Moldorm Bounce

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Moldorm Bounce

The Moldorm Bounce is a glitch that utilizes a unique damage boost caused by taking damage and hitting Moldorm's head on the same frame. This damage boost causes the player to recoil a longer distance than a normal Bomb Jumps and is used to sequence break the Moldorm2 gap without Hookshot or utilizing Hovering.

Execution

Last frame of the bomb explosion for a successful bounce. The bomb is starting to explode but Link has not yet taken damage
All frames of the bomb fuse

There are three main components of the Moldorm Bounce: laying the bomb with the correct position and timing, putting Moldorm's head in a good position that will allow you to land on the South platform if you get the bounce, and hitting the head with your sword on the frame that the bomb explodes. These can each be accomplished in multiple ways, but you'll always lay the bomb first. To position the head, you can either bait a charge and hit Moldorm as he's moving or slash the tail to keep the head still where you want it. The latter is more consistent, but requires some tighter timing to get the final hit that will send you across the gap. The best way to land this hit is to select buffer and either use a regular slash timed by the bomb's color or to use a charged spin slash on the frame that the bomb explodes. A charged spin is recommended, but a regular slash can work if you run out of time for a spin.

Here is one example setup that can be used, step by step:

  1. Bait Moldorm into the upper half of the left or right side of the arena if he's not there already. This will make his movement a bit more predictable and easier to manipulate.
  2. Face downwards and start charging a sword spin.
  3. Place a bomb near the bottom of the Moldorm2 arena.
  4. Position Link so that when the bomb explodes it will hurt Link and also so that the sword spin will hit Moldorm's head.
  5. As the bomb begins to explode, select buffer the explosion until the last frame before the bomb fully explodes and deals damage to the player.
  6. Once the final frame is buffered release B and close the menu so that the spin will release at the same time the bomb causes damage.

If all goes correctly the player will get large boost that can be enough to launch Link across the gap.

General Tips

  1. Take some time to get familiar with Moldorm's movement patterns when practicing this. Most of his turns are RNG-based and unpredictable, but a familiarity with his movement can improve your reactions.
  2. You want to avoid unnecessary buffering, but it's useful for reacting to Moldorm's RNG and dodging him in addition to timing your hit with the bomb explosion.
  3. If you're trying to bait a charge from the upper half of the arena to the lower half, Moldorm can get stuck in the Southwest corners if you're standing too low. In some cases you'll need to stand above a certain Y position and move after he begins charging.
  4. Moldorm has a series of patterns that consist of a random turning of directions before charging directly at Link for a set of time. This charging can be utilized by baiting Moldorm into a corner before placing the bomb and then hoping for the charge pattern to happen at the correct timing. Additionally the player can damage Moldorm's tail to cause a small delay before Moldorm will charge at the player. This may require a large amount of trial and error in order to pull off.
  5. If you want to poke Moldorm's tail with your sword extended but don't want to lose your charge, you can save it by starting a dash when your sword makes contact with the tail then cancelling the dash, or by select buffering through the poke.

Example

Moldorm Bounce Example
Moldormbounce(buffered).gif


External Guides and Tutorials

History

March 4th 2019
A runner by the name of apathyduck fell to Moldorm 2 in a unique way (Twitch Clip). Apathyduck got hit by Moldorm on the exact same frame as their sword clinked it's head and Link was launched far into the pit. After this video was posted in the A Link to the Past Speedrunning Discord several users then immediately attempted to reproduce the launch effect. Blank and mkolser successfully reproduce the launching effect and oase28 first demonstrates its use to get across the Moldorm 2 gap (YouTube reupload of an Discord Video link). This trick is then theorized to be useful in a new route of the Restricted Major Glitches Any% speedrun dubbed "Duck Ragu" or "Ambrosia" which would potentially skip the Pegasus Boots and Hookshot.
March 5th 2019
User Pinkus posts an explanation on how the large bounce happens into a Pastebin "Super Jump finally in z3 too". User mkolser suggests using bomb to take the hit while slashing the Moldorm head and oase28 then demonstrates this is possible Twitch video however the timing of the slash is still difficult with frame rules also being an issue.
August 1st 2019
Initial ALTTPR Racing Council is formed and the trick is default allowed in racing as an uncontroversial trick if the runner could actually perform it in a run.
September 9th 2019
A runner by the name of Osse demonstrates a viable method to perform the trick RTA that uses a spin attack to hit Moldorm's head at the same time as being hit by a bomb reducing the RNG component of the trick to only Moldorm's movements: Osse's Moldorm Bounce Tutorial.