Speedy win

[koctyxa]

Which class is the best suited for plain win fastest? I mean, without extreme tactics, without killing plenty characters (preferably without killing any character), so the fastest in real playing time and in in-game number of turns.

[Blank4u47]

I'm sure this is largely up for debate, but a duelist is so overpowered, it'll be both quick and easy to win.

[JellySlayer]

I'd probably go with something like Raven Orc Barbarian. You can pretty much power through the early game no problem--you can get chaotic healing in <500 turns, then head straight to CoC. Raven guarantees a great weapon at level 16 that you can use against ACW. Your To and St are 22-25 to start with, typically, so you basically don't need herbs. Getting <40k turncount should be doable with minimalist play without anything really excessive. <20k with any melee character is very difficult though.

Wizards are traditionally fastest speedrunners, but they require a lot of extreme tactics to really gain full benefit, and I don't know how the speedrun metagame is going in 1.2.0. No reason in particular that they wouldn't still be decent speedrunner though.

I don't know about real-time speedrunning. Mostly depends on how fast you play normally, IMHO.

[zliplus]

For melee, I think chaos knight should be fastest. You can start with teleportitis, enough PV to straight rush a long way down, and you can still get chaotic healing and Raven reward. All crowning rewards but Death's Blade are great (2 strong weapons, helm gives water breathing for Raven weapon, boots give telecontrol, armor gives fire immune). You don't even need a special strategy for closing the gate or any time wasted on coming back alive.

For wizard, I did manage to get the <10k, but I crossed the river immediately, found crumbling cave next to where HMV exit would be with a 4 charge WoW right inside and a tension room of frost giants. I still barely made it.

[pjsb1]

For wizard, I did manage to get the <10k.

That is actually very impressive. 10k turns is really not a lot at all. What did you spend the wishes on?

[zliplus]

RDSM, eternium tower shields, and 7LB right away. RDSM is basically mandatory for both early game survival and ToEF, because I didn't plan for darkforge run or even stop in Terinyo. Shields and 7LB were just standard wishes that I am pretty sure were not optimal - I really wasn't sure what I should do with them since my 'plan' was basically to find a wish (in a pool) for RDSM and then magic missile everything. Eventually I used the last wishes on acid ball books when I realized you can't actually magic missile everything (notably, earth beast bounces them and archmage is almost immune).

I started with teleport and magic missile books so i didn't need another source of teleport, and the heir wand of fire for early killing. That wand took out the frost giants for a pile of early levels (I think low 10s). A blink dog corpse dropped just before big room (D5?), and I continued to DT, finding some extra MM books and other spells and levelling up proficiency and concentration/alertness. At DT I read everything, collected the ring of ice, ID'd inventory, and got piety enough to bless 7LB and scrolls of power (later). I took the PP/spell range/damage talent chain early and rushed ToEF from DT, depending on bouncing MM to kill everything (which worked though I ended up kiting ACW back through the tunnel almost the whole way). That got me to level 17 I think, and wiping out a tension room of molochs in DH to 26 ish.

After that, it was just diving through, killing anything easy/worth exp/blocking with MM, and hoarding scrolls of power/water/reading combat books. The portal lever I handled by teleporting the elder, eternal guardian was skipped via aggro/teleport, air temple I blasted yulgash with MM then bounced more to clear space/big threats. Greater vault was giant which was lucky again - I MM'd the entrance/sides until they looked fairly clear, then MM'd the inside for exp, all while invis - hit level 36 or 38 or something. Artifacts were junk, 2 weapons I think. Earth temple as mentioned above I discovered was really not MM friendly so I acid balled my way (had to use a wish for hp from the initial failure) and most of my scrolls of power. Mana Temple was a giant ridiculous pain - used up the rest of scrolls of power and 2 prayers for mana - MM worked fine for the hoard and mana drain wasn't too bad after clearing out the initial eyes but the archmage himself shrugged MM like nothing. Had to turn to acid ball kiting, which worked but was expensive.

Eventually I hit D50 at like 8.2k turns, dug my way to the side chambers and MM'd them clear one at a time. I was out of both scrolls of power and prayers so I could barely do the job - those high level mobs are tougher than I remembered. I had to depend on natural regen to restore mana, which burned through a lot of my remaining turns. I used doors and monster creation to blocked the first lever, then immediate teleports to handle second lever and stairs. I was at around 9.4k turns leaving D50 and 9.8k getting through darkforge shortcut (good thing it works going up even if you skip by the eternal guardian heh).

[JellySlayer]

FWIW, fast speedruns (especially melee) also require a very good intuition of where the stairs are likely to be in any given level design. You can't take the time to explore every level, obviously.

[koctyxa]

When I was thinking about speedy win, I had in mind an easy, pleasurable experience of swiftness and no-big-dealness :-) Something like when you've got 600HP, all resistances, Preserver and spear of devastation.

Wizards are easy to kill so they probably are out of contest. With barbarians I'm afraid of instadeath from mimic, ghul or fire giant king. Class starting with both Healing and Herbalism seem food for such an experience - healer or ranger. Chaos knight is random, so may fail in "100% winning chance" requirement. Maybe duelist can kill things single-handedly and with DV big enough to be bold in face of unpleasant surprises.

[Blank4u47]

When I was thinking about speedy win, I had in mind an easy, pleasurable experience of swiftness and no-big-dealness :-) Something like when you've got 600HP, all resistances, Preserver and spear of devastation.

Wizards are easy to kill so they probably are out of contest. With barbarians I'm afraid of instadeath from mimic, ghul or fire giant king. Class starting with both Healing and Herbalism seem food for such an experience - healer or ranger. Chaos knight is random, so may fail in "100% winning chance" requirement. Maybe duelist can kill things single-handedly and with DV big enough to be bold in face of unpleasant surprises.

That's kinda what I was thinking just gotta do the Druid quest for herbalism, which is a bit harder.

[blunk]

Id recommend dwarf ranger. Excellent skills and cheap crowning.
Good phys stats , some initial pv.
You can skip early quests if you want and ghosts are not a huge issue.