Mechanics

Kicks

Wild Claw

Damage

Zipping

Techniques

Bike

Wall Ride

Simply put when Carol's bike comes in contact with a wall it will stick to it like glue. This can be accomplished by hitting it in midair, or driving up a slope onto the wall. You can then drive up by moving to the direction of the wall or down if no directional buttons are pressed. To get down faster just move to the opposite direction and Carol's bike will fall down.

While on the wall Carol can preform any actions that do not require her to be in the air, or turn around. This means things such as boosting and attacking will work.

It is also important to be ready to avoid Wall Ride when necessary. There are parts of the levels where you need to get down faster w/o sticking to any surfaces. To do this just don't press any directional buttons and let Carol fall down freely.

The wall doesn't have to be a flat surface and/or in front of Carol in order to her to stick to it. She can easily get a grip to surfaces above her head given high enough velocity. Most of the time it is undesirable and will send you in the opposite direction, so watch your movement carefuly. It is said that Carol's bike is made glue for a reason.

Wall Riding is the basis for many different tricks, and will be used extensively in speedruns.

Boost Claw

After pressing a boost button, hit the attack button to make Carol do her Wild Claw attack.

On a bike it is only possible to perform Wild Claw attack if boost was used in before.

Double Jump Claw / Jump claw

By jumping during the boost animation, Carol can use Wild Claw in midair. This can be combined with Double Jump to deliver the attack higher into the air.

This move is not too useful however, as most bossfights are done on feet to avoid losing the bike, or because of excessive momentum you get from boosting.

For some reason, this move does not work when jump-boosting off an upwards slope.

Double Jump Cancel

Carol can cancel the Double Jump animation at any time by performing an attack. Because Double Jump gives most of it's momentum right at the beginning this does not make difference in a long run, however by doing so you remove the energy cost of Double Jump which drains your Special Bar as long as you are spinning in midair. In situations where Kicks Attack will be needed shortly, preserving energy in your Special Bar is vital.

It is also worth noting that Double Jump spin deals less damage than any other of one Carol's attacks, so in most cases it is not worth spending energy on.

Most of the time though, there is little to no reason to cancel Double Jump other than habit. And in fact sometimes you may want your Special Bar to be drained. Other than in fights, or in particular situations, this technique tends to be inconsequential.

Boost-Turnaround

A simple trick that makes Carol instantly go in other direction with full momentum.

While driving forward, pressing the opposit direction slows down the bike. However by performing a boost while doing so, Carol instantly gains all her momentum back. When done really fast it looks like Carol just rocket herself in the opposite direction in a blink of an eye.

In almost every situation where changing the direction of movement is necessary, Boost-Turnaround is the most efficient and fastest way to do it.

Bike Dismount

By coming to a full stop on the bike by either holding Down button, or pressing the opposit direction until fully stopped, Carol can leave the bike behind. To do this, hold Down button and press Jump while bike is stationary. Carol then will pounce in the direction she's facing.

Most bosses are substantially easier, safer, and faster to fight on foot rather than risking your bike to be destroyed, so being able to leave the bike fast is a valuable skill for speedruns.

There are very few situations where you wish to use the bike in combat - when the enemy is ouf of reach of regular jump and there are little risk of losing the bike, or there are more bike powerups nearby (examples: Sky Battalion Metal Ship miniboss, Serpentine fight's second phase in Jade Creek).

Wall Launching

While preforming a Wall Ride there are several ways to leave the wall: to press the opposite direction to fall down, to reach an edge at the end of a wall, or to jump away from the wall. Wall Launching makes use of the latter.

In most cases Wall Launching is used to instantly transition into moving away from the wall. To do this release the directional button that makes Carol go up the wall and instantly press Jump button. Then quickly switch to pressing the opposite direction to preserve your movement momentum.

Be aware however, that missed timing on that one may result in Carol slowing down or falling off the wall.

Roof Riding

A situational technique. It can be useful in different levels where landscape allows to make use of this skill. For example, with current route there are three times when Roof Riding is needed in Dragon Valley.

As we've mentioned before, Carol's bike is made of glue. She can grab surfaces that are above her. In Dragon Valley example they are rounded edges of landmasses as can be seen here. Touching surfaces like this while pressing the directional button will cause Carol to stick to it in peculiar way depending on where she grabs it.

It is useful to experiment will all such surfaces on your own to feel what parts of it gives better grip. Certain parts will cause Carol to get stuck, while others will allow her to boost and ride the entire curve which is the preferable option.

To do a Roof Ride let Carol touch the surface with double-jump spin. After you stick to the surface, use boost to gain speed. If "the good" part of the surface is missed, Carol may gets stuck. You will have to jump off and double jump back onto the curve, but most of the time it won't give you Roof Ride anymore and instead you'll have to jump your way up to the top.

This trick is difficult to grasp at first and the approach to each Roof Ride is unique due to different circumstances. But with practice comes understanding how it works. The general advice though - do not rush your double-jump and try to loose as much momentum as possible before hitting it and touching the needed surface. Examples of Roof Riding can be seen here.

Boost Jumping

By jumping immediately after boosting Carol can extend the length of her jump. Done frame perfectly this can launch Carol substantially further than simply jumping at speed. A very good technique to build into being second nature. The only times this technique is not useful is to conserve stamina, or when a shorter jump is required. An extra major benefit of Boost Jumping is that it takes next to no room to preform, allowing it to be done without a run-up. This is especially usful when approaching ships in Sky Battalion.

The trick does not increase height when launching from the ground, it actually increases the speed Carol leaves the ground at. Due to this it actually saves times to be boost jumping in situations where a normal jump would suffice.

Done on a slope yields amazing vertical height. This can allow carol to reach places that would otherwise require a double jump, or even skip certain wall rides.

Edge Boost

This technique is still not fully understood. It is executed by boosting as carol reaches the top of a wall, and as she goes off continue to hold boost. This will launch her forward off the wall rather than directly up. This is beneficial in nearly every situation, there is almost no places where an edge boost isn't anted while leaving the top of a wall. The confusion comes in with the angle that Carol leaves the wall at. Sometimes she nearly goes vertical, other times she can go at such a steep angle that she literally grabs the floor immediately. It appears to have something to do with how long the boost has been going until the top of the wall was reached, but further testing is still required. Note there are two major types of edge boosts:

Kicking: When carol has some remaining special bar and attempts to edge boost she will launch off the wall at incredible speeds directly into her kick attack. In most situations that's fine, but kicking does prevent carol from double jumping. It however possible to edge boost with special remaining and not kick, the reason why is not understood and is mainly done by feel currently.

Kickless: When going off a wall without special bar (or in some cases even with special) carol will launch forward in a state almost identical to jumping out of a boost. The advantage of this is that Carol can then double jump to extend the length of this boost and reach walls that the kicking boost may need to land and then jump for. This kickless boost is why you will often see carol runners spamming boost to keep their meter down. There are times however that carol will need to be able to kick and you must know when an area like that is coming up.

Propeller kicks

when you kick you cancel water physics and start falling down. Then you press jump and get vertical momentum. Overall it boosts you forward slightly. Overall not the most useful techniques, the major place this was useful for is now no longer seen due to a route change in Jade Creek. It does have the benefit of being able to seemingly drag out a boost from a ledge underwater to carry the momentum for longer due to removing water physics. As is there is only a few times that Carol will be underwater, and in the majority of them riding the bottom is simply the better option. Of the two that this is potentially useful in Jade Creek, only one is commonly used after Neera is frozen, because in the other you may wish to conserve special for an upcoming fight. Even in the one spot that some runners use it however, it is not much slower to simply ride normally and rise to the surface.

Because of the aforementioned reasons this technique tends to be inconsequential and should not be a priority to learn. However the route is constantly evolving and more uses may be found at any point.

Foot

Wall Jump

Secretly Carol is zero... or at least she has very Megaman-esque wall jump. Carol can climb walls as if she game right out of Megaman x. This technique is simple, and can be used to help kill tall bosses at a much faster rate, and navigate levels when a bike isn't available. Learn to time the jumps rather than mash to get the best possible speed up walls.

Use this to skip ladders no matter how small.

Slope Pounce

Carol's pounce instantly puts her at her normal running speed in the direction you're facing. This makes is an amazing way to maneuver. If Carol preforms a pounce and lands on a slope however she gains a massive amount of speed in the direction she is heading. depending on the angle of the slope this speed can almost rival that of the bike. The mechanics of the pounce allows this to be done even on slopes such as those that would allow you to run up a wall.

Pounce Turnaround

The animation for a pounce can always be cancelled by pushing in the opposite direction, and Carol can always pounce in mid air if she is not in the animation already. This means she can pounce in midair to instantly reverse herself at full speed, even directly out of a pounce in the other direction!

Spring Pounce

When being launched by a spring Carol can pounce immediately to travel in that direction instantaneously. Doing this can allow carol to reach places she wouldn't be able to reach simply by jumping off the spring even holding in that direction. It can be done off both blue and yellow springs.

Slope Roll

There are three ways to god down slopes on foot. Simply run, roll, and pounce. Pouncing is the fastest, but when that's not available, or that's too fast rolling is nearly as good. It builds speed at a much faster rate than just running, and essentially any time you're not pouncing on a slope you should be rolling.

Roll Blocking

The way clanking works in this game allows many hitboxes to be cancelled out. The kicks are the perfect example of this. However rolling can also certain attacks such as the spikey thing that breaks the walls in relic maze. It has the advantage over kicks in certain situations due to having less hits so it causes less hitlag frames and is thus very slightly faster, plus it also saves some special meter.

Pounce claw

One of the two ways Carol can preform Wild Claw. Simply attack out of a pounce to do it. The has the benefit of reaching high and ease to control, plus Carol can do it right out of climbing a wall! It will be one of the corner stones to fight bosses, along with Roll Claw. In many cases the two can be substituted depending on style.

Reverse Claw

During the first frames of the pounce claw, pressing the opposite direction will cause the claw to come out behind Carol. Fairly difficult to do and very situational, but it does have the potential to hit targets both in front and behind carol in the same motion.

Roll Claw

The second way Carol can preform a Wild Claw. By attacking out of a roll at any point Carol will transitions directly into clawing. Doing it this way has the benefits of being able to hit with the roll before clawing on an target, and being able to claw from a nearly stationary position. It is also excellent for hitting targets low to the ground.

Rapid Clawing

Rapid Clawing is simply putting out as many Wild Claws as you can in a short period of time. This is the single fastest way to do damage in the game except for perhaps a dragon boost from Lilac. It can be done two ways.

Pouncing: Remembering that pounces can be turned around in the air, Carol can put out rapid claws in mid air. This is quite hard to do properly and most runners prefer to kick directly out of a pounce claw, but done properly it will do higher damage. Even done somewhat improperly it can still provide an alternative for while the special bar is empty. Perhaps in the year 20XX Carol runners will do rapid reverse claws to do a ridiculous amount of damage to a focused point, but the amount of technical speed that would require is insane.

Rolling: Carol can begin a roll as soon as the claw animation is done. This can pump out a massive amount of claws while being able to do it almost stationary. An amazing way to destroy everything close to the ground. Master this and things like the Bone Golem will go down in no time flat!

Major Skips

Relic Maze Zip

Thermal Base Box Zip

Final Dreadnought 2 Zip

Final Dreadnought 4 Zip