Hello there.

So as you probably know if you reading this, a new extension Called Atlantis recently dropped out of nowhere, that mainly had a new campaign, and a new mode.

This offer the possibility of 3 new categories:
-Atlantis run:Start at lvl 1 end when you enter the portal at the end of Atlantis.
Interesting because it's shorter than Hades run and also Harder overall, no a real game end tho so there that.
-Accomplished Atlantis Run: Start as an accomplished hero and take the portal the tartarus then back, wich will take you directly to the Atlantis campaign.(same + and - that above)
-Tartarus Run: Kill Tartarus, starting from lvl 40. Since you can directly go to tartarus from the start of a Accomplished hero run, this is the category that make the most amount of sense, even thought it's an UltraRNGfest (but this never stopped anyone).

Are those good enough to be considered full categories? i'd say yes, but did not test it quite enough to know for sure.(especially tartarus that i didn't really touch)

Beside That, it also Add/Tweak lot of things, and after testing quite a lot here is the one that i think are relevant from a speedrun perspective.

-You can now play the game using Dx11! This make the game more stable, and also somewhat change the way freeze work?(i can make more than 80+ point easy with DX11 in one freeze, way easier than with dx9 with the same setup to Slowdown my pc)this is obviously PC specific so you should test out how it compared for you, DX9 is still possible to use.

-pointdupe for skill work differently, it's hard to explain but basically if you try to dupe anything that's say for example level 14/15, when you cancel the point, the skill will downgrade to 0/15. it can be a pain if you aren't paying attention, but doesn't change anything beside that if just don't dupe on a skill you don't want to keep.

-Pressing shift when buying potion make you buy 10 by click(20 if you use both mousse button) extra small speed gain but it's nice.

-item now display rarity without the need of the cursor irrelevant speed gain (for searching boots) but it's nice.

-New Skill! not clear how much time is gained for it, but there is definitely some in a few classes(new Rune mines are Fantastic for example, nature is also really good.)

-Higher skill point cap, 40 instead of 32, probably make you win like 5 sec in a full run yeah.

And that's it i guess.
What are you thought?

So for the new Categories, i'd like to keep it as i've always done it: If someone comes up with a new Category, put a short presentation (including first run, general rules like "timer stop"-conditions etc) here in the forum, then i'll add it (if there are not REALLY strong arguments against it, like the category beiing utterly stupid). I just don't like adding empty categories because someone MIGHT be interested in running them. When someone definitely is interested, i'll be happy to add a leaderboard for it.

For the other changes, I also noticed that i'm now able to do some SkillPoint dupes on my PC (it was too strong before, so i always used my notebook for the actual runs). So yeah, i guess DX11 is helping a bit here

The new skills are interesting indeed, but i highly doubt they will have an impact on the speedrun routes. The most interesting skill for this would be the new LeftClick-Skill for the storm mastery, which is a Dash-Attack with 444% Movement-Speed (other dashes have max. 300%) and NO COOLDOWN!
That sounds crazy in the first place, but you have to target an enemy in order to dash to it. Also choosing storm blocks some other possibilites, so in my opinion it was not really worth it.

The minefield also sounds good, but with Seal of Fate/Thunderstrike combo, the Rune already has some really strong bosskillers for the runs, so i kinda doubt it will be useful.

Anyways, i'm also interested what other findings we might get in the near future, the new updates opens some interesting possibilities

Concerning the storm mastery skill,
You don't actually need to target an ennemy for it to work! Like other similar skill you can activate it using any distance weapon, and cancel it before the attack start.
Look something like this:

i actually did a shit ton of testing trying to get the permanent boost but no luck. anyway this is definitely the fastest way of moving in theory; i actually timed a few zone using different method and this is always on top, even faster than a 166% speed +weaponswap glitch character; but unless you are doing a TAS it's wortless in a real run, took me several attempt to do it kinda consistently just for testing, not even talking of the fact that doing it when running left and down is slow as fuck unless frame perfect.

Probably be useful in legendary run tho?(you can Delete Ragnarok and only have atlantis on very easily on steam) new pet attack of the storm class can apparently do some real damage(so do new nymph attack Btw.) and make you gain Enormous amount of time since you don't really use any speed boost in the run to start with.
I plan on doing a Ragnarok Legendary run later this week anyway, might try to go full stupid with a rune/storm combo, why not?

Concerning The minefield and having tested it a lot, it trend to do between 60-80%(depending of the boss move) of the damage a seal of fate do, so yeah not crazy against boss, but to kill standard mob DAMN it's the best thing ever.
Nothing like letting yourself be hit down to 15% of health to then insta kill every mob in the screen by pressing a button, assuring a very long -40% health boost without risk, and a guaranteed lvl 8-9 arriving in Egypt.
Assuming a good point dupe id say time loose is null... And it's FUN.

Very fair for the new Categories part, Will post a tartarus run very soon.(did a few already)