Using SL defeat with a mage build?

[johnhamm]

For context, I play as a male character with ideally 3 female followers. I use follower slavery mod and captive followers for a lot of the gameplay loop, basically get defeated playing normally and then rescue the followers. Any time I use a male character I always go melee because I don't think magic works very well with this style of play. I always find that I spend a lot of time running around while my magicka regens, as opposed to getting right in there with a melee build and taking the win or the loss. Problem is, magic is actually my favourite play style lol. Does anyone play in a similar style as a mage? How is it? Any tips or extra mods you'd recommend for it? I have a bunch of spell adding mods, and I play with skyRe, but any confirmation that it isn't a super painful experience would be welcome!

[kamoewarrior]

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/7270

[Whollupwhozit]

My Mage centric modlist currently:

• Has significantly more starting magicka of 250, but little to no mana regen
• Edited Magicka potion for providing more magicka recovery while reasonably increase the cost (make sure to toggle off auto-calc flag on magicka potions)
• Use significantly-edited Food Overhaul mod so basic snacks provide small hp + magicka restoration while full-course meal grants about 6 in-game hour buffs
• Also use SL Trigger so if my PC's running low on supplies I can restore it by... "sensual" means
• I use another Ordinator as perk overhaul so this'll be irrelevant to you, but early-ish Alteration perk make all novice spell free to cast (personally nerfed to only 90% cost reduction)

Even with all that, I still use some bit of stealth archery whenever I get bored or I'm fighting ridiculous odds.