Several months ago, I posted a video in the guides section displaying how to skip the use of the Diallo Tochka completely. The benefits of this seemed clear-cut to me.

1. No Tochka menuing
2. Could move away before switches were triggered
3. The same resources used to capture the Cock Frighter could serve in place of the Diallo (Poison Staves)

But after watching suparanger12's first Bad Ending% run, I realized that the Diallo can serve to save time in Sealed Land, and anywhere where a Tocka bomb must be placed. The discussion is then this:

Is the time saved by the Diallo in those situations faster than simply waiting or finding another way to prematurely detonate the bombs? For instance, could one raise defense high enough for even Tochka bombs to have no effect? As I am in school, I don't really have the time to test these outcomes, though I will be passively working to improve my setup by grinding in the basement floors of the tower. I am simply curious about what other people think of this (as few as they may be at time of posting).

I suspect it is only relevant in terms of Bad Ending Percent, since the most Tochka bombs must be used in Sealed Land. But this is still an important consideration for optimization nonetheless.

So, it's been a while since I've played this, but since tochka attack is based off your attack/tochka attack/tochka attack bonuses on weapons it would be quite difficult to say the least to get to a point where you can tank your own bombs at point blank. I might look into this sometime, as I plan to get back into running this game sometime.

Ah, I see. As I said, I hadn't really looked into it at all. Maybe over spring break I'll do a run of Sealed Land with and without Diallo and try to minimize the differences to verify if the time difference is significant. Thank you for your input!

alright so, just did some quick tests destroying bombs without diallo, and tochka attack seems to be independent of the weapon you are using, while you can survive a bomb (my stats are 57660 attack 115427 defence and 9144 hp on shinobi assassin) the knockback is fairly significant and takes about 3 seconds to recover. Anyway, working on testing right now, having problems with remote play, won't be streaming from my ps4 for a while.

Update: you can use diallo to destroy bombs from close if you hold L1 to shield the damage from the bomb, you will take half damage (on my test about 1500) this also negates the knockback so there is no recovery time.

I've done some tests of my own after grinding out my defensive gear a bit. Seems I had some Tochka bonuses in the way that were making it look more dangerous than it was. I still think no Diallo is faster, and here's my proof.

I should note that even at 200,000 fewer defense, I was still able to survive my bombs without taking damage. The current defense levels are mostly just from trying to max out my Stamina Drop and Stun Resistance as best I can on the charm that has almost a million defense.

No... It's definitely not excessive defense... >.>

I should probably work on getting better gear at some point >_>. Anyway, I see the point you're making, and does the diallo tochka play a tutorial after acquiring it? I don't remember that. Well, another thing I was curious about, but have yet to test myself is if the bomb can be used to push you towards the direction you need to go instead of away, which would make the recovery time less significant.Though I imagine this would require really good positioning to save time. Basically could a bomb propel you backwards toward the rock instead of away, and if so would it save time?

Update - Alright so after some quick tests, this is possible but would probably require a bit of practice, as the sword likes to autoaim at the rock instead of the bomb.

There's a fairly long animation similar to ending a level. In addition to the animation played during the opening of the black box. It's my suspicion that these animations, in addition to the menuing required to switch between bomb and Diallo, and set up Diallo for switches, means that Diallo is unfavorable in at least most of these situations.

I also timed a run of Sealed Land with Diallo and without, and it was about ten seconds slower (despite me making fewer movement errors). I'll be putting up videos of that particular difference soon. Need to edit them first to make them presentable.

looking forward to it.

Alright, this is probably the last I'll say about this, I'm sure it's getting to be somewhat bothersome.

I've made a video detailing the nuances of the Diallo and non-Diallo routes in Sealed Land.

Main Bullets from Video: - Videos are offset by 0.680 ms to normalize timer synchronization (they are still offset due to software limitation - Menuing to a single Tochka requires about 1.1 s - There are 5 unique menuings in non-Diallo through the game, 10 or more for Diallo route. - Occasionally no knockback will occur in swords route, making it the fasest potential method - Perfect Dialloing may be slightly faster, but enemies will be auto-targeted, and positioning is important. Side Bullets: - Using Mystical Dodge saves no time, the rock is not removed fast enough. - Diallo takes a 12.550 second animation to retrieve, from start of animation to regaining control.

Well, seeing as swords looks to be the best way to keep going, I'll see if I can put together a video or something regarding my point earlier about being knocked back when destroying the bomb with the sword, if we can find a way to make it consistent that would be great, but you could also use the terrain next to the rock to stop from being knocked backwards and instead be knocked closer to the rock which might save time. I'll see if I can put something together after work today.

Not meaning to double post, but got some footage of what I was talking about, also tochka menuing really shouldn't take 1.1s if you know what you're getting out. Though I agree that sword is faster.

So, you're buffering inputs then for the menu selection? Good to know, starting a new run right now. Will try to see if I can reproduce it.