Use your headphones, you can hear the enemies coming before you see them.

Use a maxed blackmetal shield, you can parry seekers easily. For soldiers, get to high ground and they cannot reach you.

Use a blackmetal atgeir for swarms that are difficult to parry.

Use the root chestpiece to reduce pierce damage to basically nothing.

Craft mist torches to place along the way while you travel to see better.

Food takes time to make, but it’s worth making so you don’t die immediately. It’s just part of the game.

You'll probably need to work on your food economy a bit more. I'm not sure why it should take hours to prepare four lox pies.

Fish wraps and serpent stew make for better food than either wolf skewers or seeker meat... Eventually, you'll probably want to spend your seeker meat to make meat platters, and for that you'll also need to hunt the hares in mistlands.

Originally posted by Hiiina:

It would be possible that I didn't die with a single mage power??? Isn't that outrageous?

Not sure what's going on here, but it should be possible to block magical attacks. Armor and appropriate resistances will also reduce the damage. But if you take an unblocked gjall spit in the face, you will burn quite badly. Dipping into water can help, since being wet provides fire resistance and extinguishes ongoing burning.

I take it you crafted a personal wisp light? If not do that it helps a little. What helps a lot is listening. You can hear the NPCs long before you can see them. Well very occasionally I have been surprised by a Seeker I didn't hear but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Listen
Wisp Light
Good food (2xhealth 1x Stamina my go to before magic)
Listen
Root chest piece fully upgraded (a must have imho)
AoE weapon (iron sledge or atgeir)
Listen
Frost Arrows (they seem to come into their own in ML)

And finally Listen Listen and keep Listening.

If you keep doing things the same way, and you keep failing THE SAME WAY, you probably aren't learning anything at all (shout out to the devs because this doesn't only apply to players). In fact, that behavior is associated with madness (and rage-quitting). MAKE A WISP LIGHT. USE IT. Place the stick wisp lamps (furniture) to clear the mist. Yes, it takes hundreds of them because the devs think 20 FPS is perfect for game-play. Turn the music off - it hurts more than helps, IMO. Maintain duplicate equipment sets. Make extra food when you have a chance. Spend a day fishing or hunting or gathering resources. Yes, I know you'd rather be a viking than a farmer, but the game is over-focused on farming. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER SURVIVAL GAME (don't even get me started on this aspect of Valheim.... ball=dropped). Mosquitoes call for sharp eyes and a good bow, or nice timing. With padded armor and shield, and Bonemass, they aren't really a threat. Fire potions can help reduce mage and gjal damage (but the best defense is planning your attack CAREFULLY), Some people say use the chest-piece from the swamp, but I find that Bonemass works better overall, and can help reduce damage by the seekers significantly while keeping your over-all AC high. Raise your blocking skill and use a good shield. No, I don't give a damn about your polearm. Stamina potions help, but they are a one-shot with a long cool-down period. HEALTH POTIONS for emergencies... and as soon as you get one of those gjal down, get the blood clots and make the strong health potions FOR EMERGENCIES. They aren't jelly beans - learn to fight wounded.

A lot of stuff in the Mistlands is resistant to spirit damage, so use ice... either arrows or Frostnir and a decent shield. For food, I use lox pies, fish wraps (or wolf-sticks), and bread. I used to do serpent stew... but we haven't seen any serpents since the last update, even where the map lookup shows them as spawning. That gives me well over 200 health, and over 150 stamina (the stamina system still sucks, btw). With Bonemass, padded armor, a medium shield, potions and a good diet, I can tank one of the soldier bugs.

Take materials for portals with you, and set up blanks before you leave with easy to remember names. That way, you can plop one down the second you step into the mistlands. Take materials to set up temporary bases with extra equipment. Basically, go heavy or go home. Push up, gather, and then portal out. Leave a chest by a portal close to shore for metal items or things that won't portal. Go slowly. It'll take time, but it will significantly reduce the dangers. The most important thing is this: don't push your luck there. Do the mistlands for no more than a real hour, then leave. They get boring after about that much time, and boring = you making mistakes.

And the number one thing? Don't believe anything someone with a bunch of mods and a slick video says, and don't trust the wiki.