to the people say all on Magicka , how you survive against rangers ?
-- especially Falmer Archers ?????

100

You can easily get to lv15 before you even leave Riverwood, as long as you are willing to spend 2 perks on pickpocketing. Then avoid hard stuff for a bit - go do some easy side quests, go do the start of a couple guilds etc, while using some random robes and circlets of fortify X - ideally conjuration, since it's very powerful and it's already quite cheap in mana costs - seriously, you do not need any more than 100 base magicka to cast anything from early-level conjuration with ease. All the while, train your smithing/enchanting/alchemy or whatever else you like - but enchanting first and foremost. You'll be able to get your enchanting high enough to reach your first 0 cost school sometime around hour 15 of the gameplay. By hour 30-35, you'll be able to have at least 2 schools of magic in full daedric armor. And that is without staying in one town, spamming enchanted daggers and repeating after fast-forwarding 48 hours - that would grant you the same results in about half the time. And that's it, you barely slowed down and you now have the mana bar trivialised. If you keep going with alchemy you can possibly get a 3rd school to 0 cost, and if you start exploiting the loops you can get all the others too...

My mage has about 200-220 health (enchantments included) at level 53 and i find it sufficient.

You might want to think a bit about what the difference is between "using the tools the game gives you" and "exploiting the loopholes these tools have" Because to get 2 schools of magic to 0 cost you don't need to exploit nothing - unless ofc by "exploits" you mean "stuff that the game is throwing at my face"...

Wait, a pure mage in robes? all health definately.
A pure mage with armor? all stamina.
97% physical damage reduction, 100% magic cost reduction, 97% magic resistance.... Stamina seems the most logical way. For carrying and running.

Yes, this is how I look at. This is a pure mage character, no weapons or armor period. Cost reduction on one school is no exploit at all, in fact it's obviously intended since the 4 allowed items can be enchanted to exactly 100% reduction at 100 enchant with no potions or any tricks.

300-350 health to not get one shot on master difficulty. You will always get one shot by draugr deathlord archers with ebony bow and ebony arrows, no matter how much health and armor you have. I think it may be a bug with them.

As am I, my Mage in master is level 36 and has more than enough magic now so it's all going into health now, it's needed for me now as I've just chosen the apprentice stone which doubles my magic regen, but makes me twice as weak against magic, so my 220hp goes down so quick against enemy mages.

I'm not one who goes for reducing the cost of spells to zero, I have tried it and decided I hated the whole concept, it just felt totally like cheating when you can just stunlock the enemy with impact and they can't come back at you at all because you've got infinite magic, gets boring FAST.

So instead I went for the highest magicka regen rate I could get without messing about with enchanting, so far I've got:-

- Recovery Perk 50%
- Master robes 150%
- Ring of Recharging 100%
- Akatosh 25%
- Morokei 100%
- Aprrentice Stone 100%

That's the best I've found, I'm hoping to find a better amulet to up that measly 25% from Akatosh.

Well anyway, I play pure mage (+ Sneak) getting up for level 50 on Master with 100 health, and I can pick what gear I want without having to worry about cost reduction, and I feel overpowered. Sure you get killed once an hour or whatever, but it's neurotic to insist that you never get killed.

Steed stone eliminates the carrying capacity need. Popping become Etherial gives you free sprint.

I went magicka:health at 2:1 ratio myself. I have like 250 health at level 51 and a boatload of magicka. I still get hit hard by arrows every once in awhile, but usually those arrows are pointed at other enemies with mayhem. Become Etherial is my best friend, providing full immunity while I charge up harmony, mayhem, or mass paralysis.

I've seen several threads on this subject since release, and quite a few players said a 3:1 ration (magicka:health) is best. Don't know why that formula seems to be the best.

Personally, for my pure destruction mage (now level 43), I think I selected magicka everytime till her bowl was around 400; then I put a few in health (2 I think.) Then back to magicka. Also put 2-3 in stamina to increase the amount of stuff I can carry - I do a lot of dungeon crawling and sell everything.

If you plan on reducing your magic cost to 0 then put as few points into magic as possible.
If not, just go all out magic. A pure mage shouldn't really get hit and glass canons are far more satisfying.

Not sure what you guys are doing that got your Magicka casting costs to ZERO.

I'm having to read between the lines and guess but it sounds like you either spent a lot of time boosting enchantment to level 100 or you went into the console and altered your stats.

At level 14 (My Pure Mage is a 2nd character) I've yet to put a point anywhere else but Magicka.

The Archmage's robes certainly help and I'm currently doing a tour of the holds to aquire as much Spell Lore as I can.

If I let them some enemies can really paste me but then the tools are there to build a character who has a strong defense as well as offence.

Azrael
The Nord with the Sword

I tend to split them evenly, however I use -%cost gear and should probably be putting less into magicka and more into health. Then again I play Dead-is-Dead, so need the extra HP. If you don't mind dying a lot and don't like -cost gear then pumping everything into magicka is not a bad idea, but it's probably better to use something more like a 3:2 or 2:1 ratio so that you can at least take a couple of hits.

If playing on Master you'll want more health, or pretty much everything will one-shot you if it gets the chance, however if using Conjuration and/or Illusion that doesn't necessarily apply.

Put health into it so my Orcess can't chop your head off in one blow with her two handed hammer!

200 at least.

I started putting points into health every 3 levels, and I put some points into stamina because i'm a loot [censored] and love to loot everything of value in a dungeon.

This. However, even at enchant skill 60 you can get about 80 cost reduction which is enough for mid level.

I give them health about every three or four levels.

Well my lvl 44 Archmage put health up to 200 then just dumped the rest into Magicka.

Moving helps standing on the same spot tends to get you killed alot.

"Not getting hit" has more to do with luck than skill in some of these dungeons, go with at least 200 to avoid 1HK's from that two-hander you never saw coming.

If I were being opinionated, I would say that anything other than 100 health isn't a pure mage. Even if it were true that you didn't need magicka, you should still take it, because you're a mage. But it's not true, because you can only get 100% spell cost reduction in two schools, and as a pure mage, you'll be using all schools. Basically every fight I go: summon, armor, buff follower, destruction, healing. I guess I could take 100% spell cost reduction in destruction and restoration, since they're the only things I really spam, but then again, I don't really need to because I have a huge magicka pool. And since magicka regen is 1% of total magicka per second (in combat), rising to 2.5% with the archmage robes and the restoration perk, having a huge magicka pool also gives you huge magicka regen.

On master, I do get one-shot a lot though. It wouldn't really suit a dead-is-dead style.

I haven't been putting any points at all into health for my mage and stealth characters, so they have 100 Health, but very high Magicka or Stamina. In the case of my 2H warrior, I think I put about 20-30 points into health and the rest into Stamina.

It really depends on what sort of playing style you prefer. If you enjoy playing a sort of "glass canon" character who is very powerful but can easily be one-shotted, then I would not spend any points on health. I have never taken any of the armor perks with any characters, either.

With a mage, you have healing spells as well, so there is even less reason to put any points into health. Even though my health is 100, I'm usually running out of magicka before running out of health. I would rather be able to fire off numerous costly dual cast destruction spells that stagger my enemies with every blow, interrupting their attacks, rather than be able to sit there and take damage all day with high health.

Current mage-type has about 250 health @ level 71. Pretty rare when I die. It really just comes down to what strategies you use in a fight. Just need a more tank-like follower to at least initially hold off enemies. Having so 'much' health as a mage is more of a satey measure on my part to survive a few hits on the rare times I can't kill something before enemies lose interest in the follower.