Stair Drag
Stair drag refers to the short period of slower stuttery movement link has when exiting manual stairs/ladders or when moving in certain directions after finishing spiral staircase transitions. This page goes over what stair drag is, how to cancel it, visual cues for cancelling stair drag on manual stairs, a brief look at dashing off stairs and a brief look at what happens internally to cause stair drag.
The "stair drag" state activates when link walks on to the last 7-8 px of manual stairs or when link tries to move any direction that is not left or right after a spiral staircase transition. This state will automatically end after 15 frames after which link will regain normal speed. (Note: If link moves back onto manual stairs during this 15 frame period, this state will end immediately and link will switch to manual stair speed. Stair drag will reactivate again when exiting stairs.)
Movement Speeds
Stair drag causes link to move a max of 8px-9px in the 15 frames it is active (i.e. 0.533-0.6px/frame). This is slightly slower than manual stair speed (0.6875px/frame on average) and much slower than normal walking speed of 1.5px/frame.
Cancelling stair drag
Stair drag can be cancelled early by holding straight left () for 1 frame, holding dash (holding while you have boots) for 1 frame or holding straight right () for 2 frames. After cancelling stair drag, link will regain normal movement speeds.
On manual stairs, cancelling stair drag on the earliest possible pixel can save 10 frames if moving up off of the stairs or 9 frames if moving down off of the stairs. The section below goes over visual cues for stair drag cancels.
