Perhaps my favourite thing about the speedrunning community is how often they find clever, ridiculous ways to play games. Take Diablo II. Instead of simply doing a quick run through Blizzard’s iconic action game, a man going by the handle DrCliche decided to blaze through the game without attacking anything. It is perhaps the most passive-aggressive speedrun we’ve ever seen.
To kill monsters, DrCliche equipped “of Thorns” gear that automatically counter-attacks any enemy that does damage to him. He also used his sorceress’s Shiver Armour, a skill that does passive frost damage to enemies, as well as some other specific gear that’s all laid out here.
You can watch the (~8-hour run) above if you’re feeling masochistic, but DrCliche’s Reddit breakdown is far more entertaining.
His rules include: “You may not take aggressive action toward any creature or animated construct, nor may you summon an entity or hire a mercenary to do so on your behalf” and “There’s a bug that sometimes causes your mouse buttons to revert to attack when any of your equipment changes. As a result, it’s easy to unwittingly swing at an enemy… If that happens, simply apologise and don’t allow that enemy to die.”
The hardest part of the run, DrCliche says, is in Act 4:
Act 4 mana potions are strong enough to allow you to continuously teleport, so teleport to the River of Flame waypoint. Find the Hellforge, then destroy Mephisto’s Soulstone and say a quick prayer to Tyrael, because this is the moment that makes or breaks the run. The Hellforge has a 1 in 11 chance of dropping an Amn rune, completing your Edge. Without the level 15 Thorns provided by Edge, it would be wholly impractical (if not impossible) to continue.
If you don’t get the Amn, the first monsters that can drop one are the Council Members in Act 3, but Amn drops in Normal are exceedingly rare. If the Hellforge doesn’t deliver, your run is over.
This is insane and I love it.
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