I haven't had time to get far into the game yet, but I've been playing a Breton battlemage-type character and enjoying the playstyle a lot. However, I'm worried about spreading myself too thin with the skills. The skills I'm interested in are One-Handed, Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing, Destruction, Conjuration, Alteration, Restoration and Enchanting, but that's half the skills in the game, so I'll have to do without a few of these. Destruction and Conjuration are must-haves; I need Destruction to deal with dragons and ranged enemies, and Conjuration because summoned creatures are awesome. I was thinking about using Two-Handed instead of One-Handed and Block, but I don't know if that would work with this playstyle. Would I be better off with a destruction spell in one hand and a shield in the other, switching the spell to a weapon as necessary, or should I just dual-cast destruction and switch to a two-handed weapon when enemies close the distance? I also don't know if Smithing is necessary, as I intend to find all the Daedric Artifacts that compliment my skills, but I don't know if they can be improved, or if better items can be made. Could someone with more experience give me advice? Thanks in advance.

Kinda bored but you should just go with whatever the heck you want.

I like shield and conjure a lot.

im about 20 on my battle mage now. i would say drop the block tree. as a battle mage your left hand will be casting spells more often than blocking. i basically let lydia be my shield. eventually smithing will be nice to have at higher levels. level 5-15 i found enchanting best because if you want magika enchants on your heavy armor you will have to do it yourself. as long as you keep lydia around you should have enough storage space that you wont need heavy armor perks for a while.


kinda just a few things that i have experienced.


im a little worried that casting spells in the left weapon in the right wont be viable later on since master spells require 2 hands.

^
Pfft, but I like blocking.


Stops melee attacks and leaves them open
Just block and let summons attack
Reduces a lot of magic damage with just a perk

Besides you swap your right hand unless you want to use soul trap or something with your left

I would go with 1h so your other can cast spells. Then i would pick either heavy armor or alteration not both. I would only use block on a pure melee build. You dont really need to max restoration. Just get the first few perks that make healing more proficient.

My Battlemage:
Destruction.............10 perks
Conjuration.............8 perks
Restoration.............6 perks
Enchant.................13 perks
Heavy Armor...........11 perks
One Hand...............10 perks

I've given some thought to a battle-mage playstyle. The reason i'm interested is that with enchanting and alchemy you can easily make -100% destruction spell cost and -100% conjuration spell cost enchantments on a suit of heavy armor. As far as I'm concerned, the damage from those two schools of magic completely negates the need for melee damage. IIRC, you'll still have a couple enchant slots open too.

I was planning on:
smithing 100, can't decide. I'm fine waiting for daedric armor to appear, but I'd like to upgrade it.
destruction fully or almost fully perked
conjuration left and right branches filled
heavy armor, a few points here or there when i can
enchanting, right up the middle
restoration, +50% healing perk and see if i need anything better. with gear and enchants, i doubt i'll need more than one of the lower ranks of heals

Playing this char is very dependent on getting cast cost reduction asap, since i wont be putting poitns in magicka. this means heavy enchanting early on. I don't want to max out the gear too early or powerlevel any of my skills, because that won't be any fun. I may have to use a conjured bow until i get high enough magicka cost reduction, simply because i won't be suitable as a mage.

I guess my Battlemage is a little different play-style than yours.. but I'll share:

1. Destruction
2. Restoration
3. Heavy Armor
4. One-Handed
5. Smithing
6. Enchanting

This is usually how it goes:

Dual-cast for the staggering effect. Fireball. Fireball. Quickly switch to one-hand. Shout. I then proceed to skull-bash them a few times with my mace; hopefully getting a paralyze off. At this point, I usually use my situational utilities. For instance, I don't really need a shield because my restoration heals stamina as well as my health pretty damn quick with Fast Healing. So sometimes I'll just use Whirlwind Speed to run away and heal back up to health. However, if I'm facing a Mage of sorts I"ll usually throw up one of my wards in my offhand while I continue to stagger them with power attacks. Works pretty great. Haha. And I have a blast doing it.

If I were you, I wouldn't bother with alteration. As for conjuration I could see how that would be beneficial, but I suppose I like doing things on my own.