At low level look for Conjure Familiar and Conjure Flame Atronach. I usually skip the familiar, but the flame atronach can use a bit of magicka until you get the apprentice perk. Do you want to use bound weapons? Bound Sword can be bought right away so you can use that in conjunction with your summons/raised minions. Maybe you might want to try Illusion if you encountering groups and use Fury to have the fight themselves.

The College of Winterhold is where you want to go for training. And you can get some good spell tomes from the mage in Dragonreach in Whiterun.

In the end, if you don't find a build that is fun for you then it just might not fit your playstyle.

I'm currently playing a heavy armor conjurer that fights along with my summons with destruction. I also use alteration for extra AR buff with flesh spells. Sometimes I use bound swords, but usually destruction. When I encounter an enemy I first bring out the Atronach (Frost one right now) and then Flame away. This usually uses a lot of my magicka so I might have to use some potions until I get some Conjuration reduction gear.

A battle mage works well, though I would not go for destruction.

I have two builds for my battle mage. Light armour, Alteration, conjuration, One handed, Enchant.

Heavy armour, smith, conjuration, either restoration or illusion, one handed.

With each build I had a shield however I put no perks into it and only used it when I had no spell in my other hand. My primary weapon for both was a mace but any one handed weapon would work.

Pure mages in Skyrim are hard based on the fact that magic becomes obsolete later in game. Mods can help but if you are on console I would stay away from Destruction, you have to put too many points into magica so you can use the useful later spells or not use them and the novice and apprentice spells become useless later.

Battle Mage is viable... But why not roll a pure Mage?

Alteration and wards provide a reasonable amount off protection (you won't get one shot), conjuration provides you with excellent tanks, destruction for early lvl / ranged kills and illusion for general mayhem (such an op perk, game breaking). Plus you can enchant your own gear.

My last meele based magic character was a monk and he used robes with alteration and wards. Worked fine, became a beast with dragon hide and one handed with restoration supporting and destruction and illusion.

Problem with armour is your going to also invest perks in smithing and enchanting, eats into your build IMO.

Spell and shield? i had the impression you couldnt do that before..maybe they changed that.

That sounds fun turtling behind the shield and breaking cover to give a nice zap.

I haven't downloaded the patch and have been doing this the whole time. I hot key shield to slot one, heal spell 2. weapon 3. offensive spell 4. protection or alternate offense spell 5. then maybe another spell summons or armor piece on 6, potion or staff 7, etc.

You can open combat by dual casting by double tapping your destruction spells (as prior to combat you already cast a shield spell in your left hand), then you have the option to hot key shield and sword or shield and offensive spell in right hand as it will stay equipped there if you have gone from dual cast to shield. If you got to sword and shield to go back up the chain you have to double tap again then you can go back down the chain again without ever having to open a menu.

Do that with your left hand. I usually casted my mage armor spells in my left and then put my shield right back up, since its an instant switch.

Your shield basically acts as your Impact perk.

an imperial battle-mage in enchanted heavy armor and using destruction and restoration.

Being Imperial you get racial bonuses in all chosen skills

Personally I prefer an Imperial knight in enchanted heavy armor with one-handed and block. That way I don't waste any levelling up on magicka.

It will work fine if you do it right, but at first (Bleak Falls, I assume) it can be tricky as you don't have many spells to use. You have to really on your shield, follower, and tactics. Like the last Draugr Lord is easy to beat if you just run around the sarcophagus, smack him, then run around again. Reminds me of when I used to smart off to my older brothers then run around the car where they couldn't catch me.

other than that it is a Dunmer mage in light armor that uses destruction. Additional qualities is stealth via sneak and illusion.

Again you'll get bonuses in all chosen skills.

I guess this is kind of where I was going: http://i49.tinypic.com/of9j4n.jpg

I figured Light Armor, Bound Bow, Summoned meat shields, Enchantment. Honestly some help here would be nice as I really feel like this model needs some improvement.

Bound Bow takes awhile to get, so you may want to either know where you can find it early or use a regular bow until your Conjuration gets to Adept level.

I haven't done a build like that... sort of reminds me of a witchhunter.... but it looks like it would work very well.

Melee could be a problem, unless you're into sprint-kiting or very tactical approaches to encounters (sometimes not possible).

That's not a Mage build, you've only used conjuration, looks more like an arcane archer.

Ps like the excel work!! lol

I wouldn't worry about bound bow for some time or at all, regular bows are powerful enough, esp if you open up with a sneak attack when possible. Besides you are going to want to save perks. Also I would suggest throwing in some alteration just for the basic shield spells until it gets high enough to get magic resistance. so i would suggest just putting perks in novice and apprentice conjuration pretty quickly in conjuration and getting flame atronach asap, then not put any more in for a while as the flamer is pretty good for some time. that would only take two perks, then you will have enough to put some perks in onehand, block (one and quick reflexes), sneak, archery, light armor, smithing steel for skyforge steel. that is a lot of skills and require a lot of perks. I wouldn't start focusing on enchantment til you got some of that other stuff up to serviceable levels, but all the while be storing petty soul gems so you can make a bunch of stuff all at once and get to level 50 in one enchantment session if possible.

I'm trying a High Elf Spellsword at the moment wearing nothing but heavy gauntlets and boots and enchanted robes and hoods/circlets. I'm putting perks into enchanting, alteration, destruction, conjuration and restoration with smithing only going up to upgrading enchanted weapons. It's actually a really fun build so far.

Dunno. I'm going full mage with mine. I thought about making a hybrid, but I've come to realize the power of all schools of magic and what hell you can unleash if you use them all properly. So, it has become apparent that, in order to be the ultimate mage, I'm going to need to invest all of my perks into magic trees (they are perk heavy). I'm already level 20 and the only two non-magic perks I've invested were for Enchanting... there are only 30 more perks til level 50 and there is just.so.much.magic I want to tap into... perks make it more interesting and force you to really pick and choose what you want out of your mage (and character, in general).

Enchanting is really the king of the craft trees.

You can smith any mundane weapon before you enchant it- with your powerful enchanted smithing gear, and you can instantly be a competent alchemist with enchanted gear as well.

My first character was a 'pure' mage. No armor, no weapons, just robes and spells. I ended up just beating everything with destruction spells. It just got boring.

Played more last night and am focusing on Conjuration and Archery. She is also wearing light armor. So far so good, but I have only been to Riverwood and Whiterun so I still need to find some more spells.

You couldn't? I didn't know that, as far as I'm concerned you could do anything you want, you just had to have a bit more patience for some builds.

Personally I don't see a problem people have with destruction, I used Light Armor and Enchanting, and making my armor to reduce the cost of spells did a great deal for me.

My favorite combination was using shield/wards (depending on if I'm fighting melee fighters/mages or dragons), along with light armor, and destruction for offensive.

Another really fun build was a heavy armored mage that used staff in one hand and weapon/spell in another. However, staves were primary usage, spells were used mostly for reducing the charge used on the stave, and weapons while I was in the process of learning (since many situations were too hard otherwise, without either a bit more serious magic or some weapon skill). This is more of an end game character though.

If you come up with anything fun do share with us.

EDIT: aah didn't read it all, silly me. Didn't use conjuration and archery myself, I might try that in the future.

Still don't see how your build can be called a Mage, your using conjuration mostly to kill with the bound bow. Only other perks are in enchanting.

Ok.

14 Warrior perks, 10 Thief perks and 25 Mage perks. I kind of like Arcane Archer myself, but I really don't care. Sorry that calling it a Mage build offends you so badly though. Hope you can get over that soon before it ruins your day.