Most important tip for a mage: Don't get hit. It's not that hard. If you are casting a master spell in front of a few enemies, you are doing it wrong. Mages=attack from distance. It's not rocket science. My dunmer mage is level 35, has 130 Hp, 500 magicka and I can take down anything easily. If I get hit though... My equipment includes a vampire robe with 10% fortify destruction and magicka regen, Gauldur amulet, ring of eminent magicka, vampire boots with 24% frost resistance and Zahkriisos' mask. Sometimes I use a staff. Don't need to level up enchanting. Learn how to play a mage.

Playing as a pure mage can be very frustrating because there is less room for error than other builds. Its by no means the only one that has issues however. It is definitely one where some fights require more planning and strategy to make up for the lack of armor and health. Sometimes the simplest "boss" fights can turn into several reloads until you find the right strategy. In those times I get very frustrated, but then after I get through I remember that is the way it should be.

I should not be able to go "toe to toe" with a a knight in heavy armor. My magic is more that just a DPS blast. There are reasons why schools like frost and lightening have secondary effects. To me it is a matter of experience. Some here will say how easy a magic based character is, but I've had to play with a a few different mage builds. My advice is to be patient, and test different situations in fights. You need to really learn what your magic can do, and how the different schools work together.

I was a Destruction junkie!

Then I discovered the world of Conjuration

I wish I could prove this to be falsehoods and pointless speculation

I miss Mysticism.

I did get killed a few times in Forelhost, but I don't like when games get too easy, so I welcome the challenge.

I think everyone gets their ass handed to them in Forelhost !

Still, a great dungeon.

Then there are those of is who are real people that get killed in our first cave.

I find magic to be ridiculously powerful, if you are clever about it. Smashing people = easy. Stabbing them from behind, tricky but simple. Being a mage you have to think, not smash your head into things.

Armor that improves your magic regen rate is your friend. Theres a talent in the restoration tree that increase magic regen by 50% once you have both ranks.

Slow Time is your best friend. Heres what a standard fight looks like for me:

1: Use Slow Time 3.

2: Dual-cast Firebolts with the talent that makes them stagger the opponent.

3: Keep doing that.

4: Win.

I take down elder dragons before they can get into the air by doing this. Using fire bolts, yes.

on what dificulty.

The Mage is the class with one of the steepest learning curves, most people won't be able to get a grasp of it because it requires you to throw out all your prior strategies and tactics. You cannot go toe to toe with enemies, even though flesh spells make people think they can. Those are to mainly deal with archers and for that rare, lucky enemy warrior who somehow gets past your illusions, thralls and followers. They allow you to take a hit or two whilst you retreat.

Having low health is the fun of being a mage, I myself normally allocate points between magicka and health at ratio of 7:1, stamina is pointless. You need to sacrifice health for more magicka, there's no point to having that survivability when you can barely cast any spells. Unlike other classes DPS is irrelevant when it comes to mages, since we mainly deal damage in an indirect way through Illusion and Conjuration, destruction is for picking off the nearly dead.

Skyrim magic has suffered greatly from the unfathomable loss of the flagship feature of spellmaking.

It really needs to return in TES6.

Spellmaking is awesome, but it's most definitely not THE flag ship feature of TES. Not by a long shot.

I forgot to mention, the biggest mistake people make is discarding lower level spells. They treat spells like weapons, thrown aside when you get a better one, a perfect example of players failing to adapt to playing as a mage. Spells of all levels remain useful all the way through the game, you do not waste your mana casting incinerates to kill skeevers when firebolts will suffice. When you see a group of enemies in close proximity to each other using frenzy is much smarter then attempting to cast Mayhem.

I always facepalm when I read of people attempting to use Master level spells when surrunded by enemies, when they have AOE spells at their disposal which cost far less mana and will also give them the window to be able to cast those master level spells if they wish. Players constantly using high level spells when they have no need to be then complaining about their mana running out quick are the bane of my existence. They need to stop thinking like warriors who want the highest DPS and more like mages.

People do this? They run in unarmored and cast Mayhem or Firestorm and expect to live through it? I've never seen or read about anyone playing this way. Most complaints I hear is that those spells aren't worth using when you have Frenzy or Fireball/Incinerate to use instead. Spells a mage can use from a safe distance...

I use Incinerate/Ice Spear/Thunderbolt to kill skeevers though. Why go through the trouble of changing spells just to kill a couple rats. The magicka is regened in just a few seconds. No biggie. I'm also not going to spend 30 years killing an Ancient Dragon with firebolt just because it's more magicka efficient. Once that thing is on the ground I want it dead quick.

Looking back, I think magic would've been better if cost reduction didn't exist outside of perks and artifacts. Too many late-game builds involve getting close to or 100% cost reduction, and this stifles spell variety and strategy. If we had enchantments that increased magnitude or area-of-effect instead, we could see more tactical use of spell types and enchantment slots while still leaving the core stat of mages (magicka) relevant. Another annoyance of mine is the ridiculous damage (or effect) per point of magicka of some high level spells (master spells are usually worse than multiple castings of their adept AOE counterparts).

A flagship feature of the series, without one there never would have been a Daggerfall. As much as a huge, open world is one.

So, I did not mean 'the' as in 'the only one,' but as in 'one of the.'