I try to play the game as "blind" as possible so I focused on upgrading my normal gear before I got the magic stuff and realized that it's much better against the mistlands enemies. So I was pretty much done with the mistlands, only had the last boss to slay and just started using magic. So I did something I have never done before and built a draugr spawn arena in the swamps to level up my blood magic to level 40 and tickled a stuck stone golem until I got elemental magic to around level 35 before I felt ready to face the final boss. The progression system in the mistlands definitely seems a bit off, once you get all the new gear the biome becomes almost easy but you are also already done with it...