At level 45 my Altmer mage has 530 magicka (including the +50 from archmage robes) and 270 health. I play on Master with a 2X difficulty mod, because Master was getting too easy. Yes, I get one-shotted alot, but as primarily a Conjuration mage I do alot of kiting and sprinting (I don't like to hide behind walls). The Lord Stone is a big help in my survival.

So, what should i do as a battle-mage, who wears heavy armor and uses 1 handed weapons from time to time?

I dump all into magicka on my Altmer, using the Atronach sign, becauseI I feel as a pure destruction mage I should be able to annihilate everything moving on screen in a split second. Sure, I do get hit on low levels, but I don't think it pays to gimp your magicka attribute so that you can take a few hits more. However, I wear light armor, because robes, especially entry level ones, are ugly.

personally, on my mage, I have 170 HP

120 from my character

30 from the glauder amulet (alone with 30 magicka and 30 stamina)

20 from a ring (I have yet to get a better ring)



I'd get more but I never get hit by anything except dragon breath.


I have 240 magicka



and I'm level 18

All this talk of cost reduction in one or two schools, how many different schools do these pure mages use?

stick it in health every time you level up -> eventually you reach almost 0 mana cost spells through perks and gear enchants having a 300 mana pool means nothing when your spells cost only 1-2 mana, even rng drops are in your favour i found a 25% less destruction cost ring in a chest.
25 from ring 25 from neck 50 from chest, ok thats one school done -> dual enchants = 2 schools done 100% or 3 schools at 75% ( which is really more like 87% after 50% from perks)

Well, if you are playing in master difficulty, you'll die anyway if you get hit XD

Ahoi theorycrafting ahead!

lvl81 mage with base health 100hp + 97% damage reduction from light armor and shield = 3334 effective hp
lvl81 mage with every point in health and in robes = 100+80*10=900 effective hp

enchant for +100hp
armored mage with base hp -> 6668 hp
robed mage with everything hp -> 1000 hp

Vegetable Soup
armored mage -> heals 33hp/s
robed mage -> heals 1hp/s

TTL(time to live) with soup +100hp enchant, and incoming damage of 100hp/s
armored mage -> 1 hour
robed mage -> 10 seconds

See the big picture??
Robes svck, and no amount of health is gonna fix it. Protective spells do exist too, (Master Alteration) but if youre caught w/o one, thats one-shot. Good luck.

If everything was doing over 1000 damage in a hit, this might be true. If you play the game, you almost never get hit by anything.

depends on your difficulty, on expert and above i don't think its really that worth, because you probably won't have enough health to take much hits.
Though enchanting saves all do some magic resistance and fortify health enchantments. And imo stamina is a waste of points; 10 stamina for a measly 5 carry weight doesnt seem that much to me.

My Altmer does fine with just 150 health and stamina, and the rest in magic.
With the option of spell cost reducing enchantments for two schools on your gear all that mana isnt really needed, but I like it for aesthetics.

Played my mage to lvl 61 on adept. Didnt put any in health or stamina. Never regretted it. Needed the magicka pool for dragonhide dual cast. Cost like 700 even with the cost reduction perk for master lvl alt spells. Having zero destro cost enchanted gear was a must since dual cast DH used up my whole pool. But this was far into the game and I really felt like I earned it!

Was much tougher to play a mage than my assassin. I upped my difficulty to master on the assassin. Still easy after lvl 50. The mage was much more fun and creative IMO.