So am I mistaken about the spell that increases your AR by 100 for a minute then? Or the perk that multiplies that by 4 if you're not wearing armor?

Restoration has that shield spell that increases armor rating, absorbs magicka AND resists tons of magic damage. Huge plus there imo. Resist magic damage is a hard-ish effect to get relative to its importance in game.

Also, group heals for mages that might have 2 revived permanent companions as well as other companions is a pretty powerful effect.

All the schools seem extremely powerful, although I agree they are lacking a bit in diversity of effects considering no custom spells. That will change fast with mods for PC users and probably also for console users when the DLC/expansions come.

Or you could just wear armor and have 700 armor all the time.

Alteration is actually better now IMO, never liked it much in Oblivion or Morrowind. Transmutate Ore sounds like a pretty cool spell to me.

It depends on your playstyle. The game can be completed by any class (assuming that the word has meaning in a game where you don't get to pick one). I've managed entire games without casting from each or any of the schools, although if item use counts then that would not be true. The one thing I've never been able to do is to complete a game without using a weapon of some sort.

Note: "games" would be Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion - I'm still waiting on the unlock for Skyrim.

Huh? Have you seen the perks? 30% Absorption and potentially an extra 30% Magic Resistance plus the best damage mitigation available for mages (wards are channel spells and drain magicka very fast), plus paralyze, plus the ability to transmute common ores into gold and silver (meaning more $$$), plus the ability to use your health for magicka (Blood Mage from Dragon Age ftw) is a helluva skill. Best magic skill besides destruction IMO.

Illusion is the only skill that got horribly nerfed.

Does anybody know what necromage actually does? I thought it did something weird like make your heal spells do damage to hostile undead.

It makes your Destro spells do more damage against undead.

It says all spells so I would think it includes paralysis and the illusion family.

That might be true but how do you measure it? Destro does more damage, easy to see.

Does it make paralyze last longer? Or harder to resist?

Tougher to tell with those kinds of spells.