Found a way to manipulate the crushers to get a cycle that saves 0.5 without dashmaster and 0.7 with to the standard cycle. On 1221 crushers are camera activated, so if they're not on screen they aren't active. Doing the jump between the first two crushers, delays the bottom ones enough that you can get past the bottom right one a cycle earlier and save time. Without DM you want to do the midair dash to stall it for slightly longer than just the jump. While with DM it's possible to land and still make the cycle to save the extra 0.2 (It's kind of tight though so can just do the dash in the air to be safe). Keep in mind if you land during the cyclone you can't do the midair dash because :spaghettiArrive:
Fastest dark room strat with dashmaster - extra dash after the big jump saves ~0.2 and imo makes the room a bit easier. Starting with neutral dashes is like a couple frames faster by my timing and is also easier. Go neutral for part of the big jump before the extra dash, and if you're too far right then go neutral for a bit of the double dash after. I included 2 diff starts, both are the same speed but one gets a free hit of soul (but is maybe harder to position)
faster cycle with no inv drop, saves ~0.4 over normal cycle, quite a bit more difficult but should be run viable. downdash like right after the shardmite to set up the crusher positions
.6 faster than going around, .4 slower than pogoing crystals on the left. enemy can be kinda in your way, but nothing you cant react to
can walljump off first platform, then pogo+dash off enemy and walljump up (if enemy spawns low enough) to do the strat w/o taking damage (still .6s faster than going around, .4s slower than pogoing crystals)
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