Stealth. I always like a nice warrior / thief build, because you get the best of both worlds; sneak in and kill the leader with a sneak attack, then go toe-to-toe with the simpletons.
If magic had different / better mechanics, it would triumph. A magic thief would be badass, but something other than illusion. If you could "force" someone to be your minion without having to kill them, like an NPC, it would be a different story. Imagine if you could jedi mind trick Jarls to go on adventures with you. The spell could be "make someone your follower for XXX seconds."
Being in the military changed my view on game-play, I generally play an assassin and will scout out the area and eliminate any stragglers that I can without being noticed. Then I will try to take out the rest in small engagements from a distance, then will sneak around and get in close and go berserk on the rest of the enemies.
I'd have to say a pure mage with a dash of sneaking just so I can scout and see what i'm up against and plan correctly. I also wear mostly robes with heavy armor boots and gauntlets just for that extra bit of defence. My usual set up is destruction, conjuration, and a bit of illusion.
Well i Tend to Try to go In the Middle i like Going like a Spellblade or a Arcane Bugler Or Sneaky Warrior But i Tend to use more magic then anything else I love playing as a Bugler and a mage i don't play much of warrior i think its me playing a Knight in oblivion way to much but other then that i will play all of them and all of them can be fun if set up well
I have different characters for each style, because I enjoy them all to an extent and find that each is a nice break from the other, but I found a nice combination of stealth and warrior type gameplay in my Nord character, Brearth.
He's what I constantly refer to as an ambush predator (mostly because that sounded cool in my head one time so I became too lazy to find other ways of describing it), basically covering as much distance between himself and his target(s) by sneaking as possible before charging the rest of the way to massacre them with his shield and war axe combo.
It's a very fun character. In fact I may have to see if there's a build similar to this one, and if not, make one.