Ah yes, I forgot about quiet casting

Restoration is great for its effect on undead, and regeneration. I've never got on with wards because I normally use a keyboard - I think they're more useful with a game controller. (Like sprinting - I never remember to do that either.)

Breton race
Alteration to shield you from physical damage
Conjuration to summon meat shields
Destruction if anything is standing after you're summons are dead.
Enchanting to craft spell cost reduction gear.

Breton's magical resistance 25% + the lord stone magic resistance 25% + alteration perk magic resistance 30% = 80% magical resistance
Alteration have good spells to shield you from physical damage + Mage armor perk in that tree gives a nice buff to those spells.

Well, I'm up to level 6 now. So far all I have done is boost up my magicka and add perks to destruction. Should I hold on to my perks until I get higher up in the other skills as well?

Alteration is required for a pure mage(imo).

Then get Illusion(If destruction doesn't work then get the offender to calm the [censored] down.)

Restoration(Healing is always nice).

And Conjuration

It doesn't hurt to keep a few perks spare, but too many and you will be lagging behind those monsters that level to you. I like to have two or three unassigned, there might be a perk you want that requires 50 skill. If it's say 47 at level up, save the perk assignation for later.

[And being Altmer, don't forget the one a day power, could save your character's life.]

I've been reading up on mage a bit more and some people have been saying that illusion is probably the best tree for magic. Should I just work on that?

I've never had a problem without alteration and I've done about 10 successful pure mages, I very, very, very rarely get hit at all.

1. Alteration is a must for those that do not wish to wear armor and its great to paralyze your foes to keep them off of your back. Also this is a school to consider for lighting up dungeons and so on but the main importance is the mage armor. This school is also good for its magical resistance perks later on.

2. Destruction is best used as a support school in this game best used combined with at least enchanting and another school to be effective. But essentially this is your damage school.

3. Restoration is your healing school and its great for any aspiring mage to have an alternate mean to heal yourself. This school also has wards which is great to shield yourself from spells. Then this school can be very powerful when you combat the undead and get overwhelmed with them. This is sonething to consider because the dungeons of Skyrim is teaming with the undead.

4. Conjuration is a very powerful school where you could summon atronachs or the undead. The undead are more powerful as they retain their abilities and can use their weapons and so on. But I prefer the versatility of the atronachs and the dremora lords. Soul trap is great too if you usr enchanting as its the mean to refill soul gems.

5. Illusion is also a very powerful school where you can pretty much control everything in the game if you max out this school. Fury will cause enemies to fight each other calm is gray to get an enemy to stop attacking fear spells are a great way to flee if your in danger. Then there is invisibility and muffle working in unison they make you virtually undetectable.

6. Enchanting is a must for spell reductions, you need this to use your spells effectively, I find twenty five percent reductions in all schools suffice and a seventy five percent reduction on destruction is good. Then you extra slots for what else your character needs.

7. I know alchemy is listed as sneak but it will always be magical. This is a great way to buff any mage. It's also a great way to heal and restore your magic. A mage without magic potions is a very dead mage.

Again I have never used alteration. Even when I tried to. I found it as an unneeded skill, and was annoying to keep using. Can someone explain why this is so important as I still want to paralyze someone

If you want to go total mage, High Elf is best. They start with 50 more magicka than the other races, and have the ability to rapidly increase magic regeneration for a short time once per day. That with the Mage stone, which lets you learn magical skills 20% faster, will make a good magic-centered character.

If you like archery though, go with a Wood Elf. All of the elves are good with magic to some degree, and the Bosmer are also excellent archers.

Breton is fantastic if you like magic resistance.

Breton Blood 25% Magic Resistance
Alteration +30% Magic Resistance
Agent of Mara +15% Magic Resistance

That's 70 Magic resistance without any gear, and you can still pick the Mage guardian stone and get +20% boost to Magic skill ups.

Also note that Magic Resistance grants you resistance to environmental hazards like fire traps etc.

Other then that, you can mix up any other combination of magic schools you want. I use them all, and almost all are 100. It's really fun being so versatile, but the lack of armor will make you vulnerable. Watch out for 2-handed power attacks.

I went Breton for this very reason... and I'm building my mage for versatility as well. I just need to get into using more of the Restoration school. I avoid getting hit for the most part (when I do I usually die after one or two hits in succession... so it's always too late to cast a healing spell, LOL).

As long as you don't get lots of unnecessary levels while going destrction, as in leveling up alot of other things so that your destruction level becomes underleveled then it will never be weak - this should be pretty much a given, if you want to focus on destruction then.. focus on it.

All you need really in the later stages of the game is expert level destruction spells, enchanted gear for little to no destruction cost and you will stunlock and rip everything apart in very little time. Magic scales by you getting new tiers of spells - only way you would make it weak would if you felt like you must reach level cap (81). Most of the time that wont happen unless you try to. I explored every single place on the map and I completed the main quest at level 44 (on master)

I was gonna go with alteration for dragonflesh (caps your armor value even in robes), I leveled it up to 100 using telekinesis. But I never bought dragonflesh before the mainquest was completed, and never used any other flesh spell.

Conjuration breaks the game, so if you don't fancy summoning two dremora lords and have them kill everything while you sit and watch then don't level it - I never leveld up conjuration due to this.

I joined the collage on level 2-3, completed the questline around level 9. Join the collage asap, mostly for some gear until you can enchant your gear.

Illusion is useful before you get enchanted destruction gear, after that it's mainly for fun, roleplay and what not.

Restoration (only need a few points in it (don't got for the regen points - you don't need them) is useful if you mess up and get hit some time.

Enchanting is a must if you plan on using destruction for combat, Expert and Master level spells are costly - but then again Enchanting was mainly designed as the "mage" crafting tree so it makes sense.

Try casting healing hands and a flame spell for each hand, on low level creatures.

Or get the Repel/Turn undead spells and spam them as much as possible in dungeons with draugr. It *should* level up fairly quickly.

It isn't important - like I said erlier, I was planning on going for dragonflesh. I ender up completing the mainquest before getting that spell, and up to that point I didn't even use any lower rank flesh spells. And no I did not use armor, only robes. I guess it could help if you want enemies to hit you, but why would you want that?

False.

For the pure mage its not a hundred percent must but its pretty high up there on if you should get it. Especially if your ambushed and attack from behind. I know your spells can keep enemies away but there are those times when you get surrounded and so on. It's always something to consider for any magic user that does not wear armor, its a great backup.

I'm not the type to use exploits... but, technically, what you're proposing is not an exploit. Rather, it sounds to me like *practice*. And any good mage would practice, no? Can you help me rationalize here because I really want to do this, but if I think for a second it's an exploit I just won't be able to?

I have done a pure mage with alteration, and it was fine. I also did a pure mage build without alteration, and it was fine also. I would say that I found both playthroughs to be about same difficulty with about same frequency of death, and with about same degree of sense of danger. When you don't have any alteration spell, you worry about getting hit by a strong archer, which doesn't happen all that often. When you have alteration spell, you worry about dragonhide running out at the wrong time.

It's not exploiting at all??? You're casting two spells in each hand that are part of the core game.

Sometimes, on my Mage. I get randomly attacked by animals out in the forest. And sometimes, I pacify and heal them just because I'm nice.

Do what you will, enjoy the sandbox~

_{i have played a lot with mages i can tell you that most perks are useless just concentrate on the most interesting, alteration can give you +30magic resistance and atronach is like the breton power.
Also it depends on your play style. Keep a good balance between magicka and health thats the most important}

Of course both ways is fine especially for different role playing builds.
I run Into strong archers all the time in my game. Then there are those times when you get surrounded.
It's something you do not need to have all the time that does not change the fact its a nice backup.
Then you have the paralysis spells and the light spells those are worth consideration considering what build your making.
Then there is the magical resistance and the spell absorption perks to consider too.