Dead Cells – An In-Depth Guide to Basic and Advanced Flint Tech

What can this tech do?

Hi there. To provide a brief summary of what this tech does, it allows you to move in any direction whilst charging the flint, and allows you to roughly double your damage output. To not-so-briefly explain what the tech does, you more around the map whilst maintaining a charged flint, and by moving in specific ways, reduce the length of specific attack animations, allowing you to attack faster. This means that you don’t have to worry about being hit whilst charging the flint, because you charged it in one area, and attacked with it in another.

As a disclaimer, I’m not claiming that I’m the first person to have discovered all of this tech. I know for a fact that multiple pieces of tech had already been discovered, but the majority of what is in the guide hasn’t been previously documented, or hasn’t been previously discovered.

Fundamentals you need to know

When you hold down an attack for the flint, the game will attempt to prevent you from moving. Obviously, the game does a horrible job, otherwise this guide wouldn’t exist.

When you are holding down an attack, you can still input a jump or a roll, which the game will attempt to do for a few frames, which will move you small amount, before the game remembers that you shouldn’t be allowed to move. When this happens, the game forgets that you’re holding down attack, but the game fixes itself before you’re able to perform an attack.

Because of this, when you jump or roll whilst holding an attack, you will perform the first few frames of your input before suddenly stopping. The game will also briefly release your charge, and then correct itself once your input is stopped. However, despite the fact that your flint is still fully charged, the game will still display the charging animation once the input has concluded.

Almost all of the tech is based off of this, and how this can be abused (to answer your question, a lot).

Basic movement

Whilst holding down a charged attack, you are able to input either a jump or a roll,

which will move you in the direction of your choice. Currently, the fastest way to move around is by jumping in the direction of your choosing.

Hangtime jump spam

In the game, there is a hidden mechanic called “Hangtime”. When you make an attack with most weapons whilst mid-air, your character will freeze mid-air whilst attacking, before falling to the ground after a certain amount of time. The amount of time is entirely dependant on the weapon. This mechanic is most likely the reason why this piece of tech works.

If you spam jump whilst holding a charged attack, you will continue to move upwards and hang in the air for around 1 second once you reach the peak of your normal jump.

Platform drop

Whilst holding a charged attack, you can drop through platforms as normal. There’s really not that much to this one.

Rope climb

Whilst holding a charged attack, you can climb up chains, ladders, and pipes by holding up and spamming jump. The first time you jump, you jump off of the chain and begin to fall. The second time you jump, you jump back onto the chain, where you are suspended until you jump again. Although spamming isn’t the most efficient method, it’s the easiest and the one I recommend.

Double-jump-jump-spam

The double-jump-jump-spam is a variant of the hangtime jump spam that lets you perform a double-jump. Fundamentally, it’s the same thing: press button fast go up. The difference is that in order for this to work, you need to be holding down the jump button for longer, so that you jump higher. The easiest way to do this is by alternating between 2 jump keys whilst spamming jump.

Edge grab

Whilst holding a charged attack, you can still grab walls and climb up them if you’re within normal range. Instead of displaying an animation for the edge grab, it will instantly boost you onto the ledge you’re grabbing at light speed. As per normal, your charge will still be held when you are boosted to the top of the ledge.

Wall climb

It is possible to scale vertical walls whilst holding a charged attack, but the inputs required are very specific, and different to the ones you would normally do. This can be done indefinitely, much like a normal wall climb. The steps required to do a wall climb are as follows:

1. Press yourself up against a wall, and make sure you’re always holding the directional input that would move you into the wall.
2. Jump twice in very quick succession. If done correctly, you will see your character leave a trail and move up the wall.
3. Once you stop moving up the wall, roll into the wall. This will cause you to climb further up the wall.
4. Repeat until you win (you win by doing an edge grab at the top of the wall)

Wall hang

After performing a wall climb, you will be suspended on the wall for around 2 seconds before dropping back to the ground. If you roll just after you begin to fall, it will stop you midair and re-suspend you. This can be chained indefinitely to keep you in the air for a long period of time.

Attack roll spam

By spamming between attack and roll, you can greatly reduce the length of your attack. If I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure how this works; I know it’s because of animation cancelling, but I don’t know the specifics. The important thing is, it doubles the speed of your attacks, and doubles your DPS. This is extremely easy to pull off, but you can’t do charged attacks this way.

Chained quick-charge

This tech allows you to chain fully charged attacks with a reduced attack animation. However, this tech is extremely difficult to do, as it requires extremely tight timing between inputs. Whilst holding down attack, if you jump and then very quickly roll, you will give yourself enough frames of animation for an attack to trigger. When the game corrects itself, it skips the attack animation, and automatically starts charging the weapon again. Because of the fact that you did perform an attack, you will have to wait for the charge to return. It is possible to chain charged attacks in quick succession this way. In order to do this, you need to hold down attack until the weapon in almost fully charged. Then, you need to perform a short jump, and roll very quickly. You should be aiming for the weapon to finish charging just before you roll. If done correctly, this will do a charged attack that will leave a trail. By chaining these, you can do charged attacks at almost the same speed as a normal attack.

However, the timing is very precise; If you jump too soon, then the attack will not be charged. If you roll too early or too late, then you will not perform an attack. If you hold jump down for too long, then you will perform a charged attack, but it won’t leave a trail.

This is really hard to get the hang of, so I’d recommend practising it a lot.

FaQ (all questions sourced from my imaginary friend)

Welcome the the FaQ of this guide.

Question: Connor, is there any practical use for this tech?

Answer: Yes. For a start, this tech eliminates the risk of doing charged attacks, as you can charge them from a safe distance, and move into range. Because of the way the edge grab works, you don’t have to worry about slow animations either. The tech also allows you to increase your DPS and attack speed, which is helpful on both bosses and biomes.

Question: Is this all of the tech that you’ve discovered, or is there some more stuff that you, the egotistical maniac, is keeping from us out of spite.

Answer: No, this isn’t everything. There are a lot of other things that I’ve discovered, but since I don’t know how to reliably do them, I can’t really talk about it. For instance, I know that it’s possible to perform a charged attack on the same frame as an edge grab, but I haven’t figured out what causes it. I also know that it’s possible to perform attacks every time you jump, because I’m almost certain that it is entirely RNG dependant.

Question: This tech is cool and all, but does this make the flint a good weapon?

Answer: Shut up, I like the flint, okay?

Question: I’ve been following the instructions, but it isn’t working? What am I doing wrong?

Answer: Skill issue.

Question: Is the flint your favourite weapon?

Answer: No, my favourite weapon is the candlestick, which was added in the castlevania DLC.