I'm hearing alchemy and enchanting is really good with destruction. What else do people normally go? Enough into resto to get recovery, and is it ideal to go either light armor or heavy armor? Lastly is it ideal to max everything out in destruction? So far I am just planning on using frost for melee and fire for pretty much everything else.

Well, Enchant four pieces with Fortify Destruction to get your destruction spellcost to 0, and KILL ALL THE THINGS! You can do that with... circlet, ammy, ring, chest, leaving you boots and gloves for other things - a dual resist on the boots, and some other fortify on the gloves, can't recall what you can fit on them exactly. Maybe a regen?

As for armor... depends on your preference. I'm level 38 on my puremage, and now switching slowly to light armor, because I can finally enchant the armor better than the archmage robes.

^ And that's how you screw up the game.

I dont know how that is screwing the game up since it seems like beth intended it to be that way. I hear melee being more ridiculous then what malko was suggesting. Anyways I take it I wont need to max everything out on enchanting and are u putting points in light armor?

I did took every single perks under destruction tree for fun. You don't have to though, you kinda need 2 to deal with mob's resistance.

Well this is my planned build for pure magic character with no melee. I included atronach perks because I consider the elemental summons as complimentary to the school of Destruction. The way I see the atronachs, is that they are just highly sophisticated destruction spells that move around on the battlefield.

Major Skills: [47 perks]

1) Destruction (16 Perks focusing on "Intense Flames"/"Deep Freeze"/"Disintegrate"/"Impact"/"Master")
2) Conjuration (10 Perks focusing on "Atromancy"/"E.Potency"/"Twin Souls"/"Dual-Cast"/"Master")
3) Alteration (11 Perks focusing on "Atronach"/"M.Resistance"/"Duration"/"Dual-Cast"/"Master")
4) Restoration (10 Perks focusing on "Recovery"/"Ward Absorb"/"Avoid Death"/"Dual-Cast"/"Master")

Minor Skills: [33 perks]

5) Heavy Armor (0-12 Perks focusing on "Juggernaut"/"Conditioning"/"Reflect Blows")
6) Enchanting (0-8 Perks focusing on "Enchanter"/"Extra Effect")
7) Smithing (0-6 Perks focusing on "Daedric Armor"/"Arcane Blacksmithing")
8) Alchemy (0-7 Perks on "Alchemist"/"Physician"/"Benefactor")

Here is my core mage build:
http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000010000210000011101000000000101000000350001110010000011115111

Technically speaking light armor is superior as it gives an extra 10% avoidance and is lighter(the stam regen doesn't hurt either). However I find that mid game the heavy armor is immensely helpful as well fists of steel makes though brawls super easy. After those points I'd suggest investment in alchemy for the fortify destruction potions and weakness to shock poison along with archery and sneak to apply the poison.

If you have the maximum four items enchanted with fortify One-Handed you will do 160% damage on top of the 100% damage related to the weapon perks. Use Conjuration with Mystic Binding to get a deadric sword and that will be more destructive.

Meh, without exploiting enchanting destruction is pretty underpowered, also it takes a while to get your enchanting to the level where you can use it to significantly boost destruction. For me I find Illusion + sneak + one-handed = utterly invincible. If you want to be a pure mage than both illusion and conjuration (in my 129 hours of experience) are far more useful than destruction as combat skills.

I heard conjuration is pretty good in this game but I like being able to cast as destruction. I heard alch and enchanting with destruction is good and like to try it out.

easiest way to make an OP destruction build is to also pump heavy armor, 1h, and enchanting.

I am also having a lot of fun with a new Illusion focused character, causing enemies to flee when they get too close or attack each other whilst you remain unseen is an experience I recommend!

Conjuration is a very powerful school of magic, Dead Thrall being the definition of awesome! Only downside I have found with conjuration is often having to repeatedly recast summons due to atronachs failing to appear, so they cannot be completely relied upon.
I would not bother with bound weapons, they need mana to be summoned and disappear when sheathed, the bow in particular is useless due to limiting what else you can have in your hands, ie can't heal or do anything else when using bow.
Plus of course they cannot be enchanted, they are very powerful though if you get them early.

Also if you are being cheap you can skip some of mana cost reduction perks and others due to knowing what you will be using endgame, ie infinite thrall summons, so no need to extend summon time perk, mana cost reduction enchants, dragonhide making other alteration perks useless, etc. This highlights the poor design of the magic perks trees, hopefully this will all be modded!

There seems to be a bug (?) that increases fire spell damage from spells that may cause the target to flee, illusion perks are responsible for this, namely aspect of terror the bonus is about 25%, so might want to include illusion into your build.

Do you just go down the left side of the heavy armor tree?