Month: February 2020

Ran a 2h 10m run. Used a very similar approach to the 2h 21m run. This time I was able to get screen recorder software working and I posted the video to YouTube with commentary. Find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh0EEJ5iwIk

This attempt included some additional refinements. The item drops were better than average overall.

Some timings:

• Farming Samurai/Ogre Lords
• Catacombs 1 – 19:30
• Harkyn 1 – 34:30
• Wights – 47:45
• Harkyn 2 for items – 1:13
• Kylearan’s Tower – 1:26
• Farming Wights/Spectres
• Mangar Attempt #1 – 2:00
• Mangar Attempt #2 – 2:06

There is still substantial room for improvement as several minutes were lost to team wipes and bad pathing/event ordering. I will be analyzing the various timings to see where things can be reordered/adjusted to save time. In any case, with this general approach, a sub-2 hour run is to be expected.

I think moving forward I might experiment in creating a level 1 bard just before entering Mangar to avoid the Red Dragons. In the worst case it’s time neutral if it avoids the fight. Average case it probably saves 15-20 seconds. And in all cases, it avoids a team wipe.

I tried a repeat of the 2h 40m speedrun trying to make some efficiency improvement and managed to succeed. Entered Mangar with roughly Lvl 21 Elf Pal, 2x Lvl 18/18 Dwarfs Monks, and Lvl 9 Elf Wiz. Won with an easy Mangar fight.

The approach was essentially identical to the 2h 40m run, just tried to make specific adjustments to the order of things and hoping for better item drops. Ultimately, the item drops were worse that the prior run, but avoiding some team wipes and early deaths and more efficient routing squeezed out a 19 minute improvement.

There were some substantial mistakes made. I failed to heal life drain before leveling which cost a few levels across the board. Pal would have been 22 and Wizard 10 for better rolls. That alone should have shaved off some time spent fighting in Mangar 4/5.

I think that ultimately the underlying barrier to entering Harkyn 1 is gold for spell advancements and healing after Grey Dragon. As such, leveling Paladin to lvl 10 (80k) and Monks to lvl 8 (29k) and Conj to 7 (19k) is about the right timing to begin gold/item farming in Catacombs 1.

Harkyn 1 should be attempted with Level 12 Paladin and Level 10 Conjurer. Hopefully the front line has at least 100hp to survive the dragon blast. The Paladin really needs to be at least lvl 12 (fleeing) and the Conj lvl 10 (damage) for the saving throw bumps in order to get the best efficiency benefit from Harkyn 1’s harder creatures.

You can go with less gold and hope no breath happens, and eventually this may be a necessary risk. But it’s not yet clear whether risking a team wipe at the dragon for early access to Harkyn 1 results in significant (if any) time savings overall.

Once Conj has APAR, the rest of the team generally should be LO or nearly LO, but the item drops left the Paladin struggling this time. With Conj at 13 the team got the Crystal Sword and tried to get the Silver Square but was too weak and just farmed a few fights and left to heal. [Lost several minutes in this process – the Paladin did not have 18 luck and failed important flees which complicated things.]

Got an eye for gold and a Paladin level, and then bumped Conj to Magician. Farmed Harkyn 2 for some items and to get some base XP for the Magician. Then raised Magician to 13 on the wights in Catacombs 3. Got the Silver Square, then finished Kylearan’s tower for the Onyx Key and Silver Triangle.

Then bumped the Magician to Wizard, farmed the wights for a few Wizard levels, then the Spectre as a team for more levels until it was time (2h 15m) to try a sub-2h30m win.

Ultimately the team had 2 Luckshields and an Exorwand and a Dayblade, but no Pureblades or Ali’s Carpet. These items reduce the spellpoint demands on the Wizard and allow for more restores and give some flexibility if the Paladin misses some flee opportunities. The Wizard did fine spellpoint wise, so they may not be strictly necessary. The two Luckshields were absolutely critical and gave the team the win. Unfortunately, these came at the very end of the game. The early and mid-game item drops were abysmal.

Mangar was fairly straight forward. APAR to Circle, APAR to seven words, walk to stairs. The Red Dragons did not breathe, which was good. The possession trap hit the Paladin who managed not to kill anyone. Unfortunately, the Paladin missed a flee at the 4 Spectres and again with a nasty random forced fight. These were fled from on the second attempt and a quick REST put the team back in business.

Mangar and Company died quickly and easily. The entire team lived through the first round. Wizard tried a DEST on Mangar instead of REDE on Vampire Lords and succeeded. The second round resulted in a Monk and a Paladin dying to the 3 vampire lords (DEST / Attack damage), but it was easy cleanup after that. Kylearan came and the game was over.

Overall, this run is pushing the limits on efficiency. I think a 2:05 represents a run with consistent and reasonably good RNG from beginning to end, as well as technical human focus and mostly mistake free typing. The human speed thing is a mixed bag. Go too slow and you waste time, go too fast and your path walking suffers or you pick bad fights.

Did a 2 hour 40 minute speedrun under pure rules. Tried some new strategies. Used 1 Elf Paladin, 2 Dwarf Monks, and 13 Conj>13 Mag>9 Wiz.

The early game approach was basically the same as the 2h46m posted earlier. Level the frontline solo on Samurai/Ogre Lords until they have 100hp or so, level Conj to lvl 7 on Samurai.

The item drops were basically abysmal all game, but this was offset by Monks which speed things up with low AC in the early game. Farmed Catacombs until SHSP. Farmed Harkyn 1 until APAR. Then got Crystal Sword and Silver Square. Bumped Conj to Magi, then leveled on Harkyn 2 to get Magi up a few levels and hope for some good item drops.

Once Magi had a few levels, farmed wraiths until Magi was 13. Then went to Kylearan’s for Silver Triangle and Onyx key. After KT was done, bumped Magi to Wizard. Farmed wraiths for a few levels, then Spectres. Once Wizard was lvl 9 at around 2h20m we ran for Mangar.

Once in Mangar, we APAR to Silver Circle, then APAR to seven word sequence, then walk to stairs to Mangar 3. Red dragons were breath heavy (each of the three attempts) but didn’t kill anyone fortunately. Fled all other encounters. Possession trap was handled easily.

Unfortunately, the first trip was a team wipe at Mangar. The dwarf monks were level 19/20ish but still never maxed out luck (still at 17/16) and took heavy damage from spells. And they would hit critters but not kill them, as I was afraid of. After the first team wipe, I rolled a fast hero and we healed up and went at it again. Second attempt was also a team wipe, as I mis-typed some directions. Healed up and tried again. Third attempt was almost a team wipe, but a lone monk with Thor managed to clean up the mess. The first attempt, if successful, would have been a 2 hour 27 minute run.

Overall, I’m moderately but not completely pleased with Monks and will keep experimenting. They get LO easily, early, and with easy to get items. They also enable the Paladin to have the lion’s share of the item drops, which gets him LO faster.

But, they struggle with HP in the early game and can potentially die to the Grey Dragon breath when you need to enter. Their HP struggles get worse in the late game, and by level 19 or so they have 200 hp, which is about as low as I dare go to be able to have a reasonable shot at surviving 1 Demon Lord breath and a 1 Vampire Lord attack or 2 Red Dragon breaths.

I also experimented with some other specific efficiency strategies which seemed to work out well that I’ll discuss later if they end up panning out.

So, I ran a 2 hour 46 minute speedrun using the pure rules. That means that I started timing the speedrun with a blank slate (zero characters, default Garths) and rolled characters after the timer started. This was my fastest overall speedrun but also done with the hardest constraints yet.

I only rolled 4 heroes, an Elf Paladin, 2x Half-Orc Hunters, and an Elf Conjurer. Rolling is an interesting dilemma because the timer is running, but you need good stats to save time. I could have rolled a few extra heroes for the gold, but chose not to just to keep it the run as minimal as possible.

There’s a fair amount of flexibility as to what stats are critical for each position, so roll time does not consume as long as I thought it would. However, the roll time still adds to the overall time, and forces playing characters who have weaker overall stats and weaker growth. It also means that early team wipes that end a speedrun are more costly in real life due to the extra investment of time. As such, I’m currently playing a more conservative early game because there’s still room for improvement in other areas and it’s a waste of real life time to be aggressive in the early game if I don’t need to be.

The overall progression was as follows.

Roll 4x heroes. Pool gold into Paladin and level him solo to lvl 10. First few levels on Samurai, then remainder on Ogre Lords. Solo level each Hunter to 100+ hp, first few levels on Samurai, then remainder on Ogre Lords. Then solo level Conjurer to lvl 7 (FLRE) on Samurai.

(There’s probably 3-5 minutes of time that could be saved by having the Pal/Hunts skip the first 7-10k xp on Samurai and going straight to Ogre Lords, but then you’re reliant on RNG for 12 non-fatal rounds in a row, which is not hard to do, but still would could take an hour or so.)

The party then went as 4 to Catacombs 1 until about 30k gold and SHSP. Ate a dragon breath for a 18k gold penalty. Stayed at Harkyn 1 until APAR. The item drops in Catacombs were better than average, which helped speed things up. The item drops in Harkyn 1 were average. Once APAR was available, the Conjurer was immediately bumped to a Magician.

The party then immediately got the Crystal Sword and the Silver Square and spent a fair amount of time farming Harkyn 2. Unfortunately, the item drops in Harkyn 2 were mediocre. Only one Luckshield and no Adamantite shields were obtained.

Once the Magician was level 10/11ish, the party then went to farm out the Spectre repeatedly to level the frontline up a bit. The Magician once 13 was bumped to Wizard. Wights were farmed for a few Wizard levels, then Paladin and Wizard farmed Spectre as a pair. The Paladin ended farming as level 30 or 31, the Hunters were 18-20, and the Wizard was 14.

Once the Wizard was 14 (even levels bump up the save roll), the party immediately went to Kylearan’s Tower to get the Triangle and Onyx key, and then Mangar for the win. Mangar was a simple APAR to Circle, APAR to Mouth to unlock stairs, walk to stairs, and then up to Mangar 4. On Mangar 4 the red dragon fight went well with GRSU Demon Lord disposing of one dragon, and the party survived the 2nd dragon’s breath just fine.

A Hunter got caught by the possession trap and caused some chaos, but the Wizard fixed things up. The party otherwise fled from everything on Mangar 4/5 until the final battle.

The party walked to Spectre Snare, gave it to the Wizard, summoned Thor, and went in. The final battles are always a blur (and it’s late at night which doesn’t help). As I recall, Paladin and 2x Hunters targeted the Demon Lords, and Wizard cast REDE on the Vampire Lords. Mangar was ignored. Thor dropped a Demon Lord. A Demon Lord stoned Paladin. Hunter dropped the other Demon Lord. REDE killed 1 Vampire Lord. Unclear what Mangar did the first round.

The second round, I think Mangar or a Vampire Lord DEST’d the Wizard or Mangar crit-hit the Wizard. Thor and a Hunter disposed of the remaining Vampire Lords and the other Hunter killed Mangar. Kylearan came and the game was over.

Overall, there is still room for improvement at all stages of the game. An aggressive early game (pre-Harkyn 1) can cut about 10 minutes. Good item drops in Harkyn 1 and 2 can easily cut another 15 minutes. Efficient Spectre farming can also cut another 5-10 minutes. So, I think using the above overall strategy a 2:15 using pure rules is obtainable with a reasonable amount of luck.

So, I did a speedrun using the basic rules and clocked in a 2:52 and a few seconds. This time I substantially modified my approach. I ended with (probably after some Vampire Lord level drains):

• Level 30 Elf Paladin – no luckshield
• Level 21/24 Half-Orc Hunters – no luckshields
• Level 11 Elf Wizard (Conj. 13 / Magi. 13 / Sorc 13) – with a luckshield and Spectre Snare

The major change was that I completely gave up on using 6 heroes, and focused instead of creating a frontline with a BT1 Archmage.

The item drops were poor. Both Hunters finished the game with Tower Shields. Overall, there remains a substantial amount of room for efficiency improvements. After learning a lot this run, I think a sub 2:30 speedrun is a reasonable expectation with average RNG.

The run started by solo leveling the Paladin to lvl 11 on Ogre Lords, and the Hunters by solo leveling them on Samurai and Ogre Lords to lvl 7/8. Then the Conjurer was solo leveled up to 7 (for FLRE) on Samurai.

The gold for the spell advancement (as opposed to the XP) is the biggest bottleneck to obtaining SHSP, so the party then went as 4 to farm Catacombs until the Conjurer was level 10/11ish. Once the frontline had enough hp to survive the Grey Dragon breath, and enough gold to heal the team and resurrect the Conjurer, then Harkyn was attempted.

We farmed Harkyn 1 until APAR, then leveled a bit with the Spectre. The Conjurer was bumped to a Magician, and leveled on Harkyn 2. Then bumped to a Sorcerer with continued leveling on Harkyn 2. Then some more time was spent leveling with the Spectre and wraiths. This stage was rather inefficient and the item drops were very poor.

If I recall, the party finished Kylearan’s tower when around the time the Magician was lvl 13, long in advance of being ready for Mangar. The last 45 minutes or so involved leveling in the Catacombs the Sorcerer to 13, bumping him to a Wizard, and continuing the leveling process to Wiz lvl 11. In an awkward moment, the Sorcerer obtained level 13, but spell levels 6 and 7 were not paid for before advancing to Wizard. But this ultimately turned out just fine, and presented an interesting learning opportunity.

At 2:43 or so, the party left Catacombs and ran for Mangar, which took just a few minutes to complete. Gratefully, the red dragons were a quick fight and did not use their breath attacks.

The final battle was a blur and went rather badly from the start due to multiple Demon Lord breath attacks. But the party got a one or two breaks until it finally came down to a Demon Lord vs. Paladin battle. The Demon Lord kept summoning one additional Demon Lord and then dying to the Paladin. This went on until a Greater Demon was summoned, which, if I recall, missed a physical attack and died. The team was well prepared, but I had figured it was over after the bad start. In any case, Kylearan paid his respects and the game ended.

Did a 3 hour 4 minute speedrun with more updated strategies. Overall, this was a good shot at a sub-3 hour speedrun, but the first attempt at Mangar resulted in a teamwipe from the first Demon Lord’s breath. Ouch that hurts. Second attempt succeeded but was 4 minutes too late to get the entire run under 3 hours.

So, getting a sub-3 hour speedrun is very possible, but moderately RNG dependent. The RNG lies in item drops. Mithril armor drops in Catacombs makes for a faster Harkyn 1, and further good drops there make for a faster Harkyn 2. But ultimately, getting 2x Exorwands and 4x Luckshields in Harkyn 2 can consume a lot of time. Fortunately, the XP in Harkyn 2 is really good, which offsets some of the time loss. But failure to get the necessary items before the 2h45min mark leaves you with a weak party for the final encounter.

The party composition for the 2nd (and successful) attempt was as follows:

• Lvl 21 Elf Paladin – with Luckshield
• Lvl 21/23 Half-Orc Hunters – no Luckshields
• Lvl 9 Elf Wizard (13 Conj, 13 Sorc) – with Luckshield, Spectre Snare
• Lvl 14/14 Elf Magicians (14 Magi only) – with Luckshields

The overall approach this time was to level the Paladin solo on Ogre Lords to Lvl 9. Then solo level each Hunter on Samurai to lvl 5 then Ogre Lords to lvl 9. The level Conjurer to lvl 7 on Samurai. Level these four as a party in Catacombs until Conjurer has SHSP. Then level the same four as a party in Harkyn 1 until Conjurer has APAR.

Once APAR was available, leveled the Pal/Hunts on Spectre in Catacombs until all have max stats. Then bumped Conj to Sorc and leveled the party in Harkyn 1/2 until Sorc had WIDR. In that process, got the Crystal Sword and Silver Square. Once Sorc had WIDR, the Pal and Hunts were basically done with items, but the party was still short 2 Luckshields and 1 Exorwand.

Once WIDR was available, we made a fast run through Kylearan’s tower to get the Onyx key and Silver Triangle. Killed the easy encounters along the way, avoided everything else. The party then added the two lvl 1 Magicians, and returned to Harkyn 2. The RNG was really good and the party quickly found 2x Luckshields a 1x Exorwand. The rest of the time was spent farming Wraiths/Ghouls in Catacombs 3.

Once Wizard was level 9, Mangar was immediately attempted. APAR’d to Silver Circle, then APAR’d to sequence to open stairs, then straight through to Mangar where the team was quickly wiped due to a Demon Lord breath attack. Immediately healed up team and returned to win.

Both Mangar attack selections were the same as earlier attempts, Special/Pal/Hunts focus Demon Lords, Wiz casts REDE on Vampire Lords, Magicians cast DEST on Vampire Lords. Mangar is ignored the first round. The second round strategy is basically to cleanup in the most efficient manner. Wizard with LO AC and Spectre Snare is essentially another Hunter to instant kill something. The surviving Magicians either used REST or DEST as appropriate.