Arcuz Minor Glitches Any% Guide

On the leaderboard on src, there is both a full and a restricted glitched category. The difference between them is only in the illegality of one specific glitch in minor glitches. Potion Stacking. With Potion Stacking playing the game becomes extremely trivial, because you just have massively broken base stats. The community played using glitches before Potion Stacking was discovered and choose to retain the characteristics of these older runs with the category, by renaming it to minor glitches and putting Potion Stacking in it’s own category, the current major glitches category. This guide will attempt to show why the playerbase chose to keep this type of run in a leaderboard and what makes it so inherently different from Major Glitches and Glitchless.

The differences made by composition

In the glitchless category the use of composition is heavily restricted by the need to gain the materials for any compose you do via legitimate means. In major glitches, composition is also almost entirely irrelevant, since Potion Stacking is just too broken and composition simply takes too long for too little timegain by comparison. But in minor glitches composition is allowed to shine, since you have the opportunity to duplicate materials and make potentially failable composes work reliably. And while Stacking Potions is forbidden you can obviously mass-use boosting Potions normally, once again because of item duping.

The Start of the Run

The crucial rng of this run is in the very beginning of it. In order to duplicate items it is necessary to own 21 individual items, whichever those may be. Furthermore since composition gains you a lot of time, you want to do it as early as possible to benefit from this as much as possible. Now what are the composes you are looking for? Well anything related to damage. You can use Large Archangel Potions, Defence Potions and Large Rejuvenation Potions to see to your defensive needs, but your offence is where all the timegain lies. As such 4 composes could be relevant: Weapon Element, Attack Bonus, % Attack Bonus and Crit. Rate. There is however an other restriction, the compose points, that limit how much you may compose on any item. This limit can be lifted via a glitch of course, but that requires you to be able to access the chest, which only works from Chapter 3 onwards. It is also not feasible to try and buy precrafted stuff from Chung, since not only is this random, but you also need a good drop rate to reliably generate all his offer. What you can do however is buy basic equipment from Gran. And Gran does have a 15% chance to offer +2 items. This means the effective compose limit for weapons and armor is 7, whereas it is only 3 for accessoires at this early stage. Now for armor the only thing you could put on it is Crit. Rate, but that means it is also not worth it. You want to be able to swap out and upgrade your armor items similar to glitchless to give yourself a better defence, which is even more necessary here, since you will be fighting against more powerful enemies by comparison to your level. For accessories it means that level 3 % Attack Bonus is the way to go as it is just stronger than Crit. Rate. And for your weapons, this dictates you to have level 4 Fire Element and level 3 % Attack Bonus, also the most offensively powerful way to invest 7 compose points. For these crafts it you require a blessing stone, a small fire crystal, and a small water crystal and the ability to dupe. During the tutorial the cheapest buyable items in the entire game, the small health potions in Chapter 1, allow you to exchange your starting money and whatever you get dropped into more items to satisfy the 21 items requirement during it. This allows you to duplicate the blessing stone and small fire crystal during the tutorial, meaning you will only need the small water crystal as a random offer from Susan afterwards. You will therefore need to use scrolls on her and Gran to get the small water crystal and the +2 weapon from gran. Now what weapon is the optimal choice here? A blade would certainly be the fastest, since it costs the least, leaving you with the most money to buy dupe fodder items afterwards. But realistically the weapon choice should be about what you feel comfortable/fast fighting with. After the tutorials are done you get 400 gold, which you can use to buy more duping fodder. Craft up some Holy Stones first asthey make for good sales to get more money to buy dupefodder with. After getting all the level 3 upgrades, you make some safety copies of your weapon, desync them via save and quit and then get the level 4 fire Element, or just risk it and reset the run if it fails. After that you see to your inventory being well equipped with all the consumable items you require and get going on the main story line. While the availability of the chest in chapter 3 would offer an option to craft more, the playerbase has deemed it not worth it, since it interrupts your inventory management with consumables entirely and only less offensively potent composes are still up for grabs. The run is simply not long enough afterwards to make up for such a time investment. It should also be mentioned that you can glitch out any shops or the composition window, allowing you to move while it is open, meaning you can also level a bit just outside the village while doing this, but since you will keep using scrolls in the village, you can’t use them to connect and reconnect to further away places. You should aim to reach level 4 before all the crafting is done, the highest you can realistically get within the time you have and using only the level 1 slimes outside the village.

Following the Main Quests and Leveling

Type Quest Objective

Main Don't be Proud Kill 20 level 7 Wolfs.

Main Susan's Honey Beat the boss in the Rose Forest

Main Horn of Courage Collect 12 Centaur horns.

Main Missing of Anna Beat the boss in the Sadness Forest.

Main End-result of Anna's Heart Kill all enemies in the boss in the Sadness Forest

Main Regain Courage Beat the boss in the Guilty Forest.

Main Re-see Brightness Beat the boss in the Centaur's Forest

Main Rest of the Soul Beat the boss in Rest Valley.

Main Zack's Letter Talk to Wayne

Main The Old Scroll Beat the boss in the Magic Cave.

Main The Truth Talk to Susan.

Main Smash the Evil Beat the boss in the Abandoned Mine.

Main Song of the Valley Beat the final boss in Rest Valley (Final)

This list above shows all the main quests you need to complete in order after the tutorials. In the following this will be translated into a leveling and farming location guide, since while your damage is quite large, you still need to worry about your level somewhat to make this run work.

Level 5-6

Your first main quest that requires you to go to a specific place is Susan’s Honey in the Rose Forest which is where you head for. The second to last room of Gino Mountain has a group of level 5 slimes, ideal for getting to level 6 with a bit of scrollfarming.

Don't be Proud (Level 7)

Further along the way to the bossroom you will pass through a room with 5 level 7 wolfs and 6 level 9 hornets. You scrollfarm this room a bit, focussing on the wolf, till you complete the quest, then proceed to accept Susan’s Honey. You will also get level 7 along the way.

Level 8-12

The bossroom from Susan’s Honey is an exceptional source of experience even if scrollfarming it forces you to watch the sealing animation every time. Since the highest enemies here are level 11 hornets, going further would involve an experience malus, which means it is time to move on.

Level 13-15

The next main quest requires you to kill centaurs for their horns, which you are not yet ready for. Instead you head towards the Goethe Grass and go right, right, up, which is a room with only level 17 hornets. While you can not oneshot them with such a level disadvantage, they are still the most reasonable enemies to train against in this area. Once you hit level 15, this gets you will new skills, meaning you can now efficiently farm the level 17 centaurs in the room 2 to your left, which is also a part of the glitchless speedrun route.

Horn of Courage-Level 19

Since the drops of the centaur horns is random, it is also random how many levels you get during it. But however many you do, afterwards you head towards the next main boss location, though not into it. In Sadness Forest you go right, up, right, down, down, which is a room with a few level 19 hornets and lots of smaller enemies too, which make a good farm up to level 19. After that you clear the next two main quests in Sadness Forest in immediate succession.

Level 20-22

The next main quest takes you to the Guilty Forest and in it’s third room a bunch of level 21 goblins make for excellent farming material. Go and beat up the boss afterwards.

Level 23-24

The next main quest takes you to Centaur’s Forest. Along the way to the boss room you will find a variety of level 23 and 25 centaurs and a bunch of level 23 goblins. Train up a bit for the bossfight.

Level 25-26

Up next is the ghost boss in Rest Valley. Farm the skeletons in the bossroom till level 26, then kill the boss.

Level 27-29

Up next is the boss in the Magic Cave. Farm the level 29 enemies in the bossroom till level 29, then kill the boss.

Level 30-31

Up next is the boss in the Abandoned Mine. Try to get level 30 from enemies along the way, though you can also get it in the bossroom of the prior quest. The bossroom should get you to level 31.

Level 32-33

Finally it is time to go and beat the final boss. The experience curve works out to get you level 33 or almost that, if you clear all the rooms. Beating the final boss on level 33 will complete the speedrun.

General Advice

The glitched categories are a lot harder to go fast in than glitchless in Arcuz, because they add the requirement of being able to somewhat efficiently multitask fighting, movement and inventory management. With the default control settings this basically requires 3 hands. But even if you do change your key bindings with external software, it is still exceptionally tricky to manage all that effectively. This guide only covers the general basics of this category. How to effectively manage all the things the run requires you to multitask and micromanage is best conveyed by watching an actual speedrun of this category. This guide also does not cover how each individual glitch used works in detail, as that would also greatly lengthen it.