- Throughout the entire run, you will be item hunting for gold. You'll want mana and stamina potions ASAP so that you aren't forced to walk or wait for mana regen. Potions become expensive in later acts, and you'll need a lot of them. Keep a lookout for items that will sell for good gold. You may want to leave some space open in your inventory to pick up loot -
Act I
- Level up once in the Blood Moor for additional stamina, and to have your skill ready for the Cold Plains -
- Inspect the large houses for chests and beds (Click on the bed for potential loot) -
- There are a lot of shrines that can drastically improve your time -- actively seek them -
- Selling Items to look out for: Potions, Staffs, Wands, Javelins, Throwing Knives, Gems, Jewelry, Charms, Keys, Magics/Rares -
- (Pro Strat) Look for a super chest on the porch of a house. reset if there is not one (unless you already have good drops) -
- The Stony Field will never be in the corner of the map. When you reach the fork in the road, you will have to make a judgement call on which
direction will not lead into the corner of the map -
- The Cairn Stones are always hugging the trail on the ground -
- Rakanishu and his minions give amazing experience -
- The Underground Passage's map layout can be tricky. Do a few practice
runs of exploring the area to acquire a firm grasp of which way to go -
- The WP and Forgotten Tower will always be hugging a wall -
- Exploring the "boxy" areas (red circles) are a waste of time, but you can attempt to stay close enough to find any potential shrines in them -
Act II
- The Outer Cloister only has three different map layouts. You can determine where the Barracks is based on the WP -
- Stay against the walls in the deserts. Everything you need to find will be hugging against the wall -
Act III
"Don't get a shitty jungle layout" - S73nd4r
The Great Marsh is sometimes skippable.
Act IV
- Killing Infector Of Souls while kiting him up to Lord de Seis will save time -
- First case of the fire immune. Use your cold merc + poison potions to kill him -
- If you are running with a fire build, then it is necessary to hire an Act III merc with cold skills. He's your key to killing Grand Vizier and Colenzo. You'll also want to start saving any poison potions you find at this point to kill the fire immunes quicker -
Act V
Staying up to level can often be overlooked in an attempt to skip enemies and save time. For some categories of speedrunning, that is no good! In some areas, being underleveled can result in a loss of time from being too weak, not getting item bonuses, or not being the required level (Ancients anyone?)
Here's a general guideline of what level you should be.
Cold plains: 2
Underground Passage: 3
Forgotten Tower: 5
Fighting Andarial: 12
Arcane Sanctuary: 16
Fighting Durial: 17
Travincal: 19
Fighting Mephisto: Almost 20
- The Lower Kurast's exit will always be in a corner of the map, and the Upper Kurast's entrance will always be in the opposite corner of that exit -
- When killing the ancients. after killing Madawc, run up to the entrance of the Worldstone Keep. Click on the highest step possible and you'll be in a "safe position". Talic and Korlic won't use WW or Leap Attack -
Leveling
Pre-Game + Misc.
Most Diablo II runs are on /players 1. If you're interested in running on P8 or Px (The ability to change the number of /players at any time), then the strategies from the run will differ from P1. It is best to set the game to the right amount of /players with any character previous to starting your run. You COULD run on P2-P7, but I would advise not.
Although you want to spend as little time in your inventory as possible, it is essentially to keep it somewhat organized so that you can loot larger items for gold that's necessary for the run. If you have potions scattered, then you'll be wasting time attempting to pick up items.
You'll want your inventory to be empty as possible when you're killing the final boss of every act. The goal to loot everything worthwhile in one single trip.
Mobs with minions as well as random large groups of enemies should be your primary source of experience.
It may be worth skipping ranged mobs with challenging enhancements.
Champion packs can have 2-4 enemies. They may be worth skipping when there are only 2 or 3.
Shaman packs are a fortunate exception to that, kill them all!
If you haven't discovered a nearby waypoint yet, it is best to put up a TP at the entrance of a dungeon that you need to enter for quests. This way you can find the waypoint of the area (or next area) and take the TP back to eliminate backtracking.