Diablo 2 Speedrunner Beats The Game Without Attacking

A successful new speedrun of Diablo II manages to distinguish itself from existing ones in a very significant way: the game was beaten without attacking any enemies.

This pacifist run by streamer DrCliche can be watched in full in the video below. The game is completed on Normal difficulty through Act V's Baal boss in just over 7 hours and 41 minutes (though the video continues on for a bit after that point). Put simply, the strategy involves equipping gear that causes attackers to suffer damage, leaving the player to consume health potions that allow them to tank their way through fights.

DrCliche said in a post on Reddit that this is the second time they've done a run like this. With it being a new concept, they laid down some ground rules for a Diablo II pacifist run. These include not hiring a mercenary (an AI companion that fights for you), disregarding actions taken by NPCs you have no control over, and not taking advantage if you attack due to a bug.

"There's a bug that sometimes causes your mouse buttons to revert to attack when any of your equipment changes," DrCliche explained. "As a result, it's easy to unwittingly swing at an enemy, or to accidentally [use telekinesis on] something while aiming for a chest, portal, waypoint, shrine, seal, or altar. If that happens, simply apologize and don't allow that enemy to die. If that enemy needs to die, respawn it unprovoked in a new game."

The Reddit post goes on to highlight the items you need to shoot for while doing this and the strategy for each act and its boss. The choice of the Sorceress class was made due to an otherwise forgettable enemy in Act IV, Lord de Seis. Because he's unskippable, doesn't have a melee attack, and can heal himself, this leaves the Sorceress' Chilling Armor as perhaps the only efficient way of taking him down as a pacifist.

Blizzard recently celebrated the Diablo series' 20th anniversary with in-game events in Diablo III, among its other games. It's also currently working on bringing arguably Diablo II's best class, the Necromancer, to Diablo III.