I keep going back and forth in my mind between two builds - I haven't played a lot of the game yet b/c I want to play through with one character.

My two builds:


Battlemage:

Altmer

One-Handed: Dual
Destruction
Restoration (Recovery 1& 2, Respite and Novice, Apprentice)
Heavy Armor (Juggernaut 5/5)

Enchanting but I will not spam - I will only create what I need, disenchant and some training to raise it (since I figure it will go slow this way)



OR

Pure Mage



Here are my main questions:

If my warrior has 150 Health/150 Stamina and the rest in Magicka - at higher levels (on Adept/Normal) will he be two shotted by arrows if he is wearing Heavy Armor (unsmithed overall) with the Juggernaut perks? (I figure Armor of around 300-400 at least???) Are the Alteration armor perks and spells competitive at high levels in terms of defense?

(I hate smithing/spamming - I roleplay and don't min/max at all...... so I don't want any immersion breakers (like smithing 1000 daggers or enchanting them) - so I figure my armor will be whatever I can get with perks/in-game equipment)

What I don't like about mages is that they can get one/two-shotted later on..... but I don't want to be a warrior - so if I have to dump much more than 150-200 into health or smith armor etc. I'd rather just play the mage.

If Juggernaut 5/5 w/heavy armor I find with 150-200 will let me absorb some hits post level 40+ then I will probably go with that since I can use some enchantments/items to reduce destruction cost and heighten mana regen.

My play-style is that I am not into sneaking much..... I don't mind running/tactics/strategy but don't want half of each battle to be me running for my life. However, I also get a bit overwhelmed by the frenzy of hack-n-slash. So my hope was to make a character that would use destruction to hurt and then be able to take on the survivors. I would prefer to be able to kill things myself rather than watch followers (I NEVER take followers) or summons do the work for me....

Thoughts?

I don't have such characters but I think I can answer some questions.


No; even if you take all the armor-boosting perks and use Ebonyflesh, you will still have only 300 AR, which is only 36% damage reduciton(out of maximum 80%). The only way to make magic armor viable is to pump Alteration to 90 and do the Alteration spell quest in Winterhold, which will give you Dragonhide which gives you 80% damage reduction for 30 seconds.


You really don't need that much Magicka as a mage. I never use potions, I'm distributing points evenly between all three stats, I don't have ANY Magicka boosting gear other than Atronach, I don't have any followers... and I can just about barely Firebolt my way through the game.

Thanks for the feedback

Anyone else?