Nightmare:

Start of fight 2 possibilities:

1. go to Adol and punch, 2. stay up (rarer); this is RNG so any mixture of the two is possible.

When ≤ 1536HP:

1. fly away and do the pollen attack, 2. go to Adol and punch (rare), 3. stay up (even rarer). All these behaviors are RNG so you might get 2 pollens in a row or 2 punches in a row, I’ve had 5 or 6 punches in a row happen, but only 2 pollen in a row strangely enough, but I’ve had a sequence of pollen ×2 → stay up → pollen again, which would lose a ton of time if it’s not hittable.

When ≤ 1152HP:

Same stuff but pollen becomes spawning minions; it can still do it but it’s fairly rare. At this point the lower its HP the more minions it will spawn at once.

Each pollen attack loses like 12″ if it’s not hittable. So the strategy is get it to 1537HP, wait for it to lock in the punch action, then deal as much damage as you can and if it goes perfectly I think you can skip the pollen phase entirely. Then you just keep dealing as much dmg as you can while killing fireflies on dead time, if you still need Emel it’s best to drop Zonplas to like 20HP so it spawns the maximum amount of minions at once.

Edit: Actually after rewatching our PBs I don’t think manipulation is even necessary. You always just get 1 pollen attack anyway even with bad manipulation… you just need the RNG to be able to hit. If manipulation could skip it entirely reliable it would be good, but I haven’t even gotten it once; maybe on Hard it would work. Edit: Of course as soon as I say that I get a run where manipulation would’ve helped me.

For Normal the HP threshold is 640HP and you can actually skip the pollen attack entirely with perfect execution. I think it would be too hard to do in a run though, so I don’t think it’s useful.

New route, new WR 1:13′11″.

About the run: SUPER happy to finally hit such a nice time after days of grinding. This WR has taken me the longest out of any I’ve ever done in this game, maybe any game. A bit of a pity missing the Kishgal dashjump cost me the 1:12′, though (I really should practice that…). I played it very safe, doing stuff like skipping the Lanaluna early magic hit (Edit: with Brillante lv9 you miss some dmg if you do it early though), buying 9 Herbs 9 Meat, not going for fast cycles at Piana-Pius, not using magic to save time at Galba-Roa and keeping it for safety for Ernst, and not doing the Ark dashjump so if you’re insane there’s technically some time save there. Had bad RNG at moles (10 rooms instead of the standard 8, 7 is possible with great RNG), bad RNG at slimes which cost me extra kills and extra menuing to equip Rehdan Shield (≈ 30″ loss), bad RNG at Orjugan bats (sometimes they’re on a “fast” cycle sometimes on a slower one, you want the fast one so you can kill with 3 magic + bats easily), bad RNG at Lanaluna (2 rolls, 1 is average, 0 is best) but I also played it poorly because I slipped a lot and didn’t kill before the 3rd RNG attack. Also I just realized I missed most of my 3rd magic and it took me 4 to kill Orjugan… that was weird…

Possible improvements: I’ll put this here just to have it documented but it’s not much of an improvement more so of a different method for slimes grind, movement RNG is what determines speed here anyway; you can walk up a bit and kill the 2 on the right, then walk down and kill all 3 above you but it’s fairly inconsistent. Edit: Doing this with 3 charged slashes instead of 2 is still faster:

1. Maybe killing some flowers while going up the mountain would be faster? Needs testing. Edit: This is only faster for TAS imo, my best attempt took ≈ 2′50″ to get 52 Emel and get to Alma chest, and current route only takes ≈ 2′40″ (59″ to Alma, 11″ extra tp, 1′30″ for 52 Emel). My best attempt at the first room was 18″ faster than that though, and my second room there wasn’t even good, so I definitely think it’s faster if done well but too hard to do (I’m technically not accounting for the menuing to equip Wooden Bracelet but that’s only like 3″). Video:
2. Galba-Roa 1 level down, remove all Kishgal grind? (the 6 bombs and 4 360° shooters) Edit: This seems slower, the level up is really quick to get.
3. I think I calculated that technically getting the Ud-Meiyu accessory slot is faster because it removes a bunch of menuing. Edit: This is only true if you equip Wooden Bracelet before Piana-Pullus (+ ≈ 2″) otherwise taking it loses 8″ while only saving 7″ (″45 from putting Bell in empty slot, 1″6 from not needing to switch Bell for Wooden Bracelet before Orjugan, 5″ from Kishgal accessory chest).
4. I’m actually messing up by swapping Wooden Bracelet back in right after bats, I should wait to get to Lake so the equip and teleport are done in 1 menu instead of 2.
5. Maybe keeping the magic to kill Ud-Meiyu while it’s falling from the sky is faster than killing it with the glitch? It looks like its death is not registered until after it touches the ground anyway, so dealing dmg while it’s falling down should save time. Edit: Yep, this saves time, got a kill with only 4 triple specials but it requires near-perfect execution plus crit RNG, so in a run I’d go for 5 instead:
6. LC dive early might actually be faster. I’ll put the latest calculations I’ve made at the bottom of the post. Doing the early 52 Emel is still the fastest though.
7. No idea how I missed this but buying 9 Meat after Orjugan makes no sense. O_o You can buy before Orjugan on the way to making Brillante lv9, it saves a couple of seconds.
8. Early Ericcil lv2 is actually bad, it gives you 1 extra scrolling.
9. Killing fireflies as you walk across the room is actually faster, can save 2 moles rooms (18.5 avg Emel) and only loses ≈ 8″ if done well, basically 1 moles room for more Emel. I’ve had enough Emel in 4 moles rooms but that felt like an RNG bug, literally permadrops; average is 6/7 rooms (compared to 8). This might require you to hit near-perfect 5 bombs rooms though or you might lack EXP.
10. Pretty minor but dashjumps are faster for Galba-Roa phase 2 instead of upthrusts as shown in my Nightmare video; it’s much easier to double hit with them. Ericcil special attack would also be faster phase 1 I think but I’m not good enough at mashing…
11. Another minor ≈ 1″ improvement at Kishgal, new route going to the bottom of the room.
12. Skipping all Capla and just buying 1 time (2 Herbs for Pius and 4 Meat for Ernst, 3 are enough but much harder; costs 6.8k Gold). Also doing Ernst with Starlight Medal so you’re 1 level higher for Ark making the 1cycle more consistent (since you have no Capla to get 3 magics for it).
13. Minor strategy improvement at Demi-Galba, not jumping out during arm swings.

Tips and tricks: First of all I play windowed so I use Dxtory to force 61fps otherwise some glitched jumps don’t work, and ClipCursor2 to limit my mouse to the game window so I don’t randomly click outside it.

1. Set up your menus before starting a run. What you last picked in a menu is remembered by the game so you want your first menu to be on Inventory and Wing of Alma and Limewater Cave so you can just mash your first tp. I’m less sure about this but I think you also want to set up your Equipments so you’re either on Shield/Armor or Accessory to make that faster after the LC dive, and you also want your equipped Items to be selecting Herbs (if you’re using my route where I need to equip Herbs anyway). The way to do this is to first set up the Herbs because that’s remembered, then you pick either Accessory/Shield/Armor whichever you feel is fastest and go back, go to inventory, tp to LC and get yourself killed so you can quit out to the main menu without changing any of the setups.
2. Some loading zones are height-dependent, so it’s best to trigger them with a lunge rather than a dashjump; examples: Ruins first staircase, Romun staircases (going downwards). Speaking of loading zones, pay attention to my Escape split and how I stop moving at the earliest possible moment to trigger them as fast as possible (Adol’s distance to the girls matters). Also speaking of cutscenes, wherever Adol is walking in a cutscene, that’s slow, so you want to minimze that time, be it by dashjumping during the trigger or by positioning yourself as close as possible to where Adol wants to be when triggering the cutscene (for example at Ark you don’t wanna jump up as fast as possible because then Adol has to walk a long way, or when opening Livart/Brillante doors, etc.).
3. After a teleport you can mash dashjump and it’ll work ASAP, this is most visible/useful at the first tp of the game where you can easily do 2 upward dashjumps without talking to the NPC if you mash, while no runner has ever been able to do it while timing it (at least on video). Similarly useful to avoid talking to the Rehdan NPC, but that one is actually harder and I still fail it while mashing sometimes. Also similarly, you can kinda do the same after dialogues but if you mash too fast you’ll get a “stunted” (slower/bad) dashjump so don’t mash too fast. This isn’t always true though… for example during the Geis cutscene at the Grattheos Talisman place, you can mash dashjumps and it’ll work even though it has dialogue, so I don’t know exactly how it works.
4. When tping you can press diagonals to make 2 cursor movements at once. For example from Port to Mountain you can just do Up + Right and do it in 1 input instead of 2.
5. If you have trouble with a specific boss or trick or movement, go practice it until it’s not an issue anymore. This is true of everything in the run except for Piana-Pius, Piana-Pius will never not be an RNG bitch.

LC early dive: WR time loss: 12′08″ WR flowers enter, 12′35″ accessory chest so 27″ loss 10″ tping to LC almost less because it’s mashable, ≈ 14″ tping to Mountain entrance and equips 24″ total + 27″ 51″ total 15′04″5 start moving 15′10″4 flowers enter so 6″ loss, 52 Emel takes ≈ 1′23″ with good RNG, remove the 6″ walk and it’s 1′17″ = 2′14″ total loss early dive loss: 43″ from LC mid to entrance 1′33″ flowers enter to accessory chest so total 2′16″ loss, 2″ slower than WR route but I’m not accounting for the menu to equip stuff, nor the slightly longer distance from LC entrance first room compared to a tp, but I’m also not accounting for the time possibly saved from killing bombs while climbing the mountain…

It’s a core game mechanic, albeit you’re not really meant to chain them together I guess. You can double click and attack + jump, or tap the direction you’re facing and attack + jump if using a gamepad.

Made a page to calculate Adol’s stats: http://alaktorn.wrvids.com/Ys_VI_Stats.php

1:15′37″ WR with new route:

Mistakes: Demi-Galba death, grinded 1 level higher for Piana-Pius for safety, was slightly 1lv lower for Lanaluna, bought Meat, forgot to charge Brillante for Galba-Roa, multiple deaths at Galba-Roa (how?!), death at Ernst, death at Ark. I’m surprised the new route is this slow, I was expecting a 1:14 at least, which tbh I would’ve gotten if Galba-Roa didn’t suddenly start killing me when it never happened before…

I need to check whether the .5 level at bats is worth it, it cost me ≈ 14″ and it doesn’t really save any time at Lanaluna (maybe 2″ or so). The problem might be Gaposasura though, need to test whether you can kill more Romun soldiers to get the level anyway. Edit: Tested without extra EXP: Could only kill 1 more soldier. Need 4 for level. So I think you need to kill at least a few extra bats for EXP… maybe just 1 extra room refresh, if it takes 2 might as well just keep going like in my WR I think. I haven’t tested Gaposasura down 1 level though, maybe if it doesn’t lose like 10″ it could be faster… that’s only with the buying Meat route though, which I assume most if not all future runs will do just because it’s so much safer and only loses like 10″.

Edit: I re-run the Kishgal bombs calculations and it seems to break almost even with Gaposasura (≈ 40″) + 10 Meat buy (≈ 10″). If I try the 1 level down route, maybe at that point it’d be best to straight skip Gaposasura and the Meat… in my old bombs calculation I wrote the wrong EXP for bombs in my first calculation somehow… Anyway: 1205 (bomb EXP) × 3 3615 = 1 room 26098 (Gaposasura EXP) ÷ 3615 ≈ 7.2 rooms needed, or ≈ 21.6 bombs (so 22) 7 rooms × 6″ = 42″ but the very first room refresh has an extra ≈ 1″ so 43″ I guess So yeah I think Gaposasura is only worth it if you have like 7 Herbs and are lv41, if either of those isn’t true just grind bombs. If you have like a god run you can still buy 9 Meat and play it safe so you have Meat for Galba-Roa too (and don’t randomly lose 1 minute lol).

Yeah I don’t know. lol You could maybe argue that you could technically trigger the glitch when going for a 100% run unadvertedly, so it should be allowed… but that’s a pretty thin argument. I wouldn’t be against either choice whatever people want to do.

Did another derust with the new no Emel Mallet route. From Orjugan on it’s harder and it shows, I died a bunch. I was ≈ 2′ ahead of my PB if you don’t consider the first split I messed around with, so the route looks good I think.

After it I figured out taking Rehdan Shield actually saves time even just for the moles even if you were to just go for 88 Emel for Livart lv5, which is slightly faster up until the slimes grind but I don’t think there’s a fast way to do that without Brillante so it doesn’t work out. I practiced getting double hits against Demi-Galba and it seems doable. Had a 30″ fight with 0 crits (my gold is 29″ with 1). Had a completely insane Zonplas RNG in that derust gold, will upload the vid. Might upload the Demi-Galba fight too to show off double hits.

I may say something stupid because I don’t remember exactly how the game works, but it feels like going back to the menu mid-run kinda invalidates the run? Couldn’t you just start from the last level right at the beginning at that point? idk

Edit: Posted this without reading any replies, brb.

Edit: I don’t remember how 100% works but I guess if there’s the argument that on a fresh file you could get to level 8 then activate the glitch and finish the game… I guess that’s fine?

Did a whole bunch of tests and wrote on Discord about possibly skipping the Emel Mallet. It seems to be slightly faster, but I’m not sure, and it also makes the run much harder: so this was the time save for skipping Mallet (20″ beach, 11″5 getting it, 14″ getting Ud-Meiyu accessory slot) also skipping Rehdan Shield saves ≈ 8″ so 53″5 saved total from skipping Mallet and going Brillante lv9 the time loss in just the boss fights is… 20″ Orju 10″ Lana 8″ Gaposasura = 38″? there is more time loss at example Moles, Slimes, and Kishgal door fights but it’s hard to quantify and probably very small meaning… it’s maybe faster to skip Mallet, but certainly harder also keep in mind… beach split can be improved a lot with better glitch strats, but I haven’t found setups to make them consistent

So basically skipping Emel Mallet but going for lv10 Brillante I’ve tested is a lot slower (took me 1′14″ for 5500 Emel with Rehdan Shield, 1′22″ in another attempt I forgot if it had Rehdan or not, probably did). Which means if we’re skipping it we gotta go lv9 Brillante, but still need the same levels or the bosses become impossible. But not needing Emel means we can also skip Rehdan Shield (8″ saved I wrote in the past), and not needing to equip the Mallet means we can skip the Ud-Meiyu accessory slot (14″ saved but misses 1 kill of EXP).

Edit: Uhm… unexpected time save…? I just did the bats grind in 2′59″ by just going for lv9 Brillante. That’s ≈ 50″ faster than my derust… (3′50″). Does this mean skipping Emel Mallet is actually a lot faster? I really didn’t expect being able to use Galba Shield over Rehdan Shield would save SO much time… like what…? It’s ridiculous… well that and the not needing to run around the room collecting 11k Emel ig…

Orjugan becomes a lot harder because lv9 magic is shorter so you have to walk closer to hit it with it, and it requires 3 magic + a lot of bat hits or 4 magics + a tiny bit to kill. I’ve also found out bat dmg is determined by your STR, Livart whirlwind is really good at hitting them back but at lv4 it deals 0 dmg.

Just did a horrible derusting run but it gave me some new ideas.

Testing Piana-Pius without Capla (saves 5″ from chest alone, gains 3 kills of EXP): playing with 5 Chito Nuts seems pretty doable for Piana-Pius my PB has 4 Nuts and 3 Honey 20HP and 50HP so 150 total with the Honey 5 Nuts are 100, 4 might be enough even so yeah it looks doable without the Capla… that’s interesting… gonna be some annoying RNG though survived with 183HP, bad RNG both cycles lol kills 3 extra enemies that’s 450 × 3 EXP 1350 1 room of slimes is 5 271 each 1355 lmao it’s literally an extra room worth of slimes grinding, meaning ≈ 7″ saved so it saves about 12″ total Edit: My latest derust did Piana-Pius first try with 3 Chito Nuts, survived on 6HP.

Also I found out you can jump + magic an Orjugan hand and damage it with the magic. Has a nice fight in my derust, might clip it later or something. Also against Ark it’s probably better to not spam magic immediately on 2nd phase and instead just do slahes while you can, then magic during the beam attack. Edit: You can hit the Ark during the beam attack with dashjumps to the side… (left side best?). You can lunge to hit the very first part of phase 2 but only with Brillante, so the glitch combo thing doesn’t work. Orjugan fight:

I tested a run without Starlight Medal and it doesn’t seem very plausible, the biggest problem is Ark 1 cycle (I’ve written before it saves ≈ 26″ to skip it): 1lv down Piana-Pullus, still fine (Livart double dashjump ~ magic) lower level throughout Kishgal which probably costs a couple seconds + having to kill 2 extra bombs and some flamethrowers costing some more seconds 1lv down Galba-Roa losing a few seconds especially phase 2 2lv down Ernst is surprisingly still killable with just 2 Capla Water but no magic for Ark 1lv down Ark without magic, kept 1332 HP with bad RNG last beam… with good RNG it’s possible, but this isn’t something I wanna do in a run.

Getting Emelas Crown is actually slower imo: waste 5″ (more with good pathing) + some more to kill a few bombs to get Emelas Crown for slightly more crits and survivability skip all that and get lv50 for Ark (meaning you keep Starlight Medal equipped), but make Roa/Ernst slower + harder

My derust run did the latter and golded Ark without having any charged Magic, only used Ericcil once on phase 2 after taking dmg, but I needed 1/3 RNG. Roa becomes several seconds slower without the crits, also kills you in like 3 hits. Ernst isn’t that much different I think but still a bit slower due to lower DPS. For runs I’ll grab it if I kill Gaposasura close to the chest, but if I have to backtrack to it (optimal kill) I’ll just skip it. Edit: I’ve started switching the Starlight Medal for Wooden Bracelet in runs but I’m not sure what’s faster. This means we need to kill a few more enemies (≈ 3″ loss) and then switch Starlight for Wooden (≈ 1″ loss), but it makes Roa and Ernst easier + faster. I also golded Ark doing this and keeping 1 Capla for it because Ernst was easy enough that I didn’t need it… I also just barely got the Ark 1-cycle with Brillante + Ericcil magic and bad RNG. Without 2 magic it’s impossible if you get bad RNG, and even with it it’s something that has like 25% success rate.

I kinda feel the same way as Laika, I think the setup for the glitch not counting towards the speedrun time is questionable… I would probably vote for not allowing it.

I’ve finally tried determining whether early LC dive is truly slower than Wing first or not. I tried thinking of what all the differences between the 2 routes are and timing them, while disregarding all sections that would be the same.

early LC dive time loss: ≈ 2′20″ LC dive ≈ 2″ extra pause to equip items 1′ 52 Emel (time start after picking up last Emel in first flower room, ends at regaining control after chest) but you can start grinding bombs on the way up… = 3′22″ time loss

Wing first time loss: 34″ climb to accessory slot chest in PB 2 extra TPs ≈ 22″ 39″ + ≈ 50″ = 1′29″ my PB’s LC dive to after chest ≈ 6″ of Grana entrance again movement ≈ 40″ getting 52 Emel and this was a bad split (time start after picking up last Emel in first flower room, ends at 52 Emel) = 3′11 time loss

I could not quantify the time save in early dive route of grinding bombs while climbing to Wing, but it’s probably only a few seconds and the difference between the routes is ≈ 11″… so unless I’m missing something, I think early dive is slower (and harder).

Edit: Tried routing skipping the accessory slot in Ud-Meiyu’s dungeon, which pretty much means you play without Wooden Bracelet. It takes ≈ 20″ to get it + 1 kill, skipping it takes ≈ 9″ so it saves 11″. You kinda need the experience though (unless you skip the Capla), and having −2 STR/DEF throughout the game is probably really bad. I tried checking how much dmg difference that is, and it’s not simple but it’s roughly −2dmg dealt and +2dmg received, probably more. Each level up is +3 STR (+4 sometimes) and +3 DEF so it’s almost like being a level lower.

Tested lv4 Brillante for Ud-Meiyu, takes ≈ 1′17″ just to kill the boss so definitely slower.

Double lv7 lv27 1 Capla 2-cycle Piana-Pius might be fastest but it’s way too much Emel RNG. I’ve decided on Brillante lv7 lv28 1 Capla 2-cycle.

I’m gonna dump HP/STR/DEF at each level since I went through writing it out and idk where to post it: base: 60 25 30 lv1 60 40 36 lv2 65 43 39 lv3 71 46 42 lv4 77 49 45 lv5 83 52 48 lv6 88 56 51 lv7 94 59 54 lv8 100 62 57 lv9 106 65 60 lv10 111 68 63 lv11 117 72 66 lv12 123 75 69 lv13 129 78 72 lv14 134 81 75 lv15 140 85 78 lv16 146 88 81 lv17 152 91 84 lv18 157 94 87 lv19 163 97 90 lv20 169 101 93 lv21 175 104 97 lv22 181 107 100 lv23 186 110 103 lv24 192 114 106 lv25 198 117 109 lv26 204 120 112 lv27 209 123 115 lv28 215 126 118 lv29 221 130 121 lv30 227 133 124 lv31 232 136 127 lv32 238 139 130 lv33 244 143 133 Page which calculates all values to lv60: http://alaktorn.wrvids.com/Ys_VI_Stats.php

Idk about guides but I made some videos back in the day of some strategies. You can check my YT channel I guess: https://www.youtube.com/@abcdefghilihgfedcba/search?query=advance%20wars%202

For example I have a video of Factory Blues in 2′41″ which you might find useful idk.

I don’t know why I didn’t get notified of these posts…

Music off is nothing new, I’m fairly certain all AW games are faster with music off and all of Frozer’s and Gippy’s WRs in the series play with music on knowing that it’s slower, purely because music off is incredibly boring both to play through and to watch. Also, I’m pretty sure there are hundreds of games where turning off music would save time. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than: CPU has fewer instructions to run, hence game runs faster, hence saves time.

I don’t think music off should be allowed, it’s the most ridiculous time save there could be. You can literally just look at a music on run and say “oh music off would be ≈ 5 minutes faster” and there’s nothing more of interest to say about music off. It doesn’t really change anything as far as I know.

Music off was first discovered in AW Dual Strike by either me or other top players (STL/fidelcastro/idk) in I think around 2009 but the only proof with a quick search I can find is from a 2010 TAS STL and I made:

In Dual Strike Time Survival records music off is actually abused because they’re all like 10 seconds long at most, it’s nothing like grinding 1h+ of silence. lol

Tested farming fireflies instead of moles for Emel like the 100% WR, took me 31″76 compared to my PB’s 47″ (3705 EXP) at moles, but you lose out on a lot of EXP (20 vs. 195 per kill). /// 40″34 (560 EXP) now uh… /// 47″01 :( (600 EXP) ok nvm this is barely faster I guess. /// 34″60 and 35″86 at moles lol (3120 EXP). Basically you kill 6 fireflies per room but their drop rate is a little lower, and 4 moles per room, fireflies are a little faster to kill, so with avg RNG fireflies are faster but lose so much EXP that I think they end up being slower just because of that. Edit: The fireflies drop rate is so low that even with the new no Rehdan Shield, EXP not an issue route it’s much faster to farm moles.

I was thinking of using Catastrophe mode which would save ≈ 15″ from taking Capla at Mythos Path instead of the beach glitch, but some issues: Piana-Pius is a problem, Lanaluna is harder but doable, Gaposasura can actually kill you and idk if doable, need to actually play Kishgal properly to not take dmg, Ernst much harder idk if possible. Piana-Pius with Brillante lv7 without Capla is impossible even to 2cycle, guess I’m not doing Catastrophe.

I’m sad but I think I’m not gonna do the lv7 Brillante strat. Piana-Pius is too hard. …That opens up the option of doing Catastrophe though.

Taking Starlight Medal costs ≈ 26″, and it only saves ≈ 2″ at -Roa, Ernst, Ark each; but without it you miss out on level ups by like 100 EXP so you have to kill a couple extra enemies, I think it’s faster to not get it but Ark 1cycle becomes hard (451HP left best attempt) and Ernst with Herbs is impossible, needs 2 Capla.

Taking Capla is technically just a waste of time, opening a chest is almost 5″ and a Capla never saves that much on a boss, Ernst with Herbs is doable if I could kill Gaposasura without wasting them all and do Kishgal damageless. Years ago I wrote Capla actually saves time for Ark but I’m not seeing it rn. 2023 Edit: Even the 3″ kill with 3 Capla loses time because it only saves ≈ 13″ and just opening 3 chests costs 15″.

Maybe to make Catastrophe more viable I could grab the Bloody Nail, but that might cost like ≈ 10″ to grab and equip so then I’d only be saving ≈ 5″ lol.

So now I’m thinking of doing lv7 Brillante Piana-Pius because RNG Emel is literally insane, I’ve gotten the level with only 1530 Emel, getting lv8 actually takes so much time unless you have godly RNG. lv7 Piana-Pius strategy: You NEED perfect RNG on the first lunge, use magic then spam lunges, only use the Capla to heal after you’ve taken 2 hits. On 2nd cycle, stay in the hole where the chest appears, use the magic as Piana-Pius lunges at you and spam lunges. This is the best strategy I could come up with, I’ve tried keeping the first magic to dodge an attack because staying alive is really hard but it messes with your DPS and you end up not 2cycling.

Taking Rehdan Shield costs ≈ 8″, but I tested the bats farm without it and you lose a literal minute. Pics:

It turns out that Gaposasura and Deadollon are weird bosses and the only ones that give different EXP values on Hard/Nightmare. I’ve had Gaposasura’s Hard/Nightmare EXP values on my site this whole time! I’ve changed them to the Normal values now.

https://isu.fandom.com/wiki/Ys_VI:_The_Ark_of_Napishtim/Enemies_%2526_Bosses This wiki has pretty good info on all stats of all enemies, which is how I ended up noticing this thing.

Yeah idk why it wouldn’t be, I added it as an option. Some people make the argument that “there are no runs of it so it’s worthless to add empty leaderboards” but we already have plenty of empty ones so I don’t think it’s that big a deal even from that perspective.

I tested the Brillante + Ericcil lv7 strat 1 lv down for Piana-Pius and the 1cycle is basically impossible even with a Capla and wasting a lot of time to charge Ericcil magic before the fight. You’d also only have lv7 Brillante for the bats farm, so I think this strategy has been debunked… I tried looking into getting more EXP so you wouldn’t be a level down too, but it seems like it wastes too much time and ruins the whole point of the strategy being less farming. Edit: The extra level doesn’t even make the 1cycle easy either. XD lv7 Brillante is really weak ig…

Edit: Looked into fighting Gaposdhala and while 11924 EXP in < 30″ is pretty good, it takes 36″ to get there from TP and at that point just farming slimes breaks even in EXP and gives a lot more Emel. Farming en-route didn’t give me good results either, the rhinos and fish are too hard to kill and the Emel is little. You can fight Gaposdhala at lv25 with a Capla but all in all it took me ≈ 2′10″ to get to lv27 (you need 28) and still missing over 1k Emel for even the double lv7 strat. In my PB it takes ≈ 3′30″ to be Piana-Pius ready, comparing after TPs. /// ≈ 3′42″ actually I think and had crazy RNG.

Edit: Looked at the LC slimes grind… Ravi’s spot is maybe better for EXP, but not Emel imo, Harumaki uses it in his Nightmare WR and maybe it’s worth there but not for Normal. I’ve speedrun the normal spot a bit and at best it took me 3′ flat to get the necessary level, then 48″ for the Emel. XD Fastest method seems to be walk upleft Jump+Attack, then 2nd and 3rd charge to kill the 3 slimes under you. I legit keep getting the level while having only 1800 Emel… enough for double lv7 strat and super far from lv8. Should I really be going for double lv7 if I get this abysmal RNG? It keeps happening… I legit just got lv29 before the required Emel. What in the absolute fuck? It almost takes like 50″ to go from 1800 Emel to 2375… hmm

Oh yeah forgot to mention I looked into Ud-Meiyu too. lv21 (1 level lower) is ≈ 10″ slower than lv22, fastest kill seems to be double slash from lava, no 3rd slash. Magic used at start and end.

Tested doing Zonplas at lv19 and it seems slower. Gains ≈ 20″ from not grinding bombs as much, but loses ≈ 10″ at Zonplas and Ud-Meiyu each, while being lower level.

So I’ve realized routing for 1cycle Piana-Pius is stupid, as it only saves ≈ 14″ and is too hard to even do in a run anyway. for 2cycle lv28 and lv7 Brillante + Capla is all you need. With that in mind, I’ve tested the bats farm with lv7 vs. lv8 Brillante and lv7 loses ≈ 20″, it seems (2023 edit: it’s more like 25″, and it also makes the grind much harder to survive). So the double lv7 strat should finally be proven faster. :D lv7 Brillante only requires 830 (+ 5) Emel, but since you need lv28 EXP becomes the bottleneck, and you usually get enough Emel for double lv7 (1805); even if you don’t it doesn’t matter because Brillante lv7 is enough on its own. Best lv28 grind 2′52″ with ≈ 1300 Emel. Saves 38″ over my PB so even if we consider 1cycle it should still save time over lv8 as 14″ + ≈ 20″ = 34, 38″ − 34″ = 4″ saved.

Tested grinding less at bats but that seems like a fail. Edit: 2′47″ slimes grind ≈ 1100 Emel. Good to see going for just Brillante lv7 saves a lot of time at least… 43″ over PB. /// This time is either sus or insane. I’ve found a slightly faster way to grind (walk up, charged to right to kill 2, walk slightly down charged up to kill 3) but it’s harder as well. /// Why did I suddenly get better RNG and a faster time when I started using DxTory to force 61fps… wtf /// 2′48″ lv27 1935 Emel (double lv7) insane RNG /// 2′58″ lv28 900 Emel like how tf did I do 11″ faster back then. lol

Tested Ud-Meiyu routes again: 15″ Capla to Hand 11″67 getting to jump platform with kills and 11″ without kills 6″57 going to hand 16″29 getting Capla to jump platform So current route is fastest, I thought Capla to Hand might be faster… I was wrong. First route has 5 kills, second 4, but the kill isn’t worth the time loss. 8″ vs. 12″40 killing lasers in corridor, it kinda loses 0″88 per kill and you need 12/13 to level up, so in terms of speed it’s kind of even but the fact you have a lot more EXP should save time going into the slimes grind.

Harumaki dropped a 2:04′42″ Nightmare Catastrophe run, I’ve already told him on Discord everything improvable but I’ll drop here a few thoughts I could use in my runs:

1. my run uses the old bomb grinding strat, so that’s hugely improvable in the Wing of Alma room.
2. I wonder which moles are faster to farm? Before Wing of Alma has a bunch but requires backtracking, on Normal I opted for the ones near the top…
3. I did some Ud-Meiyu science and found out charged Brillante slashes do more dmg and that’s the extra ≈ 24dmg you see sometimes. Could they be useful elsewhere…? Video of this at the bottom.
4. You probably can’t get it in time but killing Ud-Meiyu minions before it explodes would be extra EXP.
5. LC midpoint TP triggering requires a bunch of testing. Mid first, then equips? Equips, then to mid through the North route Daifuku showed? Slowly moving towards it during the Slimes grind…? 2nd option may be best.
6. Gaposasura probably not killable en-route on NM? Might still be faster to grind the bombs less and TP to Gaposasura just after Piana-Pullus.

Ud-Meiyu science vid:

Edit: some magic science I just did: lv10 sword passively charges 1/f (3000 is full charge) lv11 6/f getting hit gives 200 charge but if dmg is nullified by Emelas Armor it’s 100, hitting an enemy is also 100, with Eldian Orb these become 300 and 150 sometimes hitting an enemy doesn’t charge anything, I don’t know why

Do you have a speedrun of them? I don’t think there’s much point in adding them if no one has done a run. I did attempt routing Normal years ago but didn’t do much with it.