I'm thinking about trying something different, something I haven't played yet. I'm thinking destruction mage (perks in destruction, illusion and restoration) thief (perks in sneak) with heavy armor (perks until it's weightless). What do you think, is this viable on Expert difficulty?

I have already tried a light armored mage with perks in destruction, restoration, alchemy and although I didn't include it in my initial plan, I also took some illusion to try and control the crowds a little because I was more often than not overwhelmed by numbers and killed in 1-2-3 shots. So I thought I'd try again this build, but with heavy armor for more survivability and with sneak so I could control a little how I do my fights in the dungeons.

My questions to you are if you tried this sort of build, how do you invest the attributes (I'm thinking first 100 in magicka to get a decent pool for restoration, and then 10 health - 20 magicka - 10 health - 20 magicka and so on).

Also, what do you think about stealth+heavy armor, is it wasting my perks? About the first perk in the stealth tree, should I leave it 1/5 or should I go 5/5? Does it matter, have you noticed you're harder to detect?

Start as an Altmer so you get that fantastic +50 magicka boost at the start, this will ease things up a bit, I'd then say to wear a hood for extra magicka and maybe some enchanted jewellery for even more (or you could find a necklace or ring that boosts your heavy armour skill) with this, try putting at least the first five levels into health so you are not as squishy. Also,starting as an Altmer, you begin with the fury spell which can help you with your illusion. And someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think that skill starts on 25? Which is great as illusion can be a pain to level sometimes

I never put more than 1 points in the "stealth" perk, it only ranges from 20% to 40% and the higher perks are very OP anyway.

Stealth in Heavy Armour is never going to be the easiest match. It'll take a long time to get up weightless armour, and you'll always get heard when sneaking around in heavy stuff.

Magic too is hard to stealth with. Because it gives away your position far easier than say with a bow.

Could be tricky.

Yes I have played mage in heavy but didn't invest any points in sneak. The heavy armor doesn't help too much in the early levels if you don't use melee at all you'll have to rely on hitting with spells and running for resto, so the heavy will only slow you down with no real benefits -if the bandit leader catches you, the heavy armor won't do [censored] against the big warhammer finisher cutscene. If you want heavy armor for aesthetics and coolness I'd use robes and light armor in the early levels when you're very squishy anyway and you desperatly need more mana reduction and regeneration, till you get your spells perks going and then switch to heavy when slowing the enemy and burning them before they can reach you won't be such a problem. Enchanting would make it alot easier.

True, as I asume you will cast from an distance you don't need very much stealth, archers manages well with just one perk in dungeons, outdoor you can usualy use distance to your advantage, someone frenzied will atack the closest target.
Two weaknesses with this build, lots of sneak leveling comes from sneak atacks, doing mele sneak atacks on sleeping draughr usualy give you an level up in sneak in the first dungeon, if magic atacks don't give this bonus you will level up slowely. However if sucessfull you will level heavy armor slowely as you need to be hit to level armor.

Oh snap I didn't know stealth spell don't level sneak. Reading your suggestions I'm so inclined to ditch heavy armor and sneak altogether and retry the light armor build, I'll just try and stay in the safer areas until I upgrade my spells to a satisfactory performance before moving to the dungeons and dragons. I thought the heavy armor would make the experience safer at low levels, but I think you're right, as a 100% spell caster I should focus on spell power and run in light armor. I just hate robes.