Still can't get anyone to tell me where to find good spells. Maybe there just aren't any to find. If that is so, then what a letdown.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Spells. Just click on the school you want to find a spell for, it'll tell you who sells it. If it doesn't list who sells it, then it is probably random loot only or currently unknown. Spells won't be available from merchants until you are at a high enough level in that school of magic

Plenty of spell tomes are also hand-placed and random loot. Got three from a poacher camp North of Skyrim (name escapes me). Two were random loot, another was hand-placed. There's also Flame Cloak hand-placed on the northern coast just south of the island housing Yngvild. Probably plenty of others as well.

Just wanted to add in a thank you for the work. I knew I was messing up my mage but the issues are minor.

Saving this page for when Bethesda or the modding community fixes Destruction scaling issues.
Cheers

you can still play succesfull on master, i did till lvl 40, but it just feels so bad when you fight 4 deathlords, it takes ages to kill them
on adept it feels ok

in the end the difficulty feels more like a blancing tool (all it does is decrease/increase dmg dealt/taken)
you need master to bring down melee scaling to normal

Spells are found at the college from the teachers. BUT... and this is big; they only sell spell tomes based on your level in a certain school. You wont see the high end destruction spells show up in anybody's list until you have about 60 or 70 in destruction.

Sadly magic is weak on levels 30+, mages are [censored]. I figured you can lower cost of 2 schools of spells long time ago, but there is no enchant to increase the damage and mage damage is really really low. I play on master and it's hard to kill anything compared to archer or a warrior. My guess is that at 40+ levels mage offense=0, your statement of mages having good offense is simply not true

Enemies weak to fire: draugr, vampire, troll, spriggan
Enemies with resistance to frost: nord 50%, vampire 50%, automaton (immune)
Enemies with resistance to magic: automaton 25%, giant 33%, breton 25%

Fury and calm are extremely useful. Fury to break the groups, calm to regain magicka back.
Illusion dual cast doubles the level range of spells.
Animage and gaze increase 8 lvls, kindred and fear 10 and fury 12 levels.

Don't forget staffs and shouts (marked for death, become ethernal, fire/frost breath)

(I play on the default diff, at higher diff its gonna be.... harder)

My pure mage, (no armor yet) is level 40. I just got the ability to buy incinerate, and thunderbolt. I still have no problem clearing out dungeons. Just because I cant one shot things does not mean its low damage, the AOE dps makes up for low burst damage.. WIth 0 cost or even 75% cost reduction in your destruction spells along with double cast and impact you can stun lock most everybody, you win because you dont run out of mana.

Here are my tactics for X number of melee badies:
I have a mage companion in full dwarven (non enchanted) armor. I gave her a bow that soul traps, a greatsword that soul traps and a dagger that soul traps. And alot of low value empty soul gems.
I try to keep ebonyskin up all the time for 200 armor to minimize the one shot kills on me.
I use my frost atronach (frosty) to tank most encounters and to bunch people up.
If my companion has not charged into melee, I can use a double casted fireball or ice storm to stun all the dudes attacking my frosty.
This usually kills my frosty, but I now am able to spam my AOEs to kill fighters who are all stunlocked.

Here are my tactics for 1 ranged mage/archer:
Use cover and dodge thier shots while I nail them (and stun lock them) with either chain lightning or ice spike or firebolt.

As always heal when needed, but healing potions are there to clean up if the stuff hits the fan.

I have just crafted a full set of orcish armor, and have enhanced it at a crafting table. I figure this will give me over 100 AR(no heavy perks yet). I will then enchant it to 0 the cost of destruction spells and crank up my elemental resists, reduce my alteration and restoration costs by 25%. This will move me away from a pure cloth mage, but thats the nice thing about this game. I have the option to go back if I want to.

I'm making a semi pure mage / sorcerer (heavy armor) type character.

I'm using Destruction / Restoration / Alteration / Alchemy / Enchant / Smithing.

First I wasnt going to use smithing or armor at all, but then I saw loads of uber crafted armor screenshots and I had to try that (you can apply solid caster bonuses to heavy armor when your enchant skill is high enough, and just use archmage robes / magnus mask until then).

So I want to be a caster in heavy armor now

Armor reduce spell effectivines by %. Well im the oters TES that happen.

Doesnt happen in TES V.

All that happens is that you lose robes and mage hat bonuses, but later on in the game you can enchant those onto heavy armor too.

I edited the guide with new info about the spells I use alot.

Can I ask a question? why did you not use dragonhide? it reduces by 80% all physical damages.

Best way to take out an entire room of enemies is Paralyze and then Firestorm.

Didnt use my thrall yet but isnt having 2 dremora lords better scaled fire meele dealers ftw

hmm so marked for death works for magical damage?

Currently my toon does not have dragonhide, but I do mention it in the guide. The only problem I have with it is that you have to recast it alot. Since there is no armor penalty therefore all this spell really does versus a good suit of heavy armor is give you about 75 extra carry capacity that you save by not having a suit of armor. I would rather be spending my casting time shooting fireballs and not refreshing a shield.

I am sure I will be doing a magic balance mod and I will be changing the armor spells to be 5 minutes per cast default instead of 60 seconds. I dont like wasting time buffing up.

Hrm... I wonder does Ironskin stack with ebonyskin? I would assume not but I never tried.

I needed something like this thanks for posting. My mage's performance has been lackluster as of late. : (

Couple of errors with the spells. The level 1 destruction spells (flame, frost, sparks) don't stagger when dual casted, and cloaks don't damage companions (or anything else that isn't hostile) - they're pretty good to always have active if you'll be close enough for them to do damage.

Otherwise good job.

Nice guide

you power game.

In order to play we must avoid this and that, and by level 10 get enchant 100 smithing 100 and make thousand leather strips.

Sorry, this is pure powergamer's mage. As in Morrowind, we must make 50 fortify intelligence, fortify luck potions, then stack it all, get 3000 intelligence, enchant that grand item, this is how we win all the game.

It's not pure mage. It's very freedom limiting approach. Pure mage needs not obliging play style supported with some effective tactics and combinations, which help mages survive and deal damage, without overexceeding normal players abilities.

Potions, spells, tactics, staves, bound weapons - this is intended strategy. Forcing high stats - boredom and powergame.

Thanks for the info, I have updated the guide. I didnt use the novice spells much, switched to ice spike and firebolt asap.

I believe it's a bug, but with the "twin souls" perk you can actually have 2 dremora lords which will obliterate every foe, including all bosses.

Yeah! Dremora lords made me lazy! XD

I cast him and I soul trap! And I look... The game gets boring! lol