Alright mage lovers-

If you have a favorite mage build you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it. I'm playing a Mage and I'm mainly going Alteration, Destruction, and Restoration with staffs and 1H swords as my primary weapons.

Can't go wrong by adding either Illusion or Conjuration in there. I prefer Conjuring Atronachs, myself... they are more convenient than having followers to get in your way, and can be pretty tough customers. By having something to take the enemies' aggressive focus off of your char, you can survive longer and deal out destruction damage without having to kite (run and cast) so much.

-Loth

My little Breton uses mostly Conjuration, Destruction, Alteration and Restoration, which is sooo hard to level up. Sneak is very high because she'd rather not fight but will if she has to. Enchanting got pretty high but mostly from using soul gems. She doesn't enchant many things but uses what she finds because she took perks in the other areas. Now that she has the Dremora Lord and Argis, they keep the enemy off of her pretty much and she can stand back and dual-cast augmented Firebolt...love the sound of firing that off.

I'm thinking the next character could be a pacifist using Illusion, Alteration, Restoration, Enchanting, Block and Sneak. It'll be a challenge to play with no killing but I'll see where it takes me.

Yea conjuration is awesome. Where a follower might go down on one knee if the conjuration runs out of juice you can just summon a new one.

I always keep expert conjuration robes on me to re-summon my thralls. You have no idea how awesome it is to have permanent summons. Beats oblivion by a mile. And you can get 2 permanents by getting the twin souls perk, and if you went the atronach way to get that you will have elemental potency too which boosts their power by an amazing 50% as well. Conjuration is definitely required for a mage, even a battlemage in heavy armor, which I am.

destruction for adept level spells and conjuration solely for 2 dead thralls. i never bothered with the other schools as they dont seem too powerful; and dont fit my playstyle.

The most fun I had as a mage, by far, was as a battlemage.

I was an Imperial, but mostly because "Imperial Battlemage" had a nice ring to it. Being rich and having no need to invest in Illusion was a bonus, though.

Skills were, at first, Conjuration (just Novice Conjuration and the weapon perks except Oblivion Binding, so pretty lax in that tree, though it got very high from usage), Alteration (almost everything), Restoration (about half the perks) and One Handed (Armsman and the power attack perks--no weapon specialization or dual wielding).

Bound Sword in my right hand, magic armor in my left and a hotkeyed heal spell to go along with it. Battles were quick, easy and fun. Soon, I found myself with more souls and perks than I knew what to do with, so I invested in Enchanting and Smithing. Made myself some nice new toys. Voice of the Emperor came very much in handy and was useful throughout the game, since it works in an amazingly large AOE and affects humanoids regardless of level; it saved my rump more than a few times.

Around my 30's, I realized I was approaching every problem the same way: sword and armor thrown out with healing at the ready, dishing out pain as necessary and mass-calming when I needed to, but it occured to me that I could do a lot more with the two magic schools I had already invested a lot in (and necessarily so). So I began to do things like paralyze my opponents and ward off magics, but I guess that wasn't as exciting as jumping into the mayhem.

Shouts made the build all the more special. I'm thinking of making him all over again (deleted him to save memory space, but I had him long enough to be satisfied), but I'm thinking of investing in Destruction next time instead of Smithing. Keeps my magic more focused than combat skills as well as varied (I think Smithing is when I started to have less fun with it). I figure Enchanting will bring me enough damage, and the variety that Destruction provides can be defensive: I'll use runes, walls and cloaks, making my melee mage that much more potent. I'm falling in love already

I like Conjuration+Destruction myself... Bound weapon for right hand, easy soul gem recharging, and for left hand summoning atronarchs and hurling fireballs, and healing if necessary.