Next up in my 0.9.9.7 completion, I decided to go for Marksman Diamond. This is one of the most straightforward Diamonds on the surface, you just simply have to make it to Dis and kill the Mastermind in Angel of Marksmanship, no kill percent or additional stipulations required. However, Pistols really suck in 0.9.9.7, between their extremely pitiful early game, lack of a guaranteed upgrade weapon, having masteries that all range from heavily flawed to outright horrendous, their big midway powerup trait (Dualgunner) tending to be counterproductive without certain rare infinite ammo pistols, being far more trait intensive than other builds, being especially weak against crowds until you at least get SoG4, getting less mileage out of powerups and running due to using more cumulative actions to kill enemies, and their supposed saving grace of an OP lategame not actually being all that much stronger than what most other builds offer (especially compared to melee builds, which have a similarly rough start but amp up way faster and are actually super dominant in the lategame). These problems get amplified on Nightmare, and N! exposes another problem of AoMr in your inability to effectively corpse dispose, since you won't be able to just blow up corpses unless you find a rare Firestorm mod to make a Demolition Pistol or find the even rarer Anti-Freak Jackal, and Pistols struggle to utilize corpse stacking or knocking enemies into fluids with their unreliable knockback unless you get Sharpshooter or several levels of SoG + SoB. As a result, Marksman Diamond is actually one of the harder Diamonds, and while the
0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread lists 11 players winning it, only four of them did it purely (
Sylph,
papilio,
Tormuse, and
llama of doom, the former three of which are revered as among DRL's most accomplished players, and llama in his mortem claims it took him nearly 100 attempts over the course of 3 months to get his win).
So first thing, deciding what build I'm going to actually use. As mentioned, the Pistol masteries all have serious cons to them; Sharpshooter is the easily the best of the lot and is actually one of the strongest mastery effects in the game when you get it, but the excessive requisite levels of EE and inability to pick up SoB gives it an abominably difficult Phobos, while Sharpshooter isn't so strong as to guarantee winning if you survive long enough to get it. You also are going to need a level of HR at least by Phobos Anomaly to get through it without getting lucky with a Phase Device or floor 7 Invuln, which Sharpshooter is going to have a very hard time getting (you're going to need to basically kill everything and do all the special levels to reach level 8 before Anomaly, which Sharpshooter's early game is going to make very difficult to do, and any delay of getting Sharpshooter to get HR sooner will seriously jeopardize your chances of surviving the brutal late Phobos and early Deimos floors). Then Gun Kata offers a slightly less brutal early game and has HR2 as part of its prereqs, but Gun Kata itself is a rather underwhelming and finicky mastery effect, and the pistols themselves are seriously lacking in power without Sharpshooter or SoB (which Gun Kata blocks) until you get SoG5, while Gun Kata additionally requires a lot more ancillary traits just for a lategame that is still not up to snuff. And last but certainly least is Bullet Dance, which writing down all the problems to would make this OP way too long, but I'll simply note that it blocks Hellrunner, and that alone makes it unviable, as with no access to rocket jumping, it is simply going to get walled hard by N! Phobos Anomaly without Phase Device or powerup luck.
With this all in mind, I go for the unconventional pick with Scavenger, even with this being the pre-buff 0.9.9.7 version that could only dissemble ranged weapons rather than being able to dissemble any equipment. The plan behind it is I play it like a pseudo-Sharpshooter build, but I don't need to pick up a third level of EE and I can pick up levels of SoB that make the early game less hellish, while I can also more easily fit in the aforementioned mandatory level of HR to escape the Anomaly, and then while I will have a much weaker midgame, I can close the gap lategame with the SoB levels and extra mods I get, particularly the rare mods, including giving me a much higher chance at procuring a Demolition Pistol for corpse disposal. With trait order, I immediately gun for SoG3 at the start, this is nonnegotiable as pistols are worth shit all without it. I then follow it up with a level of SoB, even just this one level of SoB makes a significant difference as the chance of knockback per hit with a P-modded pistol doubles from 12% to 24%, significantly increasing the chance of killing bigger enemies before they reach me and helping me knockback enemies into fluids, and it significantly increases the chance of me one-shotting Formers from 40% to 60%. The order of traits after this will then depend on the state of the run; I go for a level of EE after, as that first level of EE is very helpful when pistols do miss an annoyingly high amount without it and it'll make shooting while running a lot more viable, then it's the first level of WK to get more than one mod on my pistols (particularly to get a 2P pistol, which increases the aforementioned knockback chance to 41.7% and Former one-shot chance to 72.2%), then it's the mandatory HR a level earlier than I wanted since I rolled Phobos Lab and it'll be needed there if I want to actually complete it, and then it's SoB2, which aside from the farther DPS increase, now bumps up my knockback chance with a 2P Pistol to 58.3% (i.e. I'll now be knocking back an enemy more often than average between their moves) and the Former one-shot chance to 83.3%. After that, it's the second level of WK to start building assemblies without worrying about losing the inability to mod them later and finishing Scavenger with EE2 -> Int1 -> MSv, and immediately maxing out SoG once I get Scavenger. The traits beyond that aren't very important, but I get Int2 to make the lategame less of a slog, a third level of SoB, and finally a level of Reloader to help with the reloading bottleneck before Carmack.
For the beginning of the run, I simply reset until the bonus starting mod is an Agility mod. People usually do this so they can make a Speedloader Pistol immediately with the Technician's starting Technical mod, but I do this to guarantee I'll have A-modded Boots at least before Anomaly, since it's so important you have the running speed to comfortably outrun the Nightmare enemies there, while it's possible to find no Agility mods in Phobos, especially if you're unable to beat the special levels (one of which, Phobos Lab, you're probably not going to be able to beat without having A-modded Boots prior to it). With the starting Tech mod, I just immediately slap it on my starting Pistol and have no plans to turn it into a Speedloader; the greater firing speed is simply far more valuable at this point of the game and Ammochain boxes can fix the reloading issue in meaningful fights later, while before I get an Ammochain box, I can swap to another fully loaded Pistol in my prepared slot if needed, which takes only 0.2 seconds more than reloading the Speedloader would. I'll additionally be able to turn that T-modded Pistol into an Energy Pistol, Demolition Pistol, or a Storm Bolter if I wanted to later, so even if you don't have Scavenger and thus would be able to get that Tech mod back, you should immediately Tech mod your starting pistol without worrying about "wasting" it.
Strategy on Phobos Base Entry doesn't really change, though you're less likely to get both medkits as you can't use a Shotgun to nigh-guarantee one-shotting the other Shotgunner with a medkit. Floor 2 isn't too bad but the annoyance of being pistol-locked already starts, at least the EXP boost of N! means you'll just need to kill a few enemies to hit level 2, which you direly need ASAP before you try taking on any Pinkies or large enemy groups. Hopefully enough enemies spawn for you to hit level 3 before the end of it because you're gonna really need SoG3 before entering Hell's Arena or going to floor 3, in this run I finished just short but luckily only needed one more kill to hit level 3. I then go into Hell's Arena; even if you don't clear it you should almost always go in and do at least the first wave for the mostly safe EXP. I however do go for the Hell's Arena clear, it's very difficult and even more unbearably tedious in N! AoMr, but getting that guaranteed early Power Mod and Ammochain box is worth it if you're able to do it, even burning all your Small Medkits in the process won't be too bad as the Supercharge + Large Medkit + Blue Armor you get will compensate for that. I do take a
big beating though, even when going in with a Berserk near the stairs. There's then the infamous difficulty spike upon entering floor 3 when Hell Knights start appearing and Cacodemons + Pain Elementals follow soon after; whenever I enter a new floor at this point I equip the Ammochain box, as it's crucial to surviving any rough level starts that plop me near these big enemies or the big Pinky group can start appearing on Floor 4. When I establish a foothold in a mostly safe spot, I then unequip the Ammochain to preserve it, you shouldn't waste it when shooting isolated enemies safely behind a corner. If running lowish on health, I'll also equip the Blue Armor when entering stairs, but will similarly unequip it when no longer threatened by Hell Knights or Cacodemons to preserve it, especially as Armor Shards don't start spawning until floor 5 and I may not get another healthy Blue Armor throughout Phobos.
I get a pretty fortunate floor 5 that had a big water river running through it to make corpse disposal less of a hassle, and it contained a little Cacodemon vault that was not only easy to clear out, but also had a
Power Mod and Homing Phase. With that second Power mod, I go for WK1 instead of getting SoB2, since a P2 Pistol with SoG3 + SoB1 has a slightly higher knockback chance than a P1 Pistol with SoG3 + SoB2, while it also keeps the T-modded Pistol I have in my offhand less likely to knockback for when I want something to die on the spot it's standing, and that Homing Phase will give me a mulligan when I try the difficult special levels. Speaking of which, next up is the Unchained Court, which most would probably advise against trying in N! AoMr, but it is doable. You'll need to eat some acid balls while berserked to destroy the Baron corpses, or otherwise try to knock them into the lava as you kill them or finagle them into the doorways without getting hit too much. The Arena Master himself won't be too much of a problem if you can save at least one berserk for him, as you can win the damage race and kill him with a pistol before the berserk runs out (keep in mind it's better to fight him from a distance than up close, his attack rate will be much slower when he is zapping you and so he actually has a higher DPS in melee range, especially when his zap isn't as damaging as a typical Archvile zap). Cleanup of the Formers after though will be very annoying, especially if the Arena Master and Barons destroyed most of the center building, if you can't safely door camp you'll have to keep killing the Formers as they revive until you can knock them back into the lava, but if you still have your tactics intact you can use the Arena Master's Staff to gib a couple of them. Given the difficulty of eliminating the Barons and the sheer tedium with disposing the corpses in N! AoMr, I don't blame anyone if they rather only clear Hell's Arena or give up the guaranteed early Power mod + Ammochain from the Arena to get the easy Chained Court, even if it means they would have to do a few more resets to get through Phobos (this will be way more bearable in 0.10 and beyond though, where Pistols have reliable knockback and clearing special levels was changed to kill each distinct enemy once rather than needing everything dead simultaneously).
After some standard tough late Phobos floors, I rolled Phobos Lab for the floor 7 special level instead of Military Base. About anyone would probably advise that going into N! Phobos Lab in AoMr is suicide, especially not without HR2 and Tactical Boots, but with several Large Medkits and my running speed exceeding the crucial 0.71 seconds benchmark by a comfortable amount (the speed of Nightmare Demons), I decide to give it a shot, especially since I could always Homing Phase out if I truly got in an unsurviveable position, and no Invuln nor Berserk spawned on Phobos 7 anyway to use for Phobos Anomaly. I did get in a terrible spot early on when a
respawned Sergeant opened the door I was trying to camp out some Nightmare Demons behind, I
survived it but had to burn both Small Medkits when I wanted to save them for restoring running (fortunately the back Nightmare Demon was already almost dead and so immediately died in the acid). Phobos Lab ends up taking a while but I'm able to clear it, not without
burning a lot of medkits and taking a whopping 280 damage on the level though. Then it's Phobos Anomaly, where with HR and A-modded Boots, I'm able to outrun the ambush, and then I simply run pass the Bruisers since even with a Radsuit on I can't quite beat them in an open damage race and getting pincer'd by the Nightmare enemies would end me, though I
still take a large chunk of damage and lose my bid at 100% kills, which sucks but it's not worth trying to kill the N! Anomaly enemies in AoMr.
Deimos would very conveniently
start me right next to a
massacre lever, not as helpful as it would have been in Phobos but permanently eliminating a bunch of Formers and weakening the bigger enemies still gave me a nice breather of a floor. I rolled Hell's Armory for the Deimos 1 special level, which I don't mind for another relative breather, and I indeed clear it out without having to expend any medkits after using a radsuit to get the Supercharge. The weapon cache unfortunately didn't have an Exotic pistol, and the big reward of a Sniper mod is ok but was I wanted least, I just put it on a spare Pistol while I turn my 2P pistol into an Energy Pistol and prime my T1 pistol with another T + P mod to eventually make it into a Demolition Pistol. With the P-modded Energy Pistol and sufficient levels of SoG + SoB, I'm able to go through The Wall, which I do by shooting a one-tile wide tunnel at the top, where I then wait until I see a Baron pop up near the end, shoot it, retreat behind the corner, make sure I finish off the Baron diagonally in front of me, and then stand on the Baron corpse while I wait for another Baron to pop up so it cannot get up. If one of the Archviles pop up, I shoot at it and then once I see it raise its arms, I move back behind the wall to avoid the zap and have it blow up the Baron corpse for me. Repeating this until I get the last Baron as a corpse, I then go retrieve the Backpack + the Missile Launcher for later Scavenging and wait for the respawned Baron to come near this area, where I can then finish it off in the doorway to get rid of the final Baron corpse. I would enter City Of Skulls after this to keep the Explorer Pin intact, but I don't release the Lost Souls, as I didn't want to have to risk burning my Homing Phase that I would need to not die in Halls Of Carnage. And indeed I would roll Halls Of Carnage on Deimos 6, where after retrieving the first mod with the aid of a berserk, I just Homing Phase to the stairs, grab the BFG to use a cell backpack, and then wait on the stairs until the lava catches up, but immediately descend once I
saw a Baron in the lava staring me down and knowing the Nightmare Cacos were around to pop up at any moment.
While I didn't really need the Backpack from The Wall, getting the Missile Launcher there and my Scavenger strat would pay off, as upon finally getting Scavenger on Deimos 6 and dissembling a couple non-Pistol exotic weapons I had, dissembling the Missile Launcher would
net me a Firestorm mod, that I immediately use to make a Demolition Pistol. The very next floor though would have a
random Firestorm mod right next to a Unique, teasing me for getting Scavenger just to make a Demolition Pistol one floor early (unfortunately you can't put Firestorms on explosive weapons with a radius smaller than 3 for some asinine in this version, so I can just slap that second Firestorm on my BFG to maybe make a Biggest Fucking Gun later, or rather a Biggest Fucking Cellpack). That Unique was a
Railgun though, so Scavenger does pay off definitively by getting me a second Sniper mod and thus allowing me to use a very useful
2S Pistol for unobstructed out-of-vision shooting. Hell 1 would have a
Mega Buster that I then dissemble into...
a third Sniper, which you can apply up to three Snipers on a single weapon, but in this version the third Sniper does nothing, so this was a useless drop.
Once I get the Demolition Pistol and 2S Pistol alongside SoG4 and 5, the run becomes much easier, though it still had heart-stopping moments like me
accidentally stepping into a Commando's view and eating a full plasma volley that nearly kills me. I go into the Cathedral for Explorer but leave instantly, and then I go into the Vaults that is trivial to clear, while it too pays off with a
Trigun. I have the dilemma to keep the Trigun as a much stronger pistol for in-vision enemies than the other pistols I have on or scavenge it for the guaranteed Nano mod; I decided to keep it, since I figure it's too late to build something with the Nano mod that would be better than having the Trigun itself. The game isn't going down easy after this, with Hell 4 being a
Pain Elemental cave (it had a
Hell Staff that I can't dissemble but bring along with me), Hell 6 being a
maze with a lot of barrels, and Hell 7 being
yet another barrel level. I would also venture into Limbo, and upon seeing a bunch of Archviles in vision at the start, I contemplate using the Hell Staff to try getting me out immediately... or stick around and try clearing it. And after successfully clearing out the starting island, I would use the Demolition Pistol to weed out the enemies on the other islands before raising the bridges (since the explosions would hurt several bunched up enemies and launch them into the lava), while then taking advantage of the 2S Pistol to shoot enemies out of vision off the bridge into the lava (or sometimes used the Energy Pistol to save ammo after farming an Arachnotron for cells). This process took a long time but eventually
I'm able to kill every last one of them. Explorer is then secured by being able to freely enter The Lava Pits, though I clear it too even without a Radsuit or lava immune boots, taking advantage of the Hell Staff to get me across the lava where I then have the overabundance of Radsuits in this version of Lava Pits to get me back safely. Finally, Carmack, as usual in this version,
is a pushover, as I can keep hammering away at him and his spawns with the Demolition Pistol after he knocks me out of vision.
Well damn, that was a big writeup, this was a long and pretty excruciating run, belying it only being my second attempt that didn't reset at Phobos Base Entry (the first made it to Deimos, but I fucked up in Unchained Court by trying to wait for an almost dead Arena Master to die in lava instead of finishing him off, forgetting that all Viles were bugged to be immune to fluids in this version, getting me hit with a zap without berserk and destroying most of the central building, a mistake that lost me two large medkits and put me in a hole I never recovered from that was followed by nasty mazes on Phobos 6 and Deimos 1, and me fruitlessly trying to fight the Bruisers instead of just running past them, with me ultimately throwing against the Revenants on Deimos Lab). Pistols are just so bad before 0.10... there are few Diamonds I think will end up being more unpleasant than this one, and even if several of the remaining Diamonds end up being harder, I'll probably enjoy the process of going for them more. I also kick myself for not taking the opportunity to Angel Arm a half dozen times at the end with the Lava Element active, could have gotten the Fallout Platinum Cross out of the way and get me one step closer to Heroic Diamond. Well here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
pistols :((, level 17 Cyberdemon Chaos Lt. Colonel Technician,
nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 1898450 turns and scored 979564 points.
He played for 6 hours, 12 minutes and 18 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1878 out of 2009 hellspawn. (93%)
He held his right to remain violent.
He was an Angel of Marksmanship!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 11
Levels completed : 8
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (gold cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Explorer Badge
Grim Reaper's Badge
Hell Armorer Badge
Hell Champion Medal
Marksman Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
.........................................................%#
..................................................%..%%%||#
........................................................||#
...........................................X..............#
.......................................................|..#
..................................................%..%%%.%#
........................................................||#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 75/50 Experience 159564/17
ToHit Ranged +4 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +3 ToDmg Melee +3
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Technician
Hellrunner (Level 1)
Son of a bitch (Level 3)
Son of a gun (Level 5)
Reloader (Level 1)
Eagle Eye (Level 2)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Scavenger (Level 1)
SoG->SoG->SoG->SoB->EE->WK->HR->SoB->WK->EE->Int->MSc->SoG->SoG->Int->SoB->Rel->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] fireproof red armor [4/4] (91%) (A)
[b] [ Weapon ] demolition pistol (4d2) [2/8] (B1)
[c] [ Boots ] Nyarlaptotep's Boots [6/6] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] 10mm ammo chain (x206)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] pistol (2d6) [8/8] (B1P2S2)
[b] energy pistol (2d6) [6/6] (P1)
[c] BFG 9000 (10d6) [220/220] (B3F1)
[d] Trigun (3d6) [2/6]
[e] red armor [4/4] (200%) (B)
[f] red armor [4/4] (190%) (B)
[g] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
[h] 10mm ammo (x140)
[i] 10mm ammo (x116)
[j] power cell (x70)
[k] power cell (x70)
[l] small med-pack
[m] small med-pack
[n] small med-pack
[o] large med-pack
[p] large med-pack
[q] envirosuit pack
[r] Hell Staff
[s] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
[t] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Melee - internal 0% torso -30% feet 0%
Acid - internal 0% torso 0% feet 30%
Fire - internal 0% torso 55% feet 30%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
225 former humans
202 former sergeants
66 former captains
403 imps
86 demons
271 lost souls
65 cacodemons
61 hell knights
94 barons of hell
110 arachnotrons
19 former commandos
43 pain elementals
74 revenants
41 mancubi
49 arch-viles
4 nightmare imps
7 nightmare cacodemons
36 nightmare demons
16 nightmare arachnotrons
1 shambler
1 lava elemental
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
1 John Carmack
1 Arena Master
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
He left the Arena as a champion!
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
He broke through the lab.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
On level 9 he assembled a energy pistol!
On level 9 he assembled a fireproof armor!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
He fled the City in terror!
Level 13 was a hard nut to crack!
On level 14 he assembled a demolition ammo!
On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
On level 15 he found the Railgun!
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 17 he found the Mega Buster!
On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
On level 19 he found the Trigun!
He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
On level 20 he found the Hell Staff!
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 entered the Lava Pits.
On level 22 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
He managed to clear the Lava Pits 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 --------------------------------------------------
wear/wield : a demolition pistol (4d2) [8/8] (B1)
The missile hits John Carmack.
The missile hits John Carmack.
The missile hits John Carmack. The cacodemon dies. You are hit!
You hear the scream of a freed soul! You hear the scream of a freed soul!
You quickly reload the demolition pistol.
You quickly reload the demolition pistol.
You hear the scream of a freed soul!
You hear the scream of a freed soul!
You quickly reload the demolition pistol.
You quickly reload the demolition pistol.
You hear the scream of a freed soul!
You hear the scream of a freed soul! You hear the scream of a freed soul! You
hear the scream of a freed soul!
You hear the scream of a freed soul! Congratulations! You defeated John
Carmack! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
259 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
85 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
91 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 6 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
76 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
39 killed the bitch and survived.
31 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Author
Topic: (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoMr|93%|YAFW] - Pure Marksman Diamond + N! AoMr Explorer (Read 102 times)