User:Luxidream/How to win really fast

A realtime speedrun of NetHack is an attempt to ascend in the shortest amount of time. In order to ascend, a player must obtain all three of the invocation artifacts, perform the invocation, obtain the Amulet of Yendor, and sacrifice it to their god on the Astral Plane. Most realtime speedruns are completed in under three hours of play, with some under two hours.

While it might seem to require extraordinary luck to ascend in under two hours, such as a wand of wishing or a large scroll or ring shop, this is a common misconception. Fast wins are achievable by every role without extraordinary luck, and some roles can do it consistently.

This guide will assume that you've won at least once, so won't explain strategies such as informal identification and Elbereth in full.

The basics

The travel (_) command is your bread and butter. You can use it, then select a dungeon feature on the map using its symbol and press . to travel to it. You can also cycle between items or unexplored areas by pressing o or x respectively.

Set up autopickup exceptions to reduce the amount of time you spend sorting through loot to see what items you want. This will depend on your role. For example, Valkyries will want to pick up tripe rations and eggs for confusion, but Wizards can cast confuse monster and may not need these food items. Most roles will want to pick up some useful items like horns or magic markers though, while ignoring less useful tools like the grappling hook.

Add MSGTYPE=stop options for any potentially run-ending message, including but not limited to lycanthropy, sliming, stoning, Vorpal Blade, fainting, etc. You will be going fast and are likely to miss these messages.

With the exception of some weak roles that may need a starting pet, OPTIONS=nopet can save some time waiting for the pet to follow you on each level.

Choosing a role

The best roles for realtime speedrunning fall into one of two categories: melee combatants with high strength and constitution, or spellcasters with the ability to cast the magic mapping spell. The three best roles for speedrunning are Valkyrie, Wizard, and Priest.

Valkyrie

Unsurprisingly, dwarven Valkyrie is an excellent choice for speedrunning. They have virtually unequaled starting stats, frequently entering the dungeon with maximum carrying capacity from their strength and constitution. If you choose to startscum for better stats, it is important to have 19 or higher constitution, as this significantly improves the amount of HP gained when leveling up. Strength can be increased later on the Valkyrie quest. The starting +3 small shield is one of the best single pieces of armor any role can start with.

Their starting stealth is essential for clearing out special rooms such as the Sokoban treasure zoo, leprechaun halls, and throne rooms. Cold resistance can also be useful prior to obtaining reflection. However, their lack of poison resistance can lead to difficult situations involving killer bees or water moccasins.

Valkryies start with their endgame weapon already in hand, the +1 long sword that can be converted into Excalibur. Their quest artifact, the Orb of Fate, is also useful for saving time, as it reduces your need for better AC and can be invoked for level teleportation, which saves precious scrolls of teleportation.

Wizard

While elven Wizards are fragile in the early game, they can save a lot of time once they obtain a wand of wishing to complete their kit. Although their stats are mediocre, their starting inventory can be the best in the game, potentially containing ascension kit items like the magic marker, ring of conflict, and ring of polymorph control, as well as guaranteed magic resistance. The guaranteed instrument can be used to enter the Castle.

A Wizard's greatest strength is their enhanced ability to write unknown scrolls and spellbooks, most effective with high Luck. (Make sure to get your hands on a luckstone!) The ability to write whatever they want, along with their inherent spellcasting ability allows them to easily obtain a variety of useful spells such as healing, identify, and magic mapping. Their quest artifact, the Eye of the Aethiopica, gives energy regeneration, which allows for frequent spellcasting.

Since their first sacrifice gift is Magicbane, which doesn't do much damage, Wizards often struggle with dealing damage on their own, so they use polyself strategies such as polymorphing into a master mind flayer to make up for this.

Priest

Elven Priest can cast magic mapping, has the ability to see the BUC status of items, and may be able to train identify more quickly than Wizard if they also start with a level 1 divination spell. They gain more Pw than any other role because of their high wisdom.

If they are able to obtain Stormbringer, either through sacrifice or crowning, they can potentially exploit drain for gain strategies to obtain protection and clairvoyance from an aligned priest.

However, in all other respects they are worse than Wizards, lacking their starting inventory and their ability to write unknown scrolls and spellbooks. The Pw boost from the Mitre of Holiness is also less reliable than energy regeneration.

Barbarian, Samurai, Caveman, Knight

These are generally straightforward melee roles that are worse than Valkyrie, since they have worse starting inventory and harder quests. Barbarian is notable for having poison resistance, avoiding some difficulties that Valkyrie encounters. Barbarian, Samurai and Caveman all have excellent starting constitution and are viable picks. While Knight can easily obtain Excalibur, they can struggle due to having less HP and carrying capacity than the other roles.

Ranger

Despite having the worst HP of any role, Rangers deserve an honorable mention due to being good fighters with the starting bow and highly enchanted cloak of displacement.

Monk

Monks' inability to wear armor without obtaining the luckstone can slow them down. Martial arts is not a very effective weapon. The threat of Master Kaen may force players to obtain the wand of death from Orcus before completing the quest, especially in future versions when the scroll of scare monster is no longer effective against quest nemeses.

Rogue, Archaeologist, Healer, Tourist

Low strength and a difficult early game can hamper these roles.

OK, so you picked Valkyrie, what now?

Not writing this for every role, sorry.

Splits are a good estimate for beginners. There may be reasons to change this route in your game, for example, obtaining Excalibur before Minetown or using a large graveyard to gain levels and access the Quest early.

General tips

• Collect as many scrolls, potions, and rings as possible without going out of your way. It seems counterintuitive for a speedrun to pick up "useless" loot, but later polypiling can consume scrolls and rings very quickly. Potions are useful for diluting into holy or unholy water.
• Assign letters to commonly used items. Most time wasted in NetHack is spent in the menu reading a huge list of items. The more you can streamline this process, the better.
• Stash management is sometimes necessary (this is NetHack, after all). Put your fragile items in a box next to the stairs, lock it, and don't spend too much time on it. Once you have a bag of holding, this becomes entirely unnecessary.
• Don't expect to have extraordinary AC and HP for the endgame. A Valkyrie with AC -10 and about 120 HP is in a very comfortable position for a speedrun, and worse is still winnable. You shouldn't spend precious resources and time trying to enchant your armor or nurse dance for extra HP. Your magic marker charges are better spent on scrolls of charging and scrolls of magic mapping.
• Know when to avoid fighting. If you're in Gehennom with AC: -2, fighting a minotaur in melee will take most if not all of your health.
• Play accurately, not recklessly. If you're in a difficult situation, it may be better to think for some time than to charge forward and die. This is especially true in critical areas like the Astral Plane and Moloch's Sanctum.

Reach Minetown (5:00)

Starting at DL:1, it is helpful to explore most of the early dungeon levels to look for shops, loot, and altars. However, the Gnomish Mines levels are often not worth exploring, especially if they are dark.

Arriving at Minetown should be easy enough for a dwarven Valkyrie with a peaceful Gnomish Mines. Along the way, you should anger and kill a dwarf for a pick-axe and possibly some better armor. If you do not obtain the pick-axe now, you will need to get one from random generation or an Elvenking, which are much more difficult to find.

If the temple is coaligned, pick up holy water here. Holy water is an essential item, and needs to be obtained through an altar in the dungeon, or through a blessed confused scroll of remove curse.

You can also dip for Excalibur here if you happen to be level 5, don't plan on returning, and don't mind the additional risk of running past the Minetown watch.

If you find Orctown, many players often reset. While this doesn't slow you down enough to warrant this, clearing Orctown is not a good use of time and can be dangerous to a Valkyrie lacking poison resistance.

Complete Sokoban (20:00)

You should obtain Excalibur before entering Sokoban. You will encounter the Oracle before entering Sokoban, so you have a good chance of obtaining it.

The Valkyrie's stealth should allow you to enter the Sokoban zoo without awakening any monsters, provided you have a quiet way of opening the door. Chopping it down with a pick-axe, destroying it with a wand of fire, wand of cold, wand of lightning, or wand of digging, or using an unlocking tool or wand will work.

When fighting your way through the Sokoban zoo, be wary of monsters that can wake up the zoo, such as peaceful monsters that make noise when angered (black naga, tengu), invisible black lights, and exploding monsters like gas spores and flaming spheres. If you are forced to fight, retreat into the corridor.

Complete the Valkyrie quest (1:00:00)

Wishing

Good wishes

• 3 holy charging. Pretty standard. Make sure you don't have charging already.
• 3 cursed genocide. To generate wraiths to gain levels or dragons for dragon scale mail. Bless one to genocide liches.
• Magic marker. You will need at least one to map Gehennom, and possibly more to recharge your wand of death and Orb of Fate.
• Ring of conflict. Very important for crowd control.
• Ring of levitation. For the Plane of Air and crossing water. Skip if you have controlled polymorph, potions of levitation, or boots of levitation.

If you have extra wishes:

• Ring of teleport control. Can be used with the Orb of Fate to level teleport, saving walking or digging through levels. Can also be used on the ascension run to teleport directly to the up stairs.
• Wand of polymorph. This wish depends on the amount of items that you have. The more scrolls and rings you have, the more effective polypiling can be. This can be an excellent wish if you are missing many items from your ascension kit and also have lots of junk. If you have a ring of polymorph control, this is also a good source of flight, which can substitute for levitation on the Plane of Air.

Bad wishes

• Any kind of dragon scale mail. You have a great chance of getting this from a cursed scroll of genocide.
• Speed boots. These are generally unnecessary. Use potions of speed for the Astral Plane. They can reduce harassment on the ascension run by saving in-game time, but are very low priority.
• Gauntlets of power. On a Valkyrie, this amounts to a +3 ring of increase damage, which is hardly worth a wish.
• Ring of free action. This is often considered a critical ascension item, but conflict does far more to reduce the damage you take. Not worth a wish, but hang on to it if you find one.
• Sceptre of Might. While it can give conflict and magic resistance, it must be wielded to give magic resistance, and can be stolen.
• Magic Mirror of Merlin. Relying on artifacts that can be stolen for MR is still a bad idea since the last sentence.
• Helm of telepathy This is a nearly useless item.
• T-shirt You don't have the resources to enchant this, and it's easily obtainable by polypiling anyway.

Invocation (1:30:00)

With the quest complete, it's time to head into Gehennom proper. In order to perform the invocation, you still need the Candelabrum of Invocation and the Book of the Dead.

Vlad's Tower can be found somewhere between the ninth and thirteenth levels of Gehennom. The best way to find it is to level teleport to DL:(Valley+8) and search from there with magic mapping. Failing that, you can start from the top; it doesn't use much more time. If you encounter Asmodeus or Baalzebub's lairs, it's quicker to bribe them rather than fight.

Be sure to pick up the loot on the second floor of Vlad's Tower. Even if you are currently wearing an amulet of reflection, you may find a shield later and use the amulet of life saving. The water walking boots can be used to blank useless scrolls and potions if you lack a wand of cancellation, and can be used to cross water if you lack a ring or boots of levitation.

Vlad the Impaler's covetous behavior and speed buff in 3.6.1 make him a more troublesome opponent. The quickest way to dispose of him is using a cockatrice corpse, but that's not always practical. If you are strong enough, another straightforward way is usually to run to the stairs ahead of him, force fight towards the doorway, and hold down Control+A until he expires. If you have particularly low AC, he can hit very hard with a two-handed sword, so exercise caution.

From here, you can use the standard Gehennom mapping strategy of mapping every other level until you reach Orcus. You need his wand of death to kill the Wizard of Yendor, so pop up from under him and drag him to the upstairs below. The shades can be troublesome if you are attacked in melee, especially if you lack extrinsic speed, so avoid this by using a scare tool or conflict.

Now is a good time to wish for a helm of opposite alignment to wear when exiting the Sanctum to mitigate the effect of the mysterious force. It's also a useful item if you happen to be unlucky on the Astral Plane, allowing you to ascend on the chaotic altar as well.

If you have one wish left (1:0), it is strongly recommended to wrest the wand of wishing at this point because it becomes significantly more difficult after killing the Wizard of Yendor. Usually the best item to wish for here is a magic marker if you are low on charges.

To fight the Wizard of Yendor, it's possible to lure him from outside his tower with a drum of earthquake, but those are rare. If you can polymorph into a master mind flayer, your psychic blast with #monster should be able to wake him if you stand as close as possible to him at the top of the level. Since this consumes 10 Pw, and Valkyries usually have around 20 Pw at this point, this can take some time and a few attempts.

With teleport control, it's possible to level teleport from the bottom level of the tower into the top level, skipping most of the first two floors.

After killing the Wizard with the wand of death, dig or level teleport down to the vibrating square level. Use portal detection to find the vibrating square and perform the invocation.

Victory (2:00:00)

Ascending through Gehennom should be straightforward, if you don't lack magic marker charges to recharge your wand of death.

If the Wizard is attacking you and you need to buy time, he stops following you if he is carrying the real Amulet. This can give you a breather and some time to wrest your wand of wishing if you didn't do it earlier.

If you level teleported to Vlad, you may have skipped either Asmodeus or Baalzebub. If so, make sure you aren't wielding Excalibur when you go upstairs for the opportunity to bribe them. If you anger them by accident, it's better to go downstairs and fight them than try to walk to the upstairs, since they can summon horned devils that can steal your Excalibur or even Dispater, an aggravating spellcaster.

If you have cursed potions of gain level, use them on levels that are especially difficult to traverse, such as Asmodeus's lair or the Valley of the Dead.