I thought Veteran to Hard was pretty easy on PoE1 (Switched-up to Hard midway into Act II) which is why I did this for Deadfire.

Welp, it feels like every battle now is on the level of the Torn Bannermen from Cragholdt Bluffs when I mistakenly tried to force that quest early into Act II, I'm meeting people with 90 Defense when my party is barely reaching 70.

It doesn't help I prefer switching party members around to experience a bulk of the content, unoptimized party configurations just get punished hard. The enemies just hit harder and more accurately now, it's like everyone is several levels above me all the time (Which I guess was the point of Upscaled). I'm around Level 8ish now, I really just wanna finish this Cornett quest before I fuck-off Nekettaka but these skeletons are just massacring me (Somehow I'm doing worse now than I was 3 levels ago too), I've already completed almost all of the non-combat heavy quest on the island.

I'm already doing shit like casting Blessing before any encounters and having a Perception buffing Pet but that really doesn't do anything with how squishy everyone seems to be and how engagement feels different from PoE1, almost any encounter I can't reliably kite into a narrow corridor or doorway would just get everyone immediately Flanked and then get nuked by the enemy party's ranged attackers.

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EDIT:

Glad to hear it's not just me lol, yeah that Risen Mage was a pain in the ass, it kept getting Arcane Reflection and Arcande Dampener immediately online.

Well persistence pays-off I guess, I managed to win/cheese the fight by having Eder Rouge's Escape Ability worked (For some reason it kept not working until I repeatedly tried triggering it). Managed to kite at least a third of the mob to one of the hallways, and then another third until it was just the Risen Champion left.

I got an Exceptional Robe and Exceptional Scale Armor... which would have been cool if it wasn't undermined by me immediately getting another pair after the Giant Cave Grub boss (Also hard but with being able to interrupt his grab attack it wasn't that hard, just had to Charm him whenever he calls in allies)