Well thanks to zubs description I got this working.

My paladin went in there at about 40 and 40% of the bar.

It took a little while to get in to the swing of things, but eventually I did.

As someone else suggested I buffed my shaman with blessing of sanctuary. This helped.

I've just dinged 42. There was a lot of wasted time. When I go in to zolo I stand on the left hand corner with my back hanging over the edge. When it's time to bail I drop down from there. I spent a lot of time wandering down tunnels to try and find my way back up.

For those that want to save a bit of time - look for the tunnel that has some gargoyles (or statues at the entrance to it).

I found that I could take about 10 minutes of zolo's skeletons beating on me. I would then drop down and run back up - and the respawns hadn't happened. (the respawns slow you down getting back up there).

I stopped using the magma totem - reducing the amount of times I dropped it. It doesn't tag the mobs and doesn't really make them die quicker.

I'm going to have to see what I can do to prolong the amount of time I can take a pasting.

So I'm going to look for anything that buffs intellect (the more mana I have the better). I'm going to look at putting the mana oil (alchemy) on my weapon, and to have a steady supply of mana pots to chug.

I am definitely going to bring two other lowbies in there for a bit of painless levelling up tomorrow.

Thanks to all that helped... the shield spikes were the missing ingredient.