Yeah been playing the last few days and Melee REALLY comes out ontop, I think I might've overdid it with my character, essentially:Combat is pretty screwed up in the game right now. You can beat the game playing as a melee or as a spell caster, it is just much simpler for a melee build than a magic build. Magic builds need to buy spells, enhance those spells, and invest in spell cost reduction to be effective. Melee builds get every skill they need, during character creation, and can get by with pretty much any random weapon they prefer.
As a melee, I beat one of the toughest fights in the game (Meraxis) with a random level 1 weapon from an alley attacker (forceful knuckle dusters), the soldier starting background, and a decent physical stat (50ish). I entered the battle butt naked (literally), with about +12 physical stat boosts on a ring, 6 points invested in the physical perk tree (martial artist perk), ... and I flattened her in 1 turn of combat.
Trying to beat her with magic, I needed a decent magic stat (50ish). I had a top tier fire demon stone. I enchanted gear with fire, ice, and poison resists (about +15 each). I used multiple, 120% healing potions. Invested spell scrolls in every spell (Fire, in this case). Ensured I had my elemental summoned BEFORE the fight started. Invested about 10-12 points into the magic perk tree ... And it still took a few rounds to beat her. PLUS, I maxed out my enchantment capacity to handle all of the resist buffs on my gear, so I could survive against her DOT spells and high damage spells.
1. Did Wesley's sidequest to get access to Enforcer gear for top force shielding for zero enchantment cost.
2. Picked the Forcefull Claymore for the strongest enchantment-free base damage as well as learned and perfected the the Earth Elemental subservient spell to summon her and gain passive force damage & shielding as well as a summon helper.
3. Picked the Bear as my race to max out my damage as well as get extra defence and hp, fully geared my Elemental in the same gear I'm wearing making her a killing machine with alot of lust-shielding to overcome their one weakness (the damn thing hit as a truck and it's lowest shielding is 55 poison/ice/fire)
4. Enchanted a tattoo on my character's back to have ALOT of lust shielding and critical power (since soldier background increases critical damage) as well as maxed out the physical skill-tree (i know no enemy can suck your clothes with a vortex spell yet but fuck it, I like having all my enchantments on a tattoo they can't strip away from me lol.)
Bastard's been OHKO everything I come across.