Ashland Charred Fortress tips

[radaghast5]

I'm playing melee solo, but have some nice magic clothes I'd like to try out before DN as well. Anyways I thought we could share some ashland tips, important ones and some little things that help along the way. I know I'm still learning the ins and outs. Feel free to correct me or even call any ideas Dumb. (That's what forums are for, right?)
I'm using mistlands heavy armour, not fully upgraded. Just switched from Mistner to the Lightning sword but Mistner is pretty damn good.

-feather cape
-Ashlands food, maybe a honey glazed chicken from time to time.
-Place campfires. Always have wood and rock for these,
-Mats for portals. Build Portal, advance, clear the area ahead, deconstruct the portal, advance, build portal again. Placing campfires is essential here.
-2 Iron ingots. Very important. You'll have to run those in. That's why despawning the way (with campfires) is important. Place your stone cutter bench Right Against the Fortress wall That way you can build your (3 thick) stairs up the side and later (when the courtyard is cleared, place your stone portal without moving your bench. (3 stairs thick gets you away from the spikes) Dont get fancy with the stairs, just spam them thick and ugly up the side. There should be grausten enough for stairs lying around.
-Bonemass at the ready or don't go. When your bonemass is used up just leave. It aint worth it.
-Check the weather before you eat the best food or take any potions. If there's a storm then it's pretty much impossible to see anything in the ashlands. Good day to farm.
-The green summoned twitchers are a joke, the Marksmen are weak. Skugg are easy to dispatch and not very dangerous. (imo) Anyways BoneMass, jump in, take out one spawner, (killing whatever on the way) jump out. Rest up, take a nap you're halfway there. Bone mass, Jump in take out the other spawner and that should do it. Of course if you see 2 star anything you might want to reconsider your approach lol.
Best thing is to lure anything two star out and then hop back in. It won't be able to enter.
-Raids, when you're established in the fortress, are your friends. Fun to watch them take each other out from your walls.
-Things seem to rarely burn (for me) so I'm getting away from the shield shuffle. I just go forward. Forward and kill. Honestly, the mobs slowly but surely thin out. The dude on top of the fortress just stays there as he's kinda useless and just makes a lot of noise. Melee can one hit the Greens and he won't trigger if he doesnt see you below,
-Dont worry if the portal chain gets destroyed. Having/getting the mats there is what it's all about. Just rebuild them.
Anyhow that seems to be working for me. I play vanilla but use a world generator.

[Fleshling]

I don't really bother with campfires or anything like that. I have found that using the workbench and stone to build an earth elevation in the corner left of one of the gates is ideal.

Once your earth elevation is up to the second row of bronze spikes, just go to town with the demolisher. Use the Ask armor to lower stamina use. The demolisher will knock back the charred as they advance, but more importantly, it will break the stairs leading up to the battlement in the corner. Once the stairs are broken, the enemies will just stand where the broken stairs were, but still in range of the demolisher. Once they are largely dead, you can hop over a shoot the spawners with a bow.