Thank you for the feedback! Balance is definitely an ongoing process. I do want to err on the side of making things easy, but wounds may be too strong, kinesis too. I’ll look into this. I have no plans to include anything other than one-on-one fights at this time. But madness and lust will become important for dealing with enemies who can use spells, since only physical attacks can be deflected.
Flawless victory doesn’t effect every battle in the game (outside bonus XP & G), only in some boss fights does it have story relevance. It’s usually always mentioned in the immediate aftermath of a battle, though.
Also, there will be a spell counter system, though I plan to make it harder to get perfect counters than perfect deflections, but I don’t plan to introduce spell counters until a little later in the game, so there will be sometime where your best bet for a flawless will be to use madness or lust (or both) and, if necessary, save scum. It is luck based, but I also think it’s contingent on efficiently building up auras. As the game evolves, I hope consumables and additional types of equipment will also be able to contribute to these strategies.