Diablo 2 player completes pacifist Hell run previously only theorized to be possible
It took over 50 hours of playtime, but MacroBioBoi(opens in new tab) finally did it: They completed the «world's first ever completely untwinked solo self-found Hell pacifist Sorceress run» in Diablo 2: Resurrected.
In terms that'll be more familiar to people who aren't Diablo 2 speedrunners, Macro beat Diablo 2: Resurrected on the hardest difficulty without attacking anything, using only items they found during the run. («Twinking,» in Diablo 2 parlance, means using the trading system to give a character items.) Diablo 2 speedrunners had come up with theoretical ways to accomplish the run, but Macro was the first to do it for real.
«The only people who ever took the run past Normal had twinked a character with edited gear to see if it was possible,» they told PC Gamer.
The Diablo 2 speedrunning community has created a detailed set of rules which define what a pacifist run is. You can't attack, of course, but there's more to it than that. You also can't force anything else to attack, set traps, or use damaging auras, either. For the most part, the damage you deal has to be dealt as a direct consequence of a creature choosing to attack you. To accomplish that, Macro loaded up their Sorceress with «chance to cast» items and abilities that sometimes cause a spell to be cast when their character takes a hit. By the end, they had a set of armor that caused them to cast the powerful area-of-effect Nova spell every time an enemy hit them. They also dumped points into the Cold Armor passive skills, which increase defense (the Sorceress doesn't have many hitpoints) and do cold damage to enemies who hit them.
Macro, who has the Pacifist Paladin speedrun record in Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction on Normal at 2h 25m 45, thought
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