Can I ask how you killed Brink?
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Also I was wondering... Two of the three (i think) bosses I met before Brink were those big rats with hammers. I can't hit them without getting hit, so I had to waste about 2 potions for each of them. Actually I can't even kill the normal version of those without getting hit once or twice, I'm lucky that they are kind of rare. Is there a trick I don't know about?
Hit-and-run is the way to go.
Basically, you wait for the enemy to come to you, you start swinging (shift-click) so that they're hit by the last bit of the attack animation, then immediately start running away again. Entropic aura helps with this, so does slash, (which seems to give a bit more reach and requires less precise timing, and of course + interrupt helps with the return blows, too)...
Brink is easily (read: takes forever and a day, but is fairly safe) killed with TS spam, as that hits through most obstacles and allows you to stay out of harms way. Going up close in Ironman would depend on the weapons you have - witht he weapons I found shortly after brink, I probably could've trashed him in a 2-3 pots (I actually found the shiv in one of the chests in the arena, but couldn't have used it at clvl 5 anyways), with what I had (2x 60 pds), even a full slash critical didn't yield enough of a damage increase over the ts spam (30-40 vs 80-ish) to justify the extra risk.
Just be patient - you'll see a playtime increase of 35 minutes in my journal from lvl 5 shortly (well maybe 5 minutes) before Brink to lvl 6 clearing the 2nd room of dlvl 5...
It takes a lot of clicking, as you'll be on the move almost constantly, but it keeps you from getting hit about 90% of the time.
Still, I believe that the Shadow armor's damage is greater then the extra damage for lvl4 slash instead of lvl1.
Arguably yes, but why would you put more than 1 point into Slash? You have DW mastery available from lvl 1 if you want a dmg increase, and several good lvl 5 skills later on...
-Use a 'shepherd' approach to round up small monsters, then use Slash Attack to wipe them all out at once
If you're impatient and want to get yourself killed perhaps. Nothing wrong with killing them one at a time with even less risk if you can do so...
The only time I prefer a bold approach is with spawnpoints (shafts, slides, grates etc...) where I try to get in front of it and slash-spam it so all the mobs die as soon as they come out...
What you should do though is letting enemies who spawn other enemies (the diggers in the catacombs) spawn their entire contingent, you'll get xp for each of the skeletons they spawn...
Edit: Here's a pic to illustrate how to best take advantage of TS and obstacles.
