IMO, character-specific categories are important only if the interest is present. For the sake of example, if you decided to go for Brawler and got something better than your current run, you could keep the 1:59:xx in a Ninja category, so if someone else came to run Ninja, runs as the character would be comparable side by side.
So far right now, each runner only runs a single character, so there are no runs that would be added to the pool by separating.
Mod would be fine if you want. I've been talking the game up and may be trying to get more people interested, so it's relevant.
Oh, yes. On the Ninja subject, are you aware of the Backstab glitch? That is, if you use the sword charge attack facing away from an enemy and back up into them, it will trigger the Backstab damage bonus. As far as I can tell, this happens because Backstab checks you and the enemy's facing when you attack, and if it's the same (or possibly within one degree of each other,) you get the extra damage.
Anyway, if you like, it might be fine to make categories for different classes (probably as runs for them come up,) so that the game's element of buildcraft and different approaches to the same content can still be prevalent in the speedrun, regardless of what the absolute best speed build is. Then the any% category could just be "one's submission that happens to be their overall fastest"
So, in my run I'd come up with something considerably different from the accepted Speed Ninja build, and mostly for the sake of the early game, I think it's competitive at least.
The cornerstone is the Guts skill, which adds (20¤level) Atk and Def for a fixed duration whenever direct damage knocks you below 50% health. If you invest in it heavily, you get some absolutely ridiculous margins of gain, at the cost of a much riskier run.
I get the Power Wine from saving the kid on the pirate ship rather than from the arena, since I have enough power through Guts that I'm not losing considerable time waiting til Driazhek. This means no bread, but again, low health is paramount to consistent Guts triggers.
I take a final Vit value of 25, which is the "can reliably not be one-shotted by anything barring Deatharte's axe and blast, which are easily avoidable anyway" point. It's harsh, but with bottomless Healing Water to blow through, it's not bad.
The Critical skill is pretty... well, critical to my speed as well, since it scales just fine with Power Wine gains, the same way Break Armor and basically nothing else would. Weapon skill unfortunately only amplifies the gain from the weapon itself, which is a very minimal increase in the scheme of things.
Another benefit of using claws that I can see is the benefit of its charge attack being full-speed mobile. There are a lot of points where I can wipe enemies out without stopping by grazing past them with it, giving me a pretty good margin of additional EXP without costing much if any time. There are plenty of "roadblock" enemies that can be cast aside quickly with it, as well.
My execution so far is highly inefficient, but I was wondering what other perspectives thought of the route and its potential. I think it can easily compete with Speed Ninja due to how much time you save early game and a seamless way to avoid the arena, but I was wondering what someone else thought of it.
