Hey all, new to this board so please be patient with me

I have been slowly making my way through the game, really enjoying it so far, haven't gotten very far plotwise though so would appreciate people keeping spoilers out if possible! I am level 7 with a focus on heavy armour, one handed, and smithing. I've got two points in the Armsman perk and 1 in the first heavy armour perk, as well as 1 in the first archery perk.

I've joined the Companions, and the first quest I've been given has sent me to a cavern full of Falmer enemies. I just cannot kill them, at all. Each time I hit them, it takes off maybe 5-10% of their hp, and a strike from them is dealing cripplingly high damage to me in return, 20-40% of my health per hit I suffer.

I got past the first two encounters, and then I got killed a lot by these wierd insect things which did similarly high damage - coupled with a poison!

I eventually cleared this dungeon in what I consider a 'cheating' way. I got a follower from Whiterun, she tanked a lot of the damage for me and to be honest did most of the damage, and then I abused the stealth mechanic to kill the final boss with his Dwemer Centurion.

My problem with all this is, I don't feel I should've had to stoop to such methods to do the first ever real quest in the Companions, so I'd like to ask the board what I'm doing wrong?

Are Falmer simply extremely tough? Why are they so powerful that anything more than a 1v1 encounter means insta-death for me, and even fighting one alone means I have to run away everywhere using my sword like a bee sting to slowly whittle it down? It has no armour, it's just skin! It shouldn't be so tough!

Any advice on where I went wrong with this dungeon would be very much appreciated. Obviously I've cleared it now, but I want to play Skyrim 'properly', not having to run away or use followers to do my fighting for me, or abuse the stealth.

Cheers!

Leave the quest alone for a while then return once you have leveled a bit more. Then it should be easier.

Hmm I don't recall ever having to fight dwemer or falmer enemies in the companion quest line.. Ever. Just silver hand and witches..

What level are you, and do you play a stealthy character? Being low level could be your problem, but I struggled with the Companion quests at higher level as a stealth type because my weapon and armor skills were so far behind due to rarely ever actually entering combat. Other than all of that, You could try being a bit tactical when engaging enemies. Try to be patient and get as many of them as you can one-on-one, and try to break line-of-sight when facing a caster to get a break from their attacks to regenerate mana/health/stamina and then re-engage them when you are ready or forcing them to come to you so they can attack again. Bringing a companion and buff potions is always good too.

Which location are you at?

Shimmermist Cave? Or something like that, it was called, it's North East of Whiterun. I'm not at home at the minute so can't check it, but it's definitely Shimmer something. It had a cave then a grotto which had Dwemer machinery, where the quest target - the Falmer leader - was with the Dwemer Centurion.

To answer other questions: I'm not using a stealth build, I'm going pretty standard melee, sword, shield, heavy armour and smithing. I've got a bow which I tend only to use for a sneak attack at the start of a fight, but that did me no good against the Falmer because I simply wasn't doing nearly enough damage.

I do like that the game has included harder encounters, as a side-note, I just didn't expect the first quest of the entire faction to be quite so difficult.

Thanks for the replies and tips, any more would definitely be welcome!

You have the wrong quest marker on, your in Shimmermist cave not a Companion quest, press pause and put it on the right quest as the one your doing is a miscellaneous quest which you must have activated.

I'm pretty certain I had the right quest marker on, I had made a point of disabling everything else except for it. Sorry!

I did this last night myself. Seems "Trouble in Skyrim" can be a different quest (slightly random?). I had to rescue one of the Battle-Borns from some Necromancers on my previous game and it was a lot easier.

Should I expect future encounters with Falmer enemies to be just as difficult as I found this one? Any further advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks a lot for the replies so far, I think if I encounter a similarly difficult place again I'll head off and level a few times before giving it another go

I had to go to Shimmermist cave for the companions, but it certainly wasn't the first for me. First quest was to go rough up the girl who runs the alchemy shop, then I had to go bandit hunting (which was sort of Silver Hand hunting with) with F, then I had to clean out a random bandit cave (nicely, the same one the Jarl had a bounty on) but while I was still doing that, I then got the quest for Shimmermist Cave where I had to rescue some farmer (who actually managed to rescue himself as I was on Sam's quest, but yeah). I honestly didn't find the Falmer that hard, though. Their silly poison spitting pets were worse- they almost ate Meeko.

The Centurion on the other hand, was really hard. I got rid of the Falmar in the same room easy enough, but the Centurian was harsh.

It seems the quest can be completely random, which cave/bandit hole it sends you to in which order. As suggested, the first time you enter it, it gets set to that level- if you find a place really hard and won't or can't turn down the difficulty, come back two or so levels later, when they'll still be two or so levels below you.

I know that quest, i've read that even fully geared lvl 15's just about do that quest, i also had it on my orc, couldn't do it so i deleted him and started another character and didn't speak to the guy that gave me that quest, talk to Aela instead and you wont get the quest.
Thats what i did.