5-4
Warpless
There are two major keys to this level. One is the elusive 5-4 skip, and the second is killing Sluggy in only 4 shots. Both are explained in detail below. Besides that, this level has a lot of stairs and you want to be fast with them. The fastest way to move up stairs is to continuously jump, however you want to run for a few frames between each jump as the stairs give you a little bit of speed in the beginning, but then don't let you exceed that speed.
Minor time-save at the last stair section: [1]
Autoscroller Skip 
The notorious 5-4 skip is by far the hardest trick in the entire game. It can take upwards of 1000 attempts to even land it once, but it saves over a minute, making it totally worth learning. Failing the skip results in losing around 25-70s depending on where you fall. The time loss is even greater in 100% due to collectibles (30-90s).
The trick uses a series of sustained flutters and then bats to gain height to skip the autoscroller.
You can find an image based step-by-step guide here.
There are 4 ways to do the skip, each one a little bit tougher than the last.
Any% Time Save:
- No skip (using platform): 2:27
- Half skip (w/ shy guy): 1:31 (-56s)
- Half skip (w/o shy guy): 1:24 (-1:03s)
- Full skip (w/ shy guy): 1:10 (-1:17s)
- Full skip (w/o shy guy): 1:03 (-1:24s)
half skip variations comparison [2]
Full skip saves over 1 minute in 100% and half skip saves about 40s.
Some runners find using the shy guy easier, but it loses about 7 seconds compared to just using the bats. It requires less total flutters, but allows you to end the first stretch of flutters earlier.
Getting the bats to come down low enough for you to bounce on requires timing your flutters in a particular way. Here is an image gallery that shows how to do it consistently.
Backup strat if the first bat does its circle early: [3]
Note that this is actually 1-2 seconds faster than the standard strat but it is a bit risky.
Optimization for the start of the skip: [4]
batless [5]
Sluggy 1 Shots
There is a way to kill sluggy in only 4 shots. This strat is very fast, and is very reliable with enough practice.
Turn around and do neutrals here:
Warps
There is a 1-1 warp at the beginning of 5-4 that saves quite a bit of time. This video demonstrates the warp in real time and includes a description for a consistent setup (courtesy of Blkyoshi) for the warp. (skip to ~9:45)
Faster setup that isn't really any harder: [6]
There is also a harder strat developed by Poahr for the 5-4 warp. None of the Warps runs have this yet do to it being incredibly difficult RTA.
[7]
Warp recovery: [8] (slower than dying but it looks cool)
100%
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Potential time-save - grab the star cloud at the top of the stairs to skip the 2nd mid-ring: [9]
Potential time-save - skip this [10] red coin and duplicate an extra during 5-4 skip.
Block break red coin comparison: [11]
Not slowed down: [12]
Alternate spike shots to make red coin dupes easier (if you're not doing 5-4 skip): [13]
![[10]](https://yoshi.science/index.php/File:5-4_100%25._skip_this.png){kind=link}