I'm usually clamoring for more difficult content, but I think the difficult content should be ranked in the order of the quest down stairs. Trolls= easiest, then the ensign area, followed by the cold area with hippogrifs, small step up to the droaches and finally Mino and bear area and aberrations are for pros. All of the non-ensign areas need to be cranked up a bit, and something needs to be tweaked down with ensigns, or really just the cock calls. But I like how the cocks yell by the hippogrifs!

I also see it as an issue that we're really talking about only darkness damage when everyone in the group is going to take fire and cold damage.
If I had free reign, I would probably make the ensigns stun shorter, make their area more spread out so its easier to pull a specific amount, increase the cold damage dealt by the hippogrifs, and make the make the bears and aberrations have nearly double the health and up their damage but let them have a ~25% chance of dropping an extra random piece of gear, because their loot tables are trashy.

Back to the ensign area as is-- based on the average pile of tombstones I've seen at the start of the 2nd floor, part of the overall problem of death being so likely is that having 2 fairies in a group becomes a massive liability because everyone is just going to run out of rezes or risk needing to wait for them to run back. The zerg strategy is messy and there are game mechanics that nearly promote this.