It's been a while since I've played Skyrim, maybe a month or more. I remember a patch breaking the game, and so I moved on to give the game time to be patched. My last character was a Breton mage type, and his main skill was Destruction. I like the Breton for magic resistance, and I liked Enchanting to increase magic resistance even more (because enemy mages were ripping me a new one quite easily, at any level) as well as lowering magicka cost for Destruction to zero. I didn't get so far, maybe level 31. I don't remember now.

I'd like to know what people have played that they enjoyed, and didn't die too much... and maybe you can tell me exactly what skills and perks you took, as well as how you kept yourself alive (Restoration, potions?)... tactics, anything that would help. I can't find any skill/perk guides anywhere, really, for builds that are good.

1st class sword and board
one handed, block, heavy armor, smithing
sword and board combat is really fun

2 necromancer warrior
one handed (dual weild) conjuration (dead thralls) heavy armor (daedric) enchanting
this is basically a build to be very powerful with dead thralls you have basically two extra followers that are really powerful with dual weild you can tear through most enemies, with heavy armor you do not take much damage, and enchanting makes you even more powerful

I really enjoyed my vampire illusionist assassin who only fed on people she killed, and thus had to use stealth and calm spells to get quests, shop, etc a lot of the time. Illusion is great fun to use in combat - I find it really satisfying to have a huge warrior run towards me, I cast calm, have them turn around and start walking back where they came from and then slit their throat. Or, collect enemies into a small space by frenzying them and then follow up with a silent cast fireball or two from around the corner while they fight each other. I also love the total immunity to all magic and shouts given by vampire necromage + atronach combination, if only for not having to ever reload when a deathlord shouts you behind the rock and you get stuck.

Playing an alchemist is really fun too. I really enjoy making a few stacks of weakness to poison, weakness to magic and weakness to fire poisons, using them on a tough enemy, chugging a fortify destruction potion and then killing them in a second with just single cast flames spell. I find it's a less boring and repetitive alternative to spamming impact fireballs, especially on master difficulty where you need a fair few of them to kill anything. Alchemy also gives you early access to paralyze, so you can laugh in the face of frost trolls and giants even at level 1.