I just started over today because of NPC level scaling. I ran into a master necro today and for the life of me I could not kill her. She kept running back and healing and blasting the crap out of me. Now granted it may of been my fault because of my build I was all over the place with talent points. But I still didn't think she should have been so hard.

My build was a 55 warrior with light armor, this time I am going for pure DPS. I am making a dual weild rogue and I am going to put all my talent points into dps and armor rating. And once they are maxed I will branch out into other things. There is no way I am going to take a chance of not being able to kill a master mob again.

Greg

I had the same problem spending my talent points in stupid ways on my first character and every semi-major or difficult enemy encounter was a complete nightmare. I'd spend 20 minutes on Draugr Deathlords, it was so ridiculously awful. So yeah, you gotta be smart with those.

Also, the main thing with offense-minded builds is to put points into the first perk that increases weapon damage by x % each time it's available (Archery -> Overdraw, Two Handed -> Barbarian, etc.) If you're sneaking around, then you need to also prioritize Stealth, That sort of thing. I had the mindset that more different perks was better but it was really a handicap.

When fighting casters, you want high magic resistance. You can get it from Alteration perks, certain standing stones, enchantments, or potions, and it will make their elemental bolt-spam a lot less of a pain to deal with. As for their heal-spam, you need either a stronger weapon to out-damage it or a means of keeping them from using it in the first place (stagger-lock, for example).

More generally, you want a more focused build, especially in the low levels; perk a combat skill early on, so that it stays competitive, as well as at least one supporting skill (armor, smithing, etc.) to prop it up during tougher fights. Above all, don't be afraid to run away and come back when better equipped, as there are some opponents (such as boss-class casters) that you simply won't be able to beat at low levels, even with potion spam, unless you get insanely lucky.

Not much you can do at L55, but my solution to the problem is to work up conjuration. That way I can send in atronach to distract the foe while I snipe from afar. It may take a few atronach cycles, but in the end, this way I can deal with pretty much anything.

Phooey. Everything drops to an arrow from the darkness. If it manages to live through the first one, back off, add some poison, sneak up and shoot again.

This is exactly how a Player Mage would fight a melee character. Run Backwards away from the attacker, while spamming spells and healing appropriately.

I fail to see the issue, all dedicated Mage NPCs do this, some are just really weak.