Destruction

Spells are costlier and have progressively longer charge times.

Concentration spells now apply their damage rapidly over small intervals so as to prevent “cherry tapping” which was way too magicka efficient and was a big contributor to mage OPness. However, this also means there is no need to prevent the spells from stacking since they now only apply their duration while physically spending magicka-- you can now cast firesparks from both hands for example.

In the base game, destruction damage was way too high even without taking any elemental boon perks. Now, Destruction is now balanced around the idea that you will take elemental damage perks and dual casting perks, and you will suffer a 30% damage penalty in each element before you take its respective -Mancy perk. The intention behind this change is to make novice destruction truly flimsy (a mage race can expect to kill roughly 1 bandit per magicka bar with novice spells) but also force you to specialize in an element unless you want to spend many perks. Bring a crossbow or iron dagger if you're a mage.

You also need to perk a new “Estoteric Destruction” to use non fire/frost/elec destruction spells effectively. Master destruction should be less steamrolly now. Ice spike/Spear no longer do 0 physical damage to >100 armor rating targets.