Out of curiosity, what level were you? Once you get 40+ as a mage IN COMPARISON to everything else, you have a much much harder time, in other words : Underpowered. Wether enchanting is a must or not, i would say yes, others may disagree. But if I spam the strongest destruction spells on a single opponent for about 20 seconds straight they die. If I play my warrior I 1 shot master difficulty mobs, and even bosses with 1h swords, 1h axes, and bow. There should be some changes in magic, but not making the spells twice as strong or anything, I love playing as a pure destruction mage because its basically putting another difficulty level on top of Master, actually using tactics in a fight is what makes it fun. Not just randomly slashing your way through enemies. Honestly I think magic is fine. On master difficulty if magicka didn't run out during a fight then I would be surprised. If you're playing on master it should take more skill than spamming a single spell to defeat an opponent. If you're also willing to use exploits (100 smithing with iron daggers, 0% mana cost per spell, etc) then you are only making the game more boring for yourself. Isn't the reason you play master difficulty to challenge yourself and have fun? Rather than trying to turn Master difficulty into Normal difficulty, just play as if you normally would and don't look for exploits and have fun. I currently have a mage at level 16 on master difficulty and it is quite challenging, but I manage to keep on going. No exploits here. I do think melee is over powered though, from my experience. I played up to level 56 on master difficulty with one-handed dual weapons. I had 112 damage on each of my legendary daedric swords and they were very powerful, especially when combined with elemental fury (didn't enchant them because of this). I didn't want to buff my weapons too much with smithing bonuses. I could kill a lot faster with my swords than with my bow. My bow obviously had other advantages, so maybe it's balanced with archery. I never used companions either since it kind of ruined it for me on master. They basically tanked all the damage while I did DPS. Made it too easy.