This was my first time running through the alternate route and I deeply enjoyed it and the mini-progression through dungeons. I would love to see this route connected through dungeons as the abrupt stop after Arena is jarring.
I would also love to see a way to gain the passives and idol slots since having to go back and hit the quests takes away from the experience of progressing your character through dungeons.
I went into lightless arbor at 20 and got to the Arena at level 60 in about 2 hours doing this. Wish I had found this guide to keep the route going!
The route is kinda broken up once you get past Soulfire requiring some awkward backtracking but the guide tells you how to get to Temporal Sanctum. My feedback was hoping in the future EHG a more clear route to do all of them.