INDEX

Intro [INT] Version Changes [VER] Categories [CAT] First Step: Knowledge is Power [KIP] Second Step: Choosing a Class [CAC] Third Step: The Route & Tricks [ROU]

Intro [INT]

Hi everyone, this is Hugo4fun, and welcome to my humble attempt to make a speedrunning guide to this game. If you need to reach a certain part of the text, use the search tool to find the letters in front of each item in the Index.

I'm going to consider you have at least played the game once. After that, all basic information about the game is extensively covered in the links available in the First Step, and I hope you will/have read them before going into speedrunning this game. I'll also try my best to gauge each class for speedrunning in the Second Step, and then we will proceed to take a look at the rest of this guide, when I'll try to describe the route and the glitchs and tricks used on the run in the Third Step.

I don't believe I have done a perfect job on the game yet. There is a lot of room to improve. Even if I have a good ammount of knowledge about the game, that was just enough to route the game and finish it. So I won't give frame-perfect instructions about what you should do on every second of the game, but instead I'll give you every single bit of information about the game that I've come to find and use, and give you enough so you can make your run yourself. Because by doing that, we both improve. You get better at it playing the game, I get better watching you play the game, and like this we improve the overall quality.

Please feedback to me what you think it's missing, wrong or misleading in anyway. I'll do my best to correct and check that information. Also, this guide is heavily based on two guides on the game I found on the internet: the gameFAQs Walkthrough by Kaze Yagami located in that site, and Xanathor's Steam Guide of the game. I can't thank you two enough. All rights are reserved to them, and they are free to ask me to remove any content as desired. I want to also thank ButtersBB, Mike Uyama, Murphagator! and Sent for the speedrun they made on AGDQ 2014 of the game. I've been in contact with them through Twitch since the time they trained to make the run on the event, and even today they help me as they can, and that helped me to make my own run on AGDQ 2016.

I hope you like to read. You will do it a lot. Let's see how you can handle this.

Version Changes [VER]

18/01/2016 - Completed v.1.0! 21/01/2016 - 1.1 Added ArcadeQuartermaster's Site to KIP Section.

Categories [CAT]

Another reason to do the guide like this is that I only routed extensively the "Cleric No Death%" category. The game can have dozens of categories, way more than those I made at www.speedrun.com/ddsom . Examples are the "3-2-30" Category (3k silver, 2 million xp, under 30 minutes) that is run by the korean communnity, or the "Sword of Legend/2 Red Dragons" (Red Dragon, Synn) , that Rogel84 made. The possibilities are huge for categories in this game. I can add them to the speedrun.com site if anyone is interested to submit new categories, just send a message on the forums there or DM me on Twitter or Twitch (hugo4fun for both).

Also it might not look like, but the game is very hard to finish without dying. My first attempts wouldn't get past the first boss at all. I hope that this guide will help those who liked the game to not get discouraged by the high difficulty a "no death" run might be. My main tips for that is to count the ammount of Credits you use, and you will see that in no time, the ammount needed to finish the game is going to decrease as long as you keep playing. Also, different characters have totally different ways to be played. I might be good with the Cleric, but when I go with Thief for example, I don't expect to finish the game with less than 20 Credits used.

But don't forget there is the "Any%" Category there as well. That category ALLOWS AND REQUIRES deaths. Deaths can be exploited in the sense that it renews your spells, does damage to bosses, and allows character changing which can be used to take advantage of the exclusive paths that some characters have, which in fact skip some boss fights. I know there is a way to abuse that, I'm just not interested in making it myself, I just love the fact that I'm finally able to play at the arcade cabinet of this game and beat it with a single credit.

Always remember: the right question is not "Why?", it's "Why not?" :D

First Step: Knowledge is Power [KIP]

¤cracks knuckles¤

Okay. So you have not given up yet right? That's good. This section contains a LOT of reading. Be aware that finishing the game without dying will require you to understand it's basics, and those links have it. I don't recomend going further on this guide before at least taking a decent look at each link. Most of the data on boss fights, item and spell management information, is already available there. So I don't have a reason to repeat the same info.

FAQ/Walkthrough by Kaze Yagami On GameFAQs

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/708534-dungeons-and-dragons-chronicles-of-mystara/faqs/11489

This gameFAQs guide has a lot of the basic info. Damage Data, Character Data, Level Ups , basic info about stages, even some of the glitches are mentioned. Very good read to start. But it's text-only, and a long wall of text.

Xanathor's Steam Shadow over Mystara in-depth guide

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=154984901

If it's not on the GameFAQs, Xanathor, a really good M.User player, probably covered. He details every boss fight, and advantages and disadvantages of each fork of the road ahead. Also, since the guide is not text-only, it's really confy to read thru.

Arcade Quartermaster's site

http://www.arcadequartermaster.com/capcom/ddsom.html

Excelent site with the "how to play the game for the first time" and very well designed. He also lists all moves for all characters, which is not intuitive. The Steal list for the Thief and the way spells are used is dumb-proof.

Dungeons & Dragons Series Communnity

http://www.dndmania.net/

If you clicked, you might have noticed that everything is in KOREAN. But they are the biggest communnity I have found, and they have pretty detailed info, for example, on the Lightning Bolt Crit Glitch and LBO Glitch, which I'll explain in the routes section the translations I was able to get from them. If you have a way to translate or know someone who could read this site, our informations on the game would greatly increase. That site already gave me info like:

D&D2 : 1p Time-Attack Cleric(Yong) 16:58

This Time Attack is where I based my run. I can't tell if it's TAS or not, so I won't claim that is neither of them. Still a very good play, even if they start after the prologue. Maybe to name the character who is running? Also, the video uploader is dndmania, and checking its YouTube profile leads to more videos of different classes.

Crassus1 YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdcw7o20rrQWyMuyy6jArhg

Crassus1 has some good videos of Time Attacks for most classes. Worth the watch. He also has some cool videos, which I use to inspire me. Like this one below:

No spoiling. Very good video. Much like. Wow.

Speedrun.com Page

www.speedrun.com/ddsom

Self explainatory. Where the records and our forum is. Look, it's here!

Web-based Name Calculator

http://jonc101.tripod.com/SOM/namecalc.htm

This basically does the math of the name and item you will get from it. Short resume: Go for "C" or "M" for a Defensive Helm for your class, which is good to help you 1cc the game for the first time; or "8" to get the Bracelet, which increases Attack Damage slightly. It's the ones that uses less inputs to reach. If you're mad and want to go straight to Gauntlets of Ogre Power, which will break very soon if you're not trained, go for "1".

Second Step: Choosing a Class [CAC]

Still going? Good! Let's finally give a speedrunning aproach to the game. Xanathor Guide has good descriptions and comparision of the atributes of each class, but they are focused into general play of the game. I'll share my point of view about how the classes work for speedrunning.

Cleric - The best part for the Cleric is being able to heal, which will increase the EHP (Effective Hit Points) you have, to an even higher value than the Dwarf. You can buff to have equal/slightly higher attack than a Fighter/Dwarf, but you also lose some time when casting spells instead of attacking. Without buffs you hit rather weak, never forget to buff though. Usually, they last enough for 1 or 2 waves of enemies, if you dealt with the first wave fast enough. You want the White Cleric over the Blue one, because Earthquake is better than Holy Word, the timing of the Earthquake spell is perfect for the LBO Glitch (see Routes Section). Most efficient way to combo enemies are to Forward + Attack, cancel into Charge Attack, then cancel into Forward + Attack, then cancel into Charge Attack, then... Yes, it's infinite except on bosses, which it works only while they are in juggle state in midair, and within reach.

Dwarf - Second in EHP, he gets a full max HP after the Tel'Arin fight. The best combo for dealing with most enemies are two well-timed Charge Attacks, or two normal Attacks if the positions don't help. He shoots arrows very fast, and that is rather useful on the Nagpa fight if you can position yourself correctly. Also, is a must to master the Aerial Attack he has to be used against huge bosses. It's possible to do a lot of damage to early bosses, but starts to lose utility as you get your hands on Large Burning Oils. Has a unique path that trades Frost Salamander fight for a easier one which can also lead to a skip of the Nagpa fight. Damage is equal to the Fighter.

Elf - Jack of all trades, master of none. The Elf is a overall good character, can equip the Bastard Sword for decent damage, has some spells and one of them is Lightning Bolt, which makes the Lightning Bolt trick at Synn easier because a) she has a good attack speed, and b) she doesn't need to find a Lightning Bolt Ring for it. But even if she has decent fighting capacity, and her Desesperate Attack is a good strategy against War Machine and Displacer Beast, she lacks HP, and with that, less mistakes will be tolerated. She also can skip the Manticore fight by taking a unique path for Elf.

Fighter - 3rd EHP, has a lot of combo options, can use Bastard and 2h Sword for massive damage. Great starter. But the Lightning Glitch MIGHT not work with him without Earrings (it will do less than 1 Hit KO damage), and you want the Bracelet instead of an Earrings for the increased damage each hit on the whole game. Maybe take into account the needed damage and deal that ammount before using the glitch? Otherwise very easy to learn and very melee oriented.

M.User - The Green one is a better choice. Cloud Kill is overpowered, since it instantly kills non-boss living minions. Do it in the correct waves of minions and save a lot of time. And you still have Flesh to Stone to the same purpose. The problem is learning how to deal with the moments where you will have to fight melee or deal melee damage to bosses. Teleporting and Dashing to avoid attacks is a necessitity to master as well. Also, the Dagger Crit is a good way to add good RNG to the mix , since no crit = no time lost except for a few frames, get a crit = Time and spells saved.

Thief - The hardest path to take. She uses no shield. Has the one of the lowest HP. Her only upsides are the backstab attack, which does huge damage to minions, and that she has access to itens before others characters from stealing, like LBO from Hellhounds and Bastard Sword from Tel'Arin, but stealing is RNG based. The wall jumping attack can also cross the entire screen faster than dashing. Well, she is really cool. And the worst character stats-wize. She can enable some quick kills earlier in the game (Like LBO Spam on Ogre) that no other character can. I personally believe that's not enough to compensate her weakness.

Which is best? I don't want to pull that trigger. What I will do say is that Thief is probably the hardest class of them all to master. Every class has an advantage on its own. I will always try to incentive people to get a class they like, so they can persevere on playing the game. Because you will need to play a lot with that class. So it feels better to play the one you like more, right?

Third Step: The Route [ROU]

Here I'll speak a bit about each part of the game, divided by stage. I won't comment about the bosses unless I know a strat that is not listed on Xanathor's guide, and I will remind you to look at his guide for the bosses every-single-time. Also, I have routed the game for Single Player, and there are differences when going for multiplayer, like number of waves, bosses patterns and even bosses numbers. So everything here is for playing Solo.

Also, take in consideration the following for the entire route:

• Movement: While moving thru screens, Thief Wall Jump > Dashing > Running > Walking. You still want to go fast, right?
• You always want to align the minions horizontally and hit as many as you can per attack. That helps a lot with enemies who have ranged attacks as Goblins and Kobolds, because letting them roam will make the AI try to surround you. Once you have put them together, most of the characters can Forward + Attack into Charge Attack them. Sorry M.User, not you.
• The game doesn't track that well your Dashs (Quarter Circle Forward + Jump), so you can abuse that to manipulate their positions and dodge atttacks, but that doesn't make you invincible. Also, Dashs are cancelable into Charge Attacks and vice versa. Abuse that.
• And I hate Hellhounds. Their hitbox while running is the evilest thing on Earth. You will learn to hate them as well. Thought this was worth mentioning.

Stage 1 :- Descent from the Broken Lands

Timer starts when you first gain control of your character, and that means when your character finishes running after splitting with the other characters. The waves are 1 Kobold, then 2 Kobolds from the front, and 2 Kobolds from behind, then the screen unlocks for the second part. In that one, you will see 2 Kobolds coming, and charriots will start coming thru the top or the bottom part of the screen. You only need to free 4 villagers, 2 from each charriot, and it's faster to break the first charriot, position yourself to hit the other one on the other lane, break it, then free only the ones from the second charriot. By the time you finish that, you have around 3 or 4 seconds to position yourself close to the right border, to save a few frames from the cutscene of the villager talking to you and asking your name.

The name part is covered on the first step.

Stage 2 :- The Village of Trintan

You will run into the end of the screen thru the top part of the screen, and see a pack of 3 Goblins guarding a chest: go past them. Then another pack of Goblins and two Axe Gnolls will spawn. You want to kill the Gnolls ASAP, as their deaths triggers another wave of Goblins, and then you can just improvise and kill them all, and killing the second wave triggers a third. If you keep the fight to the topmost part of the screen, one of the goblins of the first wave will never come at you. Also, take care to keep all the goblins busy somehow, because if left alone, they will start their ranged attacks. And you don't want that.

After you deal with those goblins, the screen will unlock. The chest is usually trapped with fire or arrows, but holds a Bottle of Effreti, which is very helpful and will be explained in due time. The first two enemies after the chest are two Owlbears, that will came jumping from the right side. Charge attack can stop one of them jumping, but most of the other attacks will hit you if you are too close to the border of the screen. While those two Owlbears fight you, two waves of Arrow Gnolls try to hit you, first from left, then from the right. After the right wave of arrows ends (or by finishing its attacks or by you killing them) , a right wave of Goblins appears, then a left wave of goblins. If you kill those 2 waves of goblins fast enough, the last wave of this stage, a Axe Gnoll one, will just retreat. If they don't as soon as they enter the screen, kill them. Then you enter the War Machine fight, and that is covered in the Xanathor's Guide.

There will be a route choice after this stage.

1. Travel by land.
2. Travel by boat.

Option 1 , you get a stage with around 8 waves of enemies, then a Dark Warrior boss fight. You will face lots of Hellhounds (which can drop rings and Fire Rod). I haven't routed the fights, because...

The Option 2 is better, since you get a big ammount of silver (4k Silver to be exact) which will ensure you always have money for Healing Potions, Hammers and Large Burning Oils for the rest of the entire run. Also, it's possible to go thru the whole river without a fight, which is faster than the Option A, and only have to fight against the Man Scorpion Boss. As soon as the raft part ends, grab a Fireball Ring in the small chest on the upper part of the screen. Again, the Xanathor's guide pretty much covers the fight, except for a minor difference on a glitch: the Infinite Scythe Glitch.

Infinite Scythe Glitch

Basically, the Man Scorpion can only pick up its Scythe that has been thrown when he is in a standing position, as covered on Xanathor's Guide. So, the only thing you need is to take him down someway after he has thrown it, then keep hitting him. The Scythe will be floating around its body, take care to not get hit, but its possible to position yourself out of its range and still hit the Man Scorpion body. As long the other enemies don't stop you, it's possible to finish the fight just hitting like this. Really hard on Single Player to do a lot of damage because of the other enemies, but could be a solid strat for co-op, even if RNG dependant.

Stage 4 :- Skies over Aengmore

SHOP: You might want Hammers x9 to lock the Harpy. Depending on class, a few Burning Oils for the Tel'Arin fight until you have a way to kill it without it.

The stage will have a wave of 3 Dark Elfs with a Dark Elf Mage throwing 2 to 4 Fireballs at you after a few seconds, then the same thing again (3 Dark Elves, 1 Dark Elf Mage), and the Harpy will come after the last Fireball. Remember that casting a spell leaves you immune to environment, and the Fireballs the Dark Elves thrown are not counted as spells, so you can cast anything you want just to dodge if you want. With Cleric, I just use the time to buff. Also, their AI will make them come to you by teleporting up and trying to dive you if you are far enough. Cleric has a wonderful hitbox that ALWAYS miss if you don't move from the point they started the dive. I believe the other classes don't have that "luck".

You can watch my PB to see the exact place you want to throw the hammers at the Harpy. The vertical is quite lenient, but getting the horizontal part wrong will make the hammer hit once instead of twice. After that, improvise until you kill her. If you kill her fast enough, you get a small cutscene, which is worth watching instead of letting the fight be long enough to avoid it.

The next part is Tel'Arin, first summoning 4 skeletons, then entering the fray himself. You know where to find the strats. You have the Infinite Ground Pound (IGP) to deal with this fight as well.

Infinite Ground Pound

While an enemy is grounded, it's possible to hit him and still hit him again while he stays in juggle state. Timing is more important than speed for this to work. Might be possible with every class, but I confirmed Cleric and Dwarf only.

The route choices here are: 1) Go to the City of Aensun (stage 5-B) <-<¤> 2) Go through the Forest of Despair (stage 5-A) <-<¤> 3) Go through the Forest Bridge guided by Elf (stage 5-C) (Elf must be in the party)

I think that as long you can do the Ogre Skip, going for City of Aensun is faster. The beholder kill is a lot slower. The Elf route might be faster if a fast kill is possible in Green Dragon, since she skips Manticore on that route. What I can tell about the Elf route is that you face 2 waves of Dark Elfs, which can be evaded by using invisibility, followed by a few waves of wasps, then the Green Dragon appears.

Stage 5-B :- The Riddle of Aensun

From the start of the stage, it's possible to dash then Charge Attack to hit the first Kobold. Then align yourself a bit up, and you probably can hit the second one. Just be aware that when you see the right part of the screen, two Hellhounds will appear, and their running hitbox is rather large and will hit you if you are careless. Only the Hellhounds are needed to kill and unlock the next part of the stage. Don't forget to grab Earrings or Bracelet here if needed.

Then, the next wave has a Hellhound and a Axe Gnoll on the right, and 2 Axe Gnolls and a Hellhound to the left. Or group them and kill them together, or take the right ones real fast before facing the left ones. Meanwhile there will be some Kobolds to bother you, but just avoid their attacks.

Your next problem are 2 waves of two Hellhounds each, and when the last one falls, the Ogre will come rushing at you. If you are in the middle of the screen, it will hit you. If you're playing a character with the shield, it's possible to block that initial rush and start combo'ing him right away.

The Ogre Skip

When the Ogre reaches 60% of a HP bar left, he calls his brother to help him, and their life bars join. If you leave him with 70%ish, then combo him, and control his fall in a way that gives him no time to get up (IGP, Burning Oils, Hold Person, Continual Light, probably can work with some Offensive Spells), he won't call his brother, and you will save around 30 seconds of fighting. :)

Stage 6 :- The Battle of Strong Oak

SHOP: You want to get Hammers x9 here, to use against Displacer Beast.

You start fighting the Manticore. IGP works on it. It's the easiest boss of the game, its patterns are really easy to figure out.

After the Manticore fight, you will enter a cave with some Fire Traps. Their activation is RNG. In the first screen, the top chest has a Healing Potion, if needed. After that you will have waves of skeletons and Axe Gnolls and kobolds with ranged attacks. But the only ones you need to kill are the Axe Gnolls, two waves of two each. Killing them allows you to move the screen as long the kobolds aren't in the screen anymore. The second and third screens has some enemies, but you can just jump/run/dash past them. The fourth screen and last one before the Lich, the chest in front of you has a key, which you will need if you have none and if you are playing a class that don't have Lightning Bolt. The kobolds will just run away in a few seconds, ignore them. About 5 dashes forward, you will see 2 chests, and the game will spawn a Dark Elf wave, and a Ghoul wave of minions. The lower chest has a Lightning Bolt Ring for those who don't have it, and a Continual Light Ring for the Elf and M.User. Grab it if you are going to use the Lightning Bolt Crit Glitch on Synn. After this, you are facing Lich Deimos, the last boss from Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom, the first game of the series. The Lich Fight is pretty much covered in Xanathor's Guide, with 2 notes from me:

1. It's possible to cancel the Animate Dead spell he casts when he gets between 80 and 95% of a life bar. Just hit him during the animation. Beware that you must be crouching, or the spell's earthquake effect will knock you down.

2. It's possible to cancel the Meteor Swarm attack when he gets to 50% life. But it requires you to use a spell to cancel the animation AND a combo attack that does enough damage to kill it. The Cleric will do it someday. Someday. ;_;

Stage 7 :- Grove of Destruction

This stage starts with you selecting the Fireball ring you got on the Man Scorpion Stage and killing the goblins guarding the first chest you will see. Change to the Bottle of Efreeti you got in Trintam, and use it as soon as you see the three new goblins appearing on screen. If you are going for the LBO Glitch on Synn, and you don't have any kind of spell, you might want to save it, and just kill the Goblins normally. Then 2 Axe Gnolls come, with goblins ranged attacks and, yes, you guessed right, only the Gnolls must be taken down. After that, the Displacer Beast fight starts. You can throw the hammers at the first active frame of the fight to do some damage to it, then just abuse its AI to take her down.

There is a route option from this part. Option 1, you decide to keep pursuing the Sorceress. Option 2, you decide to help the Gnomes. Option 1 is WAY FASTER. But Option 2 let you use the Gnome Shop after it, which has a great array of items like Lightning Bolt Rings, Cure Serious Wounds Rings, Bastard Sword and 2h Sword, and the normal items shop as well, which might compensate on the later part of the run. I use the Option 1 in my run. Rogel84 uses the Option 2 in his.

SHOP: Don't forget to make the Cloak of Displacement in the shop if you picked up the Skin of Displacer Beast, just talk to the shopkeeper. This the first shop that also sells Large Burning Oils. Stock 9 of them, and 9 Hammers.

1. Pursuing the Sorceress

In the stage all the routes will have a fork. There will be a signboard indicating the right direction, but a Kobold will destroy it. The right direction is 1) If the destroyed signboard leaves a piece of it on the ground, the direction pointed by the signboard is the right one. 2) If the signboard is destroyed with nothing left behind, the direction where the Kobold makes its escape is the right direction.

Moving in the right direction 4 times will bring you out of the forest, but moving in the wrong direction 4 times will make you fight the Black Dragon.

2. Gnome Rescue

I haven't routed this part, but basically you have some waves of skeletons, some waves of Axe Gnolls, then Ghouls and Troglodites waves. I believe for 8 or more waves until the boss, Chimera. She can be killed thru Large Burning Oil Spam (LBO Spam).

Large Burning Oil Spam

The way large Burning Oils works are the following: when you thrown a bottle, three pillars of flame will erupt in a straight line from the point the bottle hits the ground. What happens is, if you throw a bottle at an enemy that is lying down on the ground, every pillar is going to hit for damage, and it's possible to chain them in sucession for HUGE ammounts of damage. Two important thing are: 1)The LBO's has its damage increased by a Fire Rod and that is needed for the LBO Glitch; and 2) Throwing the LBOs slowly does more damage than throwing them all thru mashing.

SHOP: LBO x9.

Stage 9:- Caverns of Rafael, the Immortal

You have three optional caverns here. Just avoid them, unless needed for some category.

You are given a route choice here.

1. Fire Salamander way.
2. Frost Salamander way.
3. Tel'Arin & Tel'Eron way (must play a Dwarf).

It's not worth to take Option 1, because having access now to LBO makes the fight against Frost Salamander rather easy. We want Option 2 unless you are a Dwarf, which will take his unique option.

Stage 9-B :- Lost World

Entering the stage, you will see a wall of Frost Flames on the upper part of the screen. You want to go there, but you need to dash at the exact moment you start moving the screen to dash through the Frost Flames without getting hit. Kill the beetle with a single attack, and grab the small chest that it's there. For most classes, it will have a Fire Rod, which increases Fire damage of all types, and of course, LBO damage. This chest also has a chance of dropping a Gauntlet of Ogre Power, which increases attack by a large ammount, but breaks easily.

Right after the chest, you will have a wave of 4 Dark Elfs and a wave of 2 Troglodytes. You also have a few ranged minion waves that you can ignore (having the Cloak of Displacement will help a lot here). If you kill the Troglodyte wave AFTER the ranged minion waves ended, it won't spawn the second Troglodyte wave and will let you proceed.

Now for the Frost Salamander fight. Xanathor's guide has the basics for the fight, LBO Spam works on her, just throw one LBO first, then the others when the Salamander is down. This ¤ALMOST¤ always works. See, the Frost Salamander has 4 starting patterns on the fight: She can run into you or stand still, which is nice because the LBO will hit her and you can finish the fight pretty fast. She can also cast her Ice Statues, which will make it avoid the first LBO, but you can just move a bit forward and throw a second, and proceed as planned. Or it can jump over you and avoid everything. Like it did to me on the AGDQ run. And you are probably going to need a lot of luck to hit her.

And don't forget to dodge the Gargoyle while doing that. He is immune to all damage you can deal, and if somehow you manage to kill it, the game will spawn another one for you, free of charge. :D

Stage 9-C :- Underground Water Passage

You can only come here if there is a Dwarf in the party. The moment you
can move, start sliding forward continuously as rocks will start falling
from above. There are no monsters or treasures in this stage. 

Boss :- Tel' Arin and Tel' Eleron

This fight is pretty easy, you just need to focus Tel'Arin. Saving Tel'Eleron makes you skip the Nagpa fight.

SHOP: LBO x9.

Stage 10-1 :- Gateway

Just open the chest near you, it has a chance of Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Then run for the Tel'Arin fight if you are not a Dwarf. But he comes alone.

Stage 10-2 :- Overtures

You start the stage fighting Tel' Arin. If you went through the
underground water passage Tel' Arin would have been dead then, and will
not appear here, so it will become a keep-going stage with Goblins and
Hell Hounds like Battle Royal.

Boss :- Tel' Arin

Just do some hits to him to get his life to one full and 30% of his life bar. Then LBO Spam him into oblivion.

Stage 10-3 :- The Arena

Just rush into the other side to fight Ezerhorden.

Boss :- Ezerhorden

No secrets here. Just follow the guide for this fight. If you are a Cleric, this is a nightmare of RNG.

Stage 10-4 :- Battle Royal

SHOP: 9x LBO.

This part of the game has a lot of minor manipulations. The first wave you're fighting is 2 Dark Elves, and about 5 seconds later another wave of 4 Dark Elves will arrive. You want the first one dead before the second arrive, because the trick you did on the Harpy stage to manipulate their AI works here, so just kill the first wave and run to the right corner to get them all.

As soon as those 4 Dark Elves are dead, you will see a ranged wave which you can ignore, and then at the same time the screen will move and a 2 Hellhound wave will appear. You can position yourself to hit one of the Hellhounds, and even infinite combo with Forward Attack into Charge Attack it if your class allows. If you kill the first, a second one will spawn and you want to kill it as well if possible. Those 2 Hellhound you take for a walk are part of a wave that gets a total of 6 Hellhounds on screen when you finish scrolling the area, and you want as much space you can to group them together and kill them as fast as possible when the others arrive. Keep an eye that not all Hellhounds must be killed, and if the screen moves, you can leave those who are alive behind.

Now a Goblin wave will spawn at the back of the stage, and there is a minor trick here.

Spell/Spawn Manipulation

You might have noticed that when you cast a spell, most of the screen freezes, but some things just keep going. That's true for attacks that aren't considered spells for the game, as the Dark Elf Mage's Fireball at Harpy Stage and Synn's Meteor Shower. But one of the things that also is not stopped is the enemy spawn. But enemies don't move during spellcasting! So if you time correctly, you are able to manipulate WHEN and WHERE they appear. The game will think he has to spawn the enemies, but with the correct timing it will throw all the enemies in the same frame.

In this exact part, the right moment is when the second goblin on the back of the screen crosses the visible left border of the screen. If the timing is right, all 4 Goblins will spawn together in the same exact spot. If you missed by a few frames, you will see them jumping together, but in diferent vertical positions. If you do nothing, they will jump one at a time, at at different vertical positions. This works in other parts of the game, feel free to test around!

And right after this part, we have another 4 Dark Elves wave, and leaving ONE of them alive will lead to ANOTHER manipulation strat!

Timeout

After a few enemies, the game will set a timer to end the fights and go to the next part. So if you let one of them alive, the game will count around 20 seconds internally to end the stage. You will have to deal with 2 more mixed waves of Hellhounds and Dark Elves and ranged minions, or just dodge the one Dark Elf you left alive and 2 Hellhounds, while you are free to menu an arrange yourself to the final part of the game. The time "wasted" is easily covered by not having to menu later.

The next section just run though it to the opposite door to fight Dark Warrior II. If you are going to buff or heal, go through the bottom part to not awake the Gargoyles.

Stage 10-5 :- Arena Revisited

Boss fighting stage.

Boss :- Dark Warrior 2

This fight is rather easy since you have Hammers and LBO Oils. Move a bit up and start throwing Hammers at him, and feel free to combo between the hammers until he hits 130% of a Life Bar. Then LBO Spam him. If done correctly, he won't even auto-haste himself. If you missed the right ammount of life, thrown a few LBO, let him get up and instantly get knocked down for the same LBO, reposition, fire the other LBOs. This only fails if he decides that his first move after auto-haste is his jumping attack, like it happened on my AGDQ run, because that's the only move he has that has invulnerability frames.

SHOP: LBO x9.

Stage 10-6 :- Inner Heart, Dark Heart

If you are not a Dwarf, you are fighting Nagpa now.

Boss :- Nagpa

It's pretty much covered in the guides. No great and fancy tricks here.

Final Boss :- Synn

Okay. Everything comes down to this Sorceress Dragon here. We have not one, but two available glitches to be used here. The LBO Meteor Glitch and the Lightning Bolt Crit Glitch. Both of those, if done correctly, will kill Synn instantly. Yes.

LBO Meteor Glitch (its not the LBO Spam!)

Usually, Synn doesn't take full damage from Large Burning Oils. But there is a few frames that her sprite is in the right position to be burned. The problem is, that moment is right after she casts Meteor Swarm, a full-screen attack.

The easiest way to setup for this is to have a spell ready on the menu, dodge the Meteor Swarm using that spell, and in the moment you have before the Synn comes back to the screen (remember that spells lock your menu and spell button? Synn's MS is considered a spell!), you open your menu, select the LBO, and then spam it. But wait! You can't spam it anywhere! There is a exact place for 2 of the pillars to hit: inside the shadow the head projects, and both must hit the head. Which you will only see after she lands, and that's too late. The good part of this is that she will come back to the EXACT SAME PLACE she left! So you will know where to throw the LBOs before the Meteor Swarm even start. If you are playing a non-caster class, the trick works fine with Bottle of Efreeti. :D

Lightning Bolt Crit Glitch

Lightning Bolt, doesn't matter if you use a spell or a ring, work a bit weird when done in conjunction with other things happening on screen. From what I could translate, it's possible to "overload" the damage of the spell, to a point it will kill Synn in a single cast. The way to do it is rather simple: you need to hit Synn 3 times in sequence then cast your Lightning Bolt spell/ring. The only requisite is that Synn doesn't move or attack while you do everything. Also, if you are playing with anyone that's not Elf or M.User, you need the Earrings to be able to do 1 Hit KO it. If not using Earrings, you need to deal some damage before going for the glitch, but not enough to trigger his Breath attack animation, which will happen everytime he loses a life bar.

Wll, that's it. You have my congratulations to have read this far. I hope it helped somehow, and feel free to ask anything you like on the forums, my Twitter or my Twitch channel, that goes by the same nickname I use here. And welcome to the world of Dungeons & Dragons!