After going through the training, I've started a new game (on normal difficulty) and... I feel like I have some difficulties from the very beginning. Starting fight with very first enemy and it turns out that the very first spell/attack is incredibly weak, I'm shooting as fast (and accurate) as I can, trying my best to avoid enemy's attack (he's melee attacker), but still had a couple of hits, before I could finally defeat him.

Later there are more enemies, some have distance attack and are even more durable... Am I doing something wrong? It doesn't help, that I don't see almost any indication, that attack actually done something to enemy (hit animation, like in FPS games), I think I observed it two or three times, but that's it.

Also it seems that this "air bolt" fly not exactly to the point aimed by crosshair.

I'm kinda lost, this doesn't feel like viable way to play. Am I doing something wrong, or this is just the game/design flaw?

The Air Pulse is an incredibly weak starter spell. Basically akin to the Fist in Doom. In the first level, you are going to have to tickle down some enemies with it but you will soon get access to stronger and more standard attack spells.

Remember that the Air Pulse is basically melee range. You have to be very close to the enemy for it to do damage, otherwise it won't do pretty much anything. You want the visual effect to go through the enemy. Later on, all it's good for is breaking boxes, crates and such.

Thanks a lot, when I started to use it as melee weapon, it finally made some impact.

And found shortly later "darts" (arrows?) are WAY better weapon, too bad it's limited with ammo. But still, finally some viable alternative.