How fast do you dive?

[Philip]

I've played reasonably fast with preserve mode off, in O. Sure, it sucks when you don't get a level feeling and risk losing an artifact, and not being able to loot a vault can be nasty, but there's a lot of gear you can find out there, and not every slot needs to have an artifact.

[Sky]

I once made a source change to do roughly this. WoR took me (clvl 1) to dlvl 98 and placed me on an up stair. I turned on connected stairs, and I stair scummed. Took me--I don't recall exactly--maybe 30 tries before I got a winner, but from figuring out what code I had to change to killing M was no more than about 4 hours.

At dlvl 98, potions of experience and augmentation are fairly common, as are wands of dragon breath, drain life, and annihilation. If you stand on stairs and test wands on moderately powerful monsters that can't one-shot you from a distance, it's easy to get a clvl in the low 30s with your first kill at that depth. Or if you test a potion of experience, that will also get you to about clvl 30. ESP is common. Weapons of gondolin are common (giving +1 to light radius, which is a big deal when you're clvl 1 and carrying a torch). Use a hobbit rogue, so you have maximum stealth and detect objects. You go from meat to capable in only a few minutes (if you survive), to a stud in not much more time.

Admittedly, this requires scummy play, but not only is it possible, it's not terribly difficult.

i'd genuinely like to see this.

[the Invisible Stalker]

I've played reasonably fast with preserve mode off, in O. Sure, it sucks when you don't get a level feeling and risk losing an artifact, and not being able to loot a vault can be nasty, but there's a lot of gear you can find out there, and not every slot needs to have an artifact.

In most variants you don't need artifacts in any slot. O might be an exception to that. There appear to be no artifactless O winners in the ladder.