Crypt of the NecroDancer: Quick Speedrun Guide by Characters
Crypt of the NecroDancer: Quick Speedrun Guide by Characters
[Farming]
・You need to go straight to the stairs/trapdoors to go fast. (This might sound obvious but there are tons of players who roam around with a build good enough.)
・Go off course only if your build is weak and you find one of the following (unless you have a really good reason):
cracked walls (which aren't guranteed to be bad ones)
good shrines (peace/war/blood(/uncertainty) for rings, space for cap, darkness/pain/uncertainty/glass to activate)
great items you find with monocle (while you shouldn't be greedy)
(↓weaker/unreliable than above, only if it's nearby）
shops (1-3, 2-2, 2-3 with shopkill methods or a lot of money)
purple chest without good ring equipped / with an empty item slot / with regen source but without a good spell
good tier black chest without good weapon equipped
・You shouldn't farm on Z4/Z5, preferebly also on Z3 if managed to have a good build already.
・If you tend to clear with several hearts remained, farm less and go faster. If you tend to die with good pace/build too much, probably farm more or go slower.
[Fight]
・Weapon is the most important slot on weapon characters. Axe, rapier, cat and zap dagger is usually the best option. Hammer/trident/flail with courage ring, harp/staff/phasing dagger/jeweled dagger with lunging/pain boots is also great.
・1 -> 2 damage is almost necessary on characters who have damage-ups. 2 -> 3 is also very strong. 3 -> 4 and above is pointless.
・Use health as a resource, especially with regen sources or on Z4~. Don't waste regen effect exiting a floor with full heart. Use blood spells or a blood drum.
・Use spells aggressively:
Use fireball/pulse/earth even to save 1 beat rather than not use it. They are really strong especially on Z4 since they can ignore blademaster/warlock/goolem mechanics.
Marching into miniboss room and leaving enemies behind are much more available with freeze/shield/earth.
・Don't waste bombs in early game unless you have plenty: you might need it for craked walls/floors, shopkill or shrines. (Spending bombs on early trapdoor is cool but usually not a great idea.)
・Don't save bombs in late game, use it even to save 1 beat (except the ones you need for the last boss).
[Routing]
・Understand and use enemy movement mechanics
Enemies prioritize horizonal movement when you approach diagonally (ex. use this to predict whether a trapdoor is safe from moles or elementals)
You can virtually trap them with walls, usually with conditions like "they cann't pursue you unless you move past this line of tiles". Avoid unneccesary fights with this. (There are also some niche situations where you can dig a wall to trap an enemy behind instead of taking time to kill it for seemingly necessary safety.)
・Exit rooms don't have traps, chests or crates.
・Z4: Prioritize empty small rooms (and trap rooms if you have lead boots) to avoid fights
・Z4: Be aware of how Z4 wall dig works, don't open unnecessary rooms.
・Z4: Goolems and sentries can open rooms, be careful/sometimes go along with it (if you find goolem is about to break a wall from the other side, you might want to go through that room instead of the other one.)
[Overview]
・Needs at least 3 bombs for ND: Priority of Checking hidden room, blood drum, map, shovel and bomb-related items are higher.
・Farming is stronger: More run duration to use leaping/lunging.
・Blood drum (and rat familiar) is stronger (for 1 quick hit to ND).
[Unique Techniques]
・Use space shrine or glass shrine to get glass shovel for ND (especially on Z4~5).
[Overview]
・Transform has 2 beat invincibility, especially useful for early game/miniboss room, or as panic button.
・Has only 1 spell slot: Spells are weaker. (Especially heal spell: you can't use both stairs transform and stairs heal.)
・Bat form comes with telepathy effect, which lures spirits: "Forced bat form only to die again" is very common.
・Crate room resets and Shop resets are available.
・Life is resource, especially in early game. You can heal up with bat form anyway.
・You want 2 bombs for FSW (0 with lunging), 8 bombs for Conductor. (Basically you can't effectively use 9~ bombs on Conductor unless you have lunging.)
・Zone Bleed makes crowd control important: Pain Ring, Electric Dagger, Axe. Freeze, Shield, Darkness shrine etc. are stronger. Glass builds are weaker (also because of heavy glass bug for bat form).
・Don't try to avoid zone bleed in Z4: You can't.
・Strong build is stronger, but build makes sense only after it gets stronger than bat form.
[Unique Techniques]
・FSW/Conductor Strategies (most of them are exclusive to amp)
・Bat form mapping for half heart, especially in Z3
・Bat form can pick up an item surrounded by traps
・Bat form invincibility for telemonkey
・DM fight: 1 or 2 damage -> Bat attack x2
・Throw -> Transfrom to kill Shopkeepers/CR/DB/FM
・Bat Form Transmog (exclusive to amp)
・Move through Z4 trap room with bat form to leave behind enemies
・You can transform while sliding on ice (as well as other spells), which sometimes useful to avoid getting hit.
[Trivia]
・You die if you try to transform back to human form with half a heart, even with a potion.
・Zone Bleed makes it stronger to attack warlocks with staff/throw to teleport.
・You can throw phasing dagger to warlocks on the opposite side of Z4 with bat form telepathy, and you still can fight with bat form: while odds aren't great.
[Overview]
・Initial nazar charm + enemy reduction (ghosts, blademasters, harpies) makes peace ring/glass builds stronger.
・You instantly die when Marv gets hit anyway: glass builds are stronger, armors are weaker.
・You need to protect lamb and sometimes can't back off: Damage is more important.
・For sub6, you can kill enemies behind. For sub5:30, don't.
・Life is resources for blood shop and blood magic. Use them before you eat cookies.
・Farming is weaker, just go to the exit.
・Monkeys, shove monsters, gorgons, water-balls and non-FM/CR splash damage won't kill Marv.
・Evil-eyes will skip Marv unless you are directly next to them.
・Moles and Fortissimole will react to Marv in the same way to Mary. (Mind if you tend to die on FM.)
[Items]
・Leaping is difficult. Lunging is insanely difficult and not so fast even if alive (you need to kill enemies before lunge).
・1 range weapons makes it difficult to keep Marv alive.
・Hammer is great for Mary, especially with courage ring or pierce ring. You can start with gold hammer and hope for early glass shrine or damage-up as well as these rings.
[Unique Techniques]
・Blood shopkill with diagonal weapon/spell
・Mary Red Dragon Trapdoor Fight
[Trivia]
・On randomizer, shove monsters kill Marv.
・Monkeys kill Marv beneath a wall from earth spell/tome.
・When you attack black skull, Marv should be either on the opposite side of skull or beneath Mary (on most weapons). If you aren't on wire, same goes for white/yellow skulls.
[Overview]
・You can't step into/over gold: Axe and rapier are weaker. Longsword, broadsword and hammer are stronger. (Less weapon variance in general. "axe = cat > rapier, longsword, hammer, staff, special daggers")
・Starts with 2 heart, forced blood dig: Life gonna be a problem unless you get cap/shovel/additional heart/heal/regen.
・You need to dig more often: Cap and strength shovel are stronger. You may 1-1 shop reset for them. When you have them, be careful not to open extra rooms on Z4.
・You still can kill shopkeeper if you want 2 or 3 items, which sometimes people forget.
[Unique Techniques]
・Use a warlock to remove gold from stairs. (Especially when you run out of bombs.)
・It's safe to move-attack warlock over gold. (i.e. You with axe/rapier- Gold - Warlock)
・Be careful to attack warlocks with cat. You still moves after teleport.
・While not specific technique to Monk, throw-bomb for FM is especially strong on Monk since it doesn't require going around to kill a skeleton in the corner. You can also use a bomb to make a way in the center.
[About Items]
・Earth erases gold, thus stronger.
・Peace ring is stronger: less enemy, less gold.
・Monk relies a lot on damage and has insta-death mechanics anyway, which makes glass builds great for him.
・Keep foods for bomb iframe for gold surround.
・Grenades are still strong but risky (in case of gold surround).
[Overview]
・Don't farm, just go to the exit.
・You may reset for axe or rapier.
・You still can check boss purple chest for spells.
・Having 3 damage is important. 3 damage is faster than 2 damage + regen, while riskier.
[Unique Techniques]
・DB Gold Axe: Enter from center, go left to step into gold then kill king (not always available).
・You don't take damage when you toggle-off leaping and step into the stairs.
・Top-row of boss rooms are off-parity to stairs. (ex. Don't go up after ozuma.)
[Items]
・Rings are weaker: might is already one of the strongest ring for Dorian, slightly behind war ring.
・Flail is not bad (on multichar runs) due to blademaster reduction.
・Glass weapons are unrealistic to finish with. (Glass Armor is unavailable. You get a glass jaw from bombing glass shrine.)
[Overview]
・Reset for cap/leaping
・Check locked shop/conjurer for leaping
・Go to the exit with zero beast inefficiency: Don't farm. Scoots through enemies.
・You can guess layouts by stairs sound. Technically you should zoom out to get the most benefit of it.
[Items]
・Don't take ring
・Don't farm: you can even consider not checking nearby chests (especially purple)
[Trivia]
・You can finish the run with rhythm shrine. When you obviously can't PB with 5-3 stairs, you can go for it instead.
[Overview]
・More healing (blood weapons, pixies) and more damage takings (more enemies with more variations): Armor is stronger. Thankfully it's also easier to get from boss black chests thanks to smaller weapon pool.
・Shop resets and crate room resets are available.
[Items]
・Pain ring, axe, harp and staff are stronger thanks to their swarm handling abilities. Rapier and Cat are weaker for the opposite reason.
・Leaping and lunging are stronger while harder to get.
[Trivia]
・You lose 2 timer when you missbeat.
・Chests on shop you can't purchase still resets the timer.
[Overview]
・You can shop-reset for move-dig. (For sub5, you may also go for move-dig-on-the-way.)
・While golden lute is a strong weapon, it takes time to kill minibosses, which makes damaging spells, peace ring and grenades stronger.
・Melody is a tight character: Boss quickkills (especially earth/freeze) are more important.
・While boss black chests reliably give you armor, basically you should check purple on 1-4 instead to get spells/rings earlier.
[Items]
・Heavy glass is actually very strong on Melody: you only have 2 hearts anyway.
・Mana ring + freeze/earth is insanely strong.
・Courage shovel without torch: You can't see, and avoid to kill warlocks behind walls, which can insta-kill you.
[Unique Techniques]
・Melody double-tap ozuma: just start from 1 tile right.
[Trivia]
・You can move into a ghost shopkeeper to kill it (or dig into with courage shovel).
[Overview]
・Tight character: farming is weaker.
・You can attack diagonally, which makes 1-range weapons stronger.
・Go diagonally straight to the exit on Z4. If it feels difficult, practice it.
・Boss quickkills are more important while less available: earth tomes, freeze tomes and snowbro are stronger.
[Unique Techniques]
・Dig thorough diagonally and leave enemies behind (especially in Z1).
・Diagonal movements to leave ghosts/1-beat enemies behind.
・Diagonal scoots
・Grimmy's Diamond KC Staff Strat
[Items]
・Courage ring + high damage, pain ring + rapier and zap dagger are really good on Diamond.
[Overview]
・Farm up and go zoom with armor + heal/regen + good weapon with damage.
[Items]
・Pierce ring, pain ring and hammer are stronger due to their mindlessness.
・You can't rely on reflex. Get torch to think. (You can even consider bombing activated darkness shrine to get a luminous torch.)
・Use freeze or shield on miniboss rooms.
・Heal spells are stronger. You can use stairs heal twice.
・1 range weapons are weaker (or more difficult to use, at least). You may avoid even electric dagger or cat.
[Overview]
・You can go either Bolt-like or low-farming perfection.
・In the latter case, still most of items strong on Bolt is also strong.
[Items]
・You can use courage shovel to mindlessly mash through walls.
[Trivia]
・If you move too fast on food shop throw-kill, it fails.
・ On Windows, you can't pulse through trapdoor fight except on boss floors.
[Overview]
・You can reset for glass shops or darkness shriner.
・Basically damage-up is the only thing necessary. Don't farm too much.
・Sometimes you should finish the run with gi instead of glass/heavy glass armor.
・Courage shovel is very strong thanks to zone reversal, while difficult to use.
・Use throw wisely, especially for warlocks.
・For sub5:30, you can reset only for early darkness conjurer to get heavy glass stacks + lunging + courage/strength shov + peace/war/courage ring + headgear.
[Unique Techniques]
・Glass Shop: Buy glass armor, then go for throw-kill to consistently save potion (on multichar runs).
・Trapdoor fight doesn't happen on Golden Lute floor, which makes D5-3 trapdoor stronger.
[Items]
・Peace Ring is stronger due to inherent peace effect.
・Familiars are stronger due to fixed weapon.
[Trivia]
・You take damage when shove-monstered to pixie.
・On hard mode DB1, you can use earth dragon's wall block pawns.
[Overview]
・Just be good at Coda.
[Items]
・Peace ring, glass torch, grenade charm and bomb charm are strong because they make Coda easier.