Single cd-key solo play Ladder HF rushing works

[Crystalion]

10k gold for stamina pots.

Well, my friend is fond of saying that in D2 "money rains from heaven" so money for stamina potions is not a problem. I didn't twink anything, including cash. I do indeed find stamina potions to be very helpful.

A1 - Clear the way to the Andy, and take her to sliver of life. Finish with new character with help of A3 merc

Well, since we know we're in classic, this can't fly (hirelings don't transit between acts--indeed they permanently disappear if you merely leave the act yourself). Even in D2x this wouldn't work, in normal, because you've not passed Andy yet so you can't have gotten to act 3 to hire a merc. It is indeed fun, though, to rush a clvl 1 to act 3 and hire them a lightning (charged bolt) merc and go back to act 1.

A2 - You can get the parts of staff by clearing the way to them. They are in the chests, so no actual killing required.

Yes indeed. Creating a Duriel Mule so you don't have to do this over each time is not hard, procedurally, even with solo constraint. If this were a general rushing thread I'd probably explain why my preferred Duriel mule state is "better" than what anyone else has published, that I've read--maybe some other time.

Clear path through Palace then...talk to Tyrael and move on to next act.

Close, very close. The rusher can't kill Duriel unless either the rushee has placed the staff or you're using a Durimule. In the latter case, of course, the Durimule had to place the staff (and you can make such a mule solo, as I've mentioned). I know what you meant, but someone following your procedure like a recipe might have gotten "stuck" on this point. Further details abound here, such as providing the load of a horadric cube for the combine.

A3 - Make new game with character that has Travincal quest done, the stairs will be open. You can just take them with Rushee to Durance 3, where a properly prepared boss should fall to you (or rather your merc).

Nice try, but the interlock prevents the character from descending the (open) stairs. You raise this question later along with excellent points that I will not further spoil here.

A4 - Similar, prepare Diablo and a path to him and finish off with a merc.

Close. He'll reset to full HPs by subzone processing collapse if you do it this way. This is a technical point, so I'll "spoil" it... essentially, if you visit too many zones, old zones get fully collapsed, and any injured monster there will be recreated at full HPs when you go back. So the addition here is: clear to RoF waypoint with rusher; rushee takes wp; rusher clears to D & preps; rushee warps to RoF and walks in to finish.

I am not sure on two parts there - if you can take the red Arcane TP if you did not kill Summoner

Indeed, as I pointed out in beta, that portal is not restricted, of itself. BTW, killing the summoner has nothing to do with knowledge of the TToTR, which is, instead, triggered by reading Horazon's journal.

Hopefully I am not too far off with some of my assumptions, as I never attempted anything like this =\

Well, if you enjoy warping your mind this way, and play chess at all, you might look up Raymond Smullyan's chess puzzle books (Sherlock Holmes, Arabian Knight's). He is a logician (and friend of Martin Gardner, the infamous Mathematical Games columnist once upon a time for Scientific American). The puzzles are not traditional chess puzzles at all, but rather challenges in inductive reasoning. (Yes, I meant to say "inductive", not "deductive").

Of course, this could all be done much faster and would be a lot easier if you just made an open game, something like "Act 1 all come", and wait for someone to join, and rush yourself and him together, using the other person as WP/TP holder. =)

Very true. But some folks think there is merit in learning to start a fire by rubbing sticks together for reasons wholely apart from actually ever intending to start fires in that manner. I offered this "challenge" in that spirit. Hope you're enjoying it.