Vladyn any% is much faster than gilda, Wyatt, and Reina due to the fact he can skip Yeti 1, Magus, and Ruckajahl in exchange for just fighting Dhistann in the sewers Which i find pretty awesome.

Vladyn also has a very high damage potential with level 1 peacebreakers and using buffs properly, such as grace of light, and void blades later on, so there is no need to farm to kill bosses quickly. BUT if you managed to get all the materials for level 2 peacebreakers in under 2 minutes [somehow] You are going to smash the record outright.

Lets go over the pre-game tips and tricks before we get into the guide.

first off, Vladyn comes packed with light magic, and his demonic arm, Which are very useful magics to have, The demon arm summons also come with benefits, The side increasing attack damage, the air increasing movespeed and attack speed. and the Up increasing magic damage. managing summons properly and using them on bosses for higher dps [and stunlocks] is key to defeating bosses like Treu, Anemone and true Anemone, and minor bosses such as Azudor 1 and 2.

Lets talk about his skills. Vlad comes packed with an amazing defensive tree, an okay offensive tree and a pretty nice magic tree if you decide to go arm instead.

The skill build for the game is as follows, feel free to use your own if you'd like.

Hard shells > Skill > Aim > Blaster > Shrapnel > Evade Hold all skill points you get until level 10, when you hit level 10, its Head hunter >Toughness > Iron will > Refract > Deflect > Swift steps > soul armor > Tactician > Whatever you want.

You can grab quick draw and Dexterous for more damage output. Wisdom and attuned for more MP to use void blades with. Or diffuse and null shield for a much more safer time against bosses. its up to how safe/unsafe you want to play it.

Now with skills out of the way, lets discuss Equipment swapping a short time. You get 5% movespeed per 5 agility when in Red soul affinity. Utilizing this to the max is the way to go quickly, After every boss, and every opportunity where you need to run a long distance. [After Shu, Azudor, Dhistann etc] After you obtain the murderous rainment, you wont need to swap weapons anymore, and instead just swap your magics around.

The weapon you will be using is the peacebreakers primarily, with Faolan as your assist to get mp back at a fast rate end game for more grace of light/void blade spamming.

Now for the guide with the prologue out of the way

Hrukk: Self explanatory, you start with the wall hook, head right to the gardens. While in town, summon your side demon and run all the way to the feral encounter, when there you should have enough MP to cast your up demon, and take care of the ferals really easily. You should be level 3, if you are level 2, get Skill instead of hard shells. when 3, get hard shells and skill, unsummon your demons and continue to the gardens.

Abandoned gardens: Go the normal route, avoiding damage as much as possible When you obtain the skeleton key, Head all the way back down and to the left instead of upwards and left. On the platform, do a Same side wall jump ro cling to the ledge. To do this, Jump at the ledge, Do a walljump while holding right, you will gain enough height to cling back to the ledge instead of whiffing. You can shotgun the Walljump by holding left instead and shotgunning, but this is saving frames at that point.

Go fight shu, I recommend jump pistoling him for a safe fight, since vladyns shotgun is abysmal early game.

After that, you should be level 5, unsummon your demons [if you used them] Go to menu. Equip arm, all points in agility, get Aim and blaster. go grab the Tear and run the heck out.

Hrukk: Give the tear, talk to the elder for the library key, head to library.

now theres 2 ways the library fight can go, Reina can decide to murder everything in under 1 second, or reina will stand there and make you do the work. Cutscene, Equip faolan afterwards, and go to the Gilda encounter. shes the same as reina, can murder everything instantly, or just do nothing. head to Tagrum after all that.

Tagrum: To save a frame or two, walljump off the left wall as soon as you exit the tram, saves a frame or two since vlad sticks closer to the elder Run to Azudor, Wreck azudor, run back to the elder, badabing badaboom.

Ancient Mausoleum: The platforming here is quite unforgiving, so i suggest practicing your favorite route here. I also recommend killing some dudes along the way with your arm, to build focus for the upcoming bossfight. I also somewhat recommend using the arm for said boss fight. Tagu can go one of 3 ways. One: You have full focus, as soon as the barrier goes down, cast your focus attack, Get dark rays, and one cycle her entirely. Two: You have full focus, as soon as the barrier goes down, cast your focus attack, you get Flame tornados instead, and forced to two cycle her due to not having fantastic damage output. Three: you dont have sufficent focus, and are doomed to the 2 [or at worst] 3 cycle Tagu.

Ive been experimenting using arm for this fight for the one cycle, but no success.

After Tagu, equip arm, distribute points, Grab the mana crystal and ignore The bottom path entirely, and just walk back to Tagrum instead.

Back in Tagrum: Were off to the sewers, The ledge to the sewers can be bypassed by the "Same side wall jump" i talked about earlier and you can just waltz in freely.

Sewers: Take the sewers normally, making sure to avoid damage. To get to the dhistann boss fight, you need to wall jump off the little ledge under his room, you cant cling to the edge and press left, doesnt work. Dhistann can be very easily defeated, or he can be annoying. He can run around the entire arena, blast projectiles and tele frag you when he feels like it. Or he can literally sit in a corner, and attempt to block all of your shotguns and doesnt do anything. I reccomend the side demon for this fight, he eats a lot of Dhistanns projectiles. After the fight murder dhistann [this isnt an all bosses run] and take your leave into ishk.

Ishk: talk to Sezzi, blah blah blah. go to the guardian temple

Guardian Temple: This place, SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS for speedrunning, the enemys suck, the terrain is awful, and there is at times a lot of waiting for platforms to move where you want them to be, I highly recommend practicing this area a lot to make sure deaths are not common. Go the normal route and prepare to fight Jazzy. Jazzy is quite easy, shotgun him from a distance to make sure his revenge shield doesnt hit you, Poke him with a pistol shot whenever he does his super move in the middle and you should be fine. after the fight, level up, equip fire fist and be on your way out. Grab the hammer, and GRAB THE SKILL CANCEL SCROLL, this will be very important later.

After the temple, head straight left, to go to the caves. its quite straightforward and i wont be elaborating much here, Kill azudor 2, grab the demon key, and get out before the caves collapse.

After that go grab the angel key, my preferred method is to take the tram back to Tagrum, and walk into the sewers and Lozzo is right there. Hes pretty straightforward, and you can get a stunlock going with your side demon.

With both keys in hand, I recommend fighting Gernot first, you can get the murderous rainment, and hes pretty darn out of the way. so head to the zigguraut Asap.

zigguraut: THIS. PLACE, BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWS. enemys that stun and annoy you, rooms straight from hell, a boss that is very annoying at low levels [especially with Wyatt there] But you save a lot of time and stress coming here first. with the swift steps skill, gernot is easy and predictable, but Wyatt will try to get you killed the majority of the time.

after gernot, get your black hole, get the item, and leave as fast as you can, its much easier to leave than it is to come in thank goodness. Afterwards, run all the way back to ishk, and go to the right to where the path to the western skyway is.

Now with no ice pillar its a bit annoying to get there but, there is a way. I highly recommend setting the Air fire magic for this, but it can be done with arm magic as well.

About a step or two down the stairs [Here to be exact, ]you want to jump, and Air dash, Fire off your air magic, and dash again, if you do it correctly, vlad with either cling to the ledge, or you can do a same side wall jump to get up there as well.

Engineers palace: This area is, okay to say the least, its quite straightforward with some annoying enemies, this also has the only glitch in the run [to my knowledge and testing] When you reach this screen There is a glitch you can do. I've dubbed it the "going down the sideways stairs" and im going to describe this in as much detail as possible.

You want to jump and skill cancel left, at the exact area where the screens change. its a bit weird and finnicky and ive almost got it consistent. So the process is, Jump to the right, not too far just to where your are poking the entrance to the next screen somewhere a tiny bit right of that position. Skill cancel and hold left. Two things can happen.

one: You slide back upstairs Two: You go OOB and are inside the wall of the next room You should see this. When you are inside of the walls, you can either use Faolan, or blessing to see your positon. Now heres the hard part, you want to jump and dash to the left side if you fall short, you fall through, if you nail it your somewhere near the flag on the left side. From the flag, inch your way as close left as possible without coming in bounds, and jump left and upwards, Vladyn should clip upwards, and you just skipped an entire 3 rooms of puzzles and platforming. its pretty awesome.

head through the rest, fight the mini boss, and then prepare for the run killer.

Treu is hard, Treu is annoying. His desperation move makes him unhittiable for the duration, and he moves around all over making your life hell. Seraphic storm is also very annoying, especially at the final phase of the fight. and you are never safe from death.

some tips for this fight is rush him the fuck down and delete his hp bar as fast as possible, when Treu seraphic storms, his Desperation move bar resets entirely. so the key to doing this fight fast, is to get no Desperation move out of Treu. I recommend practicing this fight a lot as it can be deadly towards your run time.

After beating Treu, go grab your key item, and get the hell outta there, and never look back.

Loose ends: Give sezzi his hammer, and the key items, and get your divine key, Head straight to the library afterwards and prepare yourself for the final bosses of the game.

Lost gardens: self explanatory, go right, Kill the raven, hes quite easy now.

Sunken prison: so the last place to skip ice pillar is here and its simple. Use a Air lightning chain to tug yourself towards the crabs in the top of the screen. if they both fall or are in a bad spot, just reset the room by walking in and out

The Sancturary: Were at the final area of the game, the first thing to note here is Ruckajahl is a bit annoying without his ice pillar and your inability to jump up, but otherwise, hes pretty easy and the same.

Anemone on the other hand, is going to be annoying and difficult no matter how you put it. Void blades, shotgun it in the face, dodge the anti heailing tentacles and use your swift steps to the max capacity with tactition to avoid damage and belt it back out. this is where Dexterous and quick draw pay for themselves for more DPS.

do the metroid escape scene, and off to true anemone.

This fight is rather simple with Vladyn compared to everyone else, Wyatt is still a potato though. You have the ability to pop constant shots at True anemones face, void blades and grace of light are super useful. make sure to play it safe when the crabs are out as they can one shot you if you are not careful.

and you did it! you beat the game. congrats.

Any questions you can pop into the discord https://discord.gg/tmNvn