there was a mission i had been trying to complete for quite some time with heroes and henchmen (AI characters that i control). it was a timed mission, and those are always the hardest for me as i tend to be very methodical and prefer to slow down the pace of a fight so i don't get overwhelmed in moving my characters around. after finally beating it at the basic level (basically i took way too long, but i still beat it) i decided to join up with a team of humans to try to complete it faster. i figure with humans, we should all be thinking about the objective, and we should be able to get it done faster without having to constantly command which enemy to fight next, and where to stand and what skill to use, etc.

but after several times through it became quite clear that the group i had joined was incompetent. though we had 3 monks, the majority of our team was dead before the first of 3 waves of enemies had even started taking damage. it was pathetic. my character deals some good damage, and stays alive pretty well on her own but still i found myself without any backup assistance and lying in a pool of my own blood, face down in less than a minute.

after struggling through five or six tries i gave up and left. i read up a little more online about which particular henchmen and heroes i should bring with me for their particularly useful skills, then went back in. within two tries i had beat it at the master level (top level).