So I am going to be starting a mage. I have always played a warrior in TES games and I want to switch it up a bit. Is there anything that I should worry about being a mage? What is the best way to play one? How do you guys go about playing a mage? Any advice and tips would be awesome. Thanks!

Everyone plays differently, but I personally focused on destruction and restoration. Keep an eye out for mages robes, amulets, and other enchanted items that give you boosts to your magic stats. Switching from a combat oriented character to a magic oriented character takes some time. The gameplay is more different than you would think. Also, focus on lightning spells. They are the best destruction spell to use for various reasons. Your character will seem underpowered and weak compared to your warrior character at the start of the game, but stick with it and keep improving your magicka and you'll have much more fun with a mage than you did with a warrior. Since you now only have to worry about two major skills (restoration and destruction) you can experiment with new skills you've never tried before. I made a theif/mage character and joined the theives guild and College of Winterhold. By the way, join the college as soon as possible, they will give you good quests for a begginer mage. Hope that helps, good luck!

Something very important to remember: frost spells, no matter how weak (Ice Shards works fine even at high levels) will slow down enemies for a good amount of time. Absolutely required against tougher melee enemies.

at lvl 50 your fire spells will make them flee when theyre low on health, even works on Giants. As weak as they are at higher levels, the early spells can be continuously cast and use little magicka and are AOE.