Okay before we begin, I am perfectly aware that this quest has been soloed on elite by a melee brute-style in the past.
However, I'm pretty sure that it hasn't been soloed as quickly on a lvl 18 character and with the post U13 changes for sneak attacks and crits to bypass fort.
This was all an unintentional result of the game making me angry. After failing 4 times to get my favor with a hireling due to the devils randomly switching aggro from me to the FvS, I decided... screw it. Bought myself 150 SF pots and soloed the entire thing brute style.
61 SF pots and 25 minutes later, Cenodoxus was dead. Why him? Because I'm a big red half-orc and that's just how I roll.
Screenies are actually from the 2nd run I did without dead hirelings... just to prove that I could do it. Ship buffs are there, but didn't really need them. I don't get my skills from an airship. I just like to min/max.
And to prove something else: The changes to let monsters SA and crit 100% fort chars are NOTHING to be afraid of! I just increase my threshold for heals so that even if all 15 devils and orthons spiked me with crits at the same time, I could still survive.
A dedicated DPS build can still tank post U13 elites/epics with no problems.
Melees' still got it even after all these years.