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Author Topic: [N!|23%|Ao100|YAVP] Floor 16 Dragonslayer for the win!  (Read 3455 times)

Icy

  • Second Lieutenant
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Let's go!!! This challenge has eluded me forever and quite honestly has been pretty embarrassing that I genuinely have found even Everyman Angelic Badge easier. I figured I must be doing something wrong, and maybe too much focus on combat instead of purely stair-diving. A few weeks ago, I got my closest ever reaching around floor 86 before running out of ammo and dying, all after a grueling 6 hour game. I've also bounced back and forth between pure Ao100 and combining it with Angel of Max Carnage with no real success.

Earlier today, I attempted this some more with Ao100 + AoMC and died on floor 8 after nearly 40 minutes. After reading some various mortems of players who completed this significantly faster, that had to suggest that early combat for experience is the wrong approach, and more focus on pushing and gaining larger amounts all at once is better.

It has annoyed me for literal years I couldn't get this because completing this challenge would give me my last Medal, and alongside with that 2 Diamond Badges.

So I decided to try some more with an aggressive approach, and not only was that the key to success, but the game handed me the game with a massive lucky break.

On floor 16, the very first floor that Dragonslayer can spawn on, I was presented with this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My initial plan was a masterless Shotgun build, and I had only got up to Intuition x2, Hellrunner x2, and Dodgemaster, so I was able to smoothly pivot to a melee build. I knew that Dragonslayer would make the game much easier, although I wasn't quite sure what to expect if it would still be a challenge or if it became a total cakewalk. I knew though that I had to be absolutely certain to capitalize on this because I could quite literally never get this again in my life.

After some brief dancing, I picked it up and was ready to go:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And indeed, I still had to be careful. I played a little dodgy and avoidant because I didn't have a ton of melee accuracy yet, and it did get scary:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I started finding a bunch of Homing Phase Devices, as well as nukes, which I essentially viewed as get out of jail free cards:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With how quickly I was able to blitz through floors, the chances of finding and staying Invulnerable were quite high too. On this fairly early floor, I found a nice double:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This was another nice Invulnerability spawn. I had to find the right balance between stair-diving and farming experience with them, and generally I would only detour if some good enemies for it were nearby:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Part way into my game, my inventory looked like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And quite a bit later looked like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also got really lucky to find Hell Staff very close to the start of a floor:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And this floor had a lovely triple Invulnerability. I only was able to grab two of them, but it was still a great boost:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And that's pretty much it for the highlights! I spent a good portion of this game Invulnerable, which made it a lot easier, but I still was a bit nervous playing. As a hardened player who has competed in various games for close to 20 years, gone to tournaments in-person and online, and have a pretty nice resume of achievements if I can gloat a little bit, it's very rare for me to get nerves and this was a big one that I felt for the first time in years. This was possibly my luckiest game on DoomRL to date, and I have had some very lucky games in the past. I had to be 100% certain I did not mess this up.

With this, I finally finished this challenge I've been trying off and on for years, got all 43 Medals, and am now at 21 Diamond Badges! I believe Papilio is the only player who has more now. I'm also feeling super motivated to get the my remaining Platinum Badges now, and try some more badge hunting for the ones I'm missing.

The other cool thing is that I was able to complete this challenge in under an hour, but Sereg still has the record by a significant gap!

Here's the mortem:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Let's go!
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