>Have you tried 2h combat arts
I did, but I didn't seem like it was particularly effective. Like, it costs mana, still might not hit, and didn't seem to do that much more damage. Maybe for a third playthrough at some point.
Notes from my wand playthrough:
Wand and shield is a cool combo that you don't see a lot, but it's a breeze compared to melee or the bow I used last time. Like wow, I went straight up through to the halls of pain without a hitch just constantly leveling up my int to up my wand damage.
Halls of Pain
Fleshpriests look nice, but they're super annoying to fight with the way they slow you while milling about at high speed.
I can't believe you took out the temptresses but left in the ghoul recolors smdh
Possible bug report: I keep hearing a loud "clank" noise when enemies attack me from the front, and I think it might be because the shield weapon art counts as being constantly active, without costing any mana.
It kept happening even after I unequipped the shield.
After reloading, I seem to be taking a lot more damage than I was before, I'm not hearing the clank, and I can actually do the block shield art as intended. So probably a bug.
I wasn't even bothering to kite enemies previously and still had an inventory full of potions.
Found a book of Mana Shield, which means my int build finally has a use for mana aside from bloodlust. Using mana on offensive magic seems silly when wands kill everything just fine anyway.
And now I found a ring of mana steal, which means I'm now just about invincible.
The burrows
Found a tome of haste. It doesn't seem very powerful. Being faster is nice, but since you're already faster than all the enemies, it doesn't give you any new options in combat. I mostly just use it to make backtracking more convenient, but maybe it'd be more useful on a level with faster enemies, like the faceless from level 3
I didn't expect much trouble, but I did encounter a Spitter boss. The boss itself wasn't a problem, but his squad of 10-20 spitters that all start shooting at me from beyond visual range when I turn the corner made it really tricky to kill anything without losing a ton of health. Fortunately my inventory was full of potions.
Skeleton Pit
I hate liches I hate liches I hate liches I hate liches.
Enticing potions aren't very enticing if they start dropping alongside greater health potions that do the same amount of healing with no downside.
I had a fight in the room with the golden goblin statue and its hitbox kept me from picking up some of the items that were dropped.
I found a wand and a staff down here, and the staff seems much weaker. It's got more base damage, but the slower attack speed means you get to apply your int bonus less, and you don't get an off-hand weapon.
Summon great snake is a fun spell. Having the summon be a monster that doesn't appear as an enemy adds a lot to it.
I'd like 'em to be a little more aggressive though.
Breeding grounds
Huh? Wait, the loading screen when leaving the skeleton pit said the breeding grounds, but I'm back in the burrows.
Breeding Grounds 1 for real
Very cramped, which is leads to interesting synergies with my new snake buddies. Enemies don't seem to aggro them unless they actually get attacked, so they're more useful for keeping the melee bugs away from me by blocking narrow passages without anyone attakcing.
Had a wall piece not load in, meaning I got to stare into the void.
This place really IS full of bugs! I tried unequipping my shield and most of my gear exploded off of me as my mind stat blasted down to -2
It happens consistently when I reload and try again.
Anyway, continuing on.
Now that I'm paying attention, there's a LOT of missing walls.
Breeding Grounds 2
IDK if the breeding grounds are so interesting that players will wanna do two whole levels of them.
Met a special enemy of the flying buggers called "count queen of flies", which is kinda awkward sounding.
Paladin Basecamp
I was not expecting the paladins to be like actual christian-cross-wearing templars. Seems a little weird when you're fighting weird made up cults for the most part.
Anyway, on to side quest.
Lost Corridors
Think I might've tabbed out at a bad time and broke the loading screen.
It worked fine after reloading the autosave though.
New models look nice in action.
Truth seekers are annoying for a wand-user, but fortunately my snake buddies have no such problems, because I haven't got the stats to use any melee weapons I could find up here. I usually just wait behind a wall while they get snaked to death.
Oh so the temptress got a new model instead of being removed entirely.
I got careless, died and reloaded my autosave, and my snakes were still there. That's weird.
Is attack rating working alright? I tried equipping a ring that says it gives me +9 ttack rating but I can't see any change in my stats screen.
Every enemy here has a gimmick intended to beat ranged players, but the only one I'm really scared of is the temptress: I've died like 8 times on this one level and every time, it's because I get rushed by temptresses.
They're hard to notice before they're already in your face because they're small and dark, I can't disengage even with haste 2, and they can take off half my health before dying. Sometimes I get lucky and one of my snakes distracts them and they crumple like paper.
I think they'd be fine as glass cannon mooks if they had less defense. Trying to click on one as she's rushing towards you at sonic speeds is hard enough, but having them proceed to ignore a lot of your attacks that looks dead on gets frustating.
The slug dudes sometimes bug out, teleport and rotate around a point. I can't tell what's causing it.
I got killed by it once, my only death that wasn't from a temptress - a slugman decided to rotate around behind me, told me it was "nothing personnel", and blasted me with lightning. (I ain't even mad, that was amazing).
Pokkan died surprisingly easily, since I saw her coming and had time to think about setting up all my buffs beforehand.
I think your end screen's "time played" counter is busted.