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[Bonedaddy]

So after I went through the game again on an Ammochain build and destroyed Carmack for the third major time on ITYTD, I thought I'd try my hand at one of the Angel Challenges on HNTR. I have tried Angel Challenges before with little to no success, nearly always getting YASD'd before even getting close to the end of the first episode. This time, I went for Angel of Berserk, and what started as a game of hide and seek and scavenge with the zombies turned into one of my biggest damned runs through the game thus far, one that took me all the way to Hell. And even though I didn't make it all the way, this is the farthest I've ever gotten on a higher difficulty than my usual.

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 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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 Vicious, level 11 Cacodemon Sergeant Marine,
 couldn't evade a revenant's fireball on level 6 of Hell.
 He survived 136145 turns and scored 76529 points.
 He played for 2 hours, 34 minutes and 22 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 676 out of 681 hellspawn. (99%)
 He was a real killing machine...
 He was an Angel of Berserk!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 6
  Levels completed : 6

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

  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Reaper Bronze Badge
  Reaper Silver Badge
  Reaper Gold Badge
  Berserker Bronze Badge
  Longinus Gold Badge

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

  ###########################################################
  0...................0......................|#......[.c=...#
  ..#......\..................................#.....0..=....#
  ..#...0...0####........########......0......####.....=..#.#
  ..#=0......#......%.......0............0..............=.#.#
  ..#===.....#........#.....0..........%...........0......#.#
  ..#0....#..#..0.....#..########0%....##############.0######
  .....0..#..#........#...........%.........0.....0....#....#
  ........#..#......=.#..0.......................#.....#....#
  ##################=.#......0....#..#..#######..#.....#..###
  .....#..|.0#..#..===========....=======.....#..#========..#
  ===========================================================
  ===========================================================
  =================.....0...0"====.X.....=========...0....===
  ..#......+.............0...0........R.0..R..#0}#>....V..#.#
  ..#.....#####.#.......0..#####..###########.#.V#.....#..#.#
  ..#....=....0.#.......0...........0.........#........#0.#.#
  ..#.....==....#..0..0..................0........0....#>.0.#
  #########=#################################################
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/60   Experience 51562/11
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 3)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bad->Bru->Ber->TaN->MVm->Bru->Bad->Fin->Fin->WK->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (64%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

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

    [a] red armor [1/4] (24%) (B)
    [b] Angelic Armor [7/7] (65%)
    [c] chainsaw (5d6) (B)
    [d] small med-pack
    [e] large med-pack
    [f] homing phase device
    [g] envirosuit pack
    [h] technical mod pack
    [i] technical mod pack
    [j] technical mod pack
    [k] technical mod pack
    [l] agility mod pack
    [m] agility mod pack
    [n] bulk mod pack
    [o] fire skull
    [p] fire skull

-- 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 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    107 former humans
    51 former sergeants
    14 former captains
    123 imps
    62 demons
    185 lost souls
    20 cacodemons
    16 hell knights
    20 barons of hell
    18 arachnotrons
    6 former commandos
    12 pain elementals
    16 revenants
    8 mancubi
    9 arch-viles
    3 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he ran for his life from acid!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 22 he finally couldn't evade a revenant's fireball.

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

 The demon hits you.
 You hit the demon. The demon dies.
 Unknown command. Press "?" for help.
 You hit the demon. The demon dies.
 You hit the demon. The demon dies.
 You feel vulnerable again.
 There is a Small Health Globe lying here.
 Melee attack -- Choose direction... There is a Small Health Globe lying here.
 You feel better.
 You hit the demon. The demon dies.
 Your red armor is damaged!
 Argh!!! Lava!
 You are hit! Your red armor is completely destroyed! Argh!!! Lava!
 The revenant hits you. Argh!!! Lava!
 You are hit! That hurt! You' going berserk! You feel like a killing machine!
 You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 95 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 83 of those were killed.
 And 5 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 7 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 2 killed the bitch and survived.
 3 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------

My first order of business was picking a class. While I could have tried my luck with another Malicious Blades Technician, this was Angel of Berserk, and in my mind, the only proper way to run through it was with a berserker. So I chose a Marine, with the intention of getting Berserker, which turns you berserk after taking a set amount of damage or killing particularly powerful enemies, and then Vampyre, which gives you health back with every melee kill. So with that in mind, I ventured into Phobos.

I got in the habit of giftdropping and luring very, very early in the game in order to smoke out gunmen and imps so I could knife them to death. I quickly determined that throwing knives was not going to be a very viable strategy, so I stuck with luring and stabination. I steered WELL the fuck clear of Hell's Arena -- fighting Demons, Cacos and possibly some Hellknights with only my knife, especially this early on in the game, was suicide, and I knew it. Keeping armor intact was always an issue, and any armor I could find, I grabbed and threw in inventory. I also threw in just about every health pack I could get my hands on -- like armor, health was always an issue. Somehow, I managed to survive long enough to make it to the Chained Court, where I got my hands on my first chainsaw and my first taste of Berserk. There were four packs to use, so health wasn't much of an issue in slaying the hell out of all of the zombies and the Cacos behind the walls. Over time, I built up a stockpile of health and armor, along with a number of mod packs. When I got to the Phobos Lab, I stockpiled a good number of health packs and armor and assembled tactical boots for speed.

Phobos Anomaly was where I leveled up and unlocked Berserker. The big Caco and Lost Soul ambush was dealt with in true berserker fashion, first slaying the Lost Souls and then going after the Cacos, who went down in two or so hits with the chainsaw. After mopping them up, it was time to take on the Bruisers. First I let them see me and made my way to the corner where I shotgunned them to death on earlier runs. This time, I busted out the chainsaw and tore right into them, and as I took damage, I went berserk and tore them apart. After healing up, I took the red armor with me and got the hell out of there.

Level 1 of Deimos saw me bulk-modding not only my chainsaw, but also my set of red armor to make it more durable as I battled through imps, lost souls and zombies and collected more health packs. Then I went into Hell's Armory for the first time. Hell's Armory is an area that is not available on an ITYTD run. It saw me carefully picking my way through, taking down zombies, imps, demons, Lost Souls, and my first major spiders. Halfway through the area, I leveled up again, unlocking Vampyre. The shambler was dealt with through careful corner-work, and ended with me going berserk and ending him. Hell's Armory is really more useful for non-melee characters, as I found not only an Assault Shotgun, but the Anti-Freak Jackal which I recognized from Hellsing, but I did work up a respectable stockpile of armor from the place. I also found schematics for plasmatic shrapnel, which I did not take with me either.

I came to know and love Vampyre through the next few levels. More kills means more health means more chances for Berserk to go off, which synergized wonderfully. The chainsaw was my workhorse through much of Deimos, though I ran into a problem that I did not have in my earlier runs -- I had no way to destroy walls, meaning more often than not, I had to slog through acid or lava in order to get where I needed to go. This inability to destroy walls was why I gave the Containment Area a pass -- while I could conceivably have made my Chainsaw a Piercing Blade, the Backpack is not worth it for a melee character. So after picking and zerking my way through more levels, I went into the City of Skulls.

City of Skulls in higher difficulties is much different from ITYTD. Not only do you have to deal with Lost Souls, but also Pain Elementals and eventually an Agony Elemental. While this would be overwhelming for a pistol build or even a rapid-fire build, Berserker + Vampyre = a very badass run in which I was at 200% by the end of it. I soon capitalized on this by picking up my third level of Brute and my second level of Badass, meaning I could keep the health I got from Vampyre with no decay. At one point, I entered into Invincibility mode before entering a level and just completely wrecked the crowd of enemies surrounding me. I passed up the Halls of Carnage for the simple reason that the BFG is useless for an Angel of Berserk melee character. So on I went to the Tower of Babel and the Cyberdemon. With the armor I had on and my health, I elected to simply tank the rocket Ol' Cyber Head threw my way, go berserk, and just chainsaw his ass to death. By the time I got to Hell, I was doing quite well for myself. I had a way to replenish my health, a source of nasty damage, and even more damage and resistance once I went BERSERK, which meant I didn't need to use my health packs as often.

The Unholy Cathedral was my first major special level in Hell and one of the major highlights of this run. Guns don't work in the Cathedral, but since they didn't work period for me on my Angel of Berserk run, this was primarily another run for me. The first major wave was Lost Souls, which I took care of with little problem. Next was the Demons, which I also tore through with little problem once I went Berserk. Finally, I fought the Angel of Death, Chainsaw vs. Scythe, and TOOK HIS ASS DOWN. For my efforts, I got my hands on the Longinus Spear, which replaced my chainsaw as my main weapon of asskicking, and is quite capable of one or two-shotting most foes, especially in Berserk mode.

The next level saw me completely wrecking pretty much every last fucking demon in sight. With the Spear of Longinus in hand and my current build, not even Viles and Barons of Hell stood a chance against me now. In my head, Battle Beast's "Madness" (which like a lot of Battle Beast's songs is based on the Berserk manga) was playing through my head as I tore through the hordes of Hell. On the minus column, pretty much all of my armor was taking a beating, requiring me to swap armor often. I bypassed the Vaults because those need the Arena Master's Staff to open, and as I explained earlier, fighting the Arena Master requires going through Hell's Arena, which is suicide for pure early-game melee. Most of the stuff in there was ranged only anyway, so even if I used the special on the Spear, which I only found out about later, it would have been a waste of time and armor. The acid level kinda threw me for a bit, and I had thoughts of chucking my chances for a YAAM run by just booking it through. But I stuck through and tore through the horde, then let the acid take care of the bastards I missed much like a Halls of Carnage run before getting out.

The main highlight of the next few levels was going up against Viles and Revenants, including one that kept coming back until I killed the Vile that was bringing him back. I also ended up finding the Trigun, which again would have been awesome on any goddamn run EXCEPT Angel of Berserk, especially with the Angel Arm. I also found a Megasphere, which I promptly used to get my good armor back in much-needed shape. And then I went into Limbo.

The two words that best describe Limbo are HOLY SHIT. I have NEVER seen so many goddamn monsters in one goddamn level, and this level came very, VERY close to ending me. It didn't help much that I did a dumb thing and activated all the switches in one go early on. Between the spiders, the Revenants, the Mancubi and everything else, I needed all of my armor and all of my health packs, not to mention all of my chosen traits, just to make it out alive, kill everything and claim the Angelic Armor, simply because there was so much shit shooting at me. It was primarily a battle of attrition, putting on armor after armor after the fuckers destroyed the last, and whittling their numbers down little by little until everything was dead. By the time it was over, I had no health packs and no armor other than what I picked up in Limbo.

The next level saw me zerking on more Revenants and Viles right at the start and getting my shiny new Angelic Armor damaged, necessitating a switch to the red armor I picked up and using the Armor Shard I found to repair the thing. I finally got killed on Level 6 of Hell, with Mt. Erebus in sight, and I was debating with myself whether or not to enter, because I did not have a nuke. I did have an envirosuit though, but I nearly forgot that I even had the damned thing. This latter turned out to be crucial, as I was up against two Revenants across a river of lava that I thought I could get through. Nope. The fuckers knocked me back with their rockets, and between the rockets and the lava, not even Berserk was enough to keep me alive. End of run. This is the kind of thing that one should really look for a bridge across, but I didn't see one, and quite frankly, I was just a little bit overconfident by the end of it, and it ended up coming back to bite me. Not even mad.

My Angel of Death kill was very much my most awesome moment of this run, and resulted in my first Gold medal, which combined with my Berserker Bronze, my completion of Hell's Armory, and the Bronze, Silver and Gold Reaper Medals and the Grim Reaper Badge I got for going through hell to clear Limbo was enough to get me to Sergeant Major and the next tier of Angel challenges, including Angel of 100.

[Zuyl]

You picked up lots of badges in this run, good job. AoB can be very tricky if you're used to a melee build with a shotgun as your secondary weapon. I'd recommend going through all special levels you think you can handle (like halls of carnage), simply to gain more traits. With vampyre you don't really need to worry about burning through medpacks as you will usually end up with 200% health near the end of each level.

And now for that full win on AoB. ;)

[papilio]

Well done. Melee mortuary/limbo always sucks, good job to clear there in your first melee run.

Wasn't badass enough to protect you from being knocked back by revenants? Aww..

[Bonedaddy]

Well done. Melee mortuary/limbo always sucks, good job to clear there in your first melee run.

Considering this was my first time going through that literal pit of hell, I was not ready for just how many of these fuckers there were. The Mancubi and the Arachnotrons gave me the most problems by far, as the heavy fire the bastards were bringing to bear made it difficult to even move.

Wasn't badass enough to protect you from being knocked back by revenants? Aww...

The lava contributed more to ending me than the boneheads, to be honest, though the Revenants did put out a nasty bit of damage -- there wasn't an envirosuit to be had on that level, and while I could have used the envirosuit I had with me, I needed it for Erebus. One of the biggest downsides to a pure melee build is having to eat damage when you're faced with assholes like these, and I didn't exactly have the option of luring them across the lava -- only the ass-munch demons are stupid enough to charge across under such circumstances. And Revenants cannot miss, meaning both impact and splash damage. If I had access to a ranged weapon, it would have been a good time to whip it out and take them out, but again, Angel of Berserk. And I didn't have the option of healing through the firestorm because thanks to Limbo, I had only the two health packs left, which I grabbed on the level before this. There's frankly a lot of stuff I should have done, but again, overconfident stupidity.

Also, I was practically swimming in mod packs by the end of the run, and at least one opportunity to create a Nanofiber Armor was open to me, which would have helped things in Limbo, but one, I forgot about that opportunity, and two, Nanofiber slows you down without Whizkid to add an Agility Mod to the armor, which really hurts if you use Red Armor -- and if you're going Whizkid, you're frankly better off with Nanofiber Skin Armor, which can't be destroyed and retains your original protection, provided the RNG is kind enough to give you a Nano Pack, which didn't happen on this run.

[Tormuse]

Aah!  So close!  :o  Looks like it was a pretty good run up to that point.  Next time, you'll win for sure!  :)

...I also found schematics for plasmatic shrapnel, which I did not take with me either.

Er...  Am I reading this right?  You didn't pick up the schematic?  :o  You should always pick up the schematic in Hell's Armory!  It adds that assembly to your list of known assemblies for the character screen.  And if you already have all assemblies discovered, the schematic gets replaced by a mod pack, so picking up schematics in earlier games could potentially benefit future games.

I came to know and love Vampyre through the next few levels...

...City of Skulls in higher difficulties is much different from ITYTD. Not only do you have to deal with Lost Souls, but also Pain Elementals and eventually an Agony Elemental. While this would be overwhelming for a pistol build or even a rapid-fire build, Berserker + Vampyre = a very badass run in which I was at 200% by the end of it.

Sounds like you've discovered why Vampyre is my favourite trait!  :D

I passed up the Halls of Carnage for the simple reason that the BFG is useless for an Angel of Berserk melee character.

True, but it's worth noting that the two large healing globes act like mini berserk packs in AoB, which makes that level good for some easy experience.  (And the two mod packs are nice too)

The two words that best describe Limbo are HOLY SHIT. I have NEVER seen so many goddamn monsters in one goddamn level...

No kidding!  It's a tough level;  I'm impressed that you got it on your first try!  O_o  Kudos!  :D

Overall, very nice run; I look forward to seeing more from you.  :)

EDIT:

Also, I was practically swimming in mod packs by the end of the run, and at least one opportunity to create a Nanofiber Armor was open to me, which would have helped things in Limbo, but one, I forgot about that opportunity, and two, Nanofiber slows you down without Whizkid to add an Agility Mod to the armor, which really hurts if you use Red Armor...

Actually, that was changed in this version.  Nanofibre armour no longer slows you down, which makes it a hell of a lot more useful, especially for a melee build where armour gets chewed up like crazy.

[Evilpotatoe]

I'm surprised to see you carry 2 fire skulls (which is a pretty useless item imo.  Not sure I already really used one).  Why didn't you burn them in Limbo ?
Also, I guess you didn't have much inventory problems, but you can drop your chainsaw (or at least put it in prep slot) before picking LS or AS.  Berserkers's nostalgy, I guess ? ^^

Nanofibre armour no longer slows you down
Damn... I hesitated to craft one recently, but didn't of course.  It's good to learn that some items have been made somewhat useful ;)  Wiki updated !