If First Run isn’t your thing, there’s great news. There are 4 other routes that can be used, that can still get great times. These were mostly developed during the Nighty Night and Blood Price patches. Below is a guide in extreme detail on how to optimize your preparation for the run.

Sword Combos/Technique

This section is meant to be an intro to Sword mechanics. There is far too much to go into in a single section of a guide. Hopefully soon there will be a full guide on how to use the Sword effectively, but this will give you a solid starting point.

There are 3 main attacks that we will be using on the Sword: Special, Cast, and Dash-strike. These can be tied together in various combinations depending on which enemy you are facing.

• Special -> Dash-strike (-> Dash-strike) -- This is the OG sword combo. It is fast, mobile, and will deal 80/110 damage in a very short amount of time.

• Cast -> Dash-strike (-> Dash-strike) -- This is the new and improved sword combo. It still does 80/110 damage, but it does it even faster.

• Cast -> Dash-strike -> Special -> Dash-strike -- This combo will very quickly tear down a Thug.

• Special -> Cast -> Dash-strike (-> Dash-strike) -- I use this combo a lot on many weapons. It adds almost no extra time to your normal combo, but it gives you an extra 50 damage.

• Special -> Immediate Dash -- Hitting the dash button immediately after specialling will cause you to dash and then special where you finish dashing. It can be incredibly useful for clearing out enemies that would otherwise interrupt your special animation, such as numbskulls or witches.

At all times, make sure you are keeping track of where you’re going next. At the end of your combos, your dash is going to be on cooldown. Few things are as annoying as realizing you’re on the wrong side of the room and your single dash is on cooldown.

With Dash-Strikes, your window to buffer a dash-strike is somewhat large. You can get away with hitting dash and attack at the same time, but separating the inputs can give you quite a bit more control. For example, there are many cases where an enemy is just out of reach of your dash-strike. If you complete a full dash and then attack, you will get some extra reach to your dash-strike.

Run 1

Chamber 1

Dash as quickly to the door as possible. You will want to time your dashes - mashing the dash button wastes a lot of time and energy. You’ll want to dash somewhere around 95-105bpm. Check your timing on this website https://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm , and then practice in-game until you do not miss any dashes. With perfect timing, you can get to the first door in under 4 seconds.

Chamber 2 - Athena Room

Nothing in Fresh File is more iconic than the Athena Room. You will clear this room dozens, if not hundreds of times. Everything about this room is predetermined - things will play out the exact same, no matter what your seed is. That means with enough practice we can optimize it perfectly.

There are 4 waves to the Athena room.

1. One Thug As soon as you enter the room, a Thug will be sitting in the middle. Dash two times towards it, then cast. As your cast is traveling towards the Thug, dash-strike. You’ll probably need to dash and then strike, to get the little extra reach. Then special, and dash-strike again to kill it.

2. Two Thugs As the two thugs spawn, stand directly between them. Let each of them hit you twice, for a total of 40 damage, adjusting your position as needed so you take all 4 hits. As soon as the 4th hit lands, Dash straight right, Special, then Dash-strike straight left. If you do it properly, the thugs will hit each other, take “body slam” damage, and die.

3. Three Witches These witches can spawn in a different order, depending on your position in the room, but the locations will always be the same - two at the bottom, one at the top. To kill them, you’ll want to Cast and then Dash-strike as they spawn. If you miss, or lose your cast, you can substitute a Special instead.

4. Three Witches, One Thug This is the final wave, and is the most tricky to get right. The best way to clear this wave is to stand directly above the Thug as it spawns. As soon as it’s vulnerable, Special, then Cast, then Dash-strike through it, down to where the two Witches are spawning. With the correct angle, you can catch the Witch on the left with your Dash-strike as well. Then Special both Witches and the Thug, and then Dash-strike the Witch on the right. All three of these enemies should now be dead. Now dash straight up once, Cast at the final Witch, and then Dash-strike to finish the room right next to the exit.

Here is a video of a semi-perfect clear of the Athena Room:

Take the Athena Attack, then go through the door.

Chamber 3

Just die. You only have 10hp, 2 spike traps or a hit from a thug will do you in.

Between Run 1 and Run 2

Pity Darkness

If you try to access the Mirror of Night without having any Darkness, you get 10 free darkness. Take this darkness, but don’t spend it on anything.

Run 2 - The Routes Diverge

The first boon of Run 2 is always Zeus. He will offer some combination of Attack, Special, Cast, and Dash. You should take Special if it is offered, and Cast if it is not.

From here, you have a few options:

• 80 darkness - Death Defiance, Two Dashes Take every darkness room, check wells for Tinge of Erebus, and midshop for darkness. Keep an eye out for Poseidon’s Sunken Treasure boon, which can give you 10-20 darkness. Die when you hit 80 darkness, then buy a second dash and a death defiance.

• 50 darkness - Two Dashes To do this, take every darkness room, check wells for Tinge of Erebus, and midshop for darkness. Keep an eye out for Poseidon’s Sunken Treasure boon, which can give you 10-20 darkness. Die when you hit 50 darkness, buy a second dash.

• 30 darkness - Death Defiance, 4th Run Check if the first room of your 2nd run is darkness. If it is, clear it, then die. If it's not, just die. On your 3rd run, farm up to 30 darkness, then die. Keep an eye out for Poseidon’s Sunken Treasure boon, which can give you 10-20 darkness. Buy a death defiance, and go on 4th. Be on the lookout for Hermes, for a second dash.

• 0 darkness - 4th Run Die immediately on your 2nd and 3rd run. Go on 4th run, search for Hermes for a second dash

Nectar

In any of the darkness farming routes, if you see a Dionysus boon, you can try to get Premium Vintage, which will provide you with a nectar. You can trade this in for a keepsake to help your run a bit.

Cthonic Coin Purse - Hypnos Hypnos can provide you with the Cthonic Coin Purse for 100 extra starting obols. This can be super helpful for many things throughout a run, such as buying an extra boon in Tartarus to bring your build online faster, buying HP for survivability, or buying items in wells where possible.

Lucky Tooth - Skelly If you pick up a key, you can unlock the Bow, then get the Lucky Tooth from Skelly. This can be used to give a 50 hp Death Defiance. In many cases, this will upgrade before the Heroes fight, so if you lose a DD somewhere in the first part of the run, you’ll get it back.

Old Spiked Collar - Cerberus Cerberus gives you the Old Spiked Collar, which can be used to get an extra 25 starting HP. This helps a lot with survivability, especially early on.

Final Prep

Fountain

After your second run, the Contractor offers you Tartarus Fountains for free. These are not guaranteed to appear, but save you a ton of time if they do, so unlock them.

The Run

Hammer

If you are running a 3rd Run route, you will always start with a hammer. There are essentially four tiers of hammers. The “take and run” hammers, the “pretty solid” hammers, the “don’t take ever” hammers, and everything else.

Take And Run

Double Edge All of your dash-strikes will hit twice, which is literally double damage. This is the best hammer you can get on Sword.

Double Nova Your special is pretty hefty damage, just keep in mind that your animation will be longer with Double Nova. If you don’t get Double Edge, this is almost as good.

Pretty Solid

Breaching Slash This is a great hammer when you see armoured enemies, but otherwise doesn’t do much for you.

Piercing Wave This hammer extends your range by a solid amount and gives you an extra 30 damage, which is super helpful for both clearing and bossing.

Don’t Take Ever

Cursed Slash Because you’re going to be mostly dash-striking, you won’t get much benefit out of the healing that Cursed Slash offers. The 60% cut to your health hurts a lot, without any healing to balance it out.

Flurry Slash There’s a strange interaction with Flurry Slash where it tries to take priority over your dash-strikes. Taking this hammer will probably ruin your combo pattern, with no real upside.

Dash Nova The main selling point of dash nova is that you get a free dash while you’re specialing. Unfortunately, this can often leave you in a bad position. If you learn how to use the hammer it can be an okay choice, but the payoff for learning it is not worth the effort required to make it stop bricking your runs.

If one of the good hammers listed above is not offered, you should consider resetting. Playing without them will be a slow and painful process, that you can avoid by just starting over. That said, darkness farming is pretty rough these days, so you might want to just play through the run for fun or practice.

If you are running a 4th Run route, you have the chance of seeing a second hammer in Elysium. If you have Double Edge, Breaching Slash is the best second hammer. Otherwise, you’ll want to follow the same decision path as above.

Hermes

If you are running a 4th Run route, you’re eligible for Hermes in Asphodel. You really want to get Greatest Reflex (Extra Dashes), but Hyper Sprint or Quick Recovery are good backups.

Build

You can make a couple builds work for Fresh File on Sword, but there are two that tend to get run most frequently.

AAA - Artemis, Aphrodite, Athena

Attack The bulk of your damage is going to be coming from Dash-Strikes. You’ll want Artemis to be on Attack for this reason.

Special Your Special will be used less frequently than your Attack, but still a good amount. You’ll want to put either Aphrodite or Athena on it. Athena gives you Deflect and opens you up for Deadly Reversal, but Aphrodite gives you Weak and opens you up for Heart Rend. I generally put Aphrodite on Special, unless I get Athena first, and she offers me Special and no Dash.

Cast Your Cast should be Aphrodite or Athena, whichever isn’t on your Special.

Dash You should take Athena Dash until you’re comfortable running Fresh File, then try to make the transition to Artemis Dash.

Merciful End - You Know The Drill

The plan with Merciful End is to get the duo and then just dash-strike as much as possible to proc it.

Attack Ares ASAP

Special You need Athena Special to be eligible for Merciful End, so make sure you take it.

Cast Your Cast will really only matter until you get Merciful End, so put whatever you want on there. Artemis is a solid choice, for Deadly Reversal eligibility.

Dash Athena

Enjoy your time running Fresh File, the official best Hades Speedrunning category.