Anybody done any speed runs yet? I usually play on GR, but I loaded the game up on Elvishly Easy with No Time to Grind and I took a staircase down any time I could take on a "scary" monster without difficulty (anything that makes you stop and think about your approach/how to use the room you're in/beefier mook/etc.). The whole fifteen floors took two hours, during which time I failed to find a pair of pants. It was quite entertaining to blaze through without exploring the full floors, always searching for challenging encounters. I was using Promethean Magic, so now it's time to go non-mage or up the difficulty.
Saw this thread and decided to try a mage build for speed running. I've gotten down to floor 5 faster than ever before. Using a combination of Psi and golem to force push + blade golem I can kill anything that tries to get too close. I have pyro for AoE, mathemagic to escape if I ever get swarmed, burglary to rack up some quick exp from lockpicks. Golem and Psi are what really make this possible. The amount zoning you get from taking both ensures that nothing can touch you. Edit: also playing on GRPD
I've done this a couple times on GRPD NTTG using a melee fighter. Usually if I can find decent weapons on lvs. 2-4 I do OK. I tried it with a mage but my damage wasn't scaling nearly fast enough to keep up with the monsters, while finding decent weapons is much easier. There's something weird about being on DL 7 and Character Level 9. Haven't actually cleared the game this way yet, usually wind up getting mobbed as I come down some stairs somewhere and killed there. DL 8 is the lowest I've gotten, think I was character level (CL) 10 at the time. I actually started doing it because I want to clear the game at CL 16, so I'm more aiming for low level than low time, but the two will probably coincide. I'm pretty sure CL 18-20 is about the point where getting levels starts yielding diminishing returns on GR, so I figure that level 16 must be the beginning of peak power. If you were wondering about why I chose that level as the goal.
