Relic and overall speedrunning tips

I'd like to share some tips I got while grinding the speedruns, mainly focused on relics, but also on other good to know info. This can both be used on bonusrelic% and any% glitchless.

What i've found to be the most optimal way of going both runs is getting everything related to bombs, if by the end of Act 1 you are not presented with Sapper Sack, a reset is welcome.

That said, your Act 1 go-to relics are Bomb Baton (more bombs), Powder Collector (bomb generation), Improved catalyst and Short fuse (both of them are GOATed, the former giving you more early game damage, enough for 1shot the slimes and the latter to 1-shot the bombs). You can try to fight an elite to get Bombulet as well, but that's very risky.

Other good relics for Act 1 are: Bad Cheese (the 25 AOE dmg while reloading is very good), Salt Shaker (if the boss is the slime, which is the prefered), Refreshing Punch (AOE peg destruction helps on triggering bombs and crits) and Eye of Turtle (this one is for consistency if you are resetting too much because you are not getting Sapper Sack at the end of Act 1.)

Enhanced Gunpowder can be a blessing or a curse, it helps clearing Act 1, but from Act 2 onwards, it is very dangerous to explode all of the red bombs at once (lost a couple of good runs because I killed myself).

From Act 2 onwards, your focus should be on getting HP regen/raw HP relics, such as An Apple A Day, Super Boots, Popping Corn and Wall Chicken. Also, if you don't have any bomb increase relics (Baton/Collector) you might find some rooms very hard on Act 2.

Speaking about the orbs, my go-to orbs for the whole run are Infernorb (1shot bombs), Bouldorb(aoe), Orberos(massive damage), Ball Lightning(aoe that hits bombs) and Icircle(aoe), the rest is a hard ignore for me. Matryorshbka is considerable, but very dangerous when you have lots of bombs on the board.

About preferable bosses, for Act 1 is the Slime for sure and Act 2 is the ballista guys, but careful as they hit hard.

For the board, you are aiming for something like 4 enemy encounters tops on first Act, so some luck is needed here, WR pace for finishing Act 1 is something around 4~8 minutes and 11~16 minutes Act 2, always depending on the boards.

Sapper Strats are dangerous but efficient

Sapper Sack is an item that doubles the damage of bombs and replaces all black bombs with red ones; thus, all bombs will deal 4 damage to you when they explode, but will also deal 300 damage to all enemies on the field. This is especially powerful against the final boss, but without proper healing this can end a run very quickly. Going for bomb related relics is tempting because it speeds up the beginning of a run, but getting popping corn will allow you to deal MASSIVE damage with the red bombs and then heal up a bunch of health on the very next turn. This same concept can be applied with wand of skulltimate power but on a smaller scale; rather than relying on upgrading your bombs, you have to focus on upgrading your orbs and hoping they can do splash damage. 

tldr: look for sapper sack after first boss, and if you can get it try to build your orbs and relics around bombs. If you can get popping corn and not overdo the bombs you win.

Select the right map, choose your battle

Considering the faster battles take around 30 seconds and the slower ones can cost you easily 3 minutes, you have to decide at the beginning if you even want to play that map.

It is pretty obvious, but when the game starts and pans over the map you have to create a road you want to take already, try walking on the outermost lines as they do not have the navigation at some point and jump over a level sometimes.

I would restart every map that has less than 4 treasures, especially considering that the world has 10 layers or 9 at the shortest.
The second thing one has to consider is the ? fields. They should be in between the treasures to lower the chance for fights that can take longer.
Avoid all boss fights. Only the minotaur can be finished pretty fast.

The Daggorb is Your Best Friend

If you're ever curious which orb may be the most important in any Peglin playthrough, particularly in a NoRelic% attempt, the dagger is definitely your go-to orb.

If you can get it upgraded to level III (3) over the course of your run, you'll stand in good stead to beating the final Slime Boss, especially if you can get your hand on multiple.

The best part is when you can hit crit pegs with a dagger in hand. A level I (1) daggorb will do 7 damage per peg but a level III (3) daggorb will do a whopping 13 (!) damage per peg. The difference between these is staggering the more pegs you are able to hit per shot. Let's say you've hit 7 pegs with your daggorb: your base daggorb only hits for 49 damage but if it's upgraded to level III (3) you can hit for 91 damage.

Keep this in mind the next time you are contemplating which orb is worth upgrading!

Name	Autor
Relic and overall speedrunning tips	Diegots 3 years ago
Sapper Strats are dangerous but efficient	ThatHomieDemon 3 years ago
Select the right map, choose your battle	JustAReader 3 years ago
The Daggorb is Your Best Friend	Qwizical 3 years ago