Portalboat

I just installed STEP core (and I'm also using SkyRe), made a new character, and went into Embershard mine. I've decided to go Redguard because playing a mage every single run gets boring... But the two bandits in the mine somehow block all of my attacks (even when I'm power attacking, and I don't have the stamina to do it over and over and over again), and because there's no combat maneuvers or anything, whenever the AI locks on to me with a power attack, I get hit by a power attack, regardless of if I had my shield up or not. So I lose 25% health per hit, I'm dead in 4 hits, and I can't block because of the aforementioned aimbotting power attacks. How do you guys win a melee fight? Am I doing something wrong here, or is the only solution to just lower the difficulty?Â