Clearly my WR is a billion years old and tons of new tricks and such have been found since. I just tried a route where you forgo killing spiders after Demi-Galba and just go for the flowers until you’re high enough to kill bombs, turns out getting to that level (9) takes 1′05″ on a good run which is technically slightly faster than grinding/farming spiders, but the lv1 Livart is ass for killing the moles so it probably loses time in the end, also it’s harder than pulling off Nightmare 100% deathless so I sure hope it’s not faster, I don’t wanna do it.

I looked at my Normal/Hard/NM runs and calculated more or less if the starting NM route would save time for Normal too, it seems to be very slightly worse but it’s hard to say. Stuff:
11′14″ v. 14′51″ Geis black screen
14′02″ v. 16′25″ exit Port = 2′48″ v. 1′34″ = −1′14″
23′49″ v. 27′36″ exit peak = 9′47″ v. 11′11″ ≈ +13″
13′40″ hard
25′25″ with 50″ death = 10′55″
so skipping spiders and lv2 Livart saves ≈ 1′14″ but then you lose too much going for the Wing and teleporting I guess…
Note that my Normal run gets the Limewater mid teleport and picks up both the armor and shield at Grana-Vallis I think, and the other two runs don’t.

Night63 and I found out like yesterday that the Emelas Crown has a secret + 4 Luck bonus, and an all-Luck equipment might be best for the speedruns, you get a lot of crits. Rehdan Shield +3, Emelas Crown +4, Lucky Silver Coin +6. For Zonplas Galba Shield is a lot faster though, not sure how crit dmg calculation works. All-Luck seems good for the endgame though.

Lots of things to investigate and test, I’ll try to fill up my EXP calculation page with more minibosses and stuff to see if any grinding could be done better.

Thinking of a skip spiders, straight to Galba Shield, level twice on flowers and go as usual route. Timings:

15″ from Port tele to Limewater entrance
25–26″ from Limewater entrance to Grana-Vallis entrance
4″03 from Port tele to wolf screen
7″90 first wolf screen, up
6″69 first wolf screen, left
4″44 from there to Limewater entrance
6″18 first wolf screen from Limewater side, up
7″67 second wolf screen, up
6″87 third screen to Grana-Vallis entrance
1′33″58 foot diving for Galba Shield only
46″ from Limewater entrance to Galba Shield (right after dialogue box)
47″58 from Galba Shield to exiting Limewater (makes sense…)
33″ going from Galba Armor to midpoint
37″40 going from first room grind to midpoint (Livart)
35″63 same thing Ericcil
30″06 from Galba Shield to midpoint Livart
takes 15″90 to grab 2 levels from Flowers (to lv7) with godlike execution and it’s enough to destroy bombs
2019 Edit:
normal way:
lose 4″ from Port tp to wolves, lose 1″72 wolves room going up, lose ″94 or whatever from LC entrance to tp (probably actually 1″ or so)
= 6″66
LC tp trigger early:
lose ″94 going out of LC, lose 4″14 going to wolves
= 5″08
I believe triggering the LC tp early is faster.

Also in my WR it took me 25″ to go from lv6 to lv7 on the spiders, so I could shave off some seconds if I disregarded them and went for the flowers instead. Requires really good Emel luck though, you still need 5 by Port Rimorge for lv2 Livart in the normal route.

Edit: I tried doing Grana-Vallis with the skip spiders, get Galba Shield route, and it took me 6′25″ from the flowers room to getting the Emel/level requirement (187Emel/169HP) kinda, it was all messy and I actually died on the last wave of moles. You do slightly less damage with Galba Shield than lv2 Livart, and also can’t use Rehdan Shield for the extra Emel drop chance so you need to get lucky and hope you have enough Emel before you level (I cut it real close in my attempt). No idea what this means yet but it’s written down now.
Edit: Welp the same segment in my WR takes like 6′10″. But wait a second, if I’m saving 1′14″ from skipping spiders, does that mean this is faster by like a minute?
I think this route loses like a minute before Limewater Cave in WR: 1′14″ saved from spiders but in my WR I could’ve saved ≈ 5″ leveling with flowers from 6 to 7; 1′55″ lost to Limewater diving (like 45″ behind), then Grana-Vallis is like 15″ slower so 1′ behind but the WR still has to Limewater dive. So it would lose 14″ going from forging Livart to wolf room, + 6″69 going left, + 4″44 entering Limewater Cave, then 46″ for Galba Shield, then 28″76 to get to the midpoint (this saves time as it isn’t done in the other route)…other route would take 35″63 to get to the midpoint right after the farm/grind, so WR loses like 1′10″ meaning new route is 10″ ahead, but then it loses 7″ going to midpoint… jesus, this stuff is close. I need to grind Grana-Vallis some more with the new route to see what exactly the time is.
Well damn… 6′34″44 new route Grana-Vallis with 147 Emel, but I noticed that for some reason I don’t have the Emel Mallet on this save so probably had enough Emel with it. But still, so slow… damn.
I question the grinding of moles in the last room though, there must be a better way.
7 moles killed in 20″46 = 1638 EXP
Wing room good, should be able to get 7 bombs in 7″ or better = 3465 EXP in 21″ no Emel though
37″24 going from lv18 in this save (almost no extra EXP) to lv19 from bombs in the normal room (not Wing)
much much slower with moles, 47″ and still no level
Edit: I even got a 33″08 with decent execution at bombs. Can’t find a strat for Wing room. The one the JP WR uses requires Livart lv4…

No idea why I didn’t have Zonplas’s EXP in my calculator but after looking into it, turns out my routing is overleveled.
lv EXP
18 8404
19 7004
20 5836
21 4864

My run fights Zonplas at level 20, so it misses out on 2568 EXP. My run prioritizes EXP to get to lv20 to fight Zonplas, but it might be better to instead prioritize Emel and fight Zonplas at lv18 with maybe Livart lv5 instead of lv4… testing needs to be done…
Tests:
50″24 lv18 lv4 cheating Zonplas in place
32″54 lv19 lv4 but I think I had 2 crits
20″60 lv20 lv4 again 2 crits
50″68 lv18 lv4 no crits lmao this luck
30″00 4 crits lv19
31″02 huh weird only 1 crit 😕
24″16 lv20 no crits but not perfect execution
if you remove RNG it doesn’t seem worth it to level to 19, since it took me 37″24 on bombs. (Edit: 33″08 even.) Haven’t looked into how the EXP ends up though.
1′42″79 15 crits lv18 using Rehdan Shield, clearly inferior. lol Even deal 0 damage often.
45″20 lv18 lv4 with 2 crits.
Killing at lv18 leaves you at lv19 with half or a little over half EXP.
Killing at lv19 leaves you at lv20 with 1/4 EXP.
Killing at lv20 leaves you at like, 1 enemy kill from leveling up.

Everything at Grana-Vallis seems to give 5 Emel which with Mallet is ×1.5 so 7, but flowers stay at 2 (1 + 1) due to flooring. Fireflies being the easiest to kill once you’re level enough, though moles may still be best due to combination of how many there are and the EXP… Edit: Moles seem to have a higher drop rate than fireflies too. Tested with full Luck, moles drop 100%, fireflies not quite.
Even with Rehdan Shield the fireflies drop basically no Emel, and the EXP is crap compared to moles. Moles still seem best for Emel (bombs are probably better EXP, so they’d be good for Nightmare).

Tempering:
lv Emel
2 5
3 13
4 34
5 88
6 230
7 600
8 1,540
9 4,010
10 10,900
11 100,000

I have no idea why I ever fought Zonplas at level 20, it seems totally overleveled. 19 might be optimal, or maybe 18. Edit: Might be leftover from when I didn’t grab Galba Shield, at that point level 20 might actually be good.

Trying to test a new route which is basically NM route but improved thanks to the weaker Normal enemies. Skip spiders, kill flowers until 52 Emel (you’ll get to level 10 or almost, 111HP doing this, can destroy bombs). The flowers themselves take ≈ 1′30″ but it’s an RNG hellhole. Have had 1′38″, 1′27″24, and 1′37″, 1′18″20 with Galba Shield. Without it’s literal hell, almost impossible to do without dying, but with good RNG farming on the first runthrough should be a lot faster than NM route.
After the farm you grab the Wing, teleport to Port, get lv4 Livart, grab Galba equips, teleport to mid Grana-Vallis. You now have lv4 Livart for grinding/farming, can do grinding in the Wing room if needed.
I don’t know if this is faster or not, 1′30″ is kinda a long time to farm when you’re only saving ≈ 1′10″ from skipping spiders and lv2 Livart. But having lv4 Livart from lv10 for grinding/farming should save some nice time (and should make grabbing the Grana armor unnecessary, even though it might already be with good play).
At lv10 with Galba Shield and lv4 Livart you 2-shot bombs, lv11 (117HP) OHKO.
Already at lv14 (134HP) you kill moles very quickly (5 hits).
At lv15 (140HP) it’s 4 hits.
So I tried going through Grana while killing bombs after the flowers farm, by the Wing I’m already lv16 (146HP).
I think this route is faster but it’s insanely hard and too complicated to time without doing an actual run.

Edit: timing from flower room to 51 Emel (rip) 1′52″92, finally did it without cheating I think. Don’t feel like that 1′27″24 was legit. lol Took me like 2 hours of attempts, good luck doing it in a run. I’m lv9 106HP with 1097 Next. Takes 1 bomb to level, requires a deep hit to kill I think. After that I guess you can keep destroying as many bombs as you can, I got up to level 13 129HP now (missed some).
Got carried away grinding bombs and leveled to 20 before Zonplas, rip. Forgot there was still farming for 140 Emel to get Brillante lv5… that leveled me.
Also retimed early dive strat, getting pretty consistently close to 1′30″ at the flowers. It seems slower by maybe 10 seconds:
early dive loss:
LC entrance to tp spot ≈ 1″, going back after Galba Armor ≈ 45″ (− ″94), going to mid after slimes ≈ 3″
= 48″06
no early dive loss:
farming flowers = 20″?, grinding a few bombs maybe? = idk (probably very little), extra tp in LC ≈ 10–11″
= 31″, maybe some seconds more

also straight to Wing would lose 10–11″ from extra Grana entrance tp, like at least 10″? (got 12″21 in test but was bad and stopped a bit late) going from entrance through the flowers path, save 20″ farming flowers… wait a second, is it fucking faster? May not be faster for TAS, but it might be in human play wow… so there is no NM route improvement, NM route is perfect already. lol Low level flowers farming is just too slow/hard…

Also I really don’t know whether this route is faster than the old one I use in my PB. There are many improvements that could be made on my PB’s route like triggering LC tp, leveling on flowers instead of spiders (≈ 14″ vs 20″), not grabbing Banded Mail and probably more stuff.

Edit: OK so following NM route, you should be lv9 when teleporting to mid Mountain, you kill the bombs on the way and grind at Wing room until lv17 (152HP). You then go for the moles and 140 Emel, doing this I got to lv19 with 157 Emel. I used the Rehdan Shield. /// Eh tbh Wing room is SUCH good EXP that lv18 (157HP) might be worth it, fighting Zonplas at lv20. The extra level saves ≈ 20″ at Zonplas I think, but then you also have just overall more EXP and are higher level going to Ud-Meiyu etc. /// It took me 9″42 to go from lv17 to lv18 in Wing room. LMAO lv19 takes 19″22 though and you still end up lv20 for Zonplas so it seems optimal to get lv18 only.

Can't wait to see a new run

Well there is a new run but it’s not from me!

I don’t think I saw anything new in it other than the skip near the end which saves ≈ 10–11 seconds only. Edit: at 56′35″ he also skips a cutscene where Ord is wounded by teleporting out of it! 31″ save there. Rest of the run has a whole bunch of differences compared to mine but I don’t think there’s anything too relevant that I didn’t already know. Oh yeah he gets double hits on Demi-Galba which I thought were too inconsistent to go for but apparently it’s possible.
Edit: Oh and he annihilates the Ark in like 3 seconds with Capla even being 1 level lower than me. That’s probably faster than using it on Ernst, but makes the run much harder as Ernst is difficult to fight without it…
Edit: Also he only kills 2 bees at the start and goes straight to Grana-Vallis from there. Considering he does NM route that makes sense as you don’t need the 5 Emel at the start of the game. I suppose killing 2 bees should be faster than 3 plants for the level, but killing plants is also pretty quick so who knows… and 3 plants are slightly more EXP I believe but probably doesn’t matter. Hmm it might be possible to kill 2 bees at the same time when they’re in a group though, and that might be really fast. Edit: You start the game 150 NEXT, plants are 50 EXP, bees 77 which × 2 = 154 more than 150 from 3 plants. Edit: Timed first plant room as ≈ 9″ without kill, + 1″62–1″78 with kill, and killing 2 bees is taking me long… 7″50–7″92 no kill and 14″19 2 kills even with a crit, I’m sure a TAS would go for bees but for a human 3 plants look faster to me. Just got 13″08 with a crit and hitting 2 bees at once while moving towards the correct exit (upright), super lucky. Even this might not be faster than 3 plants, lol.

Edit: Looking at vids I calculated the strat where you take damage before Geis loses ≈ 2″10 in the room, but thanks to RNG gains it back at Geis. 2 extra hits from Geis can take just ≈ 1″90 with perfect RNG, but that almost never happens. Much more often it’ll take 3+ seconds.

First a quick note: you can teleport out of getting mirror fragments, but it just softlocks the game for Zonplas and Ud-Meiyu, and for Orjugan even though you can duplicate the fragment (and get infinite Capla from Olha as a result), can make it so you can pause during its battle (teleport anywhere that isn’t Lake and enter the battle from the normal route), it still seems useless. Teleporting after it dies skips the death cutscene if you do it late, and respawns Orjugan if you do it early so infinite Orjugan% is also a thing.

What I really wanted to mention was the bat farming for Emel. If we consider each extra room visit takes 17″ (rough estimate that I really should try and get more accurate Edit: 14″ is more accurate I think, no magic use), and each visit yields 1000 Emel, getting Brillante to lv10 from lv9 is an extra 3′07″ (11 visits, maybe 10 with good RNG). Does the extra level really save all that time against Orjugan and Lanaluna (and Romun fleet / Kishgal door bosses)? This needs investigation.
On a similar note going for lv10 Ericcil instead would be + 51″ (3 extra visits), so I really don’t think this is a viable route. Even if Ericcil saved that much on Lanaluna (I don’t think so), it would still lose time at Orjugan and Kishgal, albeit maybe not very much.
Edit: Just checked my run and it took me 2′20″ to farm for lv10 Brillante, I suppose 17″ for each visit was a bad estimate. // It takes the JP runner only 1′40″ to go from 4k Emel to 14k… damn maybe my farming is just slow, lv10 Brillante might be worth it if you’re fast.

I just tested fighting Orjugan lv37 (267HP) and lv9 Brillante… it’s very much doable. Still only takes 3 magics + a few normal hits to kill. I have no idea why I ever went for level 10.
Also confirmed that while Lanaluna is more annoying and takes longer, is still very much killable with lv9 Brillante (only used 2 Herbs) and at most lv10 might save like, 1 minute maybe? I don’t even think the entire fight took me 2 minutes.
Edit: Got 1′30″ with all Luck equip lv9 Brillante lv38 (273 HP). In my run it takes me ≈ 53″. Edit: 1′08″ all STR equipment, even without coin. Edit: 1′05″ using the coin instead of Wooden Bracelet with Galba Shield. Btw all these times used the Emel Mallet, so there was no Luck/STR mixing, I just tested full Luck vs. full STR (except for the last one).
So: maybe Lucky Silver Coin is slightly better than Wooden Bracelet against Lanaluna, but how long does it take to get it…? Not getting it might be faster in the end depending on how much it costs, it doesn’t seem to save a ton overall.
Getting the Lucky Silver Coin costs ≈ 40″ (without considering equipping it) and I honestly kinda doubt it saves all that time back. Who knows.

Kishgal grind:
let’s say 6″ to kill 3 bombs and go back in/out (JP run time, he does it well)
1004 EXP × 3 3012 × 6″
Piana-Pullus is 29030
29030 ÷ 3012 ≈ 9.6
6 × 9.6 = 57.6″
teleporting to Port and killing Piana-Pullus is ≈ 40″ if done first try (lv44, Brillante + Ericcil magic and a couple attacks)
20″90 Gaposasura kill (lv41 Brillante lv10) Edit: 17″55 on a good run
9″16 getting back on track
6″57 going to it
36″63 total not grabbing the chest
27858 EXP
1205 bomb × 3 3615
27858 ÷ 3615 = 7.7 × 6 = 46″2
both Gaposasura and Piana-Pullus are faster EXP than the Kishgal bombs it seems. There could be something wrong with my math, though…
Also math’d that there’s no need to have high lv41 EXP before Gaposasura, you get all the levels you need without even killing a bomb, except for lv50 at Ark but as shown by JP runner that’s pretty irrelevant (this is with Starlight Medal). lv49 good enough, and depending on how much lv41 EXP you had you reach lv50 anyway.
It seems the Ark quickkill only requires 3 Capla (lv49), so you can use 1 on Ernst I guess. Not fantastic… but better than nothing I guess. 2 Capla are almost enough actually, only takes 1 Brillante after the Ericcil spam. At level 50 2 might be enough.

So I finally finalized the rough draft of a new route yesterday and got the WR back.

The run was absolutely atrocious and saved by the new route, of course. Sub 1:20′ isn’t hard and is my current goal.

I’ve also already improved the route further by going for Brillante and Ericcil lv7 and using 1 Capla Water at Piana-Pius, which should make the 1-cycle more consistent and just be faster in general because less time is spent on the slow slimes farm, and we can more quickly get to the bats instead.

I’m gonna have to test whether the Orjugan–Kishgal segment is faster with Brillante or Ericcil, since with this new route leveling Ericcil to 8 instead of Brillante doesn’t cost any extra time.

I’ve also got a few other ideas to improve the route, such as: ignoring the Rehdan Shield or using it in more boss fights… OK maybe not that many other ideas or I’m just forgetting them, but regardless there is still some work to do here and some strats to test.

I gave up on the double lv7 idea because you need to waste a lot of time getting EXP anyway, as getting 1800 Emel comes much earlier than lv28 or whatever’s needed for Piana-Pius (215HP). Maybe it’s possible to go a level lower, but I don’t think I even care to test that. I like the current route.

New 1:19′19″90 WR btw. I used the new timing of splitting at Ark death because that’s what my autosplitter does. As the only 2 current runners of the game (and WR holder) agreed on this timing in the other topic, I’m gonna assume this is official now.

I’ve tested a lot of things since my last post and I’ve been discussing on Discord, I’m not sure what the routing improvements have been since my last post but 1 is for sure: I’m not taking the Limewater Cave Capla Water because it costs ≈ 12″ to get it (unless my tests were wrong), and it doesn’t save that much on either Ernst nor Ark– extra Capla on Ernst saves very little, just makes it safer, while on Ark it saves ≈ 9″ so it’s not worth it.
Oh, another thing is I’m using the Ud-Meiyu Capla on Piana-Pius in an attempt to make the 1-cycle easier, but I still lost 1 minute to that split in the run. lol. I fucking hate that boss.
Oh and also, I’m not buying any healing items anymore. It’s really not necessary. You just have to be slightly careful at the start of the bats farm, and then they’ll drop way more Herbs than you’ll ever need. I tested that buying 1 Herb loses ≈ 7″, and an extra menu to equip a dropped one from a bat only loses ≈ 4″.

One thing I said in my previous post was testing not taking Rehdan Shield– I’ve given up even trying this as I feel even with it my drop luck is awful, so I don’t want to make it even worse. I have the feeling Ericcil might have better drop luck though, but I haven’t tested it. Testing stuff like luck is a bit bothersome, so while I’ll throw these ideas out there just in case, I don’t really feel like testing them and am content with the current route.

Edit: I’m pretty sure it’s possible to skip the Kishgal platform doing a dashjump special with Ericcil, but it’s impossibly hard. Maybe Livart magic can do it too but I’ve spent an hour trying and couldn’t (using 2 dashjumps to get extra speed).

Edit: Three things I’ve found out are faster since my run:
1. refresh flowers once (52 Emel farm)
2. dashjump magic before Lanaluna (I think it’s faster at least)
3. dashjump out of Lanaluna room, I didn’t know you don’t need to wait for the girls in this room…
Made a Lanaluna vid, 40″ with Brillante which is pretty good:

New WR by the JP, 1:17′32″ old timing (would be 24″ with new).

I really can’t believe this guy is legit, that movement tech isn’t human. Anyway, whatever:
1. He uses a new route to go from Galba Shield to LC mid, which only takes ≈ 28″ and is probably faster than going to mid first then back.
2. This is minor but he does the glitchy Grana-Vallis climb in an earlier spot at the start, which I probably won’t even implement because I doubt it’s helpful considering it makes it less consistent
3. He kills Zonplas minions when he can’t attack Zonplas, that’s smart as that’s free EXP and Emel (despite being very little).
4. His Orjugan RNG was insane and his kill amazing. Might want to try going for that instead of using the magic ASAP.

His run is literally perfect. Not sure why his time is that bad, I guess mouse really is much faster. I’ll beat it back when I have time…

Edit: Oh yeah I also wanna test a different slimes farming strat, noticed a lot of blue slimes while watching Night do 100% attempts in the second room, to the right. Hmm… meh, seems pretty silly. There are more slimes but they’re not really fast to kill, and refreshing them takes a while.

Edit: Another thing I can improve is doing the Ud-Meiyu top route with mouse instead of keyboard. Both routes take about 11″, but that’s with killing the lasers in the bottom route (540 × 2 + 450 = 1530 EXP), the chest cutscene takes 5″ basically so taking the Capla loses maybe ≈ 6″ and the EXP. That EXP is made in 1 room of slimes (271 × 7 = 1897 ≈ 8″).
Been thinking about not taking that Capla, since I’ve been trying Daifuku’s Piana-Pius 1-cycle strat and I’m not sure where to fit in an extra Capla in there anyway, and the extra menuing to equip it also loses 1 or 2 seconds (thought more lol).
But then again, in my PB I was very low on Emel– not EXP, so the extra EXP might turn out to be irrelevant…