So I've played and replayed like most of us, modded heavy and modded light, and enjoyed Skyrim as almost every type of character....

...except a pure mage. Everytime I try to start out as a 100% mage, I give up within a few levels because I just can't make it work. No matter what I do, I can't keep my magic powerful enough to hold my own against the levelled monsters the game throws at me. Even with companions I fail.

Eventually, I find myself leaning on weaponry 'just this one battle....' and eventually give up on magic, it becomes a 2nd option against low enemies and nuisances.

What am I doing wrong? I tend to always try to do destruction, and I've always played my game on the highest Legendary difficulty. This last time around I dropped down to Expert thinking maybe you just plain can't do a pure mage on Legendary, but find myself having just as much trouble.

I have a mod in this time around that gives a ton of extra spells, some of which seem pretty unbalanced/overpowered to me and I STILL can't stay alive against mobs I'd be plowing through if I'd put my effort into One or Two handed at this level.

I did the College missions first assuming that'd be the way to get as mega-mage powered as possible and have the archmage robes and everything and still...can't make it work. Only got through some of the missions by judicious use of quick "TGM" console coding at tight spots.

Any pointers?

I must be missing something fundamental?

if you insist on playing legendary difficulty then use conjuration and illussion and sneak. Stay in the shadows and make your enemies fight themselves and your conjurations. Always stay out of combat. Use become ethereal whenever you are in danger. If you want to do a destruction mage then play on Adept and it works fine.

If you're playing the Vanilla game, pure destruction mages tend to be underpowered at the lower levels and at the higher levels.

You'll need to supplement your magic with either weapons (bow/melee) or conjuration/illusion at the start. Rage/frenzy, or fear/turn and familiars can really help you tilt the balance until your destruction skills start to round out. I find bow + magic is a very good combination as Bows not only have range, but they take 2 hands which means if you unequip a bow (hit the hotkey while it's equipped), you'll bag the bow and have your spells in your hands. IE, twice as fast as cycling through your spells one key at a time.

If you're talking higher levels, you're looking at long casting bouts with dual cast/impact for low damage unless you get rebalancing mods like Destruction scaling mods (highly advised at higher levels).

Strategically as a mage, I tend to try to get Lydia asap (can't be killed), and send pets in early. Getting Frost Atronach is a priority as it's the beefiest of the summons until you can get Dremora Lord. I also tend to start fights by casting summoned creatures on top of enemies to start the fights. Also, make smart use of traps, doors, etc. Also, don't under rate flame cloak when you can get it. I've won a LOT of fights by simply casting flame cloak and running around like a headless chicken when things have gotten tough.

Use the environment to your advantage as much as possible. Hide and cast. Get the high ground (hit them from ledges). Make use of traps. For example, I'll do dungeons and lure enemies directly into traps to soften them up or kill them. I love swinging axes and spiked doors.

In terms of character progression, the first things I do is level up Health. Magicka is nice and all, but survival is your top priority in the early going. Enemies effectively do double damage, so that means that your 100 health is essentially equivalent to 50 health on Adept. Don't start putting lots of levels into Magicka until you get to around 150 or 200 health (so you can at least eat a hit or two). Look at it this way, if you can cast 5 fire bolts, how many more fire bolts does 10 magicka get you? None. Increase your survivability, wear +magicka and +health gear when you find it, then start fine tuning your character once you can live through a few hits. Put perks into Novice and Adept when appropriate to half your casting costs. Your eventual target is to get to at least 300ish health (and eventually 400+). It's at that point that you can really load up into the magicka schools.

Put simply, the mechanics of Legendary difficulty means that it's going to take some time to reach the point that you can effectively play pure destruction. As for College quests, don't worry about them so much. The fastest way to a high power mage is level your alchemy and enchanting so that you an make Fortify school gear for reduced casting costs. Doing relatively easier dungeons around Whiterun is often a better choice (for gear, ore and skill raises) than to go running off to the College (which actually has somewhat difficult quests at low levels on Legendary for a pure mage).

Also, get used to running, kiting and doing a lot of running around if you're a mage at the lower levels. If you stand still long enough to get hit, count on getting clobbered.

I've played a pure mage on Master difficulty in vanilla Skyrim so maybe this advice doesn't help as much on Legendary with mods. This being said, perhaps the following can tip the balance in your favor.

* Pick an Altmer as your race for the extra magicka, the Fury spell, and the daily fast-regeneration power.

* It goes without saying, but spend your intial perk points in teh destruction tree right away. Along the same lines, always boost your magicka as you level.

* Pick the Mage standing stone coming out of Helgen, later, switch to the Atronach, Apprentice or Lord stone depending on your play style. I liked the Apprentice stone at low levels as the extra magicka really let you put down the baddies quickly. I later switched to the Lord stone for magic resistance.

* Get the recipe for Elsweyr Fondu - it's you're BFF at the start.

* Find the recipe, or just buy, fortify magicka, fortify health, fortify magicka regeneration and fortify health regeneration potions and brew up a batch.

* Do the Agent of Mara quest out of Riftin for 15% magic resistance.

* Avoid the main quest and get to the Mage college. Grab the gear there and finish the quest line to become Archmage. His robes and circlet are a big help

* Try to get the Morokei Dragon Priest mask out of Labyrinthian for the 100 extra magicka and 100% faster regeneration.

* Practice enchanting to create cost reduction, fortify magicka, and magic resistance gear.

That should get you where you want to be - but be warned, a destruction mage that just spams fireballs gets old pretty quickly...

Ahhhhh the pure mage question rears it's head again. Malthian & Kamil have great advice. What isn't known to us is what does "Pure Mage" mean to you? Some think a pure mage is only a couple schools of magic, others think it's all schools of magic. Some say they can wear only cloth while others say they can wear whatever they find, but not craft armor, etc. As you can see the restrictions one can put on their character are limitless.

If you do a search for "mage" on this forum you will find a number of threads with advice and information. Like http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1330775-arch-mage-of-the-college-only-ever-cast-one-spell/?view=findpost&p=20027255&hl=%2Bmage or http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1323899-is-destruction-a-viable-main-damage-dealer/?view=findpost&p=19904729&hl=%2Bmage. There are many more threads back over the years to peruse for great ideas.

A Few Suggestions:

• A quick cast of flames multiple times seems to be better use than just spamming it for early leveling and mana conservation.
• Burn everything that moves. Gotta use it to level the skill.
• Potions are your friend for augmenting destruction, mana pool, mana regen and of course health. (Whether you make your own or use found/bought potions.)
• I like to do the "deed" and chop enough wood, sell it and purchase Fire Bolt and Fire Rune early on because you can pull a mob with Firebolt from a distance, drop a Fire Rune for it to run over; Fire Rune quickly levels your destruction.
• Most folks aren't into meta gaming (that is they like the game to just flow naturally), however if you are in need of some less expensive spells to start you can get one early on from Faralda at the CoW for 30g to take her "test" if you don't buy any before hand (if you do you might already have the spell for the test and paid a heck of a lot more gold for it).
• You get a second FREE spell as part of the introduction (Lesser Ward) as long as you don't have it or a higher level Ward already learned.
• Didn't see it mentioned above, but if you have the rested bonus before going out adventuring you will level more quickly. (if desired)
• Magelight is great for marking a target (especially pesky vampires that like to cast invisiblity),
• Magelight can also be used to set off magic rune traps (it disappears when the rune explodes).
• Magelight can be cast on a person AND a location at the same time.
• Telekinesis is great for making distractions. Drop an object (I like apples). Use Telekinesis to lob it to the far side of a bandit camp, as an example.

Those are few suggestions and there are lots more, but finding interesting ways to use a spell is part of the fun so I'll leave it at that short list. Depending on whether you use other classes of spells there's a wide range of great fun to be had as a "pure mage" whatever your definition of that might be. Best of luck and hope you find your rhythm with making a mage FUN for you!.