Ah yes I haven't looked at the Mabigash (or however its spelled lol) in a while. Honestly I was a bit surprised that apparently none of the big names in character building had caught onto that yet, but I guess I was wrong. And yes, stacking too many is pretty insane :D

I'm sure Ignite can be dual-cast as well, and in fact one of my earlier concepts for this build involved taking the Impact perk, but once I actually got in-game and got my feet wet I found it totally unnecessary (though there's nothing stopping you from doing it if you want). Bear in mind that Ignites stack, so you could get practically the same damage by casting it twice, once with each hand, for better magicka efficiency. I know that Ignite is super-efficient as is, but without any cost-reducing gear you learn to take what you can get with this build magicka-wise.

And you read my mind with the exploding wolf familiars, again it was another concept that I started out with. The extra range is absolutely insane, in fact I was able to conjure flaming familiars so far that I doubt they would even render on the PS3 (I recently crossed over to the dark side and got a gaming PC. Console players don't hate me :P)  The only reason that I didn't incorporate this in the build is because at such ranges they become pretty novelty, at higher levels the damage is insignificant and the distance is too great to reliably use destruction spells.  But they're definitely fun to play around with, so please, have at it :)

And for the jumping in shallow water part, its a bit unpredictable at times. Your feet actually do go beneath the surface a few inches which isn't normally a huge deal, but you might want to be cautious with it. There were a few exceptionally shallow bodies of water that I still took damage in (like I remember jumping off the Netch outside of Tel Mithryn into a stream and still took damage)  So if its at least 2 or 3 feet deep you should be fine, but be careful.

And I used to agree with the dislike for builds based on certain items, but lately I've found that they can make for some very unique builds. I mean, I doubt bethesda would have made Ahzidal's relics if they didn't want them to be used.

EDIT: Oh and I was reading a thread earlier that had a few people saying that the Dawnguard Rune Hammer is indeed affected by Ahzidal's helm, so I can see some interesting tactics coming from that as well.

Yeah its very strange how those boosts react with one another, I totally was not expecting to be able to boost the Aspect of Terror boost by 50% with the Augmented Flames perk as well. That would be an interesting thing to look into, in fact I was thinking that if this build got popular enough I might do a level 81 version incorporating a bit of Alchemy to mix things up a bit. It might be a bit difficult to test, and I won't have much free time until this weekend, but its definitely worth looking into.

Does anyone happen to know the actual boost from the helm? Eg: dremora has a base range of 24 feet. With the summoner perks it increases to 48 & 72 feet. Does the helm add another 100% bost to the base amount thus acting like an additional perk, or does it boost the perks as well? I'll check these myself later when I can, just wondering if you happen to know. As for casting ignite with both hands I've always found it difficult to hit targets at any range. You can aim a dual casted shot with ease but when you shoot two bolts with both hands they tend to head in different directions as the distance increases. Not an issue fighting large enemies but I'm thinking I might try this as a stealth mage so accuracy at range is a premium.

Hah thanks, I admit I didn't do much aesthetic-wise as the build basically does it for me, but I agree on the male vs. female version. The male version just screams "barbarian" and it was hard for me to picture a character looking like that being a sneaky mage. The female version looks much more appropriate.

Forgot to mention: The dawnguard hammer has a ridiculous exploit in that you can cast the fire rune while invisible and it doesn't break your invisibility (nor cause noise). With helm boosting distance it might be an interesting niche weapon for a twohanded assassin/stealth build (a certain stealth kitty build in mind here).

Do you play in 1st person or 3rd person? Because if you play in 3rd I totally agree with magic casting, it is horribly inaccurate. If you're struggling in 1 st person, well I haven't had many issues with that but some people have, it just takes some getting used to I suppose. And as for the actual range boost its a bit hard to get exact numbers but when I did comparisons the boost did seem to be around 25%, which makes sense.

Also it should be noted that a few summons aren't affected by Ahzidal's helm (but are affected by summoner perks...strange). The only two I've seen so far are the Seeker and the Ash Spawn. Its actually a bit convenient at times, not being affected means they cost 25% less magicka than they would otherwise. Very useful in close-combat situations.

Those are some interesting ideas, I honestly haven't thought about that hammer much. In hindsight, that might have been a good addition to this build... but if you're planning on creating a build with that I won't steal your idea:) it is interesting to think about though.

I suffer from motion sickness and can't play in 1st, makes me sick. In 3rd person non dual casting is rubbish lol Some of those new dragonborn summons are really odd. Some of them don't actually count to your summon total so you can cast two dremoras plus an additional seeker (I think seeker is one of them)

Ah that sucks, well for your character dual-casting might be a must-have then. For the most part I like the 3rd person animations in skyrim, but I agree that they're pretty much rubbish for mages.

EDIT: Just saw that part about the seeker. I knew that Ash Guardians didn't apply to your summoning limit, but I didn't think about the others... I'll need to do some testing later.