That may be true, but until you get to the necessary skills, you will eat quite a beating. I found way of the Bear to be way easier, I had over 95% wins at the end of the game and finished it around day 180. On my second run with agility-based character I find myself struggling because all the good stuff takes a while to get.

EDIT: And don't get me started on the way of the turtle... Way better for few losses.

way of the bear, great early game terrible late game
way of the tiger, ok early game, more than ok late game
way of the turtle, less than ok early game, god mode late game

bear is not harder then tiger late game, if you play it right bear is even LESS RNG based. (Remember, late game is alot vs. other Tiger-builds, so the tiger build is not THAT OP imho as its very rng against other high-agi builds....)

But I agree, turtle is OP and the way to go for every beginner :)

Turtle is far and away the earliest class in early game, but still becomes the hardest to defeat in late game. Bear mode is the least beginner-friendly, but I finished hardcore more in about 180 days with a 90% win rate pretty easily using a pure Bear build. You need a very good understanding of character build and how to win fights, but it works.

Agility is more than powerful enough to beat the game with and maintain a high win rate, but it's still the weakest of the three. You're describing using a dodge from the lower branch of tiger that reflects damage; a defensive augmentation from the middle branch of tiger that causes dodges to deal damage; a dot attack so powerful it's at the end of the tiger path on the other side of a mandatory nerf skill, and only three skill slots.

What you're saying is that you took a play style (agility, dodging, reflected damage) that ordinarily has HUGE energy demands, spent hundreds of experience points maxing out the skill tree for that style, then deliberatley avoided opening the 4th/5th skill slots. In doing so, you would indeed have lowered your energy needs considerably, and also guaranteed your dodge being active every turn if you could sustain it. Throwing that many cobra strikes should be hard to sustain energy-wise, but you seem to be doing it.

Every build is intended to become ultra-powerful once the end of the tree is reached. The passive skills are very powerful, and shared by only the most powerful AI opponents, and when you put the game's most powerful synergies to work (like using the highest-energy defense (dodging) that avoids close to 100% of damage, then saving energy by reflecting damage instead of dealing it) then the resulting success should be substantial. Furthermore, you'll tend to leave the same skills in place since your build is in place, once there isn't a better dodge or an upgrade to your modifier skills.