Attention, a new challenge has been announced for the D2 speedrunner community. Who will drop out more Sander boots in a week? My record in two and a half years of D2 and D2R speedrunning is two in a month (and not one in the last month). The current record is held by the respected Bender, three in a week (I don’t know how much per month, broadcasts are not saved). This is an excellent result, considering that the MrLlamaSC tournament is currently underway with a large prize pool. Who can show the best result? #Communitydon'tbeblind

I think I've had hsarus boots drop before a3 normal around 6-7 times during this competition. I think three of which turned out to be my PB, and one (on freaking barb week) should have been my PB, but never had an el rune drop.

I spent close to 60-70 hours on that hell competition, majority of the time in areas where sanders can drop. Have you? No? I`m really annoyed by people looking only at the good things that happens to me and act like that stuff never happens for anybody else and ignore the grind that is behind it.

Amazonweek for example. Up to my final submission, i never had more than one chipped ruby by the time i reached arcane, never firstwayd either. Always screwed in CS. In Barbweek I think i had 3 middlesewers in a row. People recognize that? No Bender is suspiciously lucky. Always.

Also Sanders are overrated for hellruns. Compared to 20 R/W (which you can force easily either with gambling or act1 NM shop), you move 6% faster. Thats maybe 1-2 minutes per difficulty. https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Faster_Run_Walk (Understand the formula, compare 65% to 45%). The big thing would be 20RW from Andy/pre stealth, there you`d gain 11% over 0 R/W on some of the longest segments of the run. That hasnt happened once for me during the entire competition if i remember correctly

I see you were hooked by my message, so I'm moving in the right direction. Notice I wrote about the community challenge, and no one but you noticed any accusation of it. You could not write anything in this topic and I am 100% sure that no one would support the topic, since everyone respects you as the best speedrunner. But you are the only one who saw her as an accusation, so now I take this step with more confidence. I will speak sincerely, everything I think for the entire speed runner community. I accuse Bender of using cheats and/or some third party software to increase the drop chances of key items and runes that directly improve run times. There are such programs for d2, I'm sure they have already appeared for d2r too. A little background on how I came to these conclusions. To be honest, two and a half years ago, when I was just starting to learn how to speedrun Diablo 2, I immediately noticed Bender as a genius speedrunner. I literally admired him, was his fan, watched streams and made some notes for myself on the strategies that he endlessly practiced. This player has really made a huge contribution to the speed runner community, this is an undeniable fact for everyone. Many viewers look up to him as the god of speedrunning and I can say that he deserves it. By this I mean that I was never his hater, he was to some extent my colleague/teacher in the world of speedrunning. But about two years ago there was an incident, the "first call", which I realized and understood much later. MrLlamaSC occupied WR for a long time and painfully in the Hell HC p1 Paladin category. When he finally took it away, he stayed for about 2 months, after which Bender tried to beat him for several streams. Nothing really worked for him, so he decided to resort to such a "drawn" in my opinion gear. Then I did not attach much importance to this, since it was once, I thought that sometimes such a gear can, in principle, be collected on a speedrun. I kept watching his streams, and then the era of a huge number of very early shoes began. As I do not go to his stream, Hsarus boots, Gorefoot, Vidala, Sanders flaunted on him. Worst case was 20 FRW boots with Charsie at level 19. And all this was plus or minus alternately. I was just shocked how he can be so lucky with this, when I bought 20 FRW boots from a merchant already in 1 act NM in 60-70% of my races. I remained silent, because I could not even think that it was possible to cheat on speedruns. Next comes the big new era of Dol+Io. Indrek had WR on Hell HC p1 Necromancer at 6 hours 28 minutes. Almost simultaneously with Bender, we launched an attack on this WR, which in my case dragged on for almost half a year. Bender abandoned the idea for a while, dying several times on Hell. Therefore, this WR was the first to be subdued all the same by me. I was very happy about my first serious speedrun result, which apparently hurt Bender's feelings a lot. People on the stream often began to write to me that Bender caught Dol + Io for 10 towers, for 7, sometimes even for 5. And it was in a row. When I passed the rune barrier on NM in an average of 20-25 towers and such races often had to be reset due to a bad timer. I began to observe, too, and my fears were confirmed. Bender went through the rune barrier almost every stream, and as a result, he beat my WR in just a few streams. And now in d2r the same story continues. Three Sanders boots in just 1 week, gear on the tournament Hell amazon (just look at one Circlet). And this is from the 1st race in this class ^^ The money from the tournament apparently completely befuddled our Bender's head. I could still say a few oddities that I noticed behind him, but I think I will not drag out much, despite the fact that I use a not very convenient translator. I know that I play at a level worse than Bender, that's a fact. I know that Bender would have been competitive in speedruns and tournaments even without cheats, this is also a fact. Why he does this is more a matter of psychology. I think he wants his audience to admire him even more, he feeds on life energy from this. This is just my opinion. I also understand that I have no direct evidence and proof against him and most likely will never appear. He is very smart and will not let himself be caught. How do you prove cheating when you're just quietly increasing your chances for certain items and runes? That's right, no way. And he knows it and uses it. Ask yourself the question, as a speedrunner, have you ever thought about the fact that he is very lucky. I think almost every d2 speedrunner has thought this way at least once. But it can be lucky for a week, maybe a month, but one player cannot be lucky for a year and a half, this is also a fact. Over a long distance, dependence on luck and randomness disappears. What do I want to achieve from this topic? I just want you not to be fooled and blind to him. I understand that for most of you he is a good friend and it is hard for you to take my words. Once upon a time, he was the same for me. And now I am writing this topic, because I know for 100% that after it, he will continue to think three times in order to use cheats to increase his chance for the next Amn + Sol from the first tower on the necromancer, as it was a few days ago. I know that now he will be afraid. To be afraid that his every step on the stream is closely watched. Fear won't give him three Sanders boots a week from now on, you'll see. And that will be enough for me. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your attention. Happy drops. No negative!

I don't think Bender cheats. He's too good at this game to need it.

He's invented new strategies for years, he's a thinker -- not a cheater, IMO.

I do not think bender cheats. I'm probably a top-3 most watched viewer of Bender and I have no reason to think he has better drop rates than the rest of us, or better maps, etc. I think the list would be endless if we started pointing out when unexplainable RNG odds have happened in a speedrun, and we've all gotten it. I was pointing out one of my most recent ones - I've gotten hsarus boots more than any of the other llama-event competitors combined.

Bender plays more than the rest of us and makes runs work more than the rest of us, and finishes out a strong run more often than the rest of us, hence why his good-gear dropping runs tend to be highlighted more than the rest of us.

Yeah right, write "Communitydon'tbeblind" under that text and its not an accussation. You are just passive-aggressive about it, but everyone that reads what you wrote knows its an accusation and i have a right to defend myself.

I don`t cheat.

Regarding the Hell HC P1 Pala: Literally every single attempt that reached NM was 10 minutes ahead by mid nightmare-early hell. This one got carried a bit by Viper yes and was otherwise on the weak end, but i didnt need a viper to beat llamas time. This one was just the run that lived

Regarding Necro: I stopped doing runs because I just couldnt get Dol+Io in a reasonable amount of time for over I dont know how many runs. Yes my luck on that later necrogrind was insane, but do you want me to throw away runs because I get them too quick? I dont think my necroluck was insane if you look at the entire grind, not just that one week. Theres also opposite cases, like my hell barb where I literally spent 90 minutes in act1 nm, but i guess that doesnt fit the narrative

I play a lot. Sometimes i have weeks where a lot of runs work out, sometimes i have weeks where nothing works out (but i guess those arent worth mentioning here, right?). Thats how RNG sometimes is.

There definitely needs to be more evidence to justify a post like this, a few VODs showing good drops when someone is running for 5-10 hours per day isn't really 'evidence' in this situation. As someone who also grinds 5-10 hours per day, I've also had crazy RNG in drops before, but I've also had long dry streaks.

Also the competition is external from speedrun.com, so some of this is technically off-topic unless these runs are submitted here.

Cheating is always going to be hard to detect in this game, but right now this is pure accusation and I think I'm going to lock the thread for the sake of pointless debate since there's almost no way to prove/disprove this without doing some extensive research into the probability or something along those lines.