I had to get help on the puzzle but the battle (I'm playing on normal) was well balance for my party and I did it on the first try but had one death and it took a while - maybe 30 or 50 minutes. My party is not super buff; I have two mage like characters (one is better at pyro the other earth) and two fighters - one is two handed the other is one handed/shield. The order you do the area might impact difficulty. I totally missed this area and so did it at the end (just before going to phantom forest) so I was level 15ish - i think i level to 16 upon completing this fight but not sure. I could see if i had come here at 13 or 14 it would have been a lot more difficult or maybe I just got lucky. I have piled Madora with most of my best equipment and i tend to stone skin/haste and use summon and shield warrior to distract the spell casters and eat damage while she wacks away.
