I always had a hard time as a mage int his game. Probably because I wanted destruction to be my main source of damage, and not use conjuration or illusion to get others to kill for me. Anyway, how do you guys make it fun? How did you build your mage? How do you play him/her?

I've had one pure mage who's enjoying a moderate amount of success, and that's my Khajiit. He's mastered Illusion, and his "bread and butter" spells are Calm, Muffle, and Invisibility. Unfortunately, since the backbone of this playstyle is avoiding fights, he has difficulty with the fights that he cannot avoid. I'm hoping to ultimately deal with this by mastering the art of sneak attacking.

Both my other characters use magic, but one of them backs it up heavily with one-hand, and the other only uses Destruction for foes at a distance. So I wouldn't call either of them mages.

I guess I don't really "make" it fun. Its already fun and has been for me since I started with Oblivion. Pure mage has always been my preferred playstyle.

I just prefer the relative complexity of magic over say, bashing an enemy in the head with a hammer.

I have a straight Destruction mage based loosely on this idea:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1387285-guide-for-new-mages-pure-destruction-opening/

It started strong and it stayed strong. I was able to clear Forelhorst at level 6 and become Archmage at level 10. Being a Breton/Atronach helps a lot with Dragon Priests but the main thing is to focus on Destruction so that your Destruction power is as high as it can be for your level. Don't dilute your character with skills you don't absolutely need.

What level are you now? I am concerned that after level 50, destruction power will dwindle. And I want to be that high in level to encounter the hardest enemies.

This is not a pure mage, but I found it most enjoyable :
Major magic skills at Restoration, Illusion, and Alteration.
And Major combat skill at One-Handed/Two-Handed, Archery, and Heavy Armor.
Only wears heavy armor such as gauntlets and boots. And leave cuirass with only clothes.

Ah, that might be a problem for the game you want. This build tops out at around level 24-25. You just stop leveling at that point. I like it that way but once you get there you could branch out into Illusion, Conjuration or whatever else you like. It's still a good way to start because you'll be super strong up to that point.

BTW: the author of the linked thread anticipated the desire to reach high levels and had some suggestions at the end of the page. Take a look, there are some good ideas there even if you don't like the whole picture.

I have one pure mage. He is mainly illusionist and destruction is his secondary art. I like to mess with other people minds - it's fun.
If you want to build destruction user you should consider to have illusion as your second art. With fear and calm spells you can avoid getting killed. It always fun to see strong warriors to be so scared that they'll run away and then try to hit them with fireballs. Also intense flames perk in destruction perk tree makes life funnier.

I was under the impression that intense flames was a waste of a perk. Is it not?

For damage it probably is but I guess the effects might be fun to watch.
The Illusion synergy is good though, in fact just getting to 50 for the aspect of terror perk is worth considering early on. It gives an extra 10 pts of fire damage which means doubling the damage of Flames. That's enough to make Flames useful as your main spell until mid-game.

I like using destruction and robes. Robes , even with skin spells from alteration keep me mortal. I′m also using destruction cost reduction in robes only. Rings etc I have enchanted for extra magicka and magic resist. I don′t want infinite magicka or hit the armor cap. Illusion is lvl 100, a LOT higher than other skills because of muffle which I used a lot. Tried to combine Illusion with Destruction, but Alchemy, Restoration and Alteration took more perks than Illusion. I managed to get +10 fire damage from Illusion tree and I should be able to cap Fury spell to work against lvl 50 enemies without all the perks. Fury is only Illusion besides muffle I use.

Conjuration (Flame astronach) I use when enemy gets too close. Summoned minion is good distraction. I play on Expert atm. I might not need to play on Master this time, since I managed to keep my character "weak" against damage I like challenge afterall.

It's not a waste perk. Sometimes it may save your life but main point in it is the fun. People running away and screaming "I'm in fire! I'm in fire!" etc. is fun for me and even Mirmulnir tried to crawl away from me because he was in fire!

Currently? I'm having a blast with a Dunmer named Ryven Belavyn. He uses all the schools, but fights most often with a conjured sword and a mix of alteration, destruction and restoration in his left hand.

My level 16 mage is a "pure" mage. He will never use any weapons, except perhaps a staff. I am playing on Master difficulty.

Here are his relevant skill levels so far:
70 Conjuration
44 Destruction
37 Alteration
28 Restoration

I am using the "Empowered Magic" mod. Since my mage has reached level 70 in conjuration he can now summon two Frost Elementals. His focus in conjuration will be on elementals, not necromancy. He changes elementals according to what he is facing though as of now his primary elementals are the frost ones, since they are melee and keep things off of his back. When facing dragons then it is fire elementals he wants as they can shoot the dragon in flight.

In destruction he has yet to chose a tree to boost (he has 4 perks unspent, I think.) But he is going to chose to boost the lightning tree.

Alteration and restoration provide protection, healing, and adventure spells.

So far my mage has not been traveling with any companions. By choosing to specialize in only one thing for the conjuration and destruction tree (elementals/lightning) he will have many perks left over to delve into the other magics as well, making him a generalist mage who has many tools at his disposal.

It is tougher in this game compared to Oblivion, to maximize the "fun" cap. In Oblivion, Im always a Breton, I could max-out all skills, and if I went to jail all the time, max-out the attributes...it was easier to mix up my playing desires. In Skyrim....not so easy to have as much fun; I figure, one has to be some sort of Jack of trades for just plain game-plays sake. But to answer your question, for me, Paralyzing,and Unrelenting Forcing anything off a tall cliff never gets old!! Master Illusionists do make great assassins.

Ive made a few pure mages, and the funnest of all 3 of em was this one;

A High Elf, with the apprentice birthstone (2x mana regen speed and 2x damage to magic spells - You can offset this so you only have 55% magicka weakness by getting the 3 alteration perks and doing the quest for the chapel of Mara in riften. Also the perk for alteration called atronach, that gives you a 30% spell absorption rate which will heal your mana when hit with spells. This will save your ass) and spend EVERY LEVEL ON Magicka.
So by around level 30 Id have like 630 magicka, 100 health, 100 stamina. (with robes, amulets, etc) - Dont worry about health or stamina, the key to a good mage is to not get hit in the first place. (drawback to this is on master you really have to watch those arrows, and get the perks to make the armor spells better right away, Also keep up wards for extra defense stacked with the armor on archers if you cant dodge good enough).
The advantage of this is not only do you have a crapload of mana, but it only takes 3 minor healing potions to heal you from almost dead to fully healed. So you can use alchemy on the side (without even getting perks for a long time) if you just use the alchemy for extra healing potions (the weakest you can make healing potions is still like 24 hp or something)

I use All the magic skills, enchant, and alchemy on the side(dont worry about perks for awhile, other things take priorty, this is just good for some extra healing potions). Dont bother with dual casting perks until way later (level 30 and beyond) as they are un needed early on and as a pure mage there are other perks that take priority. Gradually get the element damage perks for each element. I usually get lightning first, then fire, then frost last (too many things in skyrim resist frost, decent against non nord warriors though)
Ill also make sure to get the mage armor perks gradually as i level up (though you CAN bite the bullet and not take any of them and just wait till you get master alteration for dragonhide, but personally i wouldnt recommend it for a number of reasons i dont care to explain right now)
Also try to keep illusion perks up with you, as you level up they become increasingly useless unless you get the perks that make them better.
Enchanting works wonders too, just level it up periodically with you. dont let it get too far behind or too far ahead.

Basic tips:
-lightning based spells are good for mages, as it takes down their magicka as well. But be warned, lighting spells use the most amount of mana for the damage they do.
-Frost spells are good on non nord warriors, and pretty decent on most mages (as most mages are non nords)
-Fire spells are great for undead, all Trolls and Vampires Especially.
-Make sure you have alteration shield spells up almost ALL the time. (pretty much if you have a probability of being hit physically, then keep up a shield)
-if you cant see enemies but engage in battle, a good thing to do is use become ethereal then locate the enemies, as some guys can hit you with arrows especially if you havent spotted them yet.
-Hallways are good ways to bottleneck enemies and mix with conjured atronachs, example: have 3 guys chasing you, run down a hall, turn around and summon a frost or shock atronach. Then while they block the hallway, start casting Chain Lighting or Ice Storm at your atronach (spell depends on which atronach obviously) and the spells will hit your atronach doing no damage, while at the same time hitting everybody in the hallway.
-Bears and sabre cats at low levels can one shot you, so if you see one running at you, either become ethereal or hit them with a fear spell (you can get the perk so illusion is better on beasts really early on, so this helps) To keep them from attacking.
-The Highborn ability for high elves is immensly powerful for mages. I usually use it on bosses, when my mana runs out. What it does is pretty much give you unlimited mana for 60 seconds. It makes your mana regenerate 10x the speed (as long as you arent casting a spell). This can make you go from 0 mana to 700 in 5 seconds flat, and you still have 55 seconds of spell time left to cast some spells. This power only works once a day, so make sure to try only using it once per dungeon (as its pretty un realistic to wait 24 hours in the middle of a dungeon just to fight a boss)
-The Diadem of the Savant ( a crown or circlet that fortifies every magic skill by 5%) is a decent early level magical tool. It SAYS that its light armor, but it has no defense, and it does not affect the mage armor perks (meaning you can use the mage armor perks and still get 3x the armor bonus while wearing it)
-Master spells usually have like a 5 second casting time. In that time you can easiliy get hit. A good way to work around this is to use the Become Ethereal shout, then use your spell. You can cast without fear of being hit, and the ethereal spell breaks as soon as you finish the casting of the spell.
-Become Ethereal is the best shout a mage can have. Its almost a necessity (at least for my build it is). Its got a really short recharge time and it will keep you from dieing many times. ALSO you can use it to jump 1000ft drops and survive.
-Illusion spells dont work on undead or automatons or atronachs. Remember this, dont waste your mana in battle with them.
-Alteration perk 'Atronach" a level 100 perk is super badass and is your best friend.


Now for tactics it all depends on the enemies you are fighting, ill explain some scenarios, and what is the typical way i approach each:

A battle with a bunch of bandits would start out with me shooting one or two of them with the fury spell, so they start fighting eachother. Then, summon up an atronach OR revive one of the dead bodies of bandits to fight. Use your summon or undead as a distraction, while you use an alteration shield spell incase you get hit with random arrows. Then start by taking out all the weaker guys first with fireballs and such, eventually they can all die in one hit, but they can still be a threat if you let them power attack you.
If you get surrounded, try hitting a few of the lower level guys with fear spells to keep them out of the battle for the time being. Another tactic is if you get surrounded, use the Become Ethereal shout, its instant and will keep you out of harms way for about 10 seconds, in the meantime you can still regain mana and move to a more strategic spot. (casting a spell or using an item or attacking will break the ethereal and you will be back on the mortal plane, you can use this to your advantage)
Casting the lower level destruction such as flames and sparks uses less mana overall but puts out the least damage. Its good if you have a summon battling a guy, you can come up from behind and hit them with sparks or fire or whatever constantly to keep pressure on them.

A group of Undead is a little different. Unless you got 100 illusion and the perk, your illusion spells wont work on them. So instead, if you get surrounded, hit the weaker undead with turn undead spells, while you fight the stronger ones. Make sure to get a summon up to take the brunt of the attacks, and start hitting them with fire. (fire is the most useful for undead, do NOT use frost, as most undead are immune, and shock uses too much mana for the same amount of damage). Also like any battle, make sure your shield spells are up.
On any high level undead areas (such as bosses) having a scroll of guardian circle can help out immensly. You can make draugr scourges run away because the spell usually works to undead up to level 36.

A group of mages is a different fight altogether. Make sure you get a summon up (preferably an undead mage that you killed - as they can cast spells and heal themselves). the summons are good for distractions, while you keep your mana up. Dont ever let yourself run out of mana against mages (the Highborn ability is very good for this) especially if you went with the apprentice birthstone. Always keep wards up, and take them down when they are in between casts to keep your mana up. Again, take the fights a bit slower, dont let yourself run out of mana.
Wards are great to hold their spells back, and at the same time you can hit them with lightningbolt or sparks. Remember to use lightning against mages, as they for some reason have more mana then they should, so it make take awhile to make higher level mages run out of mana.
Take out any flame atronachs with the banish daedra spell, that will keep summons out of your hair early on.
Also keep in mind, High elf mages wether they're thalmor or necromancers will use their highborn ability, giving them unlimited mana for 60 seconds as well. Try to kill them quickly, and kill them first, as they are the most dangerous of mages.

A battle with against a dragon is realatively easy. When they fly by, just keep your ward up to block their breath. (lesser ward surprisingly works real well for a good portion of the game against dragons). When they land, pull out a summon, just to take the physical attack of the dragon. DONT let the dragon near you on the ground, as most can do the execution on you (even from full health) which freezes you and kills you regardless of the fact that you could have easily dodged his bite. But this is no problem as its very easy to keep distance between you and the dragon. IF they do get close, use become ethereal and move to a new spot.
Lightning works decently well on dragons because it instantly hits, rather then travel through the air like a fireball.
The spells Wall of fire, frost and shock are good to use on the dragon when they hit the ground. Because the dragon is so big you can literally have it standing on like 10 walls of fire/frost and shock taking 50 damage a second per wall. And each wall block thing lasts like 30 seconds at least. Again, illusion spells dont work on dragons for the most part. ALSO dragons are immune to the paralyze spell (which works wonders against bosses)

Dragon priests again are another story. You cant summon an atronach against a dragon priest, as they will unsummon them. So these battles are more difficult, and these usually require the use of the legendary Highborn ability.
Shield spells are un needed against dragon priests as they are all magic. Make sure you have powerful wards and can cast them decently.
It seems Dragonpriests have a destruction skill of 1000+ because they can use their fireball staff(or whatever) on you over 100 shots, and when you kill them, they didnt even use 1/10th of the charge on it. So dont expect them to run out of charges any time soon.
Not much to say here, except just keep up the fight, keep your mana up (if it means hiding around the corner from their assult) and be patient. Dragon priest battles for the most part take awhile.

Bosses such as draugr death overlords and named draugr, bandit chiefs etc. Paralyze spells work wonders on these guys. Hit one with a paralyze spell, then cast all three wall spells on his body (fire frost and shock walls) and watch as his health goes down real fast. If they unfreeze, paralyze them again to drop them down. Very cheap tactic, good to use if you find yourself dieing alot on a boss.


Anyway thats all i can think of right now. This build of mage was the funnest i ever played on skyrim. The real drawbacks about all the mages ive played though is that once you get 2 or more skills at 100 (which will happen around level 30-40), its no fun playing anymore. Not only is it too easy, but you have to start using spells in other schools pointlessly just to get the experience for it so you can keep leveling. For me, i cant play an rpg when i stop leveling, so i start a new character. (and believe me once destruction and alteration reach 100, it will take forever to level up. And killing dudes with spells doesnt count towards your level, which is kind of dumb.)

I have a dunmer mage who plays sort of like a witchunter. My strategy is cast spells until magicka is used up and then switch to bow while I wait for it to regenerate. This makes magicka regeneration enchantments actually useful. He is pretty fragile though so to keep the heat off of me I have summons and a follower who has summons of her own. This can let me have up to four helpers without any exploits, and I can use destruction/archery from a distance as well.
Here's my build: http://skyrimcalculator.com/#164026

I started a magic user recently, and its been going quite well. I've started taking a much more measured approach to combat. I make heavy use of Destro and Resto, and Alteration and Enchanting.

Now, I will mostly fling spells, although I tailor my approach to each encounter. If I sense a strong enemy coming up, I'll often leave a rune along my avenue of retreat, cast a flesh spell to lessen the pain of getting tagged by a sword/axe/mace/hammer (I'm a Breton too, so I have good innate protection against magic and this will only improve thanks to certain alteration perks!) and go in spells a-flying. If magic isn't cutting the mustard then I'll revert to an enchanted weapon and go toe to toe with them. I also keep a staff in my back pocket for emergencies, although I have a pretty healthy magicka pool so I haven't had to bust it out yet. Fire for most enemies, frost for mer and beast race warriors, shock for mages. Sorted.

I use all schools equally. I don't have a "build" per say but I'd be happy to break down how I use them for you quickly :

Destruction is obvious. I'm much like you, I don't dabble in "tank" style Conjuration or mind control Illusion, so I do all the damage myself. Find your favorite ones and stick to them. Specialize early - my recommendation is Fire or Shock. Frost is interesting but the projectile speed and abundance of Nords makes it lag behind a little bit. I ended up going Shock in general because of Disintegrate and the fact I hated having to switch when I fought a Dark Elf.

Conjuration has it's merits. Early on, Bound Sword can save your life when you're low on Magicka and starting to get overwhelmed, especially if you don't want to do the "make them chase me around a table" approach. I don't invest in tank style Conjuration - Necromancy is right out, and I don't care much for Frost Atronachs. Flame Atronachs as a secondary artillery source and means of drawing fire are pretty nice, as are Storm Atronachs, and you actually WON'T find them stealing a lot of damage from you. Also, Soul Trap.

Alteration is equally obvious. It's quite a useful school of magic and the perks are absolutely amazing. Rather easy to level, too. Casting [Something]flesh the second you're observed by any creature (or shortly before) will start ramping it up quickly, using Transmute Mineral Ore for cash flow or smithing will boost it REALLY fast, and you can also stack reduced Alteration gear that you find naturally and just freecast Detect Life while traveling or waiting for something to happen.

Illusion can come into play without the mind control aspects if you're playing the cautious explorer wizard as opposed to the forward assault artillery cannon. Muffle early on will save you some positioning headaches, and it levels Illusion RIDICULOUSLY FAST. Eventually you can grab Silent Casting at 50 points which will allow you to either dabble in the magic-assassin route or just give you an alternative playstyle when you need it.

Restoration lags behind for me, at least pre-Dawnguard. I haven't been a wizard since I got Dawnguard to try out the new "Sun" damage spells. Eventually you just stop getting hit, which makes it rather hard to level on it's own, but worth using all 5 of your level training points on. The perks in it are amazing - if you don't aim to do the cheesy 100% casting reduction route, getting the bonus Magicka regen early is great, if you hunt vampires, Necromage is phenomenal, and the other one that comes to mind quickly but is all the way up at 90 (!!!) points is Avoid Death, allowing you to get a free "whoopsy" card once per day. I've messed up my routine a few times fighting dragons and gotten one shot.

I dabbled in Enchanting on the side. Just seemed natural. If you don't want to get bored, avoid the 100% school reduction "feature" of Enchanting. I settled for 50-75% so that I still had to plan my battles.