This comprehensive guide will cover the strategies and materials used for the modern Boss Kill% speedrun route, which involves killing the Giant Sea Eel boss without the talisman. In order to fight this boss, you will need to be playing on a 2017 version of the game, such as CoolmathGames.com Stranded Isle or itch.io P.Craft Deluxe. The boss room can be reached by climbing down a ladder surrounded by gem rocks that spawns inside of the cave.

The boss is a common run killer due to how fast and random his movement is. If you're new to this category, I recommend farming 3-6 apples for healing for each attempt.

Boss behaviour:

The Eel's behaviour can be divided into 3 different phases:

Chase: The boss head charges you in a quick burst of speed every second. Most charges will be aimed at you, but there is a heavy variation in the angle. Also, the head and other parts of the body can slowly move in random directions in between charges.

Electrocution: The boss will attempt to head to an area south of the entrance and start electrocuting the water, making it deal 5 damage per half second. Its body or tail can sometimes move in a way that allows you to get some safe hits on it from the land south of the entrance.

Wander: The boss slowly wanders around without chasing you. This is a double-edged sword, because if you are close to the boss then it means you can get some free hits in, but a wander phase can waste time if you are far away trying to lure it to the trapping spot.

Most of the time it will do an electrocution phase, then a chasing phase that lasts for 3-6 charges, followed by a final charge sound to retreat back down for another electrocution phase. However, sometimes the boss will make the charge sound, but instead do a wander phase. If a wander phase happens, it is usually after an electrocution phase, but it can sometimes happen after 3 or 6 charges in a chasing phase. A wander phase is usually followed by a chasing phase, but in rare cases the boss can go from a wander phase to an electrocution phase. There are a few other rare behaviours as well, such as a chasing phase lasting more than 6 charges.

There are two known methods speedrunners use to kill the boss:

Trapping method: North of the entrance is a 2x2 block of red stone. After the electrocution phase, move up north to position yourself above it. The goal is to lure the boss head to be directly above this 2x2 block when it tries to retreat south for an electrocution phase. If you succeed, the head will get stuck there, and the rest of the body will stretch out, allowing you to safely take out a large portion of its health from the land around the entrance. Due to the random nature of the boss, this is very inconsistent and luck based. Sometimes the head won't go in the right place to get trapped, and sometimes the head will catch up to you while you're in the deep water around the block and hit you several times for massive damage, often resulting in death if you don't have apples. If you survive however, kills with this method are usually under 2 minutes, and potentially as low as 30 seconds if you're extra lucky. Below are 3 video examples. The 3rd video is an example of a slower but still barely successful kill where the Eel was less cooperative.

Yolo method: This method is riskier, but in my experience, I was able to get sub 50 second kills much more often. It involves using the land around the entrance to try to maneouver around the boss while its chasing you, getting in as much damage on the boss as you can while trying to minimize the damage you take. In some situations you can sidestep the head to misdirect it away from you while damaging the rest of its body safely. This is usually easier said than done however. Also when the boss is about to retreat to its spot for an electrocution phase, you wanna try to anticipate this and be as close as possible when the retreat happens, so you can get some hits in before the electrocution starts. Lastly, keep your eyes peeled for wander phases, because they are a great way to score some free hits if you are lucky enough to get one. If you survive, kills with this method can often be in the low to mid 40s, sometimes even under 30 seconds with near perfect luck. Video examples of the yolo method:

If you want to practice the fight, you can do so by saving your game at the boss entrance with a gem sword and 3-6 apples. Open up a bunch of new tabs and load the game to make copies of that save, and then you'll be able to easily access the boss from each tab, switching tabs each time you or the boss dies. You can also restart the fight by doing a cart reset, but that only works if you can open the menu before the boss kills you. Remember that the run is short, so even if you die most of the time, simply being able to get an occasional boss kill here and there will suffice.

Once you've gotten the gist of the boss fight, you are ready to learn the rest of the run. The pre-boss portion involves gathering the materials to craft a gem sword, and locating the boss entrance.

The safe route: Punch 5 wood Craft wood pick Mine 20 stone Craft stonebench, then place it to craft a stone pick Mine 12 stone Craft stone haxe and stone sword Gather 10 wood, 3-6 apples, 25 stone, 25 iron, and 15 gems Craft anvil, then place it to craft a gem pick Mine 21 gems and find the boss entrance Craft the gem sword Enter the boss room Kill the boss

Total materials: 15 wood, 57 stone, 25 iron, 36 gems, and 3-6 apples for safety

Make sure you craft your gem sword before you enter the boss room, because once you enter, there is no way out until the boss is dead. Even if you have all the materials, you can't place crafting tables in the boss room.

If you've read this far, you are ready to start doing runs. The above route works well for getting a 5 minute time, and can go sub 5 with good RNG. However, if you want to know some additional ways to save time, or even go for sub 4 (Which I don't recommend if you value your sanity), read on.

Optimizations: -A bit of menuing time can be saved by leaving crafting tables behind when you no longer need them. For example, not picking up the workbench after you've crafted the stonebench, or the stonebench once you've crafted the anvil. -Make sure you gather your last 4 gems from the rocks surrounding the boss entrance, since you need to mine one to access the boss anyway. You preferably want to gather your last 5-8 gems here, because mining one of the 4 corner gem rocks makes it so that you have an easier time getting the gems from the final rock without them going into the ladder.

Some riskier strats you can go for: -Skip crafting the gem pick. The gem pick can mine gems relatively fast and cut through stone like butter, making it easier to reach the boss entrance if it spawns in a bad spot. But if you get lucky and find the boss entrance early on, skipping the gem pick usually ends up being faster. -Spend less or no time farming apples. Without apples your odds of surviving the boss will be quite low, so whether the time save is worth the risk depends on your goals for the category, and your willingness to grind it out. For sub 4, I had to make do with whatever apples I got in the process of gathering wood for the pick and anvil. -Skip crafting the stone sword. The stone sword doesn't take long to craft and is useful for fending off zombies, so it's probably not worth skipping unless your pb is already very optimized. -Fight the boss more aggressively, going for damage even when you'd be forced to take electrocution damage, or take extra hits from the Eel itself. This can often get you killed, but it can also potentially net you a faster kill if the boss is at low hp, or be used as a last resort to try to clutch out a pb if you are running out of time.

RNG factors, and the pace I needed for sub 4: -Cave ladder spawn. You have less to do in the overworld compared to any%, so finding the cave ladder quickly is even more important than ever. For sub 4, I reset if I couldn't reach the cave by 1:05 with 10 wood (or some iron/gems/progress towards finding the boss room). The best paces I got entered the cave with 10 wood at around 50 seconds. -Boss ladder spawn. Ideally you want to find the boss ladder while you are still gathering materials for the anvil. In my experience, the best way to maximize your chances of finding an early boss ladder is to find a corner that doesn't require too much mining to get to, mine until water is visible on both edges, and if you don't find it there, check another easily reachable spot far away from that corner. For sub 4, I reset if I couldn't enter the boss room by 3:30. The best pace I ever got was a low 3:1X boss entrance, and a 3:0X entrance is theoretically possible. Even a 3:2X entrance is already hard to come by though. -Gem luck. Another common run killer when going for sub 4. Gemore takes around 10 seconds to mine, and can drop anywhere from 2-4 gems, so it can take anywhere from 6 to 11 gemore to get 21 gems for the sword, or 4 to 8 gemore to get 15 gems for the pick. If you skip the gem pick like I did, an ideal run is 6 gemore. Occasionally, I could still get a 3:2X entrance with 7 gemore, but if you get 8 gemored you're pretty much screwed. -Boss fight. For sub 4, the already luck based elements of this fight will be amplified by the fact that there is less room for slow kills, and you'll have fewer apples to tank damage with. With the very limited time you have to chop trees, good "apple luck" is entering the boss with 2 or more apples. During my grind for sub 4, a bad boss kill was 50 seconds or more, a good boss kill was under 45 seconds, a great boss kill was under 40 seconds, and an excellent boss kill was 30 seconds or lower.

Additional notes: -A stone sword is not viable for killing the boss in this category. Even if you managed to get a kill with it, it would take far too long, because it does very little damage and your bar runs out much faster with it. -Even though you only need 10 wood for the anvil, it is rarely (if ever) worth skipping the stone axe. It takes very little time to make and chops trees much faster than your bare hands do. -There is a rare glitch that can occur with the boss, but it has yet to be reproduced, and it is unknown if it could be useful for speedrunning.

That concludes the guide. Hope it proves to be helpful.