You are spot on! The game end up indeed overwhelming at the very start. We tried adding some feedback on to the user by highlighting the ones that can be used on that turn and showing their effects on the enemy health bar, but it was far from being enough. This is something that definitely needs some improvement. About the different approaches, this is a side effect of tuning the damage and the health of the enemies. Our idea was that different combinations of hp/armor, hp/shield or all three would favor one skill group over another, but the gameplay was too slow and quite boring. We end up sacrificing that strategic side for better combat pacing, however that is definitely something we would like to bring back with more time to tune the numbers.
Thanks for the feedback and for giving our game a try! :)