I see the gameplay lacking for melee build?
Basically if you are not a mage type you not going to go far.
It would been nicer to include more skills to make people that prefer to use swords actually choose melee path and benefit from that path.
The best way to go is to only level magic and forget equipment.
Earth magic is very powerful and can hit anyone in the same map even if they are out of view.
In the end my magic spells were so powerful that I was able to 1 shot the last boss...
The best skill to level are all the basic 3 spells then max money & experience upgrade.
Then armor.
No need to bother upgrading shield, shield skills,sword or the melee skill they are useless.
I also found to level the second type of spell useless except the earth one which was very useful.
It would been better if monsters would target the skeleton summon instead of me. They usually ignored him.