So in most of my "fantasy" games I play as a mage/wizard, but I have only really played a full mage once (quite recently, actually) becasue I always thought Bethesda didn't do the best job of making the mages powerful enough. My usual TES characters are spellswords (60% warrior, 40% mage) because of this. The one time I played a full mage I found that they were very vulnerable and suseptable to damage. I tried using ALL of the schools, but that didnt work because I would go into a battle with a conjure in the left hand and a mage armor in the right, so things could just charge right at me while I was casting spells and then switching spells. I really just want some help on how to make a sort of "tank" mage, without going full conj.

How about playing a sorcerer? Basically a Mage who wears enchanted heavy armor, and uses conjuration, destruction, alteration, and illusion to troll and kill the enemy.

-flesh spells are not a good alternative to armor until you have:

• Ironflesh, or a stronger -flesh spell
• All 3 Mage Armor perks

Keep that in mind. I would also suggest having Light Arnor, as you can move faster and kite more effectively.

You could use Enchanting, and get the same benefits you get from robes with Heavy Armour.

follower + illusion spell courage makes a hell of a combo.

Keep your distance.

And if you are using robes, then I strongly recommend obtaining the Mage Armour perks from the Alteration tree.

If you do not want to go with conjuration, your next bet would be illusion, using the frenzy and fear spells, along with shouts. Also, because you do not wish to do conjuration, I would take a follower along until you feel that your character is high enough level to take care of things on their own. Use destruction a lot as that will be your main defense and offense. Keep flames in one hand and firebolt in the other. Later, you can use flames and a flame cloak, switching the cloak out for firebolt or fireball.

I would also put points into magicka. I personally never put points into health and very few into stamina, but each person is different. It is not so easy at the very beginning, but once you get the feel for what you want your character to do, you should be fine.

At early levels is where you want to test out your character as to get the feel for what you want to do. Try a couple of quests that are in the very beginning and see what happens.

That's the nicest thing I've ever heard!

I never can understand why people make a supposed mage and then decide to stand in melee range and cast spells. You don't need to summon an NPC to play the game for you at all. Just use your head. Skyrim enemies are extremely predictable and slow. You see one coming within range of hitting you, you turn around and kept your distance. There are no touch spells in Skyrim. You don't need to get close. Then use destruction all you like. You will take down any enemy quite easily. Not enough magicka? Put all your points in Magicka. Why do people waste so many points in health. 150 should be enough as mages have low endurance. Is it really that hard?

Having a melee follower would be helpful towards a pure mage. The melee follower would distract your foes and you can throw spells at the enemy without taking much damage.

Some enemies you dont have time to run away from and in the beginning of the game you don't have that much magic. Maybe since you probably play on novice it's a bit easier for you, but I was just trying to get some tips for people that have played this type of character more than I have.

Thank you for being the first person to give ACTUAL advice . (not just "stay alive" and "wear armor")

It's not that I don't want to use conjuration completely, but I figured a lot of people would be like, Go conjuration all the way. i think that a mage should use differet combinations of the schools and was just wondering what sorts of styles seemed to work the best. Thanks for the advice

In addition to above posts: Run. Keep moving. Keep your distance. As a mage you don't want to get hit. Sprint away if you need to, jump up on ledges and cast your spells from there. This can be done fom the very beginning, it's even more necessary then.

Get conjuration spells (or staves/scrolls - do Sanguine's quest!) and use atronachs (and later, dremoras) to distract the enemies if you don't want a follower. (And frankly, unless you use a mod that negates the friendly fire, I prefer to use mage followers with mages, because tanks just get in the way and tend to get themselves killed. If you have a follower, it's a good idea to give them gear enchanted with Resist whatever school of destruction you prefer, in addition to the usual Fortify Health and Healing potions. If you like fire spells, use a Dunmer follower, if you like frost spells, use a Nord.)

You should instead embrace your state of vulnerability. As a warrior, I find it the glass cannon route to be enjoyable. So long as I have an escape plan ready when things hit the fan.

Conjuration can save your butt, however you'll need to be really careful about your positioning and where you are summoning(or raising) your minion. Once you get shouts, things get quite a bit easier in terms of summoning tanks. You can do a quick knockback with unrelenting force and summon an atronach in between you and the enemy. Archers will sometimes ignore your summons, so it's best to get out of their line of sight, even if you have a tank summoned up.

It's definitely good to stack some extra magicka on gear and at level ups for the harder difficulties(master, legendary) early on. Eventually you can enchant away spell costs and just zap everything in sight with chain lightning, but for early game you are going to want to hoard magicka and take some of the 1/2 off perks in conjuration and alteration(the alteration tree has good perks branched off from those anyway). Any time you know a fight is coming, it can be easier on your magicka pool if you cast an alteration or conjuration spell slightly before combat. This will give you more magicka to bbq your enemies wtih destruction.

Anytime, and you are most welcome. If nothing else I know about playing a destruction mage cause I always play as one.

Anyway, have fun playing.

I've found the opposite. A melee follower always seems to be in my way, and a mage follower when you are a fighter just means friendly fire. I always take a mage follower for a ranged mage (and Kharjo for every other style, just because).

Once you can cast your master level spells, invest in health. Seriously who needs armour when you have a massive pool of health?

Do Not Pay Attention to the People that say the Game has to be played on Expert and Master difficulty, especially when playing a Destruction User.

Frustration is never Fun, and a Game is designed to be fun and Enjoyable for You as a Player

^^^This

Just do what you feel is best for your character.

Never said you won't die. You will die a couple of times. It's takes some time to get used to the mage gameplay. It's not the same approach as a warrior who runs up to enemies and starts slashing away or sneaky bow and dagger guy who is invisible. Where you would have most trouble is between levels 15-25 where enemies switch to their slightly fancier 2 named cousins that hit hard. But that's all they do. They are not more aggressive, they are not smarter, they are exactly the same. Thing is at beginning levels the game gives you a lot of break where the enemies don't hit that hard giving you lots of room for error and making you feel comfortable. When you feel comfortable, you feel confident enough and then after blowing up a few single named bandits, draugr, wolves and spiders, here comes the cousins, the bandit marauders-chief, draugr-murderboss-deathlords, snow wolves, cave-snow bears, snow tigers and one shot you. And they will one-shot you.

So what you do is you identify those first, usually by their color or their apparel, if they have a 2h weapon or expensive arrows and you hurl a few fire-snow-lighting balls at them. Don't do much damage? This is too much for you for now. You come back when you've leveled and try again. You will see that next time you will do more damage. You may feel more confident in taking them on now. However, there is still the danger of getting killed in a few hits. That's where the fun of a mage gameplay come in (at least for me). That's where flesh spells and defense type of spells come into play. If you cast flesh spells, they will save you and you will have some room for error and take a few hits giving you enough time to turn around, get to safe distance and heal, use a potion. The first thing you want to cast when you spot an enemy (If this is too much you can always go battlemage and be a tank with spells). Or you might use fear-calm spells, the restoration ones when fighting draugr or paralize if using alteration of the sand rune spell which will give you about 30 seconds to rest before the enemy gets back up. Don't really recommend cloaks as you have to be in melee range for those to work. Except whirlwind but sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you're using shouts, then ethereal, force, sprint, ice, whirlwind are very useful "get away from me!" shouts.

Important to note is that you need to learn to manage your magicka. Don't spam the shotgun (dual cast + impact). You will run out of magicka fast spamming it. Use it for when they get too close. Rather than dual casting, use right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand combo when using destruction. You will have a higher DPS and you won't run out of magicka as fast as when you're dual casting.