Skull woods BK Room

General Information:
"Optimal Pathing" means walking in a straight line perpendicular to you're intended dash path, then dashing the maximum
distance possible. Walking toward you're destination either diagonal or parallel to the intended dash dash path is less
efficient, and causes you to arrive at your destination more slowly.

I want to explain the formatting a bit to make it a bit less confusing. There's a spike that moves back and forth at the top of the room, and you want to get past it as quickly as possible. There's some circumstances that slow you down as you approach, making different timings possible. So for example, if you don't have to swing your sword at anything, but have to walk around a stalfos, you're able to dash up the left side of the room and pass the spike brick as it moves to the west. I referred to this as "L1." So I broke down the possible leftward paths as L1, L2, and L3, then described the timing relative to the spike position, and the conditions that would allow for each timing to be achieved. And I did the same with right paths but only two of those. Then I'll explain specifically which conditions and rng factors lead to which reaction, and the optimal way to handle each situation that you'll be put in.

Left Path Outcomes:

	L1: 176-180 Frames

	Dashing north to the row of tiles the spike is on, arriving while the spike is west of you, and walking around the wall thing to the chest.

	With a optimal pathing and no need to slash or lose speed in any way you arrive a tiny bit early and would have to stop the dash to not hit the spike. Delaying the dash is preferable in this case. If you swing your sword and get a good dash path, or don't swing your sword and get a suboptimal dash path this timing should work out automatically and is no less optimal than if you wouldn't have to swing your sword or whatever since you'd have to wait anyway. This is the preferable condition.

	L2: 205-218 Frames

	Dash north to the row of tiles the spike is on, with the spike west of you, but won't have enough time to walk to the chest without the spike hitting you. Options are to dash past the spike, wait for it to pass under you then move down or let it hit you and damage boost toward the chest. If you move north of the spike you can charge a dash while the spike passes under you to save a few frames, but it's hard to say if this is practical for a human. Also you'll feel pretty silly if you pick up the pot. If you try to walk to the chest and get clipped by the spike, you'll likely get boosted to the east across the chest and want to open it from the right side. At the most the damage boost can save like 4-5 frames. There's also a really tight timing when you get boosted down the left side of the chest.

	This is likely to happen if you have to slash your sword twice and get a good dash path, or slash once and get a poor dash path. The earlier you get to the north position the longer you'd have to wait, and the more impactful charging a dash would be while waiting for the spike to pass under you (but I still question if it's even practical).

	L3: 223+ Frames

	Moving north late enough that you can't move beyond the spike on its east side. Having to wait south of the spike and letting it move eastward past you, and then moving around the wall after it's past you. Walking and dashing north have little difference in speed, although you'll want to dash if a stalfos is in your path instead of walking and slashing or something.

	This happens if you have to slash twice and can't get a good dash path, or if something else slows you down, like have to slash 3 or more times or getting boned by the red stalfos. This is less optimal but still can be faster than going right path. More details on that later..



Right Path Outcomes:

	R1: 176-191 Frames

	Dashing North to the row of tiles the spike is on, the spike is west of you and you can walk to the chest and open it. There's a pretty large window here to make this timing, so it's pretty easy to hit.

	With perfectly optimal movement and no need to slash this is about equal to L1 described above. This will, however, never happen due to mummy positioning (mummy positioning detailed below). It's still possible to make this timing with a slash or suboptimal movement. The only time we're likely going to move right this should happen.

	R2: 200-231 Frames

	Moving north, but not likely making it south around the wall without the spike hitting you. Lower frame timings for this indicate a very close path, without getting hit by the spike. Since the spike is moving at you from the west, it will dboost you east down the east side of the chest and you can open it from the right. For this reason, a damage boost is much less costly on the right path and you should probably try to make it even if you're unsure if you'll get hit or not (if you don't mind the heart loss). Higher frame timings here indicate movement north past the spike, and letting it pass under you before moving downward. This can be a lot slower but safer.

	This happens if you're forced to do 2 or more slashes or 1 slash and bad pathing. If the potential dash path is really poor walking or dashing can have little difference, however if you intend to move past the spike and wait then a dash is very likely to be preferable. We'll try not to let this situation happen though.


Gibdo(mummy) positions:

	The mummy can be in front of the door, or farther right, all the way to the far corner. And always on the lowest row of tiles. When in front of the door he can be slightly left of center, right of center or barely in front of the corner of the door on the right side. If like half of his foot overlaps with the edge of the door you can squeeze past him to the left but any other time he's in front of the door you'll need to slash once or damage boost past him. If he's right of the door you can move north of him, to the east and dash up the right side and make the R1 condition pretty easily. In this condition however, you should be able to make the L1 condition so it would be preferable to do that. If you don't slash the gibdo out of the doorway, he stays on the lowest row of tiles and you need to move to a tile north of him before dashing north (unless he's all the way in the far right corner). This means that you'll get "suboptimal pathing" under any condition that you don't slash the gibdo out of the doorway to the north a bit, in which case you could dash from the lowest row of tiles which is optimal. If the stalfos comply you can get L1 pretty easy. More info on stalfos conditions below.

Stalfos(Skeleton) positions:

	The blue stalfos always spawns in the same spot and moves east first, the red stalfos can spawn in front of the door or west of that all the way to the far corner, or east of the door but this seems less common, and first movement is random. A little note on stalfos behavior: they always turn their heads in the direction they're going to move before walking that way, and a red stalfos will only throw a bone at you after being knocked back by an aggressive action from you. In this case the red stalfos will look in the direction it's going to move as soon as the room loads and you gain control of link. Try to react quickly if necessary.

Jelly position:

	It's in the corner just ignore it.


Ok That's All Really Interesting But What Do I Do?
	Well I'm glad you asked me that!

I'll post a video with lots of outcomes, and they'll all be labeled with numbers so I can explain them all individually. That way I can explain what to look for, and how to react to each situation. After that it takes practice to be able to appropriately react to whatever situation you're put in.

http://youtu.be/w5XSjERMC-0

1-3. In all 3 of these the gibdo is to the right of the door where it's easy to walk past him. In these examples it's easy to walk north of him to the right side of the room, dash up and get a clean R1. In this situation it's likely an L1 should be achievable which is up to 5 or so frames faster. If you want to be perfectly optimal going left is preferable, but this is easy and consistent and barely(if at all) slower.

4. This is the farthest left the gibdo can be where you can still walk past it. If you want to go left, keep your eyeballs on the red stalfos until you know which way it's heading, then just avoid it. From that position it's pretty easy get past it without slashing no matter which direction it goes.

5. This is similar to the last one. The stalfos goes east this time which is probably the most difficult but still manageable as shown here. Since you need to move farther north to get past it, the blue stalfos becomes a problem if it moves straight south after hitting the wall. It did in this example but not all the way. If it had continued I think we could still make this dash but it's really tight.

6-7. In these two the gibdo is far enough east that we can get an optimal dash path from the south tile and slash once to still make the L1. slashing should only be necessary if the red stalfos moves east, which he does in these examples. In 6 I slashed, in 7 I didn't to show both were still viable options. Biggest impact of not slashing is that you move far enough north that the blue stalfos could be a problem.

8. Earlier I mentioned that When the gibdo is clear of the door going right side is usually easy and consistent. The only exception really is when the red stalfos is also east of the door. In this case L1 is most consistent and also fastest. keep in mind that you need to delay your dash some way to not hit the spike early. I like this movement pattern because it's probably safest for the most stalfos rngs or something.

9. I don't remember why this one is in here but it's similar to 4/5. The stalfos is close enough to the door that it's pretty difficult to react to. I would go right, but you can do whatever you like.

10. When the gibdo is in front of the door you're gonna need to slash once then move left of it. The gibdo can be left of center in the doorway but I think that only happens if you do the previous room poorly. Maybe I'll look into that more later. If that happens improvise, it'll make you stronger. Ok in this example the red stalfos is right of the door so after you knock the gibdo out of the way it's a clear dash path for an easy L1.

11-13. In these the gibdo is in the doorway and the red stalfos is to the left. The stalfos is far enough that the slash won't disturb it. So you'll just need to react to its movement like normal after slashing the gibdo. In 11 it gives good rng and we can get an optimal dash path after the slash and make an L1. If you're not confident or don't trust the rng you can go right, and there's two examples of that. In 12 you slash twice, and make an R2(damage boost) and in 13 you slash once and move left to walk around the gibdo then get another R2(dash past and wait). Going left is a fair amount faster, and even if you get delayed and need to do an L2 it would probably be faster. Going right is probably simpler and more consistent in most cases but once again left is likely most optimal if you can handle it.

14-15. Here the red stalfos is close enough to the door that it's gonna get knocked back by your slash and try to bone you. So for 14 I went left anyway, and then moved to avoid the bone throw. This may have gotten an L2 but the blue stalfos was coming at me and the gibdo was also approaching from the east. So I slashed at the stalfos and moved north before dashing to be safe. This resulted in an L3. In 15 I went right, which is a fair reaction if you know that the red stalfos may give you trouble. I did 2 slashes and got a safe R2. Worth noting is that even with all that delayed me on the left side the timings were about equal (some lag on both sides that may not be consistent) and on the left side I still had to delay for a moment to let the spike go past before walking to the key. This means that even if delayed by the monsters a little more, the timing wouldn't have been different. So if you don't mind it getting a little hectic and have enough confidence, going left is still viable or even optimal. I'm kinda slow so I'd probably go right but well you know.