Quick balancing question.
In this type of game, it is fun to experiment with builds and see with what tools you can be strong enough to finish the game. I finished it with several different builds, but there is one build that cannot work, the cleaver build. I call a build viable if I can go up to the final boss without any trouble, but unfortunately, the passive that gives him pikes every turn makes it impossible to try a "thief/knife master" build as you will melt yourself by just hitting the boss.
I would suggest adopting a different approach for this passive. In Slay the Spire, you have a boss that has the same passive, but it is only active for 4 turns, forcing you to pass into a defensive stance, building up a different strategy than just click to kill. When the boss has armor, having the pike passive-active would achieve the same goal while allowing other builds to emerge.
The true problem is that the pikes do not decrease turn after turn, it should decrease by 10 points or so per turn.
Otherwise, still a great game and I still enjoy experimenting.