YES I KNOW WE HAVE LOTS AND LOTS O' DESTRUCTION THREADS GOING ON RIGHT NOW.

Anyways, I'm level 12. I wear heavy armor and focus most of my combat on combos of destruction magic and single-handed.

Despite this, bears and other burly beasts slaughter me in combat. A few hits and I'm down.

NOW. Question:

Is this because I'm only level 12

OR

is it because I'm not concentrating on ONLY melee or ONLY magic?

I really thought it'd be fun to be able to be proficient at both swordplay and fireballs, but I'm starting to think that wasn't a good idea. Should I just drop destruction and focus on my hacking and slashing? I know I can still level up destro, but I'm talking about raising Health over Magicka and related perks.

Bears and cats and trolls are relatively strong opponents.


This is why in real life people don't go around fighting bears and cats and....trolls?

Both?

You do need to update your spells whenever you get the chance and use the best available. The beasts do kill every single one of us at that level, nothing special about that

You can go both ways, and easily. Putting points into HP early on is probably the smartest thing to do, but eventually you can start spending points into magicka increase.

Seems normal to me, as a pure warrior I was getting pwned by all those beasts at lower levels.

I haven't run into any bears yet, but I'm only level 9 or 10 and I'm taking down wolves pretty easily, even three at a time. The saber-toothed cats or whatever take a bit more thumping and my health is usually down about half when I'm done, but I've never been afraid they'd kill me. I'm playing a heavy armor, war axe and shield type of guy. No enchanted armor, but an enchanted axe.

Lots of people seem to be complaining that destruction magic isn't as potent as hand-to-hand, but I couldn't really say for sure myself.

Yesss... yes you are .

my fight with a frost troll ended up being more difficult and epic than fighting mirmulnir

Other video games totally undervalue the power of a Bear or Wild Cats.

In real life, those animals can tear you to shreds.

I'm glad Skyrim gives respect to those animals.

So far I've got the impression that Snow Trolls and Ice/Snow Bears seem to be more dangerous than dragons - and that's playing with melee characters.

Sounds normal to me.

I'm level 22 right now, and if one of those big cats catches me when I'm not ready for him...they kill me in about 2-3 hits. svckers are mean.

However, if I know they are there, I can defeat them without much trouble.

-Train in block and use a sheild, invest perks in block
-Train in heavy armor and invest in heavy armor
-Use poisons and spells to slow down large enemies
-Attack difficult enemies from range

I was getting mauled aswell at a few levels below that as a pure warrior, so I guess as a sort of hybid magic/warrior it would be a bit harder - it gets easier though, I'm level 30 now and maul everything in my path, the lower levels were definetly more challenging than 20+

I was getting destroyed by all those creatures at level 10-15. Now, I'm level 20, and I can take them on and usually win... as long as I'm careful, and they don't catch me by surprise.

I was level 15 and I was a warrior, I used three scrolls, atleast seven shouts, all my magic, all my health potions, and yet I still got two shotted. It is very hard for some reason :/

this is good, i agree

if you hit a bear with an axe in real life, guaranteed it would continue to attack you and probably win

Its highly important you:

A: Carry lots n lots of HP potions.

B: Use restoration magic.

C: Get yourself a shield.

If none of these things apply to you, then you could always turn down the difficulty, or just avoid those enemies until you level higher.

Make sure your weapons and armor are upgraded as well.

You're at the end of that, to be honest. Hiring a henchman helps for sure, but around level 14-16 you start beating them down...minus the trolls. They are just tough as nails. I agree with the above posts though: put points into hp early on and keep your armor / weapons / spells up to date. Lastly, put your next few points into heavy armor. Juggernaut is a huge boost with 3 points into it. Increase the value of heavy armor by 60%?!?!?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!????

Fight a bear or sabertooth tiger in real life and you would get the same result. Its realistic.

forest trolls are level 14
frost trolls are level 22
bears are level 12
cave bears are level 16
snow bears are level 20

regardless of your level.

It's probably because your heavy armor skill is low. I expect that it's very likely that most trash enemies you annihilate -- this means they don't hit you, and you don't end up building much HA skill.

Also: those enemies are pretty dangerous in general and they do hit pretty hard. I recommend dodging more and throwing in some cc.

Also: you want to invest 0 level upgrades into stamina. While you need to split off a good chunk of stat upgrades to magicka to use better spells, you'll also want HP. So, no stam.

Yes, yes you should.

At level 12 the only one of those three oponents you'll even stand a chance against would be the kitties.

...Are bears supposed to maul you? Really? It's a [censored] bear... mauling is kinda what they do.

Thanks for all the replies! Especially the ones regarding stat distribution, that's a big help.

I've been upping stamina so that I could squeeze in more power attacks. But I guess those attacks are useless if I can't survive long enough to use them, huh?

Thanks again for the reassurance. I guess I'll just keep climbing to level 20+ and see how things go from there.

I haven't really played Melee, but I think if I were, at low levels when my armor can't yet keep me alive against them, and I (it sounds like) can't almost instantly kill them with a good power attack-finishing move combo or anything like that, I think I'd probably either try to kite those critters - hitting them with a destro spell every few seconds then sprinting out of range, or use the Focused Fury dragon shout to stun/knock down the critter and beat on it with my sword while it can't fight back. I might also try getting a companion to help me fight.

The game gives you a number of tools, if the tools and strategies you're currently employing don't work for a particular enemy, try different abilities or tactics. I think that *eventually* a spellsword/battlemage type character would be quite effective against those creatures, and you could probably do a more direct attack then, but at level 12, not so much.

try getting butt pummeled by a frost troll as your trying to get to High Hrothgar at level 6 D= not fun - lol, but i love the challenge, it's perfect really. If it were anything else, we'd all be like "wahh - it's too easy :'( "