I dont really know why I was thinking about this, but I was- can anyone rank this list of dungeons from easiest to hardest if soloed?
-Vana Normal
-Vana Elite
-Rabid Snarbo Normal
-Rabid Snarbo Elite
-Red RT Normal
-Red RT Elite
-JQ Normal
-JQ Elite
-DFV Normal
-DFV Elite
-DaN Normal
-DaN Elite
-HoI Normal
-HoI Elite
-C42 Normal
-C42 Elite
-LoA Normal
-LoA Elite
-The other danger missions normal/elite
Oh, all this using the best gear available, so baissant just overall diff.
I knew there was at least one more, I'd just forgotten the name, and decided to make a sleeping statement.
Advanced is kind of in between, so the other have bigger changes. E.g- Rabid Snarbo elite is probably harder than JQ normal or something.
Gear skews these rating for me. By a lot actually. Mainly with the danger missions.
Compound 42 becomes a cakewalk if you get a Dragon Scale Set with one poison UV and one fire UV. With said set, you're immune to almost all the poison and fire in the level, boiling it down to just slimes and gremlins with some fancy hazards stuck in. In Ghosts in the Machine, the same applies to the Divine Set with a shock UV.
My perception of Vanaduke is so heavily skewed after running it SOOO much. I can't accurately rate it's difficulty anymore. Taking those biases into account...
- Firestorm Citadel is the easiest, just because I know where every single zombie spawns and what triggers every spawn.
- Compound 42 and Ghost in the Machine are tied for the next easiest. Mainly because I'm not as familiar with them as I am with Firestorm Citadel.
- Legion of Almire is the easiest of the danger missions if you don't have the immunity sets described above.
- Heart of Ice is the hardest of the danger missions. Not quite Shadow Lair difficulty, but it gets close
- Ice Queen is the easiest Shadow Lair, ESPECIALLY if you got Skolver.
- Rabid Snarby is the second easiest Shadow Lair, especially if you got Snarby (or even Radiant Silvermail).
- Red Roarmulus and Darkfire Vanaduke are tied for the hardest this game has to offer. Darkfire Vanaduke is probably harder, but because I'm so familiar with normal Vanaduke, his shadowy cousin isn't that big of a problem. That said, it still has a few twists meant to catch people like me, and if you don't have an experienced guide to warn you about them, you'll be burning sparks.
I didn't mention Dreams and Nightmares because it's strangely unique compared to everything else in the game. I'm the kind of guy who likes being very slow and meticulous, making sure everything is dead and every lamp is broken for every last crown. As a result, Dreams and Nightmares is... well... a nightmare for me. However, if you go in with the right mindset, and the right gear, I've heard it's not that bad. I go in with the wrong mindset, and don't have a good loadout for dealing with the swarm.
Grinchlin Assault is also a danger mission. It certainly deserves a spot here even if it weren't.
Anyway I haven't played all of these on normal so I'll leave them out..
Except HoI normal going by some friends' experience (they can solo other DMs on Elite and HoI normal, but not HoI elite)
Firestorm Citadel
Operation Crimson Hammer T3 (will also throw this here lol. Although it's still not so bad)
Compound 42
Ghosts in the Machine
Dreams and Nightmares
Legion of Almire
Heart of Ice (normal)
Heart of Ice (elite)
Grinchlin Assault
SL FSC (DFV)
SL IMF (RRT)
SL RJP (IQ)
SL GWW (Rabid Snarbolax)
Some might disagree about the DMs and say LoA is easiest, but if we're assuming ideal equipment and don't worry about C42's statuses it's probably the easiest.
Haven't done the SLs many times due to their cost but the first arena in Snarbolax is tough if you don't have the 21 vitapod yet.
Also the usual boss annoyances about the bell not working sometimes, etc.
SL FSC isn't too bad if you've done it a lot in a group and know what to do.
The other two are just more fighting in cramped quarters , their bosses aren't too tough. (like regular RT, RRT is tougher in a party due to switches)
its ice queen, no one says jelly queen
so in order ill put them as
fsc
och
loa
gitm
dan
c42
urjp (iq)
hoi
ugww (rabid snarby)
uimf (rrt)
ufsc (dfv)
I probably would have rated the shadow lairs a bit lower if I did them more often, mostly because theyre actually difficult (without practice) as opposed to the cheap spamming of enemies in small spaces that the danger missions have
What Flowchart said, bs assault is the hardest thing in this game. Although there is a way to cheese, it, the last part can still easily kill you.
Compound 42 (With dragon set)
Operation Crimson Hammer
Firestorm Citadel
Dreams and Nightmares (With optimal gear = everything to choose from)
Heart of Ice
Rabid Snarbolax
Legion of Almire
Ghosts in the Machine (With shock resistance)
Darkfire Vanaduke
Ice Queen
Ghosts in the machine (No shock resistance)
Compound 42 (No dragon set)
Red Roarmulus Twins
...
...
...
And then grinchlin assault has a category of its own. You have to have some kind of "optimal" set, and you have to have good latency, skills, everything... and even then there's still a good chance of failure on the last arena. It's possible to be proficient at it, but if something goes wrong you're still going to die.
Well I find difficulty in strange places, and strength in others. For example, I could run Heart of Ice solo with no problems before I could run compound 42 solo with no problems, but that's because A) Slimes are my kryptonite and B) I have a fair amount of anti-fiend weapons.
As such, Compound 42 would be higher on my list than Heart of Ice and Ghosts in the Machine, mainly because I enjoy fighting fiends and constructs and with those two missions centering around them I just have the moral boost, and both gremlins and slimes are in my "really would rather not" area, making Compound 42 more of a personal hell, even with dragon scale.
That being said, Ice Queen would be harder for me to solo than Red Roarmulus despite the actual difficulty involved.
Then comes grinchlin assault... Grinchlin Assault itself actually isn't that bad once you get into your groove. After getting into it, I was able to clear the first floor with absolutely no problems, and the second floor (not boss room) without losing my ER as long as I played the spawns correctly, on Elite and solo. It does, however, require trinket slots if you even try to use a sword, and requires weapon slots if you want to try to solo it to the end with your sanity in tact. In an organized group, or even just with one other player, you can run that mission several times without needing to spark on Elite. I know that's what I did during the last few days of Winterfest, and I had the ability to cry over both not winning the giveaways and also not getting a solstice ring.
The other danger missions normal/elite
There is only one other: Ghosts in the Machine. But maybe you don't really care.
What about Advanced difficulty? Maybe you should rate them all on a single difficulty level --- say, Elite --- to cut down the complexity of this task?