Best Elevator Path

I think the fastest elevator path out of the beginning four characters is The Marine's path because if you can get each room done fast enough you can get to the boss pretty quickly. But in my opinion The Convict's path is the easiest to complete without taking any damage but it probably one of the slowest paths you can pick. Do NOT pick The Hunter's path, it is one of the hardest paths and it's not any faster than The Convicts, you'd be better off just picking another path or playing another character all together.

Character choice

note that character =/= route, there's already a route guide (even though it's kinda short) so i'll be talking solely about the character and their starting gear.

The cultist and the convict are the two classes that have been used so far, i'll edit the guide when another character enters the meta but right now expect the cultist and convict to be the only accurate ones. Actually, let's start with them.

The cultist's passive makes guns change very rapidly. This means that good guns will be thrown away faster but so will the bad ones. Overall i would say cultist is the most consistent due to how they work; The constantly changing guns ironically makes the run less random due to how many things are happening and they end up being more skill-based as a result.

The convict gets an attack buff if they get hit. This essentially turns health into a resource; You can spend it from time to time to buff up a makeshift cannon, for example. The convict likely has a lot of potential that we haven't realized yet due to this.

The pilot's shop dicount could be useful if you use the shop, but due to the time costs pilot does not seem like a good character in the meta. They're completely useless in no chest% due to not being allowed to use shops at all.

The bullet gets to ignore contact damage, allowing them to play a bit more aggressively. Dodge rolling doesn't damage enemies at all, and because most of the weapons are ranged the bullet doesn't really benefit much from their item.

The robot being able to trigger a blank might be useful, but pickups aren't very plentiful. It sacrifices a constant powerup for an occasional, very powerful effect.

The hunter's dog allows pickups to automatically be grabbed. This is a risk-reward as being able to focus on enemies and being healed automatically from time to time is pretty good, if an aged bell spawns you will be wasting a lot of time in slowmotion.

The marine's accuracy buff makes it easier to kill things fast, especially with shotguns. There's really not much to add here because of how simple it is

General boss tips

As the guide implies, in this guide i will go over some general boss tips.
First off, as i (and darkvigor) said before, stay on the ground as much as you can. You can shoot from the ground, you can't shoot in the air unless you walk off platforms.

You may have noticed that most of us shoot at the boss as they spawn. A little-known fact is that the boss is actually invincible during their intro animation. Shooting at them is still recommended though, as their invincibility stops when their image appears, not when the boss starts. This means if you get lucky you can shoot and damage the boss in the background, getting in some extra damage before the fight. Beam weapons are even more effective at pulling this off, as you don't stop shooting the beam when the image appears, sneaking in extra damage.
That said, if you have a charge weapon like the makeshift cannon, you're better off just keeping it until the image vanishes, as even if you shoot in the sweetspot and damage the boss, you'll spend the beginning charging it back and it ends up being ultimately pointless. 
If you play cultist (as most of us do) you might be able to land in some more hits by holding your mouse on them; if the game decides to change your gun, you will get some extra damage from tossing your previous one.

This isn't a general tip, but  you should still know it: when the last dragun goes into the background (sniper rifle and RPG) they don't take damage. If you have a charging weapon, just charge that up instead and shoot when the dragun is back. If  you have quad lazer, shoot up where the dragun normally is. Focus mostly on dodging regardless of what gun you have.

That's all i have, not much because the bosses are so different. I'll probably do a walkthrough for every boss sometime.

General gameplay tips

I'll be making a list of guides to help out aspiring gungeoneers to get good times. this is part one of multiple.

Remember, you're invincible and move faster while airborne, but you can only deal damage while on the ground. Trust me, i tried multiple times, it seems dodgerolling into your enemy does no damage at all, even as the bullet. Only the small blobulins die from rolling into them. an obvious use for this fact includes weaving between bullets in bosses to be able to deal more damage to the boss and beat them faster. Another includes jumping on the walk to the spaceship at the end when you don't have anything to shoot at or with. There are some more applications but i'll leave that up to you.

You should have every NPC unlocked; if an NPC pops up in the gungeon it saves you a bunch of time that wouldve otherwise been wasted fighting enemies. This is especially good in a no-chest run as you won't get any reward for fighting them anyway.

From time to time, it might be better to just skip a shop or chest altogether to save some time. Also, for any shops other than the main one you can look at the preview to see if there's an item you're interested in before you go in as they only have three items. The bello shop will almost always show previews of pickups such as hearts and blanks so you can't do the trick with them.

Not all pickups are good; Most are, but some like the aged bell are actually detrimental.

Occasionally it might be worth taking damage to speed through the boss; this isn't useful at the moment, but later on when runs get sub-15:30 this might be a tip worth considering. Especially if you're playing convict, as their passive item gives you a buff if you get hit.

I'll add some more later, for now these tips should be enough; Good luck!
UPDATE: it might be worth going for the shops, and chests are actually pretty useful. Maybe an occasional bello purchase will help if it buffs damage early on

Slowing down time in XTG: What you need to know

Are you an aspiring World Record holder?

Awesome! So am I :>

Anyway, here is a little guide for the Aged Bell and Wax Wings!

Abstract: Bell slow, Wings fast.

Aged Bell - Widely regarded as the worst pickup, you won't find the bell as an item drop. It will instead fly onto your screen, bouncing around until you pick it up. If you don't (WHEN you don't), it will disappear after a bit. While the Aged Bell slows down the entire game (including you), it doesn't slow down the timer. Not very useful if you want to break the WR. I Do NOT pick it up!

Wax Wings - A beautiful pair of wings, crafted with love out of the finest wax. Just don't ask where the wax came from. You don't want to know... They are, however, very useful. You can FLY! Pretty cool! You can find some places to hover and avoid boss damage. Also, 8-way dodging (but your dodge is longer)! But the highlight is this: you can slow down time AT WILL. Not only that, it slows down the timer as well! So don't go resetting if you get Wax Wings instead of Angry Bullets!

Conclusion: Although the Aged bell has its place in casual gameplay, as a useful tool for avoiding damage, it just doesn't have the necessary qualities to becoming a viable speedrun item. The Wax Wings are a trade-off, where each individual player decides whether the reduced control over dodges is worth the potential time save. In any case, the Wax Wings are superior, and the Aged Bell can go [REDACTED BY THE MODERATORS].

Credit to MaxieToaster, who first found out that the Wax Wings slow down the timer, and to HowDoIJoin for researching whether the Aged Bell does the same.

Tips for some bosses/Des astuces face à certains boss:

EN.
Here are some tips for some bosses:
First of all, it seems to me that the most optimized is to jump as little as possible because when you are in the air you cannot shoot and therefore inflict damage to the enemies.

Meowitzer: From what I just said, during the phase where this kitten moves from right to left and left to right firing two shots of bullets, if you stand against the wall that is on the same side of the boss then you dodge its attack without jumping.

Buffamo: this boss is very simple because if you place yourself above him if he is on the platform at the bottom or below him if he is on the top platform, then we are almost untouchable, we just have to be careful when he switches from one platform to another.

Gungamesh: I think I've found a little trick for him, when he appears in front of us he can either shoot bouncing balls or shoot three by three and for the three by three balls if you are close to him the bullets will be fired just behind you so allowing us to shoot continuously. However, it's complicated to do, risky and time saving isn’t great.

Sepulchergeist: it's simple, during the tetris phase you are untouchable  if you stick to a wall for this phase only.

The last Dragun: first I noticed that this boss becomes invincible when his head, his hitbox, comes out entirely from the screen and during the phases where he uses the sniper and the rocket launcher. For these two phases, there is no point in attacking it, I think it’s better to attack the enemies it summons and shoot forward down to do maximum damage when it goes up. Finally, if you perfect the boss it is faster to take master round but do not waste time trying to perfect it because otherwise you lose time, the priority is to be optimized and if you play well, you are even more optimized. 

FR.
Voici quelques astuces face à certains boss :
Tout d’abord, il me semble que le plus optimisé est de sauter le moins possible car lorsqu’on est en l’air on ne peut pas tirer et donc infliger des dégâts aux ennemies.

Miaoubusier : d’après ce que je viens de dire, lors de la phase où ce chaton se déplace de droite à gauche et de gauche à droite en tirant deux jets de balles, si on se tient contre le mur qui est du même côté du boss alors on esquive son attaque sans sauter.

Bisonarmé : ce boss est très simple car si on se place au-dessus de lui si il est sur la plateforme du bas ou  en-dessous de lui si il est sur la plateforme du haut, alors on n’est quasiment intouchable, il faut juste faire attention quand il passe d’une plateforme à une autre.

Gungamesh : je pense avoir trouvé une petite astuce pour lui, lorsqu’il apparaît devant nous il peut soit tirer des balles rebondissantes, soit tirer des balles trois par trois et pour les balles trois par trois en se plaçant  juste devant lui les balles seront tirer juste derrière nous permettant donc de tirer en continu. Cependant, c’est compliqué à faire, risqué et le gain de temps est pas génial.

Sepulchergeist : c’est simple, lors de la phase tetris en restant collé à un mur on est intouchable pour cette phase uniquement.

Le dernier Dragun : tout d’abord j’ai remarqué que ce boss deviens invincible lorsque sa tête, c’est sa hitbox, sort entièrement de l’écran et lors des phases où il utilise le sniper et le lance-roquette. Pour ces deux phases, il ne sert à rien de l’attaquer il faut attaquer les ennemies qu’il invoque et tirer en avance vers le bas pour faire un maximum de dégât lorsqu’il remonte. Enfin, si on perfect le boss il est plus rapide de prendre la balle de conquête mais il ne faut pas perdre de temps à essayer de le perfect car sinon on perd du temps, la priorité est d’être optimisé et si on joue bien, on est encore plus optimisé.

Name	Autor
Best Elevator Path	MrGrappl 5 years ago
Character choice	proggers 5 years ago
General boss tips	proggers 5 years ago
General gameplay tips	proggers 5 years ago
Slowing down time in XTG: What you need to know	PlatonicGaming 4 years ago
Tips for some bosses/Des astuces face à certains boss:	DarkVigor500 5 years ago