Draft:Shiren 5 2020:Double Strike Trail

Key Parameters
Initial Goal Floor	50F
Final Goal Floor	99F
Day / Night	Day
Bring Items In	No
Take Items Out	Yes
# of Allies	0
# of Rescues	3
Pre-ID'd Items	All except swords, shields (confirm)
New Items	No
Shops	Normal (all 3 types)
Monster Houses	Normal (pop-ups possible)
Characters	Shopkeepers only
Spawn Rate	Normal
Winds of Kron	Slightly faster than normal (1@1200, 4@1500)

Double Strike Trail is a bonus dungeon in Shiren 5 with a unique combat model in which both Siren and monsters can be killed in 2 hits. You can't take items or allies into the dungeon, but you can request rescue up to 3 times and you keep the items you have on hand if you win. The dungeon is daytime only, and the goal floor is initially 50 F. After first victory, the goal floor becomes 99F and stays there permanently.

Gaining Access

You can access this bonus dungeon from the Dungeon Center in Nekomaneki Village. Access is not restricted; you can play as soon as you can reach the Dungeon Center.

Unique Features

The damage model in this dungeon is unique. Any creature that takes damage has its HP reduced to 1, unless it was already at 1 HP in which case it dies. Shiren's experience level, strength, equipment, runes, and anything else that normally affects damage are all irrelevant in this dungeon.

The item distribution differs from baseline though it's hard to be specific. Here are some obvious differences:

• The range of items seems to be significantly smaller than in most dungeons, and doesn't seem to change regardless of how deep you descend.
• Unlucky Seeds and SuperUnlucky Seeds are much more common, and found on much earlier floors, than they are in other dungeons.
• The counterparts of the Unlucky Seed and SuperUnlucky Seed, the Cheery Grass and Angel Seed respectively, apparently cannot be found in this dungeon.
• Many staves (Trap Deletion, Boring, Knockback, Transient, Paralysis, Swap, and a few others) are found more frequently than normal. Some of these staves can do a small amount of damage at a distance, which makes a big difference in this dungeon.
• Arrows and Rocks are fairly common as well, but seem to be about as common as they are in most other dungeons including the Tower of Fortune.
• Swords and shields seem to appear less frequently than they do in most other dungeons.

Items are all pre-identified, including pots and bracelets. (Note: I assume swords and shields are not fully identified and could still be cursed, as is true in every other dungeon, but this needs confirmation.)

The dungeon is daytime only.

There are no wandering NPCs but you can find regular shops, and per the Japanese wiki, you can also find the other 2 types of shops as well.

Final Reward

Every time you beat this dungeon, you get a Luxury Pickaxe, which is the Rusty Pickaxe's ultimate (level 8) form. This isn't particularly useful, neither as a base item nor as a rune, because using it to dig can cause your sword to break. Getting it at level 8 also does not give you the lower level forms of the Rusty Pickaxe in your Item Book.

Farming Opportunities

This is a bad dungeon to try to farm things out of. The items available seem to be much more limited than normal, I have never seen an Undo Grass in this dungeon so it may have been omitted, and it's quite difficult to win a full 99F run to farm things out that way. You can find Pathetic Blades and Pathetic Shields in this dungeon at perhaps a greater frequency than other dungeons, and these do become great items when you level them up to maximum, but these aren't that valuable and you can farm them more easily out of other locations such as Merchant's Hideout. This dungeon is probably the single best place to find SuperUnlucky Seeds, but again farming them out is non-trivial. If you wanted to try to farm them out, and you don't mind having them in rune form, you could use a Mixer monster to add them as a rune onto a sword or shield, and tag the sword/shield at a shopkeeper. This way, if you're unable to beat the dungeon, at least you could farm out a valuable rune by finding it in the lost & found at Hermit's Hermitage.

Strategies

The damage model of this dungeon turns everything on its head. You need to rethink everything about the monsters you face. Some monsters that are normally trivial are now super deadly, and most of the deadliest monsters under normal circumstances are now no big deal in this dungeon.

Monsters never regenerate HP, but you regenerate HP easily by moving. The lower your level, the higher chance you'll gain HP every time you move, and if you're really low level, you'll gain multiple HP for a single move. Given that 2 HP is the same as 200 HP in this dungeon, this means it's better to keep your level as low as possible. Don't kill monsters unless you need to for safety reasons. (IMO it's generally better to clear sleeping monsters before leaving a room, esp. if the room only has 1-2 exits, but this is debatable, because sleeping monsters don't always wake up when you enter or leave a room.) Eat those Unlucky Seeds regularly to keep your level lower. When you start getting to a level so high that it takes several moves to recover a single HP, it is time to eat a SuperUnlucky Seed and regress back to level 1. But beware that this also makes you super hungry, so make sure you have food on hand to refill your stomach (and of course, don't eat one when you're in any other danger e.g. from monsters). By about level 20, you are no longer guaranteed to recover at least 1 HP for every step you take, but this is too early to eat the SuperUnlucky Seed, because shortly after eating it, then killing a few monsters, you'll be right back up around level 20 again. Wait to eat a SuperUnlucky Seed until you're at least level 30.

Needless to say, you never want to swing at a monster unless you have at least 2 HP, in case you miss and it hits and kills you. Very often you'll need to swing at a monster, exchange hits, then back up 1 space so you can recover at least 1 HP, then swing again when there's zero chance the monster can kill you. This requires some planning, especially when there are multiple monsters in the room.

Never risk getting surrounded. Being surrounded by multiple monsters is bad in any dungeon and particularly fatal in this dungeon. Retreat into hallways, which will also help with preventing some monsters from seeing you to fire projectiles at you.

There isn't much reason to equip a sword or shield, nor is strength particularly important. You're just as deadly (and just as vulnerable) at every depth as you are at floor 1, regardless of what equipment you have. There are some runes that would be helpful to have, but you don't have much opportunity both to find the materials needed and to find a way to mix them in, and you can certainly get by without them. If you find swords/shields, they may be best put to use as projectiles to wound or kill a monster from a distance and thus keep inventory space freed up for more valuable items. (One big exception: a Counter Shield would be extremely helpful in this dungeon, but no one has yet confirmed seeing one in this dungeon. SuperUnlucky Seeds are much more common than usual and pre-identified, so it would be easier than in most any other dungeon to add the Perilous rune to your sword or shield, but given the unique damage model, it's not clear this would be super helpful. E.g. if you had it on your sword, every hit reduces the monster to 1 HP or kills it anyway, so Perilous would have no added benefit. OTOH, having Perilous on your shield might cause a monster that hit you to drop to 1 HP even if you hadn't hit it once yet, and for that matter, it might kill the monster outright if it was at 1 HP to begin with. This needs more testing.)

There is no reason to linger on floors at all. Just dive as quickly as you can, picking up whatever items you happen to find along the way.

Starvation can be a problem in this dungeon. You may end up wanting to eat those negative grasses just to extend your life a bit. One thing that can help prevent starvation is to let a Nigiri / Onigiri monster hit you a few times, backing up to regain HP each time of course. Occasionally, they'll turn one of your items into an Onigiri or Large Onigiri instead of doing damage to you. If you get a few of these from a single monster, that plus what you find normally should be plenty to sustain you for the entire run. And even if the monster turns you into an Onigiri, you're still in no more danger than you normally are. Just retreat a step or 2 anytime you're at 1 HP to get above 1 HP, and you can easily kill virtually any monster one-on-one even when you're in Onigiri form. Of course, you may also find Onigiri of various sorts for sale at shops, and if you stock up to have a few extra, again, you should be fine. Remember that you'll want to have a bit more food than normal, so you can take advantage of SuperUnlucky Seeds when your HP regen rate falls too low.

Buy all the arrows and rocks you can from shops. They're dirt cheap and extremely helpful in this dungeon. One helpful trick, when you don't have monster detection ability, is to shoot an arrow down a long hallway in the direction you are traveling. Do this every 3-5 steps or so. This will help you tell if a monster is headed your way, and since you're heading that way anyway, you'll pick up any arrows that didn't hit monsters. There's a slim chance this could backfire by hitting a shopkeeper, but it isn't very likely, and as soon as you can see a shop coming, don't shoot arrows into the shop anymore. You can also harvest arrows by throwing items (e.g. rocks) on arrow traps. Stock up on projectiles whenever you can, as they're very helpful in this dungeon.

Go very, very slowly, and think through the implications of the monsters you're facing and the odds of success of the various options you have, as well as everything you can do with the items you've found.

Hasted monsters are extremely deadly in this dungeon. Do not engage them at close range if you can avoid it. There are two types of hasted monsters. Some can swing and hit you twice in a single turn. The other kind can either move twice in a turn, or both move and attack, but cannot attack twice. Monsters can also become hasted via a red aura. It is a bad idea to rely on a thrown item, which can miss the target, when a hasted monster is adjacent to you. Use a Trap Deletion, Boring, or Knockback Staff to do guaranteed damage, Paralysis Staff to stun them, or a Swift Grass so you can fight them without taking damage twice in a turn. Note that hasted monsters shake off status ailments faster than non-hasted monsters. The Pin monster is a common hasted monster found on early floors, and they can be tricky to fight at close range. One decent way to deal with these monsters is to throw grass at them. If it hits—and throwing a grass at a grass monster seems to hit 100% of the time (needs confirmation) -- then it will both no longer retreat from you and no longer be hasted, making it much easier to kill.

Monsters that can damage you from a distance, such as Carts, Porkys, and Dragons, are also extremely dangerous. (Fortunately, the highest-level Dragons and Porkys don't seem to appear in this dungeon.) I've never seen a Zen Pot or Dodger Pot in this dungeon either, so it may be impossible to harvest tons of arrows from Carts using a Dodger Pot. Beware the high-level ramming birds. They can often ram you from what seems like half a dungeon away, damage you and also send you flying back ~10 spaces, likely hitting a wall or other obstruction and damaging you *again* on the same turn and thus killing you outright. Don't let them have a turn at all if you can prevent it. Monsters that move you, such as Fearrabbits, are also much more deadly than normal. Tiger Throwers can deal damage to you twice in a single turn from a distance, by throwing you onto a monster which then also attacks you, or by throwing a monster onto you which then attacks you.

A Pinning Staff can get you out of many difficult situations. Even if you're cornered by a monster and down to 1 HP, you can usually pin away and walk a bit to get back to 2+ HP. It may also be better to pin across vast open spaces down an unknown hallway, rather than walk all the way there and risk traps, monsters from side hallways, or monster spawns, though despite these benefits it's still debatable if pinning into the unknown is a good idea.

Expert Badges

Expert badges are not available for this dungeon.

Monsters

The types of monsters that can appear in this dungeon have not yet been replicated to this wiki. Here are good external resources:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1h9IRPQPLg9g7aE48wlyw8IudHIStawK4mR3kuggto/edit?usp=sharing
• http://seesaawiki.jp/w/shiren5/d/%c6%f3%b7%e2%a4%ce%c6%bb (Japanese wiki page for this location)

Open Questions

• Would making the Perilous rune on your shield be particularly helpful?
• Find out for sure: is your HP regeneration rate a function of your level, or of your max HP? The answer may be in the in-game help documentation, or possibly in a training puzzle. Knowing this could help in other dungeons. (E.g., if Shiren's level is irrelevant but his max HP controls the HP regeneration rate, it might be a good idea to allow monsters to strip away your max HP repeatedly while retaining a high experience level. This way, you could still do more damage and take less damage for being a high level, but still have a high HP regeneration rate due to having an abnormally low max HP.)