SureAI

Been playing on Adept and have repeatedly gotten my ass handed to me by spiders, skeletons or anything with a teeny bit of elite status i.e. bear trolls elementals. (Yes I am terrible at this game)

I tried bow 1h 2h and spells in the starting area and seem to struggle with combat sustainability either through health (while melee) mana (as caster) and face difficulty even kiting the general spiders. Anyone got a good solid all around build to tide me through my first play-through while I "get good"?

On lower levels your character is pretty weak, no matter what fighting style you use, so the build isn't all that important. In my experience fire spells are quite effective, even if you don't invest in mana. Other than that, if your health gets to low, run! People often try to kill their opponent no matter what and end up dead. If you get out of combat range, you can regenerate your health (food) and come back to finish your enemy. Don't try that with trolls though, unlike other enemy types they regenerate their health quite fast.

Yeah your pretty good with anything you want ^.^. Generic healing spells kind of suck and aren't worth it if you aren't specialized in it.

this might help:
thread

I'm playing blind for the first time, and as a 100% mage it is too easy... in Master difficulty. I really dont understand whyeverybody sees it hard. I'm not bragging about beeing a good player. Just running back while I fire magic destroyes everything without beeing touched. My summons even destroy everything. I'm level 7 arriving at Ark now.

I'll answer myself. I just tried to load a level 3 save before I went mage, and went mele. Impossible to play it at Master how I am playing my mage. Even adept is harder than Master difficulty mage.

Truth is that as a level 10 with shield melee specialisation build tree(sorry cant remember name) i am having difficulties even with lowlvl quests. I recently crafted steel sword with 10 dmg, and did not find any better one-handed weapon so far. Irony is that nonspeced fire spells is way more effective on melee range than using a shield and sword. Hopefully ill find better weapon soon. Im just exploring Ark surroundings.. I would say that mages and rogues with bow have way better time than me..

Im pure elementalist dual casting lighting spells. Killing everything easily on Master difficulty. I think this spec is the most powerful, I even regret going this way since no challenge.

Advice to developers. Tune down dual casting multipliers and values of direct dmg spells

I made a Sinistrope-Infiltrator. (THIS POST MIGHT BE CONSTRUED AS SPOILERS!!) But when I started, I went into Vagrant first. That way, you have stealth (which gives you a great heads up for everything but wolves) and you can use your stealth focus to get closer (especially with enemy archers) - then, the vagrant gives light armor and potion use bonuses. Sinistrope will also give you dual death rays and reduces the health cost on them, and with focus activated and a skeleton buddy up - I kill things pretty fast with a good level of survivability. It also lets you eat the corpses you make to regain health, mana, and stamina. While early on, you will need the potions to avoid dying (Ive used 3 ambrosias so far) - when you get good at stealth/pet/rays of death - you dont need healing during the battle as much. I also put my points into Light Armor, Sneak, Archery, and one handed at first - though I have to say power attacks with two handed weapons is the bomb sometimes. I'm not going to put any points in Two Handed though, as I feel its more of a beginner advantage that can be outdone by the Sinistrope and Infiltrator trees. Also, handicraft is good to get to 26 by around level 10-12, and once you get past level 4-6 you want to increase entropy and psionics. You can probably do just entropy if you dont have the funds to do both, as I dont use the fear spell I have much. But its a good panic button, hahaha get it? Panic button? Hahahaha.

{EDIT} Oh yeah, at the very start - the life absorption spell combined with a one hand weapon does really good with the above vagrant build. It becomes less useful after 3rd or 4th, but you can zzzzap them with life absorption while backtracking and by the time mana runs out, you can usually finish off whats left with your 1h weapon. After 3rd or 4th, I recommend swapping to a 2h weapon to finish things off like trolls and what have you. Around 5th or 6th, start using summons. I guess you can also do that earlier but a beginner is better off keeping the tactics simple at first.

rogue with bow (master difficulty)... all money invested to archery, important skills: zoom, slow time when zooming and faster mooving with bow, 30% draw faster, sneak attack 2,5x with bow

first few levels i used everything 1h, 2h, bow, all types of armor

mage is propably stronger, but i dont have any problem with *** quests