I've been playing on the default difficulty (my character is around level 20 right now), and there have been WAY too many times where I've rolled into a dungeon, chewed through most of the dudes, and then ran into a big boss dude who I had no hope of beating. At first I would say "I'll come back later, this is probably just not the place for me", but it's happened so many times that I've started to just turn the difficulty down to get the cool loot. It feels like the game is punishing me for exploring when this happens.

I have not had that at all. Sure, there is very inconsistent difficulty, but I don't think that's an error, it's a choice. There is nothing in the game you can't kill, you just have to be persistent. Find a different way of taking on whatever enemy is troubling you.

My UNARMED KHAJIITORWHATEVERWASTHENAMEOFTHETIGERLOOKINGUYS YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH! died a few times, thanks to inconsistent difficulty, and my lack of tactic. You don't need tactics when you can punch.

This has only happened to me a few times. It sucks, but you can usually get through those situations by breaking the AI. Let me give you a few examples. One time, I had to kite a Draugr Lord around a table while shooting him with arrows. On another occasion, I had to fight a dwarven centurion and a mage dude. I managed to kill the mage dude pretty easily, but i had to kite the giant robot centurion around a stone pillar and down a few hallways while shooting him with arrows. Sucks that you have to do that sometimes but the game is so good it almost doesnt matter imo.

As a pure, squishy mage I've had some harder bosses, but I've managed to overcome them all (level 21ish right now). My companion is useful in these cases, as she takes on aggro and I keep healing her while taking pot shots at the boss. What kind of character are you using?

my sneaky archer oneshots everthing. also, i have a dagger with instant kill proc.

but in reality i envy you because the combat got really boring.

When that happens to me I just keep trying until I can kill the guy. Works most of the time. Only had to run away once when there were 2 really tough enemies at once.

That's the thing about boss battles, they're hard. Tank and spank isn't always the solution, and in fact sometimes kiting is completely necessary. Trash mobs are supposed to be fodder and bosses are supposed to be difficult : / As Gary Whitta would say, "Use more skill." Maybe even, "Shoot that guy."

Its the only part of the game I honestly don't like. One or 2 hitting everyone in a dungeon then being instakilled from across the room by one super mage guy is more than a little lame.

@Subjugation: It's not that I need to take my time, it's that they will literally take me down in two to three hits. Dragons are a cakewalk compared to a lot of the bosses I've faced.

A similar thing happened to me. i hit this boss mage that also had like 2 really strong draugr thingies with it too and it had so many wards I just couldn't kill it and was getting killed in seconds. I decided I didn't want to come back later so I hit that ~ key, typed tgm, killed it, then un-tgmed and that was that.

@mosdl said:

As a pure, squishy mage I've had some harder bosses, but I've managed to overcome them all (level 21ish right now). My companion is useful in these cases, as she takes on aggro and I keep healing her while taking pot shots at the boss. What kind of character are you using?

Does a squishy mage cast gelatinous cube magic?

@bwheeeler: What is your character like? Armor, points dropped into health, etc.

@Brendan said:

@mosdl said:

As a pure, squishy mage I've had some harder bosses, but I've managed to overcome them all (level 21ish right now). My companion is useful in these cases, as she takes on aggro and I keep healing her while taking pot shots at the boss. What kind of character are you using?

Does a squishy mage cast gelatinous cube magic?

I know mine does. All over the place.

As a min-maxed sword and shield tank, i must say this game is terribly easy. I've bumped up the difficulty to expert and started leveling 2 handed weapons after my blocking and one handed got to 100 and it's still a breeze. I think i died like 3 times in 70ish hours. Game is pretty easy for me.

There was one boss fight I had to reload about 30 times, but otherwise everything's been pretty consistent.

@AlisterCat:I think inconsistant comes from the huge number of perks that dramatically alter your fights.They have to find a way to still make enemies tough even after you can do 70% more damage with a bow or smith armor that is 50% better than normal.

I've been playing a mage up to level 23 and find if I kite and put down runes then I usually take down the shittier melee bosses. If I'm fighting a really tough mage boss I use a lightning staff so that the can't use magic as much. Lighning dmg also takes away some of the boss' magicka.

I'm just starting to play a melee character now and seeing that mages will probably be difficult for me to beat. That is why I intend to get into enchanting again and give all my armour resistances. You might want to do the same. Also, getting into alchemy is good. You'll be able to make a nice bit of change and you'll be able to make a lot of resistance potions.

there have been WAY too many times where I've rolled into a dungeon, chewed through most of the dudes, and then ran into a big boss dude who I had no hope of beating. At first I would say "I'll come back later, this is probably just not the place for me", but it's happened so many times

@IzzyGraze said:

Lighning dmg also takes away some of the boss' magicka.

40 hours in and I had no idea that lighting does that.

Frost drains stamina and lightning drains mana.

Kiting and exploiting geometry are legitimate tactics in Elder Scrolls games :P

Then there is also the fact that you are probably in a higher level dungeon. I found myself struggling a few times in areas I knew I shouldn't be in yet.

I've only had serious trouble a few times. The worst was when I walked in to Shimmermist Cave as part of a radiant Companions quest at level 10. The falmer in the cave gave me trouble enough, died many times on the group of Chaurus, then finally decided to gtfo after I tried the boss and his enormous automaton about 10 times. Lydia kept dying as well against the Chaurus' so I told her to go home.

I looked around and found a wiki that recommended you be at lv 19 before entering there, so I'm doing some other things before going back. I don't want to waste all of my potions and scrolls on one quest.

I also got owned by a bunch of Ice Wraiths on my way to go kill some bandits near Winterhold and am staying away from that area until I'm a bit higher level and I've got a few more perks in armor.

I had a period with my 2-handed hammer-swinging light armor main, where I was feeling like I was in an awkward place on the levelling table, and getting crazy strong boss spawns, melee or magic. I gained a few more levels, took a perk or two in 'do more damage w/ 2h weapons', improved my light armor though blacksmithing, and everything evened-out difficulty-wise.

I had literally no problem with difficulty in this game, I actually thought it was very easy. I only died 3 times out of the 75 hours I played my main guy. Two of which where within 5 hours of when I playing. On default difficulty.

This happens to me ALL THE TIME.

No, there are boss dudes that are hard but none that I couldn't beat.

Never had that much of a problem with boss battles. Sure, I died, but I learned to play better.

I have a bit of trouble with the difficulty, but I would attribute that mostly to the fact that my guy is specced all over the place with several avenues of focus. Plus, I'm an inept tactician, so that doesn't help matters.

I happily knocked the difficulty down to Apprentice. No shame about it. Still exploring and having challenges fighting dragons and Dragon Priests. It feels right for my play style. Maybe I'll go back with another character and try Adept again with a narrower focus, but I'm not too worried about it.

Try using the slow time shout if you have it

shout, circle the boss while attacking him, wait for cooldown

-rinse,repeat

Hit them with a stick and run away. Very few MOB's can or will heal so you can beat pretty much all of them with attrition tactics. Don't waste your stamina fighting, and hide when you run away. Ranged attacks or bleed effects make this easier.

As long as I have time to prepare for an encounter I usually have no problems.

My battlemage is getting destroyed by upper level mage bosses. I can kite the melee dudes, but it seems like the mages are causing me problems. It's frustrating, yeah.

Well I had that happen to me on the last level of the story mission with those goddamn Draugr's....  I also saw my first dragon priest so I tried to kill him....  Didnt work out too well

My favorite cheese in the mid-level doldrums was using a fully charged "marked for death" shout and then backpedaling while shooting arrows. Worked every time. Yeah, there's a weird awkward phase when you get close to level 30 where everything just gets incredibly hard to deal with and wandering out in the wilderness is a death sentence. You gotta power through, get those levels up, and be a cheesy bastard. Once you hit 40 or so, the game actually gets insanely easy again and not very exciting. I almost miss all those near-death experiences with polar bears... almost.

Bring a follower?
 
They pull a lot of aggro for you and do good damage if you get them some gear.

Use more skill...

And a bow.

Nah,i built a God like character, now i just kill everything.

I liked what Greg Kasavin did at one point in a spider dungeon fighting a boss. He backed into a narrow section the big spider couldn't fit into and repeatably hacked it. He very clearly said he was not above cheesing if nothing else worked..and I have done something like that so many times in the past...seems part of gaming.

Its mostly decent, but some places I run through oneshotting everyone only to be oneshotted myself by the boss mob...bit silly, but its a thing I can accept.

I haven't met a boss I couldn't beat in 2-3 tries with careful application of potions/poisons, scrolls, shouts, and the right tactics. Double check your inventory if you're in a tight spot.

The most useful item I carry with me is by far the Sanguine Rose staff that you get by

Being able to summon a tank at will is pretty handy as a non-caster. If you do happen to be a mage with a respectable mana pool, consider training up to be able to summon atronochs.

@Subjugation: It's not that I need to take my time, it's that they will literally take me down in two to three hits. Dragons are a cakewalk compared to a lot of the bosses I've faced.

i hear you... ive been trying expert as anewbie and the first boss i came across (giant spider and drauger overlord) and i had too use every potion plus dip into scrolls and even my mana to burn him down a little bit so i could kill him. ended up with like 14 health as i slammed my last few arrows into him...

@Cathryn said:

I've only had serious trouble a few times. The worst was when I walked in to Shimmermist Cave as part of a radiant Companions quest at level 10. The falmer in the cave gave me trouble enough, died many times on the group of Chaurus, then finally decided to gtfo after I tried the boss and his enormous automaton about 10 times. Lydia kept dying as well against the Chaurus' so I told her to go home.

I looked around and found a wiki that recommended you be at lv 19 before entering there, so I'm doing some other things before going back. I don't want to waste all of my potions and scrolls on one quest.

I also got owned by a bunch of Ice Wraiths on my way to go kill some bandits near Winterhold and am staying away from that area until I'm a bit higher level and I've got a few more perks in armor.

I did Shimmermist pretty early on, before lvl10 I think. I ran it backwards, since you can get through the waterfall at the start if you do a little jumping. From that vantage point, I could take potshots at the falmer and the automaton, they kept running to check the tunnel, but never came far enough to spot me.

If I can't do that, then I usually have to figure something else out. Inside Azura's star I had to use invisibility potions, in Mzulft against the overseer I had to keep running away and let my magicka regen and when I had to kill 2 sabertooths in a row I killed the first with a lot of potions and poisons and then resurrected him so he helped me kill his buddy.

So far I haven't found a situation that I couldn't overcome by trying different things until something worked.

@Dunchad said:

@Cathryn said:

So far I haven't found a situation that I couldn't overcome by trying different things until something worked.

This. I'm playing a tank, but I stumbled over a tower with just mages, and I went stealth all the way through with an ebony bow. As long they don't see you, their magic isn't up and they go down FAST (especially if you coat your bow in poison and/or enchant it). And for dragon priests I'd recommend a companion or some heavy anti magic enchantments on gear and/or posions that take away magic pluss potions that adds resist.

@bwheeeler: Most people complained that the scaling was a problem in Oblivion--you could always do all things at all levels. As you got stronger, so did the enemies, and they were never stronger than you. Changing to this system was probably the number one request from the fanbase, so it isn't a design oversight or mis-step.

@mosdl said:

@IzzyGraze said:

Lighning dmg also takes away some of the boss' magicka.

40 hours in and I had no idea that lighting does that.

Really? Destruction is split into 3 elements for a reason: they do 3 different things. Fire does raw damage, ice drains stamina, and lightning drains magicka.

@Cronus42 said:

Its the only part of the game I honestly don't like. One or 2 hitting everyone in a dungeon then being instakilled from across the room by one super mage guy is more than a little lame.

The fodder in dungeons should be mostly appropriate to your level. At level 40, you'll see a couple on-shot draugrs, a handful of laughable wrights, and then a deathlord here and there. But you would never see a deathlord before level 30ish. The end-dungeon bosses are typically set at very specific suggested levels. For example, Dragon Priests are set around level 30-35. If you run into a dungeon filled with little skeevers and stuff at level 5, you'll breeze through until the end and get your face stomped by that level 35 Dragon Priest.

I don't think there's a way to fix this. People complained that Oblivion scaled too much, people complained that Fallout scaled too little. Now people are complaining that the mixed pseudo-scaling system is too inconsistent. I don't think there's a proper solution to this problem.

Never had to reload more than five times on any one enemy, except maybe one early dragon fight after I turned up the difficulty. I've been playing the game on Expert, and I'm starting to find it a little too easy. Even the challenging stuff barely gives me any trouble as long as I'm careful. My gear is fully upgraded thanks to my smithing skill, it's all enchanted, and I've got a massive inventory of potions to deal with pretty much any enemy. And as an Orc, when I really get into trouble, there's always Berserker Rage.

I understand what people are saying about the randomness of the difficulty, but that's an inherant part of making such an open game. As soon at you're let loose on the world, you can fight a giant, who will obliterate you in one shot. Almost no other games give you enemies that are unbeatable, but Skyrim does, and I respect that. All that means is that the F5 key is your best friend.

@mosdl: Did you know that ice damage takes away stamina a part from health?

The reason why Dragons in this game aren't necessarily very difficult to beat is because they generally scale to you level (up to level 50) whereas this is generally not the case for dungeon bosses. As for myself, I've mainly run into the opposite problem which is I've become way too powerful now that I'm level 67. I've had to change the difficulty to "master" and use weaker weapons/spells, etc. just to keep the combat more challenging.