Im going to give Earth Magic a go and see if that makes it easier. I found Wind Magic difficult to get past the Alpha Wolf encounter at the end of the first wilderness too, I would take Sarah so that she could heal while I DPS but she would get knocked out and then i would follow her...
Yes, I'm adding the trainings one at a time. Water, Fire, Aether, and Nether trainings were not in the game originally (you were stuck with your starting element forever), Wind is upcoming in the next 1-2 updates and Earth whenever the earth girl shows up in Badon.
This update is adding a lot of element/weapon specific traits (ex. cryomancy freezes last an additional turn, pyromancy burns are easier to inflict and much stronger, wind spells doing additional damage on multihits, etc) and new abilities (mostly wind/ice/aether) so hopefully there will be a lot more room for fun builds soon!