process of getting out of being a destruction novice significantly faster. Thanks for all the info!

[Krythic]

I wrote a program in c# which casts spells x number of times, then opens the sleep menu, sleeps, and repeats infinitely.