Unfortunately, despite all of the "play your way" and "build your character how you want" jazz, playing a true hybrid character in this game is about as ineffective and inefficient as you can get. Because of the way stats, attributes, and bonuses work, you will almost never perform as well as someone focused on either magic or physical damage when you're using a hybrid build.

There's really two ways you can go:
1. Become a dedicated spellcaster, rely on your spells and class abilities for the majority of your damage output, and use stamina as a secondary/defensive/utility resource.
or
2. Become a dedicated physical fighter, rely on your weapon and attacks for the majority of your damage output, and use magicka and your class skills for defense and utility.

The problem is that the second path, which works better in most cases, doesnt work so well for sorcerors. Too many of the sorceror class abilities are based entirely on magicka (whereas a lot of abilities for other classes, despite using magicka, can significantly improve your weapon attacks and physical damage).

As an example, I run two handed on my nightblade, and am geared for medium armor and mostly weapon-oriented attacks. However, my class abilities let me boost my damage via power extraction, or I can use shadowy disguise to guarantee critical hits on my weapon swings, or I can use ambush to boost the damage of my next 2h attack, or I can reduce enemy armor with mark target to make my sword hit harder.

For a sorceror, you're limited mostly to Surge as your one redeeming class ability. If you go with power surge, you'll get a 20% boost to both weapon and spell damage while the buff is active, which can help make up for the lack of focus a hybrid build has. Alternatively, you can use pets for supplemental damage, since the drain on your magicka pool wont really matter if you're not casting spells all that often.


As far as your attributes go, I would say to focus primarily on stamina and secondarily on health. I tend to split my points fairly evenly between two stats (the aformentioned nightblade runs a 50/50 split between health and stamina with the 1 extra point in health.) If you find yourself needing more magicka, you can get it through enchantments and potions.

Thank you for the information so far. I feared that it would be this way, what with being stuck to certain undefined sets of weapons and skills instead being free to do what you want.

A few more questions:
How good is Mage's Fury? I used it a lot at first, but it doesn't seem all that great now.
Should I use both summons, or just one (or none)? It seems like a waste of ability slots to put them on both bars, or Magicka to keep re-summoning them.
Does Surge (or either of its morphs) or Momentum increase the power of Overload?
Does Surge stack with Momentum?
How good is Critical Charge?
Is Conjured Ward useful?

Thanks again.

Looking here on the possibly-outdated wiki, it says Momentum heals every 2 seconds, and when morphed, either costs less and removes snares or heals when the effect ends. It also lasts longer. On the other hand, Surge gives heals with crits, and when morphed, either buffs spell damage as well or gives more crit healing. I'm not too fond of criticals, and even if it might be the right way to go when it comes to DPS I don't think I will get more crit chance. Given this, should I go with Power Surge (for the extra spell damage, which I assume will boosts abilities like Liquid Lightning and Thundering Presence) or go for the longer-lasting Momentum?

It's a shame that they don't stack. Might be OP, but it gives viability to the freedom they advertise.