I don't understand complains about mage armour not being as good as regular armour - it isn't meant to be! You're a mage wearing clothes after all. To me, mage armour is designed to allow you to take one hit before you run off and heal. You aren't meant to stand there and tank damage from multiple enemies.

If you've ever noticed, the most difficult mage enemies in Skyrim are the ones that are hardest to hit, through constantly backing away from you as they pelt their arsenal of spells at you.

Thank you Valdar. People don't realize that ebonyflesh with mage armor 3/3 doesn't even get halfway max armor rating.

That's just a starting point. Necromage vampire will add 75 armor to that, Lord Stone 50-60, Spellbreaker 40+. I'll assume you also get the hidden 25 armor rating for a mage that equips a shield.

I'm on console, so the unofficial patch won't do me a lot of good.Thanks for letting me know about the multiplier effect-I wasn't aware of it.

I still miss spell making from Oblivion.
One of my favorite mages had a spell that conjured full armor and a sword. So he went from harmless guy in rags to a raging killer machine with a wink of his hand.

Another mage had spells that increased a desired skill to 100 which made him a master archer, sword fighter, etc. when needed.

In Skyrim my favorite mage was my illusionist/necromancer using enrage spells, invisibillity/muffle, raise dead and when neede bound swords. Sometimes even calm when cornered.
Very powerful and fun to play.

I tend to use only Destruction spells alongside a War Axe or a Sword, so my Destruction level is 71. The only time I use restoration is if my health is very low in combat and need to heal up quick. I personally have never been a big fan of magic though. The fact that my One-Handed level is 100 I don't want to devote the time to increase my alteration/conjuration/illusion skills. Although there are some pretty cool spells out there for those skills. If I do run into a high level necromancer they definitely put up a hard fight, no doubt.