After extensive reading and spell creating in the Creation KIt, Ive come to realize that Mages do less damage then melee, because they are more versatile. So my question for you guys today is, what kind of new spells would help improve the magic gameplay. I'm not talking about increasing damage or scaling, but more/less combat utility spells. For example, i think that a "Slow" or Burden spell that can be cast on your enemy's in combat, which slows their speed down by 70%, would be extreamly useful, especially if placed in the alteration magic school. It would prevent mages from being OP, because they would have to focus more on alteration, rather then lets say... Illusion. I also think that a 10 second freeze time spell, or a short range teleport spell would also balance things out alittle. I would of course want to lower the Impact perk chance to 33% or 50%, so that removed the impact stagger spamming.

Let me know your guys' thoughts and ideas. Im working on a magic overhaul mod which will make playing mage a much more fun, balanced, and versatile class to play, without really increasing the damage output of the class.

I agree with you completely, the versatility of magic should be its major draw. Unfortunately a lot of the more useful spell effects have been made into shouts, e.g. Teleport --> Whirlwind Sprint, Disarm, Unrelenting Force, Storm Call, etc. What I would love to see is more variation in the Destruction tree beyond the simple 'elemental' magics. For example, since Dismay and Kyne's Peace are basically Shout versions of Illusion spells, I'd love to see spell versions of Marked for Death, e.g. a sort of 'Hex' spell that reduces enemy armor/ attack strength and does a weak 'magical poison' damage over time.

I like your Slow idea and the reduction in Impact's stagger chance down from 100% to maybe 50, signalling for players to rely on other methods of controlling the battlefield. I saw a really cool Ice Wall mod video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymd8AkJndNU) which could be an effective way of managing enemies (obviously if it was only available as a higher level spell). Some leeching effect spells would be excellent as well - hit a weak Draugr with a 2HP / sec life drain and let it slowly die while powering you to face the Draugr Deathlord. Magicka draining projectile spells would be a very valuable tool against enemy mages as well and add an additional dimension to mage - mage fights beyond the simple "I can Ward longer than you can" games that are currently played. It's also laughable how shock spells are recommended as effective tools against mages - I am yet to see any mage that has >2x health compared to magicka.

In the Illusion school it would be nice to have an additional illusion on top of calm / fear / frenzy - something along the lines of 'command', which could let you effectively thrall an enemy for a short period of time and have it treat you like an ally (kinda like animal allegiance shout).

In terms of re-tweaking of current effects, reducing Impact's chance to something like 75% (not infallible, but not as low as Power Shot from the archery tree since you can shoot arrows quicker than destruction spells), and also putting a max 90% magicka cost reduction cap would both help revitalise mage gameplay imo.

A spell of Detect Life (or death) that would stay active for 30 seconds or so would greatly help with long range bow sniping.

A illusion spell that would get enemies of a certain level to kill themselves would be nice. Also water magic and earth magic would be cool.

A Restoration spell that heals automatically. Like the Healing spell on auto drive.

Or

An Alteration spell that turns a weak enemies skeletons into jelly.

A spell where 3 copies come out of you and help you fight.