Small but cool optimization suggested by @!!cerpin. If you prejump dash after the fireball to kill the enemies outside GHusk, you'll clear the ledge at the end of the tunnel. I recommend either jumping at the divot in the ground marked in red or dashing at the notch in the ceiling marked in yellow.
Some things about this:
All of these advantages assume you normally wait until landing to dash after the tunnel, which you typically would to make sure you get the geo
Buffering the next dash out of the tunnel with the normal movement will have you dash above most of the geo. Air dashing means you can't dash early, so you can buffer the next dash on landing
Clearing the ledge lets you dash again a little earlier and exit the room faster; looks like roughly 2f/0.04s from my timing
Clearing the ledge also has you land a little further right, allowing you to pick up a few extra geo on average
This is a repost of an old strat, but with a visual cue instead of the weird way I did it before. When you enter the GHusk room, jump ASAP and dash when you meet this pointy thing in the foreground (screenshot). You can buffer your first pogo out of the dash, then buffer a second if the big enemy is facing left (first clip) or slightly delay if they're facing right (second clip) to avoid only hitting the background object. In the latter case, you'll also wanna do a turnaround slash as you enter the tunnel. This will give you at least two extra hits of soul before GHusk and will ensure that the fireball after will kill the big enemy instead of having to hope it'll double.
Greeding this is not always necessary for it to work but is recommended. Less greeding will eventually cause the right case to fail (third clip). For best results on both enemy patterns, the first dash should be as low and to the left as possible while still going over the enemies.
So as it turns out, since King's station is so long, you can actually just do 1 wiggle for this Lep setup. Cutting out this wiggle will save .1-.15ish for most people (If you're getting 1 or 2 frame wiggles, it's less than that.) Can work in DV, but since it's shorter, wouldn't completely recommend it.
There's a couple things that can go wrong: 2nd clip will show a wiggle that's too early. Don't greed it too much, you probably won't be prepared to do another wiggle. 3rd clip is a wiggle that was too late - the bell doesn't have enough time to come up before you exit. This is also why it's harder to do in DV. Extra troubleshooting: Make sure you’re fireballing late enough to give time for the bell to come up. Should be same cue as Leps. Also make sure to not dash before the wiggle is actually complete.
Solid damageless strat for the drop in the first deepnest room leaving QG (the normal inv isn't guaranteed to damage ofc but randomly does). Loses .2-.3s depending on how good you are at greeding the inv. The wallgrab is necessary to avoid a hardfall at the bottom. Intended for fury route, especially if you don't take the second heal after Petra Arena, but its a nice backup if you're low.
After the discussion that prompted the split of the Any% NMG ComSoB sheet, I started talking to CC about the last devout's FSM and theoretically optimal variations of the quick kill. In CC's words, the FSM briefly is:
Devout wakes up
Devout waits for up to 1s randomly for the knight to enter melee range before deciding to go forward; otherwise it'll start walking forward until it reaches melee range
If it walked forward it'll wait up to 0.5s to attack or walk backwards; if it didn't its up to 1.5s (attack/walk backwards is 50/50) So a VERY important thing is that you NEVER cross the melee part of the devout on your own, ALWAYS wait for it to walk forward
So from this we want a setup that:
Wakes the devout up as soon as possible
Encourages the devout to walk into you as soon as possible
Keeps you actionable when the devout does walk into you so you can chase it if needed to stay in its melee range and prevent a reroll
CC's suggestion is Fireball -> Dash -> Fireball -> Dash -> Fireball, with a bit of walking forward before the last fireball to get a bit closer to the devout's melee range (first clip). You'll then want to walk toward the devout if its either currently moving at you or has moved far enough to get you in its melee range, indicated by it stopping in front of you after walking at you (second clip). If it walks up to you then backs up, as mentioned above, do NOT walk toward it until it starts moving toward you again.
The last thing is that the devout can attack too early for you to fit four nail slashes while it's open. If this does happen, you'll wanna do a slight variation that saves the last slash for a second open, which you can force with a slash (third clip). Conveniently the extra damage from this cancels the freeze frames, making the strat lose about 0.6s-0.7s to an optimal quick kill. If you're low though you can just back up before slashing.
Dashing into position during this platform climb on the way to DV Stag is something the TAS did, but it was written off as barely being able to save time at the time, and seemed too risky to be worth. After retiming though it seems to be good in every scenario:
Optimally, it saves just under 0.2s (first clip)
If you're too low and get a corner correct, it's either the same or a couple frames faster depending on what kind of corner correct you get (second clip)
If you jump a bit high and have some hang time, it'll still save about 0.1s. Just make sure you do a neutral dash and don't start moving until you do the jump input to avoid falling off the plat (third clip) The fourth clip is the normal strat for reference.
(Credits to CC) Walljumping at the top from the right wall (first clip) is 0.1-0.15s faster than the old strat which jumps from the left wall (second clip). Though it requires you to react to the spiders position: If the spider is in the way, you can back up with the old strat by staying on the left wall.
This method of breaking the planks after petra arena (first video) saves about 0.1s-0.2s over the normal strat (second video). It also avoids the issue in the normal strat of being able to grab the plank wall and not being able to hit the planks. This really seems like one of those strats that's been discovered multiple times but isn't the norm for some reason. I noticed it in zVyper's trap bench ComSoB.
makes bad rng lose 0 (unless you chain, dash chain is prolly faster than chaining here) hold down at the start of room (dont release until you pogo or see you didnt get the rng) to make it easier, if you get the rng in these videos you let go of analog left (so u don't cling and can pogo) when near then pogo, dash, and during dash repress analog left to recling left video is new strat, right video is old strat new strat saves ~.3, but you can save more by getting chain (no video as this rng is v rare so i havent hit it and i cant be bothered. it saves time regardless.) (dont expect perfect timings for these strats, they are very hard to time as the rng is pretty rare) credits to @PsyKlone for helping with timing and labbing
Nifty little setup for getting 2 hits on the big enemy before GHusk regardless of which pattern you get. After entering the room, wait for the knight to pass the doorframe, jump and pogo, then buffer a dash out of your pogo. This will get you just enough height to get over any small enemies that may be in front of you. Buffer two more pogos out of the dash, and if the big enemy is to the left (first clip) both pogos should hit and you can dash through normally. If the enemy is to the right (second clip), you can do a turnaround slash as you normally would.
Both of these are the same speed as the normal strat for their respective patterns, but getting two hits on the big enemy ensures that it dies to the fireball you shoot when exiting. This should work for any enemy pattern since you can pogo off the decorations in the back if there are no enemies, so you can just autopilot up until deciding whether to turnaround slash.
Backup strat for getting knocked left during right-side rafters (second clip, first clip is normal right-side for reference). Requires 6 soul entering the room. Variation of sawayoshi's low fps strat with the dash/drift directions adjusted slightly to avoid killing the vengefly during the setup. Loses 1.4s which isn't great, but it's better than resorting to left-side.
Some WCS strats for the elevator below WK arena on the way to rafters.
First clip is the baseline strat without WCS
Second clip is WCS with a failed chain, which saves 0.0s-0.1s
Third clip is WCS with a successful chain, which saves 0.3s-0.4s
Fourth clip is WCS with no attempted chain, but instead a prejump dash, which saves 0.2s-0.3s. This strat was found by Stratus but doesn't appear to have been posted The variance in each of the WCS strats comes down to how well you greed the prejump + first dash for the elevator WCS.
TLDR; you should do elevator WCS here regardless, even if you miss the chain it's even/saves time. Whether it's better to go for the chain or the prejump is up to how often you hit the chain, but IMO the prejump dash strat is the best on average due to the inconsistency of chains in general.
Slight modification to this strat that loses another 0.1s or so but also avoids most of the bad patterns with the second to last petra. I'm using the background vines in the screenshot as a cue for when to dash. Still not an ideal strat but worth messing around with I think.
EDIT: I've realized you can decide which strat to do on reaction. As you dash to the first collapsible platform, take note of the petra's position. If it's very high and to the left, or directly in your jump arc, do this safer strat. Otherwise the original should work fine.
Consistent wigglebell setup for King's Station firebell. Hold left, tap right twice (as if you were doing nail turnarounds), dash twice after the turnarounds, and turnaround fireball at the spot indicated in the screenshot. Should work for fully greeded turnarounds (hard for me to say for sure since im just judging by eye with my own attempts) but will still save time over room exit with slower turnarounds.
This also works for Distant Village with the same visual cue, though optimally you can do the fireball right next to the loading zone because the room is shorter. Saves 0.4s-0.5s over leaving the room.
You may have seen the response to this attack where you fireball THK at the top of its bounce, then slash -> dash under to maintain positioning for another loop. Turns out you can also dash the opposite direction and it works just fine. This is especially useful as a repositioning tool when THK is in the corner (as demonstrated here) since the sloped ceilings would otherwise throw off the positioning for this damage rotation.
Been meaning to get a good clip of this, just happened to work out here. This enemies last strat for GHusk room often misses the double on the big husk on the way out. However, if you do this turnaround slash after pogoing it, the 2 nail hits will be enough for it to die to 1 fireball, meaning you don't need the double. Also extra soul ofc if you need it. https://clips.twitch.tv/BombasticProudDillKeyboardCat-TxBRzu6lygZXU2vn
Low soul strat for GHusk. Collects more geo on average, loses like 0.2s-0.5s to the normal strat (timing is v hard bc of GHusk rng), though situationally it should save time depending on how you normally collect that soul. The point where you dash after the big jump is kinda specific, since it's mostly what determines whether the pogo dash will make it into the lil tube thing https://youtu.be/kGir7C5M5bQ
Soul reroute + strat change for trap bench. Left enemy in the first room saves what looks to be about .5 to old strats, right enemy loses about .2 to left enemy. Be far away from the petra when you slash + jump up to it to increase chances of double. May be better to get the extra soul leaving Uumuu, needs more labbing.
Response to bad rng for moss knights. The wiggles are to go in and out of the moss knight's range so it can't attack you. You need to delay the fireballs a bit after breaking the rocks, else the first one can miss the further knight. Best to get close to the moss knight before firing to help that as well. https://clips.twitch.tv/ArtsyTrustworthyFungusBuddhaBar-2ktJ8h7mWbMxl4MW
Easy and consistent devout skip setup found by @Magma. Loses 0.8s to the above setup by Aksel. First clip shows what you'd do in 99% of cases, second clip shows what to do when it opens before you can upslash it (need to change strats on reaction for this to be consistent). You need to delay your dash over in that case, so the pogo just keeps you up for longer. If it backs up you just dash over it, though you're likely to take a second hit.
CC mentioned this a while ago but this pogo movement (first clip) is basically identical to the normal walljump movement (second clip), but because of the fewer dashes in the pogo movement I found it much easier to optimize and was saving 0.2ish most of the time doing the pogo. More importantly, you can get 1-2 soul from the pogo, which we need bc of firebell in lantern. This in conjunction with never collecting Spire geo in lantern and pogoing those enemies instead should hopefully mean you don't have to pogo the enemies in the big room before photoshop jump, which is often awkward and slow (especially if the GHS is in the way).
PSA about geo routing (particularly negotiating Spire geo, Lever geo, and Herrah Rock geo):
The colors on the last table represent the "tiers" of money, where green is fastest but gets you the least, yellow is average on both, and red is slowest but gives the most. They're ordered in this way because Herrah Rock + Lever is roughly equivalent to Spire (~30-35 geo).
So, from this the strats are:
If you're filthy rich (531 is the minimum assuming you pick up all the geo that drops) coming out of GHusk, Lever geo in Chandelier and in Lantern is the fastest.
For all other cases, start with Spire geo in Chandelier and get Lever geo in Lantern. If you have an extra cast after Spire Geo then also collect Lever geo in Chandelier. If you still don't have enough, get Herrah Rock geo after. Lever in Chandelier isn't worth if you're gonna get Herrah Rock after since it's faster to just get Spire in Chandelier and skip Herrah Rock, but the opposite is true for Lantern.
These have been floating around recently so I thought I'd put them in one spot in the hopes they get some more visibility. Individually they're pretty situational but combined they show up all the time, so it's good to have them under your belt. These all assume that the first spider is "dealt with", meaning it's behind you and is either running away from you or is far enough away that it won't hit you when you cdash. I gave 'em lil names just to distinguish.
Calli Slash: if the spider is running away from you and you're to the left of it, forward slash and instantly cdash. The combined damage of the nail hit and the cdash will kill the spider. Found by calligraphiti
GOAT Slash: if the spider is running toward you and you're to the left of it, up slash and instantly cdash. Same idea as Calli Slash with the bonus of the up slash turning the spider around. I'm not a 1432+ runner but I've been told this is worth with those spider patterns. Found by JaGOAT
Reverse GOAT Slash: if the spider is running toward you and you're to the right of it, up slash and instantly cdash (helps to go neutral just before the up slash to line it up). Uses the same turnaround tech as GOAT Slash but from the other side, so you don't go through the spider. Found by me :3
Keep in mind that if the spider is far enough right to turn around on its own these are generally not advised.
apologies for repeat posting, but you can actually avoid the chain if you do the wcs where you hold both directions at once (you actually dont need that type of wcs to make it, but its much harder without it) [i misunderstood how the wcs with both directions worked, it was just placebo. still recommended tho since its faster]. this is easier than the chain imo and looks like it saves another 0.2
Easy setup for double DNail at the start of the Uumuu fight (adapted from Gwonkee's movement). Just follow movement up to the final platform -> full jump, then DNail on landing. If you land in the center of the plat you can do them back to back, but you can move back if you land too close to Uumuu.
Alternate setup for Blue Lake WCS. I'm saving an average of 0.2 0.5 using timer mod, though my comparison is kinda rudimentary. The dash must be done from the ground and the walljump (full, neutral jump) needs to be done ASAP. Dashing at the beginning of the room instead of the long jump doesn't work, presumably because of subpixels.
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