thanks guys, i'm only able to make real progress in N! so far on AoMc, aside from the stairdiving chainsaw runs
the experience boost on nightmare plus AoD's double xp feature makes this a little easier than it would sound on the surface. one of the hardest levels to get past is level 1, you pretty much need a spawn that has the base close to your starting position. the few starts where you have to move through open space and trees leaves you wide open for shotguns, and i usually get killed here
but going into level 2 with int 2 is extremely helpful. at worse you're dealing with cacodemons here if there is a vault, and you're almost always guaranteed a chaingun, which on AoMc cuts through formers and imps with one blast, demons with two, and since AoMc cancels out accuracy penalities, picking off monsters at the edge of intuition's range becomes far easier. i didn't do anything in hell's arena beyond run for the exit and maybe blast a demon or two in my way, but this was still enough for me to pick up cateye by level three, which more or less neutralizes AoD's vision hinderance. from this point on you level up ridiculously fast, going into phobos lab i had two levels of hellrunner and was able to dance around the nightmare demons with ease
had i picked up another homing phase device i'm confident i would have blinked out of limbo and gotten to the end with ease. hyperblaster F1 + SoB 5 and Th 2 on MC is absolutely devastating