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[aka_Cthulhu]

So here I was, running a pistol build on Ao666. I was past the 100th floor, and all was well. Had my trusty speedloader pistol on one hand, and the grammaton cleric beretta on the other (a lucky find, too, considering I found it quite early on). I had nothing to fear for most part, since in time I got a fireproof energy shield with extra defense thanks to a power mod. I was able to clear crowds while surrounded with ease (thanks to gun kata) and only get hit once or twice (and thanks to the armor, that didn't matter much.) Hell, nightmare arachnotrons posed little threat as they went down in two shots. All I needed to do was make sure I stock up on as much ammunition I could find, and that was easy enough.

And then it happened.

It was hubris. A cave full of agony elementals, and I thought I could take them on before they land a hit. I was only able to bring down one. Just one. The lost souls were easy enough. The full auto fire of the beretta can kill a number of them when lined up. Aiming for the agony elemental was not. Since I relied on gun kata to do the reloading for me, the moment when I couldn't finish the agony elemental in one clip spelled my doom. Soon enough, I was surrounded. All the skills I invested in for most part focused on shooting, and due to the large amount of ammunition I had, I only had few medpacks.

I could have escaped, but it was a matter of being obsessive that I tried to take down every enemy on each floor, and I wasn't going to run away from that. With steely eyed determination, I tried to take down as many lost souls as I can. On a corner in the cave where only three enemies could attack me, I made my final stand. It was hubris that ended the life of my player... well, that and probably a hundred lost souls swarming upon me.

Man, in hindsight, it's such a waste.

[LuckyDee]

Ouch.

Well, hubris may have had a huge hand in this, but your personal masochistic streak (AAo666 YAAM) has definitely played its part too. Even a Cyberdemon cave would have been preferable, though I know I would be hardpressed to YAAM out of that one alive on a pistol build...

Another lesson learned?

[aka_Cthulhu]

Yeah. Another death and another DoomRL life lesson.

Cyberdemons aren't that bad really. Even a cave of them would be cake, since even if I don't have tough as nails the modded energy shield ensures I take little damage. If I recall it's got 80 percent resistance on fire and 50 percent on energy and acid. A small step down on the inquisitors set.

And, not counting the cyberdemon (and obviously the agony elemental) an aimed shot with the speedloader+grammaton full auto kills anything in 2-3 shots, and sometimes only one shot. Any armor the barons of hell have is rendered near destruction. 'course, this is on just hurt me plenty, so there's also that.

The worst part is that I was almost prepared for this. I was one power mod away to turning a super shotgun into a nano shrapnel.

And in hindsight, perhaps I should have taken that shielded armor.

[aka_Cthulhu]

As it turns out, it's more or less possible enough to clear an agony elemental cave.

So I tried Ao666 again, once more using a pistol build with gun kata. Didn't find the grammaton until much later, so I stuck with a combat pistol storm bolter and a speedloader, and then I got another storm bolter. I also settled on a nano double shotgun for an emergency. While that didn't have the range like the super shotgun, it worked out well enough as an emergency weapon in case I run out of bullets for my pistols which happened a few times. Plus, against an agony elemental it had no escape and it gets easily turned into red paste.

Anyway, out of boredom I tried using pistols again when I ran in to an agony elemental cave. Since I didn't want to be melee'd to death, I was prepared by giving a duelist armor a ballistic armor mod (was planning on turning it into a cerberus armor, but I got lazy) and then adding in a power mod. Worked pretty well on a nightmare demon cave, where all I had to do was run around and let the demons run into the lava, or push them into it with the shotgun. Any melee damage was negligible.

As for the cave. Went in with pistols and survived. As it turns out, my main flaw was that I tried to finish off the agony elementals too quickly. If I try to finish one off in one clip, there's a chance that won't work out, so I have to manually dual reload which then causes me to get swarmed by lost souls. So, what I did was if my pistols are near empty I'd target one lost soul instead, and thanks to gun kata instantly reload, and then I'll proceed to finish off the agony elemental. I'd pick off the pain elementals they'd spawn upon death, then move in to the next agony elemental.

Eventually, I'd win and clear the floor. I can now say for sure that agony elementals aren't as agonizing as I once thought... though the cost of bullets to clear a cave of them out is certainly rough.

[ZicherCZ]

A similar situation on an Ao100 taught me two lessons:
- minoring in shotguns and carrying a few extra shells is very nice when majoring in pistols, and
- SoG5-amplified Sharpshooter with an energy pistol >> agony elemental cave. You're killing all those souls before they can even move.

[aka_Cthulhu]

A similar situation on an Ao100 taught me two lessons:
- minoring in shotguns and carrying a few extra shells is very nice when majoring in pistols, and
- SoG5-amplified Sharpshooter with an energy pistol >> agony elemental cave. You're killing all those souls before they can even move.

So I tried going with dual energy pistols on my Ao666 run. Due to the length of that mode, I eventually found two more combat pistols, and gave them energy pistol mods. It does work quite well against those agony elementals and revenants, but I found that it was more or less the same for my dual storm combat pistols/storm combat pistol + grammaton. I mean, the energy pistols pack a punch, but since ammo for energy pistols is only 50 compared to the normal pistol ammo's 100, I found my ammunition supply dwindling just as fast.

And then eventually I found two blasters which I also gave a storm bolter mod (only one, the other needed one more technical mod). I had to worry less about my inventory of ammo since the bullets did regenerate, though I had to dodge around the map as it slowly reloaded. That and I also had to aim for them archviles first, more so than using the other pistols. Still, it worked out pretty well since for my armor I had antigrav phaseshift and cybernano phaseshift.

That armor set helped out a lot, since as I recall movement was 0.15 seconds, and shooting was 0.9 (or was it .09? I forget). However, that armor did end up being my downfall. I realized too late that I can't remove the armor, so in some ways it was a bit of a downgrade since I already had an inquisitors set. The mancubi were really bad farther into the 666 floors.

[ZicherCZ]

Going fully energy-pistol is probably not effective precisely due to ammo limits. That's why I emphasized Sharpshooter - they make each and every bullet (or cell) count about the same as dualgunners' _both_ bullets. With Juggler later on, they're free to switch to a prepared energy (combat) pistol at will and snipe those souls one-shot-one-kill style, then juggling for the P3-modded combat pistol for the elementals, and juggling back when they summon souls.
Might be just my point of view or my experience only, but in my eyes the efficiency was awesome to no end.

[aka_Cthulhu]

In the end though, bullets both energy and normal was not that big of an issue. I found enough former captains and ararchnatrons on floors leaving me much room to shoot everything in sight, even with archviles and nightmare archviles reviving lots of enemies. Admittedly, that didn't leave much room for anything else in my inventory.