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Author Topic: [N!|97%|YAFW] Melee/Pistol Hybrid, dual-diamond (Veteran+elite)  (Read 2112 times)

Sylph

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Hiya! I'm back! My first N! win since 0.9.9.0, going with a build I was working on before I left doomrl for a few years.

(This is a long post, so I'm gonna break it into sections, make it easier for you folks to skip the parts you aren't interested in)

Speculation on current version
I've always liked the idea of jack-of-all-trades builds in this game, I've posted skill suggestions relating to them, and voiced my concern when fireangel got turned into a shotgun-based master trait (back in 0.9.9.0 it used to require ironman, juggler, and badass). When it was changed, I started working on various all-round builds. I think the reason for this is that I get soooo sick of equipment restriction playing the angel challenges, and kinda try to overcompensate in non-angel games by using all the weapons I possibly could. Plus, I absolutely love all aspects of this game, why limit myself to just a couple of weapon types? ♥

The build was designed back then for conqueror runs, which sadly I didn't go for in this game, because I need to get my diamond badge collection to match my profile signature, one step at a time! :D
That said, the build is also designed for clearance, and to be honest if I had not entered the arena and been a little less intent on saving medikits in the first 5 levels of the game, I would have probably managed the 100% N! for veteran angelic. Might go for that next!
After the anomaly the game wasn't half so challenging. The most memorable tough point was clearing deimos lab without a rocket launcher, using only doors, acid, and cacodemon attacks to dispose of corpses.
I must say I do love spangly new N!, but the fact that cacos and imps can be used to dispose of corpses feels really weird - it's like a cheat (still wasn't used to being able to destroy corpses!) That said, these monsters are a lot tougher, as are the special levels (Anomaly, phobos lab, and CC+ all feel at the edge of or beyond my ability at the moment).

Early game:
Everything up to the anomaly was juggler-based shotgun traps and flipping between chain gun and pistol to guarantee landing corpses in doorframe. This isn't as simple as it sounds, because with juggler, taking levels in brute is basically wasting 2 character skill levels, and I really felt my character getting behind whenever I get hellknights, or vaults with demons/cacos. I visited the arena just to get a little xp from killing a demon or two. Ended up sitting on cacodemon corpses until the next cacodemon destroyed it, and realised that this would potentially make the arena much easier, one to note for my future runs! Still, I ended it fairly early, mostly because I needed a chainsaw, but wasn't confident generating CC+ (I find that level hard enough on UV, thankyouverymuch!)
Oh, and I skipped phobos lab, because, frankly, I find the level impossible on UV, never mind N!. I didn't have a master trait, and had no rocket launcher to coax the N! demons out of their ambushes, so yeah, no thanks!
Despite no rocket launcher and no phase device, the anomaly was relatively tame with berserker, I just kinda stood in the middle of the ambush looking pretty, and I got vampyre from the first demon that fell to cacodemon fire. Queue berserker rampage, corpse-in-door disposal using wait command, and vampire corpse farming ready for the bruisers (7 bruiser brother kills in the mortem!).
Had a really scary moment in arachnotron caves too, don't remember whether it was before or after anomaly. Where I was down to 26% health after using all medkits, and had to run through 2 turns of arachnotron fire to get to a supercharge globe. I appreciate how lucky I was to survive that, although it was pretty unlucky to find arach caves this early in the game, and I deserved a little something off lady luck considering my lack of ANY anomaly busting gear.

Middle game:
As said above, clearing the anomaly without a rocket launcher was tricky. but I still hadn't found a rocket launcher by the phobos lab, which was even worse! Had to use a lot of doors to dispose of corpses when I remembered how the level works (have to clear it all for the cache). In the cache I was really hoping for onyx or nano, but I got 2 firestorm. Bit bad with this build, but that's just how it goes isn't it?
Right after the phobos lab I found the anti-freak jackal. I've never rated that unique very much, but in a N! game with juggler it's absolutely obscene! It's just a corpse sniper, and turns N! into, basically, UV, although vampire kinda takes the edge of it, since vampire is so good at farming then disposing of corpses. Either way, at that point in the game my character was way ahead of the difficulty curve, and would breeze through hell.
When I got to The wall I knew I could clear it pretty easily. I took my armour off for it, and still finished the level without breaking a sweat, ending on 200%. The missile launcher I got, which I rate as an amazing weapon, I only remember using for a single shot, all game, in a combat situation (2 barons needed knocking in different lava patches). This is rare for juggler - normally juggler makes the missile launcher SUCH an important part of my arsenal.
I skipped spider's lair because I'm pouting and bitter that you don't get a nuclear plasma rifle from it any more! :P
Cybie, of course, went down to Berserk, although being unable to make myself a fireproof red armour, I did lose a lot of health and a suit of red trying to get to him!

Late game.
Bit gutted I didn't enter the unholy cathedral for longinus platinum, I feel it would have been easy with this build (had 200%hp and red armour with AP mods), but it just felt completely pointless given that I had a double chainsaw, and I didn't want to be surprised by any new additions (I've done it on lower difficulties in this version, but I have a feeling N! will flood it with N! cyberdemons or something! :) )
I never got a homing phase device, but I had a bomb, so I didn't dare enter limbo either, despite being pretty powerful at that point.

Got an invulnerability before mt erebus, and had 2 bombs, so figured I'd nuke the place, see what happened. Very pleasantly surprised that I still got the boss fight & my reward!
I thought twice about going for a full win, mulled over the numbers for a while, figured I must have got the maths wrong, and in the end decided it was worth it anyway!  I was actually pretty surprised that a combat pistol with SoaGx5 takes down JC as easily as it looked on paper, and I'm fairly convinced that berserk kicking in on rocket hits and barrels makes berserker stronger than it should be, but hey, if the final true evil in the game is gonna do 6hp dmg and 2%dmg to my red armour throughout the entire fight, I guess I shouldn't be complaining! ♥

The weakpoint of the build, I guess, is having no EE (this accuracy problem, along with inventory ammo problems from being a jack of all trades, is why I favoured pistols over rapidfire weapons). It really feels weird having a T3F2 plasma rifle and it doing negligible damage compared to pistols. I would give my right arm to get that in an EE build! :D

Thanks for reading anyway, this is probably the strongest N! game I've had, and I'm happy with the 97% clear rate, but convinced I can do better!
here's the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Sylph, level 16 Hell Baron Lt. Colonel Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 1228311 turns and scored 880120 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 19 minutes and 26 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1800 out of 1849 hellspawn. (97%)
 He held his right to remain violent.

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 3

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Hell Armorer Badge
  UAC Platinum Badge
  Veteran Platinum Badge
  Veteran Diamond Badge
  Elite Diamond Badge

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  .................................................X........#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ...................................................|}.....#
  ...................................................|.|....#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 114/60   Experience 138176/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Son of a gun     (Level 5)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Fin->Jug->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bad->MVm->Bad->Fin->WK->WK->SoG->SoG->SoG->SoG->SoG->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (198%) (BP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   combat pistol (3d5) [10/15] (A2P2)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   protective boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   10mm ammo chain (x190)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] plasma rifle (1d7)x10 [40/40] (F2T3)
    [b] missile launcher (6d6) [4/4] (T1)
    [c] Anti-Freak Jackal (5d3) [4/6]
    [d] blue armor [1/2] (48%)
    [e] red armor [6/6] (100%) (AP)
    [f] Cybernetic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [g] double chainsaw (8d7) (P)
    [h] 10mm ammo (x6)
    [i] shotgun shell (x23)
    [j] rocket (x14)
    [k] power cell (x70)
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] technical mod pack
    [p] lava element
    [q] hatred skull
    [r] Hellwave Pack
    [s] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
    [t] rocket box (x20)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 85% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 85%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    275 former humans
    234 former sergeants
    87 former captains
    169 imps
    89 demons
    217 lost souls
    136 cacodemons
    42 hell knights
    118 barons of hell
    48 arachnotrons
    98 former commandos
    23 pain elementals
    132 revenants
    17 mancubi
    39 arch-viles
    38 nightmare imps
    5 nightmare cacodemons
    20 nightmare demons
    7 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He cowardly fled the Arena.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 10 he found the Anti-Freak Jackal!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 13 he assembled a double chainsaw!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 20 he found the Hellwave Pack!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  He nuked level 22!
  On level 22 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He nuked level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. You are hit! That hurt! You' going berserk!
 You feel like a killing machine! You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 You quickly reload the combat pistol. You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 The missile hits John Carmack.
 The missile hits John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You
 defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 159 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 128 of those were killed.
 7 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 3 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 21 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 18 killed the bitch and survived.
 3 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------
« Last Edit: November 15, 2013, 06:55 by Sylph »
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Tormuse

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Re: [N!|97%|YAFW] Melee/Pistol Hybrid, dual-diamond (Veteran+elite)
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2013, 23:04 »

You skipped UC on a melee build?  Madness!  :o  (And Vampyre too!  Even if I had zero equipment, I would go in there as a Vampyre for the healing opportunities)

Still, this is a pretty awesome win, especially for someone who hasn't played in a while!  With this skill level, you should be able to get the Angelic badges for sure!
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Check out my Youtube channel for videos of me playing DRL!  :)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXOijubEijdnrOja0kxXTKQ/videos
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