Speed run of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction on normal skill in 10 segments, completed on June 11 2005.

Author's comments:
I just have this say to any potential viewers: I highly recommend viewing this at 200%. It makes things much clearer.

Diablo is one of those games where if someone mentions the idea of speed running everyone will point and laugh. Initial estimates hovered around the SDA seven hour limit. I am proud to present to you, a character from scratch, with no tweaking whatsoever, on /players 1, a sub two hour run from creation to Baal's anguished on normal difficulty (although describing it as a difficulty is more of a misnomer; Diablo is unique in the way its difficulties are arranged).

The map spawns in a single player game are set in stone at character creation and thus if you save the character files you can explore ahead, exit, reinsert the files, and play with full knowledge of where to go. Since there are several huge, sprawling areas of the game where a wrong decision can lead you astray this is the main way of cutting down time.

A second way to make the game faster is in the character. In all classes, most of the time sunk will be spent in the first act doing the required leveling. A trap based assassin is the fastest character I have tested due to three reasons:

1. A ranged area of effect spell that is powerful and mana manageable at level 1 allows for quick leveling.

2. Burst of Speed allows a large increase in run speed without the requirement of finding faster run boots.

3. Wake of Fire is an extremely powerful "fire and forget" spell and it only takes level 12 to earn. Each trap spurts five waves of fire and you can lay five traps on the ground at the same time; every wave pierces through all enemies. This can lead to enormous amounts of damage.

Even with fixed maps the game is quite random of course. Item drops, monster locations, monster type combinations, and champion and unique monster locations are the result of chance. However, it appears that with each map spawn there are certain locations where uniques spawn specifically. Going through the same areas over and over again I learned that they tend go spawn in certain locations over and over, which I could abuse. Monster type combos were only an issue in one or two areas which I will discuss in the particular act.

As for items, the only thing that really matters would be either fast run boots, items that grant resistance, and nice shiny things that sell for wads of cash (like heavy armor, rings, wands, and paladin scepters).

Since I have Burst of Speed and faster run items give diminishing returns the more you stack the lack of faster run boots isn't that detrimental...but of course, it would have been useful. I don't know how much it would have cut off but most of the time is spent running.

As for resistances...well...let's just say it was an interesting run. I ended with 75 cold and 6 for the rest. The most important is without a doubt fire and I wanted to get as close to the max 75 as possible. Inferno attacks (fetish shaman, venom lords) melt through health like butter and Diablo and Baal both have devastating burning attacks. More on that later.

I did, however, come upon max cold resistance due to jewelry and the arctic set belt (+40% cold res) found in Act 2. How interesting. Cold is only a serious threat (although being frozen makes a speed run not so speedy) against Duriel, Mephisto, and Baal, where I would have usually relied on thawing potions (with temporarily grant max cold resistance) and trying to avoid Mephisto's cold ball. I guess that saved some money and clicking, but meh...lucky, but not that beneficial, especially since I had 0 res to all other elements until I was ready to tackle Baal (and then only a paltry six).

An embarrassing fact I didn't know after all these years is that if you shift click a potion in your inventory it'll go right to your belt. I know some pretty obscure tidbits about this game but I didn't know that...wow. I manage to do somewhat well by running and dragging potions to my belt anyway, or while my fire traps were killing mobs.

Act One and the Maiden of Anguish:

These are the longest and dullest segments.

There is a shrine right outside the Rogue camp. Every time it was an experience shrine it seems the number of enemies would be cut in half and when it was something else there were many more enemies. However, there was a nifty experience shrine in the cold plains near a huge camp of uniques and imps (And good old Bishibosh) so that was a great boost during this segment.

Originally I aimed to get to level twelve before Andariel but that wasn't going to happen on players one even with the huge amount of champions/uniques I had slain. I tried to get as close as possible, of course.

The fight with Andy, as she is lovingly nicknamed, was fairly uneventful. Poison antidotes and the fact that I pumped health (and 'sins get +3 hp per point) made her infamous poison attack not so bad.

Act Two and the Lord of Pain:

With the acquisition of Wake of Fire I can now level on the run by sprinting around, gathering huge mobs, laying traps, and then running away while watching my bar fill. The fire simply dominates everything in this act with no mercy. The only frustrating areas are the Maggot Lair and the Arcane Sanctuary, hated by many players due to their close, claustrophobic tunnels which can be a huge burden on certain attacks. WoF performs decently but I am slowed.

Many consider Duriel on normal the most difficult boss in the game to solo. His unique unavoidable holy freeze aura and staggering knock back with the potential for critical OHKO's can leave a player running scared in the tiny chamber. Luckily, I can cast the traps and run around while damaging him. Since I had the arctic belt I also had nice cold resistance.

Act Three and the Lord of Hatred:

Of all the areas of the game I would estimate the casual player knows the least about the jungles of the east which hide Mephisto and a portal to Hell itself. This is a critical area -- the jungles can either be short and fast or long and tortuous -- even if you know where to go beforehand! Doing it blind is almost more like work than fun. The worst is when you have to go through the Great Marsh to get to the Flayer area...if I had obtained a truly bad spawn I might have considered restarting from scratch. I found a decent spawn but nothing to jump for joy.

My Sewers and Durance of Hates were rather sweet, though.

Mephisto is no push over, especially with 0 lightning resistance, but he's no Duriel. My cold res, however, enabled me to take his cold balls without too much bloodshed. I was able to take him down without running to Ormus for help.

Act Four and the Lord of Terror:

I enter Hell at such a low level that I'm outside the range of getting more than 5% experience and thus I don't level up at all. I run to the Fire River waypoint in less than three minutes, which definitely deserves its own segment due to the randomness of monsters clogging the path. Maggots seem less likely to do so, although it would have been prettier if I was avoiding the big Urdars and Pit Lords more often.

The Chaos Sanctuary is perhaps the peak of the game. If you can take this then you should be able to beat the game. Everything is fire resistant, which prevents a bit of a problem for my poor little assassin. If you wondered why I needed the cold mercenary from Act III then look no further than the fire immune Vizier of Chaos. As for the Infector of Souls...well...let's just say he takes as long as Diablo to take down.

Speaking of Diablo, YOWZA. As per the usual, his pink lightning hose of doom may as well be an instant kill since barely grazing it empties my orb. His fire waves send me into hit recovery. Luckily, I can abuse the traps and the walls and make the Lord of all Terror look like a functional idiot.

Act Five and the Lord of Destruction:

I had to level up to 20 since that's the minimum required by the ancients. I had to use the tried and true method of dropping potions on the ground. Two of them are fire resistant, which of course is fun for the entire family.

Baal's pets worked out decently (Colenzo requires my merc, of course) until Ventaur and Lister, which have to be lured out and parked. I had to kill off a wandering Pit Lord minion, unfortunately.

Finally, Baal himself...definitely the most powerful individual monster in the game (except perhaps the Uber Diablo, but is only an online feature that isn't set into the game's quests). With my bad fire resistance he makes me buy a boatload of the red stuff and his constant streams of mana draining dragon breath is extremely frustrating. Thankfully, the cold waves, although still annoying, don't threaten to kill me (I would have used thawing potions anyway, as I said earlier).

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