Victory is mine! First Time Normal/Adventurer Alchemist

[Sines]

So, I just beat the game on my first character (technically second, but the other was a 1.4 Stonewarden I played for an hour before not playing the game for another 4 years). Thought I'd sum up my journey and thoughts on the game in general.

I ended up going Alchemist. While I was initially leaning towards Arcane Blade, the promise of easy Pyro/Cyromancer unlocks tipped the scales. Went Shalore as recommended by the guide. I actually really liked the look of the Acid tree, but I wanted those unlocks. I leaned in favor of Ice at first, and at the recommendation of the guide, I started using Heavy Armor. Not aware that A: Higher tier armor requires more strength, and B: That you only need higher stats at time of equipping, and so you don't need to invest TOO much in Strength anyway.

I made a mistake with an escort early on, and picked up Lacerating Blades, which doesn't specificy it only applies on physical or weapon attacks, so I thought it might work. Well it didn't, and that's actually one of the biggest complaints I have about the game. Descriptions are oftentime lacking or misleading. To skip on ahead, Firestorm conveniently tells you it doesn't affect friendly units. So when I saw the LACK of that text on other AoE skills, I thought it might affect me or my Golem. And as my build moved more and more into a pseudo-melee position, the idea of Caustic Mire become less inviting. Only for me to realize, when I finally got it, it doesn't affect me or my golem. While I do really enjoy the game, and have picked up the DLC and am on my second character, this is a rather significant issue, especially considering the wiki isn't well-maintained and able to pick up the slack by providing more details about how abilities work.

I had seen videos warning me about vaults, and so I wasn't sure when I saw one in Trollmire. My friend who had recommended the game to me said that early ones usually aren't that bad. I opened the door... and there was a basic worm behind it. Oh no! I swear, this is a trap to make players let their guard down. I managed to defeat Bill at around level 4 or so. Hardly my first dungeon, but he gave me a run for my money. He took out my golem and I made a fighting retreat and only barely scraped out a vicotry.

As a class Alchemist is something of a comedic one-trick pony, especially early on. 5/5/5 in Bombs solves MANY problems. Throughout much of the early game, I was not only focusing on dealing Cold damage, but would do so even when I really shouldn't, just to build up Cryomancer points. This made Daikara a bit trickier than it had to be, I'm sure. Also probably Storm Peak, the source of my first death. While I wasn't avoiding spoilers, I also wasn't reading super-carefully, and went to Storm Peak even though I wasn't super confident. I hadn't died yet, and I had a Blood of Life for some extra lives on top of the usual, so I figured it couldn't hurt to try. Apart from the hurt of that death, any way.

My friend really wanted me to check out the sandworm dungeon, which I had avoided due to me initially hovering over tiles described as 'unstable sand', and me not knowing if I was going to be drowned at any moment. Once he mentioned the place would be fairly safe, I went on in, and got myself that delicious worm heart (WHAT MADE ME WANT TO EVEN TRY EATING IT?!). The dungeon is definitely one of the more unique... but following the worms can get tedious at times, especially when they don't go where you want them to.

Around this point, I had found a Unique Lite, that made me be treated as undead. It actually stuck with me until the very end game, when I replaced it with a Merchant-made lamp that was only slightly better. But it made exploring Lake Nur possible. Or, as it turns out, easier. I wasn't aware of bubbles until my friend told me that I could use them. I had previously only gotten up to the stairwell, and went down it, to confirm that there was indeed more water beneath. I had to use Gem Portal to get back to land fast enough. But I also noticed, after I got the Undead Lamp, that a lot of hostile Adventurer parties dropped water breathing armor. I started to think that that was intentional, to make traveling through Lake Nur easier. Is that true, or was that just my luck?

Once I discovered the Alchemist quests (and it took me two blind picks of potions to realize I could get a preview of what each potion offered), I saw that I needed to get a vampire bit. Well, I knew that Dreadfell was a major story dungeon, so I figured that'd be too hard. So I went to the only other place likely to have vampires... the graveyard of Lost Hope. Now, I'm sure you all know how this turns out. But whats even funnier, is that when I went to the crypts to grave-rob them, the game warned me away. Well, being trapped in a tomb, I decided to play it safe for the time being. Making my inevitable death all the more sudden and surprising.

I then went on to climb Dreadfell. I was doing fine, but eventually the Master claimed my 3rd life (Or maybe my 4th... there was some death to a random nobody at some point that came out of nowhere). This is where a problem that had been brewing for a while become more apparent. In longer, tougher fights, I'd be running out of mana. This is when I started packing lots of mana-regen gem bombs. It also represented my first Prodigy point, and enough Class points that it was time to really commit to an element. I previously had just rushed Ice Core after my bombs, and put points into Advanced Golem to turn it into my rune-bot. Over the course of the game, my Golem was running 3 unique runes, all of which provided excellent effects. The Rune of Time Warp (or whatever you get from the temporal WTF from Daikara), the Rune of Mirror Image (Best tank) and the Rune of Dissapation (Added very late in the game, but complemented Acid Splash quite nicely). But with Ice Core at 5, and a crowd-controlling golem, I decided I needed more damage than CC, so I decided to commit to Fire Infusion. I picked up Firestorm with the intent of getting into melee more often, which I could do with Mail, Ice Core and the two ranks of Chant of Fortress I had gotten from Escorts.

I also needed that prodigy. My friend recommended Cauterize. I was leaning in favor of some other options, but after realizing that all of my deaths up to this point had been sudden, I wanted a defensive one. But I just hadn't been burned enough. And I realized I was in a dungeon that was dealing lots of Blight damage. So I decided to set out for Corrupted Shell. Constitution was already my second stat, behind Magic. So I went to the Spellscar... and my 5th life was claimed when I got teleported to the Fearscape without my golem, whom I could not summon nor even steal HP from. Whoops. Well I returned, finished the job, and ironically learned how to betray escorts to Zigur after I had killed them all. After this, I cleared out the continent (mostly) looking for unlocks and more XP. Then I returned to the Master to continue the story.

After this, things mostly calmed down. Reknor went smoothly. I started putting points into Acid for utility. And without meaning to, I ended up going straight for the return portals for the areas. Once I was back, my first 4k Merchant item was so perfect for me I thought the game somehow detected what stats you wanted. Extra fire damage and fire penetration. Mmmmm. The second item wasn't too bad either. Later items would dispel me of this notion entirely.

Lives 6 and 7 were claimed by Kor, who wore me down, partially because he trapped me in a building when I Gem Portaled in to escape him, and for the first time, found out that NPCs can open doors. I returned to fight from a better position, but he kept wearing me down and forcing me to retreat, even with Mana-regen gems. My poor Golem kept getting insta-nuked by him, and that put a damper on a lot of my defensive options. I was about to give up and come back later, but I decided I'd try one more time. I got gibbed instantly. He must have landed a couple of crits through my Ice Core all in one turn. Ouch. Now I was out of extra lives, and I was going to have to beat this Roguelike style. Fortunately, I had a Ring of the Dead and some Blood of Life, so I actually had two extra lives, but still, I was way too close for comfort to peram-death.

My friend pointed me towards the Sand Worm lair again, and I claimed my final Cat point. With nothing I really wanted, and not enough to spend Generic points on, I went to unlock Hexes. Burning Hex not only did fire damage, but it was CC that could be really useful against bosses. I eventually ranked up Empathy curse as well. Domination wasn't useful, since it broke on damage, and between my golem and me being constantly on fire, that was never going to last.

I started working on the other Prides, none of which provided me nearly the challenge. Once clearing the first one, I got the invite to the Volcano ritual, and thank god I read about it ahead of time. Because I never would have noticed that time, and would have spent way too much time Resting to max after every fight. The quest log doesn't tell you to hurry up either... or at least, no more than it does for all other sorts of time-insensitive quests. Going in, I decided to prep Flame Body, intending to, at least, float a point in there for the fire resistance. But I had moved on to increasing my Willpower, as mana was my big weakness so far (and because if I didn't need the extra mana, that meant more +25% damage diamond bombs, instead of the mana regen bombs), and when I got to the end, I raised it to 4 to contribute to damage. Pretty much everything from here went smoothly and uneventfully. I didn't use up either of my remaining lives, and the only real mistake I made was in using the last of my Class points to raise my Golems ability to equip gems, and then realizing that the Artifact gems I had were not level 5, and that it's a talent that can't be refunded. But I was mostly just dumping spare points at this time. I picked up Cauterize at 42, but I never actually used it.

The final dungeon went a LOT faster than Dreadfell, once I realized that my gear was all but maxed, and my level actually was maxed. I'd skip vaults and start taking the stairs up the second I found them. I was almost completely decked out in Merchant gear (and the stuff that wasn't was really nice), so without experience to get, and the game letting me know I wouldn't be able to leave before the final boss anyway, I just rushed to the top to finish the deed. The final bosses kind of came out of nowhere. Whereas I really liked the Legend of Gorkul, these two bosses just... were kind of there in order to have a world-saving plot. Which I found rather disappointing after the game was heavy on a lot of interesting lore.

I ended my campaign with 13 classes unlocked, 3 races, 9 'other' (which includes all 4 elemental talent trees), and 2 cosmetic options. My Alchemist has a lot of artifacts, and will be retiring to right next to the vault to swap those in and out as needed. The DLC only provides you with a total of 12 slots, and I had a lot more than that... though I probably didn't really need most of them. But no harm holding on to them. I next intend to get two Tinkers up to the boss that unlocks Tinker content in the original campaign, at which point I'm going to experiment with a lot of characters for variety and further unlocks. I just want to have them able to grab Tinker escorts before I make them, and so that's first. My first character in the Orc campaign is a Sawbutcher, and I'm still playing on Normal. I'll probably move on to Nightmare for my second tinker character going forward. I don't have any real push to beat the game now that I've done it once, so I'm not afraid of a little bit of death.

Overall, I'm very happy with the game. Auto-explore, auto-rest, and the transmutation chest solve a lot of busy work problems. As do inscriptions save you the trouble of worrying about extra resources. Granted, I still got screwed a few times when I ran out of alchemical gems mid-combat, but not having to stock up on potions before every dungeon was much appreciated. Not that I had much to spend money on regardless... money seems to be an early and late game only thing. Shops change stock so rarely, and their options are little more than what I could find a dozen of on every single dungeon floor to begin with. I'm glad money does eventually feel worth it in the end-game with the Merchant (and I hear siding with the Assassin Lord gives you an alternative), but it would have been nice if there was more in the middle.

Alchemist felt like a solidly designed class, with a few different valid build options. Extra talent trees from other classes or generically available pools help add more customizability to classes. Hopefully other classes will feel similarly well designed, and if so, this game has tons of replay value. I don't need every class or build to be equally strong, as long as there are a lot of functional options that play differently for varities sake, I'll be quite pleased.

I do have a problem with item descriptions though. I've been through the whole campaign, and I still have trouble comparing two similar items. The magic buffs are mixed in with the weapons base stats, and it's hard to parse them out. And there are so many possible bonuses, that unique items descriptions look like a big mess. I learned to read them well enough, but they could really benefit from some kind of UI overhaul.

Well, for anyone who read the whole thing, thanks for taking the time. I haven't had this much drive to play, and replay, a game for quite some time.

If anyone wants to recommend good class/race combos to unlock extra stuff with, I'd like to hear it. While the primary goal is unlocking, it would be nice if I could keep playing the character, rather than design something awkward just for an unlock. I need to play a Yeek to get Mindslayer (Given how I barely managed to save the Yeek the first time, I might just make this a Normal difficulty game, though any class that is good at single-target burst and works well on a Yeek might keep me happily playing on Nightmare), a Dwarf Mage investing points into Harmony for Stone Warden (Honestly, this sounds so unnatural, I think the character will be deleted as soon as this goal is achieved), a Rogue or Shadowblade for Marauder (maybe that can be the Yeek?), and a Temporal Warden for Paradox Mage. Bonus points for including a Thalore somewhere to make unlocking Oozemancer more likely.

[Caliginosus]

Congrats mate!

That you only need higher stats at time of equipping, and so you don't need to invest TOO much in Strength anyway.

That mechanic works for almost everything. You can wear a lot of +Con gear, put skill points into Thicc Skin and take the gear off again. It also works for prodigies. So you can take a prodigie without having to heavily invest into that stat, instead you can just collect enough +stat gear in your inventory.

Descriptions are oftentime lacking or misleading.

While I agree generally with that statement, I'd say that most things are explained properly within the rules of the game world.
In case of Lacerating Strikes the word "attacks" implies that it only doesn't work with spells.
The wiki is out of date regarding a lot of topics (still very useful). Tometips is a great online source for the game as well (and more up to date than the wiki). So is the character vault.
https://tometips.github.io/

I don't need every class or build to be equally strong, as long as there are a lot of functional options that play differently for varities sake, I'll be quite pleased.

Alchemist is one of the most basic classes in terms of complexity, power level and buttons to press, so you won't be disappointed. I guess Alchemist is nice on Normal due to the amazing AOE.
Sawbutcher is pretty simple as well, but much stronger in terms of power level. Loving Sawbutchers flavour.

Most classes are a lot of fun and have very different mechanics, flavours, gimmicks, etc.
Balance is ofc far from perfect in a game like this, but every class is Insane viable.

I do have a problem with item descriptions though.

I am using an addon to help with that. It sepperates stats into defensive and offensive cluster, and highlights +stats in a different colour, etc.
https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/better_item_desc

Whereas I really liked the Legend of Gorkul, these two bosses just... were kind of there in order to have a world-saving plot. Which I found rather disappointing after the game was heavy on a lot of interesting lore.

Same for me.

If anyone wants to recommend good class/race combos to unlock extra stuff with

As you seem to have noticed there are some pretty specific unlocks while others just add up after time, after spawning a certain dungeon, etc.
So it's really hard to give you a recommendation based on that information. Might be easier to help if you distinguish classes in playstyles, like wanting to play a melee now, or wanting a dot focused class, or pets, etc. Or just go with what sounds good. The game does a great job with the "feeling" of the classes. So generally classes that sounds cool to me based on their descriptions are fun to play.


Now onto higher difficulties. Which means a lot of more rares, randbosses and loot! Enjoy!

[Sines]

I had figured out how to 'cheat' the stats on every thing, yes. The only limitation seems to be is that when changing gear, the game assumes you take off your current gear, and then put on the new stuff, so you can't rely on bonus stats on the equipment your swapping out.

And I'd be really surprised if other classes were as simple as alchemist. Their first 16-18 Class Points (And depending on how you look at it, some generic points) all go into a single skill, which has a short cooldown, and basically defines what you do the majority of the time. Things get a bit complicated with the Golem, but it mostly does it's own thing once you equip it.

I guess the only two unlocks I really want advice are for the Mindslayer and Stone Warden unlocks.

Mindslayer is simple. Play a Yeek, and save an NPC in time. But I almost lost the Yeek on my first attempt (he was one hit away from death. Things were not helped by me not being certain whether the friendly NPC would be hit by my bombs, so maybe it's not THAT hard to save. But still, I'll be playing on Nightmare this time. So the question is, what's a good class for Yeeks in general (I'd like this to be more than just an unlock run) and that is good at winning this fight, whether through high single target burst, or defensive abilities that can affect allies.

Stone Warden is bizarre. I either play a Mage who picks up Harmony (and I've already played Alchemist once, so it'd be Archmage) or a Wilder who picks up Stone Alchemy (Which is actually a good skill set in general), or Divination in a pinch (Good odds on getting one of those escorts at least, but not guaranteed like Harmony). All while being forced to play a Dwarf. While such a character could certainly be passable, I feel like I'd be likely to delete this character rather than continue playing it as soon as I get the unlock. It doesn't seem easy to come up with a good build that uses all three of those requirements together, of class, race and extra cat point. But if there is a good option, I'd like to know about it.

Oh, and then there's the Krog unlock. That's as simple as making an anti-magic character. That sounds simple enough, but good choices for it would be appreciated. Additionally, the unlock says something about saving all 4 Krogs. I'm curious as to how difficult that would be, and if some characters are better at it than others. Or, alternatively, what the level cap on that quest is so I can just outlevel it. This would be useful information for the Mindslayer unlock as well.

[Sines]

So, I just beat Embers of Rage. I won't go into the details of that, but I had a good time on a Sawbutcher. Learned a few things about tinkering, and how useful Chants can be as a pickup tree for clearing statuses.

Made some progress on an Annhilator, enough to unlock Tinkers in AoA. Now that I have unlocked all content available from EoR in AoA (EoR does still need two more internment camp completions), I'm more happy to fiddle with that campaign, and try out new characters. And to work on some unlocks. All campaigns going forward will be at least Nightmare difficulty, unless I deliberately decide to do a build that I know will be bad, but I insist on doing it for fun.

First choice is my solution to the Stone Warden. At first I was going to go for an Archmage, and try to throw in the Technomancer unlock if I had the chance. However, I realized that Shadowblade offers enough natural spell options (Phase Door and Phantasm are pretty natural uses) to qualify for the magic half of SW, and scoring 600 damage at once on the class unlocks Marauder. It's probably the most efficient unlock I can get, as it's the only one that requires a specific class that can do two unlocks at once (unless you unlock Stone Warden through Staff Combat and Harmony on some other class, I guess). Made the character female for cosmetic beard options!

[Sines]

So my Shadowblade went rather further than I thought she would. Besides Marauder taking me ages to do (I eventually realized I could just drop a few points in Shadow Grasp, crit with it, and then take them out), I initially intended to abandon it with the Stone Warden and Marauder unlocks, then I came across the Shasshhiy summoning ritual in Daikara... which meant I would try to go for Doomelf. And really hate myself for playing on Nightmare instead of Normal for a character I fully intended just to unlock things.

Harmony was... an okay choice. No good way to get rid of Equilibrium is kind of lame. Being able to turn poisons and diseases into heals is a 1 point wonder though. Fast infusion restoring wasn't bad, but I didn't find it made much of an improvement. And with no way to cause self damage, the skill that gives you a buff based on damage you recieve was... I guess nice to just have on at all times, because it had little cost and some of the effects are nice. However, it seemed I didn't need a full 10 points in them... I'm not sure what the threshold was (10 points between Spell and Wild-Gift total?) but the loss of the category point was worse than the loss of the 1 generic point I'd have rather not spent there. The build would much rather have had an extra Inscription, as it's primary problem was things this didn't help with, and while I didn't have a great need for Generics, they would have been better elsewhere. Also no Willpower to make them stronger.

I will confess, I did cheat on the Melinda ritual, however. I had everything nicely prepared. All the way on the bottom, and I killed all but one of the cultists, to make it easier to fight once the demon arrived. I then got so lost in the moment that I went to strike down the cultists right on the last turn I could to save Melinda. I think my thought was to strike him down at the same time the demon arrived. Obviously, this was dumb, and if it wasn't for the brain fart, I would never have done it. I Task Managered out of the game and found myself back at floor 1 of the Dark Crypt. On the way down, I lost all of the remarkably good loot I had found through the place the first time (including a dagger I would have happily used until the end of the game). So I guess I did some penance for my misdeed. Oddly, when I got back, something happened and the demon summoned almost instantly. I have no idea what happened. Turns out I really didn't need to mow down the cultists first, because they and the demon went down easy. Only for me to get killed and have a Parasite replace my head by some random elite enemy afterwards. I knew about the Parasite... but given how worried I was about the demon encouter, losing to some hobo in 2 shots was kind of disappointing.

I had been putting off Shashay for a while, because she could almost one shot me, and this was after Dreadfell (and my prodigy point in Flexible Combat), so I figured it was a good time to do it.

I realized around Dreadfell that Daggers were better at inflicting statuses, rather than dealing damage, so I started packing mostly disables into my knives, and using Flurry to apply a 50% slow fairly reliably thanks to some boots. It wasn't until way later that I realized that most of my attacks were better off being saved as disables and utility and not used for damage.

With my first cat spent on an infusion, and my second one spent on Harmony, my third one unlocked Time magic. With Parasite giving me a passive for 25% permanent bonus speed, I figured it'd be good to just pile on with that with the haste sustain. I did have to turn off Premonition for this, and barring some other source of max MP, it's not going to be used. Time Shield was also nice, because I didn't have much defense against getting two shot. An instant shield to give me time to start my Regen infusion was a huge help. Fourth went into Ambush... which is really more Shadow magic, and I have no idea why it's called this. It's a pretty good 2 point wonder category. First one gives you +25% resist all practically all the time, the second gives you a ranged silence/disarm/pull. The third gives you some nice stat bonuses (including accuracy for landing debuffs), so it''s pretty good for spare points. The final talent looked more likely to kill me than to do anything useful, though...

Anyway, things were going kind of crappy. In over 10 levels, I hadn't gotten any gear that came close to the quality of the lost gear in the Dark Crypt. This is where I started to see a big downside to the Assassin Lord. Just getting ANY T5 gear with a bunch of enchantments on it would be a huge help to me, and the AL is more about making good gear better. This is fine when you have access to a well stocked Vault which can ensure a character gets something halfway decent, even if it's not as refined as it could be, but I had nothing worthy to move over.

But then I got a number of things in short succession. Icy Kill was a huge help, being my new best disable that could lock down quite a lot of enemies. Then I got the Frozen Cloak, which provides a crap ton of ice damage (and yes, I was going magic for my third stat, along with Arcane Might) and more freezing, REALLY helping out my terrible AoE game. And then when I killed the Naga to summon the final Doomelf demon... he dropped a pearl that causes more cold damage and Wet. I went face first into Device Mastery thanks to these two items, and it turned my game around hugely.

However... with the 5 unlocks being secured, and the stress of actually getting far enough to unlock the Doomelves (one of the latest races or classes you can unlock in a game, all while having, until the very end, terrible equipment), I think I'm all set here. Things have turned around, and it would be nice to secure the Insane unlock (not that I would likely play it ever, but still, nice to have), but it became a kind of stressful slog towards the end, as the Naga was extremely threatening to me, and I had no idea how difficult the Dragon or Demon would be (not even close), with me desperately wanting to get the Doomelf unlock out of the way (especially since it meant I could do Doomelf Temporal Warden for Paradox Mage and Demonologist unlock in a single run). I'll probably return eventually, if for no other reason than to see if the Necro Orc pride has the final Necro training guide (my level 50 Alchemist will just check the fortress and then nuke Celia into oblivion, at which point I'll wait for 1.7 to try out Necro), but she kind of got nuked trying to go in there, and I'm not sure how much will change.

So, I'm starting up my Doomelf Temporal Warden. Who will carry on the sins of her mother by fighting the Melinda and Water Demons herself. It was a fairly mild cheat, and not one without penalty, but I do still feel bad about it. I won't care if Sashay doesn't show up, but she's not really a challenge. She shows up in some mid level dungeon, and you can always return later at a much higher level to kill her once Walrog is dead. Killing her isn't an achievement, it's pure luck. But Melindas demon requires you going to the Dark Crypt when the game SAYS you will (and it's a stage I never want to go back to), and you can't leave until it's done. And Walrog shows up so late that while you can kind of out level him (or more accurately, his Naga gatekeeper), it's not easy to do so, especially when the Orc Prides are all that you have left to level on and are dangerous as hell. Side note, I meant to just level lock the Naga and escape. Apparently the Parasite is not a fan of negotiations.

Oh, and I only just found out about the Fortresses personal storage feature this playthrough. Towards the end, after suffering at the hands of the Strength lowering Dark Crypt enemies locking me in place from encumbrance (of all the gear I carried to swap in and out as needed, like for learning Thick Skin without Constitution investment). Not knowing about this also meant that I had nothing of value in the Vault, because I could only store so much gear on my Alchemist, and so tossed a lot of stuff that could have been useful.

Well, maybe with proper vault (both personal and account) usage, and not going with a build that's as questionable as a Dwarf Shadowblade with Harmony, maybe I'll find this easy enough and decide to try out Insane once I've got all the unlocks under my belt. But I'm definitely not getting bored on Nightmare, which is why I decided to try out unlocks on that rather than on Normal. But honestly, if I thought about Doomelves to start with... I probably should have run this character on Normal. Even on Adventure Mode, this was stress city. Honestly, once the unlocks are all behind me (and I think Doomelf is the worst one in terms of time spent in the game and difficulty, so that's nice), I won't mind dying mid save nearly as much. All I get for beating the game (besides a sense of Pride and Accomplishment [tm]), is access to an even harder game! If I can't beat the game on Nightmare, I shouldn't be playing on Insane anyway!

[Caliginosus]

Unlocking stuff was heaps of fun. Just need to make sure you don't feel too empty after having nothing else to unlock. ;P
I just went with beating the game on insane with all the classes that interest me, which still keeps me busy.


Do you still need the Krog unlock?
I just copy Cathbald's note about the unlock, found in his Zone Order thread:
"Necromancers' ruins : you'll need to be antimagic for this one. After passing the test in Zigur and reaching level 20, go to Last Hope. You'll get a message and the ruins will appear on the world map. I do not advise going at level 20 as the zone is pretty hard, as usual 30 is a good point because prodigy. The second level is timed and looks like this. You need to save all the Krogs to unlock the Krog race. You have 40 turns, after which the time prison around the Krogs will end and they'll be able to take damage again. The necromancers like to remain invisible and throw a lot of AoE/debuffs. The Grand Necromancer is a lich. Perfect strike is a must for weapon classes."
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=48660

I won't mind dying mid save nearly as much. All I get for beating the game (besides a sense of Pride and Accomplishment [tm](...))

Well, currently you are aiming to survive until the unlock goal is reached, and after that you'll be aiming not do die before completing the game.
For me the super bosses are a great motivation to keep playing and optimizing my char. You can even enter the endless dungeon at the end of everything and see how deep you'll make it.