FG Normal any% NMG
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FG Normal any% NMG
Updated 4 years ago by Quantificate

Formatted for Reddit, so pardon the weird bits:

If you prefer video, here's the video guide:

WARNING: Massive Wall of Text and Images!

I got asked a lot of questions about the route/gameplan in my speedrun thread, so I decided to write a little guide with some images to help others absolutely dominate my times.

These are the rules, as per speedrun.com:

  • Timer starts on first character movement and ends with the death of the Manifestation of Korvaak.

  • Run must be done alone, using a single character. Items, components, and materials found by different characters cannot be used for any reason.

  • Crafting is allowed.

  • Any number of blueprints may be unlocked prior to starting the run.

  • Normal or Veteran difficulty, switching mid-run is allowed. (This was created BEFORE the Veteran difficulty buffs, so probably don't try veteran unless you're a masochist.)

  • Use of the Crucible DLC is allowed.

  • Tech that is considered to be a major glitch within the community cannot be used in this category. This includes: glitches that break character progression (acquiring additional skill, attribute, devotion points), infinite buffs, or lowering FPS to bypass obstacles.

So far, I've discovered one build that can handle the FG bosses, but there are probably others. This Dervish cleared the content in 2h18m, and that was a test run, with almost no practice on the build. I got some really lucky drops, but some pretty sub-optimal routes (lots of having to backtrack to get around the randomly placed "roadblocks").

The build path goes something like:

  • Attributes: Pretty much and even split between Phys and Cunning. Probably could have leaned a little more into Phys (like 15P/8C instead of 11/12).

  • Skills: I started with Oathkeeper, and just turbo charged Righteous Fervor for the first 9 levels. You should have level 10 Mastery bar, 16/16 Fervor and 1/1 Dreeg's Reproach with a point left over when you hit level 10. From 10 on, it's all Nightblade. Stick a point in Dual Blades, and everything else into the bar until you hit mastery 5, then 1 in bar, and 2 in Belgothian's Shears each level until you max Shears and have level 10 mastery. After that, toss a point into Shadow Strike, then everything into Veil of Shadow until you cap that, then do the same with Pneumatic Burst (but get Breath of Belgothian immediately).

  • Devotions: Rush Bat, then Jackal. If you have more points after those, go for resists in this order: Fire > Stun > Cold > Lightning. Assign Twin Fangs to Righteous Fervor.

  • Playstyle: Hold leftclick on enemies and watch them die. Use Shadow Strike to quickly jump from pack to pack. Always keep PBurst up once you have it, as it not only heals you, but it also grants total speed, which means stuff dies faster, and you run faster. As soon as you can, grab the Leap augment from the Bysmiel vendor in Conclave. Leap saved my ass so many times because you can get out of packs, dodge attacks, and hop small gaps (as long as the path is valid) with it. Save up pots for the end of the run, because you're gonna use 10-25 health and 5-10 energy pots per boss, starting with Dravis.

  • Bosses:

  • Krieg is a piece of cake, as long as you pay attention to your health.

  • Galfang is fairly easy, but make sure you kill his pack of buddies BEFORE you pull him, and DON'T GET HIT BY THE METEORS (they'll one shot you).

  • Temple Guardians are painful, but pretty easy once you figure out the "rythym" of the fight. Basically, aggro the bosses, and run in circles around the arena until they're all solidly on the same side of you. Then Shadow Strike to one of the Watcher type dudes, beat him for a bit, then Leap away, pop some heals, and repeat until they're all dead.

  • Dravis is pretty simple with this build, just make sure you get out of the volcano things that pop up, and keep him between you and his pets (so Twin Fangs hits multiple targets).

  • The Steward is a pain in the ass. He's a powerful melee combatant, which means we can't just stand toe-to-toe with him and rely on Twin Fangs/ADCTH to survive. Fight guerrila style: Shadow Strike in, pop a Slam or some other big melee attack, get in a few hits, then Leap away and dodge his attacks. His breath thing will one shot you if you're in melee range, so watch out for that.

  • Father Kymon was surprisingly not that bad. Just stay out of his AoEs, and use the Shadow Strike in, Leap out method and he goes down pretty quickly.

  • Manifestation of Korvaak however, is brutal after Phase 3 hits. Phases 1 and 2 are exactly the same as Steward and Korvaak: Shadow Strike in, beat on him, then Leap out when he does the spiraling orb attack (Leaping over the orbs dodges them). Once Phase 3 hits, you're gonna have a bad day. Nearly all of his attacks will one shot you, or will deal half your health in damage, and he'll combo them. On top of that, he spawns adds. You have to up the speed of your In/Out game, as you'll only be able to stand near him for a few seconds at a time, if that. Don't worry about killing the obelisk thing that spawns the adds, he'll just put down another one, and they have a lot of health, so just get away from them. The best plan here is to get to Korvaak as fast as possible, drop a portal right outside his door, and plan to come back a lot.

  • The Route: Green lines are the "shortest" distance between two points. That said, there are those random roadblocks that GD likes to toss out. So Cyan lines are the shortest distance around those roadblocks and back to the green path. Possible roadblocks are marked in red. Yellow lines are routes to Shrines that aren't on the main path. Grand total, these extra Shrines only added up to 6-7 minutes of extra time, and were quite vital to completing the FG bosses, so you probably just want to go a head and do them.

  1. Kyzogg the Reanimator: You can completely skip talking to any one in town and still get this done, so just run along the green line unless it's blocked, and go smash his face. If you have to take the second cyan route, grab the dude from the shack over there for +1 Scrap for the next quest. I like to go in the back door of the cave, kill the two clusters, kill reanimator, then hit the shrine, and go out the front door, come back around the spiral, but head down the middle path into the dump (since we need 4 Crystals and 5 Scrap for the next quest).

  2. 4 Crystals, 5 Scrap: This is the most RNG heavy part of the run. I've spent less than 3 minutes looking for scrap, but I've also spent 25 minutes looking for scrap. The best way to do this is to clear the Old Dump (including the cave) of all of it's scrap piles (which have a high chance to drop scrap), then just head along the next route grabbing Rifts and getting XP until you have 5 scrap. If you do this, once you have 5 scrap, don't just drop everything and portal back, as you're gonna lose the portal when you're done with Viloth. Just keep going to the next Rift and head back from there (unless you get your 5th scrap somewhere immediately after a Rift, then just go back and use that one).

  3. Viloth the Corruptor, Part 2: Ignore my "2 Shrines" note on the second map, I was keeping track of # of shrines on the main path at that point. No roadblocks here, so just follow the path, and kill Viloth, grab the shrine, and portal back to town.

  4. Crossings and Mires and Banks, oh my!: Basically, just charge up the middle road as much as possible. Due west from the Foggy Bank Rift is a cave with a shrine in it that's optional. It takes about 2 minutes to get there, complete the shrine, and get back. As you'll see in the note on the map, if you move quickly, the cave between Foggy Bank and Burrwitch Outskirts adds 3.5-4 minutes to the run, but includes a shrine. This basically means that unless you already have the 3 Scrap and 5000 Iron to repair the bridge, or are very close, it's usually faster just to take the cave.

  5. Town Portal: Either way you get here, you come back to the same path rather quickly. Just follow the road. When you reach the shrine detour, check for the marked barricade first, because the Shrine is VERY close to the entrance to the cave that's behind the barricade, and shaves a minute or two off of the time it takes to get the Shrine. Also, I missed a roadblock on this map, on the road, just past the first cyan path block. If this roadblock exists, just take a detour to the east towards the brown patch of the map, then head north to catch the main road again. The Dervish build here is a little slow on clearing the Rift, simply because we lack AoE for the first 12-15 levels, so take your time, we'll make up the time later.

  6. To the Basement!: The first roadblock dodge takes a bit, unless you just skip killing stuff, then you only lose a few seconds. The other two are pretty self-explanatory. The shrine takes less than 45 seconds to clear and return from, so why not get it?

  7. Uncle Touchy's Naked Puzzle Basement: I'm not sure if either route is faster, but the first spilt is pretty even so whatever, but the others here can be a very large time loss. I also missed a pretty big blocker on this map. The long hall from the first split to the second can be blocked, sending you south around it. Which is a long way around, and the short exit from that detour can also be blocked, sending you right back to where the second split is. In my Dervish run, this is the exact path I got, PLUS the longest route around the third split. This added like 5 extra minutes to my time.

  8. In Transit: This is pretty straight forward, just make sure to grab the shrine, and be careful in the big open areas just after the shrine, as this is the first time we're gonna get swarmed with huge packs of mobs.

  9. Three-Way: Lab is pretty straight forward, except for the 3-way split. I like to head along the green path until I can see if there's a blockage on the minimap (they have nice bright outlines, so they're easy to see), then I head along whichever cyan path is open if it's blocked. There will only be one of these three routes open. Also, be careful right before Krieg, as the reanimator miniboss there can really overwhelm you with mobs.

  10. It's Coarse and Rough and Irritating and It Gets Everywhere: Welcome to the desert. Get all the lore books here, they're worth 750 XP each. Talk to dude, head downstairs, beat the challenge, head upstairs, talk to dude, head downstairs, across the plaza, back upstairs, join the Cult of Bysmiel. Then head north out of town, and charge right along.

  11. Labrynthine: I don't know who designed these cities/towns, but they're very poorly planned. These city areas are very maze like, and easy to accidentally take a wrong turn in, so be careful.

  12. Osyr, Part 2: Basically wander around near the route until you find 2+ Watchers on the first floor. We're going to the 2nd floor of the temple anyway for a shrine, so don't go hunting for a 3rd, but don't skip one if you see a 3rd. There's almost always one right before the shrine, so that's usually my 3rd.

  13. Space is Curved: This map is WEIRD. There are LOTS of places that look like they connect that don't, and places that look separated that are. The path is kind of a guideline, not a hard and fast route.

  14. Just Like Un'Goro: This is a pretty straightforward path, just make sure to GTFO if you aggro the Titanovore, you can't beat him right now.

  15. More Mazes: This is another pretty straightforward route. The arrow points out some of the big high health/defense watcher guys, just run from them.

  16. The Last Cave: This is actually the last "cave" in the run. Just follow the path.

  17. Not the Conclave of the Three: The path through the Crags is rather narrow, so pay attention that you're clicking on the bridge/stairs you want to take, and not somewhere under them. After the Vanguard, make sure to go and get the Rift BEFORE you go into the Temple of Ateph, so you can just head back to the Rift after portalling back to town from the Temple.

  18. Temple of Ateph, Part 2: I wasn't (and am still not) familiar with all the roadblocks here, so just follow the lines whenever you get stuck.

  19. We've Come A Long, Long Way Together: This is a LONG route, and there are lots of places to get lost. Just be careful and pay attention to your map.

  20. The City That Should Have Stayed Sleeping: Again, rather maze-like, the shrine isn't that far out of the way, i think like a minute and a half ish. You should be at least level 23/24 by now. If you aren't farm dudes here until you are, because you're gonna need all the help you can get to fight Dravis and The Steward.

  21. Ignore Me!, Part 2: Ignore that note on this map, because I have been here now, but the exact path on here was open, so I just charged right along it, so I can't say much about the roadblocks.

  22. This is the end/for you, my friend: This is a pretty straight route, and since you've defeated Dravis, The Steward, and Father Kymon while 3-5 levels lower than them at this point, you can handle anything in here. Just charge away to victory, and go kill Korvaak! When you do, I give you the greatest of Yatta!'s, and please let me or us know what build you did it with and your time.

I now realize that I've written 14k characters in this guide. I've probably rambled too much, but there were quite a few people asking about the route/build/strats etc, so I figured I'd put it all in one place.

TL;DR: No TL;DR will help you here. The above IS the TL;DR. The full explanation and decision making process is something I'd have to write a book about.