Can't seem to keep levelled.

[Stormlock]

Am I supposed to be obssessively clearing every single enemy of every single floor and doing the dungeons in a specific order? I just lost my arcane blade (Cornac) at level 21 in the spellblaze, mostly for lack of levels. I cleared out all 6 low level dungeons and the old forest AND the lumberjack and trapped! quests, get to the maze boss, and he's level 24 staring down my wussy level 16 butt. Thanks to copious amounts of probability travel cheese and the blood of life, I manage to take him out gaining... ONE level. WTF? Repeat this for pretty much every other boss I take on afterwards until I kick the bucket to a slew of mages popping off 130 damage bolts at me with nowhere to run. What am I missing here?

[Hedrachi]

In general, do the entry quest for your race, prolly behoove you to then go speak to Mr. Shady Cornac in Derth for a bit more xp and two free generic points, do trapped! and lumberjack, then go into the ruined halfling complex for 1-2 more levels and potentially some free confuse resist and mental saves. Then do the second-tier dungeons, then dreadfell. In general for second-tier dungeons I do maze first, because it's VERY easy to keep every fight one-on-one, and because bosses' level scales to be challenging for your level, and the minotaur gets kinda... evil unless you do him first. Wrathy in the forest is easy as pi if you've got 75%+ stun/freeze resist. I typically try to clear out the air elementals in Derth next, then do the Sandworm Lair for the very nice artifact the boss drops there. Then go do the other part of storming the city if you want, or on to Daikara. Either of them you'll again need good stun resist, and knockback resist would also be nice. After Daikara, deadfell. Kind of a generic undead dungeon that's easy if you can get to it. Mark of the Spellblaze is a &*%!ing hard place when you don't know what you're up against (and don't have the blight/disease resist to deal with it). If at the end of dreadfell you're not level 24, try the ruined dungeon and ring of blood dungeons before the mark of the spellblaze.

Edit: General rule of thumb for all character levelup: Never neglect CON unless you're trying to challenge yourself. It's why I don't like "hybrid" classes like Arcane Blade that have more than two primary stats. Focus on getting one to 60 first, then CON second, but after you've got the second primary stat for your class to a point where you feel comfortable at. If you don't have the Combat Training (with armor handling, weapon, accuracy, etc), buy it from the sword store in last hope, just for the Health generic talent. You could choose the Combat Training talent tree as a reward from the lost warrior escort quest, but that means spending a talent category point for a tree that'll have 0.7 mastery, while the sword store gives it to you and unlocks it at 1.0 mastery.

[Dervis]

Levels mean relatively little in this game, this isn't like wow where you can't hit a monster 10 levels higher than you no matter what... they'll get a bit more hp and a bit more stats and that's usually it. What's most important is how you distribute your talents and set up your equipment/infusions.
Don't go hoarding gold and invest on a couple of good items and you see you'll do better.

That being said... in the west you're supposed to be doing:
2 starter dungeons -> 4 into the darkness dungeons -> a sidequest or 2 -> dreadfell -> reknor

[Grey]

Spellblaze ain't an easy place, as has been said. Also don't feel restricted to just the linear dungeon path you're told in the quests. You can also do the elven dungeons for xp and items (Scintillating Caves, Rhaloren Camp, Norgos' Lair, Heart of the Gloom).

[greycat]

Spellblaze is just plain nasty. Don't go in there until at least after you've beaten The Master, and even then maybe not.

[evouga]

There are a number of optional dungeons with high YASD potential:

1. The Melinda Crypt: Do not enter unless you are prepared to handle being surrounded by multiple casters in cramped quarters.
2. Mark of the Spellblaze: The first few areas also contain nasty casters, but you will have a lot more room and cover than in the Crypt. If you accept the Corrupter's quest, though, be prepared for a much harder no-teleport fight against multiple high-level uniques.
3. Rift (in Daikara): You will be swarmed by tornados that can see you from anywhere in the level and can teleport through obstacles: you likely won't have a chance to rest until all are dead. Come prepared.
4. Elven Ruins: The boss on the second floor used to be notoriously difficult -- nowadays he's no longer that exceptional, but his spells still hit extremely hard and will easily kill you in 1-2 turns if you're carelessly exploring this huge level.

The other dungeons are less dangerous/you have more warning about what's coming (lightning peak).

[Stormlock]

The thing is, after doing SIX starter dungeons (the elven and human ones), quests, and the old forest I'm still so underlevelled when I go into the maze the boss has 8 levels on me- 50% higher level. The bastard was hitting me for 300+ in a single go some times. And that's not even criticals. Just talents.There's no way infusions can keep up with that kind of damage at those levels, I'm sure not cranking out 200+ damage a turn, and he's got quintuple my hp. And it's not like the sandworm lair or daikara is going to be any easier. What are you supposed to do against an enemy that much stronger aside from abuse probability travel or stairs? If I'm relying 100% on something like stun or confuse working to keep myself alive, all it takes is a miss or resist and I'm dead, no chance to escape.

Granted I had an artificially easy impression of the spellblaze after mugging it with a shadowblade (Open areas + casters = stealth heaven) but my first death was to that minotaur and I could have just as easily keeled over in daikara or the sandworm lair if not for some luck with timing on when I was getting frozen/blinded/etc and monsters not blocking my probability jumps. Are you supposed to be pereptually 5 levels behind every boss you encounter? Stats unlock skills, and skills do make a huge difference. 4 levels is the difference between a 3 round stun and an 8 round stun, between healing for 100 or 250, between having a mana pool of 50 or 150 after your sustains are up.

[Grey]

Level 24 does seem excessive for the Minotaur. Anyone else had him that hard?

[Stormlock]

Character stats shortly before death (Must've been offline.) http://te4.org/characters/1139/tome/bb7 ... 1cc000edf0

I go light on Con but arcane blade needs everything else and I try to make up for it with hp items.

[tiger_eye]

heh, from what I understand, you just got optimally unlucky against the minotaur of the maze. I'm not the authority of how exactly leveling up zones works, but here's how I think it works. Remember, the level of the zone tends to level up with the level of the character (to a limit). The highest (base) level of the maze is 16, which is what your character was. Since you were on level five of the maze, add 4 to that (5-1=4), so base level of that level is 20. There is also a bit of randomness added in, so the worst you can have is level 22. There is also a bit of randomness for the level of NPCs, so a level 24 minotaur boss against your level 16 character may be the worst possible difference for that encounter. In this case, I think doing the other starting zones actually hurt you, because the minotaur levels up fairly well.

So... it's not that the game is (too) unfair, it's that you got a challenging RNG roll. Variety is good, after all, and you managed to still beat the minotaur .

Also, clvl 21 is probably too low to do the mark of the spellblaze. It has a minimum zone level of 25... so you were probably warned with a caution message when you entered. This zone can be really difficult at clvl 30, too.

[Final Master]

Really, the minotaur only has 2 things going for it, it can confuse and hit hard in melee [and then harder if it still has sunder abilities].

This leaves you with about 5 basic things you can do -
Debuff H as often as possible to lessen the damage you take
Beat on H and then PD away [he will chase you sometimes but as you can be literally 100 steps away even if you are on the other side of a wall you will *usually* be okay for several turns]
Have a high [and this is probably only capable temporarily] speed that you can attack with. This lessens the damage you take and increases the damage you can inflict
Reduce the damage you take as much as possible, via defense, armor, hardiness and resists [physical/all] [wild infusion]
Attack from a distance, especially if you have an increased movement speed, this will also work well if you are melee based. It will let you effectively do a hit and run style, thus, lessening the damage you take.

Keep in mind however, that the H likes to have a regen infusion as well though...

[Nemesis1]

[quote=Stormlock]Are you supposed to be pereptually 5 levels behind every boss you encounter?[/quote]
Short answer: Yes. Live with it.