Diablo 2 LoD: 100% 8-player-teamrun planning thread

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2010-01-21 02:02:02 pm

2009-11-22 04:39:54 pm

As announced in my assassin-thread, here is the teamrun planning thread for the 100% Diablo 2 speedrun.

Well I'm not ready with the planning, as I had to redo some of it, cause all 8 characters have to be level 60, in order to finish all quests (including hell ancients). Before that I had a strategy for just 5-6 Level 60 characters, who are making Baal without the remaining 2 then, but that's not possible if all players need to be 100 %. So I have to make a bit of tweaking now to the original strat, and the explanation is delayed for that reason.

Anyway you can start posting ideas here, this will be the planning-thread for the run.

You can find our strategy in the document attached to this post.

Please feel free to post improvements to it, if you have some ideas.

Interested players of this forum:
- Wuv (GMT -6)
- ofcourse (GMT -5)
- lag (GMT)
- gia (GMT -5)
- MrEnzyme (GMT -5)

Thread title:

Attachment:

complete speedrun-plan version 1.0.doc

20-100

2009-11-22 04:48:37 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Any spots open?

FraGFroG

Edit history:

FraGFroG: 2009-11-29 12:25:15 pm

2009-11-22 04:54:55 pm

Everybody who is interested in the run, should say so here regardless of the remaining slots, cause a) We need to find times to play together, and not everybody can play everytime (some 8-player-combinations are impossible because of that) and b) We need experienced D2 players, so enough playing-experience (or even speedrun-experience) is very much appreciated and will be favored in the selection at the end (if there are more than 8 players who wish to join the team and have enough possible times). So far I have only 2 possible players who wish to join the team, so there are more than enough spots to get in the team yet.

Zurreco

2009-11-22 05:02:25 pm

Just call me the cynicism machine

Just make sure that you at least have two people capable of recording. Ensure that one of them stays with the other group when splitting up, and ensure that one of them is a Sorceress, since they will be the one teleporting to waypoints and quests.

Beenman500

2009-11-22 05:04:46 pm

Joke of all trades

i'd imagine that all people will need to record whats happening. though if not then whatever

edit: if you desperatly need one more person during the recording stages and im around il chip in, but i cant actually contribute full time to this run, though i'd like to help out in the planning

Lag.Com

2009-11-22 05:33:07 pm

sda loyalist

Definitely interested and can record. I was playing the Paladin in the previous run attempt but I'm open to any role except the uber-teleporting Sorceress really.

gia

2009-11-22 06:09:29 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

im interested, I can make time on saturdays and sundays, or monday to friday from 19:00 to 24:00 GMT-5. I should be able to record max settings (8 players on screen could change this) but since I haven't speedrun d2, and internet connection could be an issue I'd rather be tested.

zoonel

2009-11-22 06:56:05 pm

Go play spacechem !

Can you define 100%- 8 players? :
All quest must be done no matter wich player does it?
All quests must be done by all players?
Any other possibilities :p

Everyone must record the game?
Who hosts the game?
Will be there a test run?
How many time do you think it will take?
How many time a player should be play a week?
Who does the planning strategy/map generating?
How does the luck segment work, must all players be present all the time?

Sounds like a nightmare to plan and coordinate :-X.

Zurreco

2009-11-22 07:56:59 pm

Just call me the cynicism machine

According to the last multi/100% thread:

100% means all quests on all difficulties ONLY. Not waypoints or levels or areas or dialog options or other bullshit. All quests have to be done in their respective act before you can move on to the next act (so make those imbues work). Cow King is considered a quest after Baal, so you have to do Normal Cow King before you can move on to Nightmare A1. You can power level all you want whenever you want. All quests should be done by all members. This shouldn't really be a problem for the most part, since simply being in party will get the quest for everyone so long as they are partied with the person who receives and completes the quest.

Mike said that there has to be one recording for each active group. That means that if your team of 8 splits up in to two teams of whatever, even 1/7 or 4/4, you have to have at least one person recording for each group. You can have more people recording if you want, but those are the minimum POV requirements. All players have to be present in each segment, even if only one person is doing something.

The only way to redo segments is to work on TCP/IP, which means everyone needs Hamachi. I don't know if the maker of the game can use -seed to ensure the map, but that method was kinda nixed anyways. You'll probably want to avoid using Ventrilo/TeamSpeak because no one wants to hear you try to communicate otherwise. Just plan ahead appropriately. You're free to trade between players, but it has to be done while recording, so simply talk in irc about what you picked up and drop trade in the town when you start a segment. You can't really show what everyone got for imbues, so just keep note of it and add it to your comments. You can each get an imbue, but I'm fairly sure that you share the Hellforge quest, so talk to Mike about whether you can unparty and finish that quest independently to get high runes in the late game.

When we were doing the 4p run (before it tapered off due to not-Zurreco-or-Lag being wholly unreliable), we planned to split up in areas where branching could slow you down without screwing you over (Underground, Durance, etc), but made important branching areas segment specific (Arcane, Lam Esen quest, etc) so that we could focus on fast progression.

So yeah, it's just a big exercise in seeing how well you can plan ahead and work with the randomness. Good luck and godspeed: I don't think I want to get involved in the hassle of organizing 8 people to gather and play at an acceptable level of competency.

According to the last multi/100% thread:

100% means all quests on all difficulties ONLY.  Not waypoints or levels or areas or dialog options or other bullshit.  All quests have to be done in their respective act before you can move on to the next act (so make those imbues work).  Cow King is considered a quest after Baal, so you have to do Normal Cow King before you can move on to Nightmare A1.  You can power level all you want whenever you want.  All quests should be done by all members.  This shouldn't really be a problem for the most part, since simply being in party will get the quest for everyone so long as they are partied with the person who receives and completes the quest.

Mike said that there has to be one recording for each active group.  That means that if your team of 8 splits up in to two teams of whatever, even 1/7 or 4/4, you have to have at least one person recording for each group.  You can have more people recording if you want, but those are the minimum POV requirements.  All players have to be present in each segment, even if only one person is doing something.

The only way to redo segments is to work on TCP/IP, which means everyone needs Hamachi.  I don't know if the maker of the game can use -seed to ensure the map, but that method was kinda nixed anyways.  You'll probably want to avoid using Ventrilo/TeamSpeak because no one wants to hear you try to communicate otherwise.  Just plan ahead appropriately.  You're free to trade between players, but it has to be done while recording, so simply talk in irc about what you picked up and drop trade in the town when you start a segment.  You can't really show what everyone got for imbues, so just keep note of it and add it to your comments.  You can each get an imbue, but I'm fairly sure that you share the Hellforge quest, so talk to Mike about whether you can unparty and finish that quest independently to get high runes in the late game.

When we were doing the 4p run (before it tapered off due to not-Zurreco-or-Lag being wholly unreliable), we planned to split up in areas where branching could slow you down without screwing you over (Underground, Durance, etc), but made important branching areas segment specific (Arcane, Lam Esen quest, etc) so that we could focus on fast progression.

So yeah, it's just a big exercise in seeing how well you can plan ahead and work with the randomness.  Good luck and godspeed: I don't think I want to get involved in the hassle of organizing 8 people to gather and play at an acceptable level of competency.

Xaggoth

2009-11-22 11:11:26 pm

You already have to double up on one class, so it seems like this is going to be a 4+ sorc telefest. I would guess at least four so you could properly split act3 flail pieces while moving to travincal. Necro is 5, and it's probably faster to make the rest lategame dps?

zoonel

2009-11-23 02:00:06 am

Go play spacechem !

I dont remember how the quests are validate between party members, if player A is in act 5 and player B in act 3 and both complete a quest do they both receive the other quest validation also?
party should be like this?: 1 killing sorc + 1 java lightning, 3 tele sorc, 1 pala + 1 nec for lower resists, 1 barb for bo and early game tank

One more question : patch 1.13 or not :p

moooh

2009-11-23 03:44:46 am

Exoray

This will probably be quite different from the 4-player run, but some things discussed there might still be of use.

zoonel

2009-11-23 03:53:59 am

Go play spacechem !

I suppose it will look a lot like bnet : griswold's runs then travincal runs then baal runs.

LeWoVoc

2009-11-23 06:45:38 am

I'd say a conviction pally/LR necro would be a necessity. I'd love to play the pally, but I'm up for nearly anything.

20-100

2009-11-23 08:12:34 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Well, I guess I'll introduce why I think I'd be a good runner;

I've played D2 during 1.09 and 1.10 a LOT, played it during 1.11 & 1.12 a fair bit and am now playing median XL (awesome mod). I've never done a speedrun on d2 but I was in the ETF team that won the ladder during season 2, and I've done speedruns in some other games. I'm quite creative and know a lot about d2. If I were to play I'd definitely be recording.

As for classes I'd like to play, I can play anything but I have a small preference for an offensive character rather than a support character.

I'll drop a post later with thoughts about efficiency for the run.

Zurreco

2009-11-23 09:19:27 am

Just call me the cynicism machine

Quote from zoonel:

I suppose it will look a lot like bnet : griswold's runs then travincal runs then baal runs.

No one does Travincal and it's not time effective to kill Griswold. Powerleveling is Tristram, Tombs, Baal. However, it should be fairly streamlined after A1.

Quote from zoonel:

I dont remember how the quests are validate between party members, if player A is in act 5 and player B in act 3 and both complete a quest do they both receive the other quest validation also?

Well, like I said before, you can't move on to a new act until all the quests are done in the preceding act. That being said, if you are in party with someone when they receive the quest, the whole party gets it. When someone with the quest in your party completes a quest, everyone in party who already had that quest will also get the completion.

Anyways, if you guys are really set on getting 8 people together, your builds should be:
1. Cold Sorc. One point in Static and Tele, the rest in CM, IB, and Orb.
2. Fire Sorc. One point in Static and Tele, the rest in FM, FB, and Meteor.
3. Lit Sorc. One point in Static and Tele, the rest in LM, CL, and Light.
4. Conviction Paladin. Will be an early tank and then he will stop being useful super quick. Really only needed for breaking immunes. Can also get Vigor for fun times early on.
5. Necro. One point in CG, Decrep, LR, and the rest in CE and Teeth. Really only needed for breaking immunes.
6. Assassin. WoF to streamline the Normal segments/Baal leveling segments, BoS and CoS to help with that. Multiply traps with SW. Switch to Lightning later, I suppose.
7. Barbarian. Early tank and DPS, later uses Howl and BO/BC to buff the group.
8. Druid. Early AoE caster like the Assassin, but the spirits will help buff the party and I'd like to think that you can use some spells without lagging the game up too much.

Sorceresses become the powerhouses way early, can do separate teleports to speed up acts, and with the Conviction/LR/mastery stacking, I don't think anyone can resist getting ruined way fast. I would venture to say that with enough QC on the segments, you could beat Siyko's time.

[quote="zoonel"]I suppose it will look a lot like bnet : griswold's runs then travincal runs then baal runs.[/quote]
No one does Travincal and it's not time effective to kill Griswold.  Powerleveling is Tristram, Tombs, Baal.  However, it should be fairly streamlined after A1.

[quote="zoonel"]I dont remember how the quests are validate between party members, if player A is in act 5 and player B in act 3 and both complete a quest do they both receive the other quest validation also?[/quote]
Well, like I said before, you can't move on to a new act until all the quests are done in the preceding act.  That being said, if you are in party with someone when they receive the quest, the whole party gets it.  When someone with the quest in your party completes a quest, everyone in party who already had that quest will also get the completion.

Anyways, if you guys are really set on getting 8 people together, your builds should be:
1. Cold Sorc.  One point in Static and Tele, the rest in CM, IB, and Orb.
2. Fire Sorc.  One point in Static and Tele, the rest in FM, FB, and Meteor.
3. Lit Sorc.  One point in Static and Tele, the rest in LM, CL, and Light.
4. Conviction Paladin.  Will be an early tank and then he will stop being useful super quick.  Really only needed for breaking immunes.  Can also get Vigor for fun times early on.
5. Necro.  One point in CG, Decrep, LR, and the rest in CE and Teeth.  Really only needed for breaking immunes.
6. Assassin.  WoF to streamline the Normal segments/Baal leveling segments, BoS and CoS to help with that.  Multiply traps with SW.  Switch to Lightning later, I suppose.
7. Barbarian.  Early tank and DPS, later uses Howl and BO/BC to buff the group.
8. Druid.  Early AoE caster like the Assassin, but the spirits will help buff the party and I'd like to think that you can use some spells without lagging the game up too much.

Sorceresses become the powerhouses way early, can do separate teleports to speed up acts, and with the Conviction/LR/mastery stacking, I don't think anyone can resist getting ruined way fast.  I would venture to say that with enough QC on the segments, you could beat Siyko's time.

zoonel

2009-11-23 10:03:40 am

Go play spacechem !

Quote:

No one does Travincal and it's not time effective to kill Griswold. Powerleveling is Tristram, Tombs, Baal. However, it should be fairly streamlined after A1.

that's because they dont know how to run properly the game ;). When i stopped playing, griswold was a huge xp giver and with a proper team : sorc with static, pala, barb etc . It was so effective there was no need to clear tristram. Now maybe this demands some stuff i dont remember, and anyway you can clear tristram during the same segment.

I forgot the fact that you had to do all quest before moving in acts so travincal is not good xp giver then :s

I would give nerco the summons for ancients to make them easy and fast
drop the lightning sorc, not effective without gear and fire+cold sorc with lower res by pala and necro is more then enough instead give that sorc max static
The fire sorc will do most of the kills early, then it will be the cold sorc.
For me the best team is:
1 fire sorc
1 cold sorc
1 javazone (lighting thing) (dont know why no-one likes her :s)
1 pala conviction
1 necro low res
1 barb
+2 other char for early game

Quote:

Sorceresses become the powerhouses way early, can do separate teleports to speed up acts, and with the Conviction/LR/mastery stacking, I don't think anyone can resist getting ruined way fast. I would venture to say that with enough QC on the segments, you could beat Siyko's time.

QC?
I hope they will beat Siyko's time, otherwise i'll get very disapointed !
The hardest part of the run is people managment, because a good team in diablo should own the game so bad that ... well i cant finish this phrase :p

[quote]No one does Travincal and it's not time effective to kill Griswold.  Powerleveling is Tristram, Tombs, Baal.  However, it should be fairly streamlined after A1.[/quote]
that's because they dont know how to run properly the game ;). When i stopped playing, griswold was a huge xp giver and with a proper team : sorc with static, pala, barb etc . It was so effective there was no need to clear tristram. Now maybe this demands some stuff i dont remember, and anyway you can clear tristram during the same segment.

I forgot the fact that you had to do all quest before moving in acts so travincal is not good xp giver then :s

I would give nerco the summons for ancients to make them easy and fast
drop the lightning sorc, not effective without gear and fire+cold sorc with lower res by pala and necro is more then enough instead give that sorc max static
The fire sorc will do most of the kills early, then it will be the cold sorc.
For me the best team is:
1 fire sorc 
1 cold sorc
1 javazone (lighting thing) (dont know why no-one likes her :s)
1 pala conviction
1 necro low res
1 barb
+2 other char for early game

[quote]Sorceresses become the powerhouses way early, can do separate teleports to speed up acts, and with the Conviction/LR/mastery stacking, I don't think anyone can resist getting ruined way fast.  I would venture to say that with enough QC on the segments, you could beat Siyko's time.[/quote]
QC?
I hope they will beat Siyko's time, otherwise i'll get very disapointed !
The hardest part of the run is people managment, because a good team in diablo should own the game so bad that ... well i cant finish this phrase :p

bimanc

2009-11-23 10:10:12 am

Lay waste to everything...but I still love SDA!

I don't think you need all the avaliable damage types. When you have three sorcs, all of them should be lightning ones. When they need to kill something, open a tp, call for conv pally and lower resist nec, and nuke everything. Put in a bo barb and a druid with oak, and your party is full. The pally should do smite/cb, and you can choose an 8th person freely, preferably an additional sorc. On the other hand, it would be much more interesting to see a run with all classes in it.

Beenman500

2009-11-23 10:26:43 am

Joke of all trades

light sorcs damage is a bit meh without good items, kindof like cold(but then that has the useful effect of slowing, fire has huge damage at lower levels by comparison, However conviction will strip all mosnters of all light resist so that would be useful, one final though, lighning has a considerably slower FCR than both cold and fire, fireball can rack up higher damage faster.

though TBH i don't see that ability to kill is gonna be a problem for 8 characters

20-100

2009-11-23 11:18:27 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I think 2 blizz sorcies and 2 lightning sorcies will do great... blizz only needs 1 point in cold mastery if there's a pally with conviction running around so a lot of points can be sunk into synergies.

Imo

2 lightning sorc
2 blizz sorc
1 barbarian (battle orders, shout, battle command, tanks with war cry)
1 necromancer (lower resist, corpse explosion, some golem)
1 javazon (lightning fury & charged strike rip everything apart)
1 paladin (conviction, healing aura's)

This way you get tri-elemental damage (and a bit of physical through CE and javazon) and a lot of -resist & survivability, while having 4 teleport characters.

Zurreco

2009-11-23 01:09:07 pm

Just call me the cynicism machine

Quote from zoonel:

that's because they dont know how to run properly the game ;). When i stopped playing

Sorry, but you are wrong here. Killing the champion mobs and ending the segment is really all you need to do, since they give boatloads more exp than Griswold. He also has a lot of HP for being such a low exp character, so it takes even more time to kill him. They really changed how Tristram works for power leveling in the last two patches, but people still clear it out because pubbies don't understand what efficiency is.

Quote from zoonel:

I would give nerco the summons
drop the lightning sorc ... instead give that sorc max static

Summons will be horridly underpowered and lag inducing unless you have a second Paladin running a very high level Thorns. The whole point of a Fishmancer is that they are supposed to survive well and kill with momentum, not speed. You wouldn't even need the protection during Ancients because your team is going to rape them. 8 players in Hell can take on almost anything really easily. The best bet here is to get power up CE and LR and then supplement that with amp (speed up Normal) and Teeth/Bone Spear for some bonus damage.

Meanwhile, if you find a FI+CI champ/unique, even with LR and Conviction, the lit sorc will kill it faster than the cold or fire one. Sure, you don't need all three, but if you're going to insist on 8 players, you might as well have 3 very competent sorcs instead of 2. As for pumping Static... I really don't know how to react to that. By the time you get Static, all 3 sorcs will have it and they cast all cast it together. Adding points to it just increases the radius, which is a huge waste of points with at least two tanks in the build. It's just better to have the sorcs cast it together until you hit the

Quote from 20-100:

2 lightning sorc
2 blizz sorc
1 barbarian (battle orders, shout, battle command, tanks with war cry)
1 necromancer (lower resist, corpse explosion, some golem)
1 javazon (lightning fury & charged strike rip everything apart)
1 paladin (conviction, healing aura's)

This way you get tri-elemental damage (and a bit of physical through CE and javazon) and a lot of -resist & survivability, while having 4 teleport characters.

The flaw here is that you have no powerhouse characters early on, so your Normal segments are going to be very slow. You need an Assassin to speed up Normal. On top of that, while Blizzard is super strong when used properly, you won't be able to fully pump it/get equipment to make it as strong as it should be, whereas Orb will have great damage regardless and will freeze whole rooms with ease.

I also want to point out that Zons suck and you won't really have a competent build for it without dropping a really good weapon.

Quote from bimanc:

I don't think you need all the avaliable damage types. When they need to kill something, open a tp, call for conv pally and lower resist nec, and nuke everything. Put in a bo barb and a druid with oak, and your party is full. The pally should do smite/cb, and you can choose an 8th person freely, preferably an additional sorc. On the other hand, it would be much more interesting to see a run with all classes in it.

Two problems here. As I said before, you need something like an Assassin for early AoE spells to speed up Norm and power leveling. On top of that, your plan isn't taking in to account that your whole group needs to hit 60 for Hell Ancients. If you are leaving everyone but the sorcs in town except for when they need to break down mobs, your sorcs are going to hit 60 and the rest of the group will be in their 40s. It's best to use sorc teleporting only for locating WPs and quest items, not for getting through the whole game.

With all that being said, didn't Pweisger's bounty require that you use one of each class before overlapping them?

[quote="zoonel"]that's because they dont know how to run properly the game ;). When i stopped playing[/quote]
Sorry, but you are wrong here.  Killing the champion mobs and ending the segment is really all you need to do, since they give boatloads more exp than Griswold.  He also has a lot of HP for being such a low exp character, so it takes even more time to kill him.  They really changed how Tristram works for power leveling in the last two patches, but people still clear it out because pubbies don't understand what efficiency is.

[quote="zoonel"]I would give nerco the summons
drop the lightning sorc ... instead give that sorc max static[/quote]
Summons will be horridly underpowered and lag inducing unless you have a second Paladin running a very high level Thorns.  The whole point of a Fishmancer is that they are supposed to survive well and kill with momentum, not speed.  You wouldn't even need the protection during Ancients because your team is going to rape them.  8 players in Hell can take on almost anything really easily.  The best bet here is to get power up CE and LR and then supplement that with amp (speed up Normal) and Teeth/Bone Spear for some bonus damage.

Meanwhile, if you find a FI+CI champ/unique, even with LR and Conviction, the lit sorc will kill it faster than the cold or fire one.  Sure, you don't need all three, but if you're going to insist on 8 players, you might as well have 3 very competent sorcs instead of 2.  As for pumping Static... I really don't know how to react to that.  By the time you get Static, all 3 sorcs will have it and they cast all cast it together.  Adding points to it just increases the radius, which is a huge waste of points with at least two tanks in the build.  It's just better to have the sorcs cast it together until you hit the

[quote="20-100"]2 lightning sorc
2 blizz sorc
1 barbarian (battle orders, shout, battle command, tanks with war cry)
1 necromancer (lower resist, corpse explosion, some golem)
1 javazon (lightning fury & charged strike rip everything apart)
1 paladin (conviction, healing aura's)

This way you get tri-elemental damage (and a bit of physical through CE and javazon) and a lot of -resist & survivability, while having 4 teleport characters.
[/quote]
The flaw here is that you have no powerhouse characters early on, so your Normal segments are going to be very slow.  You need an Assassin to speed up Normal.  On top of that, while Blizzard is super strong when used properly, you won't be able to fully pump it/get equipment to make it as strong as it should be, whereas Orb will have great damage regardless and will freeze whole rooms with ease.

I also want to point out that Zons suck and you won't really have a competent build for it without dropping a really good weapon.

[quote="bimanc"]I don't think you need all the avaliable damage types.  When they need to kill something, open a tp, call for conv pally and lower resist nec, and nuke everything. Put in a bo barb and a druid with oak, and your party is full. The pally should do smite/cb, and you can choose an 8th person freely, preferably an additional sorc. On the other hand, it would be much more interesting to see a run with all classes in it.[/quote]
Two problems here.  As I said before, you need something like an Assassin for early AoE spells to speed up Norm and power leveling.  On top of that, your plan isn't taking in to account that your whole group needs to hit 60 for Hell Ancients.  If you are leaving everyone but the sorcs in town except for when they need to break down mobs, your sorcs are going to hit 60 and the rest of the group will be in their 40s.  It's best to use sorc teleporting only for locating WPs and quest items, not for getting through the whole game.

With all that being said, didn't Pweisger's bounty require that you use one of each class before overlapping them?

bimanc

2009-11-23 01:56:56 pm

Lay waste to everything...but I still love SDA!

Zurecco, i think the non-sorceress characters can level up easily, if all the party members go down when there's a big fight. In an 8-player game, the exp is huge, and i doubt the characters will be just barely 60 before ancients. And a higher level means more killing power.

Anyway, the bounty also stated that the run should be a 4-player one. This run has nothing to do with that, and i don't think SDA has a rule that runners have to use all characters in a coop run. But, as i said, a run with all classes would be more interesting.

Beenman500

2009-11-23 03:03:41 pm

Joke of all trades

would a BO + shout barb be more useful latter on if he was a thrower, i mean he'll have some skills left over and TBH to get a level 60 to tank in any way(except necros revives) in hell without Gosu gear is going to be dam hard, and the barb can add something to it all if he does some throwing

Xaggoth

2009-11-23 03:30:35 pm

The barb should probably go double swing to speed up the earlier acts as much as possible, then frenzy with whatever cb can be found that is unusable by a smiter.

tgdn32

2009-11-23 03:43:40 pm

Zurreco:

For pack killing, a javazon would be nigh unmatched, especially with all the -res getting thrown around here. I don't know where you get that they need a good weapon to be good, because that is just false. You could use starter javs and do just fine. And by just fine I mean decimate everything.