Guide Ladder reset/Beginner's Speedrunning Guide

My goal is to share my experience on speedrunning through a1-a5 normal-hell as efficient as possible.
I am going to talk about:

1. Picking class and specs
2. Basic run-through of each difficulty
3. What to keep in mind while going through acts
4. Useful tips

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Before I start I want to mention that I did over 15 speedrun tests with different builds, spells, classes, point distributions
so what I will write, is the best way to get to hell act 5 for a beginner.​

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1. Picking class and specs

I don't want to write a lot of pointless words on what you could choose, either hammerdin or bone necro as first char.
The best option as your first character should be a SORCERESS, let me explain:
Even though you love playing hammerdin or java, you should create sorc first because of her ability to teleport. We got maphack here, so we need to take full advantage of it, and make the best out of sorc. I do not say, that you shouldn't play anything else but sorc, you can always multibox, and level your other char at the same time. But as we talk about very first char it should be a sorc.
After you got your sorc in hell, you can easily rush your other char. After that, if you don't want to play with sorc anymore, you can abandon her, and play with whatever class you want.
The specs:
Skill points:

• Lvl 2-12. Put first 5 points in charged bolt, then 1 point to each mentioned: Static field, Telekinesis, Warmth, Frozen Armor, Frost nova.
• Lvl 12-18. Put all points to Nova, this will be your main damaging skill in normal difficulty. At lvl 18 put 1 point to Teleport.
• Lvl 18-30. Continue putting all points into Nova, just put 1 point to Lightning in order to kill mephi.
• Lvl 30-75. It is time to respec into Frost Orb spec.Put 1 point to:Static field, Telekinesis, Warmth, Frozen Armor Max out Frost Orb, Ice Bolt. Put 17 points to Cold mastery to achieve 100% -res. Put rest of points wherever you want to. Put rest of the points whatever you feel like you have to. It can be teleport to reduce mana cost, it can be Warmth to increase mana regen.
• Lvl 75-90. Now there are few choices:
  • FireOrb: Build based on 2 elements Fire and Cold. Main damaging spell is Frost orb and Fire Ball. Good for completing all acts in hell, but not the best build for Mf.
  • Blizzard: The most popular MF build among sorcs. You can easily mf Mephi, Andi, Ancient Tunnels, Pindle.
  • Lightning: Countess farm oriented build. Light sorc without infinity does not show full potential, so if you want to farm countess only, this is your choice.

For each spec you can find a guide online or here on forums. ​

Stats:

• Lvl 2-12. Put all points to Energy. Trust me, you will reset your skills at lvl 30 anyways, and Nova with Teleport will consume A LOT of mana!
• Lvl 12-30. Put enough points to strength to wear equipment, but it should not be more than 60. Rest of points to vitality adding some points to energy if you need some.
• Lvl 30-75-90. Put enough points to wear monarch shield, rest should be Vit, some to energy. You won't have perfect gear at the beginning so putting some points to energy will help you.

​

2. Basic run-through of each difficulty

Normal.
Normal mode was the slowest for me: mana issues, bosses are quite difficult to kill with nova and static.
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Act 1: Join your other 4-5 chars to level up faster. Do this until lvl 18. After that, leave game with your chars and stay only with Ur sorc. Complete Den of Evil, Buy stamina potions, Take all main wp's, open trist for cain, go to countess. You should aim for higher rune (ort-sol) in order to do it only 1 time, because with cube, you can lower rune (Thul > 2 ort) and so on. You will need runes for starting Runewords like Stealth, Ancients pledge and Lore. Kill andy with static, use antidotes, finish her with nova.
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Act 2: Take merc (Def or Off) and always gear him up, Rush to cube, take main wp's, combine staff, kill summoner, kill duriel same as you did with andy.
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Act 3: Take main wp's, avoid fighting and spam teleport, buy a lot of mana potions, take travi wp, kill mephi with lightning so he can't attack you. There are videos on how to do it.
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Act 4: Kill izual, do hellforge, kill diablo. Fastest act, nothing to explain.
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Act 5: At this point you should be lvl 30, so change spec to Frost Orb Do soc quest, free barbarians for runes, do anya, take main wp's. Kite ancients to confirm easy kill, kill baal minions with baal.
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Nightmare, Hell
Basically i could copy paste what i mentioned before, just spam teleport, and do everything the same.
​

3. What to keep in mind while going through acts

Act 1: Avoid rangers, they hit hard
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Act 2: If you don't have light resist, scarabs will oneshot you, so put more vit points
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Act 3: If you are teleporting, don't teleport into mosh pit of mobs, you don't have enough FHR so you will get stuck and die in seconds. Avoid dolls.
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Act 4: Avoid whisps
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Act 5: Melee attacks will hit like a truck, be aware of that, don't get caught.
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4. Useful tips

• Always take gems, because with cube you can combine it to pgem. Sell pgems if you need gold, or on forum.
• Stamina potion is really good friend
• Keep an eye on expensive items for that gold like Scepter, Wand, Orb, Necro shield, Armor pieces.
• Always gear up your merc. He is a friend of your, and a true companion, take advantage of all gear slots.
• Full rejuv potions on merc will save him.
• After normal, go to normal cows to farm crystal sword base. Take it to larzuk to put it 4 soc, to make a spirit sword.
• Don't forget these runewords: Stealth, Ancients pledge, Lore, Stone, Spirit.

​

 

Good guide overall, definitely will try it this way when i will start over again. Thumbs up.

Btw, there is a small typo at the countess part, at normal she rly doesnt drop ohms, and unfortunately, thuls cannot be broken into 2 ohms either

 

Will definitely gonna use this method at Day 1 of ladder reset.
Excellent guide.

 

Thanks for noticing that, i was ment to say ort ) Fixed it, and glad that you liked it!

 

Crystal Sword have max 6 sockets and Larzuk always make max socket in item. To make Spirit you need to find crystal sword with exactly 4s. I'm right?

 

Nope, the socked number depends on item lvl.
From the internet:
"ilvl 1-25: 3 sockets (Normal up to Act 3 plus Act 5 Bloody Foothills and Frigid Highlands)

ilvl 26-40: 4 sockets (Normal Act 4 to NM Act 1 Barracks, except Normal Act 5 Bloody Foothills and Frigid Highlands, and NM Act 1 Tower Celler Level 4 and 5)

ilvl 40+: 6 sockets (NM Act 1 Jail and later, plus NM Act 1 Tower Celler Level 4 and 5)

Note: Minions (plus Champions/Uniques) have higher levels than regular monsters. The areas listed above assume normal monsters."

 

it depends on ilvl of sword. as Vacholindyr mentioned, 4 soc comes from 26-40ilvl, so in normal cow level, you can get crystal sword base of 4 socs. Trust me, i tested it

 

Exceptional guide. Good job!

 

Thank you! Glad You liked it!

 

Good guide, this made me lol. In regards to the sockets per ilvl, @Vacholindyr and @gin31 are correct. This wiki shows every item and their max sockets at each ilvl for reference.

 

Thanks, really happy that people appreciate this guide!

 

So hello there guys i've encountered a problem till i was trying to play. I wanted to play again here , and i have 1 char equippet but i dont see any games , can u explain me why and what happend?

 

@dan4o_psihologa You are most likely using old character, which was created before last ladder reset, which means it is non ladder character now. Majority [all] of players are playing ladder. To see other people games, you have to create new - ladder - char.

 

Okey thank you , so i will need a little help and boost :/ MY ign is buGGhaCK its sorc on cold if anyone can help with something will appreciate it

 

@Gix sorry then mate

 

So I gave it a try and followed your guide on SP.
With /players 8 all the time, i finished normal like this:

I wouldnt call it a speed run, since it took like 3-4 hours to me [i was distracted a lot while playing, but i took a slow approach for sure], but on our server patch its definitely the best way to start. U get capable and well enough geared teleporting character which is capable of rushing 7 other chars to nm diff as well. Im quite sure, that u can finish nm on p8 too, but i gave up trying when i found out, that ladder only rws doesnt work on SP.

All in all, Quinn approves this guide, and Quinn is talking from experience! :]

 

yesturday i did normal-hell speedrun, which in fact was very unfortunate, with 1player only. Did normal in 50mins, nightmare in 32mins, hell in 38mins. i will try to push to 1:30h normal-hell

 

i did Hell speedrun Reset with this guide it was AWESOME! thanks