I have a few questions about this run, and was hoping someone could help out. I apologize if some of these are obvious or what not, I haven't had time to watch any of the runs.

With the new update that came out this month in regards to enemy level scaling, is that something that should be used in the run? Heavy — All enemies remain at your level. Normal — No change in the difficulty settings. Light — Content is around two levels below your level. Very Light — Content is around four levels below your level.

Second, are there any skips or anything in this run that are somehow utilized? Figured I'd ask, because why not.

Third, are their ability upgrades chosen that provide the best benefit overall to making the run easier? Again, this is something I could probably get from watching a run but haven't had time to yet.

I really love this game which is why I wanted to give the run a chance (knowing that running a game can lead to burnout, but that's okay, the DLC has been meh so that doesn't bother me anymore).

Thanks all!

Hi!

I'll start off by saying that all the runs on the leaderboards at this point were done on patch 1.0.6 or earlier, and the patches since then have had major negative impacts on the speedrun route.

1. Level scaling setting should have no effect. We used to already manipulate it by changing difficulty from easy (very light) to nightmare (heavy) for getting proper XP from quests that are lower level than the player, or otherwise scaling with level. In the newest patch they made it so the game forces a load screen when changing difficulty or scaling options, so this strategy costs much more time now. However, I haven't even verified if it works anymore, because other factors make it so that you will almost never be overleveled in this patch, rendering the strat useless.

2. There used to be a way to powerlevel from lvl 6-20 or so by doing certain high level quests early, however this was also fixed in a patch. There aren't really any skips other than doing the minimum required objectives for quests.

3. Newest patch massively changed damage calculations, so it's not certain if the same Hunter build is still optimal. For the build used in old patch runs: Max the passive abilities for poison, hunter damage, assassin damage (mostly for the crit dmg). Battlecry of Ares for the huge damage boost. Devastating shot is the main damage dealer. Some other useful skills include Vanish, Multishot, Rain of Destruction, Overpower bow strike, Rush assassinate and Critical assassinate. For gear, priority was poison damage (only when using poison bow) > hunter damage > headshot/crit damage.

As a person who also really loves this game, it's great to hear that you're interested. Aside from the long travel sections, I really do enjoy this game as a speedrun. I think most runners (well, basically just me and Ector) are waiting until the patches slow down before doing more runs, since it's really annoying to have your route completely ruined by a patch.

Definitely join the Discord server linked in the sidebar if you want to discuss this stuff further :) I've done some testing after the powerleveling was fixed but before the hunter nerf, so there are at least some ideas for how to do the run massively underleveled. There's also the possibility of downpatching your game to 1.0.6, which I haven't done yet, but I think it should be possible.

Hope this was helpful :)

It was, thanks! I'll make sure I join the Discord as well!