Here is the run down for the Any % category and also explanations for how some of the skips and bugs. The route for Any % currently looks like this:
Prison Cells Promenade Ramparts Black Bridge Fjord Forgotten Sepulchre / Clock Tower Clock Room Castle Hand of the King Wharf
Prison Cells- Is pretty simple, the run starts here and often ends right here. Most of the speedrun is just restarting (rerolling) for the 3 starter items. For a run to begin obviously you need an Assault Shield. The reason for this is the Assault Shield Roll Cancel (ASRC) Which some of us in the Dead Cells Speedrun Discord call Ass Boosting (Because, lets face it, we are totally funny and mature guys) The ASRC Works simply by using the Assault Shield and then doing a roll right away, almost at the same time. When done correctly one will do a very fast dash. Get used to it quickly as this is what will make your runs fast.
The next weapon you want is up to you. Personally I recommend one of two weapons. One is Pyrotechnics (Fire brands is an OK Substitute). This weapon is pretty strong, and as we will go into later, also may melt the final boss very quickly at the end stages of your run.
The other weapon is a Frantic Sword. This one is kind of a swag strat as you will be required to go below half hp on two occasions (one being during the fight with the last boss) which can be intimidating.
So we now rerolled a bunch of times and finally got RNGesus to throw us a bone and give us our preferred starter weapons. The run however is still going to die in Prison Cells however, because you need to find a skill shop somewhere in the biome. Worse still, even when you find this skill shop you will need to obtain TWO Heavy Turrets from this shop.
With Merchandise Category and only Heavy Turrets unlocked, you basically have a 1 in 3 chance x3 for Heavy Turret to show up in the shop, and if not you will need to reroll once. This part is really important because the entire run depends on whether or not you can obtain TWO of these turrets (one just doesn't cut it). If you have to reroll more than once then you will likely not have enough gold to make the purchase you are looking for. As a precautionary method it may be good to make some gold on the way to the shop. Opening a chest to sell the contents may be a bit slow, but the item is usually worth more. Otherwise you can do Gold Clusters, Items on ground, Wall Secrets. In my experience so far I get by with 18k ish which is on the high side (but lets be real, RNG can screw things up).
Now if you have your primary weapon, your Assault Shield, AND your TWO Heavy Turrets the run can finally begin in earnest. Grab your gear and get the hell out of this biome. Personally my target time is 45 seconds as this is my personal best so far, but I have been stuck as long as 1:20.
Review: Primary Weapon Assault Shield Heavy Turret x2 GTFO In 0:45
Promenade-
There actually isn't much to say here, just dash all the way to the elevator as fast as you can. However one thing that stands out is Timed Door Yes/No? I recommend No, but really up to you. Somewhere in Promenade there is a Dual Treasure Room. Unless you are flying on the roofs with your shield you will likely see it. Though normally because of RNG this room is pretty insignificant and pretty much safe to ignore, on some rare occasions you will find a weapon from your kit. As long as it isn't a shield, and you have reacted in time such that you do not have to back track its OK to switch out. Promenade is a higher level area so the item will be slightly stronger, and every bit helps right?, Giving up a second or less to upgrade is quite nice I feel. If you disagree feel free to move on, the difference is probably too small to actually measure so its a matter of preference maybe.
Review: Upgrade in dual treasure room if RNG Target time >2:30
Ramparts-
Your first RNG trial starts here. You must find an exit among one of many towers, and its not really in the same place. As a rule of thumb, the exit can not be in ANY of the towers BEFORE the timed door. Speaking of Timed door I often open this one, sure its out of the way but grabbing two scrolls at once is quite nice, and I don't always trust RNG to get me to my target scroll power by the end of the run.
There are two methods to clear Ramparts. One is to go all the way to the end of the level and pray the exit is there. The thought process is, if its there then you can leave without stopping. This is pretty fast when it happens, and if not you can simply back track to every teleporter you found on the way there and check each tower for an exit. Back tracking is quite fast this way. The other method is to just check each one on the way to the end starting from the first tower after the timed door. Although its not really much faster than the first method, if the exit is in the first tower, you leave right away which can be quite nice. Note: with this second method you can leave really early, but you will not be able to explore for scrolls and power up if you leave this fast, hence you should probably ALWAYS open the timed door if you are doing this method on the off hand you actually do get that godly RNG.
Review: Method 1, go to the end look for exit (probably skip timed door) Method 2, look for exit early (probably open timed door) Target time >4:30
Black Bridge-
This guide assumes you are a boss and the incomplete one is totes easy for you to take out, so lets skip any explanation on the boss fight. The one thing you want to note is that after the boss fight you can leave the stage sooner if you jump when leaving.
To explain in detail, you have to press a button to leave the stage at the right most end, now just press the jump button at the same time and the animation will skip. Since there is no animation, the screen fades to black faster letting you be on your way that much faster.
Btw this trick works on any of the mini teleporters that return you to entrances, and also the little stone teleporters often seen in Forgotten Sepulchre, though the timing is a lot more strict than at the bridge.
Review: Own the boss Do exit animation skip Target Time >5:00
Fjord-
Fjord is a crossroads of sorts, you will either decide actively or simply leave it to RNG where you will go, and this stage is more complicated than it seems. Fjord is broken into two halves. One before a locked door in the middle, and one after. This locked door I just mentioned is skipable and most of the run depends on how quickly you can skip this door, if at all. The usual strat is: Find Key Skip Mid Door Exit in Second Half
But Fjord buildings are crazy and complicated and sometimes even have run ending dead ends that waste so much time. Therefore if you cannot find the key within good time in the first half, skip it. take the route over the mid door and go into the second half. Remember it is more important to keep moving than get stuck in one area. Sometimes you get the opposite, the mid door skip is actually harder because of the way the Fjord buildings are laid out. In this case just use the key on the mid door and look for the second key in the second half.
Now let us assume you got a key, and have skipped the mid door. You get to choose an exit, one going to Sepulchre or Tower. What I do personally is just take whichever exit I spot first, which is usually Sepulchre.
Sepulchre and Tower play out very differently, but have similar good RNG and bad RNG so its really a coin toss as to whatever will be faster. If you prefer Tower go that way, if you prefer the other path then go that way. Up to you.
Review: Get key - Skip mid door - Exit first one you find Get key - Skip Mid door - Exit wherever you want Skip mid door - Get key - Exit Get key - Open mid door - Get second key - Exit
Shit happens in this level :/ Target Time: >6:30~7:00
Sepulchre / Tower
There isn't much to say about these two, they are equally fast, and equally slow. Your first ACTUAL RNG Trial. You can get royally messed up or have an amazing time. Sepulchre has a lot of long corridors which is ideal for using the shield. Since you are going fast anyways you will likely not end up dying to the darkness. There are a lot more mobs however so you will need to nail your drive by kills a lot more. Tower presents less opportunity to ASRC involves a lot of climbing, traps can often end runs and its quite frustrating. But good RNG is fast, and if you practice enough you can climb really fast, which can be just as good as if you were dashing horizontally. It really is a high skill area to do quickly.
In either case You want to be out of here by Target time: >9:00
Clock Room -
Did you know you can skip this boss fight now? Go up to the assassin door, all the way up so you are hugging it. Do a ASRC WITHOUT holding forward on the joystick. It must be a dash only with no forward input. When done correctly you will be inside the boss fight area and the Assassin will be staring at you sadly. Next you must use a ranged weapon of some sort and open the door on the other end and then dash through the open door. If done correctly, the door will shut behind you and the cutscene will play, you can leave after the animation is over.
There is a fast skip version of this as well
My friend Blargel figured it out, but this is much harder to do and is probably a pixel perfect move.
By this point you want to be out of this area by Target Time: >10:00 **Note its possible to get here before 9:00 too, crazy time if you do
Castle-
The final RNG Trial, and often the worst. Everything can kill you very easily, you will want about 3000 hp or less if you can actually manage that. I noticed that the exit has a tendency to be near the colored doors so spend a moment to check if this is true before entering a colored door. The guide gets lazy here, because there isn't much anyone can do other than not die, find both keys as soon as possible, and then pray you can find the exit fast. Good Luck
Target time: 11:30
Hand of the King-
The final fight! Go in there, fight the boss and pay attention to him closely. When the boss initiates the mob summoning phase you have to pause the game, exit to main menu, and then resume the fight from there. When done correctly the boss will be frozen in mid air and very vulnerable. All of that prep we did in prison cells will pay off here. The boss can only initiate its phase change AFTER it finishes its attack animation, so pay very close attention to that and time it so its as low as possible. If you pull it off well enough, you can even attack the boss with a frantic sword which would be great.
The only tip I can offer is that as the boss is nearing death, time your exit so you are air dashing into the barrier on the right as the boss dies, so you waste no time leaving.
Phew, that was a lot to write down.
I wish I could have written this better, I will make edits to this later as well as I am currently short on time as of this writing. But if all goes well sub 16 should be easy for anyone who keeps these tricks in mind. It is for me :D
Great guide! Thanks for the route. I definitely learned a few tricks from reading this. One thing I do differently is that I will leave Prison Cells with only one heavy turret, if the time is okay. I've found that you can maybe make up for it in Promenade, sometimes you get that second heavy turret in the dual treasure room and then you're doing just fine! Do you think its worth taking this approach or is it just not worth the time?
That way that you proposed just now is in some situations faster. For example if a heavy turret was lying on the floor and then another in promenade, then yes it would be hella fast. But to aim for this on purpose outside of seeded runs may not exactly be reliable. It's much stricter rng than it already is. Add on to the fact that the dual treasure room in promenade has a 1 in whatever number of things you've unlocked chance of popping up. Times 2 since there are two items. If you are willing to restart that many times for such conditions then go ahead. If it works out I'd like to try it. But I can only imagine frustration in getting fked by rng. Also even if you get that one good rng, the level layout rng may be bad too as it often is lol... So uh
Tldr: probably not a good idea, nah, sorry
For speedrunning Fire Brands is kind of the go to choice, I need to make an amendment to this guide and mention that pyrotechnic doesn't set hotk on fire if you do the glitch.
Hi everyone!
The leaderboards have been reworked, new categories have been added, and old runs have been moved.
Thanks to all the voters, as well as our moderator, Leoxiong, who translated the form and asked the Chinese community!
We hope that this new structure will shed more light on the
