What Race and Combat Style did you choose?

Mages (destruction) svck in skyrim

My first character was a Wood Elf archer. My second was an Imperial Mage.

First was Thief, second was Warrior, Third was Mage, fourth was Battlemage, fifth was Paladin. so on..

My original character was a Dark Elf. She started out as a Battlemage of sorts, dual-wielding a flaming orc sword and firebolts/balls. She did some thievery as well, but never really finished the guild quest. In the end, though, she discovered that mastering alchemy and smithing was a ticket to more septims than she could hope to spend. So she accepted the thanehood of Solitude, bought Proudspire Manor, tied the knot with a handsome Nord, and (as of now) has settled down to a happy domestic life. At least until Dawnguard hits the PS3. So I guess you'd call her a warrior/mage/thief/crafter type. Or a jack of all trades.

In the meantime, I'm trying two new characters. One's a Khajiit, and I'm having him join the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and he'll likely be a stealth/magic type. And probably an Alchemy expert as well, since a little money never hurts. The other is a burly renegade Imperial, who's going to focus on heavy armor and large, destructive battle-axes. And smithing even heavier armor and larger, more destructive battle-axes.

Mage, and I kind of regret it, I don't regret it on principle; because I love mages, however...

I regret it because in Skyrim you can play as a warrior for the entire game, never putting a point in magicka or any perk points in for example the destruction perk tree. Yet once you get magicka cost reduction gear, you will be 99% as good of a destruction mage once you spam incinerates or something to skill level 100 as a character that has put all his or her points into magicka and has 12/12 perk points in the destruction perk tree.

Even better, the warrior character will have much higher health since he or she probably levelled health and didn't waste points in magicka, so not only will that character be almost as good of a mage without investing ANY stat points or ANY perks, he or she will have much more health and/or stamina which obviously makes you sturdier as well.

But! It doesn't work the other way around, if you level up magicka throughout the game, and put points in to the magical perk trees like destruction, you would think you would become a much stronger mage than the warrior I've used in my example, but you don't, the destruction perks are so weak and the magicka cost reduction ones can be entirely offset by magicka cost reduction gear so what will happen is that when you get to the late game, the warrior will be able to cast all the spells you can cast, at the same cost, only he or she has way more health and/or stamina and probably spent his or her perk points in perk trees that are actually good so has way more options and/or durability.

So basically, you will be in a similar position as the warrior in my example, only worse lol. You will be able to cast the same spells, at the same cost, but you will have less health and/or stamina, and less options/durability because you wasted your perk points in the destruction perk tree. It's basically everything that's wrong with the magic system in Skyrim. It awards you for forgetting about magic and getting it as an afterthought when you've done everything else in the game anyway. And it punishes you brutally for focusing on magic from the get go, and neglecting the warrior archetype options.

It also punishes you to go mage and level magicka if you actually want to use lycanthropy or the vampire lord forms at higher levels, since once you go into either of these forms you lose alot of your survivability options (shouts, potions, healing magic, armor, armor magic etc) if you didn't level health you will just be absolutely destroyed if you go into for example the lycanthropy form and try to melee or do just about anything except run away and hide.

It kind of feels like this game was designed entirely for a warrior that turns into a jack off all trades lategame.

Warrior with axe and shield FTW. Good times.

1st char was Redguard warrior, like in Oblivion aswell.

But my primary character that I play the most in the end has always been a evil mage.

Jack of all trades, Master of everything?

I recently started a Wood Elf Archer and tried to add a little magic but that didnt work

I have 2 characters.

One is a Khajiit assassin, the other is a Redguard dual-wielding warrior with a bit of conjuration magic mixed in.