Speedrunning Nightfall - Help me!

I'm interested in seeing how quickly one can beat Nightfall with a new character with heroes/hench only and no financial help or assistance from other players. I like speedrunning and this seems to be the best solo speedrun challenge for this game. It feels like solving the missions with hero micromanagement and splitting could be a really fun thing to solve and improve on.

So I come to you with questions. I've forgotten much over the last 6 years of not playing.

The most important thing is how to get through Elona as quick as possible.

What are the sequence breaks in this game?

How do you get to the mainland the fastest?

How much of the mainland can you simply run through? What missions and quests are mandatory to reach the ending?

I need the fastest possible path and I'm sure it's already known. The interesting parts will be speedrunning the missions with hero micromanagement... and choosing a profession...

You can reach Elona basically as soon as you arrive in Kamadan. However, you would require a player who has an active quest that brings you to the mainland. Afaik, you can also reach Kodash Bazaar from Sunspear Sanctuary although you wont be able to progress on your story line and your missions will be locked. The same goes for Bone Palace, if I remember correctly, then you can get a run to there, but can't progress anywhere even if you have someone in your party with quest active.

As far as your speedrun goes, I would advice to do the story as it is meant to be done, you will get more heroes and experience.

Lastly, there are anyway 2 missions that are optional in the story, you can skip those without any penalty.

Good luck, post some results later

So only 2 missions are skippable without exploiting quests from other players?

No help from other players means no quest-skips from them. Though I might use a 2nd account exclusively for the quest skips if a standard speedrun takes too long, but that depends on how fast I can complete the missions. If a speedrun takes too long then it may simply just not be fun. Rules can be added to make a new category and make it more interesting.

As I mentioned earlier, you can get a run to a certain place, but if my memory serves me well, then you can't progress further than the Gate of Desolation. Even if someone has a quest active, they won't be able to bring you along.

Anyway, I don't see any sense of speed running if you are planning on abusing the game with using other players, multiple accounts etc. As long as they are game glitches that you can use on your own, it's all right. Otherwise you can get a speed runner that clears the game in about 5 hours for you and done deal!