User blog comment:Ype4life/My battlemage build/@comment-4443682-20120619060724

I found pretty good success by dumping ALL my Magicka/Health/Stamina points into Magicka and leaving my Health and Stamina at 100. In order to survive long enough to develop my magic skills, I concentrated on my archery & stealth skills early on in order to sneak attack targets before they know I'm around. My first follower was the archer, Faendal, so we'd turn bad guys into pincushions before they could get to us, although initially I had to park him away from powerful enemies, and then sneak back, snipe and run, wearing them down, until eventually my archery & sneak skills were such that I could kill with a single shot (3x bonus for hitting without detection). Aura Whisper was a huge help getting the drop on enemies before they knew where I was. When I got the Sanguine Rose we'd send the Dremora in as a distraction once they figured out we were there. Glass-smithing proved highly profitable, allowing me to buy all the smiths' raw materials, stockpile them, then improve the weapons and armor looted from our victims, er, defeated foes. Alchemy was an easy way to make money because the potions are hugely more valuable than their ingredients. You spend your first $1000 on a horse, because carrying capacity is quickly exhausted when you loot weapons and armor from the dead.