A google docs version of this guide can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g8Yp0MVCG8crpUn0S2in-lNJXvvjLCCdaJENjbqnYb4/edit

It is recommended to watch a run using these strategies in order to understand the movement context while reading. It is also recommended to run on an older patch of the game, a guide for which is available in the Risk of Rain speedrunning discord, under the pins section of the risk-of-rain-2-general chat, as well as the guides section on the speedrun.com page.

Be sure to configure livesplit with the load remover in order to obtain loadless times, as well as consistent splits for the beginning and end of the run. Remember that the loadless timer must be visible on screen in your recording at all times for it to count!

Pre-run strategy: The recommended character to use for any% is Loader. Loader has a high capacity for movement across every stage due to her combo using her pylon ability and grapple ability in combination to give her a decent launch. Combine this with her charged gauntlet ability to make it across any stage, given decent movement.

For difficulty, drizzle is recommended although it is not required.

Loadout: The loadout recommended for Loader is using spiked grapple instead of the default grapple and using the default charged gauntlet instead of the thunder gauntlet. The spiked fist a pure upgrade for loader and can be used to kill enemies outside the teleporter range to avoid losing time on the way out of stages. The default gauntlet ability grants the most distance combining the ability with a swinging grapple and/or a pylon launch.

When using each of loader’s abilities, be sure to sprint to gain more speed. If doing this is uncomfortable using CTRL, then it is recommended to rebind sprint to a different key, such as a side mouse button. Whatever is most comfortable for you.

Artifacts: The following artifacts are used in the speedrun: Artifact of Command: This artifact allows runners to choose the optimal item build and eliminate item rng Artifact of Glass: This artifact provides enough damage to kill any mob in a reasonable amount of time as well as allowing Mithrix to be killed using a simple charged gauntlet + grapple attack on phases 1 and 3. It also provides damage used for all other abilities such as spiked grapple and M551 Pylon. Artifact of Kin: This artifact causes teleporter bosses to become horde bosses which in combination with artifact of swarms and artifact of sacrifice gives each stage boss a high chance of dropping items. It also prevents yellow items from dropping in place of green items from the teleporter boss, since no boss enemies spawn in the duration of the run. Artifact of Sacrifice: This artifact prevents chests and lunar pods from spawning and forces enemies to drop items occasionally. Using this artifact in combination with artifact of kin and artifact of swarms allows for more items to be obtained. It also allows us to get around the limitation of the teleporter zone locking chests. Artifact of Swarms: This artifact effectively halves enemy health as well as increases the chance of getting items thanks to artifact of sacrifice. This artifact also helps with fighting Mithrix as it guarantees Mithrix will die more easily due to charged gauntlet and artifact of Glass, as there will be two Mithrix’s with half the normal health. Other optional artifacts include: Artifact of Dissonance: This artifact eliminates hermit crab mobs from spawning on stage 4 when combined with the artifact of kin. This artifact also normalizes (forces enemies to spawn closer to the tp) boss mob spawns when using the artifact of kin. This artifact can potentially have a negative benefit of spawning undesirable mobs on Commencement (stage 6) such as malachite beetles or parents during the Mithrix fight, although this is somewhat rare. Artifact of Chaos: This artifact allows for enemies to attack each other and kill each other. This is useful to help runners during stage 1 versus otherwise dangerous enemies such as alloy vultures, imps, and lemurians. This artifact can potentially be detrimental, however, as on later stages if certain enemies kill each other outside of the teleporter’s radius, then any dropped items will become more difficult to obtain. Artifact of Soul: This artifact can make certain teleporter bosses easier by spawning soul wisps that attack you for small amounts of damage and proc your razorwire (more on that later). Note: the soul wisps from this artifact do not have a chance to drop items from the Artifact of Sacrifice, and is purely used to proc razorwire.

Items: White Items: Backup Magazines - Each Backup Magazine gives one extra charge to your grapple, which improves movement significantly. Six to eight backup magazines is optimal for getting through commencement efficiently. In particular, having sufficient backup magazines is essential for getting through the main tunnel quickly. Energy drink and Pauls Goat Hoof - After Backup Magazines, movement speed is essential for saving time in the run. As a rule of thumb, one stack of Energy Drink followed by stacks of Paul’s Goat Hoof is optimal. Topaz Brooch - If you are struggling to stay alive due to the reduced health from the Artifact of Glass, one Topaz Brooch is recommended to grant extra health. (New runners should take a Topaz Brooch, and learn to replace it with a Backup Magazine as you get better).

You should choose backup magazines to give extra grapples to allow for higher movement. It is recommended to have at least 6 backup magazines before moving onto Mithrix, although this is not totally required. If you have 8 or more backup magazines, the recommended item build is grabbing 1 energy drink followed by repeated Paul’s Goat Hoofs. If you are struggling to stay alive due to the effects of Artifact of Glass, it is recommended to grab a single topaz brooch to grant you extra health (if you’re just starting out, you really should use it, and learn to skip it as you get better). Your survivability can also be improved by playing on drizzle.

Green Items: Razorwire - Razorwire is an essential item in this strategy, as combined with the lunar equipment “Helfire Tincture'' to proc the effect of Razorwire constantly. Combined with the artifact of glass and the artifact of swarms, this synergy is enough to obliterate the teleporter bosses and the second phase of Mithrix. Having 8 stacks of razorwire is optimal, any more is unnecessary and can be detrimental later in the run (See phase 2 of the Mithrix fight). Wax Quail and Red Whips - After Razorwire, taking stacks of Wax Quails or Red Whips is recommended for increasing movement speed.

You should choose Razorwires as your main green item. This strategy uses the lunar equipment helfire tincture to proc razorwire repeatedly for the duration of helfire tincture. This synergy, combined with artifact of glass and the halved health for enemies provided by artifact of swarms, allows for every teleporter boss to be defeated very quickly. This combination is crucial to phase 2 of mithrix. It is recommended to grab no more than 8 razorwire. This will be explained later during the phase 2 explanation for Mithrix. If you acquire 8 razorwire, then Wax Quail or Red Whips may be taken if you have extra green drops.

Red Items: Red drops are incredibly rare in a run (0.9% per drop, or 0.045% per kill), and are not required for a fast run. However, if you do find a red item, the following is recommended:

Hardlight Afterburner - The Hardlight Afterburner gives two extra charges of your gauntlet, which gives an incredible amount of mobility and power throughout the run.

Alien Head - Alien Head reduces the cooldown of your skills, dropping your grapple and punch cooldowns from 5 seconds to 3.8 seconds. Combined with purity, the cooldown of both drops to 1.8 seconds. Alien Head should only be taken on a repeated red drop, or if attempting advanced moon strategies.

You should choose Hardlight Afterburner as your red drop item. Red drops are incredibly rare and are not required to have a fast run, although having extra charges of charged gauntlet is incredibly useful to grant even higher movement options. Repeated red drop options include a secondary hardlight afterburner, or alien head for cooldown reductions.

Orange Items: The Crowdfunder - The Crowdfunder can be used to empty out your cash to save 2 seconds when leaving the level. Make sure to pick up whatever equipment you were using before (usually helfire Tincture) before you leave the level!

(Optional) Should you get an orange drop and your equipment is off cooldown, you can pick up a crowdfunder and empty your money to save 2 seconds leaving the level. Make sure to pick whatever you had before back up before you leave!

Lunar Items: Focused Convergence - Each stack of Focused Convergence increases the speed in which the teleporter charges, making it very important during a run. Focused Convergence has no added benefit after 3 stacks.

Helfire Tincture - The helfire Tincture is used in this run to repeatedly proc Razorwire, dealing massive damage to all enemies nearby. This is used to clear the teleporter boss as well as the second phase of Mithrix incredibly quickly.

Purity - As the Bazaar Between Time has 5 lunar items per visit, it is possible to take Purity as a fifth lunar item. This reduces the cooldown of all skills by 2 seconds, making it stack extremely well with Alien Head. Although this is an optional item, Purity can be useful for scenarios where you have bad teleporter spawns and need to traverse the stage quickly, or if you don’t have enough stacks of Backup Magazines for Commencement.

This strategy also utilizes lunar items, in particular Focused Convergence and Helfire Tincture. Because of this, it is recommended to edit your lunar coins count and to give yourself a large amount of lunar coins. For this strategy, 3 focused convergences are used in order to make each teleporter event as fast as possible. Acquiring more than 3 focused convergences has no added benefit. helfire tincture is also acquired in order to repeatedly proc razorwire. As previously mentioned, helfire tincture + razorwire is used to clear teleporter bosses and is crucial on phase 2 of Mithrix. (Optional) Since the bazaar between time has 5 lunar items per each visit, if you get an extra lunar item, you can take purity for shorter cooldowns. This is optional, but having it helps in scenarios where you have bad teleporters, or overshoot the teleporter, don’t have enough backup mags, etc.

Main Strategy Stage 1: Your first goal is to acquire a blue orb to go the Bazaar Between Time as fast as possible in order to acquire the lunar items needed to continue the run. This can be done in two different ways: Activate the newt altar that spawns somewhere on the stage and force a blue orb to spawn, or have the blue orb naturally appear on the stage. A blue orb appearing naturally on the first stage currently has a 5% chance of occurring. A naturally occurring blue orb is the best case scenario and saves a lot of time over finding a newt altar, although it is not required to get a good time. It is recommended to quickly press enter twice at the start of each run to quickly open and close chat in order to check for naturally occurring blue orbs

After acquiring a blue orb, proceed to the teleporter as quickly as possible. Defeat the teleporter event and begin building your items should any drop. When the teleporter reaches about 95% charge, begin charging your charged gauntlet and prepare to launch towards where the blue portal spawns and rapidly press (or hold) your interact key in order to take the blue portal.

Bazaar: In the bazaar between time, grapple the top of the entrance and begin charging your gauntlet and swing into the shop and release your charged gauntlet, aiming for the counter of the shop. Here, you need to purchase 3 lunar items and 1 equipment. Follow the lunar item build and grab 3 focused convergence and 1 helfire tincture. If you are unlucky and get a lunar shop that does not have at least 3 lunar items or 1 equipment, then you must reset the run. A potential way to avoid this is to use an edited save with 4 lunar equipment unlocked, and 10 lunar items unlocked for optimal spawn rates. A guide to do this is also available in the Risk of Rain speedrunning discord.

After acquiring your lunar items, grapple the top of the exit and begin charging your gauntlet again and swing out, and then release your charged gauntlet aiming for the portal and holding your interact key again.

Stages 2-5: The strategy for each of these stages is simply finding the teleporter as fast as possible, activating the teleporter and defeating the boss using helfire tincture + razorwire, and taking the teleporter to the next stage. The main variable for each of these stages are the random locations for the teleporter. The teleporter will always be far away from where you spawn, so use this knowledge to your advantage.

It should be noted on stage 5 to be careful when activating the ancient teleporter quickly, as it is possible to accidentally switch the teleporter back to the planet and to accidently loop.

Commencement (Stage 6): This stage relies heavily on your item build up to this point. Upon arriving on the stage, your first goal is to get to the top of the main ramp. Turn to your left towards the ramp and initiate a pylon launch towards the ramp and immediately begin charging your charged gauntlet. When in range, grapple the ramp and then aim up and release your gauntlet in order to launch yourself to the top of the ramp. A harder version of this tactic is to aim your pylon launch lower, grapple the water to quickly get to the bottom of the ramp, and then grapple the ramp and immediately release your punch for more speed.

Your next goal after that is to get through the tunnel and to launch yourself across the stage to a warp zone underneath the launch pads to Mithrix. Once you get to the top of the ramp, use your remaining grapples conservatively and grapple through the tunnel, building speed by grappling the roof and pillars of the tunnel. Once your charged gauntlet comes off of cooldown, begin charging it immediately. Your final grapple should be the top of the exit of the tunnel. Once you’re halfway across the gap, release your charged gauntlet and launch yourself towards the underneath of the launch pad in order to warp to the pads themselves. If you have a good grapple angle exiting the tunnel, and enough speed, then it is recommended to not use your charged gauntlet if you believe you can make it to the warp zone without punching.

Once you get to the launch pad area, take a launch pad to the Mithrix fight. It is recommended to do this by using a pylon launch + a grapple to the launch pad. One final bit of movement to get into the arena quicker is to use a grapple to the edge of the arena with a charged punch to launch yourself into the arena. This movement can be tricky as it is possible to get caught in the invisible wall separating the inside of the arena from the outside.

45Mithrix Phase 1: For phase 1 of Mithrix, position yourself near the edge of the water or in the middle of the water where the rock ring is (if you’re too close, Mithrix will dodge your attack and will usually kill your run). Once the Mithrix spawn cutscene finishes, immediately begin charging your gauntlet and grapple the ground near the edge of the inner platform, jump, and pull yourself towards Mithrix and release your gauntlet in the air in order to quickly kill Mithrix. The timing on this is somewhat important. If you punch too early then your punch may not have enough power to kill phase 1. If you punch too late, then one of the Mithrix clones may sidestep the punch, losing time. Getting the timing down requires practice.

Phase 2: Phase 2 is where you use your helfire tincture + razorwire combo for the last time. This part of the run is slightly tricky, as it is possible to make it impossible to one-shot phase 3 after Mithrix spawns if you are not careful. If you kill the mobs of phase 2 too quickly and cause one of your razorwires to hit phase 3 Mithrix, then Mithrix will gain adaptive armor and make it impossible to kill him cleanly with a single charged gauntlet punch. In order to avoid this, activate helfire tincture either a short moment or immediately after killing phase 1 Mithrix, depending on how fast you usually can make it around the arena. The timing for helfire tincture should run out about the time you clear the last mob of phase 2. This is why only 8 razorwire is recommended for green items, as more than 8 runs the risk of killing phase 2 more quickly than intended.

After activating helfire tincture, kill phase 2 using your razorwires. You may use grapples to get around the arena faster, although be careful as you will need 2 grapples later on immediately after killing phase 4. You can also use a pylon launch to get across the arena faster, although be careful where you launch it as the pylon can also activate the adaptive armor on phase 3.

A risky strategy is to kill phase 2 as fast as possible, and then to attempt to kill phase 3 of Mithrix in between the razor wire ticks. This is incredibly difficult to pull off, although it is possible.

Phase 3: Immediately after killing phase 2, begin charging your charged gauntlet and make your way to the center of the arena and prepare to kill Mithrix as soon as he spawns. If any other source of damage hits him after he drops, then he will gain adaptive armor and you will need to use multiple punches to defeat him.

Phase 4: After killing phase 3, you should position yourself behind Mithrix somewhat opposite to where you entered the arena. You should position your camera so that Mithrix seems to be standing between 2 pillars, the first pillar being a pillar that was created after the beginning of phase 2 of the fight and a pillar that is part of the arena, on the outer edge. After killing phase 3, position yourself so that after killing Mithrix, you can grapple one of the pillars that spawned at the beginning of phase 2. During this phase, you will need to wait for Mithrix to finish stealing your items. On an old patch, you can kill Mithrix while he is stealing your items, saving roughly 2 to 3 seconds. Before Mithrix starts stealing your items, begin charging your gauntlet and wait for his health bar to appear. When his healthbar appears, grapple the ground in front of him and aim up slightly and punch through Mithrix, immediately grappling the one of the stage 2 pillars, followed by the arena pillar and launching yourself towards the platform near the tunnel you exited from. If you’re on current patch, you need to wait until he steals your items and loses invulnerability. If you need some kind of visual point in order to know where to aim, the end platform has a floating rock above it that’s pretty visible.

Leaving Commencement: Once you have launched yourself out of the arena, your goal is to hit an upwarp zone that takes you straight to the zone that triggers the end of the game, completing the run. You may use your charged gauntlet to assist you to get to this upwarp zone. Once you hit this zone, you should be upwarped to the platform where the end of the game will trigger. The screen should fade to white and livesplit should automatically split, ending the run.

Enemies With dissonance off, the only enemies you’ll get on the first stage can be lesser wisps, lemurians, beetles, or golems. It’s recommended you instantly reset if you see golems (unless there’s a natural blue orb), since they don’t drop many items. The rest will give you enough items on average. With dissonance on, you can also see imps, alloy vultures, mini mushrooms and bighorn bison, most of which don’t give many items either, but can still be managed.

Wisps - Fighting versus wisps on stage 1 with Artifact of Swarms turned on is incredibly difficult and may also be worthy of a reset, unless a natural blue orb occurs. If this is the case, it is possible to use the terrain around the teleporter (if available) to avoid being killed by the wisps. Utilize your pylon in order to kill these wisps, and grab a razorwire as soon and safely as possible.

Imps - Imps can quickly swarm you after they spawn due to their ability to teleport. It is recommended to move around the edge of the teleporter, avoiding them if possible and utilizing your pylon to clear them.

Alloy Vultures - Alloy vultures are also particularly deadly as a single hit from even a normal vulture can instantly kill you (without topaz broach barrier). It is recommended to run around the edge of the teleporter, avoiding vulture attacks and utilizing your pylon to clear them. Make sure to aim the pylon higher in the air so that flying vultures are taken out as well.

Lemurians - For lemurians, you again want to rely on your pylon and don’t take too many hits. It usually suffices to just run in a circle around the teleporter and have the lemurians group up, making it much easier to dodge their attacks. Remember to use your grapple and punch to get away from large groups.

Beetles - Beetles are very straightforward, just be wary of glacial bombs and that’s about it.

Bighorn Bison - Bighorn bison don’t spawn very much, also usually just worth a reset. If you want to run with them anyways, they’re fairly easy to dodge and you can just group them up and take them out with a charged punch. Alternatively, you can use highground terrain around the teleporter to avoid getting hit by them to group them up as well.

Mini Mushrooms - Mini mushrooms are also not particularly difficult to deal with. Just be careful and note where their attacks land as they can easily kill you if you walk through them for more than a second. Don’t walk back and forth and keep moving, since their attacks usually land behind you. Solas Probes - Although this enemy is rare, it can be particularly deadly as a boss enemy. For regular solas probes, simply letting your razorwire proc from their beams is easy enough. If you get probes on stage 1, simply move quickly away from their beams as there is a slight lag for them adjusting to aim at you. Upon activating the teleporter event, it is recommended to activate your tincture as soon as possible in order to quickly kill them as being hit by all of the horde boss at once can be deadly. If fighting the boss on stage 1, utilize your pylon to damage them and avoid them as much as possible.