Hey, nice job with putting history together. I added some missing P1 normal records to the list:

Normal P1 SC Assassin
My 1:26:33 was never a World Record, that's 3rd place run
2015(I believe) 1:25:43 by Teo // this run is unfortunately gone, but it's one of the most iconic runs of all time when sorc was above 1:30
30 Oct 2018 1:24:13 by blackdeathdoom (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/329206680)
Bender's 1:21:19 run is from 22 Aug 2019

Normal P1 HC Assassin
21 Aug 2019 1:22:45 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/470054611)
3 Dec 2019 1:21:02 by BokserKabaty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3tN6vI0FiM)
16 Jan 2020 1:20:13 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/536620799)
Bender's 1:17:21 was 2nd place run, Meow's 1:16:59 is from 20 Mar 2020

Normal P1 HC Druid
29 Feb 2020 1:26:25 by 327 (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/559726487)

Normal P1 SC Paladin
14 May 2019 1:44:11 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/424748913)
8 Jul 2019 1:42:36 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/449880233)
2 Aug 2019 1:40:46 by BokserKabaty (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWUXNBdAWZE)

Normal P1 HC Paladin
6 May 2019 1:44:20 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/421306430)

Normal P1 SC Amazon
19 Feb 2019 1:57:28 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/383370941)
25 Feb 2019 1:52:15 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/386573069)
16 Apr 2019 1:51:32 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/411647720)
8 Jul 2019 1:47:14 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/449964949)

Normal P1 HC Amazon
6 Mar 2019 1:54:13 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/391414967)
8 Apr 2019 1:51:03 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/408212951)
10 Jun 2019 1:49:43 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/437211058)
15 Sep 2019 1:47:13 by Bender (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/481863457)

P.S. True Barbarian knows his comrades deeds so I'm challenging Mekalb to supplement barb history.
P.S.2 Twitch shows specific date when you hover over it in video section. I initially thought it was impossible to get w/o API requests, might help.

@IndrekIndrek You're right, I just forgot to restart a client for -seed to apply. I can feel difference between the two. It's also very promising you've got similar load time results in real world scenario w/o -seed.

Here is one with -seed applied:
RTA 5:51/IGT 4:16 ~95seconds, so pretty good.
I also had two 6min attempts, with 1-2 more loads = diff was about ~98 seconds.

Here is one attempt (without -seed) I did so far
RTA 5:26 / IGT 3:46 which gives ~99-100 seconds

Many of those changes you are talking about sounds even cool and are reasonable in most part. However I'm againts changing RTA to IGN.

It will just go way further than you would like it to do so and has very dark sides. In my opinion the only appropriate and enjoyable way of speedrunning the game is progressing it. Lack of loading times is a holy grail for shrines setup grind and power-farming abusement which changes everything significantly and makes decision making loading times forces non-existant. In my eyes having it within same category is out of question.

One of the solutions for -ns I would prefer to go is reducing its scope to longer farming sessions (like jail sorc or hell barb do for example) exclusively.

I'm rather sceptical when it comes to map manipulation stuff and in my eyes it should be as little as possible so I agree with Bender and Kordi the most. However it can be an very interesting experiment so I would give it a shot. Won't participate in category most likely by my own, just curious what outcome gonna be.

In my opinion map seeding can make normal races much more playable if host of the race picks up some random unknown for everyone seed that spawns short tower next to the black marsh wp.

"If you go there then logic demands that you can submit a SC run as HC if you didn't die." - Well not quite Joe, if you die on hc run it's already over, while on sc you still can get sc record. That basically forces Deathless/SC categories only , because nobody would play hc in that case, that category is spirit of d2 and only viable mode for a lot of people.

Personally I don't see reason for changing anything. More categories = more Pbs/wrs/goals to beat = more fun = enjoyable competition.

I'm not big fan of promoting hc runs too much, in hell runs it might make some sense since death rate is quite high, but for normal runs it's terrible change (very low death rate, low challenge factor around surviving, very high rng dependency). It promotes grinding for rng much more than reliability and repetitiveness. Don't know what is waste of time for you 327 but for me it's losing weeks of rolling for even having tiny chance competing against kinda grinded out categories, sc druid is great example here - nobody plays it. And no - I'm not depreciating your feat and druid skills I'm not that kind of person. Just trying to say d2 isn't very good for that approach (only one fastest time matters), just too many random factors comparing to other titles.

One nice tiny thing about this layout (and all TR Blood Moor exits ofc.) is that you can easily recognize Arreat Plateau direction. While on some other layouts it is more like cherry picking thing, not worth memorizing since it's almost no impactful.

BL Outer Steppes exit = TR Arreat Plateau
BR Outer Steppes exit = TL Arreat Plateau

Took a brief look and found few discrepancies:

Bender's Hardcore Druid Normal 1:26:25 - That's 327 run
Mojlodost's Hardcore Paladin Normal 1:44:47 - Assassin run in Paladin category
Teo's Hardcore Necro Normal 1:50:43 - It's Softcore run, you should've 2nd place there instead of 4th HC

Overall great job with restoring previous state that quick, respect.

Interesting, happened to me before but holy freeze was able to reach me. Played around 1h with that obstacle and getting Duriel stuck doesn't seem to be as easy as on pillar, maybe it's just matter of practice idk, on the bright sight you can get him stuck on the other side too, so with good pathing it shouldn't be the end of the world and hasten the process by not doing whole circle around, it looks like this:
https:/​/​zapodaj.​net/​eb7950385b2d2.​jpg.​html

You can do one more cool thing that you can't do with pillar stuck - get Duriel stuck in way you can melee damage him or spin hammers and land hits. Tested it both with slow and fast characters, works. However it's tough to do.

Anyway all cases open new possibilities that one with solid practice may take into consideration.

1. No boots doesn't slow you down. The idea behind that advice is probably that most of the characters in normal runs gets 25str to equip 3rows belt, chain boots requires 30str. So as barb runner you couldn't care less about that stuff.
2. Yes medium/heavy versions of armors/shields slows you down by 5%/10%, light version has no impact. Ring mail is medium armor so taking it as a stealth base isn't the best idea. Slightly better defence isn't worth it at all.
3. Defence tells how frequently monsters hit you but this is not the only factor. The more important one is difference between your lvl and monster lvl and since you are underleveled most of the time defence doesn't change much. Physical resistance comes with 'damage reduced by %' mod, not defence.
4. You can find on the way too, and yes poison shrine always drops potions.
5. Both cannot be frozen and thaw pots won't save you from chill which comes from holy freeze aura. Just stack thaws before fight as you do.

Yeah revealing any map like cata, sewers or arcane would be huge. There might be something going on around dungeon maps too. I found connection between Halls of the Dead and Arcane Sanctuary few months ago,I was hyped about it and spent week or so for discoveries, unfortunatelly it apparently doesn't tell us where Summoner is(surprise surprise) but we can specify current state of ways rotation which allow us to pick up desired way we go, before even entering the Arcane. There are reliable rules I made around it so even if it is not super practical and it's useful only for normal difficulty excluding sorc it's interesting and might be helpful with other dungeon levels discoveries.
Let's recap very basics we all know so everybody will able to get it:
» exits and chest in halls are located on the left from the entrance, lvl2 wp is straight from entrance
» four arcane ways are always in same relation to each other, tps direction is always opposite to flat direction etc.

Now only Halls of the Dead rules, I follow lvl2 so it's mostly related to it:
» lvl1 exit direction never matches wp, other exit or chest direction (2 possibilites per lvl2 layout)
» lvl3 chest usually reflects lvl2 exit, if it doesn't it just rotate clockwise one time

Now Arcane:
» layout is usually based on Halls lvl2, but it sometimes follow lvl3 if its layout rotates
» whenever Halls layout rotates clockwise, Arcane does it counter-clockwise

It sounds overwhelming and complicated without example, Let's suppose we enter Halls lvl2 at the bot then wp is on the top wall and exit to lvl3 on the left wall (general rule). In that case lvl1 exit had to be either on the right wall or the bottom wall (first halls rule). Lvl3 entrance will be on the bottom or the left wall (second halls rule). Standard arcane layout for Halls lvl2 wp top is: TR stairs, BR tps, BL arcades, TL flat, but if lvl3 rotates and game follows it instead of lvl2 we will get standard position for lv2 wp on the right: TR tps, BR arcades, BL flat, TL stairs (applies second rule of halls and second rule of arcane in the same time).

It might be still pretty complicated so I attach cheat sheet for that:

Lvl2 Halls of the Dead:
wp top = tr stairs, br tps, bl arcades, tl flat
wp left = tr flat, br stairs, bl tps, tl arcades
wp bot = tr arcades, br flat, bl stairs, tl tps
wp right = tr tps, br arcades, bl flat, tl stairs

Lvl3 Halls of the Dead:
entrance bot, chest left -> tr stairs, br tps, bl arcades, tl flat
entrance right, chest bot -> tr flat, br stairs, bl tps, tl arcades
entrance top, chest right -> tr arcades, br flat, bl stairs, tl tps
entrance left, chest top -> tr tps, br arcades, bl flat, tl stairs

*tr= top-right, br= bottom-right, bl = bottom-left, tl = top-left

As I said if lvl2 and lvl3 differs only one is truthy, keep that in mind

Nicely done putting it all together, I'm using that before I get annoyed. With roll exactly like this it's inarguably the best a1 pattern, I remember it helped me out with understanding a1 outside maps generation process back in the day and got inspired for other acts connection research. What's funny we all spoted very similar connections so respect to you guys. I generalized few of them and I think this topic is a good place to share them but before I do this there are few observations that can be used around this exact pattern:
» Drognan exit in a2 tends to spawn more often, if you only get enough stamina in a1 it might hasten a2 start
» Frigid Highlands will continue staight(goes top-left corner) instead of turning to the right, Frozen Tundra too, it always reflects Frigid Highlands direction

Since first point is just non well tested observation, second one is connected with LK exits so Let's explain how it works:
» LK exit is STRICTLY connected with Stony Field entrance position everything else DOESN'T matter:
- horizontal stony entrances (top-left,bottom-right) generates LK exit on the left, Frigid Highlands goes TL
- vertical stony entrances (top-right, bottom-left) generates LK exit on the right, Frigid Highlands goes TR

It sounds quite silly but I assure you it works every time, just remembering its position is sometimes challenging during the run
We can also partially generalize a4 connection:
» map with TR(top-right) Blood Moor exit gonna behave similar (no left Plains of Despair) irrespective of encampent exit direction
» on the other hand maps with BL(bottom-left) Blood Moor exit spawns Plains of Despair only on left side

TL and BR doesn't seem to be consistent in that case however I don't recommend playing them at all especially on Den of Evil dependent characters since it makes connections that enable river spawn on Black Marsh and the earliest point you can find out this is the case is Stony entrance.