I keep lying to you.
Hard difficulty of course, any other is for cowards.
Major optimizations: I finally maned up and invented the strategy that was meant to be. The Warhammer Strategy. I called it that since skipping armor allows you to wield it. It relies on skill and luck since pretty much all enemies kill you in one hit (also you can afford only Bearded Axe until "Servants" split) but you also deal much more damage. Obvious time save comes from skipping most of the Harbour Town. It's the ultimate NMG strategy, all the time you could further save boils down to execution and RNG, you must implement it if you want to set a new WR. This strategy would be unreasonable in the Old Patch since C-immunity and C-airwalks don't work there but New Patch allows to simulate a run that would require godlike enemy positioning, attacks and aggro (months of grinding even presuming you always play perfectly). As you can see THE best possible time is sub1:35.
RNG: mostly horrible enemy positioning, worst enemy attacks I've ever seen. Two major catastrophes: for some God forsaken reason I almost got softlocked during "Servants" split and one Antichrist didn't follow me during "Shield" split, both of these anomalies I've experienced for the first time and each almost killed the run. This run deserved to be sub1:45 but I'll take what I can get.
Major time losses: twenty four deaths and five mistakes that forced me to reload.
Minor mistakes: Cormac fight, not enough gold to equip Warhammer right away, double tp after Eastern Temple, buying one less lock pick.
Overall 36 loads, all short ones (7s). One unnecessary teleport (18 total, average 1.25s) which adds up to 274s of removed loading time.
Glitches: fastfisting, NPCs stalling, dialogue skip, levitation load, NPC run acceleration, spike immunity, Jest shenanigans, animation skipping, Great Gate winch skip, Fred skips. C-skips, C-immunity and C-airwalks were implemented, it became a standard for NMG category as it allows it to reach it's full potential by mitigating RNG. C-airwalks save time only at the start and in The Tomb Behind a Waterfall, rest of them just replace Levitation scrolls/basic movement.
Major bugs present in this run: the "Save" and "Autosave" text is back, I have no idea why. Hitboxes were even more janky and rough than usual. As always moderators are welcome to check whatever they want to confirm legitimacy of this run.
Hope yt won't make the game look like shit and lag this time around.
As always footage is muted every time I switch windows to OBS.
With this strategy sub1:45 is easily possible, human limit is sub1:40.
I challange anyone to beat this run.