First of all, just let me state - I am not an "efficient leveler". I don't pick my skills and play the game to get x5 modifiers. I select my 7 major skills to reflect my gameplay, and character concept, and I just play the game and let the attribute modifiers fall where they may.

That said, here is the character concept:

The class is called "Hell Hunter" - essentially a dark arts arcane warrior. A hand to hand expert who also utilizes "dark" magics. My playstyle also naturally leads me to sneak / marksman tactics. Comes from my Morrowind character with was a stealth archer, and the first Oblivion character I ever made was a remake of my Morrowind character. Magic wise, the RP of it is that the character specializes in magic that can manipulate and control souls - thus Conjuration for summoning, Mysticism for things like Soul Trap, Detect Life, etc... but combat wise I want to be able to get up face to face in the mix of things and duke it out back and forth with the baddies. Lots of armor so I can take the hits that the enemies dish out, and 2 handed swords so I can dish it out in return.

So then, what I have is Blade, Heavy Armor, Conjuration, Mysticism, Marksman, Sneak

I'm happy with all of those choices, and they've all worked out for me. What I'm torn on is the 7th skill, and my choices are Alteration or Destruction.

Alteration, because I love the Shield line of spells. I know that I already have Heavy Armor, but I also like the thought that the Shield spells will make me even MORE durable in combat. I like the thought that with a full set of Heavy Armor, and a nice Shield spell, I can run into combat and not have to worry about dying because I can take loads of punishment. Shield spells will also help because I will not be carrying physical shields for that added armor, since I will be using 2 handed weapons, and since I don't efficient level, I may not get the best Endurance increases, thus not getting the ideal health gains through each level. The cons to Alteration is that the Shield spells will be the only spells I'll be using. Shield spells fit very well with the image I have of the character, but spells like Water Walking, Water Breathing, Feather, Burden, Open Lock, etc... those spells don't fit my character concept. So I'd be using an entire skill selection on just 1 line of spells. However, that boost that comes from selecting it as a Major means that I'll at least have access to higher level Shield spells sooner, and thus, have a head start towards being able to acquire even more.

Destruction because I would love to have the added damage potential. Despite the fact that I've never finished Oblivion, I've played it plenty, and I know how tough the Planes of Oblivion can get, especially with the leveling system. Even though Marksman is a major skill of mine, I'm not going to be the most efficient ranged assassin. And I know I won't be one shotting Daedra in Oblivion, and am going to have to have extra ways of dishing out damage. Destruction can help me make short work of some pretty beefy enemies. I also feel like throwing fireballs at people, and giving my enemies weaknesses, and damage over times and all of that, fits pretty well with the idea of a "dark mage". I'd like being able to drop some DoT's, or Weakness to on a charging enemy, and then drop some bombs on them with damage touch spells, in addition to slicing them up with my big 2 handed claymore. The downside is... is Blade, Marksman, and Destruction TOO many offensive choices? Is that a matter of "spreading myself too thin"?

There's also the possibility that I drop Marksman and Sneak, and take both Destruction and Alteration, and add Block as my last skill, since even though I'll be using 2 handed weapons, I do block a lot. But that svcks because my natural playstyle leads to a Sneak / Marksman combination, because I like being able to get the drop on people, even if I'm not exactly a ranged archer / assassin type of character. Plus, I want to be part of the Dark Brotherhood, and Sneak at the very least is a good skill to have for sneaky assassinations.

So my choices are:
Blade, Heavy Armor, Conjuration, Mysticism, Marksman, Sneak, Alteration
Blade, Heavy Armor, Conjuration, Mysticism, Marksman, Sneak, Destruction

Or, least likely, but possible:

Blade, Heavy Armor, Conjuration, Mysticism, Alteration, Destruction, Block

And yes, I do realize that I can use minor skills just as well as major skills, but except for a couple exceptions, I typically like to stick to using my 7 major skills exclusively. It's never felt "right" to me using skills like Marksman, Sneak, or magic skills, or the like in a heavy fashion when they aren't part of what makes up my class.

I play on a PC and I would base the decision on the mods that I am using.There are three mods that I know of that combine Archery and Magic - Arrows of Channelling, Arcane Archery, and GunMage. Download them all, read the readme's, and choose the one that you like best.

I think that blade, marksman and destruction is a offensive skill to much, unless you want to use bows most of the time I would recommend destruction as you can both to ranged damage and cast weakness to increase the damage of your enchanted sword.

I have never seen the point of having mysticism as major, alteration is more useful.

I'd go for Destruction and skip Alteration. Some things to consider:

-Eventually, you're going to max out Heavy Armor, and your Armor rating is going to approach its max (85) on its own. Every time you skill up in Heavy Armor, your Shield spell (IOW, your Alteration skill) is going to become less and less useful. If you actually reach a natural armor rating of 85 with Heavy, the Shield spell finally becomes 100% useless.

-You can enchant armor pieces with Shield, if you fail to reach a rating of 85 via normal means (ie. acquiring Daedric armor and over-repairing it to 125 health via high level Armorer skill). You can enchant armor pieces with Shield via the appropriate sigil stones. No skill in Alteration required at all for this.

-Destruction NEVER becomes useless. It only ever becomes more useful. Besides being able to reach higher damage plateaus with each mastery level promotion, you become more efficient. An Expert in Destruction can cause a lot more damage with 50 Magicka than an Apprentice can. Quite a lot more.

-Destruction, as a major, will increase at a more decent clip than otherwise. It always increases at a rate of 1.2 points per casting which actually connects with a target, but when it's a major and/or part of a character's specialty, the number of castings required to increase its skill level goes down. The same is true of Alteration, but Alteration goes up by 3 points per casting. Therefore, when Alteration is a minor skill, it is still able to increase in skill level at a half decent clip.

So, yeah... Destruction.

You said you wanted to pick between alteration and destruction for purely RP purposes to fit the nature of the character you describe. What you describe says destruction to me.

If you're set on using either Alteration or Destruction, you'll have to choose. You've gotten some good thoughts above. I have an alternative suggestion: Restoration.

Restoration offers you Absorb Health, which damages your enemy's health while restoring yours. It only works as an "on touch" spell, but it seems to me that this is how you were planning to operate anyway. Given that eventually your armor skill will make your Alteration skill almost unnecessary, this might be something to consider. I think it also fits with the "dark" character type, since it's almost vampiric in the way it works.

thanks for the replies all. At the moment, I think I'm leaning towards a destruction major and keeping alteration as a minor. I dont even really plan on using elemental shields so taking a major to use like 5 spells is probably pointless. Even if I do use that spell quite often.

Instead of wearing armor, you could enchant street clothes with elemental shields of frost, fire and shock. The best sigil stone enchantments can be had at level 17 or higher. You would gain an instant 75 Armor Class rating... but more importantly, you will have 100% spell effectiveness. Save the wrist irons from the tutorial, they do not count as armor. One other set can be found in a dungeon in the SI, a dungeon that is part of the main quest.

I've thought about that, but in the end the idea of the character is to be a heavy armored brute. The best example I can give is a Chosen Chaos Warrior, if you've played Warhammer or Warhammer: Age of Reckoning at all. In fact the inspiration for my Oblivion character is the Chosen warrior I played in WAR, thus heavy armor, 2 handed blades, and magic. The Alteration choice comes directly from that, as the Shield spells would represent ward saves, and Shield spells are spells that I just like a lot period. I like the idea of just an uber tank with heavy armor and Shield spells, but I neglected to consider the fact that as my heavy armor skill increases, my Shield effectiveness lessens.

The choice for Conjuration comes simply because summoning creatures to aid me in battle is my favorite skill for fantasy characters. Necromancers are always my favorite type of characters, and while I can't play a Necromancer, I can still summon undead minions to aid me (and in the case of Elder Scrolls, Daedric minions as well).

Mysticism comes from Morrowind, because I loved soul trapping and combining that with an enchant skill. I can't enchant as a skill in this game, but I can still play the rp of a mage who manipulates and controls souls via summoning and soul trapping. Mysticism also adds a few other skills that I like as well, such as Detect Life, which is a god send for stealthy characters.

And I know I am a heavy armored brute, but my character in Morrowind was a stealth ranged assassin, and some of my favorite games are the Hitman series or the Metal Gear series. Being stealthy and getting the drop on people is part of my natural playstyle. And with conjuration, I can always use Bound Boots to het myself a weightless pair of boots to sneak in.

So while I love Alteration (at least the Shield spells) I now realize that its not particularly effective with ny build. So I can use Destruction, deal massive damage with swords, bows and spells, and just cast Shield spells as a minor until my armor skill becomes a monster on its own.

So I just did some research and some math, and I wanna be sure im doing this right.

According to UESP, a full set of Daedric armor is AR 75. A shield (which I would not be using) is AR 22.50, and a helm (I also will not be using, as I would be wearing hoods for RP purposes) is AR 7.50, which is a combined total of 30 AR. So Daedric armor would only give me AR 45. Thus, if I have say a 40% Shield spell, that would give me a full 85 AR, correct? (45 AR + 40% Shield = 85 AR)

Is my understanding correct? Because if so, then my Shield spells actually become very useful to overcome me not utilizing a physical shield.

Correct on the math part, and you will have that high Armor Rating for the duration of your shield spell. And, to throw another wrench in, have you thought about Alchemy? I can pop a custom shield potion that also restores my magicka, boosting me to 85 (my armor rating is 25 normally) that usually lasts more than any battle. I know, RP, but sometimes a potion is nice if you've run out..... but I'm currently speaking from an Atronach Mage/Archer at the moment.

RP wise, I don't particularly care for Alchemy as a major. I do dabble in Alchemy on the side, making random potions out of the ingredients that I stumble across, and typically keeping them if I like the benefits of it, but usually just selling the potions to make some extra coin. I'm not the type who's gonna go out searching for specific ingredients to create specific potions, except on very rare exceptions (I am born under the sign of The Atronach, part of my role play, so it is very handy to have restore magicka potions in my inventory).

Oh, I am definitely fully aware of the power of Alchemy. It's just not something I do.

I certainly like the idea of throwing fireballs around at my enemies, and it would certainly fit with the RP of a dark mage, but I feel like Shield spells would be much more useful for me. I would use them tons more often. With a Heavy Armor / Blade and Sneak / Marksman combo, I have plenty of damage dealing already, and while I can certainly do some nice things with Destruction that will only enhance that, it seems like much more of a luxury than a necessity. Plus, being born under The Atronach, and being a Redguard, having the available magicka to just toss fireballs around might not always be a possibility. Being born under The Atronach, there's nothing that I hate more than casting an "On Target" spell, only to miss because I had poor aim

I do know that this would be plenty easier were the character creation the same as Morrowind (10 skills), and all the skills from Morrowind were in this game. I'd be able to keep Alteration and Destruction both, along with adding Block and Enchant to the mix as well.

It's true that Daedric armor without the shield and helm only gives you 45 AR, but only if you don't put any Shield enchantments on it. BTW, wouldn't a Shield enchantment be a very good representation of a Ward save? IIRC these generally come from items. And because of a bug it's possible to get Sigil Stones with 25% Shock Shield already at levels 9-12 (someone made a typo and gave the middle range Shock Shield Sigil Stones the same enchantment as the top of the line Shock Shield Sigil Stone). If you find two of these and put them on Orcish armor you'll already have 83 AR.

I also agree with Acadian that the way you describe your character, Destruction wold be more fitting. And it's not really that bad to have Blade, Marksman, and Destruction. I guess it depends on how long you'll play the character. During the first 20-25 levels, Blade and Marksman are fine, but afterwards some monsters (Ogres, Goblin Warlords, Xivilai) really start to get inflated Health and fighting them with weapons is simply tedious. At that point throwing in a couple of weakness spells to augment the damage from your weapon enchantment and any poison you might be using is going to be a big plus.

So if you decide for Destruction, you could for the first 20 levels or so use it mainly for weakness spells. Weakness to Fire/Frost/Shock are Apprentice spells so you'd be able to cast them from the very start. Then later when monsters get inflated health pools you start focusing a bit more on Destruction as direct damage delivery.

And since you mention you'll be using the Atronach birthsign and Mysticism, getting enough Magicka to throw around Fireballs shouldn't be a problem thanks to the Telekinesis trick. Basically, if you have Spell Absorption and cast a Telekinesis spell you will absorb the Telekinesis spell and regain a percentage of it's base cost equal to the magnitude of your Spell Absorption. For example if you have 100% Spell Absorption and are a Master of Mysticism then you cast Telekinesis spell at 20% of their base cost, but you regain the full 100% of the base cost in Magicka, giving you a net profit of 80% of the base cost. So whenever you cast a Telekinesis spell your Magicka will increase by 4x the casting cost of the spell (but it never completly refills because the casting cost is deducted only after the absorption takes place).