Sprinter Conquest Guide

In order to complete the Sprinter conquest, you must first decide if you will tackle it solo or in a group. While soloing is certainly doable and is a fun challenge, we firmly recommend grouping up in order to solidify your chances for success. While the optimization tips and builds listed below will serve a solo runner just fine, the guide as a whole is written with the assumption of a grouped up player.

The long-standing role split for the Sprinter conquest is as follows: a party of three players out in the field (referred to as "Runners"), and one player sitting in the camp and turning in story quests (referred to as "Towner"). Player coordination in the form of chat messages — or better yet, voice communication — is highly recommended.

Set the in-game difficulty to the lowest possible Normal mode, since it does not affect the conquest completion and you need to ensure every enemy and boss in your path is practically a oneshot.

Skip conversations with NPCs as soon as they come up. This is best done by assigning the "close all windows" key in your controls to an easily spammable, accessible button like Space bar and/or the mouse wheel scroll, since conversations act as open windows. Also make a point to enable the "Automatically Skip Cut Scenes" option in your Gameplay settings menu.

Keep a group timer, best done by the Towner. If you start to fall significantly behind, especially in the early stages of the run (Acts 1 and 2), it will tip you off to restart the run and not waste time. A rough guideline would be to:

• Start Act 2 around the 15-16 minute point.
• Start Act 3 around the 28-29 minute point.
• Start Act 4 around the 38-40 minute point.
• Start Act 5 around the 42-45 minute point.

The above is not a strict guideline — if you are doing better, great! However a significant deviation in your disfavor would indicate that you are better off starting over. Note that the (hidden) in-game timer for this conquest starts when you enter a Campaign game and stops as soon as Malthael's death animation begins.

The Towner role is slightly more relaxed, since he does not need to be constantly on the move; however he is at the significant disadvantage that the story does not play out in front of him, and he only has the clues from the quest log to position himself to the next relevant NPC in town. With that in mind, it pays well to have a Towner that knows the Diablo 3 campaign structure well.

While the Towner does not need to be well geared or to adjust his build with speed optimization, it is still important that he incorporates a movement skill appropriate to his class ( Steed Charge for Crusaders, Vault for Demon Hunters, etc.) for the instances he has to run between NPCs in town.

The Towner needs to be constantly alert to new advancements in the plot done through conversations in town; at times he will finish a quest by talking to an NPC, only to have the next one begin via a second conversation. The Towner also needs to be aware of group event prompts, such as boss fight prompts, and cancel them accordingly. Mistakes from any of these two sources can eat up significant chunks of the remaining time.

In general, most speedfarming variations of guides on Icy Veins can serve as your build for a Sprinter conquest run. Note however that they are written with actual farming in mind, whereas this conquest is all about speed — so you can make extra adjustments to the builds to enhance your mobility at the cost of survivability and damage (both are irrelevant in Normal difficulty). Examples include:

• Slotting extra movement skills and passives, such as Tactical Advantage and Hot Pursuit on Demon Hunters, Fleet Footed on Monks, Fueled by Death on Necromancers, Illusionist on Wizards, etc.
• Equipping speed-buffing legendary items, such as Warzechian Armguards, Krelm's Buff Belt and Rechel's Ring of Larceny over the usual recommendations in our farming guides.
• Taking both speed-enhancing legendary gems, Wreath of Lightning and Boon of the Hoarder. The latter will also benefit greatly from the pickup radius of an equipped Avarice Band.

As you familiarize yourself with the campaign, you will recognize event prompts that, when initiated by another Runner, can speed you up as well (by teleporting an accepting player to the event). Roughly speaking, the list includes Queen Araneae in Act I, the Royal Audience in Act II, Siegebreaker, Cydaea and Azmodan in Act III, Iskatu, Izual and Diablo in Act IV, Breaching the Fortress and Malthael in Act V. If you are unsure whether to join or skip an event, simply decline any event prompt not initiated by you except for Azmodan, Diablo and Malthael.

The following builds are recommended for the Sprinter conquest — specifically for the Runner role. Make sure to take the speedfarming variation of the respective build as your starting reference point, and adjust with some of the suggestions above.

• Barbarian: Whirlwind/Rend Build;
• Crusader: Fist of Heavens Build;
• Demon Hunter: Multishot Build;
• Monk: Tempest Rush Build;
• Necromancer: Bone Spear Build;
• Witch Doctor: Spirit Barrage Build;
• Wizard: Flame Blades Build.

If you want to know absolutely everything there is to know about completing the Sprinter Conquest (way beyond what we could ever produce on the topic), please refer to Paulius' 35-page Sprinter Guide (you will also find other, useful documents, like a Kanai's Cube checklist).