Ya, if its just crossing a region jumping is fine, a single jump and double tap to hit the new speed spell can arc you over quite a few, can get up on a platform or something if you're really worried about the damage from that before hitting the speed dash.
Killing I normally go with the hurl rock or meteor, since both tend to travel along the ground a bit, have enough damage to kill in 1-2 shots. I use tidal pulse in boss rooms where there might be a lot of them, but its so slow its not really useful outside.