Took me a fair few tries to beat it this time:
The new system works and it's easier to combine certain elements, but it's also very easy to accidentally add an element you don't want by trying to move too early, I lost a couple of run to accidental electricity added to scythe attacks.
Forcing you to stand still while mixing elements makes things harder which I assume it's intentional but it also makes it harder to go for bigger combinations.
I don't mind it but it is less immediate, I can see how people could find it clunky.
I'm not sure if the super effective damage is better or simply more evident, but I was able to break my reliance on steam+electricity this time and two-tap the exploding enemies with the correct damage, although It took me forever to realize that poison exploders are weak to fire.
I still lost the majority of runs to getting swarmed by exploding enemies, the rest rarely deal enough damage to kill you when you can chug healing like nobody's business.
Upgrades are interesting, the scythe damage one is great, but I spent all the other points on the alchemical tank ones since they're always useful and the rest seem situational.
I had a lot of fun beating this, hope to play more!