Uploaded July 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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New Nahatomb phase 1 strat, new strat compilation. A direct continuation to the previous video : youtube.com/watch?v=kQH2K7nFKJc

This uses save-states.

In the previous description, I mentioned how I thought it was impossible to fill all three cannons using armored-less enemies, before Nahatomb initiates his tongue attack.

Well, I just wanted to practice the - then - fastest strat again given amoser started using it in bad shaped runs… and did exactly that. Pretty quickly. Almost without realizing it too.

So, disregard the term I used to describe it, I think it’s bad. These strats should have better names really.
Traditional for the conventional top level strat, NTA (no-tongue-attack) for the previous fastest strat, TS (tongue-skip) for this new one ???

As explained, you try and use all three enemies to fill cannons before Nahatomb does an attack, skipping it.
This strat is both a lot harder and more luck reliant than the one before it. You need :
- The lone death Moo to spawn to the right (1/2)
- The three armored death moo to go in your direction (1/2)
- The first armored death moo to break from Nahatom’s fist shockwave, near the close vicinity of the cannon
- To grab it as soon as you can, then filling the cannon before immediately proceeding to the right. You’ll probably need to take an intentional hit because Nahatomb’s fist will be right in the middle. The fist can push you to the right if you touch it from the base which can be useful. But it can also break your enemy or block your cannon shot, This is the hardest execution part.
- Ideally grab the following two enemies moving down the slope for extra speed and without jumping. It’s almost impossible without. Sadly, this attempt shows the bad example, as not only did I have to jump, twice, but I had to shoot backwards. Don’t get it wrong though, even with, it’s still extremely clutch, and you need to make your shots without losing any speed and on the absolute edges. It’s also incredibly to get hit while grabbing them.
- The lone death Moo of the next spawn to appear to the right of you (1/2).


Also, you’ll notice that I immediately started going left towards the adjacent cannon. I thought going there (as well as to the cannon after it, which is barely reachable on-time) would help with the positioning of the armored death moos, but I didn’t find my (admittedly limited) testing very conclusive.
I also considered avoid having to shoot at granny’s cannon during the 3-o-fill (if you will). You see, the cannons each waggle vertically, but not at all at the same speed.
Balue’s the slowest, then it’s Moire (he’s almost unnoticeably faster unless you wait a full minute), then Seadoph, Queen (same story, almost indistinguishable with Seadoph unless you wait a while)… and then there’s Granny, which is uncomparably faster… for whatever design reasons.
Honestly, I thought Balue and Seadoph would be in the lead. Not some old lady...
Anyways, because she moves up and down so fast, I thought she would be very annoying to hit, sometimes forcing a jump out of the player. In the end I’m also not too sure.
It might be better to go towards the next cannon on the left at the start… but then it messes with the position of Nahatomb’s fist…

Super brutal trick, even for ILs. It's still most likely technically easier than the TAS Joka final phase skip. But to use this in runs ? Ewww. Now I don't love this phase anymore.

And if you're wondering why we need to have the enemy spawn to the right instead of the left... I haven't fully tested if a strat variant was possible on the left. It would be insanely useful because it would eliminate the first step (you can pause for half a second to know where the enemy goes). You have to consider that Nahatomb's fist position is asymetrical, potentially making this different, or naught.