Thanks a lot for the comment, im glad you liked it! I really appreciate that you tried it out and shared your thoughts. You are definietly not slow on the barrier - Zack had the same issue in his stream and made a good point about adding different SFX when enemy is hit and when barrier absorbs the dmg. Also some VFX to show when barrier is on and then it's being broken.
We also want to redesign the cauldron a bit and make it more of a spell upgrade mechanic rather than a spell-from-scratch one. I believe it will help to keep a better game pacing, will help new players learning the game, ensure that each spell is unique and make the world map choices more relevant. So in our heads it's a win-win-win-win idea :D If you want to be notified about the update I suggest joining our discord https://discord.gg/jBfrC8yq :)
Thanks for the feedback!