So a lot of people here keep posting about how Mages arn't viable or they are too hard to play. I've gotten two pure Mages to over level 20 so far and I've had no issues with either.

Your build matters, your equipment matters, your race matters and so on.

RACE:
Breton or Altmer is the bottom line. Personally I prefer Breton. The active racial gives spell immunity for 60 seconds and basically near infinite magicka when fighting enemy casters and some other creatures. At the moment absorption drains from disease attempts and Dragon breath damage over time.

If your Breton racial is active while being hit by one of the low end Destruction spells that are sustained (like Flames) you will be gaining over 40 Magicka per second.

Altmers +50 base Magicka will also improve base regeneration by 1.5 per second over any other race. I've read that their once a day racial gives +1000% Magicka regeneration bonus for 60 seconds. Basically near infinite Magicka. For every 10 Magicka you have this racial will add 3 per second to your pool for 60 seconds.

Compared to the Breton racial it doesn't give spell immunity but isn't situational. Altmer racial will help out vs any foe whereas the Breton one can only come into play vs enemy casters and Dragons. In the early game the Altmer racial is probably the better one but the Breton racial will scale much better into late game where Magicka becomes less and less of a problem.

STONE:
Use Atronach, It's simply the best stone for a Mage by far.
+50 Magicka
-50% Regeneration rate
+50% permanent spell absorption

The first two bonuses for this stone don't matter. The third one does. It's the Breton racial as a passive at half magnitude. With this Stone active you will notice on occasion your Magicka pool will near instantly fill up. As with the Breton racial you can absorb diseases (which will fill your entire Magicka bar basically) and Dragon damage over time.

The Apprentice Stone may seem ideal at first glance but I would highly recommend avoiding it. Taking double damage from spells to gain a mere 100% increase in Magicka regeneration isn't worth it. Even if this stone had no penalty it would still pale in comparison to the Atronach.

THE BUILD:
Whatever you do, do NOT boost skills. Especially things like Sneak, Speech and Illusion. This will cripple your Mage and make enemies harder while your primary offensive method (Destruction) will not have improved at all.

For perks you will want to go into Destruction and Restoration first. Destruction double casting and Impact are a must have, get these ASAP. They will enable you to chain stun things to death with Firebolt casts. The impact stuns everything including Dragons so you can use it to interrupt their breath attacks which even with Atronach can wear you down.

Perks that reduce cost and increase magnitude are also a must have for obvious reasons.

On level ups do not only raise Magicka, this will get you killed often. Ignore Stamina completely, you do not need it. Personally I raised health 10 times then Magicka 10 times on both of my Mages for the first 20 level ups and had no issues at all. However the sooner you get the Atronach the better. You can stretch your Magicka with the Flames method mentioned in 'PLAYING YOUR MAGE'.

EQUIPMENT:
+Regeneration is your friend. +25% from the Akatosh amulet, +50-100% regen on your robes in early game (with -% to a spell school, preferably Destruction) and headgear that improves your Magicka pool or reduces a school cost.

All instances of +% or -% of anything always work from your base value. So +50% regen on clothing will cancel out -50% from the Atronach entirely rather than ending up at 75% of normal regeneration. Base Magicka regeneration is 3% of your total pool per second. Early on in the game +Magicka would be better than +Magicka regeneration however the more Magicka you get (from level ups) the better it becomes to have +Magicka regeneration.

PLAYING YOUR MAGE:
For a long time your best friend is going to be the Flames spell. It's cheap, it's powerful and it's AoE. Round up multiple enemies so you can hit them with the same burst. Do NOT hold this spell down, it will annihilate your Magicka pool. Cast it in bursts, this actually increases its damage (why it does is beyond me but it does) output while reducing its cost over time. Cast it for half a second, then stop, recast it when the damage over time stops and just repeat this forever.

Avoid Frost spells. Use Fire whenever possible as it deals the most damage and costs the least Magicka. Shock can be useful against dedicated spell casters but anything else use Fire unless it's immune. Note that certain enemies in the game have near infinite Magicka or utterly massive regeneration so they would die long before you could drain their reserves.

Try not to move onto the next tier of Destruction spells until you can cast them comfortably. If you can't take out one or two enemies with your entire pool using Firebolts for example then you're using spells out of your league. Sure it may list more damage but it's damage/cost ratio will be considerably worse than Flames. Following on from that if you find yourself sitting around waiting for Magicka to refill it's because you're using spells you basically can't use properly yet. A higher level spell isn't always a better one for you.

When you do move onto Firebolts exploit the Impact perk from Destruction as much as you can. Always double cast when possible but do not cast as fast as you can. Let the enemy recover from the stun before recasting as this will give you time to regenerate a little inbetween attacks.


Mages are very much viable in Skyrim.