Well, I'm 56 now and starting to recognize the power of slow + HoT. I took down the 200-hitting foreman guy (yellow con at 55) in Nadox, and once he was slowed stoicism was plenty to keep me alive and even chaining canni to keep mana up... even when I got a light blue add when he was at 35%. My beastlord wouldn't have had much less trouble doing the same, and he's 65.
I picked up the 64 curse (Bane) in bazaar, along with the rest of the important pre-65 spells, so I'm good to go for a while now.
Question though. What's up with the 56 dot, Bane of Nife? More than double Ebolt mana for less than double the damage? I dropped 1kpp on this thing without researching it because I was excited for more poison dot goodness, and as far as I can tell it's just a mana sucker. Did anybody use this thing to get through the later 50s? Unless I'm missing something, I should just drop it and keep using Ebolt and Plague.