Destruction, One handed, conjuration, light armor, maybe restoration, smithing, and enchanting. My plan would be to use frost spells, the dukaan mask, and stahlrim armor. Of course I would ahve the augmented frost perks, but it STILL wouldn't be an effective build, right?

Frost magic is great.

Dual-cast the higher powered frost spells and it'll work well enough. You'll shred most dragons encountered since they'll be weak to frost spells.

But since most Skyrim is mostly nords and it hard to tell in the heat of a battle which race your opponent is, you frost damage will be cut in half most of the time, but the extra 25% will help so yeah you'll be good. That's one of my issues with Skyrim though, many things are resistant to frost.

hmm ok. What if I was to be a shock mage instead with the Zaphros mask (sp?) and the augmented perk. It just bothers me it will be a wasted skill when I hit level 60 and are fighting legendary dragons.

Skyrim isn't complex enough to cite any "build" ( if you can even call them that ) as being nonviable. As long as you have a well developed primary means of dealing damage, you can be viable with any combination.

It's do-able, but you will need melee to deal with Dwemeri Automatons, and a few others like Ice Wraiths and what-not. And any summons you may have access to.

I'd say get some restoration skill to better deal with draugr because they're going to be a pain. Or you could add a fire specialization to your frost specialization.

So long as you have at least one other way to dealing damage, you'll be fine.

I've played a similar build (over and over again) and I only ever had trouble with Vampires and Automatons. You already have one-handed, so maybe learning some fire spells or adding restoration would help with undead.

I have the same build but with a dunmer and fire spells and I don't even wear a dragon mask just build up one handed tree to max out either swords axes or maces do as much damage with spells from far away and when they get in close get ur one handed out while still having a spell in the other hand and start swinging and make sure u have an enchantment that matches ur spell (I have double enchanted chaos and fire for example). I was always a bow and arrow assassin but this is my new favorite build it is a beast.

But you mention shoot them at distances, I guess I'm afraid as it would be a wasted skill if it's not even worth it.

EDIT: Hmm, would it be more effective to just be a dual wielder?

EDIT 2: Instead of making another topic I guess I should ask it here. I'm thinking of putting alteration on the build as well, but not conjuration. Reason for that is, I don't want my summons being absorbed, does it absorb any destruction spells? Also, would you find that alteration is only useful for stealth? It seems there aren't many good spells for regular combat, except for the armor ones, but you can reach the cap without them anyways. Also, does Dragonhide stack on the armor cap if it is already maxed? Sorry for all the questions.

Sadly you're spot on, I really miss having major, minor and misc skills.

A Frost Mage actually does fairly well, but as other Posters have pointed out many things require a Summon or a different Element. Destruction Cloaks can be a different Element than Frost, Frost Atronachs are decent Melee Summons and fit into the Frost Mage Roleplay, and there are Staves to be purchased or created in the Atronach Forge in the College of Winterhold Midden.

My admission of rage-quitting a Frost Mage in another thread is due to My aggravation at "The Ruins of Kemel-Ze" existing in the Game.

Elaborate?

Why not go with a storm mage, frost just doesn't seem to work on about 50% of enemies I run into with mage characters.

Ok. lets say I use....Daedric Armor with my storm mage, along with Zahkriisos.

Now you're talking!

IIRC, the dwemer bot is destroyed because of the cold air touching the heated steam bits, which makes perfect sense and makes their complete frost resistance illogical.

Bradleyh reminded my why I hated that book so much.

Ok, on a kind of different topic, but not going to make a new one. What about a Conjuration Archer? Not sneak Archer, but Conjuration (Bound Bow), Archery, Light Armor, Alteration, One Handed (for close combat), Enchanting. I was thinking that I work my way up the light armor tree, while using the alteration armor spells to give me an extra boost of defense. Then use bound bow against enemies. Enchant my armor to add more bonuses for dealing more damage. Do you know if glass armor can reach the cap, without smithing? I want to take the atronach perk, and wouldn't summon anything, but only raise zombies and such. Would that work?

Oh Beth...

Looks like I have some adjustments to make with the Creation Kit... Let's say, 25% weakness to frost for the Spiders and Spheres, 33% weakness for the Centurions?

Just did a quick search for their resistances in Morrowind. Only the Steam Centurion had resistances, and it is 75% resistant to all elements. I seriously do not understand Beth sometimes...

I think it might be that the Skyrim models don't run completely on steam and use a soul gem-powered dynamo instead.

That at least alleviates the "Beth Headache" a bit for me.

I tried being a storm mage, with Zahkriisos. The character thrashed dragons very efficiently, but got repeatedly owned by elves, ash spawn, and those things in Aprcrypha. Closest thing I've had to a successful destruction mage character was my fire-using Dunmer battlemage, and she backed it up with impeccably smithed glass armor and hardcoe one-hand skills (which she resorted to a LOT).

It was especially bad in Dragonborn, that's where I finally retired the storm mage character in disgust.