a) Optimal run times (IGT)

• sub20 cutscene
• sub13.50 door
• 29.9-30s. offices
• flawless parkour with jump offsets to not do extra jumps, around 20 seconds total
• consistent gateless -> 1st try dogs w/ a cookie setup => 49-50s.
• bridge strat, with a good transition to ending => idkhowmuch, but you get the idea
• ending section is around 1:30.
• khamsin should be lower than 1:40 Optimal = 7:20 or lower.

b) The actual strats / setups

• mash hard on any end screen results
• 1st jump setup, extensive setup.
• stealth section, cycle offset depends on your 1st kill, if done late - wait for extra 0.5 seconds then do the rest.
• parkour, segmented parkour strat for ez rekkie xdxdxdxdxd
• gateless (inconsistent, haven't found a way to do it consistent)
• dog strat #1 (faster) / #2 (slower, less risk)
• G.R.A.D Skip - If you'll jump too far to the up, you'll trigger the 2nd GRAD prematurely. do not to that in any circumstances. 2nd jump is necessary to make the skip consistent, as it creates an offset for the 1st GRAD to drop his peripheral vision.
• Keycard setup - After a stealth kill, run for a second and a half against the bus, then go up, and then right.
• final jump setup. STEALTH SECTION IS NOT CONSISTENT AND DOES NOT HAVE A CONSISTENT SETUP SO FAR, TAKE THE FIRST 5 SECONDS OF THE CLIP WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

c) Khamsin HP Gating @ Pattern Changes 100 - 86: combo 85.9 - 55.0: jumps 54.9 - 35.0: combo 34.9 - 10.0: jumps 10 and lower: QTE

Boss operates on a queue, if that queue somehow gets stuck on an attack (aka not gives you a charge if you're staying far away from him) then you'll have to manually (by going closer to the boss) reset the queue. To get an optimal cycle, atleast 4 Heat Knives are necessary. You get 10 Knives during the run, though it's possible to do both strats with 9.

One HK is (usually) a miss, then you use that one to align your aim to the head. Head always goes from left to right. It is possible to stun Khamsin with 3 Knives during the first left movement, though the aim has to be flawless. Missing a HK deals miniscule damage, and does not add anything to the stagger, which is necessary for the Revengeance strategy to work.

d) Khamsin strategy comparsion cookie: 8 Knives to the head, drop to 80, run around and parry the attacks. PRO's: Rather consistent, parries are much easier to execute due to the amount of bullets. CON's: Has to parry one extra time.

Mekarazium: 4 Knives to head, adjust HP to 86.1 (extra knives while stuned / light attacks after parry), parries, adjust to 34.9, parries, adjust to 9.9. Adjusting is done by doing heavy 1-2->BM->light 1-2. PRO's: Faster by atleast 8 seconds, if executed correctly. CON's: Adjusting has some issues with queue, which leads to the instant run-reset if queue gets stuck, and lack of bullets to parry on a somewhat close-range is a huge CON.

Updated: 09.08.2022 e) 6:5x runs, and the ways to push the run to 6:49.8/9xx. Getting a 6:5x run is rather easy, given the category is tied to the mechanical skill and mostly has no randomness involved. Unsure if there's anything that can be used to push the run even further, there's a Parkour timesave (debatable), but i haven't found a consistent way of replicating a setup. This strat can be found here. This is the one and only strategy that can lend a significant advantage over a 6:56 run, if you're aiming for a rekkie that has something more than just "better" execution.

Execute everything above with little-to-no mistakes, mash through the dialogues fast enough, and get lucky at the start (to save 0.2s during Tutorial02). Khamsin is an RNG-barrier that can cost you up to 10 seconds. Segmented run has a very good Khamsin fight, but it can be pushed even further with better AI manips, or a different strategy. 6:4x run would require a flawless Khamsin fight, which is yet to be achieved

Updated: 07.03.2023 Since the last time i've updated the guide, there's been a few ideas that we could use in Revengeance run that would increase consistency levels in certain sections of a run, so i thought it's necessary to list these up... in case if you don't want to dig through all the things i've posted in #blade-wolf channel.

- Gates You can cut the gates with a Light attack and cancel that attack on-hit with a jump. Saves a few frames, the fastest IGT i've gotten was ~19.66, on average you'd get 19.7x.

- Outside Picking up Heat Knifes is not necessary. But you have to rotate your camera a little bit to not let Mastiff instantly detect you during the very first frames of your sprint, as his angle starts off looking directly at you, which is a problem. There's also a way to cancel an alert by doing some dark magic that i've replicated twice: example. Finding a consistent setup proved nigh-impossible, though it might open a 0.3s. timesave if such setup would exist.

- Offices Restartless Offices that were a theory a few months ago ended up with an idea to set a certain offset that would let us pass through the Raptor, all the Cameras and a few other memes. If you were to do offices this way, you'd have to delay the first Raptor kill by ~0.2-0.3s. to let the very first Camera pass through you during a Stealth kill, which would then allow you to clear the rest of the mission as "usual", with the exception being the final Raptor that can easily spot you. Perfect Offices (that would be nowhere consistent) would look like this: example

- Parkour Using mine-strat seems feasible to push the run into 6:35 zone. I've yet to see a person who would try to use that. Unlikely though.

- Escape section Features G.R.A.D skip ver. 2 aka restartless bridge - Skip the result screen, pickup the Heat Knives from the box, and dodge the 1st G.R.A.D by hiding behind the back and rear sides of the bus. Make a little effort on not getting caught by the 2nd one by timing your jumps.

I've a speculation on how to get through the Mastiff/Raptor "consistently" but i need some data and some way to replicate the jumps.

Khamsin Segmented strat that was used by COSMOSJP does not solve the queue issue Khamsin has. If you want to replicate this strat, you need atleast 8 Knifes, and you have to hit them in a 3+4+1+2 pattern. The 7th Knife has to connect during the Jump, otherwise the skip wouldn't occur. By using this strat, you can get <1:30 Khamsin on a semi-consistent basis.

(likely) good run would be around 6:37-6:40. The only possible improvement i see as of now would be using Mine boost on Parkour section, that would introduce yet another reset-heavy element to a run that i'll include in a run later this year.

Updated: 17.07.2023

• It is possible to skip Tutorial prompt by mashing RMB.
• Office small optimization: you can use running Heavy attack and then cut the guard, if by any means you have problems with getting a decent cut. Loses ~0.5 seconds on average, depending on the attack timing.
• Office small optimization: Let go of any movement buttons for the 2nd guard (after the Hammer), let the Wolf slide into the door frame, tap Right + Ninja Kill. This gives you a better camera control, which can potentially solve the issue with the camera instantly detecting you after you're done with the kill.
• Somewhat good offices would look like this, even though it is possible to get an even faster offices without making a big delay at the very start, but that never ever gave me a 27.x due to the camera pattern that you have to keep in mind.
• Mine boost strategy does not save any time: average parkour mineless goes around 16.8, average parkour mine goes around 16.6. Given you would be grinding Offices for 28.x a lot, not sure if you want to do parkour w/ mine setup outside of segmented, especially with low 28's being a rarity on a higher level of gameplay. -I have a strong suspicion that doing Blade Mode Light attack Cancels on Khamsin (especially after the 1st parry) somehow break his AI (as using Blade Mode slows down the game, so the faster you do BMC's the easier it is for AI to break in some capacity, idk) and gives you more attacks (read - resets, as a single attack in 84.9-100% range is a 5s. timeloss) than you need on a distance.

Updated: 13.09.2023

I think it's the last time i'll update these notes, even though i highly doubt a single person actually found these notes useful.

First of all, important bits.

Khamsin: Queue still exists and it is the major part of the boss. Hitting or delaying the hits with any kinds of offsets does not cause an "AI break" as i wrote earlier, but most importantly, you do not have a potential way to get 2x damage off a parry, which i've tried to look at for a lot of time.

Final room pre-Khamsin: Two new setups to try out, the latter is RTA non-viable - 1 and 2

Parkour: Mines - 16.3 - 16.6s. Vanilla - 16.6 - 17.0s. Mineless - 15.9 - 16.3s.

Rest of the rrun is still the same mostly.

It is possible to get 6:2x if you do everything flawlessly, including Khamsin

Updated: 01.07.2024

Given the "new" boss cycle that i've found a while ago, and given we can potentially save a few seconds on some movement sections, there's a possibility of a 6:19:xx run no longer being a meme. I'll see if i can pull such a run.

I guess i'll start with a different mineless strat that gives more consistency over all the other things i've tried to put into the route. Jumping off the edge before the first mine ring, then doing a single Light attack to preserve both the inertia and the height, into really a late Heavy attack allows the runner to bounce off the edge of the box, and land directly into the end marker. You don't need mines to do the strat, the speed should be more than comparable, and this is RTA-reliable which should be the biggest concern for anyone who wants to run the category.

Every section that comes after the mineless is mostly the same, i highly doubt there's a better way to cross certain places and locations, there's no feasible way to move even faster (which is bad). Jumping is slower than actually moving, so that's important aswell.

The "new" Khamsin strat: Parry (80%), Blade Mode Cancel the 1st hit until Khamsin jumps (76-75%), Parry, Blade Mode Cancel until the jump (55-53), Parry x2 (34-32), Blade Mode Cancel the 1st hit until the jump (~31%), Dodge the attack, throw 10 Heat Knives to the head (2.5% each).

Pretty sure Blade Wolf is solved.

Good luck.