I am attempting this mage build, however I have no idea what to expect. Does anyone have an experience with this style and any tips on how to succeed with it?

I feel like if I have a tank follower then I can stand back and control the tactics of battle more indirectly with different illusion spells, maintain my followers healths (restoration), and maintain high armour ratings etc... with alteration.

I feel like I need to max out my enchantments too for my follower alone to be a wrecking ball. Possibly sneak as well.

With that build, it certainly won't hurt to have some conjuration as back up; followers can go down, and you're next if that happens.

It could work, provided you don't mind running away occasionally. Make Illusion your main skill and aim to level that up as quickly as possible. Invisibility/muffle would be useful as well. However you'll definitely need a follower to take care of dragons, since you have no offensive capabilities towards them.

Yeah you'll be doing the muffle shuffle a bit to level Illusion. I recommend bows rather then conjuration, in case your follower drops and you run out of magicka. Plus, dragons.

I am working on illusion at the moment (lv2) by casting fury on everything and then killing it with the Staff of Jyrik Gaulderson. I am on expert so I'm using Oakflesh which helps a little when I find myself getting rushed by, lets say a thief, and it boosts my alteration. Restoration instead of any health potions so far. I want to play on master but I'm not cunning enough to do it

Also with a high sneak I believe Illusion could be very deadly. To cast Mayhem on a gathering of falmers and chaurus while hidden and watch them destroy each other. Does harmony work on dragons? It would be cool to lured a group of mammoths and giants over to a dragon, if you have dragon rend or the dragon lands cast harmony on him so he chills, then when the giants and mammoths get to him cast mayhem on them all.

I don't know if that scenario would work but combinations like that are what intrigue me about this build.

This combination will be fine, in fact, it's good to see people actually using Illusion and Alteration...

Alteration's defensive spells are quite weak when compared to armor, and due to the magicka cost can be somewhat problematic to re-apply in combat. Barring the really magicka intensive master level spell, Alteration tops out at providing slightly over half the armor cap in protection, assuming you wear absolutely no armor whatsoever (including the Dragon Masks). It's an extremely poor substitute for wearing armor of any kind, and was quite a disappointment to me on my first character (as a pure mage). That said, the Paralyze spell is quite awesome (though in many cases it doesn't have much synergy with Illusion - except perhaps against single enemies where you can't really Frenzy).

Like others said, you may also want to pick up Conjuration since Dragons and some Dragon Priests might be problematic for your setup - especially since I don't think they've fixed the bug that prevents follower stats from ever increasing (barring console commands or "gamey" things like using the Wabbajack over and over on your buddy).

I've had zero problems playing a character who uses Alteration as their sole source of armor (augmented with Restoration, like the OP wants to try). The extra magic resistance and absorb are huge bonuses for damage reduction, and by the time you get to Master level, you should be around the same level as an armored character would be when they reach the cap (assuming they don't power-level enchanting/smithing).

OP: As others have pointed out, you're going to run into problems with some specific enemies, namely dragons, if you don't have some kind of offensive capability.

My current build is a stealth archer with the bow and illusion magic as his primary weapons (also use a dagger for stealth assassinations). I have to admit I used to think Illusion magic was pretty useless but I am really enjoying it. With all the perks there are not many enemies that you cannot frenzy, flee or calm and with the silent casting perk you can do it from the shadows without being detected. (Tip: dual casting expert spells usually are more powerful then the master spells. So if an enmey is too powerful for a master spell like mayhem, try dual casting frenzy at them, assuming you have the dual casting perk). Nothing like making enemies kill each other and then the last one standing takes an arrow in the back without seeing it coming. Also the invisibility spell is really handy, love backstabing people from out of thin air. Now that I am at a higher level I have added conjuration to the mix and am loving my character even more.

Anyways regarding your question I have thought about doing the same build, sort of a pacifist monk/mage type, which would be doable but like others who have posted the only issue would be how to kill a dragon.

You don't ever need to worry about dragons. Once you make it out of Helgen you can just go to the guardian stones and forget the main questline. I planned to make a Red Guard grandmaster alchemist and ended up maxing out Alteration, Illusion, Enchanting, and Alchemy (with every point in the Alchemy tree filled) and got him to level 41 without a SINGLE combat skill or follower.
I personally think dragons are a waste of time. They're incredibly annoying, especially on Master difficulty.
You'll especially need enchanting because you can run around with paralyze or a calm spell in your hands and enchant your items to reduce costs to up to a total of 116% while enchanting with potions and maxed out efficiency stats. You can effectively take on an entire legion or Stormcloak fort (but if you don't have dragons activated you can't see that questline anyway XD) and just calm, frenzy, or paralyze all of them infinitely.

But what if you're facing just one enemy? It would be cool if Fury could make them start bashing themselves in the head with their weapon (that'd be a neat mod), but unfortunately it doesn't. However, you could just Calm a single enemy and walk on by.

The biggest problem to overcome would be Dwarven machines and the undead. You can't Calm/Pacify them until you're at a really high level in the tree. So I guess just try not to visit those places until later on. Of course you could spend an hour or two spamming Illusion spells until you hit 100 and take all the perks. Then you'd be on your way.

It wouldn't be easy but it seems feasible.

You don't need to spend an hour, maybe 20 minutes if you do it right. Once I enchanted a set of gear to reduce the cost of alteration and illusion spells by a total of 100% and just sat waist deep in water, casting waterbreathing in one hand, and muffle in the other for about a half hour and maxed out both from about level 20 to 100.

Well good luck finishing the main quest with this character or other quests, when at times you have NO companion. Also dragons. Relying on your companion to slowly take down a dragon with a bow will take forever...

Bottom line - unless you want to ignore quests, you need some sort of offensive ability.

This is why I have not gotten very excited about Alteration in Skyrim. The mage armor just is not good enough to hassle with, so I'd rather just wear armor or focus more on not getting hit than casting all those Oakflesh type spells. I am enjoying Illusion in conjunction with Conjuration but I have yet to do much with Alteration. Illusion and Conjuration have good synergy.

Illusion doesn't work against a huge chunk of the game's enemies until you have 90 skill. Major oversight by the devs, IMO. I understand it is a very powerful school and has the potential to ruin the game if abused, but it could have been balanced in some other way. I have never considered a build centered around illusion for this very reason.

True, but it's easy (probably too easy) to get there.

Well yeah, if you want to grind it. I don't like doing that, personally.

That, plus I have never really felt the need to use Illusion against the undead or automatrons. Seems strange that they would be affected by Illusion magic no matter how high your skill. I'd rather see a conjuration spell to "command" undead (like the command daedra spell) than use Illusion against the undead. Makes more sense lore wise. And I see no lore justification for using Illusion magic agaisnt machines. Illusion is supposed to affect the mind. How does it work against mindless undead like draugr or the machines you find in Dwemer ruins?

Even without traditional hard core grinding, it's easy. Just by casting muffle when you have magicka (no resting or cost reduction or any of that) you can get to 70 walking from Riverwood to High Hrothgar or Riften.

And yeah, illusion against the mindless doesn't really make sense. A conjuration command spell would be so much better but that's not what we have. Sometimes you have to make do with what's available.

Good point. My Illusion is creeping towards 90 with my nightblade (who focuses on illusion/conjuration magic) and I have been debating whether to take the masters of the mind perk. I think you just convinced me to take it but to pretend that it is a conjuration spell when I am using it on mindless undead.

I made a dual wield (Scimitar) Alik'r cloth-only warrior that relied on Alteration. When prepared, I could dual cast it, and in a pinch I'd cast 'flesh' spells with my left hand and put my scimitar back in it quick.

60 seconds might not seem long, but take a stopwatch and actuallly time out 60 seconds. I cut through virtually everyone within 60 seconds. Plus, add the Lord stone and you get an additional 50 points of armor plus 25% magic resistance.

And yeah, if you're playing on master with the harder dragons mod and the invincible dragon priest mod and the huge boobs nudity mod it might not be viable, but for the rest of us it is completely viable and can be quite fun.

It's not that it is not viable. Skyrim is not that hard, so you could do what you are describing even without casting your mage armor spells and just go nekkid and do pretty well against most opponents.

The issue I have with mage armor is that I know that the armor cap is 567 and there is the hidden "100" so if you are wearing no armor then you need to have an AR of 667 to be at the cap. The maximum you get with your mage armor with three perks invested is AR 300, which is less than half the cap and also considerably less than your typical warrior is going to have. That makes me feel like the mage armor in Skyrim is "weak" because after investing three perks and casting an expert level spell your mage armor should at least be on a par with regular armor.

Sure, you can get the master spell and it is pretty good, but those three perks don't do anything for Dragonhide, and its a master level spell with a long casting time and a huge magicka drain.

I am glad you are having fun with your mage armor spells, but I just cannot get that excited about Alteration magic in Skyrim.

You're preaching to the choir about spellcasters being underpowered, trust me. Just saying there's ways you can pull it off.

Of that I've no doubt. It is just the principle of the matter that bugs me and the fact that once you get Dragonhide those three perks in mage armor become somewhat obsolete.

Vampires are hardly mindless.