Dead Cells – Tricks to Movement, Mechanics and Secrets

Movement / Mechanics / Secrets

Movement

Fast-Climbing (Beginner)

Climb a wall, then attack with a weapon and instantly cancel the attack animation by climbing/jumping (while still moving into the wall). Repeat the “attack → climb” trick as many times as needed.

• This will be way faster than the usual “climb, double-jump, climb” method and will allow you to climb singular walls in biomes.
• This can also be done with skills! The Serenade^FF is a great tool to climb really fast because activating the skill will interrupt the climb and initiate another climb without requiring you to press jump. Just spam the Serenade skill and climb as much as you want to!

Dive-Roll-Cancel (Intermediate)

Stomp from a high place and roll before hitting the ground.

• Because you cancel the stomp with the roll, the animation lock upon hitting the ground will be gone as well. This way you can dodge stuff like the plants in the Dilapidated Arboretum^TBS!
• You will be able to traverse through multiple platforms with more ease if this is mastered. Vertical movement will be more fun!
• Just be careful of canceling the stomp way too early. You can be stunned by the fall.

Assault Boost (Intermediate)

• Have the Assault Shield in one of your weapon slots, tap the shield button and then roll immediately afterwards. That’s all you need to do.
  • This has a 23-frames window where it works, you’ll need to make two inputs in quick succession.
    • The shorter the time between these two inputs is, the better the dash will be (it will be smoother & faster).
  • This trick will double your dash distance because it combines the dash and the roll.
  • You will have I-frames for the duration of the dash because of the roll, but spikes, lava, etc. will still hurt you. You can also dash through 1 gap tiles, your hitbox will be similar as if you are rolling.
  • You will have an easier time displacing enemies & bosses, which will interrupt their attacks/combos.
  • This trick will proc both your shield affixes (e.g. “Victims freeze nearby enemies when they die”) and your rolling affixes from amulets (e.g. “Dodging creates a toxic cloud”).

All Current Speedrun Techs

• This site has all the current speedrun tech, check it out if you want to learn more tricks!
  • Small spoiler warning for the two spoiler regions’ names.

Mechanics

Ducking with Bows (Beginner)

• You can duck while shooting with some bows that can help you with hitting enemies on lower platforms or even with evading specific attacks that can’t hit you while ducked!
  • You can duck the Failed Experiment’s leap, the basic Zombie’s leap, an Undead Archer’s arrow and even the Bomber’s dive attack!
  • See the video below: ducking with a bow to dodge a Failed Experiment.

Air-Stalling (Intermediate)

• You can air-stall (extend the time you are in the air) if you attack with certain weapons while you are in mid-air.
  • Sometimes only specific attacks of a weapon can let you air-stall, just try attacking in mid-air and see if you instantly fall back down or hover for a bit.

Air-Queuing/Loading/Storing (Intermediate/Advanced)

• You can queue your attack with a slow weapon before engaging an enemy.
  • First, stand on a platform (or any high ground), then jump down and attack while you’re still in mid-air. When you did it correctly, your attack will come out the moment you reach the ground/enemy.
    • This trick works best with weapons that have little to no air-stalling!
• Loading weapons:
  • You can “load” most back-ended weapons (weapons where the majority of the damage is near the end of the combo) by attacking until your needed attack is next. Then quickly engage the enemy and use those later attacks to decimate the target.
    • Some weapons will have more leniance when it comes to keeping a combo. Other weapons will reset their combo almost instantly if you don’t keep attacking.
• Storing charged attacks:
  • On some weapons, you can roll while or after charging up an attack (but before the attack has been executed). This will make you roll and store the charged attack. After the roll ends, you can release the charged up attack!
    • The Toothpick^RotG is a prime example where storing the charged attack is very useful.

Weapon Animation Cancelling (Intermediate/Advanced)

• You can work around the “animation-cooldown” (time where you can’t initiate another attack with the same weapon) of certain weapons by using 2 weapons at the same time:
  • Have the faster/high-cooldown weapon (e.g. Ice Shards or Pure Nail) in your left weapon slot and your other weapon in the right slot. Now just spam both attack buttons!
  • This works similarly to the Dual Binding setting in Custom Mode! You can also enable “Hold to attack” in the Gameplay settings to make this works more easily.

Forcing I-Frames (Intermediate/Advanced)

• Entering an animation (by interacting with objects) will stop any aggro and give you invincibility-frames (aka. “I-frames”).
  • Picking up scrolls is the preferred way to receive these I-frames. Picking up a scroll fragment works as well, but it’s riskier unless it’s the 4th fragment since the animation is shorter.
    • Opening a Rift, entering a Z-Door and interacting with lore related stuff all work! Any extended animation can be used for these I-frames.
  • Enemy Grenades will explode but not damage you while you are in the animation. You’ll have invincibility frames even a few seconds after the animation has ended.
  • But beware, enemies will stop taking damage during the animation! Fall damage, DoT, etc. will go to waste.

Skill Cooldown Cancelling (Advanced/Expert)

• Picking up a scroll while a skill is active or was used only a few seconds before can reset the cooldown of the skill!
  • Though sometimes it does not reset the cooldown, it’s really weird and we don’t know why. My guess is that the cooldown only gets cancelled at specific scroll counts.

Secrets

Sharknado – Easter Egg

• You can create the Sharknado, but you need two items:
  • Maw of the Deep^TQatS (the shark weapon)
  • The Tornado skill
  • Just throw the shark into the tornado! The 3rd hit launches the shark.
  • This unique tornado will also deal more damage than the normal Tornado does, but this is rather an easter egg instead of an actual synergy (mostly because the Tornado is a weak skill).

I hope you found this useful!