Yeah, not gonna lie, the bird farm helped quite a bit. If you dedicate an hour doing that farm at that level, you can make some serious progress afterwards. I was most likely OP at the end (lvl 183 I believe), but who gives a shit.. zero regrets farming. It helped with the fatigue. It was still fun, because I was forced to experiment with weapons, gear, etc. all throughout to the bitter end.
It's weird because the toughest fight I had in the whole 2nd half of the game was Black Knife Tiche by far... Had to fight him close to a dozen times till I beat him.. and the twin gargoyles, with the Sword of N&F, first try with ease. Maybe I got lucky with them.