what would we do without those canned elementals?

Well I think you have a fair chance at beating him straight melee if your party is level 14 or above. I mention the elementals as a way to handle the battle if you want to beat him right away. Like maybe the very first time you meet.

i've beaten the don without canned elementals with small melee parties as low as level 10-11. the key is having access to all the buffs, particularly from the priest (superman, GA, rest all, heal all), alchemy so that everyone has a couple stacks of restorations, and use haste potions.

Same things as always. I never used them (except to try it in the first game).
I also normally don't use summon elementals, except to gain some cheap XP (kill them myself). Had to use them in 3 fights with my pure spellcaster party, though.

As for Don, i killed him twice in (expert) ironman with a level 9-10 party, consisting of fighter, rogue and bishop (and a useless fairy ninja).
Used some superman potions and haste potions.

(Why twice? First time i tried this i noticed later that i played in normal instead of expert. I quit the game and restarted)

well i dont use them often either because im too nervous ill need them later. they just seemed to be the talk of this post. yeah, i beat don without canned elementals too.

Has anyone fought the ArmeGazers at AP? These are always really tough, and get tougher the more powerful your party becomes. ArmeGazers cast a really strong insanity gaze which penetrates even high level resistance. Your characters turn on each other, and the more powerful you are, the more you kick your own butt. Your casters spend their whole time casting sane mind, while your critical strike characters wipe out your party. On the plus side, worth about 5 megs of exp each! Fun fun fun!

It's not a boss, but the hardest regular creatures for me are the Deathsting Apuses. They come in groups of about 6 or 7; each one gets to attack 800 times per round and each attack has a chance of killing or severely poisoning. Uggh!

For my parties it's Gregor. Frequently one of his paralyzing attacks gets through and at least one resurrection powder is needed.

Probably Nessie, although I haven't really fought her yet. The hardest part about her, IMHO, is that you have to equip the scuba gear in one of your slots, and that 99% of your RPC's won't go there.

The Don was also very tough with his poisoned daggers and insane dodge chance. I think I slowed him then got lucky with a couple of hits. Too bad he didn't drop anything decent that I don't have.

Hardest boss (single enemy) for me would probably be Gregor, simply because I can never seem to prepare for him properly. Only using the stuff Burz sells severly limits my power. I'd need a few good concussion powders, at that level, to really deal to him convincingly, but the only one in the monastery is in the room behind him... I always find that so ironic.