SawBase

If you want to switch over to removing load times or doing sum of mission times I’m for it. It’ll be a pain but should make the game fairer for console runners. Again let's only do this if you really think that it'll make a difference

Some general things I’ve noticed
Your JJCs are on point. You do drop them every now and then but for the most part you nail them
Keep your sprint in mind for some area transitions. You can keep it when you go from one area to the next in most cases. Simply, if there are enemies that would prevent you from building up a sprint in the next area, don’t Rapid Slash through the transition. This seriously wastes 45-60 seconds throughout the run
Something interesting I noticed is that you almost never sheathe Rising Star. This might be a holdover of the Lunar Phase 2 days but I tend to place a premium on having Devil Trigger, to the point where I lose time making sure I enter some fights or areas with full runes
You get hit a little too often. While not a huge deal for proud souls after M2 it is wasteful to have to rebuild concentration, especially given how important JJCs are in the run now
You need to practice some of the actual skips in the speedrun. You seem really hesitant or nervous to do some of them
Your menuing needs work but that’ll just get better as you do more runs
You’re not using vanilla summoned swords as often as you could. I’m pretty sure you know this but it’s optimal to put them on L1 and DT on Square
You have a rough time recovering in some places after you miss a strat or something. Work on your nerves and don’t panic
You get less upgrades than I do. That probably saves a little bit of time but I do need to test if it’s worth it. Try to do missions without taking damage as you get extra proud souls, which lets you get upgrades earlier. This really helps with stuff like Rising Star, the summoned sword commands, and Trigger Heart. If you play almost perfectly you can get JCE very early and save 20 seconds
Your orb route is a little jank. You get about 10k more than you need before M19 then make useless purchases for M20
You really need to think about what you do for Holy Water. You’re not using them very effectively
Overall our routes are very similar. I have strats that are faster in some places, as do you. I’m definitely taking some of your strats, especially those on M2, M8, M9, and M17. Look at my M1, frogs, M7, Echidnas, Credo, M10, M11, Sanctus, M12, M18 street fight and fountain fight, M19, and M20. Prioritize your Holy Water route and make it something you’re comfortable with while making it faster

M1
DT at the start of the tutorial so that you shoot summoned swords faster
Use Just Judgement Cuts to interrupt Dante’s taunts after he tries to shoot at you
The game tells you to use your Yamato Combo A on Dante but you can just deal enough knockback for it to count as a combo hit. The second and third attack of Combo A counts as two hits because of how it snaps Dante back up from the floor after he gets knocked down
Trap Dante in an Upper Slash chain. Yamato has an absolutely absurd range with max concentration and if you take advantage of it you can bait him into jumping into the hitbox while it lingers after the attack
As far as I’m aware Just Judgement Juts at level 3 concentration deal more DPS to Dante than anything you can do at the start of the game. DT doesn’t do much in this fight besides make summoned swords come out faster (useful for breaking benches) and make Yamato Combo A deal crazy damage on the last hit (useless against Dante because he’ll be on the floor after the upwards slash part of the DT combo and won’t take the hit)

M2
DT at the start of the mission to start sprinting faster
I like your JJC strat on the first two set of Scarecrows you have to fight. I always used Just Beowulf here because it gives more DT but you have a better DT management route
You can backflip and roll and meander and you won’t lose concentration. Use that for the Scarecrow next to the orb crystal
If the Scarecrow is in a good spot at the orb cache tower you can Rapid Slash off the ledge to instantly sprint. It saves about 3 seconds but it’s random so I don’t go for it unless I know for certain where he is
C’mon son, play around on the houses after killing Berial

M3
I might start skipping the orb caches in M3 or use other ones. I never realized how slow they actually were and you probably don’t need them (I get them out of paranoia that I’m going to be short on orbs somewhere)
Angelos were a bit sloppy. Reposition if you have to against them

M4
Something to keep in mind is that there is a Holy Water chilling on the chandelier in the main room in this mission. It’s hard as heck to get but with a good M1-M3 you might be able to afford Aerial Rave V to actually get it
You play it safe with your gyro blade hits. While this isn’t really bad it’s something you could consider going for in the future (hitting further and in less hits at the risk of overshooting or ricocheting)
I’m nearly positive Lunar Phase 2 and Blistering Swords on the Angelos in the dining room is faster than what you do, though to give you the benefit of the doubt maybe you just had a sloppy fight
For Bael just avoid getting hit with everything you have

M5
Really? No upgrades? I’ll test more later but I do feel like Rising Star and Aerial Rave V are worth getting for this mission, and Spiral Swords aren’t too shabby either
Very minor thing but the gyro in this mission should be tapped before you go to the hit wheel to give it time to fully activate
About that gyro: tap it a little to give it an extra bit of distance then go for a hit on the statue. It saves walking time

M6
Trigger Heart is an interesting choice. I might start doing that in the future to make the window easier, though from my experience you either get the trick in that fight or you don’t and reset
Good window. I’m not sure about building up DT in the fight itself (I use the Cutlasses for my DT) but you obviously know what you’re doing in the fight which is great

M7
A little confused about why you were trying to purchase Heavy Rain Swords for this mission. I don’t see what they would help with except the off-chance that Echidna plays real mean
You play on PS4. There is absolutely zero reason you should not be going for this trick https://youtu.be/SfVX5J1FVfk?t=1m5s because it saves minutes. If I were you I’d seriously just reset if I didn’t get it because it’s that important for console runs
Wait around at the hit wheel before getting on the disappearing platforms so that the Mephistos don’t spawn and screw up your camera
I really like your Ancient Plaza fight. It’s clean and your DT management is superb. Work a little bit on your Trick usage and you’ll have something truly great (you basically have to remember that there are a lot of things that get in the pin sword’s way
Consider DT sprinting after you break the last wall with the gyro. It saves a few seconds and you get that DT right back in Echidna
This was the nicest I have ever seen Echidna play at the start of the fight. She bit you but good god did she go into egg laying mode in no time at all

M8
To be honest I still haven’t found a strat for the Assaults that I’m comfortable with. Let’s try to figure something out together sometime (mainly Blistering Swords + Lunar Phase 2 vs Rapid Slash JJC)
That DT Rapid Slash to the divinity statue was incredible. I’m taking that strat
Just Dodge Credo’s spears to build up concentration right at the start of the fight (you’re rolling too early)
Not sure why you didn’t use Heavy Rain Swords to pin Credo as you charge Beowulf
When you get a chance tap Credo with a single punch then use Heavy Rain Swords to pin him as he stagers backwards then build up a punch. If you do this twice he’s dead
Don’t Judgement Cut Credo. He retaliates very hard
If you need to recover the fight either stand still and get concentration or trick-cancel Lunar Phase 2 and Blistering Swords him
If you kill Credo while he’s in midair, he’ll instantly turn into a mess of orbs. This is because he doesn’t have a death animation for being off the ground. It saves 8 or so seconds so if you feel up to it try to end the fight that way
Overall, your Credo needs a lot of work. He’s a jank fight as Vergil but with some practice he gets easier

M9
I know that the skip this mission is scary but I don’t think picking up the S Devil Star is a good idea. It wastes time to get and use it, and if you mess up the second part of the skip I just go into the elevator and fight the Frosts
I still don’t have a good strat for the Angelo fights in this mission. I’m paranoid about my DT usage but at the same time I feel like concentration buildup into JCCs isn’t good enough
You can punch Agnus with a distorted punch at the start of the fight if you activate DT then deactivate it for distortion. While in DT your concentration doesn’t go down from being hit and you can just stand there as he does his 2-hit combo and charge Beowulf

M10
That floating sandbag fight felt off. I think you tried to get too much concentration even though you’re just going to toss it running past the Angelos in the Key Chamber
It’s hard but you can sprint all the way through the lasers if you activate the chrono switch or whatever it’s called while you’re sprinting
Just Rapid Slash off the spinning blades. You’ll get enough distance to get to the door platform
Try to get some concentration to distort punch the orb crystal this mission. It’s not a huge deal if you don’t but I find that it makes the orb route a lot more lenient
I carry over the Nero strat of just using a Holy Water on the Angelos before Dante but I haven’t tested if Vergil can kill them fast enough with combat to warrant not using one
Dante unfortunately can’t be Lunar Phase locked on console because you sink after you use Lunar Phase

M11
Just do the skip at the start of the mission. It’s easy and saves 30 seconds or so
Be careful with your concentration and DT management as you fight the Angelos. Both are pretty important on Sanctus
I always keep my concentration by walking past the Scarecrows on my way to Sanctus. It makes the fight faster to have full concentration
That Sanctus was not good. It felt more like bad execution than bad strats but do work on it

M12
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHY ARE YOU BUILDING UP CONCENTRATION ON THE SCARECROWS YOU JUST IMEDIATELY LOSE IT RUNNING PAST THEM?!
I Holy Water the Mega Scarecrows after building up concentration. They die fast but they die faster to Holy Water
I Holy Water the first phase of the Angelos, but now that I think about it you do enter the fight with max concentration so it might not be worth it
For DT Rapid Slash, it’s faster to time the chains to the end of your slash rather than spam the attack

M13
Work on metering your concentration for the first fight
That was a good Assault fight in the Ancient Plaza

M14
Judgement Cut End is an odd purchase for this mission. I’d love to use it here but I’m really paranoid about getting eaten by a Fault while it winds up
Not sure why you waited around against the Mephistos. This whole fight felt really sloppy and like you were going for a strat that was slow
Good Ancient Plaza
I don’t think a Holy Water is faster in the last fight because of how things spawn in waves. I’ll test more later

M15
Blitzes can be taken out relatively quickly with trick cancelled punches but it’s hard as hell and I don’t think it saves enough time to go for (10 seconds at most from being able to use the Holy Water elsewhere)
I’m very scared of entering this mission with less than 5 Holy Waters. Dagon has a habit of screwing me over and it’s comforting to know I can recover the fight by making it rain if I really need to
Dante has a skip in vanilla 4 after the Frosts but I think Vergil can’t do it. It’s worth looking at to see if you can get better results from avoiding falling in to the pit than I did
My goodness that was a good Dagon start. I’m going to look into baiting him for a jump so that I can consistently knock him down
Anyways this is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned that Dagon likes to fuck you over. You lost 30-45 seconds on this fight, most of it due to luck

M16
If you didn’t do the skip I would have thrown my monitor across my room so good job at that
Rapid Slash JJC is probably faster for the dogs but I’ll test some more
Sloppy Berial. Be careful about positioning yourself for charge punches and there’s no reason to not play it safe and use Heavy Rain Swords
YOU HEALED AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

M17
While I like the theory of buying almost all the Holy Waters in one go I think that there were times in the run where having access to a stock of them would have saved time. Again, this needs testing and me actually bothering to time this stuff out
I legit never thought of using JCE on the Angelos. I might have brain issues
How did you not hit that orb crystal with the JCE? Good fight otherwise
I really like your positioning strat for the Mega Scarecrow spawns of the street fight, though it’s better to Holy Water them then use a JCE on the dogs and Scarecrows
Again, I just use a Holy Water after the first Mephisto dies here
You recovered Agnus about as well as you could have. He’s just an evasive jerk

M18
Just stand relatively still after the first platform jump
I like that Blistering Sword strat you used against the first two gems
Good job on realizing Trick is broken in this fight
Glad to see that these platforms still don’t work even on console
You didn’t taunt while you had an S rank and nothing to do. That disappoints me more than you could ever know

M19
If something doesn’t instantly die to a Holy Water you can hit it with a single summoned sword and it dies right after
As a note, bosses in M19 are more aggressive, recover a little bit faster, and have slightly different patterns. Mostly this doesn’t matter but for Berial it means that unless you Heavy Rain Swords him he will recover and flame you as you charge a punch
Why are you Lunar Phasing Berial instead of using JJCs?
Using Holy Water spam on one of the frogs is great, but avoid what you did. You should have at least tested the waters of the fight and seen if he was going to give you a good pattern
Echidna Holy Waters do not make sense. She goes down really quick without them and they’re better spent on waves of enemies than on a boss like her
A bit random, but you can trick dodge Agnus’ Beyblade attack if you time your tricks so that you vanish in-between his spins. Obviously don’t go for this but if you get the chance it’s fun to do

M20
SON WHY ARE YOU BUYING STUFF FOR SANCTUS DIABOLICA?
Your Sanctus Diabolica wasn’t very good. Look at my PB and see what I do here. I stand still to get concentration right at the start of the fight, JJC his shield, JJC him after tapping him once with my sheathe, and punch the daylight out of him with a single distorted punch after gets done backing up. Do this twice and he’s gonzo. You don’t even have to use Heavy Rain Swords on him if you play well