Greetings everyone. Like many of you, I could not wait for this installment of the Elders Scrolls. I started playing immediately at release to learn the best ways to power level and try many styles of gameplay before making a final adventurer to do ALL my questing with.

I figured I would share my thoughts on the current classes and maybe get some feedback on some changes we could all agree on.

First off, let me go ahead and get this out of the way: The following descriptions are of MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES in playing on master difficulty. Backed ONLY by my opinions. Meaning, they will differ from many of you. If you wish to debate anything I say, at least read my entire description on that particular subject before doing so. Please be civil about it.

*Side note, having learned to power level several trees with such ease, I did so on the easiest difficulty on almost all toons purely for the sake of leveling and testing the abilities of high end toons on master difficulty. Thus, I did not experience say anything below expert level with hardly any of these builds.*

1st toon Level 56 Breton Dual Wield War-Axe
Masteries: One-handed, Smithing, Enchanting, Restoration
Description: BY FAR deals the most damage the fastest with as little resources used over long fights. Very efficient, even during solo play. With the Elemental Fury shout active, you can effectively kill a dragon within a few seconds (after it lands) even on master difficulty. If things aren't really working out, you can offset any incoming damage with spells while continuing to do moderate damage(casting spells with one as you deal damage with the other). I used the star sign "The Lady" primarily on this build, but the sign did not have a noticeable impact on game play. I imagine any sign (bar the Apprentice) would be fine. This build has no overbearing requirements in terms of stats.

2nd toon Level 76 Breton 2 handed Swordsman
Masteries: Two-handed, Smithing, Enchanting, Alteration, Conjuration, Restoration
Description: Great for dealing a Tremendous of damage right at the start of a fight, but prolonged fighting (empty stamina bar) leads to using tons of potions or running from a fight to switch to healing spells. I felt that I HAD to go through the alteration tree for Atronaut Spell absorption + the Star Sign Atronaut, (combined 80% absorption) before being even REMOTELY viable against boss casters. Having a follower on top of summoned help balanced it out when one of them is able to pull aggro from whatever it is your fighting....but because of this drawback, solo play is borderline impossible without lots of spell resist/absorb. This build requires a large amount of both Stam and Health.

3rd toon Level 76 Khajiit Rogue/archer
Masteries: Marksman, Smithing, Enchanting, Sneak, Illusion, Light-armor
Description: Dagger builds are similar to two-handed builds in the idea that they deal a tremendous amount of damage right at the start, but prolonged fighting WILL get you killed against enemies that are immune to charm spells like Fear, Frenzy, or Calm. So just like Two-Handed builds...it's very reliant on either followers, or summons. Anything to grab the attention of your foes to allow you to either get your distance (bow) or slip into the shadows for another chance at a backstab. Dragons on master difficulty don't give TOO much grief for this build, assuming enchants for bow damage are present. Using the bow full time requires a TON of stamina for prolonged fights with no followers/summons, but makes clearing regular dungeon trash a snap. Overall, a very enticing fun build.

4th toon Level 73 Breton Mage
Masteries: Destruction, Conjuration, Alteration, Restoration, Enchanting, Smithing -partial into Heavyarmor for increased armor rating
Description: When I started playing skyrim, I thought I was saving the best for last...I was very wrong. I have loved being a mage since day one of playing any game that allows me to be so, but skyrim has placed many limits and band-aids on the class the make it miserable to play without a very specific setup. Leveling pre-50s must be a giant dirt nap on master difficulty. At level 56, I was full cloth with my spell Ebonyflesh on in the middle of casting Dragonflesh before being COMPLETELY obliterated by 2 arrows from BANDITS. Mind you, this one when I first placed it on master difficulty. Tried going about that stronghold a couple different ways and managed to top it, but I realized I was simply too squishy. So I went with a similar setup I had in oblivion, by leveling up smithing right away and made a full set of improved Daedric armor. Arrows no longer 2 shot me...especially while running Ebonyflesh simultaneously, but now casters are a big issue. So playing solo is completely out of the question with this build. You absolutely need a Follower and/or 2 summons if you are to survive any prolonged fight involving more than one target.

Mage continued:
SINGLE target fights, are laughably easy for mages...though still take a considerable amount of time. The destruction talent IMPACT, is a guaranteed stun to any target hit with a dual-casted spell. Giants, Dragons, bosses...you name it...all stunnable. This makes it more of a crutch than anything...because without that stun, you're dead on master difficulty. I even went through the daunting questline to obtain the master level destruction spells, only to find that ALL 3 OF THEM are 3-5 second cast times, to where you can NOT move from your position of casting, and can be interrupted by a melee swing. I find the conjure: familiar spell (novice level) to be far more valuable than these MASTER level spells on MASTER difficulty, because they can at least grab the attention of an attacker for a moment(possibly enough time to cast one of the spells eh?). So I HOPED with such cast times, the damage output would be good. On adept difficulty, it is. On master difficulty, you may as well try throwing hot butter in the eyes of your enemies. The only master level destruction spell I found ANY use for at all was the lightning cast for blowing dead bodies way across the ground which I find horribly amusing (the range is nice). Other than that, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to use these spells over the expert level spells (1 second cast, impact, can move while you cast). So in all, the full caster class is severely lacking in it's current state. It relies too heavily on too many variables AND STILL doesn't out-perform physical based attackers in efficiency OR damage throughput. With a destruction potion on, I can shoot an ancient dragon with lightning storm (master level destro spell) at point blank range, and still take around 10 seconds of solid contact before it died (not including summons/followers having to distract it), where as my level 56 One-hander breton can down an ancient dragon in 3-5 seconds with no followers (and didn't spend 3-5 seconds building up the charge)and no interrupts.

This setup is only fun, in the idea that it is grievously challenging on any fight containing more than 1 target.
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All things considered, Mages are in a horrible state at the moment. A bunch of people may enjoy playing a mage specifically for the challenge of doing so, but that does not make it an effective class as they will still have to hide behind summons or followers during ALL the difficult encounters of the game (on master difficulty).

Sorry this turned into more of a rant, but I'd love to get some feedback on classes everyone else uses and possibly their take on mages. Meanwhile, I will now start my Archer/stealth class

Happy Hunting everyone!

Use a dremora lord, preferably. I sort of stopped reading when you said that.

Also, you said you can only stun-lock one target. Try again. Staff of chain lightning, at least on my profile, continuously staggers. I was able to lock up and kill an entire fort on enemies without a scratch. Factor in the Black Star, and mages can't be hurt. The only problems I've encountered were Orchendor, who is completely magic immune, and Tsun, who was stagger immune and had high movement speed, so he took me by surprise when I couldn't stagger him.

I agree that Master level spells are pathetic for their mana cost and the fact that you have to quest for them.

You are not alone. Rants like this were the reason I made the http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2275# mod. It's still a work in progress, and I focused on the destruction tree (most complained about) first, followed by alteration (second most complained about) second. I can't say it fixes everything yet (it's still a work in progress and I'm still tweaking and adjusting to try to get everything about right) but it sure has made playing as a mage a lot more fun for me.

I should have clarified...without impact, you'll have to fall on another tree or else you're dead (on master difficulty). Perhaps if you had kept reading you would have caught when I said "the full caster class is severely lacking in it's current state. It relies too heavily on too many variables AND STILL doesn't out-perform physical based attackers in efficiency OR damage throughput." As that was the main thing I was pushing.

Mages are supposed to be squishy, I know that...but why is the usual Glass cannon class now a glass water-pistol? Mages don't come close to the damage 1 or 2 handers can throw out, yet they have more survivability. You may have found a Mage setup that works for you, but it STILL REQUIRES ASSISTANCE from either impact or followers/summons to work.

@mysty
Thank you very much for posting that, I will be giving that a run over the next couple days. Wonderful idea!