any% "glitchless" Hardcore Rogue run explained

This video explains an any% "glitchless" hardcore Rogue run by xavier_sb. The run wasn't submitted to the leaderboard. Glitchless is in quotation marks because it's difficult to define what counts as a glitch and what doesn't as many people have different interpretations of it. Always make sure to check the current rules before you start speedrunning if you intend to submit your run(s)!

Regardless of whether some of the tricks/glitches are not allowed, this should give a good overview of most aspects of the run and be a good starting point if you are interested in starting to speedrun Diablo without duping.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH13rm_25_Uhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH13rm_25_U

Diablo 1 "glitchless%" notes on speedrunning

Video explaining concepts below (and much more): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrJkrGRlh30



When speedrunning there are generally few most important tricks:

- horizontal walking (avoid non-melee attacks)
- bottom kiting (squeeze thru stunlocking enemies or just fight them without taking damage)
- 4tile (trick enemy archers into standing still around the corner)
- telekinesis (skip most of the Diablo floor)
- map reading (cathedral, catacombs, caves, hell)
- enemy stun potential and surround potential
- duplicated maps (especially hell)
- mana shield trick (skip taking stunlocks – wasn't used there)
- phasing (evacuate in random direction – wasn't used there)

*Horizontal walking*
While you keep on walking in W or E direction, you cannot be hit by a single non-melee attack, be it arrow, fireball, fire wall. This can be used to bait goat archers closer, maybe buy some times when lava lords or acid beasts throw projectiles at you and creep closer at the same time.

*Bottom kiting*
While you're walking SW, S or SE, when you start moving, the game thinks you're already in the destination tile. When you're getting stunned, you get "teleported" to destination tile. This way you can squeeze by many enemies just by walking downwards and taking a lot of damage (which can heal without worries).
As for killing enemies - if they swing and you go SW/S/SE, they'll be out of reach, it's best seen vs the uglies on dungeon level 4. It's a common strategy to kill much stronger enemies.

*4tile*
Classical 4tile means you just get around the corner and walk 4 tiles away. Enemies will be stuck just around this corner thinking they can shoot you, but they can't. This works vs tier1 and tier2 enemies. Higher tier enemies require different tactics.

*telekinesis*
Using telekinesis to pull one lever inside the 3rd Diablo room (the left one). You can skip clearing the 1st (top) and 2nd (right) rooms. Furthermore, you don't have to pull the other lever in 3rd room, just use town portal to go and come back, and the Diablo room will be open for you.

*map reading*
This is overall complicated, but in a nutshell:

- cathedral maps are divided into 9 parts, let's call it NW,N,NE,W,Middle,E,SW,S,SE, both exit and start can spawn only in 4 bottom tiles: Middle, SW, S, SE. No need to explore the top parts of cathedral
- catacombs are very random, but staircases show mostly on big rooms having many inside rooms (like libraries/shrines). Also these big rooms have higher chance of spawning on the very top positions (W,NW,N,NE,E)
- caves have the highest chance of spawning exit locations on the very top left boundary wall (W,NW,N). Next level passages are facing NW->SE direction, up to town faces NE->SW direction
- hell has a symmetrical map, it's divided on 4 (almost) equal quarters, so if you get to know one quarter of the map, you know all about the other quarters

*enemy stun potential and surround potential*
What's most important in Diablo speedruns is not getting stunlocked. In order to do so, you always want to secure bottom kiting "escape route". Some enemies just coil around you and limit your escape, some are circling around, some just maintan safe distance. It's important to know which monsters limit your escape routes, how big are the escape routes (catacombs is crowded because of many doorways, caves have long corridors, hell is spacious).
Some more important monsters:

- balrogs looks scary, but they prefer to inferno you, so they circle around much, they are easy to run past
- witches avoid you, but have strong projectiles, it's good to have some magic resist vs them
- hidden class can pop up in the most unwanted time, especially illusion weavers, be very careful if they are on the map
- gloom and horned demons have charge ability and they are very eager to close your escape routes
- uglies are slow, but very methodical in limiting your escape routes
- all bats are slow and lazy, but it makes them occupy 2 tiles (source and destination movement tiles) a lot, so they make it difficult to run past them
- magma demons and lightning enemies circle a lot, but their melee skills are very high, be very careful with deciding whether you go for it or play slowly

*duplicated maps*
Some levels are duplicated, you get the exact map layout, exact staircase location. It's mostly seen in hell levels, but can happen everywhere (it's even possible to get 4 idential maps in a row - only in caves, never got more than 3 in my experience).

*mana shield trick*
Here's some math: if you have less HP than your character level, you can't get stunned. If you have mana shield on while having low HP, you can just run thru the levels without getting stunlocked at all. It's a common technique to grab book of mana shield, damage yourself with fire wall and just go for it.

*phasing*
Phasing is a spell that allows you to teleport in one of 4 directions: N,S,W,E. It teleports you to the tiles on the edge of your visibility (and to tiles adjacent to them, making it 4*9=36 possibilities). When you're cornered, it's good to attract monsters close to you and just phase away so you get past them.



Diablo Any%(RTA) Guide - Beginner's guide

Diablo 1 Speedrun Guide By Rolken¤
¤Actually, there is no real work in here that is mine. It is all Funkmastermp and others who have perfected this. I watched the GDQ video and loved it and had to do the run myself. I did this run multiple times and worked out where I didn’t understand things and made notes to make this noob-friendly. Enjoy!

¤¤A quick word on getting the game to work. If you have had any trouble getting the game to run on Windows 10 (like I did), I found that using "DxWnd" to run the program helps a lot - especially when you want to tab in and out without crashing. Install Diablo like normal and then set up DxWnd to run it by importing the Diablo file from the exports folder, modify the script to target where you installed it, and then run. I like full screen and so I modify that too. DxWnd is free too :)

•	Start: Pick the Sorcerer
o	Go to Adria and start duping gold (does anyone not know how?) You need to get up to 60,000.
	I find it easiest to dupe using the potions on the belt. If you miss, you can drop the potion and pick it up. It will go back onto the belt.
	Dupe using the two potions, buy 4 more. Dupe those, buy a belt full. Dupe those. Fill belt and repeat until you reach the 60k mark.
o	Buy the following:
	A staff of phasing (should be red)
	Book of fire wall (6,000 gold)
	Book of mana shield (16,000 gold)
	At least 2 scrolls of town portal and 1-2 phasing
o	Read books and fill the remaining space in your inventory with FULL potions of mana
o	Go to Cathedral

•	First few (dozen) floors (1-12)
o	Go down. When you see stairs, go down. You may need to use phasing to get to lvl 4 stairs.
o	Get up to character level 2 sometime during floors 1-4 and add the points to magic and equip the phasing staff.
o	Once you’re level two, you can use fire wall to get your life down to 1-2. Once you’ve done this, cast mana shield. ALWAYS have mana shield on. DO NOT gain any levels until you get to floor 12. When your life is this low, you can’t be stunned by hits – a HUGE advantage when you just want to get past enemies (which is exactly what you’re doing). Remember that you need to recast mana shield every time you go down a floor.
o	Catacombs suck. Use phasing to jump through walls and enemies. In the caves, the stairs only spawn on walls facing NE or NW, so try going along the top right and top left walls to find them. Sometimes they spawn in the middle.
o	Once you’ve reached floor 12, town portal back to town.

•	Town Time! Part 2.
o	Go to Adria and buy: (you may need to dupe a bit more depending on the cost of the staff.)
	Book of teleport. Easy to identify: Red and costs 20,000
	Staff of Wizardry (it adds to magic – 20-30)
	Then fill inventory with full mana potions

•	The End Game
o	Kill enemies to until you get up to 105 magic. (Level 10-ish depending on how much magic the staff gives you.) and learn Teleport
o	Become stun-proof again (by going to dangerously low HP).
o	Go down, down, down, using teleport to get you there.
	When you run into the Warlord of Blood, you can hit “pause” (which is the “P” button) to cut his dialogue and move on down the stairs.
o	Grab staff for Lazuras and go back to town to show it to Cain. Head back.
o	Kill Lazuras
	Teleport to hit switches. When you get ported into his room, alt-tab out and back in to skip the cut scene. 
	While Lazuras is talking, cast fire wall on him a few times and teleport to the exit (which is where you came in) when he finishes talking. He will die quite quickly. The “sound” in options needs to be above zero for this to work! Without it, Lazarus won’t talk (It took me a a ridiculously long amount of time to figure this out - like installing all sorts of mods and other programs to run it and crap. ¤Facepalm¤)
o	Go down to Hell and kill Diablo
	Find his room. Teleport in and cast firewall on him as much as possible. You may die, but if he dies to the firewall, YOU WIN! I like to teleport into a corner of the room, it helps reduce the amount of DPS you get.

Running Diablo on Linux with LiveSplit and autosplitter (non-DevilutionX)

# Acquire the game

- Buy on [https://www.gog.com/en/game/diablo](https://www.gog.com/en/game/diablo)
- Download the **offline installer**
- You can *probably* also acquire the game from a physical disc, but you’re on your own for figuring out how to get it installed and running and I don’t know if the autosplitter works properly with it

# Set up the wine environment stuff

- Install wine and winetricks if you haven’t already
- Run winetricks
    - *Select the default wineprefix* (unless you know what you’re doing)
        - *Install a font*
            - *Times - MS Times fonts (Microsoft, 2008) [downloadable]*
            - Okay on the warnings (~2-3x)
    - *Run winecfg* (alternatively just run *winecfg* from the terminal)
        - *Libraries* tab
        - *New override for library* - type in *ddraw*, click *Add*
            - Edit, select *Native (Windows)*	
    - *Install a Windows DLL or component* -> find *dotnet48*, okay on the warnings (~6x) (this takes very long to install)

# Install the game

- Terminal (in the folder with the GOG setup): *wine ./setup_diablo_1.09_hellfire_v3_\(78106\).exe* 
- If you want the game windowed: Terminal *winecfg* -> *Applications* -> *Add application…* -> select the *DiabloLauncher.exe*, then with that option highlighted go to *Graphics* -> *Emulate a virtual desktop*, set resolution to what you want the window size to be (make sure you haven't set a specific, lower resolution in the graphics settings of the Diablo launcher) 
    - Note that if you change this for the *Default Settings* instead of just *DiabloLauncher.exe*, LiveSplit will also launch in the emulated desktop, making it awkward to capture with OBS (you’d probably have to capture the emulated desktop once cropped to Diablo and then again cropped to LiveSplit)

# Run the game and LiveSplit

- Terminal in the dx folder (it's inside the Diablo folder, probably *~/.wine/drive_c/GOG Games/Diablo/dx*), run *wine ./DiabloLauncher.exe*
- Terminal in the LiveSplit folder (for example *~/Games/LiveSplit*), run *wine ./LiveSplit.exe*
- Configure LiveSplit as needed, enable autosplitter
    - Some fonts don't show some characters on the timer, so if for example the : is not showing, switch the font to a different one or try the bold/italic variants

# Notes

- As of late January 2025, LiveSplit uses .NET Framework 4.8.1 which (as of June 2025) cannot be installed via winetricks (only 4.8), thus you cannot run LiveSplit 1.8.30 or newer through wine
    - It will likely work again once 4.8.1 can be installed. Check if there have been successful tests on [https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=41505](https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=41505)

- The menus look weird but once you’re in game it’s fine (I’ve only tested to catacombs though). If you know how to fix this, let me know
- Tested on
    - Kubuntu 24.04 LTS (X11)
    - Kubuntu 24.10 (Wayland)

# Credits

- catpeasant - Helping Skytis get the game running
- Skytis - Getting LiveSplit to run in a separate window, this guide

Name	Author
any% "glitchless" Hardcore Rogue run explained	Skytis 2 years ago
Diablo 1 "glitchless%" notes on speedrunning	Krzysiek 7 years ago
Diablo Any%(RTA) Guide - Beginner's guide	Rolken 10 years ago
Running Diablo on Linux with LiveSplit and autosplitter (non-DevilutionX)	Skytis 1 year ago