I want to explore. Please adjust monster cap.

[Meleena]

Drake, Pig and Eft in front, (and a bit farther behind them sits a raptor)... army of malboros and flies behind you.
Drake and Malboro closing in... wat do?

Answer: Die.

It ain't always as simple as 'walk past these guys and you'll make it'.

Thats the hardest node to get, but the place youre describing is not the hardest part of the road.
You wait for the pig to move out of the way and then you get past by the Eft and Drake by walking (Sound aggro both of them) while makinh sure that the Raptor has it's back turned to you.

The area with the Gnats, the Smolenko and the Malboro is wide open, find a safe spot and wait for them to move out of the way, its gonna take time but you will pass them without ever taking aggro, it's easy to find safe spots and wait.

The hard part comes next because there are Drakes together with Raptors in very narrow passages.
You will have to use buffs and chocobo to run through them.

The whole process might even take an hour through retries but thats why we say that you need patience on some of the nodes.
If I have done it solo, anyone can do it.

The node to the east of Camp Nine Ivies and the one to the west of Iron Lake were two of the hardest for me.

I got through the one east of Iron lake very easily, pop Sentinel, Stoneskin and Decoy, hop on Choco and run past the Smolenkos till you reach the node.