I play hard exclusively, and as Pretentious Goblin says it's really hard. However if you're interested I wrote up a game I did on hard a few months back. I think it's outdated by about 3 or 4 patches, including several big changes to how hard mode works, but it might give some ideas.
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Edit: I reread your post and that is definitely pretty bad even for hard mode. Some tips for battles:
- Crits are really good (3 times damage after defenses), light allows you to get tactical advantage against basically all monsters, and fire works against many
- You need enough damage. The way that the damage calculation is done, with a subtraction from damage dealt, means that when you're dealing relatively little damage even a small increase in attack can give a massive increase in damage.
- Pierce is really good
- Often it is good to be able to kill a weak enemy with a spell that gives tactical advantage and then crit a stronger enemy. For example in the quest Spider Cleanup that you get after killing the young spider queen in the mines it's great to have enough magic attack to kill a spiderling with light and enough attack to be able to then kill a mature spider by critting with either an attack or pierce.