The BigBen
[TAS] Arbiters Grounds in 3:49.59
updated
This is useful for both rando and runs that do this area of AC, it saves about 10-15 seconds if done well.
Speedrunning discord server: discord.gg/kDeZ2hfsA6
Rerecord Count: 277,954
Dolphin Version: 2409
For those who are new to speedrunning, you may be asking, "What is a TAS?" A TAS (Tool-assisted Speedrun) is a game playthrough created by using an emulator to input controller commands frame by frame, aiming for the fastest possible time and often involving TAS only tricks that are too difficult for a human player.
This category is called Any% No BiT. BiT or Back in Time is a glitch that allows you to control link while on the title screen. In Skyward Sword, this allows for massive sequence breaks, and it saves roughly 3 hours in an RTA setting. To see an Any% TAS with Bit, watch Darmabi's TAS: youtu.be/3Lu0GkRzUNo
For the Overlay version: youtu.be/tDC-CU9gW_0
For the Commentated Version: youtu.be/HyjmPm_adSA
0:00 - Skyloft
14:08 - Faron
27:47 - Skyview
41:09 - Eldin
50:06 - Earth Temple
1:01:29 - Lanayru
1:12:12 - Lanayru Mining Facility
1:30:04 - Learn Ballad of the Goddess
1:50:52 - Farore's Silent Realm
2:03:15 - Ancient Cistern
2:19:55 - Nayru's Silent Realm
2:43:16 - Sandship
3:05:20 - Din's Silent Realm
3:19:01 - Fire Sanctuary
3:39:05 - Imprisoned 2
3:51:33 - Bilocyte Fight
3:57:00 - Minecart Auto-Scroller
4:10:58 - Ghirahim 3 Escape
4:15:18 - Demise
Rerecord Count: 277,954
Dolphin Version: 2409
For those who are new to speedrunning, you may be asking, "What is a TAS?" A TAS (Tool-assisted Speedrun) is a game playthrough created by using an emulator to input controller commands frame by frame, aiming for the fastest possible time and often involving TAS only tricks that are too difficult for a human player.
This category is called Any% No BiT. BiT or Back in Time is a glitch that allows you to control link while on the title screen. In Skyward Sword, this allows for massive sequence breaks, and it saves roughly 3 hours in an RTA setting. To see an Any% TAS with Bit, watch Darmabi's TAS: youtu.be/3Lu0GkRzUNo
For the Non Overlay version: youtu.be/JxXj45_8oGU
For the Commentated Version: youtu.be/HyjmPm_adSA
0:00 - Skyloft
14:08 - Faron
27:47 - Skyview
41:09 - Eldin
50:06 - Earth Temple
1:01:29 - Lanayru
1:12:12 - Lanayru Mining Facility
1:30:04 - Learn Ballad of the Goddess
1:50:52 - Farore's Silent Realm
2:03:15 - Ancient Cistern
2:19:55 - Nayru's Silent Realm
2:43:16 - Sandship
3:05:20 - Din's Silent Realm
3:19:01 - Fire Sanctuary
3:39:05 - Imprisoned 2
3:51:33 - Bilocyte Fight
3:57:00 - Minecart Auto-Scroller
4:10:58 - Ghirahim 3 Escape
4:15:18 - Demise
Route: pastebin.com/SmS17SWh
This segment features some really cool tricks I discovered. The first is a very precise jump in Nayru’s Silent Realm that skips pushing a minecart. Another timesave came during the Molderach rematch, where I found it’s possible to defeat him without backing him into a wall if you stand in a precise position.
In Sandship, the only new trick I discovered was a frame-perfect Fi call to skip the lifeboat-raising cutscene. This only saved about 2 seconds, since you have to lower the boat anyway, so voiding out is only barely faster. For Tentalus, I saved 10 seconds over my Boss Rush TAS by RNG-manipulating the tentacles to spawn as soon as possible.
Another big optimization I hadn’t thought of until this segment was door repositioning. In this game, the closer you are to a door’s intended position and angle, the faster it opens. Ideally, you want to be at the exact spot where you’re supposed to open the door; otherwise, you spend extra time repositioning. This ended up being the most time consuming section. For reference, I had to position Link within 100 units of the door’s angle and within 0.5 units of his X and Y coordinates for each door.
In Skyview 2, I lost time because I had to hit the switches since I didn't hit them the first time around thanks to chest jump. But luckily it still saves time overall for vine climbing.
Ancient Cistern is probably the craziest dungeon so far. I saved so much time in this dungeon alone that it almost beat the HD IL record, which uses a version exclusive glitch to skip most of the second half of the dungeon. One of the strats shown was Lilypad skip, which uses an incredibly precise vine clip to skip a small cutscene. In the Stalmaster fight, I found that it's barely possible to get 4 stabs on him before doing a frame perfect parry. This ended up saving about 2 seconds. Now the single biggest timesaver I found in this dungeon was basement beetle skip. This was extremely precise and saved about 15 seconds over the intended method. I also found another timesaver for the vine climbing after pulling the top gate. It turns out that it's barely possible to sidehop at the perfect angle and catch the vine frame perfectly, saving 5 seconds. Another TAS only trick that I implemented was the early idol jump method. This method of early idol is ridiculously precise and saves 6 seconds over the highflip method.
Koloktos is mostly an auto scroller, but there are some things you can optimize. In Phase 2, Koloktos actually has a lot of RNG components, There's rng for how long it takes for him to attack, and also how fast he winds up his attack. I managed to save 6 frames over my boss rush TAS RNG which I thought was already optimal.
There were a lot of weird glitches and tricks that I had to route in. The end result was pretty good though. There are a few points where my item routing was a little sub optimal as I wasted about 5 seconds getting slingshot and bomb refills when I could've gotten them in another area which wouldn't have wasted as much time. But overall I saved about 1 minute and 10 seconds over the RTA record in Lanayru Mining Facility and another 4 minutes in the overworld.
Earth Temple was very fun to TAS, I managed to get really good keese RNG saving about 2 seconds over the Earth Temple IL made by Darmabi. I also managed to save 2 minutes over the RTA record by implementing this runs first lava hop. Which skips having to roll the boulder all away across the temple, I also managed to save more time in the boulder slope due to a new trick being found where you can dodge the boulders if you have the correct RNG.
For Ghirahim 1, I found a weird qurik where if you manipulate his rng in a specific way, you can hit him before you're not really supposed to. This results in a fight that is about 5 seconds faster than the any% TAS.
(This is not a real speedrun, a TAS stands for Tool Assisted Speedrun which means I use savestates TAS input and frame advance to create the "pefect speedrun")
No BIT stands for No Back in Time, which bans a major glitch that would normally let you skip pretty much the entire game.
The only cool strategies shown here is the mini Zelda cutscene skip when rescuing the loftwing (It's insanly precise), Brakesliding, and Extending Blow.
Record count 12576
Redid the entire TAS. The first WIP's I made were very sloppy and i managed to save 1 and a half minutes from the first TAS by using the Japanese version, and from better optimizations in the fights


