All Bosses

Dark Souls II All Bosses is a speedrun category in which the player tries to complete the game as fast as possible while also killing all enemies that are considered a boss (see below for a list of all bosses). Glitches, skips and sequence breaks are all allowed. Using other programs to affect the game or editing the game code is not allowed; apart from a few exceptions allowed by the community.

This category requires you to have all three DLC episodes and is therefore run on the current patch, making the use of major glitches like Parrywalk or Binoboost impossible.

The world record is 2:11:19 RTA no load by Distortion2 ([(//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBp_2UpY_O4)). The leaderboards for this category are available here.

Routes

Rules

• Runs are timed using RTA No Load using the RTA No Load plugin available in LiveSplit. Runners are required to use and show the RTA No Load timer in the VOD of their submissions.
• Runners have to start the timer during the loading screen before the first cutscene in Things Betwixt and stop the timer on the first frame of the screen being completely black after killing Nashandra / Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin (Aldia is obviously tied to All Bosses).
• Manual timer pauses are forbidden. Quitouts, ALT+F4s and crashes are all fair to finish runs as they are mainly timelosses with Dark Souls II's RTA no load being the timing method.
• Disclaimer: If there was no RTA no load time provided, regular RTA will be used instead.
• The use of pre-order weapons is forbidden.
• In Restricted categories, runners are required to lock their FPS to 60 using MSI Afterburner / Rivatuner and also display their framerate in their videos. FPS must never go down via malicious uses such as abusing PrintScreen, for fairness. Parrywalking is not allowed.
• In Unrestricted categories, runners are required to lock their FPS to 60 using MSI Afterburner / Rivatuner and also display their framerate in their videos. FPS can go down to any value the runner desires, wherever in the run. Parrywalking is allowed.
• Regardless of the category being ran, runners must never let their FPS go above 60, once again, for fairness.
• The No Babyjump Mod is allowed to be used in speedruns, using either the "average jump length" (av), or "full jump length" (full) script in Cheat Engine; or through the use of the .dll which implements the "full jump length" version without the use of Cheat Engine.
• Other game modifications than the ones above listed are not allowed.
• Runners may not use savefiles. Using savefiles is common when practicing certain parts in a run but these are not counted as 'official' times.
• The game's HUD (Health bar, equipment menu, souls, etc.) should be displayed at all times during the run. (Do not cover this using facecam, ALT-TAB, etc)
• Third-party tools to change button/key mappings are allowed under the following constraints: Analog and digital signals can only be mapped to analog and digital forms of input respectively (button to button, stick to stick. For example, you may not bind analog stick positions to a single button press). Macros of any kind, turbo functions or bindings of any kind which bind a single button to multiple actions are not allowed.
• Runs must be done completely offline.

Runs submitted need to be seamless, and actual Twitch highlights or YouTube videos not blocked needlessly because of music, as they are permanent.

Bosses

Any enemy that has a large health bar on the bottom of the screen when engaged in combat is considered a boss.

| * The Last Giant

• The Pursuer
• Dragonrider
• Old Dragonslayer
• Flexile Sentry
• Royal Rat Vanguard
• The Rotten
• Skeleton Lords
• Covetous Demon
• Mytha, the Baneful Queen
• Smelter Demon
• Old Iron King
• Scorpioness Najka
• Prowling Magus & Congregation
• The Duke's Dear Freja
• Ruin Sentinels
• Belfry Gargoyles
• The Lost Sinner
• Dragonriders
• Looking Glass Knight
• Demon of Song
• Velstadt, the Royal Aegis
• Executioner's Chariot
• Royal Rat Authority
• Guardian Dragon
• Ancient Dragon
• Elana, the Squalid Queen
• Sinh, the Slumbering Dragon
• Giant Lord
• Afflicted Graverobber, Ancient Soldier Varg & Cerah the Old Explorer
• Smelter Demon (Iron King DLC)
• Fume Knight
• Sir Alonne
• Aava, the King's Pet
• Burnt Ivory King
• Lud, the King's Pet & Zallen, the King's Pet
• Vendrick
• Darklurker
• Throne Defender & Throne Watcher
• Nashandra
• Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin |

Miscellaneous

• Defeating a boss: To successfully defeat a boss you must kill them and stay in the boss room long enough to get any kind of boss reward (Aldia gives nothing). If you die before receiving the rewards your victory doesn't count as you don't get the boss rewards while dead. Also, if you Homeward Bone or Darksign out of a boss fight too early after having killed the boss, you may not have defeated the boss if its rewards are not in your inventory after boning out.

Learning

Learning a speedrun in Dark Souls II may seem daunting at first but there are ways of making the learning process easier. Start by doing an initial run through and making sure to do the following things:

• Follow the notes as accurately as you can (getting safety bonfires is fine, also feel free to skip using Red Tearstone Ring (when applicable) to start with). Don't level more than you should. Try not to lose large amounts of souls since there is no way to get them back.
• Make savefiles before each part that you might have trouble with. You can just copy the savefile (generally in "\Users\<YourName>\AppData\Roaming\DarkSoulsII\<SomeCode>") into a separate folder or use the SpeedSouls - Save Organizer.
• Make splits. Download a program like Livesplit or WSplit and setup your splits. It doesn't matter how bad they are in your first run.

Once you have completed your first run and made savefiles practice the parts you are least confident with then try another run. When you get more confident you should stop getting safety bonfires and start doing riskier strategies.