Right now, we clear it everytime around 1.5 hour, with the use of 3 essence of celerities ofc (in NM). Because I don't think teambuilds can't be much more optimal or faster (basicly only 1 character that isn't doing damage, the monk), the time needed to 'run' to quests etc, and the order in which they are done, is the most important factor in shaving off more time to complete the lot.
To start off, this is how we do it:
Normally we start with tower of courage (ofcourse), get the 'wailing lord' quest from rastigan, than we move on to get the forgemaster quest on the battlefield. We save him, than clear a few patrols around the ghosts so they are safe. After that we move to the temple of war (where forgemaster is..) and clear the temple.
When that is completed, we complete the 'defend temple of war' quickly by first killing the first few (i believe 2 pairs in total) shadowbeasts that move to the top, and than running downstairs to first aggro the abbysals and the rest (at the entrance to forgemasters temple if you come from battlefield), killing them and than take on the 2nd group downstairs (the entrance which leads to spidercave).
Than we take reward, and take both quests Restore temple of war and Khobay. We move on to the spider cave (after taking 'The Hunt', so shardwolfs spawn) and complete Restore, and move a bit further on the beach to kill the shard wolf which spawns there.
Than we run back, and take the route to the Lake of Fire to complete Khobay. Easy enough, and we than go to the tower of strenght to ensure the towermage can safely come (also kill wurms). When this is done, 1 party member moves to Eternal Lord Taeres to get the quest 'Tower of Strenght', while the others clear the Shadow patrols which spawned. Tower mage comes, and we easily complete it.
Next step is slaves of menzies in the burning forest. Depending on how we feel, we get the quest as soon as we reach him, or we clear the forest first and letting 1 party member run back to grab that quest. Don't think it makes much difference if you send that party member away at the right time.
4 Quests left, we run off to kill a dragon and slay the priest of menzies, so we've completed army of darkness. On the way to reward we slay the shard wolf which spawned on the great battlefield, and than taking the 'little' side entrance to the forest, so we can kill the shard wolf there. Than we move to safe the wailing lord himself (after clearing some patrols in forest). When that's done, we grab the 'gift of griffons' quest from here. Sometimes 1 party member stays behind with the griffons (depending HM/NM), and we go back trough the side entrance to clear any spawns untill we reach our destination, the tower of courage. Than the only thing left to kill is the shard wolf that spawned near the tower of courage, and we're done.
Like I said, normally around 1.5 hour (hoping no1 goes AFK/DC).
Basicly this pic shows the route described in the above text:
Oh, things that are always in our party are a SY! para, monk and a killing machine (warrior I mean).
So, if you think you got tips/better routes/what ever, feel free to share them
(I think). I couldn't clearly say if it was any faster (we did priest of menzies still b4 we did forgemaster tho, we only skipped the forest like you said), but when you look at the map it's true that you don't come in the same area twice, so one would expect it's faster.
). Probably next time divert hexes for me, since most of the danger comes from hexes.
