okay so to start off with im a shield mage using fire/frost, neither of which does much of any sort of good damage versus these enemies. i literally spent the past hour trying to kill 2 seekers and a lurker ambush. summons get killed within 1-2 hits, and i've also become desperate enough to play through these parts on novice difficulty. still only dealing as much damage to them as a peanut does to an elephant (ignoring the possibility of an elephant with a nut allergy).
are there any suggestions on killing these monstrosities?

don't use magic, its nearly impossible to kill them with it as you've already seen. You'll have to switch to a battle mage style and go with a 1 handed sword/mace/war axe if you want to get anywhere.

dang. that was the one explanation i was dreading. thank you i will be sure to grab up a bound sword

Afraid I have to agree, you'll need to get down and dirty with them somehow, very bada$$ beasties! Sorry, wish I had some better advice!

They regenerate. This makes it very hard to kill them as a mage, though not impossible, magic is capable of extreme "Burst" DPS, but when you run out of magicka, if your target isn't dead, he'll just recover.

If you really want to use magic exclusively against them, you need a lot of casting reduction equipment.

I should point out, shock damage seems to work fine.

Haven't done much with magic on Solstheim, but yeah, shock seems best. Also