Burning Mill Advanced: Ultimate Guide & Walkthrough

Speedrun Strategies for Burning Mill AdvancedBurning Mill Advanced is a compact but demanding stage that rewards precise movement, optimized routing, and split-second combat decisions. This guide covers strategies for runners at all levels, from planning your first sub-30 to shaving seconds off elite times. It focuses on movement, enemy manipulation, routing, glitches and tricks, loadout selection, and practice routines.

Overview of the Route

The route for Burning Mill Advanced emphasizes a tight line through the map’s central spine: the smoldering bridge, collapsed conveyors, and the seared millhouse. Time is lost most often in three places: the initial chokepoint with the torchbearer mob, the conveyor-to-roof transition, and the boss approach where RNG-heavy ammo drops or enemy aggro can stall runs. A typical speedrun route follows these phases:

• Fast start through the yard, skipping nonessential combat.
• Precision jump sequence across the collapsed conveyors.
• Aggressive push through the mill interior using animation cancels and enemy stuns.
• Boss encounter executed with minimal movement and maximum damage windows.

Movement: Core Techniques

• Strafe-cancel movement: Maintain top speed while changing directions by combining small strafes and jump-strafing to keep momentum through narrow corridors.
• Bunny-hop chaining: Use perfectly timed hops to avoid ground friction on the mill floor. This is especially effective in the conveyor section to clear distance without losing speed.
• Wall-hop shortcut: On the right-hand wall before the conveyor gap, a precise wall-hop saves about 0.8–1.2 seconds versus the longer platform route. Practice the angle in offline runs.
• Corner-clip tech: In certain wooden doorways you can clip slightly through geometry by squeezing against the jamb while moving diagonally; this bypasses one tight turn and avoids an enemy spawn trigger.

Combat: Fast and Dirty

• Prioritize stun tools: A single stun item (flashbang, smoke bomb) can cut enemy animations allowing faster traversal. Use them to bypass the torchbearer group.
• One-shot windows: Learn which enemies can be crit-killed with your primary — killing them instantly avoids lengthy stagger animations. Aim for headshots where applicable.
• Aggro management: Pull isolated enemies by LOS peeking rather than engaging groups head-on. This reduces simultaneous damage and time spent crowd-controlling.
• Melee cancels: Use light melee to cancel attack animations after hits to regain movement. Timing varies by weapon; test in practice to find the fastest cancel rhythm.

Routing: Where to Save Seconds

• Skip the side storeroom: The storeroom contains decent loot but wastes ~4–6 seconds. Only enter if you need a specific consumable for later boss consistency.
• Conveyor jump optimizations: The most time-critical section. Use a clean, single jump across the smaller gap, then immediate sprint into the roof entrance. If you must take the longer route, pre-charge sprint before landing to reduce recovery time.
• Boss approach line: Take the left-side ledge near the boss arena to avoid two standard spawns. This route is slightly more exposed but saves about 2 seconds of unnecessary combat.
• Shortcut after boss: If the objective allows, a guarded ledge hop after the boss skips the slow elevator cutscene and saves significant time in runs that end at the stage exit.

Loadout and Consumables

• Primary: High-DPS, low-recoil weapon. Examples: burst assault or accurate fast-firing rifle. These let you maintain damage windows without lengthy aim corrections.
• Secondary: Fast-reload sidearm for quick emergency kills; useful when primary is in a reload animation during a critical push.
• Consumables: 2x stun devices (flash/smoke), 1x movement boost (sprint potion or equivalent), 1x healing item. In soft-stop attempts (where you aim to survive), consider an extra damage buff; for all-out runs, trade healing for movement.
• Ammo conservation: Aim for headshots and single-shot kills to avoid reloading mid-sequence. Know the exact bullet counts for each common enemy to avoid unnecessary reloads.

Tricks, Glitches, and Exploits

• Conveyor skip glitch: A well-timed jump into the conveyor seam can place you slightly inside the geometry and force the game to teleport you forward. This saves 1.5–2.0 seconds but can fail if you clip wrong.
• Animation cancel on reload: Certain weapons allow you to interrupt reload animations by switching weapons or performing a melee. This reduces downtime between bursts.
• Spawn manipulation: Trigger spawns early by briefly peeking a room and then backtracking to avoid having them active when you need to pass through. This can convert a potential three-enemy fight into single-target engagements.
• Save scumming briefs: In practice runs, use quickload/quicksave to iterate difficult sequences. For verified speedruns, glitches that require game files modification or external tools are typically banned—know the category rules.

Boss Strategy

• Learn the boss cycles: The boss has predictable attack phases — lunging melee, ranged fireburst, and a smoke-phase. The fastest kills come from punishing the recovery frames after the ranged fireburst.
• Damage windows: Use your highest DPS burst immediately after a predictable boss attack. Stun consumables can lock the boss long enough for concentrated damage.
• Positioning: Stand on the slightly elevated tile near the arena entrance to avoid one of the boss’s ground sweeps and to maintain clear LOS for headshots.
• Fail-safes: Keep a healing item and a stun for a last-resort defensive play. Running into the boss’s second phase with low HP typically costs more time than a short heal.

Practice Routine

• Segment runs: Break the level into the yard, conveyors, interior, boss approach, and boss. Practice each segment until you can execute it cleanly 90% of the time.
• Frame-by-frame review: Record attempts and review the crucial seconds around your jumps and boss window for micro-optimizations.
• Tool-assisted runs: Use slowed-down practice modes to learn frame-perfect jumps and cancels, then translate them into live runs.
• Consistency over theoretical best: A slightly slower but consistent route beats a risky PB attempt that collapses under pressure.

Timing, Splits, and PB Progression

• Key splits: Yard exit, Conveyor clear, Mill interior clear, Boss engage, Stage exit. These splits help identify where time is lost.
• PB progression: Focus on shaving 0.2–0.5 seconds per attempt in high-frequency mistakes (bad jumps, reloads). Over weeks, these add up into minutes.
• Mental game: Treat mistakes as data. Log conditions (ping, controller drift, enemy RNG) that correlate with slow runs, and adjust practice to reduce their impact.

Example Run Breakdown (Target: Sub-30)

• 0:00–0:08 — Perfect yard start; skip side combat using stun.
• 0:08–0:14 — Clean conveyor jump, pre-charge sprint.
• 0:14–0:20 — Fast interior clear with two animation cancels.
• 0:20–0:26 — Boss engage; stun after ranged fireburst, 3-second DPS window.
• 0:26–0:29 — Execute exit shortcut and stage clear.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Overfighting: Don’t kill every enemy. Practice the “peek-and-pass” to reduce engagements.
• Bad jumps: Improve consistency by setting up a marker in practice and using the same pre-jump rhythm.
• Reload mismanagement: Count bullets mentally for common enemy clusters; switch to sidearm only when reloading would otherwise cost time.
• Panic during boss: Practice boss cycles until reactions are automatic; treat the fight like a mechanical pattern rather than a high-pressure unknown.

Closing Notes

Perfecting Burning Mill Advanced takes focused practice on movement and boss timing more than raw aim alone. Prioritize consistent execution of conveyor jumps, reduce unnecessary fights, and structure practice around segments. With disciplined routing and a tight loadout, sub-30—and eventually sub-25—times are achievable.

If you want, I can create a practice plan tailored to your current PB and preferred weapon loadout.