Hi, new player here, I recently watched the 15 minute record run and was wondering what the inputs and necessary binds are for the first skip on the first level. I play on console so I have different inputs for self, area, directional, and weapon casts and I can’t tell which of each he is using.

Hey, glad to see new people trying the run. You are probably the one who asked this on youtube but I'm happy to give a few more details. You need to bind guardian (3) and sacrifice (4). There are a few different ways to do the boost and also variations for different skips, but here is what I do for most of them (including the first one):

I use water on myself first, place guardian (always place it opposite from where you are going to place the mines), while placing guardian prepare the first set of mines (shield + life + 3x water), use sacrifice, spam the mines to place 3 or 4 sets depending on how far you need to go (and how fast you are at making them :D), prepare the water rock (rock + 4x water), cancel sacrifice with lightning (that's why you have to use water first), finally go close to the mines and use the water rock using directional cast. The hardest part is actually not doing boost (that's just muzzle memory at some point), but killing yourself with lightning while flying at the right moment (not too early because you weren't far enogh but also not too late because guardian already ran out). If you do it exactly right you can even skip the respawn animation, but i haven't been able to do that consistently (yet).

As I said, it can be done in different ways, and my way might not be the best for you, especially considering you play with a controller and I don't. If you have any more questions feel free to ask them.

Adding to this, I just noticed you can actually place guardian first and cast water on yourself directly after. It will cast water without any animation saving a little time each time you use the boost.