so, I've been poking at AoPc and AoMC N! out of frustration with my Ao100 quest - at least when I screw up it's quick. didn't expect to get the win, but I recognize that this victory (and Diamond) isn't that hard with some luck (stairs and powerups). I think doing it again, I'd choose Badass a little sooner - reducing knockback from cacodemons would help. Though I did end up at 1% health in Phobos Base at one point, so perhaps following Game Hunter's order was for the best.
Technically speaking, it's a worst-case scenario leveling scheme (see end of post). Sure, Badass is going to help early on with Sergeants (and Cacos to some degree, depends on how unlucky you are with vaults) but your aim is to build yourself up for the later stages. Ironman and TaN are more useful than Badass, for the most part, until you start running into Revenants, Barons, where the knockback is important, but getting it at around the same time as Halls of Carnage is also when they become more dominant.
If not aiming for the Diamond, I wonder how feasible Fireangel is - I understand reaching L13 is not normal, and you certainly want TaN for arachnotrons, or so it seemed. There were a bunch of encounters with arch-vile/mancubus/revenants that would not have been remotely possible while vulnerable - of course I only ran through them because I was invulnerable, so perhaps that's not a good example.
MFa is definitely a long-term strategy. It doesn't take into account Arach caves or Commandos, but the vast majority of the end-game consists of you dodging your way through Revenants, Arch-Viles and Mancubi, all of which have serious splash damage. If you're lucky enough early on (and the HR/DM all by itself is quite nice) then it can make the last stretch almost trivial.
WK vs. Int, it's usually better to go Int, if only for the powerup vision. Monster vision can have a psychological effect on the player to avoid enemies at all costs, when in fact you're still entirely blind to the stairs. If you can't handle walking through the barrage often enough, waiting until the enemy's all grouped up isn't going to help very much.
I just wanted to point out how the leveling on AoPc works, in order to quell the speculation one and for all. The following is a mortem of me running through on AoPc about ten minutes ago:
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DoomRL (v.0.9.9.1) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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Game Hunter, level 14 Arch-Vile General, sacrificed himself to kill the Cyberdemon
on level 25 of the Phobos base.
He survived 17586 turns and scored 37761 points.
He played for 21 minutes and 14 seconds.
He didn't like it too rough.
He killed 44 out of 552 hellspawn. (7%)
My, was he a wimpy chump.
He was an Angel of Pacifism!
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Major Icarus Cross
Explorer Badge
Compet-n Silver Cross
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
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-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health -5840/80 Experience 1702/14
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +0 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +0
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Ironman (Level 3)
Finesse (Level 2)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Tough as nails (Level 3)
Dodgemaster (Level 1)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Badass (Level 1)
TaN->TaN->Iro->HR->HR->Bad->Iro->Iro->DM->TaN->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] modified red armor [4/4] (100%) (AT)
[b] [ Weapon ] modified missile launcher (6d6) [4/4] (A1)
[c] [ Boots ] modified protective boots [2/2] (100%) (AT)
[d] [ Prepared ] assault shotgun (7d3) [6/6]
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
[b] small med-pack
[c] small med-pack
[d] small med-pack
[e] large med-pack
[f] large med-pack
[g] large med-pack
[h] thermonuclear bomb
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
7 former humans
7 former sergeants
15 imps
5 demons
6 lost souls
1 cacodemon
1 Cyberdemon
2 hell knights
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
reached level 3 <--- level gain
On level 3 he entered Hell's Arena. <--- level gain
He cowardly fled the Arena.
reached level 6 <--- level gain
On level 6 he stormed the Chained Court. <--- level gain
reached level 9 <--- level gain
On level 9 he witnessed the Wall. <--- level gain
Not knowing what to do, he left.
reached level 12 <--- level gain
On level 12 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage. <--- Level gain
On level 15 he encoutered the Phobos Hellgate. <--- level gain
On level 16 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
reached level 18 <--- level gain
On level 18 he entered the Vaults. <--- level gain
He came, he saw, but he left.
reached level 21 <--- level gain
On level 22 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
He managed to escape from the Mortuary!
On level 23 he entered the Lava Pits.
He decided it was too hot there.
reached level 24 <--- level gain
Then at last he found Phobos Arena!
He nuked level 25!
On level 25 he finally sacrificed himself to kill the Cyberdemon.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
Are you sure you want activate the thermonuclear bomb? [Y/n] You use a
thermonuclear bomb. Warning! Explosion in 10 seconds! Warning!
Explosion in 9 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 8 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 7 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 6 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 5 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 4 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 3 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 2 seconds!
Warning! Explosion in 1 seconds!
You start running!
You hear an explosion! You hear an explosion! You hear an explosion! You
hear an explosion! You hear an explosion! You hear an explosion! You
feel relatively safe now. Congratulations! You defeated the Cyberdemon!
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
Before him 748 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
619 of those were killed.
3 of those were killed by something unknown.
71 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 17 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
Is he immortal? 38 souls claim to have killed him...
6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
27 killed the bastard and survived.
5 showed that it can outsmart hell itself.
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Thus, leveling works as such:
- You level up on floor three, and every third level after (six, nine, etc).
- If you enter a special level on the same floor as one in which you level up, you will also level up on that special level.
I happened to get the maximum possible level for AoPc, by generating and entering five special levels on level-up floors (3, HA; 6, CC; 9, Wall; 12, HoC; 18, Vaults). If you are unlucky enough not to get any during your descent, you hit level 5 on floor 13, which is why Badass goes there. (If you get other stuff before it, you can place other traits before as well.)
I, for one, think this is a bit too messy. I'd rather you gain a level every X floors (possibly not even an integer, ex: gaining three levels every eight floors = levels on 4, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, etc) and have the special levels count toward this.