Stage 6 difficulty... help

[ArcaneTheWoof]

Am I stupid? Everyone on the internet says this game is TOO easy if anything, but I got to stage six at level 35 and the game went from reasonable to almost impossible. All the enemies hit like trucks and take a ton of hits, and near as I can tell I've found all the equips you're meant to find without random drops (and I have some beefy random drops too, like type-locked bows).

This is actually infuriating; I consider myself somewhere between hardcore and casual, with experience in pretty challenging games, and this is absolutely hosing me. So again: am I dumb? Am I missing something? What happened? This game went from a fun metroidvania to something I don't want to spend my time being angry at and I'm hoping that the answer here isn't just "git gud".

[Melodia]

I imagine you're not using your magic much. That's the main thing that's OP in this game.

[ArcaneTheWoof]

Originally posted by Melodia:

I imagine you're not using your magic much. That's the main thing that's OP in this game.

Thanks for replying! Is there any way to increase my mana reserve that I'm missing? The enemies I've encountered in this area aren't using drainable attacks to fuel my heavy hitters, and my low-mana spells don't do significant enough damage to make much of a difference. The most effective attacks so far have been the type-locked bows, but those drain my resources quickly as well (and are random drops all, so hopefully the game's not balanced to rely on them)... I run out of mana putting down one of the big chonker dragon things only to have another chonker AND a manticore just down the hall in the same room. I guess I could try the mana-making sword, but getting anywhere near these things has been a death sentence...

EDIT: I AM dumb. I squeaked through the first batch of rooms, got to the store dude and realized I'd completely forgotten about the magic restoration gems you can buy because I'd never needed them until now. This makes all the difference. Thanks for your assistance :9

[Blinkdog]

you also get magic back when you activate fire/wind and get hit by a like spell so fire spells refills magic when fire it active.