This is probably going to end up being a long post, so before I get started, just remember this is just...like...my opinion, man.

One thing that I haven't been able to do in this game that I always wanted to do is make an ultimate pure mage character. The reason I can't do it is because it takes too many damn perks! Everytime I play a warrior based character it just seems so much more easy to get all the perks I want. So here are some generic examples based off of what you actually see NPCs in Skyrim doing. Both of these hypothetical characters will have four skills for offense and defense and one crafting skill. The warrior is based off Lydia using one handed, shield, heavy armor, bow as a secondary weapon and some smithing. The mage is based off what typical mages in Skyrim can do- cast elemental spells, summon atronachs, use flesh spells for defense, sustain wards and heal themselves. These hypothetical character builds will be awesome versions of the Skyrim archtypal mage and warrior. We want to get the most awesome perks and kick some ass!

First here's the warrior:

http://skyrimcalculator.com/build/394522/skyrim-warrior?sr=1

Nord, Lady or Steed Stone- 44 total perks for warrior!

Main weapon is sword so I took all the perks for one-handed even the useless critical hits. Blocking is used for defense so went all the way up the left side. Even though all the shield wall perks are not needed for this build I took them all for sake of argument. Some of the popular Skyrim armors are steel plate, dawnguard and nordic carved so I took smithing up to advanced. 6 points in heavy armor, but probably don't need all of those either since we have smithing and block as a skill. For the heavy armor tree I didn't take the left side because everyone says its a waste and didn't take the right side because I cant remember how many of those are glitched. Took everything on the left side of archery tree even though its a secondary skill. Was still able to take all the 5/5 increase power perks. So this overpowered warrior on steroids stayed well under level 50.

Let's look at the mage:

http://skyrimcalculator.com/build/394524/skyrim-mage?sr=1

Altmer, Atronach, Apprentice or Lord Stone- 55 total perks for Mage!

Main damage is done with atronachs and destruction spells. Restoration for killing undead and alteration for defense. Enchanting is the crafting skill. Everyone always wants the ultimate perk in enchanting, so I went up the middle. Destruction is the main skill, but we want to save perks, so I chose two elements in case some enemies resist one. Conjuration chose the left side. Need to cast wards, so picked that perk as well as the other ones in restoration that can make your mage awesome. In alteration I picked perks for defense and didn't go all the way to the top. Still ended up with 55 perks.

anolysis: When you compare crafting skills, warriors can save perks by picking an armor type and sticking with it. If you want to be awesome at enchanting most people take 8 perks. In these examples the warrior saved four points. The warrior has three skills that can be used for defense: smithing, block and heavy armor and doesn't need all those perks to be unstoppable. For destruction the mage has to spend extra points for each element. The only effecient perk tree for mages is conjuration where you can get a lot of power with minimal perks.

Conclusion: I still can't figure out how to make my awesome badass mage and keep it around level 40!

Discuss....

Interesting perspective, though I think that the conclusion depends heavily on what kind of mage you're playing. For example, your warrior character is going to have a two modes of attack: whack until dead, or shoot until dead. Three if you count whack and shoot until dead.

The mage you created can do so much more, even including whacking and shooting, thanks to conjuration. If you want to get all the spells onto one mage and use them semi-effectively, yeah, it's going to take some perks. But a good mage can (and arguably should) be just as focused as an entertaining warrior, playing on the synergy between two or maybe three schools of magic. The character you described really shouldn't need restoration for killing undead if he's got atronachs (a distraction) and destruction (ranged damage). So what, in your opinion, is required for a mage to be awesome and badass?

http://skyrimcalculator.com/394527

Either hit 100% spell cost reduction with Enchanting, or skip Enchanting entirely and just put all your attributes into Magicka.

Perk up to Master of the Mind in Illusion, which will effectively allow you to avoid all enemies using Dual Casted Pacify. (This effectively turns every dungeon into a cakewalk. Even if you have to kill, Fear spells will stop your enemy from fighting back.)

Either side of Conjuration to Twin Souls.

Alteration to Atronach and Stability. Atronach + Atronach Stone will effectively provide immunity to mages and dragon breath, while Stability will let you paralyze any melee fighters for a stupidly long time. Optionally, go for Dual Casting for even longer paralysis.

Perk up to Disintegrate (effecticvely reduces all enemy HP by 15%) and Apprentice level Destruction and Impact. Stun-locking will let you win every 1v1 battle. Combined with Alteration this will make you effectively untouchable. Could optionally go for another element, but Shock damage is rarely resisted (only by Storm Atronachs? which are easy enough to handle with unaugmented Firebolts).

Perk up to Necromage in Restoration, and I also chose apprentice healing (for Heal Other for the summons) as well as Recovery. Could optionally go for Ward Absorb and Avoid Death.

Gets it done in 41 42 perks (forgot to take Illusion Dual Casting) the way I have it set up, though really you could dumb it down to just max Enchanting, Destruction, and Illusion and still be unstoppable, for only 24 perk points.

Yeah, depends on what kind of mage you make, but warrior is definitely easier as it's more straightforward. Don't forget illusion, against numerous mobs of warriors you can use frenzy to put considerable physical force to your side, and cast it at one enemy at a time.

pretty much my thoughts too. Illusion in and of itself makes you nigh unstoppable. Just get a bit of resto and conju and on you go.

I had a mage cap at Level 36, perk-wise, using only http://skyrimcalculator.com/build/394530/lich-kitty/perks He was nigh unstoppable. 'Course, he had other skills for the sake of roleplay (bumping him up to the 50's), but his combat skills require him to reach at least level 36 to fully perk.

It really does depend on the build, although warriors do tend to be more straightforward and as a result less versatile. It's an RPG thing.

Here is the mage I've been dreaming of:

Maybe you guys can help me achieve this. I've always wanted be able to cast the blizzard spell, and this pretty much means I have to go with Altmer, not Breton because I am on Ps3 and they never fixed the magic resist glitch. Just like the example I gave, I love lightning and frost spells and don't need fire. I also love the runes too, so I need that perk. Having no magic resistances, I am going to need to use wards (which I actually really want to do anyway because they look cool). But wards drain the magicka badly and I want to have fun so it seems I need enchanting to reduce my restoration cost. Even though I need enchanting, I don't want to skip the cost reduction perks for all the magic schools because it takes a while to get enchanting high enough and waiting for that is too painful. Illusion is not needed on this character. And I love those circle spells in restoration...need to be able to cast those.

By the way, I realize this can be done with less perks, but if you look at the comparison, I left in a lot of uneeded perks for the warrior. I mean, you could find a way to probably make an awesome warrior with those skills by using only 25 perks.

I'm on the fence about illusion. Sometimes I think I would love to pair illusion with destruction and electrocute people while they run in fear, but then I fall into the trap of taking every illusion perk and making the game too easy. The problem with all the magic skill trees is that once I get started, I want to take all the damn perks. This doesn't happen to me with the weapons, armor and smithing skills though.

The only ones that seem exempt from that problem are Destruction and Conjuration, it seems. Destruction has the different elemental "fingers" and Conjuration is separated between summoning, necromancy, and bound weapons. It's not even that there isn't enough variety in the spells for different playstyles with the school (except Alteration), it's just that it seems like none of the perks encourage it. For example, the perk placement in the Restoration tree seems erratic and doesn't have many options in spite of having three different spell types.

On the other hand, some of the perks in the combat skills are pretty useless (like the weapon specific perks) while in the magic side they're practically necessary. That leads to trees like Illusion, which has no middle ground between nearly useless and obscenely powerful. Theoretically, one can only focus on one of the branches, either spell empowerment or focus, but where would that leave you if you over-level?

Warriors are simple and low maintenance, but mages tend to be far more powerful in spite of being difficult to raise. http://www.geekindustrialcomplex.com/articles/linear-fighters-vs-quadratic-wizards, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards

That makes sense. There's just not as far to go with weapons and smithing perks. If you take that many magic perks, though, you'll always end up OP. Even without Illusion, it's pretty easy to become untouchable.

What you've got sounds pretty manageable, though. You want destruction and restoration for wards, with a little alteration mixed in for defense. Perk those trees, and you probably won't need much enchanting. Give target priority to archers, since you can defend against mages and dodge warriors, and from there it should be pretty straightforward.

Yeah, J'Roqqa, your setup is very doable.

Mages in Skyrim require a certain single-mindedness in order to play effectively, in my experience. Especially the Destruction school. You can't dabble in Destruction and expect it to be effective - you have to focus on it from the beginning.

It is very possible, in fact, to make an extremely powerful mage who is lvl 25 or 30, by simply focusing on Destruction and avoiding raising all other skills. Being able to cast perked, high-tier spells against lvl 20-30 enemies is quite satisfying.

I'm currently running a primarily Destruction mage on Adept difficulty. He's level 19 I think, and his Destruction skill is 76, outstripping by far all other skills. Enchant is in the 30s simply because I've been disenchanting things for later. Speech is in the 30s because I've been selling stuff to buy spells and a bit of training. Restoration just hit 30, and is the only other skill I've invested perks in (Novice Restoration + Regeneration - aiming for Necromage to make my Destruction spells even stronger against undead). Smithing is in the high 20s because I'm building my Hearthfire house. Lockpick is in the high 20s for obvious reasons.

And that's really it. It's working out quite well, even with *all* points invested in Magicka, so I have a base 100 Health.

Since I'm going to work up Restoration anyway, I've been using wards, just like you mentioned. I find that the Lesser Ward is enough against dragon breath, and I can hold it up for plenty of time, even if I'm casting offensive spells with my other hand at the same time. All I have for cost reduction is that Novice perk and a ring of Minor Restoration (for 12% reduction).

Other gear is extremely basic. I bought an Adept Hood at the College. I'm wearing the Novice Robes of Destruction they first gave me when I enrolled. I'm wearing Hide Boots of Shock Resistance (15%) or Iron Boots of Lifting for when I'm overencumbered. Got the Gauldur fragment from Saarthal as well. But I haven't enchanted any gear myself. So I think you may be overestimating the Enchanting requirement for your build. Just focus on Magicka level ups, focus on Destruction perks early, and *eventually*, maybe work up that Enchanting (or just buy cost reduction gear).

Easily doable in a reasonable level.

My last character was a warrior/mage hybrid class. I did heavy armor, but all else was magic.

Well, both builds are based around your own views and preferences. Here's what I think:

On the warrior build, being able to move fast with a drawn bow, is too good to be left out, even if you don't take all the crit ranks before it. On the smithing tree, I would've taken steel, arcane & dwarven smithing. And even though I can live without power/disarming bash, I do bash anyway in combat so, why leave it out?

On the pure mage's build, I would've ditched frost over shock damage and restoration dual casting for respite. That been said, I'd still use frost for the snare & stamina damage, even in it's non-augmented state. As for conjuration's two ranks of summoner... I'm guessing it depends. Unless I want to be able to have a storm atronach, or a dremora lord, spawn behind the 'x' annoying archer for a... chat, I can do just fine with rank 1 and use rune or chain lightning instead.

Edit: As for Alteration... If I had gone for the Atronach Stone, I would've ditched magic resistance and picked the Atronach perk instead. I could've also stopped at stability & expert alteration, if I wanted to cast paralyze more efficiently. The latter would save 2 perk points.

I think you're way off on the reason it's easier to make a warrior than a mage. Here's the real reason:

Mage:

"First I'll summon an atronach to buy some time and keep him occupied. After that I'll cast an armor spell, then put up a ward to protect me from any spells he's going to cast my way. Put a rune at the doorway to damage any of his friends and warn me they are coming. I'll have to use ice or lightning spells because he's immune to fire. Stick to single target so I don't hit Lydia. Remember to drink my potions when I run out of magika. Don't let him get close. Watch out for the spike trap on the right....."

Warrior:

".....Hodor."

On apprentice or novice, sure. You can even not bother to block. "...Hodor" all the way.

On anything above adept, you'll end up like those I met, during my brief time in ESO: running like -you know what- to me, to save them from... wolves. "...Hodor"