New Time Stage Meta?

[kaloncpu57]

Since collabs are no longer allowed in Time Stage (concert stage), obviously the Stream of Tears meta is gone, so what's everyone using now?

Personally I've been getting nice times in the 4 minute range with Risu by resetting for EN's Curse or CEO Tears, then making sure to get the other of the two, and grabbing Energy Drink if I can plus big damage items like Gorilla's Paw, Face Mask, Devil Hat, and Membership. I might even grab the occasional Injection Type Asacoco if it shows up after I have the rest of my build going. The reason I use Risu is because she kind of naturally has the benefits of both EN's Curse (spreading damage via enemies themselves) and CEO Tears (fast multi-shot) thanks to her Nonstop Nuts and DLC skills respectively. Plus the DLC skill helps ever-so-slightly keep up your coin count for Membership when it's right to pick that.

Still, really curious to see what other ideas are out there.

[Hurkyl]

Mumei's Bird Feather is a good weapon to build upon.

But I too find CEO Tears to be a solid choice on the characters I've tried -- at least, for the first couple minutes. I'm not sure I'm properly evaluating how well it's functioning for the second half of the run.

Going hard on damage boosting items does seem the obvious thing to do for item choice.

[kaloncpu57]

Mumei's main weapon is definitely a good one, but I think upgrading any main weapon is a bit of a trap (though I could be wrong). I even Eliminate Risu's main weapon and all her skills, just taking the default level 1 for all of them.

[Hurkyl]

(note: I was reading up on the wiki, and I'm not sure Devil's Hat works the same as other damage multipliers, so take that with a grain of salt)

It's worth noting that ATK bonuses (e.g. Membership) and damage multipliers (e.g. Paw/Mask/Hat) are different categories.

Because of the way numbers combine, you get somewhat better value from having a good score in both categories, rather than a great score in one and a decent in the other.

E.g. (I will assume all are maxxed) if you have both the Devil's Hat and Face Mask, you get a 1.9x multiplier to damage. If you get the Paw, it bumps up to 2.3x, so it's only a 20% increase to damage done. (technically worse than that, because of the crit penalty)

However, even if you currently have +100% ATK, getting Membership to boost it to + 150% ATK is a 25% increase to damage done.

Another quirk of how numbers combine worth noting is that Candy Kingdom Sweets' drawback is in the multiplier category... which makes getting other items in the category to counteract it much more valuable.

[Hurkyl]

Wow, Risu is interesting to optimize.

As you near the 4 minute mark, Nonstop Nuts is crazy enough to clear the board all by itself, if you can beef its damage enough!

So... the Beetle is exceptionally good for Risu, since it's another +100% damage for skills.

In that regard, boosts to your main weapon damage are much more useful than haste/crit bonuses.

I'm not entirely sure what affects it, but I assume all ATK% and damage multipliers do. Stamps as well; Solo seems like it should be a huge boost to NN damage.

Another item that is unusually effective is the Stolen Piggybank (how appropriate!). The constant influx of coins lets you keep spawning DLC Risu. Which are more effective than usual since you have beetle.

Between Nonstop Nuts and DLC, Risu attacks often enough that I'm not sure you want to spend levels on a second weapon. I can get sub 4:00 times where Nuts is the only weapon I level up.

[SatanBless]

Time stage meta in short is

Ban starting weapon level 1 and get Ceo's tears level 1 for most characters (Some characters starting weapons might be okay, but mostly banning starting weapon is best)
Rush Ceo's tears level 7 asap while banning the other character skills on level up (With very few exceptions, skills are usually not worth to level).
Pick up Face Mask if it is offered to you at highest priority, even if it means skipping a level on Ceo's tears.

Any other damage items come later.

Second weapon get Potato asap and level to 7.

While in the potato leveling stage, pick up other damage items in this order of priority (But pick any if they appear) Face Mask > Devil Hat > Gorilla paw > Injection type Asacoco

Other damage items include Membership and Energy drink, but those are lower priority than any of the other 4 options, so try to get the others first unless you have no choice on level up.

3rd weapon is Fitness Ball. Alternatively is can be EN Curse, or Psycho axe if you can't manage to get Fitness ball.

For strategy, stay at the top and move minimally.

This will get you sub 5 minutes on any character, however for pushing faster times, you need good anvil luck and magnet luck, as well as good luck on level ups.

If you can't get Ceo's tears level 1 with less than 5 rerolls, you reset immediately.

Good luck.

[Hurkyl]

No love for Candy Kingdom Sweets? Eyeballing it, the haste buff should be a really big deal, even on its own, but it's extra good in two situations:

• Early on where you are overkilling and somewhat restrained by your weapon's delay
  
• Later when you've grabbed Mask/Paw (since I presume additive stacking)

And it's worked very well in practice when I was working on Mumei.

[kaloncpu57]

Oh wow, really love the Risu stuff Hurkyl! Tried it out for myself, and already seeing success. Did not expect leveling up her main stuff to be so potent. Also, thanks for the info on the damage math.

I do agree that SatanBless' strat is probably the way to go for a majority of characters, but I'm gonna do a bunch of runs with this Risu strat. Also yeah, standing at the very top of the stage is definitely the way to go, no matter the build (which doesn't actually hurt Piggy Bank, because there's a section at the top of the circle you can just move back and forth, left and right in).

I've been trying Candy Kingdom Sweets, but I don't know if I can get behind it without already having something strong to keep the damage up.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by kaloncpu57:

I've been trying Candy Kingdom Sweets, but I don't know if I can get behind it without already having something strong to keep the damage up.

It probably depends on the weapon you're using. I imagine it works poorly on CEO Tears, since it's already doing a lot of low damage hits.

I was focusing on Mumei before I looked at Risu, and when starting with Bird Feather, you are doing a lot more damage than you need to clear a line of enemies once you have a few levels in it, so the reduction in damage is inconsequential.

[Intra]

I think unless your character procs their kill options off haste or multihits, then Sweets is a no-go. I don't know how it multiplies with damage multipliers either, if it's multiplicative then it's an absolute no shot. But if you can neutralize it with Face Mask... maybe?

By the way, does anyone know how Hope Soda works?
Is it:
Crit = 1.5x damage
Is Hope Soda-
1.5x * 1.5x = 2.25x
or
1.5x + 0.5 = 2.0x?

[kaloncpu57]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

It probably depends on the weapon you're using. I imagine it works poorly on CEO Tears, since it's already doing a lot of low damage hits.

I was focusing on Mumei before I looked at Risu, and when starting with Bird Feather, you are doing a lot more damage than you need to clear a line of enemies once you have a few levels in it, so the reduction in damage is inconsequential.

Ah yeah, this makes a lot of sense. I haven't really done any runs with weapons where I'm still insta-clearing enemies with that amount of damage reduction.

Originally posted by Intra:

By the way, does anyone know how Hope Soda works?

No idea, but I'd also really like to know

[Hurkyl]

Here's another Risu tech: Idol Song.

I think it's effective specifically because it attacks vertically, which means the NN's it triggers will spread more evenly.

It could be coincidence, but my three best times have been to get CEO tears early, and pick up Idol Song late because I'm out of rerolls. I think my third best time also leveled up Nuts, but my others delete it early (I still might put a level into it with an anvil, to get the damage increase).