As far as I've tried, Howe without OoB is faster than OoB but I still have to do some tests. And I tried denerim OoB and I think its slightly slower than the normal route
looks really cool, especially the new denerim gate skip. i'll have to try this stuff out once i stop playing card games and start streaming again. on a related note, I wonder doing fort drakon 2nd floor (right before archdemon) could be faster inbounds. That OOB section is really long due to the way you have to run. Probably too many enemies but maybe worth testing?
The denerim gate skip is really fast but you still have to get out of combat. And doing fort drakon 2nd floor inbounds is quite slower as far as I've been trying: 1º- The Genlock Shadow Master is really painful, he has a lot of health and he stuns you quite a lot. 2º- The Hurlock Emisary, randomly, he instantly uses crushing prison as soon as you go in, making the route a lot slower. 3º- If you dont kill the two ogres fast, they will be stunning you along with the genlock and its quite annoying. 4º-If you arent careful, you can trigger genlock's traps and lose time.
Ok, I realised that doing Arl Howe without OoB makes you keep a guard armor equipped which grants you a 21% of fatigue, making spells cost more mana. I'm not quite sure if that is going to be a problem during the run, but its something to take into account.
This can be a problem for the outside of Drakan, which requires a lot of mana. This often results in a loss of Haste. That said, it is not very important since we can recast it just after entering inside or just after passing the other side of the door during the OoB. Even without Death Syphon, Drakan is done without too much trouble. Flying swarm does most of the work. The spells really serve at the beginning for the dragon (s) as well as the two magi and the central archer.
Other small improvements :
I'm also working on a new routing that would only need to be level 12 during the xp-glitch instead of 14.
As far as I've tried, Ishaal's glitch is around 5 seconds faster and drakon's new OoB is like 6 seconds slower. Those are my impressions. And the new route can be really cool to save some time leveling up.
if you're interested in trying something else out, there's a skip i tried to make work a long time ago but got stopped by invisible walls. not for any%, but would be useful for all treaties. basically, same thing as how you get OOB in that fort drakon skip, but in the dead trenches (the huge area in the deep roads that ends with broodmother fight). you can teleport past the barrier right behind you at the beginning into a small tunnel and run around in there a bit, but I never could find a way to get past the additional invisible walls in that tunnel. maybe something like the transformation thing to get OOB in gate skip? i'm not sure though, it's been a while and can't remember all the types of things i tried.
After the any%, I'll focus on the All Treaties. Thanks for the info, I'll see that.
Ok, I tested a new routing for the spells we take. It's viable but I don't know if it really saves time. It consists of taking Fireball late, just after the landsmeet to be precise. At the beginning of the game, we still take Flame Blast but instead of Flaming Weapons, we take either Walking Bomb or Vulnerability Hex. The two are worth against the fire demon at the end of Harrowing and whatever one takes, we take the other just after the attribute-glitch. At the xp-glitch, we only have to climb to level 12 to have Flying Swarm, Haste and Anti-Magic Warp. We also put all our points in willpower since we no longer take Death Syphon. Not having Fireball forces us to slightly revisit the strategies of the fights but they don't change that much. Ishal in particular is perhaps slower. After the landsmeet, we take Fireball because it's still very useful for Redcliff, Denerim gate Skip and especially Drakon. And just before Drakon, we take Winter's Grasp for the dragons. Another advantage of being that level 12 is that the enemies are less strong ...
This routing is really for the Any%. I doubt we can do without Fireball early in the game in All Treaties or Max Quests. Perhaps the Romance% but without Flying Swarm of course?
Romance% probably needs new routing, but doesnt require swarm and I believe fireball can be skipped if we have enough practice with vulnerability hex / walking bomb fireball is just very easy to use early game
Here two new improvements.
The first is about Denerim, when we are going to save the elves. It enables you to go to OoB without using Sten. Between 5 and 10 seconds to win I think.
The second is in Ostagar and can trigger the Mabari quest, what teleports us rather than walking. That said, it's weird, not accurate at all and I do not definitely know how it works ... but it works! The saving of time varies according to whether we manage to make the glitch quickly or not. After a few tests, if you do not succeed in less than 25 seconds (from the moment you start walking) then it is not profitable. With all the tests, at best I win 18 seconds. At worst, I lose a dozen. On average it's 10 seconds to win.
man that second one is really weird, i wonder what happens that causes it to trigger the dialogue.
I have a hypothesis. First, I remember that when we want to go to OoB with Sten, sometimes we trigger an event. (Denerim gate skip, 1st floor drakan, in "all treaties" in the temple of the sacred urn, ...) The game teleports us a little further in the level instead of putting us in OoB. So, my hypothesis is that by mashing right and left here, we have a chance to climb on the small wall and be briefly in OoB. And according to my first point, we are teleported further into the level.
It's possible the default map position on ostagar is right next to that guy. We don't have sten or leliana there ever, so it's never been possible to check.
A small improvement for the interior of Howe's mansion. We go to OoB without Sten and we don't need to disguise anymore.
