Note this post contains major spoilers about DRL's biggest secret, I will not be hiding any of it in any spoiler text to maintain readability, so stop reading if you still care about that spoiler.Guess I lied, I got one more 0.9.9.7 mortem left after my
Everyman Angelic run. So one major thing DRL has is that there is actually another, much more secret final boss besides John Carmack, the elusive Apostle. To encounter him, there are one of three ways:
- Enter Hell Fortress with the Dragonslayer and Berserker Armor equipped.
- Enter floor 100 of Angel of 100 with the Berserker Set equipped.
- Enter floor 666 of Archangel of 666 with the Berserker Set equipped.
The third method is by far the most obtainable if you know how to pick up the Dragonslayer and several people have done it after the Dragonslayer's secret pickup conditions got revealed, and the second method requires a great deal of luck but has been done by a few people (even excluding one version where the Apostle was bugged to spawn on A100 always). The first method however is especially elusive, as you either have to find all of the Dragonslayer, Berserker Armor, and Thermonuclear Bomb randomly within standard game limits, which I don't know what the odds are for that but I'm sure it's somewhere in the 1 in five digits range, or alternatively, fulfill the guaranteed method for finding the Berserker equipment. To do that, as explained in my
Gutts' Heart mortem post, you have to be playing on Nightmare! and clear Hell's Arena without taking any damage, which will then replace the Artifact weapon in Unholy Cathedral with the Dragonslayer and replace the Angelic Armor in Mortuary/Limbo with the Berserker Armor. Doing that is very very hard, achieving Hell Arena Pwnage itself without the aid of AoMC or AoLT is a high-end Diamond-level feat, then you still have to get through the rest of the game on N!, with the hardest parts coming right after you grind out several runs for your one Hell Arena Pwnage. Then if you reach the Cathedral for the Dragonslayer, you're still not done yet, as you then have to go through N! Mortuary/Limbo, which are much more difficult when locked to the Dragonslayer, as you can no longer use the BFG to blow up corpses nor the Rocket Launcher to rocket jump around, as well as can't use ranged weapons to kill far off Formers chipping you down, and the permanent berserk doesn't really matter when you'll basically remain perpetually berserked in these levels anyway, especially if you brought in Hatred Skulls; in fact the Scythe and even the Spear are straightup better, as they don't lock your weapon and can actually gib much more effectively than the Dragonslayer with their plasma damage, while the Ripper would be better as well with its crazy attack speed. You can at least cheese Limbo if you can raise the bridges and then reach one of the corners with the walls intact, as you can then safely camp out everything, but Mortuary has no such cheese and you can only bring in as many Skulls as you can find, while hoping you got good indestructible/regenerating armor and/or Antigrav Boots. Then if you do all that,
you're still subjected to the RNG of finding a random Thermonuclear Bomb, as being locked to the Dragonslayer means you can't equip the Nuclear BFG or another nuclear weapon to activate their nukes, and while Thermos aren't rare, they're uncommon enough that you will frequently go entire games without ever finding one (I actually had a previous attempt at this feat fail because one never spawned in the run, and you won't find out until the very end if you got unlucky...).
Unsurprisingly, people getting an Apostle kill outside of A100/666 is exceedingly rare, in fact from what I can find, no one in 0.9.9.7 or any other pre-JHC version has verifiably ever gotten an Apostle Insignia legitimately in the standard game or any non-A100/666 challenge; when searching through the forums, the only non-A100/666 mortems I found with an Apostle Insignia were
various 2Dev mortems, and Firstblood's
Demonic Quintuple Diamond Conqueror mortem, which were all blatantly cheated runs (the story with 2Dev and his unabashed cheating has been told several times by now, Firstblood meanwhile flew under the radar since he never posted again after that prior ridiculous mortem and so never got the rep that 2Dev or Vandam did, but I rip into why Firstblood's Quintuple Diamond run is 2Dev-level bullshit in my
Demonic Diamond post, and after doing multiple runs through N! Mortuary and the rest of Hell with the Dragonslayer while playing Blademaster, once even having Antigrav Boots + Powered Red Armor, I can see there's absolutely no fucking way you can avoid enough damage to keep a Demonic Diamond badge intact while Dragonslayer-locked and still clearing all the levels along the way). I also found this post by
Evilpotatoe claiming to have done a standard game Apostle kill twice while attaching the mortems to his post, but aside from him talking about playing on a custom module with things like "super zerk", I downloaded the mortems to see them and.... the first mortem says he
saved 13 fucking times!, while the second mortem says he saved a still suspicious 6 times (you should never need to save more than a few times in a single game that isn't in A100/666). Aside from what looks to be some glaring save scumming, you know,
you can't save on Nightmare in 0.9.9.7, showing that he was playing on the aforementioned custom module that was modifying gameplay. From all that I seen, Evilpotatoe was a legitimate player, but even if you want to assume that there was no save scumming going on with those 19 saves across those two games, these standard game Apostle Insignia runs by him can not be considered legitimate when they weren't played on the official version and broke a then fundamental rule of Nightmare. Maybe there's another non-A100/666 Apostle Insignia run buried somewhere on the forum, but surely anyone else who gotten a Hell Fortress Apostle would have made a big deal about it and the post about it would have been easily found, so it can be assumed that no one has verifiably legitimately achieved an Apostle Insignia outside of A100/666 in any of the official pre-JHC versions. With that said, I decided that my 0.9.9.7 conquest wasn't fully complete yet without picking up the standard game Apostle Insignia that seemingly no one has done legitimately before.
For the run, as explained in the prior Gutts' Heart mortem, opening up with Finesse -> Juggler as a Scout gives you the best chance at pulling off Hell Arena Pwnage, as you absolutely can't let a single enemy get through your Shotguns and you need the instant weapon swapping for the least painful corpse stacking, while Juggler is also your only chance to avoid getting hit if you get enemies approaching from different angles while you're already corner shooting something else. Having Intuition 2 instead would let you avoid walking into a Cacodemon's or Baron's vision without having to radar shoot, but you're going to have a much more cumbersome time corpse stacking and are far more likely to be unable to kill an enemy before they reach you, especially if you're fighting a lot more respawns from being unable to effectively corpse stack. Now if you get floor 2 vaults, it's possible to have both Juggler and Intuition 2 at least halfway into the Arena, but since I'm going for Blademaster and need Whizkid, doing that would delay both too long for my liking, so in the winning run where I did get a floor 2 Cacodemon vault, I used the additional two opening traits on Hellrunner instead of Intuition, which is still very helpful if you get bad starting wave spawns and need to outrun Pinkies and/or dodge Cacodemon plasma balls. And indeed in my winning run that second HR level would prove vital when I had to successfully dodge over a half dozen Cacodemon plasma balls after a terrible wave 2 starting spawn. I wasn't keeping count and I just quit out whenever I got hit in the Arena, but I think it took nearly double digit tries before I got a
damageless N! Arena here. That aforementioned floor 2 vault having a Double Shotgun was also nice.
After the Arena it's a normal N! game until the Cathedral. It could be tempting to just rush through the game and not bother with the special levels along the way, but as I mentioned before, N! Mortuary is going to be brutal when Dragonslayer-locked and so you need to get yourself as strong as possible for it, I do not want to go through the hassle of pulling off a Hell Arena Pwnage just to die in Mortuary late in the game. This is also still Nightmare and no damaging Hell's Arena gives you no immediate additional benefit, so you can still very much die before even reaching the Cathedral if you play sloppy. As such, I'm still killing everything and doing all the special levels along the way. Also I'm going Blademaster, as aside from being the quickest build for a completionist run and one of the best builds in general, it is pivotal to ensure you don't get chipped down to death in Mortuary while you're Dragonslayer-locked. Vampyre would work well too, but no Scout speed bonus and being unable to get HR would make getting Hell Arena Pwnage even more difficult, while it also may fare worse in Mortuary without being able to use the Ripper, especially if you can't make Antigrav Boots nor get better indestructible armor than a Nanofiber Red. Some other particularly important points:
- Unchained Court is a must, you won't be using the Chainsaw beyond Cathedral but it'll greatly reduce the chance you die to a bad hot start along the way, and you're going to want the mods. The Staff ain't bad either for The Vaults, since you might get a good Exotic or Unique armor there that will really help, or boots that will help with Lava Pits/Erebus later if you're unable to build Cerberus Boots.
- Military Base is too good of an EXP dump to pass up and is necessary to get Blademaster before Anomaly, but even Phobos Lab you should still do for the mods, which wouldn't be hard anyway for a Berserker build with HR2 and a Rocket Launcher.
- Before triggering the Anomaly ambush, use facerockets to trigger Berserker, and if you have Blademaster online, you can actually stand your ground and kill everything with the preemptive berserk.
- Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab is another must stop; aside from more mods, a Nano or Onyx would be crucial to Mortuary/Limbo, and Berserker makes the normally dangerous Shamblers a free fight. With an Onyx, you can just put it on a Red Armor, but an Energy-Shielded Vest, Fireproof Phaseshift, or Fireproof Duelist Armor would also be great if you manage to find them. As for a Nano, you want to make Antigrav Boots, when speed will be the most important thing to limit the amount of respawns you deal with in Mortuary and limit the chip damage you take while melee-locked. On that note, do not make Tactical Boots before Armory/Lab, you can survive without them until then and you really don't want to miss out on Antigrav Boots because you used up two A mods on Tactical Boots and then didn't find enough after to make Antigrav. Then even if you don't get a Nano, you don't want to make Tactical Boots, nor the aforementioned Fireproof armors for that matter to Onyx or Power mod them, before you get WK2, as that will otherwise lock you out of modding them in this version, and if you don't got Antigrav, you want the next best thing of A-modded Tactical Boots. Unfortunately in this run I got a Firestorm in Armory that I can't get any use of once locked to the Dragonslayer, and saving it for the BFG wouldn't even help either since I would only get two floors to make use of it before the Dragonslayer, so I just slapped it on a Rocket Launcher once it was clear I wasn't going to be able to Tacticalize it (I would end up getting a random Onyx anyway though shortly before Mortuary).
- City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains is another mandatory stop, when the Skulls will be your only means of mass corpse disposal while melee-locked, and you need to bring all three Skulls you get here with you, while Blademaster also makes the Agony Elemental completely free and so there's no excuse to skip them. Oddly the Fire Skulls will actually be your most coveted Skulls for once; the Hatred Skulls do nothing extra when you're already permanently berserked, and the Blood Skulls' healing don't matter when you got Supercharges at the start of Mortuary/Limbo, so Fire Skulls are most valuable for destroying more corpses outside of the Skull popping radius with the corpse explosions and potentially killing any Archviles caught within the explosions. In this run I ended up getting three Fire Skulls, normally that would be a really disappointing result but it's the perfect result here, and I find a fourth randomly later too.
- Halls Of Carnage could be helpful to stop by for the mods if you're not strapped for health, and this normally very dangerous level on N! can be handled easily by Blademaster. Spider's Lair meanwhile doesn't have mods, and the Battery Pack that would normally be great for Mortuary/Limbo is of no use here, but the Plasteel Boots can be nice if you have none yet, particularly to help you for Lava Pits/Erebus later if you can't make Cerberus Boots in time.
- When it comes to post-Blademaster traits, you gun for WK2 ASAP, and then you get HR3. You might think you don't need to get Brute 4/5 since the Dragonslayer is basically one-shotting all normal enemies with just Brute 3 (even an Archvile is one-shotted 99.25% of the time), but you should still max out Brute, as it significantly increases the chances of you gibbing Arachnotrons and Revenants, which will help you clear Mortuary/Limbo (at Brute 3, you have a 67.2% and 20.4% chance of gibbing respectively with the Dragonslayer, while at Brute 4 those chances increase to 79.6% and 32.8%, and at Brute 5 they increase to 88.8% and 47.5%). It also ensures you don't fail to gib a Commando either (only a 4.1% chance you would fail to gib at Brute 3, but you really don't want these guys getting back up and so reducing it to less than a half percent is nice). After maxing out Brute it's then Dodgemaster and Ironman, don't need to worry about the latter preventing Berserker triggers once you're permanently berserked. I don't get any Intuition as it really doesn't help for Mortuary/Limbo when you're melee-locked and I don't need it for the normal floors. I additionally don't get Finesse 3, since as mentioned, the Dragonslayer is one-shotting everything and with Blademaster that translates into instant attack speed anyway, while none of the bosses need the extra DPS when they go down in only a few Dragonslayer swings at most and I can survive without Fin3 before I get the Dragonslayer.
- As alluded to, after getting A-modded Tactical Boots and P-modding your relevant armor, you want to try building Cerberus Boots, as without being able to rocket jump, Lava Pits/Erebus will be shakier to get through if you can't bring in sufficient supplies, and clearing them is necessary to not rely on getting a lucky Invuln close enough to Dis' stairs. If you can't make them though, with the permanent berserk you have, undamaged Plasteel Boots will be enough to reduce lava damage to 1. I made the mistake here of Fireproofing a pair when I realized later that isn't necessary, just B-mod them instead so they last longer, but I would get to make Cerberus Boots anyway. On that note, in Mortuary/Limbo, you should prioritize going towards the corner with the Power Mod first if you do not have Cerberus Boots nor other lava-immune boots yet.
Even after making it to the Cathedral and then successfully clearing N! Mortuary, I'm still ultimately dependent on the RNG of finding a random Thermonuclear Bomb (the Nuclear BFG in Mortuary/Limbo should really be replaced with one if you enter holding the Dragonslayer, this run is difficult enough without the extra RNG needed on top), and I already lost a prior attempt at this from never finding one, while it was looking dicey again as I exit Mortuary still without one. However Hell 5 would
finally drop one, and to be damn sure nothing could blow it up as I go towards it, I move back and camp away until everything comes to die, where I'm then able to
secure it. Erebus then goes without a hitch, but the Lava Element would prove unnecessary as I get a Hell 7 Invuln to nuke the Mastermind with, just need to make sure to put on the Berserker Armor before entering Dis (I didn't mention it but yeah don't immediately equip it after getting it from Mortuary/Limbo, it fucking sucks with that abominable -70% movespeed penalty and the infinite Nightmare Demons it spawns will make clearing Lava Pits/Erebus much more tedious). At last, I get the
incredibly rare Hell Fortress Apostle... and
just like that it's over, while you
don't even get unique ending text, nor do you get credited for a full win. Yeah all this work for a super secret final boss that is just a lame Archvile and no special ending for it, the Apostle got a bit of a visual glowup and a slight buff in 0.10, but hopefully there's a lot more to come to make this not so anti-climatic in future versions.
So there it is, the first legitimate Apostle Insignia verifiably achieved outside of A100/666. This isn't the hardest achievement in DRL and am a bit surprised no one ever actually done it legit before once it was found out how to get the guaranteed Dragonslayer + Berserker Armor, but I would say the standard game Apostle Insignia is an Angelic-tier feat even with the Apostle being so absurdly free, even moreso if said Apostle actually becomes a worthy boss fight in later versions. One other Apostle first remaining is to get the Apostle Insignia on I'm Too Young To Die difficulty, which not only excludes you from getting the guaranteed DS + BA but also excludes you from playing A100/666, so the only way to get that would be to get a random DS, BA, and Thermal Nuke all in the same run, which yeah I'm not going to try that. Here is what should be my final 0.9.9.7 mortem for real:
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DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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OT, level 18 Apostle Chaos General Scout,
defeated the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 1555269 turns and scored 1128314 points.
He played for 4 hours, 11 minutes and 13 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1731 out of 1739 hellspawn. (99%)
He was a real killing machine...
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 11
Levels completed : 11
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (silver cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Conqueror Badge
Grim Reaper's Badge
Hell Armorer Badge
Hell Arena Pwnage Medal
Apostle Insignia
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
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-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 130/70 Experience 187504/18
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +10 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +15
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Ironman (Level 2)
Finesse (Level 2)
Hellrunner (Level 3)
Brute (Level 5)
Juggler (Level 1)
Berserker (Level 1)
Dodgemaster (Level 1)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Blademaster (Level 1)
Fin->Jug->HR->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bru->MBm->Fin->WK->WK->HR->Bru->DM->Bru->Iro->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] Berserker Armor [4]
[b] [ Weapon ] Dragonslayer (9d9)
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
[d] [ Prepared ] chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] red armor [6] (OP)
[b] fireproof phaseshift armor [4/4] (100%) (P)
[c] Shielded Armor [2]
[d] small med-pack
[e] large med-pack
[f] large med-pack
[g] large med-pack
[h] large med-pack
[i] large med-pack
[j] large med-pack
[k] large med-pack
[l] large med-pack
[m] large med-pack
[n] large med-pack
[o] large med-pack
[p] large med-pack
[q] phase device
[r] technical mod pack
[s] bulk mod pack
[t] lava element
[u] cerberus plasteel boots [0/0] (100%)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Bullet - internal 60% torso 95% feet 60%
Melee - internal 60% torso 95% feet 60%
Shrapnel - internal 60% torso 95% feet 60%
Acid - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Fire - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Plasma - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
179 former humans
202 former sergeants
91 former captains
271 imps
127 demons
324 lost souls
75 cacodemons
51 hell knights
88 barons of hell
47 arachnotrons
42 former commandos
38 pain elementals
43 revenants
48 mancubi
44 arch-viles
14 nightmare imps
5 nightmare cacodemons
12 nightmare demons
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
3 bruiser brothers
1 shambler
1 lava elemental
1 agony elemental
1 Angel of Death
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
1 Arena Master
1 Apostle
-- 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 marched into the Military Base.
He purified his fellow comrades.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
On level 9 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
On level 9 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
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 assembled a fireproof armor!
On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
He slaughtered the beasts living there.
On level 13 he assembled a tactical boots!
On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
On level 17 he found the Dragonslayer!
He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
On level 19 he assembled a fireproof boots!
He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
On level 20 he assembled a cerberus boots!
On level 20 he found the Berserker Armor!
He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
On level 21 he found the Railgun!
On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
On level 22 he found the Shielded Armor!
He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
On level 23 he found the Necroarmor!
Then at last he found Dis!
He nuked level 24!
He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
On level 25 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
The Apostle raises his arms! You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You dodge! You need to taste blood!
You hit the Apostle. You need to taste blood!
You hit the Apostle. You need to taste blood!
You hit the Apostle. The Apostle dies. Error: beings[apostle].OnDie -- Lua
error : lua\\beings.lua:1541: attempt to read undeclared variable
Error written to error.log, please report! Next!
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
481 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
246 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
98 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 13 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
123 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
9 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
74 killed the bitch and survived.
40 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
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Author
Topic: (0.9.9.7) [N!|99%|YAVP] - First legitimate standard game Apostle Insignia (Read 26 times)