Board Thread:Skyrim/@comment-12277465-20140501182332/@comment-11245364-20150204052903

Destruction magic is REALLY weak in Master/Legendary difficulty, and boring. I mean, if you thought that slashing an enemy a hundred times with an unupgraded weapon was boring in those difficulties, then you will find destruction very tedius.

The reason is, as the OP said, the damage doesn't scale. Even with 50% damage from perks, 25% from mask, x% from potions, etc... the damage will still be low.

My advice: if you want to play as a "pure" mage (without using weapons to kill your enemies) and play on the real difficulties (Master or Legendary), then use some kind of mod. Deadly Dragons Spells and Forgotten Magic Redone are both really good, and they add spells that will "scale" with your progress (in DDS you can spend dragon souls to upgrade them and in FMR each spell will have a level that increases with usage, and each level award a talent point wich you can use to upgrade it). FMR is pretty much and upgraded version of DDS, but you can use both of them with no problems.

In short: either install a mod that makes magic more fun and balanced or enjoy casting 500 lighting bolts at a giant in Legendary difficulty.