Semi blind ish attempt with a general route in my head but mostly untested so a lot of mistakes and unnecessary timeloss. Notes:
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3% Tales from Far Away Land
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3% Robe of Flame
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3% Dragonscale (tried with plat armor at L45 vs Winnehild, then left to get tough nut M in duskbarrow, tough s in carrion cave+path of beasts, and steal this Dragonscale as well as steal a bunch of backup Rev Jams from Gigantes/Heavenwing/Monarch because Winnehild is a fucking monster)
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several 15% nuts, 8% armor, etc (L33/34 for most Nuts/Augmentor/etc)
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L35 for Steorra using Apo (high speed/def buff makes vets inefficient; seems L Stones is a better way than Vets to efficiently chip her quickly to 50% for AI Loop)
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L42 ish Merchant vs Balogar (used up too many Rev Jams though so couldn't go as Merch for Dreisang and needed Apo to preserve jams)
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L43 ish Apo vs Dreisang (barely defeated him, was tossing Light S/shad one at a time to break his third shield set, and barely stalled out vs Extreme Elemental Augmentation; shouldve preserved more stones going into him but didnt know it would be that tight)
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finished at L45 against Winnehild but needed a lot of attempts. There was one I got her to 92% then she wiped me and that was just so disheartening. Used Runelord using Shackle+Eye for an Eye and a bit of Bottle Blind near the middle to end (65% so not as good as HHD x4 at 78% ish but it worked eventually, plus Shackle helped add a tiny bit of buffer). I suspect Merchant can survive better but Runelord is better for damage, and I think the latter is overall more consistent and obviously more powerful.
Anyway, lots of timesave possible. I'm not sure what's the potential time; I suspect 4h, give or take a bit, though it'll probably come with heavy RNG.