Diver Down

Diver Down is a type of rail clip that works on rails adjacent to underworld Auto Stairs. The only thing required to clip is a Sword, but in most RTA contexts, items such as Cane of Somaria are used to both speed things up and simplify the inputs.

Diver Down clips lead to Link being able to access a ledge hop that's ordinarily blocked by the railing. Sometimes this just leads to him being able to jump to an otherwise inaccessible area, but other times it may allow him to enter EG. All Diver Down clips are considered Major Glitches by the RTA community, and are therefore banned in NMG Speedruns.

/ \ Stairs refer to stairs where the upper floor is oriented at the bottom of the stairway and the lower floor is above. Vice versa for \ / Stairs.

Diver Down on / \ Stairs

With Somaria

Technique:

• Place the block facing left while Link is 8 pixels below the stairs. Because rails are 8px wide, this is often easily lined up by pressing Link against one of the railings on either side of the stairs. You also want to be sure that Link is able to touch the block by the end of the following step (ie. don't place it too far left). If the top of the stairs is a y-coordinate ending in xx8, you'll want to place the block on a y-coordinate ending in xx0. If the top of the stairs is a y-coordinate ending in xx0, you'll want to place the block on a y-coordinate ending in xx8. For concision, I'll word this as "move to coords ending in xxR or xxZ" for the rest of this section, but this DOES NOT mean that the trick works in multiple positions. It means that one of those positions works depending on the stairs you're working with.
• Position Link into the left corner formed by the stairway and the railing just to the left. This will usually also involve pushing the block to the left some, which is fine. Just be sure Link is touching the block when he's in the corner. Your x-coordinate should end in xx8 or xx0, and your y-coordinate should end in xx0 or xx8.
• Sword buffer down once. This will put you on a y-coordinate ending in xx1 or xx9.
• Slash sword and begin holding <^ during the slash animation. Link should move up to a y-coordinate ending in xxF or xx7.
• Tap < so that Link is facing left.
• Press and hold B to slash sword and hold a sword charge. Also begin holding <^ during the slash animation. It is especially important you don't press ^ before < here, or you'll pop out and have to start over. If successful, Link should walk straight through the railing.
• With good timing, you can let go of B to drop sword and prevent Link from charging a spin attack. This isn't essential to the trick, just a way to save a little time.

Applications

Drowned Chest Diver Down

If you're doing the back of Swamp and going to Arrghus, this trick is ~8 seconds faster than the normal route that takes you through the final water lever room. This trick is useful in RMG Runs that need to defeat Arrghus. File

Cannonball Highway EG

This is a way to get to the Eastern Big Chest quickly from the entrance. It's used in All Dungeons MG after the Juke to Big Key. File

With Sword Only

Technique:

• Position Link in the corner where the top of the stairs and the railing meet.
• Buffer down one frame.
• Slash and begin holding <^ to partially clip the wall. Your y-coordinate should end in xxF or xx7, depending on the stairs.
• Tap < to face Link to the left.
• You can get the first movement left with a single Sword Buffer, using <^. Your x-coordinate should end in xxE or xx6. You can also go straight into the clipping detailed in the next step, but you'll need to buffer one more position (you won't skip over xxF/xx7, as you do with sword buffer).
• From here, we need to clip left to xx9 or xx1 using one-frame movements with sword out. Hold sword and buffer (probably want to use select) one frame of <v followed by at least one frame of neutral dpad. Repeat these inputs until you get to the target x-coordinate. Remember that Link must be holding sword this entire time. If you're select buffering, be sure to cancel the S&Q menu with B so you don't drop sword between buffers.
• After reaching xx9 or xx1, press < and roll to <^ to walk through the rail, where you'll be able to ledgehop or enter EG or whatever.

Lamp Canceling

When you get to the section where you're holding Sword and buffering <v, you can use a technique called Lamp Cancelling that will allow you to stop holding B. Simply hold B and use the Lamp to activate this. You don't need to have any MP for this to work. The game will consider you in "sword-out" movement until something happens to make the game reconsider Link's state (ie. slash sword, dash charge, take damage, etc.).

This technique is especially useful on / \ Stairs because we can now Grab Buffer to clip really fast.