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I haven't finished the game yet, I just wanna post somewhere that if you get the Stamina Scroll from the Ice Ruins, you can skip some of the puzzles leading up to the desert temple. You're supposed to travel between Hyrule and Lorule a couple times and use the Sand Rod to navigate the desert, but with the increased gauge you can just merge with the wall and skip most of it. Dunno if it would save enough time to warrant going out of the way to get the Stamina Scroll or shuffle dungeons around to make it work.

Also someone please please please find a way to regain control of Link after using the Tornado Rod, there would be soo many skips. (getting hit with a bomb doesn't work)

With the Lorule route, I would like to see Ice palace, then Desert Palace, followed by Thieves Town, and skull woods.

And there is actually a boss skip in the skull woods, which is interesting, (I think it's a form of clipping with an enemy/boss??)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP-xlpWZgyY

The best lorule route I have come up with so far is

Enter lorule
Thieves town
get ore and complete + a bunch of rupees (as much as 500ish)
south of kakariko, get big bomb
take to swamp
swamp palace
north of swamp to vacant house
hyrule
rent everything from ravio (you would want hammer, bow, tornado rod, bombs and hookshot before going to lorule)
go to the portal in the rocky area of hyrule field
go to dark palace
get ore and complete
vacant house, hyrule, upgrade sword
hera
ice palace, stamina scroll
turtle rock
desert palace
skull woods

Notes:
Thieves town is extremely close to where you start in lorule so it seems like the best option as the first dungeon

Right after Thieves is the closest in the run you'll be to the big bomb place so it seems best to get it now.  Having the titans mitt would make the trip to swamp about 15 seconds faster but would be 2 extra warps + more irene text

After swamp you're pretty close to the vacant house so it's really fast to just go straight up and buy out ravio
Also if you suck, getting the blue mail early on here is nice and costs very little time

After that you're pretty close to the portal closest to dark palace so it seems like a good fit there

I'm not entirely sure if upgrading the sword will be worth it, but a lot of the later enemies and bosses do take a lot of hits, and the ores do not take very long to get at all.  Upgrading the sword itself might be about a minute loss.  Will need to be timed but I think it'll be worth it.

Ice ruins next for the stamina scroll, you'll use ice rod a bunch in turtle rock + the trick parax mentioned so this seems like a good time to do it

Desert palace should be done as late as possible to avoid as much extra irene text as possible, so turtle rock - desert - skull woods seems like the best ending

One thing that is quite arguable, is the second pouch worth it?

It's not too terribly out of the way (After beating the first dungeon, enter Your House, leave, Go where second pouch is and get it)

I mean, I wouldn't think it would waste more than 40 seconds, and it's pretty convenient.

With all the item re-equips you'd do in a run, I'd imagine it's worth it to get it. There's some puzzles in some of the Lorule Dungeons that can be sped up by having the ice rod... having it on the second button for example instead of switching in and out could be helpful when you also need the primary dungeon item on the other button... Granted Ravio's quick equip could hep here, it's inconvenient since you have to actually touch the screen to start it.

So what's going to be the fastest route for Pendants then?

I'm pretty sure doing House of Gales and then Tower of Hera is fastest. You'd get Irene's Bell earlier, so that would save time backtracking down the mountain to get to the Lost Woods.

Also, deathwarp is definitely faster to getting the bow rather than running back to Ravio

I believe it would be faster to do Thieves town then Skull Woods to get Tempered Sword early. Plus they are next to each other.  Would save time?
edit: Also, when going to get tempered sword, you can buy the rods from Ravio.

This is quite arguable.
If you do Skull Woods 2nd, you'd still have to warp back to Kakariko Village for be Big Bomb (since in zfgs route you'd have to warp back there at some point for Skull Woods).
And there really isn't a good time around here to take a trip to hyrule, since you won't be leaving for Hyrule at all between Skull Woods and Swamp Palace. So you'd have to waste time taking a trip back to hyrule solely for the upgrade. The first good time to upgrade would be after Swamp Palace when you're going for Dark Palace. But this would result in you doing 3 dungeons anyway.
So no matter which route you do, there wouldn't be a good time to go and grab the upgrade before doing a 3rd dungeon. Unless it is actually worth it to take a trip back and forth to hyrule between the Big Bomb just for the sword upgrade, which doesn't seem right.

There is also the question of wether it would actually save enough time to have the sword upgrade 1 dungeon earlier. I don't recall Swamp or Dark Palace having any good use of the sword Upgrade. I can't say for sure though, don't really remember how the boss phases were set up, which is where the biggest difference would end up being.

However, a good thing with doing Skull Woods is that this would mean having the sword upgrade for Dark Palace (and possibly Swamp Palace) instead of Skull Woods. Skull Woods has the Boss Skip, so wether or not you have the upgrade won't make much of a difference in Skull Woods, allowing you to do it early without loosing time over the upgrade.

I may have missed something though.

I've been rethinking the route and I think this looks a lot better than anything else I've seen

start up to pendant of courage
sahasrla
deathwarp
go to eastern area and see the cutscene showing the switches
get the 20r near the armos and deathwarp
bow
eastern + the 100r chest through the right crack at the beginning (120r)
travel to zora's domain, see cutscene of guy running out
kak
pegasus boots and 100r in house next to sahasrlas (220r)
power glove
up to hera
ravio, rent hammer, tornado,bombs, hookshot (80r)
back to hera, finish, get 50r chest and 100r chest (230r)
kak, smooth gem (30r)
witches house, flippers
house, to gales
house of gales
master sword
lorule

thieves town, finish with 450r + master ore
portal to house with lady that gives you hp in hyrule, then portal behind big house back to lorule, skull woods (this is faster than any other portal despite the hp)
skull woods + ore
portal to hyrule in kakariko
blacksmith, upgrade sword
gulleys pouch in the woods
portal south of that area back to lorule
big bomb house
bring big bomb to swamp
swamp palace
north to vacant house, hit vane, portal to hyrule
rent ice, fire, sand rod
hera, ice ruins, stamina scroll
vacant house, hyrule
portal in rocky area of hyrule to lorule
dark palace
vacant house, hyrule, lake hylia, lorule, turtle rock
vacant house, swamp, do stuff to get to desert palace
desert palace
lorule castle
yuga
triforce

This gets the upgraded sword after 2 dungeons, the item pouch is in a decently convenient place, big bomb shop is close to there, and desert palace is the last to minimize Irene text.   

With regular tempered sword it takes 39 hits to kill first phase final boss
Second phase takes 13 hits, 6 for the first two times you hit him out of the wall and then just one to finish him.

I dunno about the further upgraded sword, going to get it and test it now.

fully upgraded word

30-31 hits (Lost count a little) for first phase
4 hits every time he comes out of the wall plus the final hit.

On the final battle it probably saves 20-ish seconds. I can only speculate if it will shave off enough time of bosses/mini bosses to be worth it.

Wait, why Gales second?

Also, does anyone know if the lost woods path is set or random?

I believe the first two follow the poe sections are random but the last part is always the same.

I originally thought gales first would be better but the convenient 150r in hera seems worth it.  I think its just 1 extra warp vs that 100r chest in the escape of eastern palace.

Lost woods seems to be random except for the last one (three poes). That one is always south.

Which is good, because that's the easiest one to mess up.

Someone really needs to time this. I'm definitely for upgrading the sword to the second level, but-- the third time. I don't really know, is it worth it to get the butter blade? (3rd upgrade) What do you think?

Definitely not, since you'd have to go to the graveyard and do the small dungeon there in Lorule, JUST to get the last Master Ore. I don't see in any way how that can save time just by getting another upgrade on the master sword..

Noticed this a few days ago...

--- Eastern Palace ---
-- 1F --
Shoot bulb, proceed
Shoot bulb on the left, proceed
Get to the up-left room
First 3 tentacle things, slash them
Get in the middle, spinattack the remaining
Go down, step on the stone to open door, proceed over bridge

Not trying to be mean or any thing but this part is a waste of time.
There are a few other parts in the route like this,not a big deal though.

Right on! So, the second upgrade must be the only upgrade to get.

...That and the master ore from the Dark Palace takes the longest out of the three in dungeons to get, so that one can be skipped as well.

Are big cutscenes only skippable in hero mode?

Hey was a little unsure about my route but anyways here it is http://pastebin.com/VvSNPMHF
Any question about route just ask.

No, thankfully. You can skip any cutscene where the bottom screen turns completely black in normal mode too.

After talking to saharasahla, you typically death warp from the slimes outside kakariko. I tried timing this vs attacking the cucco nearby, and it basically comes out to be the same, around 11ish seconds from exiting saharasahla's house to the moment Link dies. But for attacking the cucco to be faster, you'll need good RNG on the cucco attacking patterns; otherwise it'll likely be like a half second slower.

Just random. It'd be awesome if cucco attacks were part of a speedrunning route though ^_^

Also, anwonu tweeted back at me that he thinks just walking back to your house is faster than death warping. Could anyone time this more specifically? ^^;

Anyways, I've been following parax's PB for learning any%, though I should also go through the pastebins in this topic as well; I'll post if I think of anything worth posting about that isn't quite intuitive/known

Couldnt you just mash the fuck out of the cucco? :D
And yes i could time deathwarping vs. walking tomorrow if you want. I had to lend my brother the game - huge alttp fan but no money atm :D

Yeah exactly, it takes 11 seconds to slash the cucco 10 times and get killed by 3 hits from the attacking ones. It basically comes down to the same time as death warping via the slimes.

Also when timing not deathwarping, i think anwonu mentioned that you also have to take into account the first cutscene at ravio's, or something like that?

I created a new game file, played up that that point and timed all 3 methods this way:

Start timer when you gain control of Link after exiting Sahasrahla's house.
End timer when hitting the transition to the next screen east of Link's house.

And the results were:

Chuchu deathwarp: 30.84
Cucco deathwarp: 31.21
Walking back: 34.45

Now the reason why walking back takes so long is that you get an Irene flying cutscene when entering the blacksmith's house screen. The thing is, if you use the route that goes through the bridge east of Link's house after beating the Eastern Palace and talking to Sahasrahla in front of the castle, you do NOT get that one cutscene. You do get the cutscene where she lands and talks to you, but not the one where she just flies over. So, by deathwarping back from Kakariko, you're skipping a cutscene that lasts about 4-5 seconds. (And you're still not getting the Bell until after the Eastern Palace even if you walk and get that first cutscene.)

Did you try out the cucco method multiple times? Because there is some RNG with it involved, depending on where the cucco's attack from. I've lost about a second before from bad RNG

EDIT: Also, minor frames-saver, but upon entering Eastern Palace, when you shoot the first switch, if you're forward enough to the edge before the bridge falls down, then the falling bridge will shove link all the way left during the cutscene, saving frames I guess, since you'll be closer to the door.

EDIT2: About the strat I just posted in EDIT, just messed with it more. If you're too far off the edge, you'll clip and fall into the pit... <.<

My attempt at the Cucco Deathwarp seemed like a pretty good one. But I did a bunch more just now and got:

32.18
30.56
34.53
32.20
32.28
30.46


Then I redid a single run of the Chuchu Deathwarp and got 30.47. This means that the Cucco strat is at best on par with the Chuchu one, and it's more risky for a barely existant time save.

Random minor time saver: in first room of house of gales, dashing into the switch is faster than walking to it and slashing twice (dont think I've seen anyone do that)



A minor route change I've been testing was getting the silver ruppee in kakariko after the smooth gem (instead of the purple ruppee before leaving eastern palace), and then buying hookshot early before tower of hera.

Note: Small key #1 ignores small key cutscene

SMALL KEY #1 (small key on the thin bar, in 2F)

Starting from bottom-left switch, use hookshot to get the small key, then dash out of the room (dashing from top of stairs is faster than walking out):
3.475
3.525
3.532
3.514
3.456

Starting from bottom-left switch, use tornado rod from below to get small key, then walk out of the room:
5.666
5.734
5.508
5.871
5.720

So hookshot saves roughly 2 seconds. Furthermore, I think most people would take an extra second to line themselves up properly to get the small key with the tornado rod, so in a realistic case, 3 seconds.

The hookshot also helps with hitting the switch in 2F, for the giant fan. I don't really think it's faster than the spin attack trick (though it definitely isn't slower), but it eliminates the time it takes to charge your sword and is also easier too.

Finally, the hookshot can stun the double fire beast miniboss, after you take off their flames. Is it faster? Probably not faster than zander's strat, but it definitely makes it a lot easier too.

Now, where do you lose time getting hookshot early? Getting the silver ruppee in kakariko is roughly 3 seconds slower than the purple ruppee in eastern palace. There's also the time it takes to item switch too; you have to switch to hookshot upon reaching 2F, and then switch out before the boss again, which is roughly another 3 seconds gone.

So in house of gales alone, early hookshot loses 3 seconds, but makes life a lot easier too. I'm not sure how the lorule items route goes, but if having the early hookshot helps anywhere there too (or hyrule castle too!) before the next visit to ravio's, then it'll likely end up being worth getting it early.

Now, if you get the purple ruppee, and play up until death mountain weather vane, and you just so happen to have 50 extra ruppees from lucky drops, then yes, early hookshot is definitely better. But I don't think that's very likely...

Anyways, I'm going to keep going through zander's any% route, and see if hookshot has any more uses before he buys it in his route. I'll edit this post appropriately.

The fastest method for that switch is to throw a bomb on the upper left part of the Keese, making it explode instantly and hitting the switch at the same time. If you're really fast, you could also not hit the Keese, and use the detonation time to line up your dash-slide and get across to the south part, near the fan.

I personally get the Hookshot after Eastern Palace, and this is how my early Lorule route goes:

Enter Lorule, Activate Blacksmith Vane
Beat Thieves
Crack to Hyrule, HP lady's house
Crack to Lorule, behind Sahasrahla's house
Beat Skull Woods
Warp to Blacksmith, walk to Vacant House, activate Vane
Crack to Hyrule, rent Fire, Ice and Sand Rods
Walk to Blacksmith, upgrade Master Sword
Warp to Death Moutain, make way to Ice Ruins.

Having the Hookshot early allows me to not have to go to Ravio's before Skull Woods and still do the Big Key room fairly quickly. It doesn't save a trip back and forth to Hyrule, and you have to go through the HP cutscene thingy in the house, so I'm not entirely sure if it's faster, but I prefer it because I like finishing off the overworld stuff all at once. I also do House Of Gales before Tower Of Hera, so all I have to do after HoG is warp to death mountain and climb it, since I already got the Flippers and Power Gloves together before. I enjoy the fast pace of the game, doing dungeon after dungeon without slowing down between them. :P

Yeah, I really don't think it matters whether you do tower of hera or house of gales first, because convenient warp points.

After smooth gem, pegasus boots, power gloves and death mountain weather vane:
1. Fly to Ravio's, get tornado rod, bombs, and hammer (and hookshot if you prefer)
2. Go get the pouch from the woods for the second slot

From here, you can these in any order, as long as 4 is before 5.
3. Fly to death mountain, climb it, do tower of hera
4. Fly to the potion shop, get flippers
5. Fly to ravio's, then do house of gales

There isn't anything you gain in any order you do of steps 3-5. So it really doesn't matter which dungeon you do first IMO. I personally like having a bit of overworld downtime between dungeons and having it spread out, so I prefer getting the flippers in between the two dungeons, but you can get the flippers before both dungeons, or do tower of hera after house of gales anyways.


Now, as for hookshot early for lorule, I notice that zander's current WR run doesn't get hookshot early. After thieve's hideout, he goes to the weather vane by the vacant house in lorule, uses the portal there, gets stuff from ravio, flies to kakariko, uses the portal in the back of kakariko, then does skull woods. I don't think he ever activates the weather vane by the lorule blacksmith.

As for your route, rheaultwnage, the problem is you go through a cutscene with the woman giving you a heart piece. Furthermore, you're not going to have the weather vane unlocked by the vacant house so you can't fly there conveniently after skull woods.

This'll have to be manually timed :/


PROS/CONS

Zander's Route:
+Fly straight to vacant house weather vane after skull woods
+Skip blacksmith weathervane
-Trip to ravio's after thieve's hideout

rheaultwnage's Route:
+Go straight to skull woods after thieve's hideout
-Heart Piece Woman cutscene
-After skull woods, walk from blacksmith to vacant house

This is how we could time:

My route: Time to activate a vane (with "take a break" text) + walk from HP/Portrait house, take crack, take other crack + warp from Woods to BSmith, walk to Vacant's House vane, take crack, walk to House's door and walk back to blacksmith

Zander's: Walk from Kakariko to Vacant's House vane, take crack and walk to House's door + Warp to Kakariko and take crack behind Sahasrahla's house + warp from Woods to Vacant House, take crack and walk to blacksmith.

Maybe we could take out the "walk back to blacksmith" and "walk to House's door" part since they're in both and are pretty much the same. Activating the House vane or not wouldn't matter, as long as it's the same in both timing. It would be nice to know the time it takes to activate a weather vane (Short, or long with extra take a break text).

If someone wants to time this today, go ahead. I'll do it sometime tomorrow or Sunday if not. :)

I just realized, it's probably better (not faster) to do tower of hera before tower of gales.

Against the boss in tower of gales, you jump into the pit intentionally at certain points so you can refill stamina, to abuse bombs/arrows more. By doing tower of hera, you have an extra heart container to use, making this easier.

Although you could say the same about the boss for tower of hera too; depends on which boss you have more trouble with, ultimately.

I timed it and Zander's route is about 10 seconds faster.

I actually had a practice partial attempt where I got an extra 50 ruppees from lucky drops before buying bombs+tornado+hammer. If zander's route was faster by at most 3 seconds, then it'd be worth getting hookshot early and taking rheault's route; unfortunately it's not quite the case :/

Now, looking at the early hookshot route pre-Lorule, early hookshot from lucky 50 ruppees (aka no silver ruppee in kakariko) will roughly break even with non-early hookshot, and it certainly makes things a lot easier too. Up to the runner if the runner wants to add a conditional I guess, and it's rather rare to have an extra 50 ruppees too =/


Also, very minor strat but...

You know the small key you get in Ice Ruins, where you have to light four torches (with 6 green penguins) to have it fall on a higher ledge? I timed how long it takes to go from collecting the key, to the intersection of the thin bridges in the southern room.

Strat 1: After the small key, merge into the right wall, and dash down the thin bridge (Basically go back the way you came from below)
Strat 2: After the small key, immediately fall off and walk manually south until the intersection.

Strat 1 takes about 7 seconds. Strat 2 takes about 5.5 seconds, assuming there are no penguins. So strat 2 is ideally faster, but taking into account penguins, you'll probably get hit once and lose about a half second to one second. If you killed all the penguins beforehand to be safe, then yes, strat 2 is definitely faster.


LORULE ROUTING  - DUNGEON ORDER

So as of now, the starting dungeons are definitely:

1. Thieve's Hideout
2. Skull Woods
3. Ice Ruins

1+2 give you two easy master ores to temper your sword as early as possible. Thieves' hideout also gives at least 200 ruppees (more from the red statue miniboss fight), essential for purchasing the rest of ravio's stuff before skull woods.

After Ice Ruins, I checked the order of the rest of the 4 dungeons. The obvious thing is that Desert Palace must be before Swamp Palace, since the titan's mitts allow you to take the fastest route with the bomb flower. So ultimately, at a first glance, it shouldn't matter.

However, so far, I think it's fastest (by like one second) to do desert palace then dark palace right after. The reason is, at the end of desert palace, assuming you did the boss key skip, you're going to have the tornado and sand rods equipped. Both of those are needed for the stealth skip right before dark palace, skipping an item equip screen.

It's very minor, but one second can make a difference :P I'm not sure if when you do turtle rock / swamp palace matters (Besides desert sometime before swamp), that might just come down to preference.

So unless I'm missing something, the routes with "equal timing" for the latter half of Lorule are:

-Desert, Dark, Turtle, Swamp
-Desert, Dark, Swamp, Turtle
-Turtle, Desert, Dark, Swamp

I'm also thinking about making a pastebin of the current up-to-date route so people can reference it easily and understand why it's routed like that (along with easier options too); think I should start one up?


EDIT:

Another minor strat I want to share, in desert ruins, that won't be quite intuitive. In the room where you're supposed to spin attack the four switches, there are two beamos at the bottom. The game intends for you to raise the sand to block their laser.

An easy way to not have to raise the sand, while still going at dash speed, is after hitting all four switches, drop down, line yourself below the bottom-right switch, then just dash down. You'll bonk the wall, but upon bonking the southern wall, you'll literally jump over both beamos lasers, then you can just continue through the door.

After freeing Irene from her painting in Desert Palace you get more textboxes everytime you warp with her. Before Desert Palace, the broom only has one textbox while after desert palace you can get 1-3 textboxes. I dont know how much time this actually wastes but its probably not optimal to do Desert Palace as soon as possible.

Ah, I never thought about that. Altough the extra textbox doesn't cost up to a second each, so I still figure doing dark right after desert would be faster by frames :P

So probably this order would be the best for now:

1. Thieves Hideout
2. Skull Woods
3. Ice Ruins
4. Turtle Rock
5. Desert Palace
6. Dark Palace
7. Swamp Palace

I would recommend doing Swamp before Turtle Rock because of two reasons.

Turtle Rock can be a bit risky without blue mail mainly because of the boss fight since you have to take damage from him to be fast when he spins and you can get hit when trying to be fast doing his normal 2nd phase.

After Swamp you can run to the Portal at your house and go to Turtle Rock which should be about 2 seconds faster than running to Lorule castle after Swamp and teleporting to your house to take the portal and go to Turtle Rock.

That's a good point actually, didn't think about that :P Forgot that swamp is so close to the vacant house in Lorule =x

Also, I saw in zander's WR video that he just walks everywhere with the bomb flower. To speed this up a bit, you can use the hookshot on fences and bushes, andthe bomb flower won't be left behind. (And you want hookshot equipped to enter swamp palace anyways)

Example: Right when you start leading the bomb flower, hookshotting down is about 0.5 seconds faster.

Example 2: The screen after lifting the giant boulder, you can space a hookshot at a single push near the left side to go across the screen vertically very quickly

I'd put up a video but no webcam nor 3dscapture at the moment :(

There is one thing I forgot to take into account when I timed the difference between my early Lorule route and Zander's. Warping to the Blacksmith before going to buy the Big Bomb for Swamp Palace is either 5 or 10 seconds faster than warping to Vacant House. I am not sure if, when you warp there, you get the text from the Blacksmith asking you to show him your sword or not. (Which takes 5 seconds) You do get the text when you walk by that screen, and I suppose you also get it when you warp, because you'll just walk out and probably activate it, but I haven't tested it.

If you do not get the text though, the fastest route would be to use Zander's, activate the Blacksmith's vane when you first reach Lorule (Long text activation, takes 9.3 seconds, but then the Vacant House would become a slow text activation, going from 9.3 to 6.5 seconds, so activating Blacksmith would add 6.5 seconds) and then use it when you're about to do Swamp. So you save about 10-6.5=3.5 seconds. (Lol) But I'm pretty sure you get the text anyway, so that would be 5-6.5 = 1.5 seconds slower.

Yes, you do get the text when you warp there.

Interesting, since you do get the text. Then that means using rhealt's route is about 1.5 seconds faster than zander's route.

However (correct me if I'm wrong), this is 1.5 seconds faster for the route starting upon entering Lorule, correct? Using rhealt's route requires having hookshot early, which costs 3 seconds (vs. getting hookshot in Lorule) pre-Lorule, assuming you get the kakariko silver rupee. So ultimately, rhealt's route is ~1.5 seconds slower?

It might be worth using rhealt's route anyways, since it frees up an extra 50 rupees to save for the bomb flower in Lorule. It's uncommon, but it does happen that you don't get enough total rupees in Lorule to buy hookshot+ice+fire+sand rods, and also the bomb flower. If we have an extra 50 rupees, it also means we can be a bit more lenient on skipping tiny detours for rupees in Lorule dungeons?

I'm not sure if anyone's specifically written out a rupee route for Lorule. But I do think hookshot early is worth the safety of 1.5 seconds ultimately.


SIDE TOPIC: THIEVES' HIDEOUT STRATS

So when watching zander's current record, I noticed that he manually slashes every enemy. I'm pretty sure that, since bombs/bow are already equipped for majority of thieves' hideout anyways, it'd save time to use them.

The first encounter with the four blue enemies, I plant a bomb right when they fall from the ceiling, then go for the left guy while the other three walk into the bomb. Not sure if that's really worth it, since bombs do only 3 damage (master sword does 2) =/

Something I DO know for sure that's faster, though, is the forced fight with two blue enemies, in the room with the three switches (room before the boss key room). Immediately upon the two guys falling, I drop a bomb in the center, go for the right guy while the left walks into the bomb, then ideally you'd fire 4 arrows to finish off the left guy, so you don't have to bother going up close to him. It's pretty difficult though, and I'll have to see if there's a consistent way; an easier method would probably be slash him around 2-3 times then snipe him from far away, so you're close to the door.

No, Zander's current route is the fastest one of those we mentionned. The text I was talking about is the one you get from the Lorule Blacksmith after you've upgraded to the Tempered Sword. Zander's route doesn't get that text, since he doesn't pass by the Lorule Blacksmith after he's upgraded the sword once, only before.

Now, I previously timed that Zander's route was about 10 seconds faster than mine, but I didn't include that warp difference. The walk is abuot 10 seconds shorter in my route, which would lead to both routes being pretty much the "same" time. But since we my route gets that extra text, it is effectively 5 seconds slower than Zander's.

The thing is, even if we could skip that text from the Blacksmith, my route still wouldn't be the fastest, because you could just take Zander's route and add the Blacksmith Weather Vane activation when you first reach Lorule (adds 6.5 seconds to his route) and then warp there before Swamp (would take 10 seconds off his route if we didn't get the text, but actually only removes 5 seconds.)

Personally, I'll keep on getting the 100 Rupee chest in Kakariko instead of the 50 one in Eastern Palace, because I've gotten used to having the Hookshot in House Of Gales. As for Lorule, I used to get 450 in Thieves Hideout (100 from miniboss, 200 from Master Ore path, 100+50 from chests) but watching other people play made me realise that the 150 from chests is pretty useless, since you'll most likely come by more than enough to make up for it. (Especially with Gemesaur King dropping a bunch) Heck, I even finished my run with 470 something rupees left at Yuganon hahaha.

As for those blue guys in Thieves, the first encounter is pretty damn annoying, but for that last one in the switches room, I go for the right one first, trap him in the top right corner just above the door, then wait like a second for the other one to get through the "passage" in the wall and trap him in the top left corner (where you would merge to get past the bars and reach the 3rd switch). I honestly don't know if it's faster or not, but at least I don't have to run after them, and I finish off the last one close to the door.

Yeah in terms of rupee route in Lorule, you need 400 total. You get an easy 200 while getting thieves' hideout master ore, usually 100 from the miniboss fight in the same dungeon,and many, many in dark palace (also 35 easy ones in desert palace).

I guess having hookshot for gales is up to personal preference. Ultimately slower, but not by much, and really comes down to comfort :P I'm used to not having hookshot so I'll keep leaving it for Lorule.

So ultimately, we want to activate the weather vane by the blacksmith upon entering Lorule, then warp there before doing skull woods.

I think I'll start writing up a pastebin tonight with the route so far, of course updating it when appropriate. It'll be nice to have it documented somewhere? I can only imagine how annoying it'd be since bits and pieces are all over the forums... <_<

Hum I'm not sure I get you there. Why would you warp to the blacksmith before doing Skull Woods? As of now, you complete Thieves, walk to Vacant House, activate that Vane, use the portal to Hyrule, rent the items, Warp to Kakariko and use the portal to Lorule behind Sahasrahla's.

If you meant before Swamp Palace, then not activating Blacksmith's and using Vacant House's is still faster.

So no, we currently shouldn't activate the blacksmith's vane. That is, unless we end up modifying some other stuff in the route, then we would have to reconsider.

What I do is get Hookshot early and buy the other items after thieve's. I don't really get hookshot early because of small timesavers but mainly because I have the money for it. I feel like the safest/fastest rupee route is both 100 in eastern, 100 in Kakariko and get the rest from random and guaranteed drops. So far it has only been close 1 time but you can always just kill 2 of the 20 rupee guys near vacant house before paying for the bomb flower if you don't have enough.

Yeah I meant swamp palace <_< my bad

Here's my route in case someone's interested. http://pastebin.com/GuDhad4M
Not detailed, covers mostly important items and rupees.
One thing I'm not sure yet is if I activate vacant house vane before or after swamp. Before has the troll enemy on ramp; after has the take a break message.

About ToH first: from what I understand, the route is something like (after getting smooth gem):
-go to Rosso, get power gloves
-go to Death Mountain, activate vane
-fly to house, rent items
-go southwest, get pouch
-fly back to death mountain, go to ToH, beat it
-fly to witch's house, get flippers
-fly to house, go to HoG, beat it

HoG first (my route, at least):
-go south, get pouch
-fly to witch's house, get flippers
-fly to house, rent items
-go to HoG, beat it
-fly to kakariko, go to Rosso, get power gloves
-go to death mountain, activate vane
-keep going, beat ToH

From what I see, the differences are: route to pouch (from house is ~3s faster), to Rosso (1-2s difference? Instead of going from the shady guy, it's from the vane), the posssibility of breaking rocks on the way to ToH with hammer (a bit faster than lifting rocks in one place?) and 1 extra fly in ToH first route. Because of that extra fly, I believe HoG first is faster (a fly adds about 11s, the other differences doesn't seem to overcome that much). Or am I missing something else?

That seems to make sense. Assuming your timing is accurate, cutting out an extra Irene flight shaves off quite a few seconds.



Now, I know I've mentioned this in your stream, but the questionable route is doing swamp palace so early. The main thing is, at least from watching your ALBW streams, you go out of your way for rupees pretty often (out of your way as in, treasure chests that are in the way... but they still cost time) since you need the 500 total rupees in Lorule a lot earlier (as opposed to doing swamp palace 2nd to last). Whereas if you do swamp palace 2nd to last (then turtle rock last), then you have plenty of time to get free rupees, primarily from desert palace and dark palace's boss.

Furthermore, lack of lvl 2 master sword loses time in swamp palace, though it's not as big of a deal as the rupee issue.

Finally, your skull woods 2nd route requires doing early hookshot, which loses a few seconds in the first Hyrule part of the game.

Also, is there any reason for doing desert palace so late?

All the points are what makes me think the route isn't the best; not only those, but the fact that the vacant house is so close to swamp makes the bomb flower path irrelevant (you'd use the path and activate it while bringing the bomb). Still, I have this route memorized now, and I want to improve it as much as I can so that we can compare later with other routes.

About desert, no reason to do it earlier, since it may make Irene talk more when warping. The main reason desert was done early was because of Titan's Mitts for swamp.

Thing is, if you don't do Swamp as early, you can skip the 100 and 50 rupees chests in Thieves, and instead gather those rupees along the way (from Gemesaur, on the ground in Desert Palace, etc.)

The difference between Anwonu's Lorule route and any other route seems like it would be really hard to time. I might give it some thoughts in the next few days, see if I can figure something out.

OK, so, I tried a thieves-skull-ice route, to see how far it would be from my PB.
Here's the route: http://pastebin.com/Ede39Liz
The video: http://www.twitch.tv/anwonu/c/3503311
tl;dr: no hookshot early; thieves, skull, ice, desert, dark, swamp, turtle.

Besides the huge mistake (got wrong exit in lost woods, wasn't paying attention >_>), all the other mistakes were pretty much on par with my PB, I think. The lost woods derp wasted about 50s, which totally cancels with the extra time at the end.
If anyone is willing to check this and my PB to check where I lose time and give an idea of which route is better, good luck =p
For now, I'd say both routes are close, surprisingly.

Edit: ah yes, I forgot to ask something that I actually wasn't sure: is the vacant house vane activated after thieves, like I did? I didn't see any other chance to do that.
Edit2: maybe comparing isn't that bad if someone's willing to time all my chokes =p; I don't remember how manu chokes my PB has. My memory is horrible, even forgot how derpy my eastern was in this run =p


Unrelated edit: someone who does/did ToH first: when you activate the vane in death mountain, do you get the "take a break" message? If not, then I guess that's one more plus to ToH first, making both routes closer. (Even if you receive later, I believe it's the only time you get it; in HoG first, you get the message twice over the run.)

If you do ToH first you don't get the long text in Death Mountain, and you get it at Vacant House.

If you do HoG first, you get the long text in Death Mountain. Then, you don't get it at Vacant if 1. you activate it when renting items between Thieves and Skulls or 2. you activate while bringing the big bomb between Thieves and Swamp. You do get it if you activate it after finishing Swamp (as 2nd palace in Lorule).

Hm, true, you only get once unless you use my route and activate after swamp. So ToH first loses that advantage, I guess.

A good number of the active runners saw my recent run where I used a new route. The dungeon order is Thieves Skull Swamp Dark Turtle Desert Ice. You take the bomb flower immediately after Thieves and hit the Vacant House weathervane during that sequence. The other big idea here is that Desert -> Ice saves a fly because you spawn right next to a portal after Desert. The existing routes save this fly by doing Ice immediately after upgrading, since you're at Hyrule blacksmith, but this provides an alternative for people who aren't confident with doing Ice with green mail. Additionally, since you do Ice last and with blue mail (if you're skipping blue mail then swamp third doesn't make sense), it's more likely that you can forgo the fairy fountain entirely, which is quite a large advantage. Dark and Turtle can be done in either order -- I didn't see any advantage either way.

tbh i havent seen anyone do swamp third if they want to do it early its best they do it 2nd. If they are doing 3rd Ice than doing swamp last or second to last would be the better choice

I haven't timed very closely, but I believe that having tempered sword in swamp is better than the less movement from doing swamp second.

Bombflower escort strat pre-Swamp Palace.

(http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s619/kirbymastah/hs1_zps08468214.jpg) (http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/kirbymastah/media/hs1_zps08468214.jpg.html)

Hookshot down from this spot.

(http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s619/kirbymastah/hs2_zps2707f2bd.jpg) (http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/kirbymastah/media/hs2_zps2707f2bd.jpg.html)

Hookshot down-right here. This is pretty lenient and you can usually do it without adjusting your position after the screen transition.

(http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s619/kirbymastah/hs3_zps2cf34d4b.jpg) (http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/kirbymastah/media/hs3_zps2cf34d4b.jpg.html)

Hookshot down-right here. There's a flower I'm standing on as a visual cue.

(http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s619/kirbymastah/hs4_zps70570641.jpg) (http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/kirbymastah/media/hs4_zps70570641.jpg.html)

Hookshot down. This one's rather risky since there can be a spear-throwing enemy in a position to snipe you, but i've never actually gotten hit by it yet.

Go buy Big Bomb (200 rupees, kill red Moblins if needed)
^ I read this in the any% faqs. So buying it for 200 rupees is truly faster then skipping paying the guy?

From the video I watched on ZSR, the set-up for skipping the bomb takes really freaking long, and basically all the rupees you get in Lorule dungeons cost basically no time at all.