This is quite helpful. I just started playing more seriously, got my first win at 31 hours. A couple extra things I noticed: - You can block the minotaur outright as melee classes if you've farmed blocking high enough. It's one of many ways to clear minotaur, and a good one if you're a melee start/build that doesn't have access to a slow spell or bear traps. You can literally just sit there and block trade w/o even debuffing it. - Farming swimming isn't exactly the most exciting move, but if you do it, the water inside the haunted castle can be used to kill the ghouls too via standing on it, as can the few locations on the edge of the map with water. Levitation works for this trick as well, but you might as well stand over the pits if you have a ring or similar. Swimming at 100, however, is a guaranteed option to most builds. - Casting to 100, and by extension magic to 100, is a ticket to winning the game outright. Tons of crystal golems/cockatrice won't need much help from the player in the final fight. The mulch the late game areas too, other than cockatrice lair since the gates close behind you. - In mass kobold spam land, you can nullify defenses on them as a caster or dominate them. I don't think they're immune to status effect magic either? There's not much benefit from the artifact armor since it's so late in the game, but hey, it's a vanity pickup. Also the kobolds cultists can be effective annoyances to enemies just like they are to you, if you dominate a bunch and give them all knockback ammunition.
Try monk succubus. pick up every shield you find and use it till it breaks, level your blocking as much as you can. Torches + level 60 block (monk starts at 40) will negate any melee damage really. Just pick up torches to keep a free block. Practice timing your melees.
Why don't you pick a loot? I always pick a loot to identify iy. I can drop it back if I don't need it, but I improve identification to identify more rarest items. And another thing, is that there are merchants and you could sell it. I understand that this can take time to manage inventory and you can get hungry, but at the same time, it's a great opportunity to improve your skills and waste your mana on spells that need 0 magic skill, like Light, Slow and weak damage spell.
