TL;DR at the bottom
I had a 16:07 run, but the game crashed before I could shadowplay it, so this is the best surviving footage. I have kept a record of my best individual kill times, which suggests that I could get a 15:38 run. I have tried for a while to break into the 15 minute range, and I have finally accepted that it is not in my control whether or not that happens. There are far too many variables. I've promised myself I will NOT run rank 2 of this shithole, unless the Obsidia series has high floor and is competitive.
At my power level, my abilities may hit 50% of what a crit hits for. My photon blast final hit crits for 3257, but I have seen hits as low as 1630. I could execute every perfect finisher in the world, but if they don't roll high or crit, then I'm behind another run that got lucky and spammed a basic finisher.
Another factor that caused me to stop early is the intense lag that's been happening for the past week. You may notice in this that the damage numbers are often appearing late or time seems to freeze for a moment, that's my connection to the server breaking up. I'm positive it is not on my side. This causes my videos to look pretty shitty, and it adds yet MORE variance to my finishers.
If the server decides to lag as soon as I finish, then I'll get an extended chain finish and more damage. However, if the server lags during the finisher, then any hits that get processed after my chain finish ends will lose the finisher bonus, effectively shortening it.
Not even mentioning the inherent randomness of the five enemies here, the above factors just added that much more sourness to each failed attempt. Literally losing the run to RNG dude
Some new tech I have employed to increase run consistency:
- Running backwards when Pangolan teleports guarantees a belly flop.
- Found out I can actually do a proper sandbag combo on Pangolan during a belly flop by taking a specific and suspicious position. It's still better to use Bullet Rave and Point Blank if Spread Shot is ready as you cannot miss it in that case.
- Turning Crocodylis around at the start greatly reduces the odds of bombs hitting the ceiling and dropping underneath him, and forces them to drop closer together. Sometimes an icicle will fall late and I have more time to grab that one as well.
- Not throwing every icicle on Crocodylis is likely better damage for the first set of bombs. I later learned you should keep throwing them all on the second set since you have no photon blast then, but I hadn't started doing that here.
- Jumping above Crocodylis as he enrages induces weird behaviour which sometimes makes him not do the long and bad attack (this did not work this attempt). You lose nothing by trying this and gain a lot if it works. Interestingly I only learned this because I tried to aim a photon blast where his mouth would be at the moment of enraging (used it pretty late on Pangolan), but then he didn't do it. I know there's a way that involves running into his left arm, but that never worked for me.
- Discovered a new combo of Charged Point Blank, Stylish Roll, Charged Point Blank, Stylish Onslaught which is the most powerful aerial counter combo I've found. Can be modified to work on Ams by diving at the end instead. Stylish Roll Arts would do more damage but I'm not used to inputting it.
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TL;DR: 15 minutes was doable but too many random factors are getting in the way, as well as server issues. 50% floor was a mistake. Had a 16:07 run but game crashed so footage was lost. I'm not looking forward to Aelio and Retem rank 3 if this low floor gaming is staying.
Timestamps:
0:00 Snoruq
2:30 Relyn
5:07 Pangolan
8:20 Crocodylis
11:39 Ams Kvaris