Nice! I've found switching to a different character right when he's about to stab you and then switching immediately back (you have to do that or else he'll just stab the second character) also works, but not 100% of the time. Good to see a more reliable method.
So after watching polarbear's run I was curious if there was anything precise to this trick. As in, any sort of small timeframe you had to perform the maneuver.
And, well...
Not at all. It seems so long as you're moving diagonally up, you'll always avoid their attack. At least as Pearl, I didn't try any other character since we're always controlling Pearl at this point.
Down diagonals don't work -- they hit you.
But yeah. With this I'm confident everyone can consistently skip these fights. When I got hit at the end, it was because I wasn't at a diagonal and was only moving to the right.
Ended up with a battle music glitch occuring but I figure that kinda makes the video more intense so I kept it.
So update on the other fight in Team Pearl. The route Polarbear has been doing, Greg gets his final level up via a charm. The other fight is consistent to skip, and he along with Pearl and Amethyst don't need any experience. So the other fight isn't necessary but seemed unavoidable as the ghost enemy still aggros all along the ledge with the block.
I had a run die here just now, which is unfortunate, but I figured I'd take the time to mess around, see if I couldn't find some clip or OOB shenanigans. Instead I found this.
I think it's pretty precise when you change party members. But I think we have about half a second of opportunity. In the area behind the rubble, the enemy doesn't aggro. I also figured out that like Pearl, if Greg moves at a diagonal he doesn't get stabbed. I managed to get this to work once and clipped it (more glitch music lol). So I get Greg behind it, have Pearl toss her spear, and you can switch characters while the spear is in motion. Do it fast enough and I suppose the game reads you as being controlled by Greg and won't attack you. Switch back to Pearl so you can keep avoiding it and viola. Both fights are now potentially skippable.
And also since I discovered it I'd like to dub it the Pearl skip, thank you.
More updates.
So it seems, not only is it just moving at a diagonal... literally just moving at a diagonal is enough. You can run against a wall and it still works. Just taking a little bit of time and not being greedy for a few seconds, avoiding them before the key is like 100% a consistent thing now.
Update on Pearl Skip:
This was the skip prior to me trying the diagonal thing. So, you can see I don't hit the block for about a whole second until switching over. I noticed that the thing that seems constant whenever I get the skip to work is that Pearl is hugging the wall or otherwise really close to it. I've seen Polarbear get it a few times and it's the same story, it works when Pearl is up near the wall.
So I believe that this skip succeeding has less to do with the cycle on the enemy's attack and more about Pearl's position prior to switching back to Greg. Thanks to finding out that Pearl can avoid the attack by simply moving at a diagonal, she can run up against the wall and, well, you can just wait until you get an opportunity to throw the spear. I think you'll still want to be careful on switching, because if you do while it's about to attack I think it'll just go hit Greg anyway. But yeah, between seeing you have at least a full second and Pearl can simply run against the wall, it should be a lot easier to get done in runs.
