So, this is a thread to discuss peoples experiences and ideas playing Illusionists and Mystics.

I love making new characters and have been toying with the idea of starting an new illusionist. I have played many hundreds, if not thousands of hours of Oblivion, including many mages, but most of them have had a heavy reliance on destruction and to a lesser extent conjuration. I have only played one illusionist, and did not play that character for very long, although I remember it being fun. I also have never had a character who relied on Mysticism to any great degree. I am thinking there could be good synergy between these two schools, so I am planning a build based on these two schools of magic as the primary means of dealing with combat situations, with only a dagger and perhaps some restoration spells as a back-up.

The plan is not to use any destruction. I have played a great many destruction mages and destruction is like heroin -- powerful and addictive. Once you start combining custom AOE elemental destruction spells with weakness to magic/weakness to element, destruction becomes so overpowered, you don't need anything else to clear out great mobs and powerful bosses in seconds, except maybe for fighting liches (but even they can quickly fall to the right combination of weakness and damage spells). So, I want to stay away from destruction for this character.

I will probably play an Altmer Apprentice, just because I like playing them so much. My last Altmer Apprentice relied on overwhelming destructive force to kill enemies before they could damage him with their spells, but this time, I will be relying initially on detect life, sneak, invisibility, etc, to place well-timed frenzy and command spells. Later on in the character's career I could see relying on reflect spell and spell absorption to overcome Altmer Apprentice weaknesses.

Anyway, since I am starting a new character with a playstyle I have not yet exhausted, I thought I would start a new thread to discuss characters that rely primarily on Illusion and Mysticism. I'd love to hear others experiences with these types of characters, whether it be roleplay ideas, spell ideas, skills they use, or anything else related to playing an Illusionist or Mystic.

By the way, I am posting this in the spoilers forum so spoilers are okay, but lets still try to conceal quest spoilers in spoiler tags just in case someone has not completed the quest.