I tried a repeat of the 2h 40m speedrun trying to make some efficiency improvement and managed to succeed. Entered Mangar with roughly Lvl 21 Elf Pal, 2x Lvl 18/18 Dwarfs Monks, and Lvl 9 Elf Wiz. Won with an easy Mangar fight.
The approach was essentially identical to the 2h 40m run, just tried to make specific adjustments to the order of things and hoping for better item drops. Ultimately, the item drops were worse that the prior run, but avoiding some team wipes and early deaths and more efficient routing squeezed out a 19 minute improvement.
There were some substantial mistakes made. I failed to heal life drain before leveling which cost a few levels across the board. Pal would have been 22 and Wizard 10 for better rolls. That alone should have shaved off some time spent fighting in Mangar 4/5.
I think that ultimately the underlying barrier to entering Harkyn 1 is gold for spell advancements and healing after Grey Dragon. As such, leveling Paladin to lvl 10 (80k) and Monks to lvl 8 (29k) and Conj to 7 (19k) is about the right timing to begin gold/item farming in Catacombs 1.
Harkyn 1 should be attempted with Level 12 Paladin and Level 10 Conjurer. Hopefully the front line has at least 100hp to survive the dragon blast. The Paladin really needs to be at least lvl 12 (fleeing) and the Conj lvl 10 (damage) for the saving throw bumps in order to get the best efficiency benefit from Harkyn 1’s harder creatures.
You can go with less gold and hope no breath happens, and eventually this may be a necessary risk. But it’s not yet clear whether risking a team wipe at the dragon for early access to Harkyn 1 results in significant (if any) time savings overall.
Once Conj has APAR, the rest of the team generally should be LO or nearly LO, but the item drops left the Paladin struggling this time. With Conj at 13 the team got the Crystal Sword and tried to get the Silver Square but was too weak and just farmed a few fights and left to heal. [Lost several minutes in this process – the Paladin did not have 18 luck and failed important flees which complicated things.]
Got an eye for gold and a Paladin level, and then bumped Conj to Magician. Farmed Harkyn 2 for some items and to get some base XP for the Magician. Then raised Magician to 13 on the wights in Catacombs 3. Got the Silver Square, then finished Kylearan’s tower for the Onyx Key and Silver Triangle.
Then bumped the Magician to Wizard, farmed the wights for a few Wizard levels, then the Spectre as a team for more levels until it was time (2h 15m) to try a sub-2h30m win.
Ultimately the team had 2 Luckshields and an Exorwand and a Dayblade, but no Pureblades or Ali’s Carpet. These items reduce the spellpoint demands on the Wizard and allow for more restores and give some flexibility if the Paladin misses some flee opportunities. The Wizard did fine spellpoint wise, so they may not be strictly necessary. The two Luckshields were absolutely critical and gave the team the win. Unfortunately, these came at the very end of the game. The early and mid-game item drops were abysmal.
Mangar was fairly straight forward. APAR to Circle, APAR to seven words, walk to stairs. The Red Dragons did not breathe, which was good. The possession trap hit the Paladin who managed not to kill anyone. Unfortunately, the Paladin missed a flee at the 4 Spectres and again with a nasty random forced fight. These were fled from on the second attempt and a quick REST put the team back in business.
Mangar and Company died quickly and easily. The entire team lived through the first round. Wizard tried a DEST on Mangar instead of REDE on Vampire Lords and succeeded. The second round resulted in a Monk and a Paladin dying to the 3 vampire lords (DEST / Attack damage), but it was easy cleanup after that. Kylearan came and the game was over.
Overall, this run is pushing the limits on efficiency. I think a 2:05 represents a run with consistent and reasonably good RNG from beginning to end, as well as technical human focus and mostly mistake free typing. The human speed thing is a mixed bag. Go too slow and you waste time, go too fast and your path walking suffers or you pick bad fights.