Personally I love the mistlands and its challenges. It forced me to be methodical in advancing through the terrain and obtaining resources. At first I've had to make sure to enter with the best gear I could craft at the time just to have a chance to survive. Creating bunkers for cover in strategic places helped me to push farther into exploring the biome and keeping a fallback position.

I have had more success in the larger biomes that have more walk-able areas, though, so that's where I ended up building a network of bases and bunkers. I use the pick-axe to dig my way through some areas instead of climbing over, therefore ensuring I can retreat easier.

Having put several hours into the biome, I have it pretty well settled with walled-off farms with passages into heavily fortified bases. I was lucky to find 6 roots close to each other, so I completely covered them in a stone building. It makes harvesting sap completely risk-free. Now, creating a magic-using character is much more possible and worthwhile.

Getting to this point took a lot of patience, though.