RORR Any% Guide by Lach version 1.2 2024-01-15
- INTRODUCTION -
Hi!
This guide aims to be a complete introduction to speedrunning Risk of Rain Returns. If you already have some experience with speedrunning the original Risk of Rain many things here will be familiar, so feel free to skip over sections you recognize from the first game. Otherwise, this guide assumes you are a complete beginner so it will go over everything you need to know in detail. At the end of the guide there will be a section for more advanced techniques to try out when you have gotten comfortable with basic strats used for the run.
If some sections seem confusing you can always watch my 8:46 run as a reference to see all the techniques in practice. Let's begin!
- BEFORE RUNNING -
RESOLUTION:
When playing the game in 1080p resolution you only have access to 2x zoom. This makes it very difficult to find the teleporter since the screen is so zoomed in. To increase your maximum zoom level to 4x or 5x you will need to either have a high resolution screen or virtually increase your screens resolution through the NVidia Control Panel or AMD equivalent. For 4x zoom you need 3840x2160 and for 5x you need 5120x2880.
ARTIFACTS:
- GLASS: No explanation needed. 500% damage dealt, enough said.
- COMMAND: Another no-brainer, items are no longer random.
- TEMPUS: All items are worth 3 stacks, but are temporary. The temporary part barely matters since the run is so short and the timer is reset when picking up another stack.
- HONOR & KIN: Honor makes all enemies spawn as elites and kin forces all enemies to be of a single type per stage, even replacing bosses with the chosen enemy. This allows us to get a ridiculous amount of items with 56 Leaf Clover.
- PRESTIGE (optional): There will always be one mountain shrine per map, and mountain shrine activations are permanent. Not strictly required but will help getting enough items on stages with high spawn-cost enemies, such as Bighorn Bison or Rock Golems. Also makes the teleporter easier to spot from afar because of the mountain shrine symbol floating above it.
- COGNATION (optional): All enemies spawn a clone on death that de-spawns after a little while. Notably, these copies also count as elites which lets you get items from them with 56 Leaf Clover.
GAME, INTENSITY & DIFFICULTY SETTINGS:
It is recommended to turn off New Stages in the Game Style settings since the old layouts are generally more open and easier to navigate. Intensity settings are self-explanatory, 200% damage dealt and 10% damage taken.
It is recommended to play on drizzle since enemies are easier and you spawn with more gold, allowing you to open a chest or gamble on a shrine immediately.
ONLINE COOP:
Usually runs are done in a private online coop lobby since this allows you to change zoom settings without pausing the game, but its not required.
ZOOM STRATS:
When exiting a level your left over gold will be converted to XP that will fly from the top left of your screen down to your character. These XP orbs have to physically fly to you which takes time. To minimize this travel time we zoom in the screen to its max to get our character as close to the top left as possible. When all XP has travelled to your character you will teleport out and then you can zoom out again in preparation for the next stage.
CHARACTER:
We play as miner because he has the best movement abilities for the run. We use his alternate secondary, Drill Dash to move during the stages since it can travel in any direction compared to the horizontally locked Drill Charge. You can use either of his utility abilities. Personally I use Backblast for the invincibility and stage one movement. You can use either primary ability.
Important movement tech: When using drill dash you can preserve its momentum for a little bit after the dash by letting go of any movement keys before the dash finishes. By bunny hopping you can preserve the speed a tiny bit longer since you lose movement speed faster while on the ground. To make bunny hopping easier you can go into the accessibility options and turning on Auto Jump, letting you hold the jump key instead of having to time your jumps manually.
- THE ACTUAL RUN -
When first spawning in you should immediately check for the teleporter. If you have 4x or 5x zoom you can often see the teleporter right as you spawn in, at least while on Dried Lake. If the teleporter is too far away its usually not worth it and you should restart. Welcome to the RNG grind that is Risk of Rain speedrunning!
If the teleporter is close enough just run over to it as fast as possible, activating any Mountain Shrines that happen to be placed in your path. A few seconds after activating the teleporter the Horde of Many boss enemies will spawn in. Note that the enemy with the crown over its head is the one that will drop the boss item!
ITEMS:
The first green item you should get is 56 Leaf Clover. This item makes it so all elites have a chance to drop an item, and since we use Honor and Kin all enemies we face will be elites. This item maxes out at 100% chance at 65 stacks but having this many stacks is overkill. I would recommend getting at least around 25~35 stacks over the course of the run so that enemies have at least around a 50% chance to drop an item. If you get lucky with green drops feel free to grab more stacks. When you have enough clovers you can grab a few Hopoo Feathers and Rusty Jetpacks to make stage movement more smooth, but its not strictly necessary.
Your first white item should be Paul's Goat Hoof to move around faster. Movement speed also extends our movement abilities making stage traversal in the later stages incredibly quick.
After picking up goat hoofs two or three times you should also start getting Backup Magazines to increase charges to your secondary skill. Over the course of the run somewhere between 10-20 magazines should be enough. Most of your white items in the early stages should be goat hoofs. Remember that all stacks of your secondary skill are recharged at the start of each stage so don't worry about conserving charges before exiting a stage!
Your first orange item should be a Gold Bomb. This item drops half of your gold as a bomb that explodes after a few seconds. By using the item right before activating the teleporter to tp out of the stage you will halve the amount of gold that has to be converted to XP, saving a little bit of time on each stage.
If you get an early red its a good idea to pick up a Substandard Duplicator, giving you one extra stack per item pickup and also extending the temporary timer for all items. Note that its not worth it to pickup up any more duplicators since only the first stack gives an extra temporary item. All other red items afterwards should be Rapid Mitosis to decrease active item cooldown. With enough stacks you can save a lot of time when exiting stages by getting rid of all your gold to instantly exit a stage without having to convert any gold to XP. To do this you will need lots of Rapid Mitosis, at least 20+ so you will most likely only be able to do this on the fourth or fifth stage.
When you have enough movement speed and backup mags almost all white items forward should be Barbed Wire. Barbed Wire will automatically clear out stages for you and with enough stages will instantly kill the Gilded Wurms when they spawn on the last stage. To insta-kill Wurms you will need around ~350 stacks to be able to reach them as they spawn. Less stacks will also kill them, but they might have to travel towards you costing you precious time.
When you are on the fifth stage, Temple of the Elders, you should pick at least one Panic Mines. With enough movement speed we can use our secondary ability to hurt ourselves by charging downwards into the ground which will spawn mines. We will use this to kill Providence.
When on the fifth stage you can also consider picking up more Goat Hoofs if you have enough barbed wire already. More movespeed is useful on the last stage since you will only travel straight up and straight to the right, so the reduced accuracy in movement that comes with very high movespeed is a lot less bothersome on the last stage.
And last but certainly not least, make sure to pick up the active item Marble Gate on the fifth stage. This will be needed to get into Providence's arena.
RISK OF RAIN STAGE AND PROVIDENCE:
After entering the last stage, immediately go left outside the ship and then dash upwards to the top of the stage. If you spawn at the bottom of the ship you will need to get into the top left corner of the room against the gate and activate the Marble Gate. The Gate should spawn on top of the roof so just activate it again to tp out and then proceed as normal. Bottom spawn is an unavoidable timeloss. When at the top, dash right across the stage and drop down to the right of Providence's arena. When underneath the arena, jump or dash into the diagonal wall on the bottom right of the arena and active the Marble Gate when you are as close to the wall as possible. The Gate should be placed inside the arena and you can then simply activate it again to teleport into the arena.
When inside, run to the console and activate the fight with Providence. Before he spawns you should charge downwards into the floor in the middle of the console to spawn some mines that will instantly kill Providence and progress the fight to phase 2.
In phase 2 the Gilded Wurms will spawn underneath the arena and travel up to you. With enough stacks (~350) of Barbed Wire they will instantly die after spawning in. If you have less stacks you should go down to the bottom floor of the arena to have your wire reach a bit further down. After they die we move to phase 3.
In phase 3 Providence will once again spawn in the middle of the arena. Before he spawns you need to once again charge into the floor to hurt yourself and spawn some mines to kill him. He will also spawn two royal guards that will die to your Barbed Wire. When Providence dies we move to phase 4.
Phase 4 begins with ~10 seconds of wait before Providence spawns so simply spawn some more mines in the middle and wait for him. If done correctly Providence will once again die instantly to the mines. When he is dead you can activate the console to finish the run. Congratulations!
- ADVANCED OPTIONAL STRATS -
These strats have been separated from the rest of the guide since they add extra complexity to the run that might be too much for a beginner. Although these techniques save extra time they are not at all needed to get a good time. With extra complexity also comes more ways to mess up and lose time during the run, so we recommend you to get comfortable with the normal run first before trying to implement these additional timesaves.
TIME STOP ITEMS:
One major timeloss that can randomly occur during the run is an enemy spawning right before the teleporter finishes. Because of our Barbed Wire the enemy will die and force us to pick up its gold and convert it to xp before leaving the stage which can cost many seconds. To avoid enemy spawns we can use either the active item Stop Watch or the green item Time Keepers Secret to stop time. With Time Keepers Secret you have to damage yourself by charging into the ground. Time Keepers Secret will stop time for 3 seconds +1 second per stack, so if you activate it around 80 seconds you don't need very many stacks. With stop watch its very easy, it stops time for 7 seconds so just use it at 83 seconds and you're good. Note that you will need to pick up new Time Keepers' after you have activated them since all your Time Keepers' will be used up at once.
FASTER ROR WITH WALL CLIPPING:
With enough movement speed you can dash through walls and travel across the last stage faster compared to going across the top. To do this consistently you need 140+ Goat Hoofs. After you spawn in go to the middle of the ship and dash right. You should be able to dash straight through all the walls and gates and get into Providence's arena. If you spawn underneath the middle you will need some Hopoo feathers to jump up to the middle first.
BACKBLAST STAGE ONE MOVEMENT:
To get to the teleporter slightly faster on stage one you can chain together Backblast and Drill Dash to remove Backblast's slight period of immobility. This can be a bit tricky since you need to do many inputs in short period of time. You perform this technique as follows: turn your character in the opposite direction you want to travel, use Backblast, turn around to face the direction you want to move in and then use Drill Dash as normal (don't forget to let go of your movement keys and jump to extend your drill dash as usual!).
Doing this optimally completely removes the immobility of Backblast, making your stage one movement more efficient. After stage one this technique is obsolete since you will have enough Goat Hoofs and Backup Mags to move normally.
The inputs with ror1 layout would be the following (for moving left): ->, c, <-, x
ENIGMA ARTIFACT:
DISCLAIMER: There are currently no top runs using this strategy so experiment on your own risk!
Enemies no longer drop orange items and instead may drop small enigmas that slightly reduce equipment cooldown. Since Miner/Pilot can clip through walls a specific use item is never required during the run. The small enigmas prevent time loss from unnecessary orange item menuing and may reduce lag BUT it eliminates being able to consistently do gold bomb strats to teleport out of the level faster.
Consider using bottled chaos and save file editing to increase consistency of this strat but it is still quite inconsistent and not widely used currently.
PILOT:
As you might have noticed, the world record actually uses pilot! Pilot has a major advantage over miner: stage 1 movement and overall faster horizontal movement. With decent teleporter locations pilot can consistently save multiple seconds over miner on the first stage by performing a wavedash. To perform a wavedash you need to be in the air and use your dash while holding only down. By bunnyhopping like with Miner you can achieve incredible horizontal movement speed. The speed you get from a wavedash can vary wildly, but dashing while being closer to the ground usually gains you more speed.
The general strategy with pilot is the same as miner. Pick up lots of Goat Hoof's for movement speed, Clovers for item drops and Barbed Wire for stage clearing and killing the Wurms. Where Pilot differs is that your first red item should probably be a Hardlight Afterburner to give you more uses of your movement skill. After that red-item priority is the same as with miner. To one-shot all of Providences phases you will need to use the use item Instant Minefield since we can't generate mines like miner with Panic Mines. To one-shot Providence reliably you will need at least 15 Rapid Mitosis to spawn new mines for every phase of the fight. To clip into Providence's arena you will have to dash down and to the left at the top right corner of the arena, right above where the vertical wall meets the slope. To clip through the wall With 150 Goat Hoof's you can dash straight through and grab onto the left ladder inside the arena. With fewer Hoof's the clip becomes unreliable and you might need to dash a few times to get through properly and with too many Hoof's (157+) you will start overshooting the ladder and clipping through the door to the arena. To reliably clip through walls with pilot instead of just grabbing onto them you have to hold down without any other directional keys held down. So to clip into Providence's arena you have to first face left and then dash downwards without holding left.
Pilot does have his disadvantages though. Particularly his vertical movement is lacking compared to miner, so bad teleporter placements will affect him more than miner. This can be somewhat negated by picking up Hopoo Feathers and lots of Rusty Jetpacks. Pilots last stage is also slight slower, so an optimal stage 6 will be a couple of seconds slower compared to Miner, but stage 1 makes up for this.
Credits:
Thanks to the Risk of Rain Speedrunning Discord for sharing and refining the strats described in this guide, and for providing feedback on the first draft of this guide. Also thanks to Furon for providing the advanced section for Enigma. Thanks to GoGeng and Xenon for explaining the strats used when playing as Pilot.
If you have any questions or feedback on the guide you can contact me on Discord (@laaach) or ask anyone in the Risk of Rain Speedrunning Discord.
Changelog:
Alpha version: First draft completed and reviewed by RoR speed discord. 2023-12-20
Version 1.0: Added section for Enigma artifact. Added short section for Goat Hoof in Item section. Grammar and spelling pass. Released on speedrun.com. 2023-12-21
Version 1.1: Changed a few sentences that were incorrect. 2024-01-03
Version 1.2: Added an introduction and a section for Pilot. 2024-01-15
