First time I fought Nian on my monk I had roughly 1100 GS (I did have purple weaps) and dropped him in like 35 seconds. So, I thought "Right on!" Went back to farm him, and repeatedly got owned many times in a row. I must've just got lucky with several crits in a row on that first attempt. However, after repeatedly getting…
I think reagents should be "evolvable" like the gear is. IE... 10 Minion's Eyes (or some other reasonable quantity) could be evolved for a fee into 1 Fiend's Eye and so on. There could be a "witch" NPC or some such with a boiling cauldron added to town center to represent the reagent evolution.