- February 13, 2026, 06:41
- Welcome, Guest
Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
1
Nightmare! / Re: (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoB|76%|3|YASD] - All 26 Diamonds with pure Arena Diamond
« on: February 06, 2026, 23:53 »
It ended up not mattering in this run, but in case anyone else is attempting Arena Diamond and is reading this mortem for advice, here is what I would have done with each of the mods if there were any from vaults I could retrieve:
- Bulk Mod - There's an argument to put this on your Blue Armor to effectively triple its durability, but I think it should definitely go on your Combat Knife. Not only do you increase your average damage by 3 before berserk, but you also decrease your chance of rolling below 10 damage with Brute 2 from 12% to 0.8%. It's basically getting Brute 3 and you near entirely remove the possibility of Berserker not triggering from rolling below 10 damage, which does matter (even in my winning run, it took me 6 hits to trigger Berserker against the last Baron, which meant I rolled below 10 damage twice in 5 hits, which could have cost me the run if I didn't have such a big health surplus to make triggering Berserker not needed). However if you're fortunate enough to also get a Red Armor or one of the Exotic armors in the same vault, I would consider B-modding them since the Red Armor does reduce melee damage so much and something like a B-modded Duelist Armor would let you possibly 1v1 every enemy in the Arena.
- Power Mod - Comparatively, I would unquestionably put a Power Mod on the Blue Armor (or any better armor if I get one from the same vault), rather than putting it on the Combat Knife, as a P Mod increases its average damage by only 1 point and decreases the chance of rolling below 10 damage to 8.33%, not enough to meaningfully eliminate the danger of Berserker not triggering. Meanwhile that extra 2 points of protection would substantially reduce damage and effectively extend the durability of the Blue Armor or whatever armor you put it on, which is certainly going to be a lot more valuable than you dealing marginally more damage. If you're fortunate enough to get both a P and B Mod from a vault, I would absolutely make a Chainsword, as a Chainsword at Brute 2 lets you very consistently two-shot Pinkies without berserk and guarantee one-shot them with berserk, as well as three-shot Cacos without berserk and guarantee two-shot with Berserk (while you could even score one-shots if you get Brute 3), whereas a B-modded Knife has only a 33.18% chance to two-shot Pinkies without Berserk and a 72% chance to one-shot with berserk, while having a measly 19.11% chance to three-shot Cacos without berserk and can fail to two-shot with berserk (having a 6.3% chance to fail it). You could Nanofiber your Blue Armor instead, but that would definitely be far inferior to making a Chainsword or running a B Knife and P Blue Armor, as a Nanofiber Blue Armor is barely better than having no armor. Even if you get Red Armor I would take the stronger equipment over permanent mediocre defense, in my run I didn't lose my Blue Armor until the last Baron, so you're likely screwed if a Chainsword + Red Armor couldn't last you.
- Technical Mod - If you're playing 0.9.9.7 or an even older version, unquestionably put this on your Combat Knife, the 0.8 second attack time would be invaluable when you don't have berserk to getting you double attacks on Cacos and Barons to trigger Berserker faster or just kill them without them getting an extra hit in, and would mostly eliminate double attacks from Pinkies if you're playing Marine or Technician, while entirely eliminating double attacks from them if you're a Scout. If you're playing 0.9.9.8 or later, where Tech mods got changed to give +20% physical and +10% energy resistances to armor, there's much more of an argument to be made on whether to put it on your Knife or Blue Armor, as it will be saving you 2 points of damage on higher melee damage rolls and will shave a point off most plasma balls, but I do think the greater attack speed is more valuable, as every double attack it gets you (or prevents) without berserk is essentially saving you 6+ damage and you won't end up eventually losing it as you would with the armor. If you got Red Armor or one of the melee-resistant Exotic armors, there's much more consideration for putting the T Mod on them instead, as reducing melee damage to the 1-3 damage range would greatly increase your survivability.
- Agility Mod - If you get any boots on the floor in addition to the Agility Mod, you obviously slap the A Mod on the boots. If you don't got boots, you put the A Mod on your Blue Armor or any better armor you get, you'll eventually lose the armor but the faster movement until then will help limit respawns and save you some damage when approaching the Cacos, though if you get both A and P Mods, I would prioritize P-modding the Blue Armor and A-Mod a Green Armor to use for exploration of the Arena. You could A-mod the Knife to reduce misses, but with Brute 2 and the Knife's inherent +1 accuracy, an A Mod increases its hit chance from 95% to 98%, only a 3% increase, so I would only do that if you got the aforementioned P + A combo and absolutely nothing else to put the A Mod on after P-modding the Blue Armor (you could P-mod your Knife and A-mod your Blue Armor in that scenario, but I think the P-modded Blue Armor is so much more useful to make up for the A-modded Knife being negligibly improved). If you get A + T Mods, you have the opportunity to make Ballistic Armor, which sounds obvious at first for the +30% melee res prior to 0.9.9.8 and +40% melee res from 0.9.9.8-onward, while the fire weakness wouldn't matter in the Arena, however currently in all versions that assembly also removes any plasma resistance the armor has, and you really need that plasma res on the Blue Armor to eat some Cacodemon plasma balls to destroy corpses, so I probably wouldn't make that assembly unless you get a Red Armor or at least a spare Blue. It is in the proposal list however to have Ballistic Armor retain the plasma and acid resistances of the base armor, which if that goes through, would make Ballistic Blue Armor a very serious consideration for this run in future versions if you can make it.
2
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoB|76%|3|YASD] - All 26 Diamonds with pure Arena Diamond
« on: February 06, 2026, 16:53 »
The only Diamond badge I had left in 0.9.9.7 was Arena Diamond, the most infamous Diamond that was once believed to be nearly impossible after no one won it in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 until Icy finally won it over a year ago. This badge has an interesting history though, as in the versions prior to 0.9.9.7, it was actually one of the more common Diamonds, with the Badge Hunters thread reporting seven players winning it prior to 0.9.9.7 (as well as 2Dev claiming to have won it of course, but his Arena Diamond run has outright proof of being illegitimate, with him claiming he found a Supercharge near the Arena stairs... even though they don't start spawning until floor 4 and so that's impossible), and Game Hunter himself won it too, albeit in a beta version. All of these were additionally won before Dual Angel abuse was a thing (with Dual Angels being introduced in 0.9.9.7) and the Arena itself has never been directly changed, so what happened to make this once-common badge suddenly go through such a long winless drought? Prior to 0.9.9.7, Hell's Arena did have a 50/50 chance to spawn on floor 3, which would give you an extra floor to come into the Arena a level higher and with more resources, but four of the reported Arena Diamonds were won with a floor 2 Arena, so while Hell's Arena being locked to floor 2 would have certainly made this badge harder, it's evidently not the entire reason why it became so rare. I primarily suspect two other things also contributed to this badge being easier back then; one, berserk itself used to be even more OP, with it quartering damage you took prior to 0.9.9.4 (effectively 75% resistance to everything), and two, enemy AI in very old versions used to have them congregate towards the center of the floor, which in the Arena would have made it easier to kill more enemies in your Berserker chains and get more corpses destroyed in crossfire. Whatever the reason though, the last Arena Diamond before Icy's was Q2ZOv winning it in 0.9.9.6 back in 2012, and Arena Diamond was bad enough that it made papilio give up in his quest for all Diamonds at 23/26 (with his only other two unwon Diamonds being Technician and Armorer that he would have eventually won), despite actively grinding for it before. Additionally while the Arena Diamond drought was ended by Icy and then won two more times since (by micerang in 0.9.9.8 and Asbadagba in 0.10), all three of them were won by combining Angel of Berserk with Angel of Light Travel (with AoLT's +20% universal speed boost making it significantly easier), so the badge still has not been won in pure AoB since Q2ZOv did it 14 years ago in 0.9.9.6. I have done all of my Diamonds purely up to this point, not abusing a Dual Angel for any of them, and I plan to keep it that way, but will pure Arena Diamond break me like it did with papilio?
Since you only got two floors of preparation before Hell's Arena, one of which will be Phobos Base Entry with static enemies and items, you don't got many options for the build, as you'll be entering the Arena at or near only level three, maybe a fourth level if you get a clearable Cacodemon vault on floor 2, and in the Arena itself you won't hit level 4 until near the end of it without clearing floor 2 vaults. Icy did it with a Marine for the longer-lasting Berserk Packs, but I decided on the Scout, so I could outrun Cacodemons and Barons with my base movement speed, in addition to being able to more easily outrun Pinkies with running active, as well as get some crucial double-attacks on Cacos/Barons when I'm not berserked (and reduce double-attacks from Pinkies). For the first three traits, Brute 2 + Berserker is non-negotiable, but the fourth trait would be more interesting if you can get it in time to matter; Brute 3 not only increases your damage output but also ensures you can't roll below 10 damage so Berserker will reliably trigger (as your hits need to deal 10+ damage to build the Berserker counter and a Combat Knife has a 12% chance to roll below 10 damage with Brute 2), Finesse improves DPS and lets you trigger Berserker faster, Hellrunner would allow for better kiting and let you more safely approach Cacos/Barons in addition to preventing Pinkies from outrunning you without you needing berserk or running active (at least if you're a Scout, Marines and Technicians will still get outrunned by Pinkies without berserk/running), Ironman or Tough as Nails would give the extra survivability that might be needed to win at the end, and even Eagle Eye could be chosen to make throwing knives semi-functional (since it's EE rather than Brute that increases their accuracy in this version). I wasn't completely set on what I would get for my fourth trait, but as it would turn out though, a fourth trait would prove unneeded...
Phobos Base Entry doesn't play differently, though with it being AoB and wanting to maintain as much health as possible, as well as wanting those medkits, I would reset a lot (though it would also turn out you don't necessarily need both medkits here). The main point of strategy is to immediately take off your Blue Armor, you need to keep that Blue Armor fully intact for the Arena. Floor 2 is also not very different from normal AoB, with it coming down to if you can find a decent camping spot (or massacre lever) before you get shot up too much, just again do not waste the Blue Armor here, if you can't make it to the Arena without using up the Blue Armor, then the run isn't going to survive the Arena anyway. Hopefully you can find Green Armors early enough to wear, which are ok to use up on floor 2 since Green Armors help little in the Arena (they do absolutely nothing to reduce the Cacodemons' plasma damage, the single point of reduction in melee amounts to basically just being able to take one more hit inbetween full heals against the Arena enemies, and Baron acid balls deal so much damage that a single point of protection will do shit all to extend survival against them). A significant portion of the luck for Arena Diamond comes down to a Phobos 2 giving you the resources to viably clear Hell's Arena. It might be tempting at first to reset until you see the "You feel there is something really valuable here!" message on floor 2, indicating you got the fabled floor 2 Butcher Cleaver to spawn, which would be amazing to have but this isn't something you should bother for; one, I've never ever seen a floor 2 Cleaver in my hundreds and hundreds of DRL runs, you could be resetting for days or weeks until you ever get one. Two, even if you did get extraordinarily lucky with a floor 2 Cleaver, it wouldn't be an instawin, especially if no Berserks spawned, while you could very well die on floor 2 before you even find the Cleaver. Considering how maddening resetting for the floor 2 Cleaver would get and how morale-shattering it would be to still lose after finally getting the Cleaver, it is just not worth it to spam resets for. More realistically, you could reset until you get floor 2 vaults, which have lots of potentially good things you wouldn't be able to get on floor 2 otherwise, including mods, more Large Medkits, more Blue Armors or even Red Armor, potentially one of the Exotic or even Unique armors that have melee resistance, or even one of the Skulls, as well as giving you extra EXP to get midway to level 3 or even up to level 4 before the Arena. The problem with vaults though is you often won't even be able to clear the enemies they have in AoB, as they'll be either Pinkies or Cacodemons, while unless it's a Pinky vault and you got acid available to kill the Pinkies for you, you'll need to hit level 3 for Berserker before you can clear them or use up a Berserk Pack that you want to save for the Arena, and usually enemies on the floor will open the vaults up to release the enemies inside before you get Berserker to fight them. Then if the vault gets opened early, these Pinkies and Cacos will ruin any camping strat as meleeing them one-by-one at this point will drain way too much health to outlast them all. In two of my failed attempts, I got a Pinky vault on floor 2 that ended up killing me when they got released before I was ready, and in another I got a Cacodemon vault that a Tracking Map shown a potentially useful Agility mod inside while I was able to hit level 3 for Berserker, but by that point they were too spread out outside the vault to cleanly chain in one Berserker rush and I didn't want the three Berserk Packs on the floor to go to waste, so I took them and booked it to the Arena (which ended up failing). It's possible to get a vault that has both stuff that will help you and circumstances end up that you can clear it out without blowing all your resources, but aiming for that will force a ton more resets that will get annoying fast and it would turn out you don't need any vault help for Arena Diamond. The big thing you really need is at least one Berserk Pack on floor 2 that isn't too far from the Arena stairs, preferably a second or even third Berserk, aside from that you just need a floor 2 that is survivable without using up any of your Blue Armor nor any of your Large Medkits, and lets you bring a few Small Medkits into the Arena.
As for the Arena itself, you do need some more strategy than just rushing down every enemy and hoping for the best. My core strategy revolved around trying to get enemies clumped up together, as roshamboing enemies isolated would scatter corpses far apart, making it more difficult to get them destroyed by Cacodemons as well as making it harder to stretch Berserker chains across more enemies, and you can additionally trigger Berserker in fewer hits if you have more than two enemies in vision, which can crucially save you damage as you take fewer hits without berserk active. So whenever I found a single enemy or two, I would try kiting them to where I heard more enemies, though if you're lucky, the enemies will already be clumped up. I additionally will eat some plasma balls on corpses to destroy them whenever it was feasible, and when running around the Arena looking for enemies, I would remove my armor to speed myself up, as the less time spent running around the arena, the less chance for respawns to happen, and you additionally keep the global respawn chance from increasing as much. You want to avoid run -> waiting unless you're down to the final couple enemies or can gather up a big pile of corpses that somehow avoided being destroyed prior, as you'll inevitably get overwhelmed with respawns if you do so. I also had it in my back pocket that if I got down to a couple isolated Barons or Cacos with the other corpses all destroyed, I could try kiting them around pillars while chucking knives at them, the vast majority of the knives would miss in this version but as long as I could outrun them around the pillars, I could get to throw as many knives as needed to eventually kill or soften them up enough. No matter your skill though, it still comes down to a large amount of luck with how the waves spawn and your respawn luck.
In this particular run, I got an imperfect Phobos Base Entry; I took 11 damage and didn't get one of the Small Medkits, which would have made me contemplate a reset but I decided to roll with it. The floor 2 I got didn't look promising, including the Hell Arena stairs being blocked by acid while I had to makedo with an imperfect camping spot, but I was able to clear it. The resources on it also weren't great, with no Green Armors, I only got to keep three Small Medkits to bring into the Arena, I wouldn't be able to come into the Arena with boosted health, and only a single Berserk spawned far away from the Arena stairs that even with the aid of a nearby teleporter to get me closer, I lost a few dozen berserk turns getting to the Arena. However I was able to keep my Blue Armor 100% healthy and kept both Large Medkits intact, and this would end up actually being enough. In the Arena itself, I got a quick stroke of luck at the start with most of the first wave's enemies spawning clumped together on the right side and I was able to reach them with the initial berserk still intact, letting me kill most of the wave with berserk and get several corpses destroyed. Then I found the last Caco of the first wave near the stairs, where I was actually able to take advantage of stairs destroying corpses by killing it on the stairs (using running to avoid getting hit as I lured it over the stairs). I got another stroke of luck on the second wave spawning a few enemies right around me while I could immediately trigger Berserker after building up my Berserker counter on the previously killed Caco. I then got great respawn luck with only a single Cacodemon respawning (though the aforementioned strategy to eliminate many of the corpses helped with this). Then finally I got more good luck with the final wave, as one Baron spawned reasonably close to the third wave's Large Health Globe, letting me kill it with berserk without having to lure a Baron towards it, and then I was able to find the final Baron shortly after before any of the enemies respawned, while I still had two Large Medkits in reserve to kill him without berserk.
Altogether this took me... only five tries that didn't reset on Phobos Base Entry and about an hour total, I didn't expect to get it this fast, I didn't even bother to use a real name as I thought I would be typing it out hundreds of times in quick succession from all the resets and short attempts. And the winning run didn't even have a particularly good first two floors, just coming in with a few extra Small Medkits and a decent amount of berserk was all that was needed with some good Arena luck. Did Arena Diamond's reputation just spook people from ever trying it? Did people just not have the proper strategy for the Arena itself or even for handling the second floor? Arena Diamond you could always theoretically get quickly on a lucky day and plenty won it before 0.9.9.7, while I seen posts of other people saying they attempted it post-0.9.9.7, so maybe its reputation dissuaded some people from trying it, but I'm thinking some of it was people just not doing the right strategy for the badge itself, and perhaps some people did try resetting for the floor 2 Cleaver or good floor 2 vaults and ended up quitting from the inevitable frustration of constant quick resets that never bore fruit. Regardless, Arena Diamond was still very winnable in 0.9.9.7 all along without the aid of AoLT, and as proven here you don't need a miracle floor 2 to win it either. With Arena Diamond won, I now join Icy as being one of only two players to have verifiably won all Diamonds in any version, and I won them all without having to resort to Dual Angel abuse for any of them. It has been a long road, but I do got a couple Angelics left to get before I finish my business in 0.9.9.7...
If you read this far, I actually recorded my Arena Diamond run from start to finish. While I wasn't recording my 0.9.9.7 runs, I figured I should at least record Arena Diamond since it would be the first pure Arena Diamond in over a decade, you can watch it here.
And here is the mortem if you just want to see that:
Since you only got two floors of preparation before Hell's Arena, one of which will be Phobos Base Entry with static enemies and items, you don't got many options for the build, as you'll be entering the Arena at or near only level three, maybe a fourth level if you get a clearable Cacodemon vault on floor 2, and in the Arena itself you won't hit level 4 until near the end of it without clearing floor 2 vaults. Icy did it with a Marine for the longer-lasting Berserk Packs, but I decided on the Scout, so I could outrun Cacodemons and Barons with my base movement speed, in addition to being able to more easily outrun Pinkies with running active, as well as get some crucial double-attacks on Cacos/Barons when I'm not berserked (and reduce double-attacks from Pinkies). For the first three traits, Brute 2 + Berserker is non-negotiable, but the fourth trait would be more interesting if you can get it in time to matter; Brute 3 not only increases your damage output but also ensures you can't roll below 10 damage so Berserker will reliably trigger (as your hits need to deal 10+ damage to build the Berserker counter and a Combat Knife has a 12% chance to roll below 10 damage with Brute 2), Finesse improves DPS and lets you trigger Berserker faster, Hellrunner would allow for better kiting and let you more safely approach Cacos/Barons in addition to preventing Pinkies from outrunning you without you needing berserk or running active (at least if you're a Scout, Marines and Technicians will still get outrunned by Pinkies without berserk/running), Ironman or Tough as Nails would give the extra survivability that might be needed to win at the end, and even Eagle Eye could be chosen to make throwing knives semi-functional (since it's EE rather than Brute that increases their accuracy in this version). I wasn't completely set on what I would get for my fourth trait, but as it would turn out though, a fourth trait would prove unneeded...
Phobos Base Entry doesn't play differently, though with it being AoB and wanting to maintain as much health as possible, as well as wanting those medkits, I would reset a lot (though it would also turn out you don't necessarily need both medkits here). The main point of strategy is to immediately take off your Blue Armor, you need to keep that Blue Armor fully intact for the Arena. Floor 2 is also not very different from normal AoB, with it coming down to if you can find a decent camping spot (or massacre lever) before you get shot up too much, just again do not waste the Blue Armor here, if you can't make it to the Arena without using up the Blue Armor, then the run isn't going to survive the Arena anyway. Hopefully you can find Green Armors early enough to wear, which are ok to use up on floor 2 since Green Armors help little in the Arena (they do absolutely nothing to reduce the Cacodemons' plasma damage, the single point of reduction in melee amounts to basically just being able to take one more hit inbetween full heals against the Arena enemies, and Baron acid balls deal so much damage that a single point of protection will do shit all to extend survival against them). A significant portion of the luck for Arena Diamond comes down to a Phobos 2 giving you the resources to viably clear Hell's Arena. It might be tempting at first to reset until you see the "You feel there is something really valuable here!" message on floor 2, indicating you got the fabled floor 2 Butcher Cleaver to spawn, which would be amazing to have but this isn't something you should bother for; one, I've never ever seen a floor 2 Cleaver in my hundreds and hundreds of DRL runs, you could be resetting for days or weeks until you ever get one. Two, even if you did get extraordinarily lucky with a floor 2 Cleaver, it wouldn't be an instawin, especially if no Berserks spawned, while you could very well die on floor 2 before you even find the Cleaver. Considering how maddening resetting for the floor 2 Cleaver would get and how morale-shattering it would be to still lose after finally getting the Cleaver, it is just not worth it to spam resets for. More realistically, you could reset until you get floor 2 vaults, which have lots of potentially good things you wouldn't be able to get on floor 2 otherwise, including mods, more Large Medkits, more Blue Armors or even Red Armor, potentially one of the Exotic or even Unique armors that have melee resistance, or even one of the Skulls, as well as giving you extra EXP to get midway to level 3 or even up to level 4 before the Arena. The problem with vaults though is you often won't even be able to clear the enemies they have in AoB, as they'll be either Pinkies or Cacodemons, while unless it's a Pinky vault and you got acid available to kill the Pinkies for you, you'll need to hit level 3 for Berserker before you can clear them or use up a Berserk Pack that you want to save for the Arena, and usually enemies on the floor will open the vaults up to release the enemies inside before you get Berserker to fight them. Then if the vault gets opened early, these Pinkies and Cacos will ruin any camping strat as meleeing them one-by-one at this point will drain way too much health to outlast them all. In two of my failed attempts, I got a Pinky vault on floor 2 that ended up killing me when they got released before I was ready, and in another I got a Cacodemon vault that a Tracking Map shown a potentially useful Agility mod inside while I was able to hit level 3 for Berserker, but by that point they were too spread out outside the vault to cleanly chain in one Berserker rush and I didn't want the three Berserk Packs on the floor to go to waste, so I took them and booked it to the Arena (which ended up failing). It's possible to get a vault that has both stuff that will help you and circumstances end up that you can clear it out without blowing all your resources, but aiming for that will force a ton more resets that will get annoying fast and it would turn out you don't need any vault help for Arena Diamond. The big thing you really need is at least one Berserk Pack on floor 2 that isn't too far from the Arena stairs, preferably a second or even third Berserk, aside from that you just need a floor 2 that is survivable without using up any of your Blue Armor nor any of your Large Medkits, and lets you bring a few Small Medkits into the Arena.
As for the Arena itself, you do need some more strategy than just rushing down every enemy and hoping for the best. My core strategy revolved around trying to get enemies clumped up together, as roshamboing enemies isolated would scatter corpses far apart, making it more difficult to get them destroyed by Cacodemons as well as making it harder to stretch Berserker chains across more enemies, and you can additionally trigger Berserker in fewer hits if you have more than two enemies in vision, which can crucially save you damage as you take fewer hits without berserk active. So whenever I found a single enemy or two, I would try kiting them to where I heard more enemies, though if you're lucky, the enemies will already be clumped up. I additionally will eat some plasma balls on corpses to destroy them whenever it was feasible, and when running around the Arena looking for enemies, I would remove my armor to speed myself up, as the less time spent running around the arena, the less chance for respawns to happen, and you additionally keep the global respawn chance from increasing as much. You want to avoid run -> waiting unless you're down to the final couple enemies or can gather up a big pile of corpses that somehow avoided being destroyed prior, as you'll inevitably get overwhelmed with respawns if you do so. I also had it in my back pocket that if I got down to a couple isolated Barons or Cacos with the other corpses all destroyed, I could try kiting them around pillars while chucking knives at them, the vast majority of the knives would miss in this version but as long as I could outrun them around the pillars, I could get to throw as many knives as needed to eventually kill or soften them up enough. No matter your skill though, it still comes down to a large amount of luck with how the waves spawn and your respawn luck.
In this particular run, I got an imperfect Phobos Base Entry; I took 11 damage and didn't get one of the Small Medkits, which would have made me contemplate a reset but I decided to roll with it. The floor 2 I got didn't look promising, including the Hell Arena stairs being blocked by acid while I had to makedo with an imperfect camping spot, but I was able to clear it. The resources on it also weren't great, with no Green Armors, I only got to keep three Small Medkits to bring into the Arena, I wouldn't be able to come into the Arena with boosted health, and only a single Berserk spawned far away from the Arena stairs that even with the aid of a nearby teleporter to get me closer, I lost a few dozen berserk turns getting to the Arena. However I was able to keep my Blue Armor 100% healthy and kept both Large Medkits intact, and this would end up actually being enough. In the Arena itself, I got a quick stroke of luck at the start with most of the first wave's enemies spawning clumped together on the right side and I was able to reach them with the initial berserk still intact, letting me kill most of the wave with berserk and get several corpses destroyed. Then I found the last Caco of the first wave near the stairs, where I was actually able to take advantage of stairs destroying corpses by killing it on the stairs (using running to avoid getting hit as I lured it over the stairs). I got another stroke of luck on the second wave spawning a few enemies right around me while I could immediately trigger Berserker after building up my Berserker counter on the previously killed Caco. I then got great respawn luck with only a single Cacodemon respawning (though the aforementioned strategy to eliminate many of the corpses helped with this). Then finally I got more good luck with the final wave, as one Baron spawned reasonably close to the third wave's Large Health Globe, letting me kill it with berserk without having to lure a Baron towards it, and then I was able to find the final Baron shortly after before any of the enemies respawned, while I still had two Large Medkits in reserve to kill him without berserk.
Altogether this took me... only five tries that didn't reset on Phobos Base Entry and about an hour total, I didn't expect to get it this fast, I didn't even bother to use a real name as I thought I would be typing it out hundreds of times in quick succession from all the resets and short attempts. And the winning run didn't even have a particularly good first two floors, just coming in with a few extra Small Medkits and a decent amount of berserk was all that was needed with some good Arena luck. Did Arena Diamond's reputation just spook people from ever trying it? Did people just not have the proper strategy for the Arena itself or even for handling the second floor? Arena Diamond you could always theoretically get quickly on a lucky day and plenty won it before 0.9.9.7, while I seen posts of other people saying they attempted it post-0.9.9.7, so maybe its reputation dissuaded some people from trying it, but I'm thinking some of it was people just not doing the right strategy for the badge itself, and perhaps some people did try resetting for the floor 2 Cleaver or good floor 2 vaults and ended up quitting from the inevitable frustration of constant quick resets that never bore fruit. Regardless, Arena Diamond was still very winnable in 0.9.9.7 all along without the aid of AoLT, and as proven here you don't need a miracle floor 2 to win it either. With Arena Diamond won, I now join Icy as being one of only two players to have verifiably won all Diamonds in any version, and I won them all without having to resort to Dual Angel abuse for any of them. It has been a long road, but I do got a couple Angelics left to get before I finish my business in 0.9.9.7...
If you read this far, I actually recorded my Arena Diamond run from start to finish. While I wasn't recording my 0.9.9.7 runs, I figured I should at least record Arena Diamond since it would be the first pure Arena Diamond in over a decade, you can watch it here.
And here is the mortem if you just want to see that:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
5, level 4 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
was shot by a former sergeant on level 3 of the Phobos base.
He survived 219351 turns and scored 29929 points.
He played for 11 minutes and 35 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 70 out of 92 hellspawn. (76%)
He was an Angel of Berserk!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 1
Levels completed : 1
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Hell Champion Medal
Arena Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
........0#......................c....#....................#
.........#..........###..............#............###.....#
...##0...#..........###..............#............###|....#
#.0##....+...###....###...###........#.###........###.....#
#....s..h#...###..........###.###....#.###....h...........#
...##....#...###..........###.###....+.###...B....###.|.0.#
...##....#.........###........###....#......###...###...c.#
.........#...========#...............#..###.###...###.0...#
#....================i==============.#..###.###.....h.....#
=============.###....===c===============+==....=X==========
0====....#........i......###....###.============i==========
^........#.i..###....###.............#.....====....###....#
....##...#i...###..0.###..###...###..#......###..%........#
....##...#....###....###..###...###..#......###.....###...#
.........#i..i|......i.|..###...###..#......#.#.....###...#
.........#...........................#..............###...#
.........#................i..........#.................0..#
.........#.........>...B..i..........#....................#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 0/50 Experience 4592/4
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +6
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Finesse (Level 1)
Brute (Level 2)
Berserker (Level 1)
Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] nothing
[b] [ Weapon ] combat knife (2d5)
[c] [ Boots ] nothing
[d] [ Prepared ] combat knife (2d5)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] large med-pack
[b] large med-pack
[c] large med-pack
[d] homing phase device
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
None
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
15 former humans
8 former sergeants
1 former captain
22 imps
6 demons
5 lost souls
10 cacodemons
1 hell knight
2 barons of hell
-- 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 3 he finally was shot by a former sergeant.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
knight hits you. The barrel explodes! The former human dies. The former
sergeant dies. The former human dies. Boom!
The hell knight hits you.
You hit the hell knight. The hell knight hits you.
You hit the hell knight. The hell knight hits you.
You hit the hell knight. The hell knight dies.
You are hit! You dodge! Boom!
You are hit! Your blue armor is damaged! You dodge! Boom!
The missile hits the imp. The imp hits you.
You dodge! The missile hits the imp.
You dodge! The missile hits the imp. The imp dies. You dodge! Boom!
You are hit!
Boom! You are hit! You are hit! Boom!
The imp hits you. The former sergeant reloads his shotgun.
You are hit! The imp dies. You are hit! You dodge! Boom! Boom! Your blue
armor is completely destroyed! You die!... Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
416 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
201 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 9 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
108 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
64 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
3
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoMr+AoD|91%|YAVP] - Buffing my Angelic record to 11 with Marksman
« on: February 04, 2026, 23:42 »
With the few winnable Angelics I have left, there is Marksman Angelic, that I largely put off because of my dislike for 0.9.9.7's pistols, but when the alternatives are Masochist Angelic or spinning the slots for either Arena Diamond or Everyman Angelic, there was really no more excuse to procrastinate this one longer. Marksman Angelic requires winning an Angel of Marksmanship + Angel of Darkness Dual Angel with 50+% kills; the kill requirement is completely irrelevant when you cannot realistically stair dive with this combo and you simply aren't going to make it if you don't kill over half the enemies along the way, so that part of the badge can be ignored. However, the combo of AoMr and AoD itself is very nasty, with pistols being the worst weapon to be stuck with for reduced vision when you are going to miss over half your shots against enemies that can still fire on you perfectly fine and later game pistols can knockback enemies into this range, whereas shotguns can still fire back with perfect accuracy, melee has the defenses and/or speed to just rush in, explosives can still hit nearby walls to damage out-of-vision enemies, and rapid fire at least can pump out enough shots to make enough of them hit to effectively kill weaker enemies. This all gets exacerbated by how terrible pistols are prior to 0.10, especially in the early game where AoD additionally makes things all the more tougher. You get AoD's doubled EXP gain that stacks with N!'s 1.2 EXP multiplier, but with how many traits pistol builds already demand to even be functional, this is more a necessary mercy to keep you from completely fucked in the early game. Even Tormuse never got the badge despite actively attempting it, but according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters Thread, two other players have verifiably achieved it, with Cotonou and papilio doing so. Cotonou didn't state how many attempts it took him, but with his 6 for 157 winrate stated on his mortem, we can assume it took him lots and lots, while papilio states it took him 40+ attempts (he also did it a second time but doesn't state how many tries it took him that time), so it's looking like I have my work cut out for me...
For the build, after discussing it with Klapaucius, I first tried a cheesy Vampyre build for a few attempts, since while Vampyre isn't outright broken in 0.9.9.7 like it is in 0.9.9.8, it's still easily the best mastery and on N! it can achieved a near-IDDQD state even with just fists, which AoMr allows you to still use. However, with the vision reduction meaning you can't safely run -> wait camp without finding an enclosed room and how terrible being stuck with fists + pistols already is in the early game, on top of the fact that I still need very good indestructible or regenerating armor to actually safely go on big Vampyre rampages with my fists, I decided to abandon the idea. It is probably doable, but would require even more early game luck than just doing this with pistols would, and it would ultimately basically just play like another Strongman Angelic run that allows you to kill things with pistols, something I do not want to go through again after having already done Strongman Angelic. So with that ruled out, there's one mastery that's clearly far and away the best option for this badge, Cateye. Cateye is technically a rapid fire mastery, but the vision boost is beneficial for any weapon, and once you get Cateye, you would now have equal vision with the enemies, at which point you're basically playing a regular masterless N! AoMr game with no map memory but doubled EXP that makes the mid and late game easier. Cateye is what I used for the same reason with my Hunter Diamond Conqueror run, and is what Cotonou and papilio used in their Marksman Angelic run, so I'm not breaking new ground here, but with how bad pistols are in 0.9.9.7, not using Cateye would make this badge exponentially more terrible, and I'm not gonna run hundreds of attempts just to get some more cool points with using something else.
That said, despite settling on the same mastery as Cotonou and papilio, my way to Cateye and which supplemental traits I get will be quite different. First, while Cotonou and papilio opt to open with Int2 before building their pistol traits, I just go straight for SoG3; pistols need SoG3 to even actually adequately function, knowing where enemies are won't matter if you can't actually fight back against enemies that you can see, I'm sure Cotonou and papilio lost many attempts because they were trying to fight Hell Knights or several Pinkies with SoG1 or 2. Another major distinction then comes in that while they get Dualgunner after SoG2, I never get Dualgunner here; I'm of the firm belief Dualgunner is actually a trap, as any gaudy-looking DPS numbers you get on paper with DG don't matter once you run into the severe reloading bottleneck that two pistols force on you, and so I find that even if not playing Sharpshooter, you're better off sticking to a single pistol and being able to use an Ammochain box to solve the reloading issue in fights that matter, while any extra DPS granted by DG usually ends up just being overkill. You additionally have better crowd control without DG slowing down your firing speed while pistols already struggle with crowds, and you'll end up wasting a lot less ammo too, I'm also sure that Cotonou, papilio, Tormuse, and others lost many runs from thinking they just needed to get Dualgunner. Not getting Dualgunner also means I can get Cateye sooner, and any additional delay to Cateye (which is already getting delayed by the three SoG levels) is painful when that means going through another late Phobos or early Deimos floor with reduced vision while far more dangerous enemies are around. I was initially going to try putting Intuition 2 off for after Cateye since that would delay it, but after getting a level of SoB, I decided that there was too much risk to stumble around without Int2 and that being able to get Cateye a level sooner won't matter if I just end up dying from stumbling into a Baron or Commando that I can't see. It is then getting Cateye after that; the two requisite SoB levels are very good for pistols when it's a farther desperately needed early combat boost and SoB is critical for hitting those knockback thresholds that pistols need to hit, but the requisite Triggerhappy level is a very painful completely dead level, however unlike with Bullet Dance, Cateye here makes stomaching the dead level very much worth it. After Cateye I would immediately want a level of Hellrunner, as at least one level of HR would be needed for the Anomaly, but in this run, since I don't get enough EXP to fit it in time and end up using Phase Devices instead, I get a level of Eagle Eye before HR, since pistols miss far too frequently without any EE (another deviation from Cotonou and papilio, since the former doesn't get EE until his very last level and papilio never gets it at all). I do really want Whizkid, but since I'm at level 12 at this point, SoG4 and 5 open up, which you have to get ASAP as pistols finally become actually very good with SoG5. Then I can stomach some dead Finesse levels for Whizkid to buff up my pistols farther, as well as squeeze one more SoB level in for more damage-boosting double-dipping.
For the immediate start of the game, if the random starting mod isn't a Technical Mod to immediately put on my starting Pistol, I reset, as the immediate firing speed buff is far more valuable in the hardest part of the game than a slightly larger clip on that Pistol or a slightly more accurate Pistol (and while immediately getting speed-boosting boots instead with that starting A mod would be very nice, you might not get your first pair of boots until late Phobos or maybe even Deimos if you're unlucky, so going with the starting T mod is a lot more reliable even if you wanted the movement speed more). This is especially so as beating Hell's Arena in this challenge isn't feasible and so I won't be getting that guaranteed Power Mod from it to buff up my early Pistol instead, making me have to rely on that T-modded Pistol even longer (up until at least Chained Court, possibly even longer until I get my first Power Mod). And as I always say, you don't need to worry about that T Mod going to "waste" when you eventually get SoG5 (and thus hit the firing speed cap), as you can turn that T-modded Pistol into an Energy Pistol, Storm Bolter, or Demolition Pistol later on. Phobos Base Entry plays mostly the same and my usual strategy there applies, but you might have to deal with a Former ending up in that awful "they can see you but you can't see them" range, which could cause a reset. In Phobos 2, you can hopefully find yourself an enclosed space to camp out, though if not, as long as you're not forced into open combat right away or get forced to fight Pinkies in close quarters before you get SoG3, this floor won't be too bad to clear out, just stay out of the open as much as you can. While clearing Hell's Arena isn't realistic, you can go in to get some kills for EXP, but I opt against it, as fighting Cacos in a largely open arena with reduced vision while pistol-locked is far too dangerous for my liking and I really don't want to burn any medkits that I don't need to at this point. As usual, the Phobos 3 to 5 range will be where most runs likely die, fighting Hell Knights does suck, but with SoG3 + SoB on a T-modded Pistol as Scout, they won't be too bad as long as you can avoid getting caught in the open by them. On this floor 3, I spawned near the stairs and a Berserk near it, it could have been tempting to take that Berserk and immediately book it, but it's not advisable in this run, as while the early Hell Knights are bad, the enemies you'll encounter in later Phobos will be even worse if you don't get your levels in now, while a Pistol build also does not get a major power boost from just making to The Chained Court, so unlike with melee builds, you cannot expect to have The Chained Court to make up for any missed EXP by stair diving to it. I did initially try conserving that Berserk to take with me to the next floor, but after taking some damage and hearing Hell Knights around, I just went back to use it now; pistols get the least mileage out of powerups since they cumulatively use up a lot more actions to kill things, but Berserk's massive speed boost and resistances are still very useful at this point for eliminating the Hell Knights and any crowds. On this floor I also find an Ammochain box, which are crucial for any AoMr run as they solve one of the pistol's primary weaknesses of reloading without you needing to invest in Reloader nor make crappy Speedloaders, but you also need to adequately conserve them and not waste their unreplenishable ammo on trash encounters that you don't need fast reloads for (generally I'll have Ammochains equipped when entering new floors to deal with hot starts, unequip them once I got a relatively safe foothold, and then reequip them for any more dangerous encounters that I can't handle with a single clip, such as these early Hell Knights or later on Barons and especially Revenants that take multiple Pistol clips to kill). Phobos 4 has a Cacodemon vault and another Berserk, which I take advantage of to find and clear the vault ASAP, since a vault guarantees a spot you can safely camp in AoD, and of course I want to kill all those Cacodemons while I have Berserk. Unfortunately the way towards where I heard the Cacodemons ended up having most of the floor's enemies and my berserk ran out shortly into it, but I keep up the push towards the vault, with the occasional tactical retreat when things get a little too dicey, and I do succeed in reaching the vault, though by that point most of the enemies have been disposed of so it wasn't much useful (also it had nothing good inside for me).
Phobos 5 would have no good camping spot but did have a horizontal water river running across it that helped with corpse disposal, and so the floor wasn't too bad when limiting my exposure in the open, while I would also get a much appreciated second Ammochain box from an ammo crate. Once my health was running a little low and with the stairs to Chained Court open, I just went into it as burning a medkit to seek out the few remaining stragglers on the floor wouldn't have been worth it. I then make the effort to clear Chained Court since I do want that mostly safe EXP while I also really want a Power and Agility mod. though unfortunately I got the worst mod outcome with a Bulk and Technical Mod, so I still don't have a P-modded Pistol and still no movement speed boost. Fortunately I can get through Phobos 6 and finally reach Cateye by the end of it, so I'm over the biggest hurdle of the run, but I'm not out of the woods yet as I still got the ever deadly N! Anomaly coming up and am still stuck using pistols. I get another unfortunate outcome when the Phobos 7 special level is Phobos Lab when I would have obviously really wanted Military Base. I could have possibly done Phobos Lab and not doing so means I'll be entering Anomaly without any HR (while I also got no Invuln on Phobos 7 to handle the Anomaly ambush), but since I didn't even have A-modded boots and managed to gather up three Phase Devices in Phobos, I decided to play it safe and skip it. For the Anomaly itself, with three Phase Devices, I would have to get extraordinarily unlucky to not get past it, but fortunately just the first Phase gets me past the ambush, and then I'm able to run by the Bruisers even with no HR nor speed-boosting boots by waiting behind the wall until both are near it, giving me a cleaner path around them. With that, I get out of Phobos with my first real Cateye attempt, and my total damage taken in Phobos isn't too bad, I actually had an Untouchable Pin still intact, something I usually lose by this point even in my normal runs.
As I enter Deimos, the absolute worst things at this point are Revenants, who can take over two full Pistols clips to kill while I still don't got reliable konckback on my pistols and they of course hit very hard as well, so using the B and T mods from Chained Court to Fireproof the Anomaly Red Armor was an immediate priority. Going into Hell's Armory is a bit concerning with the two Revenants and several armored Barons, but the potential for one of the special pistols, the mods, and another Ammochain box are too good to give up. It goes surprisingly well, as I am able to mostly kill the Barons and Revenants from the ever reliable camping building before they reach me (aside from taking one Revenant missile when an "almost dead" Revenant didn't die to a Pistol shot while in the doorway, but the Fireproof Red Armor softened it a lot). The Shambler was not bad, aside from some annoyance of having to take some hits to ensure he got finished off in the lava. Unfortunately the weapon cache didn't have any special pistols, and the rare mod was a Sniper; two Snipers on a Pistol would be amazing but just a single Sniper is a lot less useful than any of the other rare mods would have been. At least I do finally get a Power mod to put on a Pistol (on top of SoG3 + SoB2, it increases a Pistol's knockback chance from 18.75% to 40%, making knockback semi-reliable, and when I get SoG5 soon after, it will jump up to 76%), and that Minigun isn't entirely useless as it can store a lot more bullets than a bullet stack can. I skip the rest of the Deimos special levels, as I couldn't make an Energy Pistol before Containment Area to even attempt it (I only entered it for a faster exit), while City Of Skulls and Halls Of Carnage are obviously not worth it in this badge. Most of Deimos went pretty smooth, but I got a pretty nasty maze for Deimos 7, which I would end up handling by using Napalm Barrels to create this shoddy-looking camping spot while I waited for every enemy to shoot them into the lava, and it took a while but it did end up working well to get me out of the maze without taking significant damage. The Cyberdemon fight was a pushover; a Deimos 7 Berserk I brought in didn't last very long (see what I said earlier about pistols running out powerups faster from requiring more cumulative actions to kill things), but a radsuit in conjunction with the Fireproof Red Armor was reducing his hits to 1 damage, and he didn't get many shots off anyway as SoG5 + SoB2 with Ammochain support took him down rather quickly.
Hell gave me a pretty rough intro, as turning the corner to the right ended up having a ton of Formers and several Revenants + some Archviles, which were overwhelming me and so I had to retreat to handle them more isolated after I mostly cleared out the rest of the floor. I was hopeful the Unique that spawned was one of the pistols or armors, but it ended up being the entirely useless Mjollnir. I also built a Storm Bolter here, I don't think very highly of it normally but with excess B + T mods available, I figured it could be nice for when the extra DPS would matter, especially for the Revenants when I've been unable to find another Power mod to make an Energy Pistol to handle them with. After an easy Hell 2, I got a Hell 3 that put me in a scary-looking start with lots of enemies around, but as long as I stood back in the starting room, I did have a safe camping spot and I had the DPS to kill enemies as they stepped into the door, allowing me to clear that floor without much issue. After going through The Vaults for a quicker exit to maintain more of some Berserk I got (and getting teased with a Unique I could not get, couldn't even check the side vaults as I still had no Energy Pistol), I would get greeted with a Pain Elemental cave; normally I love getting those in N! runs since they're very easy for the Shotgun or Melee builds I'm usually playing, but as a Pistol-locked build, they may be even potentially worse than an Arachnotron cave. It did have a Power mod to finally finish assembling my Energy Pistol, and I find the stairs soon after, which I gladly take to immediately leave. That Energy Pistol would funnily end up unused though, as in Hell 5 I would finally find a Homing Phase alongside getting Invuln near stairs, then Hell 6 is a Pinky + Nightmare Demon cave with immediately accessible stairs that I dive for, and then Hell 7 I can completely skip with that Homing Phase. With that Invuln still intact and the Storm Bolter repeatedly flinching her, the Spider Mastermind stood no chance.
Excluding the attempts at the Vampyre strat and the resets to start with a Technical mod, I actually managed this my first try when going for Cateye. Not getting any mazes before I got Cateye was a huge help, as was getting an early Ammochain box, but other than that, I don't think my luck was that exceptional; no Power nor Agility mods until Hell's Armory really sucked, and not getting Military Base set me back a couple levels entering Anomaly, while I also never got any special pistols. I would still rate this badge as very much deserving its Angelic tiering in 0.9.9.7, it just wasn't quite as brutal as I thought it might have been. Now in 0.10, this badge is much easier, as due to SoG being changed to +3 damage/-10% firing time, pistols have their early game woes completely reversed, so surviving to Cateye is a much easier time and then with Cateye you still invalidate the main challenge of AoD. However, I did put in an official proposal in the 0.11 Compilation Thread to change the pointless kill requirement of this badge to a Cateye ban, since Cateye is so over-centralizing in AoD and pistols are no longer bad enough that they need to be allowed it here as a mercy. If that proposal gets accepted, it's certainly going to get interesting to see how this badge evolves in later versions. Well with Marksman Angelic obtained[ I increase my record Angelic count up to 11, but with my only winnable badges remaining being Arena Diamond, Everyman Angelic, and Masochist Angelic, it may be a while before my next badge.....
Until then, here is the mortem for this run:
For the build, after discussing it with Klapaucius, I first tried a cheesy Vampyre build for a few attempts, since while Vampyre isn't outright broken in 0.9.9.7 like it is in 0.9.9.8, it's still easily the best mastery and on N! it can achieved a near-IDDQD state even with just fists, which AoMr allows you to still use. However, with the vision reduction meaning you can't safely run -> wait camp without finding an enclosed room and how terrible being stuck with fists + pistols already is in the early game, on top of the fact that I still need very good indestructible or regenerating armor to actually safely go on big Vampyre rampages with my fists, I decided to abandon the idea. It is probably doable, but would require even more early game luck than just doing this with pistols would, and it would ultimately basically just play like another Strongman Angelic run that allows you to kill things with pistols, something I do not want to go through again after having already done Strongman Angelic. So with that ruled out, there's one mastery that's clearly far and away the best option for this badge, Cateye. Cateye is technically a rapid fire mastery, but the vision boost is beneficial for any weapon, and once you get Cateye, you would now have equal vision with the enemies, at which point you're basically playing a regular masterless N! AoMr game with no map memory but doubled EXP that makes the mid and late game easier. Cateye is what I used for the same reason with my Hunter Diamond Conqueror run, and is what Cotonou and papilio used in their Marksman Angelic run, so I'm not breaking new ground here, but with how bad pistols are in 0.9.9.7, not using Cateye would make this badge exponentially more terrible, and I'm not gonna run hundreds of attempts just to get some more cool points with using something else.
That said, despite settling on the same mastery as Cotonou and papilio, my way to Cateye and which supplemental traits I get will be quite different. First, while Cotonou and papilio opt to open with Int2 before building their pistol traits, I just go straight for SoG3; pistols need SoG3 to even actually adequately function, knowing where enemies are won't matter if you can't actually fight back against enemies that you can see, I'm sure Cotonou and papilio lost many attempts because they were trying to fight Hell Knights or several Pinkies with SoG1 or 2. Another major distinction then comes in that while they get Dualgunner after SoG2, I never get Dualgunner here; I'm of the firm belief Dualgunner is actually a trap, as any gaudy-looking DPS numbers you get on paper with DG don't matter once you run into the severe reloading bottleneck that two pistols force on you, and so I find that even if not playing Sharpshooter, you're better off sticking to a single pistol and being able to use an Ammochain box to solve the reloading issue in fights that matter, while any extra DPS granted by DG usually ends up just being overkill. You additionally have better crowd control without DG slowing down your firing speed while pistols already struggle with crowds, and you'll end up wasting a lot less ammo too, I'm also sure that Cotonou, papilio, Tormuse, and others lost many runs from thinking they just needed to get Dualgunner. Not getting Dualgunner also means I can get Cateye sooner, and any additional delay to Cateye (which is already getting delayed by the three SoG levels) is painful when that means going through another late Phobos or early Deimos floor with reduced vision while far more dangerous enemies are around. I was initially going to try putting Intuition 2 off for after Cateye since that would delay it, but after getting a level of SoB, I decided that there was too much risk to stumble around without Int2 and that being able to get Cateye a level sooner won't matter if I just end up dying from stumbling into a Baron or Commando that I can't see. It is then getting Cateye after that; the two requisite SoB levels are very good for pistols when it's a farther desperately needed early combat boost and SoB is critical for hitting those knockback thresholds that pistols need to hit, but the requisite Triggerhappy level is a very painful completely dead level, however unlike with Bullet Dance, Cateye here makes stomaching the dead level very much worth it. After Cateye I would immediately want a level of Hellrunner, as at least one level of HR would be needed for the Anomaly, but in this run, since I don't get enough EXP to fit it in time and end up using Phase Devices instead, I get a level of Eagle Eye before HR, since pistols miss far too frequently without any EE (another deviation from Cotonou and papilio, since the former doesn't get EE until his very last level and papilio never gets it at all). I do really want Whizkid, but since I'm at level 12 at this point, SoG4 and 5 open up, which you have to get ASAP as pistols finally become actually very good with SoG5. Then I can stomach some dead Finesse levels for Whizkid to buff up my pistols farther, as well as squeeze one more SoB level in for more damage-boosting double-dipping.
For the immediate start of the game, if the random starting mod isn't a Technical Mod to immediately put on my starting Pistol, I reset, as the immediate firing speed buff is far more valuable in the hardest part of the game than a slightly larger clip on that Pistol or a slightly more accurate Pistol (and while immediately getting speed-boosting boots instead with that starting A mod would be very nice, you might not get your first pair of boots until late Phobos or maybe even Deimos if you're unlucky, so going with the starting T mod is a lot more reliable even if you wanted the movement speed more). This is especially so as beating Hell's Arena in this challenge isn't feasible and so I won't be getting that guaranteed Power Mod from it to buff up my early Pistol instead, making me have to rely on that T-modded Pistol even longer (up until at least Chained Court, possibly even longer until I get my first Power Mod). And as I always say, you don't need to worry about that T Mod going to "waste" when you eventually get SoG5 (and thus hit the firing speed cap), as you can turn that T-modded Pistol into an Energy Pistol, Storm Bolter, or Demolition Pistol later on. Phobos Base Entry plays mostly the same and my usual strategy there applies, but you might have to deal with a Former ending up in that awful "they can see you but you can't see them" range, which could cause a reset. In Phobos 2, you can hopefully find yourself an enclosed space to camp out, though if not, as long as you're not forced into open combat right away or get forced to fight Pinkies in close quarters before you get SoG3, this floor won't be too bad to clear out, just stay out of the open as much as you can. While clearing Hell's Arena isn't realistic, you can go in to get some kills for EXP, but I opt against it, as fighting Cacos in a largely open arena with reduced vision while pistol-locked is far too dangerous for my liking and I really don't want to burn any medkits that I don't need to at this point. As usual, the Phobos 3 to 5 range will be where most runs likely die, fighting Hell Knights does suck, but with SoG3 + SoB on a T-modded Pistol as Scout, they won't be too bad as long as you can avoid getting caught in the open by them. On this floor 3, I spawned near the stairs and a Berserk near it, it could have been tempting to take that Berserk and immediately book it, but it's not advisable in this run, as while the early Hell Knights are bad, the enemies you'll encounter in later Phobos will be even worse if you don't get your levels in now, while a Pistol build also does not get a major power boost from just making to The Chained Court, so unlike with melee builds, you cannot expect to have The Chained Court to make up for any missed EXP by stair diving to it. I did initially try conserving that Berserk to take with me to the next floor, but after taking some damage and hearing Hell Knights around, I just went back to use it now; pistols get the least mileage out of powerups since they cumulatively use up a lot more actions to kill things, but Berserk's massive speed boost and resistances are still very useful at this point for eliminating the Hell Knights and any crowds. On this floor I also find an Ammochain box, which are crucial for any AoMr run as they solve one of the pistol's primary weaknesses of reloading without you needing to invest in Reloader nor make crappy Speedloaders, but you also need to adequately conserve them and not waste their unreplenishable ammo on trash encounters that you don't need fast reloads for (generally I'll have Ammochains equipped when entering new floors to deal with hot starts, unequip them once I got a relatively safe foothold, and then reequip them for any more dangerous encounters that I can't handle with a single clip, such as these early Hell Knights or later on Barons and especially Revenants that take multiple Pistol clips to kill). Phobos 4 has a Cacodemon vault and another Berserk, which I take advantage of to find and clear the vault ASAP, since a vault guarantees a spot you can safely camp in AoD, and of course I want to kill all those Cacodemons while I have Berserk. Unfortunately the way towards where I heard the Cacodemons ended up having most of the floor's enemies and my berserk ran out shortly into it, but I keep up the push towards the vault, with the occasional tactical retreat when things get a little too dicey, and I do succeed in reaching the vault, though by that point most of the enemies have been disposed of so it wasn't much useful (also it had nothing good inside for me).
Phobos 5 would have no good camping spot but did have a horizontal water river running across it that helped with corpse disposal, and so the floor wasn't too bad when limiting my exposure in the open, while I would also get a much appreciated second Ammochain box from an ammo crate. Once my health was running a little low and with the stairs to Chained Court open, I just went into it as burning a medkit to seek out the few remaining stragglers on the floor wouldn't have been worth it. I then make the effort to clear Chained Court since I do want that mostly safe EXP while I also really want a Power and Agility mod. though unfortunately I got the worst mod outcome with a Bulk and Technical Mod, so I still don't have a P-modded Pistol and still no movement speed boost. Fortunately I can get through Phobos 6 and finally reach Cateye by the end of it, so I'm over the biggest hurdle of the run, but I'm not out of the woods yet as I still got the ever deadly N! Anomaly coming up and am still stuck using pistols. I get another unfortunate outcome when the Phobos 7 special level is Phobos Lab when I would have obviously really wanted Military Base. I could have possibly done Phobos Lab and not doing so means I'll be entering Anomaly without any HR (while I also got no Invuln on Phobos 7 to handle the Anomaly ambush), but since I didn't even have A-modded boots and managed to gather up three Phase Devices in Phobos, I decided to play it safe and skip it. For the Anomaly itself, with three Phase Devices, I would have to get extraordinarily unlucky to not get past it, but fortunately just the first Phase gets me past the ambush, and then I'm able to run by the Bruisers even with no HR nor speed-boosting boots by waiting behind the wall until both are near it, giving me a cleaner path around them. With that, I get out of Phobos with my first real Cateye attempt, and my total damage taken in Phobos isn't too bad, I actually had an Untouchable Pin still intact, something I usually lose by this point even in my normal runs.
As I enter Deimos, the absolute worst things at this point are Revenants, who can take over two full Pistols clips to kill while I still don't got reliable konckback on my pistols and they of course hit very hard as well, so using the B and T mods from Chained Court to Fireproof the Anomaly Red Armor was an immediate priority. Going into Hell's Armory is a bit concerning with the two Revenants and several armored Barons, but the potential for one of the special pistols, the mods, and another Ammochain box are too good to give up. It goes surprisingly well, as I am able to mostly kill the Barons and Revenants from the ever reliable camping building before they reach me (aside from taking one Revenant missile when an "almost dead" Revenant didn't die to a Pistol shot while in the doorway, but the Fireproof Red Armor softened it a lot). The Shambler was not bad, aside from some annoyance of having to take some hits to ensure he got finished off in the lava. Unfortunately the weapon cache didn't have any special pistols, and the rare mod was a Sniper; two Snipers on a Pistol would be amazing but just a single Sniper is a lot less useful than any of the other rare mods would have been. At least I do finally get a Power mod to put on a Pistol (on top of SoG3 + SoB2, it increases a Pistol's knockback chance from 18.75% to 40%, making knockback semi-reliable, and when I get SoG5 soon after, it will jump up to 76%), and that Minigun isn't entirely useless as it can store a lot more bullets than a bullet stack can. I skip the rest of the Deimos special levels, as I couldn't make an Energy Pistol before Containment Area to even attempt it (I only entered it for a faster exit), while City Of Skulls and Halls Of Carnage are obviously not worth it in this badge. Most of Deimos went pretty smooth, but I got a pretty nasty maze for Deimos 7, which I would end up handling by using Napalm Barrels to create this shoddy-looking camping spot while I waited for every enemy to shoot them into the lava, and it took a while but it did end up working well to get me out of the maze without taking significant damage. The Cyberdemon fight was a pushover; a Deimos 7 Berserk I brought in didn't last very long (see what I said earlier about pistols running out powerups faster from requiring more cumulative actions to kill things), but a radsuit in conjunction with the Fireproof Red Armor was reducing his hits to 1 damage, and he didn't get many shots off anyway as SoG5 + SoB2 with Ammochain support took him down rather quickly.
Hell gave me a pretty rough intro, as turning the corner to the right ended up having a ton of Formers and several Revenants + some Archviles, which were overwhelming me and so I had to retreat to handle them more isolated after I mostly cleared out the rest of the floor. I was hopeful the Unique that spawned was one of the pistols or armors, but it ended up being the entirely useless Mjollnir. I also built a Storm Bolter here, I don't think very highly of it normally but with excess B + T mods available, I figured it could be nice for when the extra DPS would matter, especially for the Revenants when I've been unable to find another Power mod to make an Energy Pistol to handle them with. After an easy Hell 2, I got a Hell 3 that put me in a scary-looking start with lots of enemies around, but as long as I stood back in the starting room, I did have a safe camping spot and I had the DPS to kill enemies as they stepped into the door, allowing me to clear that floor without much issue. After going through The Vaults for a quicker exit to maintain more of some Berserk I got (and getting teased with a Unique I could not get, couldn't even check the side vaults as I still had no Energy Pistol), I would get greeted with a Pain Elemental cave; normally I love getting those in N! runs since they're very easy for the Shotgun or Melee builds I'm usually playing, but as a Pistol-locked build, they may be even potentially worse than an Arachnotron cave. It did have a Power mod to finally finish assembling my Energy Pistol, and I find the stairs soon after, which I gladly take to immediately leave. That Energy Pistol would funnily end up unused though, as in Hell 5 I would finally find a Homing Phase alongside getting Invuln near stairs, then Hell 6 is a Pinky + Nightmare Demon cave with immediately accessible stairs that I dive for, and then Hell 7 I can completely skip with that Homing Phase. With that Invuln still intact and the Storm Bolter repeatedly flinching her, the Spider Mastermind stood no chance.
Excluding the attempts at the Vampyre strat and the resets to start with a Technical mod, I actually managed this my first try when going for Cateye. Not getting any mazes before I got Cateye was a huge help, as was getting an early Ammochain box, but other than that, I don't think my luck was that exceptional; no Power nor Agility mods until Hell's Armory really sucked, and not getting Military Base set me back a couple levels entering Anomaly, while I also never got any special pistols. I would still rate this badge as very much deserving its Angelic tiering in 0.9.9.7, it just wasn't quite as brutal as I thought it might have been. Now in 0.10, this badge is much easier, as due to SoG being changed to +3 damage/-10% firing time, pistols have their early game woes completely reversed, so surviving to Cateye is a much easier time and then with Cateye you still invalidate the main challenge of AoD. However, I did put in an official proposal in the 0.11 Compilation Thread to change the pointless kill requirement of this badge to a Cateye ban, since Cateye is so over-centralizing in AoD and pistols are no longer bad enough that they need to be allowed it here as a mercy. If that proposal gets accepted, it's certainly going to get interesting to see how this badge evolves in later versions. Well with Marksman Angelic obtained[ I increase my record Angelic count up to 11, but with my only winnable badges remaining being Arena Diamond, Everyman Angelic, and Masochist Angelic, it may be a while before my next badge.....
Until then, here is the mortem for this run:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
pistolssux4, level 18 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 1990595 turns and scored 1065986 points.
He played for 5 hours, 9 minutes and 6 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1340 out of 1469 hellspawn. (91%)
He held his right to remain violent.
He was an Angel of Marksmanship!
He was also an Angel of Darkness!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 4
Levels completed : 2
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Mastermind's Brain
UAC Star (silver cluster)
Hell Armorer Badge
Marksman Angelic Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
####................................#####################>#
###...............####...............######################
##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
#........####.....####.....####........####################
.........####.....####.....####.........###################
.........####..............####..........##################
..........................................#################
..####............................####....#################
.&####............................####....#################
..####............................####....#################
..####.......................%....####....#################
.................................X........#################
.........####..............####..........##################
.........####.....####.....####.........###################
#........####.....####.....####........####################
##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
###...............####...............######################
####................................#####################>#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 81/50 Experience 188729/18
ToHit Ranged +2 ToHit Melee +2 ToDmg Ranged +3 ToDmg Melee +3
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Finesse (Level 2)
Hellrunner (Level 1)
Son of a bitch (Level 3)
Son of a gun (Level 5)
Eagle Eye (Level 1)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Triggerhappy (Level 1)
Cateye (Level 1)
SoG->SoG->SoG->Int->SoB->Int->SoB->TH->MCe->EE->HR->SoG->SoG->Fin->Fin->WK->SoB->WK->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [4/4] (100%) (A)
[b] [ Weapon ] storm pistol (1d8)x2 [7/9]
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] 10mm ammo chain (x83)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] pistol (2d5) [8/8] (B1P1S1)
[b] energy pistol (2d5) [6/6]
[c] minigun (1d6)x8 [338/338] (B2)
[d] red armor [4/4] (100%)
[e] fireproof red armor [4/4] (100%)
[f] red armor [4/4] (200%) (B)
[g] 10mm ammo (x100)
[h] 10mm ammo (x100)
[i] 10mm ammo (x72)
[j] power cell (x50)
[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] envirosuit pack
[s] blood skull
[t] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)
[u] 10mm ammo chain (x250)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Fire - internal 0% torso 25% feet 0%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
146 former humans
168 former sergeants
139 former captains
353 imps
91 demons
186 lost souls
54 cacodemons
31 hell knights
44 barons of hell
20 arachnotrons
14 former commandos
23 pain elementals
29 revenants
22 mancubi
17 arch-viles
1 shambler
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 8 he assembled a fireproof armor!
On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
Not knowing what to do, he left.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 17 he assembled a storm bolter pistol!
On level 17 he found the Mjollnir!
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
He came, he saw, but he left.
On level 20 he assembled a energy pistol!
He left level 22 as soon as possible.
He left level 23 as soon as possible.
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
You quickly reload the storm pistol.
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
You quickly reload the storm pistol.
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the
Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
411 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
196 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 9 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
108 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
64 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
4
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|100%|YAVP] - Gutts' Heart to finish all medals for Heroic Diamond
« on: February 02, 2026, 17:49 »
NOTE: This post will contain a spoiler about the Dragonslayer that I won't be hiding behind spoiler tags for readability sake, I assume all the secrets involved with it are open knowledge by this point but in case someone reading this doesn't know and still wants to figure that stuff out on their own, they should stop reading now.
To finish collecting all 43 medals in 0.9.9.7 and thus get the Heroic Diamond badge, I just needed one more, the Gutts' Heart, which simply requires killing the Spider Mastermind with the Dragonslayer. The required feat itself is trivial, the issue is getting the Dragonslayer within standard game limits in the first place; the Dragonslayer can randomly spawn starting from floor 16, functionally floor 17 outside of A100/666, given the Tower of Babel occupies floor 16, and it has a spawning weight of 1. Additionally, as a melee weapon, it cannot spawn in vaults, which means it cannot spawn below its minimum spawning depth nor have an increased spawning weight, and it also can't randomly spawn in any of the special levels, so you can't bank on finding it in one of Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, The Vaults, or The Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus, which all have significantly enhanced odds to spawn Exotics/Uniques. As a result, a random Dragonslayer can only spawn on the 7 Hell floors before Dis, with the absolute minimum odds; outside of A100/666, I have seen a random Dragonslayer like twice or thrice ever in all my time playing this game across all versions, and I don't think any of those times were after I even learned how to actually pick it up (or spawned when I couldn't pick it up anyway), so I never got Gutts' Heart. When starting up my 0.9.9.7 conquest, I was hoping to happen upon a Dragonslayer in one of my many Diamond or other Angelic runs to knock out Gutts' Heart, yet alas, after reaching 24 Diamonds with only Heroic and Arena remaining, alongside 10 Angelics with only Marksman, Masochist, and Everyman remaining among winnable Angelics, I never found a random Dragonslayer in any of those runs (excluding the A666 runs) and so I'm now at a point where I have to do a dedicated run for Gutts' Heart. Finding a random Dragonslayer within standard game limits would be horrendous, if that was the only way, getting this medal would be magnitudes worse than my recent A666 grind for a Subtle Knife to complete Armorer Diamond. But I do keep saying "random Dragonslayer" for a reason, as there does exist a way to get a guaranteed Dragonslayer to spawn in Unholy Cathedral in the place of the artifact weapon. The requirement for getting the guaranteed Dragonslayer is quite tough and annoying on its own, as you must be playing Nightmare! and clear Hell's Arena damageless (i.e. get the Hell Arena Pwnage medal) earlier in the run, but doing this is far far faaaaaaarrrrrrrrr more efficient and tolerable than spamming hundreds or thousands of Angel of Overconfidence runs until I luck out with a random Dragonslayer, so that is what I will be doing.
Beating N! Hell's Arena damageless is a very daunting prospect on its own, given how bad the Arena already is on N! when you have no good means for corpse disposal (barring a lucky floor 2 vault with a Rocket Launcher and a stack of rockets for it), especially when your most reliable way to destroy corpses is to intentionally eat plasma/acid balls on corpses, which you obviously cannot do in a damageless challenge. The guaranteed Dragonslayer is not challenge-restricted however, nor is Gutts' Heart, so you can do this in Angel of Max Carnage, which makes this ordeal much easier, between the general massive advantages of AoMC offense (including making the Chaingun much more reliable) and AoMC's exact damage making Shotgun knockback perfectly predictable (so corpse stacking is much easier to control). You could also do it in Angel of Light Travel instead if you don't want to play a later melee-focused game in AoMC, which also makes Hell Arena Pwnage easier with the speed boost letting you a lot more effectively outrun enemies and a lot more effectively Shotgun down enemies before they reach you, as well as better corpse stacking control too since if you try using a Chaingun to finish off an enemy in an exact spot and it fails to kill them, you have more of a chance to get a second burst off before they move off the corpse. Several people have achieved Hell Arena Pwnage through one of these two challenges, and I already did it myself in AoMC during my Destroyer Diamond run, so it would make sense to do that again for my Gutts' Heart run. However I got thinking, has anyone in 0.9.9.7 or earlier actually achieved Hell Arena Pwnage without the aid of these two challenges? I thought papilio did it, but apparently it was just something he wanted to possibly record and then never did. When searching the forums, the only mortems I was finding with Hell Arena Pwnage without AoMC/AoLT were all from 2Dev and Firstblood, i.e. probable cheaters, with the exception of one; this Shottyman Diamond run by scotherns achieved a Hell's Arena Pwnage. Not technically a standard game, but AoSh gives no particular advantage for this medal (AoSh makes it easier to get both medkits from Phobos Base Entry by starting you with a Shotgun and so you could use more running in the Arena, but then you also can't use the Chaingun for more precise corpse stacking, which makes it probably actually a little harder), so I have to give scotherns the full adulations for the first verified Hell Arena Pwnage without the use of AoMC nor AoLT (Micerang also got Hell Arena Pwnage without AoMC/AoLT in his Masochist Angelic run, and wyrvic additionally posted a non-AoMC/AoLT mortem with Hell Arena Pwnage on the JH Discord, but both did it in 0.9.9.8 with its game-breaking dodging bug, which made it much easier to avoid getting hit and allowed you to very reliably dodge Cacodemons and Barons to have them destroy corpses near walls without having to get hit yourself). While I can't lay claim to the first non-AoMC/AoLT Hell Arena Pwnage, I did still wanted to try adding that feather to my cap and show I could do it even before Hell's Arena is eventually changed in later versions to no longer require killing all the respawns to clear it, so for this Gutts' Heart run I'm doing it in the standard game.
When it comes to the traits to use when going for Hell Arena Pwnage, gunning for Intuition 2 seems obvious at first, as the goto trait for avoiding walking into enemy fire. I opted not to go for it though, as you'll only get three traits before or by the start of the Arena and then a fourth during it (normally near or at the end, earlier if you got a floor 2 vault that let you get more EXP before entering the Arena), and so going for Int2 means you're only left with one other trait for most of the Arena, while without AoMC nor AoLT boosting your offense, you are not reliably killing the enemies before they reach you with one or zero combat-boosting traits. You won't be able to easily escape the Pinkies as well if they get too close without Hellrunner nor AoLT (a running Scout can still outrun them with no HR, but you'll need to burn several run actions for each one tile of space you get from them). With this in mind, I opted for my standard opener of Finesse -> Juggler; not only will Juggling Fin-boosted Shotguns very reliably keep even the Barons from reaching me before they die, but it also really helps with corpse stacking when I can instantly swap to the Chaingun as an enemy steps onto another's corpse, when otherwise I would need to swap before an enemy moves onto said corpse. I could go for Int2 after this but I also opted against that; one, Int1 itself would be functionally a dead level in the Arena, and two, Int2 won't come online until the Arena is nearly done anyway unless I get a floor 2 Cacodemon vault, while getting Intuition here would also farther delay Blademaster that I'm going for later in the run. As such, I end up opting for Hellrunner with my third trait instead, still can't outrun the Pinkies without burning running but any runs I do burn will more quickly get away from them, while it lets me more effectively kite Cacos and Barons around the pillars, and crucially the dodging rate boost could save me if I walk into a Caco's or Baron's vision, or end up in a position where I can't avoid them firing on me. For the fourth trait, I would go for HR2, but in the winning run, it came too late for it to really matter and so I got Brute instead to start building for Berserker later.
For the strat of actually playing a damageless N! Hell's Arena, well it's all about long and painfully corpse stacking, maybe you could lure a Pinky over the stairs before killing them but that's your only other real means to destroy a corpse when you can't take any damage. Without Int2, I have to do lots and lots of radar shooting to avoid stepping into a Caco's vision, it's not a good idea to run -> wait immediately since respawning becomes more frequent the longer the level goes on and so things will get out of hand if you're run -> waiting with too many corpses around, while a Caco could also pop up at an awkward angle that forces having to dodge. With corpse stacking, I will prefer overwriting Caco corpses with Pinkies since Cacos are the bigger threat and Pinkies can be more safely lured over other corpses, but I will just do it the other way whenever it's prudent, and of course when the Barons come, I want to overwrite their corpse with anything else. As mentioned, I want to avoid run -> waiting at first, but when I'm in the second wave and a good chunks of the enemies have been permanently erased, I will start doing tons and tons of run -> waiting wherever it appears least dangerous, and I'll run -> wait on a corpse to keep it from getting back up. For your inventory with the Juggler strat, you want to bring a half dozen Shotguns and a Chaingun, alongside a couple bullet stacks and farm the Shotgunners in the first two floors for hundreds of shells, you're going to need a ton of ammo for radar shooting and repeatedly killing lots of respawns. While you won't be needing to heal if you succeed in taking no damage, you still want some Small Medkits, since there will be spots when you need to activate running to avoid getting hit, and then you'll need to use a medkit to restore your tactics so you can run again if needed. It took five attempts over an hour of play, but I managed to get a damageless N! Hell's Arena in the standard game!
Well the run isn't done yet, I still need to not die on the way to Unholy Cathedral or else I would need to go through the damageless Hell's Arena ordeal again, but at my skill level while playing a good build, standard N! doesn't threaten me much. Even did a 100% Conqueror for the hell of it instead of just speedrunning to Cathedral, since a melee build simplifies and speeds up much of it. And as prophesized, the Dragonslayer spawns in Unholy Cathedral, I could just run straight to the Mastermind but getting to use the Dragonslayer in the standard game as Blademaster is something to have fun with. Some other little highlights:
The Mastermind herself of course stood no actual threat, while I popped the Lava Element before fighting her just to add a little extra dazzle to the mortem with a Mastermind Brain. With that, I finally have the Gutts' Heart and now all 43 medals in 0.9.9.7, which nets me the Heroic Diamond badge (only the fourth player in 0.9.9.7 to do so, after papilio, Tormuse, and Icy). I'm now only one Diamond away from having all 26, but it's the most infamous 0.9.9.7 Diamond of them all... It may be a while before I get it if I don't resort to Dual Angels.
Here is the mortem:
To finish collecting all 43 medals in 0.9.9.7 and thus get the Heroic Diamond badge, I just needed one more, the Gutts' Heart, which simply requires killing the Spider Mastermind with the Dragonslayer. The required feat itself is trivial, the issue is getting the Dragonslayer within standard game limits in the first place; the Dragonslayer can randomly spawn starting from floor 16, functionally floor 17 outside of A100/666, given the Tower of Babel occupies floor 16, and it has a spawning weight of 1. Additionally, as a melee weapon, it cannot spawn in vaults, which means it cannot spawn below its minimum spawning depth nor have an increased spawning weight, and it also can't randomly spawn in any of the special levels, so you can't bank on finding it in one of Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, The Vaults, or The Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus, which all have significantly enhanced odds to spawn Exotics/Uniques. As a result, a random Dragonslayer can only spawn on the 7 Hell floors before Dis, with the absolute minimum odds; outside of A100/666, I have seen a random Dragonslayer like twice or thrice ever in all my time playing this game across all versions, and I don't think any of those times were after I even learned how to actually pick it up (or spawned when I couldn't pick it up anyway), so I never got Gutts' Heart. When starting up my 0.9.9.7 conquest, I was hoping to happen upon a Dragonslayer in one of my many Diamond or other Angelic runs to knock out Gutts' Heart, yet alas, after reaching 24 Diamonds with only Heroic and Arena remaining, alongside 10 Angelics with only Marksman, Masochist, and Everyman remaining among winnable Angelics, I never found a random Dragonslayer in any of those runs (excluding the A666 runs) and so I'm now at a point where I have to do a dedicated run for Gutts' Heart. Finding a random Dragonslayer within standard game limits would be horrendous, if that was the only way, getting this medal would be magnitudes worse than my recent A666 grind for a Subtle Knife to complete Armorer Diamond. But I do keep saying "random Dragonslayer" for a reason, as there does exist a way to get a guaranteed Dragonslayer to spawn in Unholy Cathedral in the place of the artifact weapon. The requirement for getting the guaranteed Dragonslayer is quite tough and annoying on its own, as you must be playing Nightmare! and clear Hell's Arena damageless (i.e. get the Hell Arena Pwnage medal) earlier in the run, but doing this is far far faaaaaaarrrrrrrrr more efficient and tolerable than spamming hundreds or thousands of Angel of Overconfidence runs until I luck out with a random Dragonslayer, so that is what I will be doing.
Beating N! Hell's Arena damageless is a very daunting prospect on its own, given how bad the Arena already is on N! when you have no good means for corpse disposal (barring a lucky floor 2 vault with a Rocket Launcher and a stack of rockets for it), especially when your most reliable way to destroy corpses is to intentionally eat plasma/acid balls on corpses, which you obviously cannot do in a damageless challenge. The guaranteed Dragonslayer is not challenge-restricted however, nor is Gutts' Heart, so you can do this in Angel of Max Carnage, which makes this ordeal much easier, between the general massive advantages of AoMC offense (including making the Chaingun much more reliable) and AoMC's exact damage making Shotgun knockback perfectly predictable (so corpse stacking is much easier to control). You could also do it in Angel of Light Travel instead if you don't want to play a later melee-focused game in AoMC, which also makes Hell Arena Pwnage easier with the speed boost letting you a lot more effectively outrun enemies and a lot more effectively Shotgun down enemies before they reach you, as well as better corpse stacking control too since if you try using a Chaingun to finish off an enemy in an exact spot and it fails to kill them, you have more of a chance to get a second burst off before they move off the corpse. Several people have achieved Hell Arena Pwnage through one of these two challenges, and I already did it myself in AoMC during my Destroyer Diamond run, so it would make sense to do that again for my Gutts' Heart run. However I got thinking, has anyone in 0.9.9.7 or earlier actually achieved Hell Arena Pwnage without the aid of these two challenges? I thought papilio did it, but apparently it was just something he wanted to possibly record and then never did. When searching the forums, the only mortems I was finding with Hell Arena Pwnage without AoMC/AoLT were all from 2Dev and Firstblood, i.e. probable cheaters, with the exception of one; this Shottyman Diamond run by scotherns achieved a Hell's Arena Pwnage. Not technically a standard game, but AoSh gives no particular advantage for this medal (AoSh makes it easier to get both medkits from Phobos Base Entry by starting you with a Shotgun and so you could use more running in the Arena, but then you also can't use the Chaingun for more precise corpse stacking, which makes it probably actually a little harder), so I have to give scotherns the full adulations for the first verified Hell Arena Pwnage without the use of AoMC nor AoLT (Micerang also got Hell Arena Pwnage without AoMC/AoLT in his Masochist Angelic run, and wyrvic additionally posted a non-AoMC/AoLT mortem with Hell Arena Pwnage on the JH Discord, but both did it in 0.9.9.8 with its game-breaking dodging bug, which made it much easier to avoid getting hit and allowed you to very reliably dodge Cacodemons and Barons to have them destroy corpses near walls without having to get hit yourself). While I can't lay claim to the first non-AoMC/AoLT Hell Arena Pwnage, I did still wanted to try adding that feather to my cap and show I could do it even before Hell's Arena is eventually changed in later versions to no longer require killing all the respawns to clear it, so for this Gutts' Heart run I'm doing it in the standard game.
When it comes to the traits to use when going for Hell Arena Pwnage, gunning for Intuition 2 seems obvious at first, as the goto trait for avoiding walking into enemy fire. I opted not to go for it though, as you'll only get three traits before or by the start of the Arena and then a fourth during it (normally near or at the end, earlier if you got a floor 2 vault that let you get more EXP before entering the Arena), and so going for Int2 means you're only left with one other trait for most of the Arena, while without AoMC nor AoLT boosting your offense, you are not reliably killing the enemies before they reach you with one or zero combat-boosting traits. You won't be able to easily escape the Pinkies as well if they get too close without Hellrunner nor AoLT (a running Scout can still outrun them with no HR, but you'll need to burn several run actions for each one tile of space you get from them). With this in mind, I opted for my standard opener of Finesse -> Juggler; not only will Juggling Fin-boosted Shotguns very reliably keep even the Barons from reaching me before they die, but it also really helps with corpse stacking when I can instantly swap to the Chaingun as an enemy steps onto another's corpse, when otherwise I would need to swap before an enemy moves onto said corpse. I could go for Int2 after this but I also opted against that; one, Int1 itself would be functionally a dead level in the Arena, and two, Int2 won't come online until the Arena is nearly done anyway unless I get a floor 2 Cacodemon vault, while getting Intuition here would also farther delay Blademaster that I'm going for later in the run. As such, I end up opting for Hellrunner with my third trait instead, still can't outrun the Pinkies without burning running but any runs I do burn will more quickly get away from them, while it lets me more effectively kite Cacos and Barons around the pillars, and crucially the dodging rate boost could save me if I walk into a Caco's or Baron's vision, or end up in a position where I can't avoid them firing on me. For the fourth trait, I would go for HR2, but in the winning run, it came too late for it to really matter and so I got Brute instead to start building for Berserker later.
For the strat of actually playing a damageless N! Hell's Arena, well it's all about long and painfully corpse stacking, maybe you could lure a Pinky over the stairs before killing them but that's your only other real means to destroy a corpse when you can't take any damage. Without Int2, I have to do lots and lots of radar shooting to avoid stepping into a Caco's vision, it's not a good idea to run -> wait immediately since respawning becomes more frequent the longer the level goes on and so things will get out of hand if you're run -> waiting with too many corpses around, while a Caco could also pop up at an awkward angle that forces having to dodge. With corpse stacking, I will prefer overwriting Caco corpses with Pinkies since Cacos are the bigger threat and Pinkies can be more safely lured over other corpses, but I will just do it the other way whenever it's prudent, and of course when the Barons come, I want to overwrite their corpse with anything else. As mentioned, I want to avoid run -> waiting at first, but when I'm in the second wave and a good chunks of the enemies have been permanently erased, I will start doing tons and tons of run -> waiting wherever it appears least dangerous, and I'll run -> wait on a corpse to keep it from getting back up. For your inventory with the Juggler strat, you want to bring a half dozen Shotguns and a Chaingun, alongside a couple bullet stacks and farm the Shotgunners in the first two floors for hundreds of shells, you're going to need a ton of ammo for radar shooting and repeatedly killing lots of respawns. While you won't be needing to heal if you succeed in taking no damage, you still want some Small Medkits, since there will be spots when you need to activate running to avoid getting hit, and then you'll need to use a medkit to restore your tactics so you can run again if needed. It took five attempts over an hour of play, but I managed to get a damageless N! Hell's Arena in the standard game!
Well the run isn't done yet, I still need to not die on the way to Unholy Cathedral or else I would need to go through the damageless Hell's Arena ordeal again, but at my skill level while playing a good build, standard N! doesn't threaten me much. Even did a 100% Conqueror for the hell of it instead of just speedrunning to Cathedral, since a melee build simplifies and speeds up much of it. And as prophesized, the Dragonslayer spawns in Unholy Cathedral, I could just run straight to the Mastermind but getting to use the Dragonslayer in the standard game as Blademaster is something to have fun with. Some other little highlights:
- I got a Duelist Armor on Phobos 6, why couldn't I get that in any of my Berserker Angelic runs? I would get a Ballistic Vest in early Deimos too and then a Phaseshift Armor in Hell, as well as a Deimos 6 Lava Armor, so I just got all the good armor for this run.
- I got a Nano mod from Hell's Armory, so yes Antigrav Boots with a Dragonslayer-wielding Blademaser.
- I got this funny Cyberdemon spawn, which saved me the few seconds of having to seek and chase him down.
- I got a second Nano on Hell 3, so I made a Powered Red Armor with it just to get even more spoiled with my armor.
- Even with Blademaster having the Dragonslayer, A-modded Antigrav Boots, the Powered Red Armor, all three skulls, and a Hellwave Pack, I still took a decent amount of damage in N! Mortuary. I also had to make sure no corpses got back up as I exited so it counted as cleared. I haven't mentioned it but you get the Berserker Armor instead of the Angelic Armor in Mortuary/Limbo too if you got Hell Arena Pwnage, but the Berserker Armor sucks and you're stuck in it once you put it on, so there's no reason to unless you're intentionally going for the Apostle fight (which I can't do anyway as Gutts' Heart requires killing the Mastermind with the Dragonslayer, and I haven't found a nuke anyway even if I did wanted to).
The Mastermind herself of course stood no actual threat, while I popped the Lava Element before fighting her just to add a little extra dazzle to the mortem with a Mastermind Brain. With that, I finally have the Gutts' Heart and now all 43 medals in 0.9.9.7, which nets me the Heroic Diamond badge (only the fourth player in 0.9.9.7 to do so, after papilio, Tormuse, and Icy). I'm now only one Diamond away from having all 26, but it's the most infamous 0.9.9.7 Diamond of them all... It may be a while before I get it if I don't resort to Dual Angels.
Here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
shouldbeheroicangelic5,
level 18 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 695691 turns and scored 970421 points.
He played for 3 hours, 40 minutes and 25 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1489 out of 1489 hellspawn. (100%)
This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 11
Levels completed : 11
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Mastermind's Brain
Medal of Prejudice
UAC Star (silver cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Conqueror Badge
Grim Reaper's Badge
Hell Armorer Badge
Hell Arena Pwnage Medal
Gutts' Heart
Heroic Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
#>#####################................................####
######################...............####...............###
#####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
####################.......%####.....####.....####........#
###################.......X.####.....####.....####.........
##################..........####..............####.........
#################..........................................
#################....####............................####..
#################....####............................####..
#################....####............................####&.
#################....####............................####..
#################..........................................
##################..........####..............####.........
###################.........####.....####.....####.........
####################........####.....####.....####........#
#####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
######################...............####...............###
#>#####################................................####
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 135/70 Experience 165222/18
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->Bru->Bru->Ber->HR->Bru->MBm->Fin->WK->WK->HR->Bru->Bru->DM->Iro->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] phaseshift armor [4/4] (100%) (PT)
[b] [ Weapon ] Dragonslayer (9d9)
[c] [ Boots ] antigrav steel boots [1/1] (100%) (A)
[d] [ Prepared ] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1] (B2)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] powered red armor [5/5] (100%)
[b] fireproof duelist armor [4/4] (100%) (P)
[c] Lava Armor [4/4] (100%)
[d] Berserker Armor [0]
[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] phase device
[p] phase device
[q] phase device
[r] phase device
[s] homing phase device
[t] cerberus plasteel boots [0/0] (100%)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Bullet - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
Melee - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
Shrapnel - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
Acid - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Fire - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Plasma - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
155 former humans
155 former sergeants
65 former captains
153 imps
97 demons
384 lost souls
95 cacodemons
35 hell knights
72 barons of hell
69 arachnotrons
20 former commandos
42 pain elementals
35 revenants
19 mancubi
41 arch-viles
4 nightmare imps
4 nightmare cacodemons
35 nightmare demons
2 bruiser brothers
1 shambler
1 lava elemental
1 agony elemental
1 Angel of Death
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
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.
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 10 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
On level 12 he found the Hellwave Pack!
On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
On level 12 he assembled a antigrav boots!
On level 12 he assembled a fireproof armor!
He wiped out the City of Skulls.
On level 14 he found the Lava Armor!
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!
He left level 16 as soon as possible.
On level 17 he ran for his life from lava!
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 assembled a power armor!
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
On level 19 he found the BFG 10K!
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 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You dodge! Boom! You are hit! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge!
Boom! You dodge! Boom! You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You miss the Spider Mastermind. You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
Next! You're going berserk!
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
408 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
194 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 9 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
107 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
63 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
5
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoMC|67%|YAVP] - Pure Destroyer Diamond, no AoOC cheesing needed
« on: January 30, 2026, 22:41 »
Destroyer Diamond has a fairly infamous history; prior to 0.9.9.5, it was absurdly easy for a Diamond, requiring just beating Angel of Max Carnage on N! with no Ironman or Tough as Nails, traits that were pretty useless in AoMC anyway, while AoMC itself was well known for being easier than the standard game, and as a result it was the most commonly won Diamond, with the old Badge Hunters thread listing nearly two dozen players reporting winning it across pre-0.9.9.5 versions. This badge got completely changed in 0.9.9.5 accordingly, with it having no trait restriction but instead now having a requirement of winning N! AoMC with the Untouchable Cross, i.e. you must win with under 50 damage taken. However the badge was bugged, which wouldn't be fixed until 0.9.9.7, the version that introduced Dual Angels, which brought along the cheese strategy of Sereging, i.e. combining challenges with Angel of Overconfidence or other challenges that makes their badges easier to obtain. One thing with Destroyer Diamond is that it doesn't actually require the Untouchable Cross itself despite the badge's description, rather it directly checks if you finish the game with under 50 damage taken. As a consequence, while AoOC normally disqualifies you from winning the Untouchable Cross, it does not disqualify you from earning the Destroyer badges if you combine AoMC with AoOC. This make Destroyer Diamond one of, if not the most blatantly cheesable badge by Sereging, as it's much easier to finish with under 50 damage taken when you got only 7 floors and a Mastermind that's easily bullied in AoMC to get through, and can just spam resets until you spawn near an Invuln that prevents you from taking any damage. If you have the scruples to not resort to abusing such a blatant oversight and actually go for Destroyer Diamond the intended way in pure Angel of Max Carnage with no other challenges combined with it, it becomes possibly the most difficult Diamond in the game (aside from the slot machine that is pure Arena Diamond) and more difficult than many Angelic badges; the only player who reported actually winning pure Destroyer Diamond in 0.9.9.7 is papilio, one of DRL's greatest players who once held the record for most Diamonds with 23, and unlike most other players, he got all his Diamonds without abusing Dual Angels. I could have easily gotten this badge in 0.9.9.7 long ago if I just Sereg'd it like other people did, but as made clear in all my other Diamond runs, I think Sereging heavily cheapens the accomplishment of any badges won from it, and so I made it a point to get all these Diamonds without any Dual Angel abuse, which meant having to get Destroyer Diamond through the much more brutal way of pure AoMC.
So with the preamble done, what is the difficulty with pure Destroyer Diamond? You do get the massive offensive benefit of AoMC that makes it much easier to avoid ever getting hit, but the 49 damage buffer you're allowed is very very strict, especially when enemies are dealing max damage anytime they do hit you. Getting shot by a Former Human in Green or Blue Armor will result in you taking 6 damage, normally not a big deal at all, but here, that's already over 10% of your total damage allowance. Get hit by an Imp fireball in Blue Armor, that's 8 damage, get caught out by an Imp group in the open and that can be the end of the run right there. Get hit by a Hell Knight or Cacodemon plasma ball in Blue Armor, that's 9 damage, take a few of those and your damage allowance is already over halfway used up. Step into a Shotgunner's sight at mid-range, that's gonna be 12+ damage, even shrapnel doubling armor protection won't save you from taking a big hit. Those Chaingunners you can normally scoff at? A single burst from them will deal 16 damage with Green or Blue Armor on, that's basically a third of the damage you can take. Then you better not get hit by any Barons without a certain trait, when they're dealing 20 damage before armor, even a P-modded Red Armor reduces that to just 14. And you absolutely can't ever give a Commando the chance to fire on you, when their Plasma Rifle burst does 30 damage in Blue or Red Armor, and even with said armor P-modded, the 24 damage they'll inflict is still half of the total damage you can take. Then you got the Arachnotrons and VMR soon after... In short, AoMC may give you obscene offensive power to better control encounters and avoid getting hit, but Destroyer Diamond's under 50 damage requirement alongside enemies also getting AoMC's offensive boost means you can make very few mistakes, and it only takes a couple hot starts with unavoidable damage for you to run out the measly 49 damage total you're allowed to take, even just making it out of Phobos with under 50 damage is a hell of a feat, especially when it ends in N! Phobos Anomaly that is brutal to not just die in, let alone get through it without taking significant damage.
Now to discuss the build. Obviously it's going to be opening up with Intuition 2, a must for any badge where extreme damage avoidance is required, especially so in AoMC where any single stray hit is so overwhelmingly punishing, while AoMC offense means you don't feel the power loss as much with taking Intuition instead of direct combat-boosting traits as you would normally. Papilio in his pure Destroyer Diamond would get Hellrunner, Dodgemaster, and then build to Cateye, a typical AoMC build, however I'm going to be doing things differently. After Int2 I get Finesse and Juggler; as demonstrated in many of my other runs, Juggler is a very powerful early game trait, and that's especially so in Destroyer Diamond when instantly swapping between several Shotguns, AoMC-boosted rapids, and even the Rocket Launcher are going to be required to avoid getting hit in any bad hot starts or other bad combat scenarios where I'm caught out without good cover. I then go for maybe the unusual selections of Brute 2 and Berserker; the Brute levels are pretty much dead levels and actually meleeing enemies is out of the question when you can take so little damage, but Berserker is important for two critical reasons. One, Berserker, already a very powerful defensive trait, becomes even more powerful in AoMC when Revenants, Mancubi, Barons, and Shotgunners from within 5 tiles are now guaranteed to always trigger it if they hit you, which in effect gives you permanent +60% resistance against these enemies, so with just vanilla Red Armor, you'll reduce all Revenant, Mancubi, and close/midrange shotgun blasts to 1 damage, while Baron acid balls will get reduced to 4 damage, 2 if you got your Red Armor Power-modded. Ideally you want to avoid getting hit at all, but reducing their damage by such a huge amount will keep your run alive when any mistakes around them could otherwise instantly end a good run with how hard they hit, or if you get into a scenario where you have to choose getting hit either by them or other enemies, you can kill the other enemies and take the hit from them that will deal much less damage, as well as give you the berserk speed boost to farther avoid additional damage. The second critical reason for Berserker is it's your only way to get through N! Anomaly with minimal damage without a lucky Phobos 7 Invuln or gambling with a Phase Device to not only teleport you past the ambush but also teleport you past the Bruisers. With the 50 max HP you'll have by default as a Scout or Technician, AoMC will make rocket jumps with the vanilla Rocket Launcher always trigger Berserker. Why is this important? Without an Invuln, the reliable way to get past the N! Anomaly ambush and through the Bruisers is to rocket jump, but an AoMC rocket jump does a hefty 18 damage; Red Armor reduces that to 10 damage, 8 if P-modded, and so that will be 20/16 damage if you rocket jump past the ambush and through the Bruisers, which is just too much and chances are you won't even be able to take that damage without it sending your total damage to 50+. If you make a Fireproof Red Armor, that will reduce rocket jump damage to 4 and so 8 total, this is a lot more palatable but every damage point counts and you may not even be able to afford taking that damage without failing Destroyer Diamond by the time of Anomaly, while chances are also that you won't be able to make a Fireproof Red Armor unless you clear both Chained Court and the Phobos 7 special level, which is a tall order within Destroyer Diamond's constraints. A radsuit on top of the Fireproof Red Armor would reduce jump damage to 1, but you're not guaranteed one before Anomaly either unless you do Military Base or Phobos Lab. Meanwhile with Berserker triggering on a rocket jump in AoMC, with just a vanilla Red Armor it'll reduce rocket jump damage to 1, so you're guaranteed to only take 2 damage in Phobos Anomaly if you don't get a Phobos 7 Invuln, eliminating the luck needed to get past N! Anomaly with Destroyer Diamond intact (provided you don't make it to Anomaly with exactly 48 or 49 damage already taken), while it can also save your run if rocket jumping is your only way to escape any hot start with minimal damage. Plus I will try to Invuln rush as much of the post-Phobos portion as possible, and berserked Chainsaw will kill bosses faster than even an AoMC Plasma Rifle will, thus burning less Invuln killing them. After Berserker the aim will be for Shottyhead, which is my best answer to getting through hot starts unscathed, but I may not get the levels for it and may have to audible on it, as you'll see later...
The first major obstacle of the run is Phobos Base Entry. As mentioned prior, even a Former pistol shot takes away over 10% of the damage you're allowed to take total, so you really want to get a damageless Phobos Base Entry, but with the AoMC accuracy boost, Former Humans will now actually be able to hit you while you have running active and even with running's dodge bonus you have a well below 50% chance to dodge their bullets, so now you need a lot more luck than just "hope the Shotgunners don't leave the building early". You really need this Phobos Entry layout in particular, as it'll let you get behind good cover before any of the Formers can see you, which is your only reliable away to avoid damage from the Formers before you can get a Shotgun. This layout can also work despite me normally not liking it (with this being the winning run), as it does give you immediate cover, but you'll still need some luck to make it work, as the Formers can pop up at bad angles or multiple can approach you from different angles at once, where damage then can't be avoided (you also gotta remember that you can't try camping behind the narrow tunnel, as it creates one of those weird diagonal LoS angles that enemies can see you but you can't see them, so you have to camp at the top or bottom to avoid enemies getting free shots on you). Any other layout will require far more luck to get through damageless. If you opt to try killing the Formers in the open instead as papilio did in his run, without a Shotgun, you need to get lucky blind firing with your Pistol, having the timing luckily line up to get a double shot off whenever a Former step into vision, or get very lucky with a Former deciding not to shoot when you're in vision (Formers have a 75% attack chance normally, I'm unsure how that interacts with N!'s +50% enemy attack chance modifier but you might have better odds of Former Humans rolling the minimum 2% miss chance that persists even in AoMC than you would with them deciding to not attack on N!); even if you open with SoB, you can't one-shot the Formers with your Pistol, so avoiding damage here in the open would require even more luck than resetting until you get one of the viable layouts. There are going to be many resets in Phobos Base Entry inbetween real attempts, there's just no way around it, you don't want to settle for an imperfect Phobos Entry and then end up losing Destroyer Diamond in the end by a margin of =<8 damage after you took a Pistol shot at the start.
Phobos 2 will be another reset point, as you won't immediately have Int2 and won't have Juggler, so any hot start can immediately cause unavoidable damage, while you have to play very carefully before you have Int2 if you don't got an immediately accessible good camping spot (or the game just says fuck you and immediately spawns you in a position where acid damage is unavoidable, as happened in this run that I then had to immediately Q+Y out). As long as you don't get a bad start, you should be able to get through Phobos 2 damageless, and if you do get hit, you should probably reset, because again you don't want to play through a long Destroyer Diamond game after getting hit in Phobos 2 just to lose it by a margin of 8 or less damage. After clearing out Phobos 2, there is then the question of if to do Hell's Arena; papilio in his run didn't and it's understandable as anything optional is more chances to get hit, but I would say not doing so is a mistake, since getting a Rocket Launcher before Anomaly is critical as explained previously, while having access to reliable corpse disposal is also obviously immensely useful when a badly timed respawn can end such a fragile run (especially so when intentionally eating fireballs on corpses to destroy them is not viable here), and rocket jumping is needed to much more efficiently Invuln rush the post-Phobos portion of the run. AoMC additionally makes Hell's Arena much easier, even on N! you can manage it damageless without serious difficulty (and I would indeed clear Hell's Arena damageless, which will net me the Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal too, one of the three medals I have left), though you could accept taking a single hit from a non-Baron here if doing Hell's Arena damageless would cause too many resets for you. If you skip Hell's Arena, you have to get lucky with a Rocket Launcher spawning on Phobos 7 or in a vault to get one prior to Anomaly, and if you're unlucky, you may not get one for Invuln rushing until deep into Deimos, if you can even make it that far, while you're far more at the mercy of Phobos level generation when you can't destroy Hell Noble corpses or other troublesome corpses on demand. Papilio didn't say how many attempts it took him, but I'm sure skipping Hell's Arena made him have to reset far more runs past Phobos 2.
The Phobos 3 to 7 range is perilous, and it is tempting to just stair dive through them whenever possible, but I do mostly clear them out in this run, as I need to hit level 7 before Anomaly in order to get Berserker in time for it. Another benefit of clearing Hell's Arena is it ensures you'll hit level 4 before Phobos 3 and so I have Juggler before that floor range. After a damageless Phobos 3, I would get a bad floor on Phobos 4, where I spawned in an open area that I had to use crates for cover while a Cacodemon vault nearby got opened, and at one point I accidentally stepped into a Shotgunner's vision, where that was suddenly 13 damage gone, over 25% of my total damage allowance depleted over a single mistake. I then got hit by a Lost Soul shortly after, not as bad but now I'm at 18 damage, a couple more floors like this and the run is over. There was farther tense moments when Cacodemons were approaching me from multiple angles while I ran around the small stacks of crates I had for cover, but eventually I managed to kill everything without getting hit again, and the vault would have a Combat Shotgun, very nice to have when I may not get one otherwise when I'll be skipping the Phobos 7 special level. In Phobos 5 I would get a bad Warehouse level where corpse disposal wasn't easy but I would manage to avoid getting hit, up until the end when it came to clearing out two straggling Hell Knights, and after killing them, rather than just blowing them up immediately with my Rocket Launcher, I would get overly stingy by trying to let them revive to kill them in the doorway, which only resulted in one getting up while I was out in the open and then getting hit, knocking me to 27 damage taken. Just like that I was already halfway over my damage allowance and was feeling pessimistic about the run, I was initially thinking of skipping Unchained Court but since I didn't think the run was going all the way, I went in anyway just to see if it would be that bad to do damageless, as the Chainsaw and mods would be helpful. Going into Unchained Court does sound like a really bad idea at first, when even with berserk, the Barons will deal 6 damage to you in Blue Armor, the Arena Master's zap will do 4 damage, and there's a lot of Chaingunners who will do 4 damage minimum even when you have berserk with armor on, while the level starts you surrounded with shoddy cover. However with Int2, you can avoid the usually prevalent problem of walking into a Baron's vision as you exit the center building, as well as avoid walking into any of the Formers' vision, while AoMC offense will let you reliably one-shot any Formers that walk into range, let you much more quickly kill the Barons when plinking them from across the lava pools (that their AI then get stuck on instead of walking around it), and let you corner shoot the Arena Master from the center building once you get his attention. As such, I was able to clear Unchained Court damageless without even grabbing the Chainsaw nor berserks.
After keeping the damageless streak going through Phobos 6, Phobos 7 greeted me with this run-ending predicament. I managed to avoid the run ending there but I don't get out unscathed, as I would again get hit by a Hell Knight, which are actually worse than Barons once you get Berserker since the 12 damage they inflict before defenses are factored is 4 damage shy of the Berserker trigger amount, and so my total damage is up to 36 now, not even out of Phobos yet and I'm already at nearly 75% of the damage I can take after getting hit just four times (a shotgun blast for 13, a Lost Soul charge for 5, and two Hell Knight plasma balls for 18). I would manage to clear the rest of that maze without any additional damage, but in more bad news, there is no Invuln on Phobos 7, I was prepared for that, it's why I made sure to get Berserker before Anomaly, still a damageless Anomaly would have been nice and I could have potentially parlayed that into an Invuln chain that this run is probably going to hinge on to survive when I got only 13 damage left I can take. Military Base spawned for the Phobos 7 special level, which would be doable damageless unlike Phobos Lab, so I considered going in, but I didn't want to spend a good 15 minutes or so playing Military Base extremely cautiously just to lose this run at the start of Deimos, and as mentioned, I'm banking on finding Invulns at this point, so all the mods and juicy EXP there won't really do much to enhance this run's odds of winning. Then it's time for the Anomaly, I did have a Phase Device to potentially get through it damageless, but I stuck to the Berserker rocket jump plan for two reasons; one, a Phase Device needs to teleport me past the Bruisers to completely avoid any damage, just getting past the ambush won't do, and a Phase Device dropping me in the later half of the ambush tunnel just ends the run, while two, I may need a Phase to get me out of a hot start later. So I stuck to the plan, and indeed Berserker triggers on the rocket jump to reduce it to 1 damage in the Red Armor conveniently supplied by Anomaly, while thanks to AoMC, a single rocket jump will get you completely out of the Nightmare enemies' vision and completely past the Bruisers once you get to them, thus I get through Anomaly with only 2 damage taken. However, I make the dumb mistake of trying to corner shoot the Bruisers from the teleport room, thinking AoMC would make this easy EXP, but then with Int2 I see one of the Bruisers start walking around the top, at which point he would eventually pop into melee range if I stayed, so I decide to bail and get on the teleporter. As it turns out, stepping onto the teleporter doesn't immediately teleport you out, so the other Bruiser got to attack me as I stepped on it. Thankfully Berserker triggers on their acid balls too, but that was an additional 4 damage that was completely avoidable, and so now I enter Deimos with 42 damage taken, the run is technically alive but I got to get through 16 floors while taking no more than 7 damage across them all...
Deimos 1 would be a little rough, with it pitting me against a Baron in a bad spot that got a hit on me, another point where the run would have ended right there without Berserker but his damage gets reduced to 4 to keep it alive a little longer, and I get hit by something else I don't remember for 2 damage (maybe an Imp after I P-modded my Red Armor?). At this point I don't bother to clear out floors, I just need to find an Invuln ASAP as I'm still a few levels away from getting Shottyhead and I can't take any more hits, so the focus is getting straight to the stairs and only killing what's in the way or otherwise potentially threatens me. I would get through the first half of Deimos with no additional damage but no Invulnerability Globes spawn on the first four Deimos floors. Upon reaching Deimos 5, I would finally get an Invuln... but I got an absolutely horrid hot start, that would be a potential run ender in a normal game, let alone in a Destroyer Diamond run where I'm at 48 damage taken and so can take no more than 1 more point of damage or else the run ends. Even with AoMC offense, without Shottyhead, I cannot hope to kill everything with LoS on me before they wake up, so a Phase Device is my only option, and I do have the one I saved from Anomaly earlier, but I also having a Homing Phase. I opt to use the latter, as it would not only have a higher probability to put me in a safe spot (all these enemies means there's likely less or none around the stairs), but in case the stairs are a bad spot too, I could at least then immediately leave and hope the next floor is better, even though I really want that Invuln... The stairs would turn out to have only a single Mancubus in vision, so the Homing Phase not only gets me out of the run ender but also gives me a chance to procure the Invuln. The game makes me work for it with lots of enemies being around the Invuln, but playing very carefully I can slowly chip away at the enemies as they wander out, and thanks to finding the flooding lever near the stairs, I don't need to worry about respawns either. Eventually I manage to get to the Invuln, and it's a good thing I made sure not to shoot towards it too, only shooting enemies through the top or left side of that room, as there turned out to be a barrel right next to the Invuln that would have destroyed it if I did shoot towards it (those Protective Boots are also the first pair of boots I get the whole run, I really didn't get a single pair of Steel Boots in Phobos, and I do have an A mod I've been waiting to put on boots, but I don't put them on yet so the -25% knockback resistance they have doesn't nerf my rocket jumps).
With finally having Invuln and three stacks of rockets in my inventory, I decided it's time to just Invuln rush the rest of the game, as when I can't take any more hits, my best shot is to try remaining Invulnerable for the entirety of the remaining game. I just rocket jump through the final two Deimos floors before Babel, and within Babel I get an inconvenient Cyberdemon spawn on the opposite end of the map, but with how far AoMC rocket jumps send you, it only takes a few before I get to him, where then the berserk Chainsaw kills him with plenty of Invuln left. Hell 1 would then give me an Arachnotron + Cacodemon cave with not just one Invuln, but two of them. I have to make sure the Cacodemons don't blow them up but I managed to get them, so that's a +200 turns Invuln refresh to potentially carry me the rest of the way. I continue the Invulnerable rocket jump mad dash to end, rocket jumping straight to the stairs on every floor, only stopping to pick up rockets and a failed attempt to get an Invuln in another Arachnotron + Cacodemon cave when a Caco did blow it up this time. I reach level 10 shortly into Hell, and since it was clear I wouldn't be getting enough levels for Shottyhead, I use it on HR2 to ensure I can outrun the Mastermind in case the Invuln runs out before I kill or reach her, at which point I would need to chip away at her with hit and run tactics. As I'm blasting through Hell, I get a Hell 6 that perfectly encapsulates why I got Armorer Diamond before doing this run, with a maze that has a Unique within it, which could have very well been the Subtle Knife I was missing for Armorer Diamond previously, but detouring looking for it instead of heading straight for the stairs would likely deplete all the Invuln and potentially ruin the run. With me already having Armorer Diamond, I can just ignore that Unique and stay focused on the current mission. I'm not sure how much Invuln I have left at this point, but Hell 7 gives me close stairs that are reached in a single rocket jump, and just like that I'm in Dis with under 50 damage to keep Destroyer Diamond still intact, when I thought the run was most likely finished after running up 48 damage by early Deimos and was pessimistic about it back in Phobos 5. With the Invuln still not out, I proceed to effortlessly saw the Mastermind down.
Moral of the story? Rocket jumping is damn good, and when you got Invulnerability + AoMC, rocket jumping is really damn good, off that one Deimos 5 Invuln and then those two Hell 1 Invulns, I remained Invulnerable for the entire second half of the game, with a single rocket jump being able to launch me a quarter of the way through any floor without an obstruction in the way. Also, while my first run that wasn't resetted in the first two floors ended up going all the way (two prior runs were resetted on Phobos 2 and over a dozen were resetted in Phobos Base Entry), I think this shows just how hard pure Destroyer Diamond is; altogether I got hit just seven times the entire run + those two rocket jumps in Anomaly for an additional 2 damage, and I finished just 1 damage short of the allowed damage limit, you're given minuscule room for any mistakes. While you don't get AoMC's insane offense in Demonic Diamond, that badge's 199 damage allowance and enemies not having the AoMC boost allowed you to take some hits here and there, so it had a much less strict margin of error in comparison. While there's lots I disagree with in papilio's badge difficulty rankings, I do agree with him that Destroyer Diamond without Dual Angel abuse is one of the two hardest Diamond badges (it remains to be seen if I'll find it harder than Arena Diamond), and that it's more Angelic-worthy than several of the actual Angelics. I see why everyone else took the easy way out on this badge, because very few players could have realistically won it the intended way through pure AoMC, and of those that could, most would have probably needed to do a seriously extended grinding session for it. As for how this badge will fare in the modern DRL versions, you can no longer infinitely camp due to the Enraged Timer, can no longer farm respawns for virtually infinite ammo, and both Int2 + Finesse got nerfed, but I think it might actually not be as bad, as corpses no longer being able to respawn in vision means you don't have to worry about respawn RNG screwing you over with an enemy getting back up at a terrible time, while special levels no longer requiring all respawns be killed for clearing means it'll be easier to do Hell's Arena damageless (once it's unbugged at least), and time-based powerups means your lategame Invulns will effectively last longer. We'll see how it compares across versions when I eventually go for the modern DRL 100%. With Destroyer Diamond won here, I now have 24 Diamonds in 0.9.9.7, surpassing papilio's Diamond count for uncontested #2, and the Untouchable Cross + Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal also bumps my medal count up to 42, I just need Gutts' Heart now for Heroic Diamond (I could have potentially went for it in this run after doing Hell's Arena damageless, but grabbing the Dragonslayer means I then can't rocket jump, and I do not stretch the Invulns out to last the entire rest of the run without rocket jumping, so I'll have to do it in its own dedicated run).
If you're still reading, here is the mortem:
So with the preamble done, what is the difficulty with pure Destroyer Diamond? You do get the massive offensive benefit of AoMC that makes it much easier to avoid ever getting hit, but the 49 damage buffer you're allowed is very very strict, especially when enemies are dealing max damage anytime they do hit you. Getting shot by a Former Human in Green or Blue Armor will result in you taking 6 damage, normally not a big deal at all, but here, that's already over 10% of your total damage allowance. Get hit by an Imp fireball in Blue Armor, that's 8 damage, get caught out by an Imp group in the open and that can be the end of the run right there. Get hit by a Hell Knight or Cacodemon plasma ball in Blue Armor, that's 9 damage, take a few of those and your damage allowance is already over halfway used up. Step into a Shotgunner's sight at mid-range, that's gonna be 12+ damage, even shrapnel doubling armor protection won't save you from taking a big hit. Those Chaingunners you can normally scoff at? A single burst from them will deal 16 damage with Green or Blue Armor on, that's basically a third of the damage you can take. Then you better not get hit by any Barons without a certain trait, when they're dealing 20 damage before armor, even a P-modded Red Armor reduces that to just 14. And you absolutely can't ever give a Commando the chance to fire on you, when their Plasma Rifle burst does 30 damage in Blue or Red Armor, and even with said armor P-modded, the 24 damage they'll inflict is still half of the total damage you can take. Then you got the Arachnotrons and VMR soon after... In short, AoMC may give you obscene offensive power to better control encounters and avoid getting hit, but Destroyer Diamond's under 50 damage requirement alongside enemies also getting AoMC's offensive boost means you can make very few mistakes, and it only takes a couple hot starts with unavoidable damage for you to run out the measly 49 damage total you're allowed to take, even just making it out of Phobos with under 50 damage is a hell of a feat, especially when it ends in N! Phobos Anomaly that is brutal to not just die in, let alone get through it without taking significant damage.
Now to discuss the build. Obviously it's going to be opening up with Intuition 2, a must for any badge where extreme damage avoidance is required, especially so in AoMC where any single stray hit is so overwhelmingly punishing, while AoMC offense means you don't feel the power loss as much with taking Intuition instead of direct combat-boosting traits as you would normally. Papilio in his pure Destroyer Diamond would get Hellrunner, Dodgemaster, and then build to Cateye, a typical AoMC build, however I'm going to be doing things differently. After Int2 I get Finesse and Juggler; as demonstrated in many of my other runs, Juggler is a very powerful early game trait, and that's especially so in Destroyer Diamond when instantly swapping between several Shotguns, AoMC-boosted rapids, and even the Rocket Launcher are going to be required to avoid getting hit in any bad hot starts or other bad combat scenarios where I'm caught out without good cover. I then go for maybe the unusual selections of Brute 2 and Berserker; the Brute levels are pretty much dead levels and actually meleeing enemies is out of the question when you can take so little damage, but Berserker is important for two critical reasons. One, Berserker, already a very powerful defensive trait, becomes even more powerful in AoMC when Revenants, Mancubi, Barons, and Shotgunners from within 5 tiles are now guaranteed to always trigger it if they hit you, which in effect gives you permanent +60% resistance against these enemies, so with just vanilla Red Armor, you'll reduce all Revenant, Mancubi, and close/midrange shotgun blasts to 1 damage, while Baron acid balls will get reduced to 4 damage, 2 if you got your Red Armor Power-modded. Ideally you want to avoid getting hit at all, but reducing their damage by such a huge amount will keep your run alive when any mistakes around them could otherwise instantly end a good run with how hard they hit, or if you get into a scenario where you have to choose getting hit either by them or other enemies, you can kill the other enemies and take the hit from them that will deal much less damage, as well as give you the berserk speed boost to farther avoid additional damage. The second critical reason for Berserker is it's your only way to get through N! Anomaly with minimal damage without a lucky Phobos 7 Invuln or gambling with a Phase Device to not only teleport you past the ambush but also teleport you past the Bruisers. With the 50 max HP you'll have by default as a Scout or Technician, AoMC will make rocket jumps with the vanilla Rocket Launcher always trigger Berserker. Why is this important? Without an Invuln, the reliable way to get past the N! Anomaly ambush and through the Bruisers is to rocket jump, but an AoMC rocket jump does a hefty 18 damage; Red Armor reduces that to 10 damage, 8 if P-modded, and so that will be 20/16 damage if you rocket jump past the ambush and through the Bruisers, which is just too much and chances are you won't even be able to take that damage without it sending your total damage to 50+. If you make a Fireproof Red Armor, that will reduce rocket jump damage to 4 and so 8 total, this is a lot more palatable but every damage point counts and you may not even be able to afford taking that damage without failing Destroyer Diamond by the time of Anomaly, while chances are also that you won't be able to make a Fireproof Red Armor unless you clear both Chained Court and the Phobos 7 special level, which is a tall order within Destroyer Diamond's constraints. A radsuit on top of the Fireproof Red Armor would reduce jump damage to 1, but you're not guaranteed one before Anomaly either unless you do Military Base or Phobos Lab. Meanwhile with Berserker triggering on a rocket jump in AoMC, with just a vanilla Red Armor it'll reduce rocket jump damage to 1, so you're guaranteed to only take 2 damage in Phobos Anomaly if you don't get a Phobos 7 Invuln, eliminating the luck needed to get past N! Anomaly with Destroyer Diamond intact (provided you don't make it to Anomaly with exactly 48 or 49 damage already taken), while it can also save your run if rocket jumping is your only way to escape any hot start with minimal damage. Plus I will try to Invuln rush as much of the post-Phobos portion as possible, and berserked Chainsaw will kill bosses faster than even an AoMC Plasma Rifle will, thus burning less Invuln killing them. After Berserker the aim will be for Shottyhead, which is my best answer to getting through hot starts unscathed, but I may not get the levels for it and may have to audible on it, as you'll see later...
The first major obstacle of the run is Phobos Base Entry. As mentioned prior, even a Former pistol shot takes away over 10% of the damage you're allowed to take total, so you really want to get a damageless Phobos Base Entry, but with the AoMC accuracy boost, Former Humans will now actually be able to hit you while you have running active and even with running's dodge bonus you have a well below 50% chance to dodge their bullets, so now you need a lot more luck than just "hope the Shotgunners don't leave the building early". You really need this Phobos Entry layout in particular, as it'll let you get behind good cover before any of the Formers can see you, which is your only reliable away to avoid damage from the Formers before you can get a Shotgun. This layout can also work despite me normally not liking it (with this being the winning run), as it does give you immediate cover, but you'll still need some luck to make it work, as the Formers can pop up at bad angles or multiple can approach you from different angles at once, where damage then can't be avoided (you also gotta remember that you can't try camping behind the narrow tunnel, as it creates one of those weird diagonal LoS angles that enemies can see you but you can't see them, so you have to camp at the top or bottom to avoid enemies getting free shots on you). Any other layout will require far more luck to get through damageless. If you opt to try killing the Formers in the open instead as papilio did in his run, without a Shotgun, you need to get lucky blind firing with your Pistol, having the timing luckily line up to get a double shot off whenever a Former step into vision, or get very lucky with a Former deciding not to shoot when you're in vision (Formers have a 75% attack chance normally, I'm unsure how that interacts with N!'s +50% enemy attack chance modifier but you might have better odds of Former Humans rolling the minimum 2% miss chance that persists even in AoMC than you would with them deciding to not attack on N!); even if you open with SoB, you can't one-shot the Formers with your Pistol, so avoiding damage here in the open would require even more luck than resetting until you get one of the viable layouts. There are going to be many resets in Phobos Base Entry inbetween real attempts, there's just no way around it, you don't want to settle for an imperfect Phobos Entry and then end up losing Destroyer Diamond in the end by a margin of =<8 damage after you took a Pistol shot at the start.
Phobos 2 will be another reset point, as you won't immediately have Int2 and won't have Juggler, so any hot start can immediately cause unavoidable damage, while you have to play very carefully before you have Int2 if you don't got an immediately accessible good camping spot (or the game just says fuck you and immediately spawns you in a position where acid damage is unavoidable, as happened in this run that I then had to immediately Q+Y out). As long as you don't get a bad start, you should be able to get through Phobos 2 damageless, and if you do get hit, you should probably reset, because again you don't want to play through a long Destroyer Diamond game after getting hit in Phobos 2 just to lose it by a margin of 8 or less damage. After clearing out Phobos 2, there is then the question of if to do Hell's Arena; papilio in his run didn't and it's understandable as anything optional is more chances to get hit, but I would say not doing so is a mistake, since getting a Rocket Launcher before Anomaly is critical as explained previously, while having access to reliable corpse disposal is also obviously immensely useful when a badly timed respawn can end such a fragile run (especially so when intentionally eating fireballs on corpses to destroy them is not viable here), and rocket jumping is needed to much more efficiently Invuln rush the post-Phobos portion of the run. AoMC additionally makes Hell's Arena much easier, even on N! you can manage it damageless without serious difficulty (and I would indeed clear Hell's Arena damageless, which will net me the Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal too, one of the three medals I have left), though you could accept taking a single hit from a non-Baron here if doing Hell's Arena damageless would cause too many resets for you. If you skip Hell's Arena, you have to get lucky with a Rocket Launcher spawning on Phobos 7 or in a vault to get one prior to Anomaly, and if you're unlucky, you may not get one for Invuln rushing until deep into Deimos, if you can even make it that far, while you're far more at the mercy of Phobos level generation when you can't destroy Hell Noble corpses or other troublesome corpses on demand. Papilio didn't say how many attempts it took him, but I'm sure skipping Hell's Arena made him have to reset far more runs past Phobos 2.
The Phobos 3 to 7 range is perilous, and it is tempting to just stair dive through them whenever possible, but I do mostly clear them out in this run, as I need to hit level 7 before Anomaly in order to get Berserker in time for it. Another benefit of clearing Hell's Arena is it ensures you'll hit level 4 before Phobos 3 and so I have Juggler before that floor range. After a damageless Phobos 3, I would get a bad floor on Phobos 4, where I spawned in an open area that I had to use crates for cover while a Cacodemon vault nearby got opened, and at one point I accidentally stepped into a Shotgunner's vision, where that was suddenly 13 damage gone, over 25% of my total damage allowance depleted over a single mistake. I then got hit by a Lost Soul shortly after, not as bad but now I'm at 18 damage, a couple more floors like this and the run is over. There was farther tense moments when Cacodemons were approaching me from multiple angles while I ran around the small stacks of crates I had for cover, but eventually I managed to kill everything without getting hit again, and the vault would have a Combat Shotgun, very nice to have when I may not get one otherwise when I'll be skipping the Phobos 7 special level. In Phobos 5 I would get a bad Warehouse level where corpse disposal wasn't easy but I would manage to avoid getting hit, up until the end when it came to clearing out two straggling Hell Knights, and after killing them, rather than just blowing them up immediately with my Rocket Launcher, I would get overly stingy by trying to let them revive to kill them in the doorway, which only resulted in one getting up while I was out in the open and then getting hit, knocking me to 27 damage taken. Just like that I was already halfway over my damage allowance and was feeling pessimistic about the run, I was initially thinking of skipping Unchained Court but since I didn't think the run was going all the way, I went in anyway just to see if it would be that bad to do damageless, as the Chainsaw and mods would be helpful. Going into Unchained Court does sound like a really bad idea at first, when even with berserk, the Barons will deal 6 damage to you in Blue Armor, the Arena Master's zap will do 4 damage, and there's a lot of Chaingunners who will do 4 damage minimum even when you have berserk with armor on, while the level starts you surrounded with shoddy cover. However with Int2, you can avoid the usually prevalent problem of walking into a Baron's vision as you exit the center building, as well as avoid walking into any of the Formers' vision, while AoMC offense will let you reliably one-shot any Formers that walk into range, let you much more quickly kill the Barons when plinking them from across the lava pools (that their AI then get stuck on instead of walking around it), and let you corner shoot the Arena Master from the center building once you get his attention. As such, I was able to clear Unchained Court damageless without even grabbing the Chainsaw nor berserks.
After keeping the damageless streak going through Phobos 6, Phobos 7 greeted me with this run-ending predicament. I managed to avoid the run ending there but I don't get out unscathed, as I would again get hit by a Hell Knight, which are actually worse than Barons once you get Berserker since the 12 damage they inflict before defenses are factored is 4 damage shy of the Berserker trigger amount, and so my total damage is up to 36 now, not even out of Phobos yet and I'm already at nearly 75% of the damage I can take after getting hit just four times (a shotgun blast for 13, a Lost Soul charge for 5, and two Hell Knight plasma balls for 18). I would manage to clear the rest of that maze without any additional damage, but in more bad news, there is no Invuln on Phobos 7, I was prepared for that, it's why I made sure to get Berserker before Anomaly, still a damageless Anomaly would have been nice and I could have potentially parlayed that into an Invuln chain that this run is probably going to hinge on to survive when I got only 13 damage left I can take. Military Base spawned for the Phobos 7 special level, which would be doable damageless unlike Phobos Lab, so I considered going in, but I didn't want to spend a good 15 minutes or so playing Military Base extremely cautiously just to lose this run at the start of Deimos, and as mentioned, I'm banking on finding Invulns at this point, so all the mods and juicy EXP there won't really do much to enhance this run's odds of winning. Then it's time for the Anomaly, I did have a Phase Device to potentially get through it damageless, but I stuck to the Berserker rocket jump plan for two reasons; one, a Phase Device needs to teleport me past the Bruisers to completely avoid any damage, just getting past the ambush won't do, and a Phase Device dropping me in the later half of the ambush tunnel just ends the run, while two, I may need a Phase to get me out of a hot start later. So I stuck to the plan, and indeed Berserker triggers on the rocket jump to reduce it to 1 damage in the Red Armor conveniently supplied by Anomaly, while thanks to AoMC, a single rocket jump will get you completely out of the Nightmare enemies' vision and completely past the Bruisers once you get to them, thus I get through Anomaly with only 2 damage taken. However, I make the dumb mistake of trying to corner shoot the Bruisers from the teleport room, thinking AoMC would make this easy EXP, but then with Int2 I see one of the Bruisers start walking around the top, at which point he would eventually pop into melee range if I stayed, so I decide to bail and get on the teleporter. As it turns out, stepping onto the teleporter doesn't immediately teleport you out, so the other Bruiser got to attack me as I stepped on it. Thankfully Berserker triggers on their acid balls too, but that was an additional 4 damage that was completely avoidable, and so now I enter Deimos with 42 damage taken, the run is technically alive but I got to get through 16 floors while taking no more than 7 damage across them all...
Deimos 1 would be a little rough, with it pitting me against a Baron in a bad spot that got a hit on me, another point where the run would have ended right there without Berserker but his damage gets reduced to 4 to keep it alive a little longer, and I get hit by something else I don't remember for 2 damage (maybe an Imp after I P-modded my Red Armor?). At this point I don't bother to clear out floors, I just need to find an Invuln ASAP as I'm still a few levels away from getting Shottyhead and I can't take any more hits, so the focus is getting straight to the stairs and only killing what's in the way or otherwise potentially threatens me. I would get through the first half of Deimos with no additional damage but no Invulnerability Globes spawn on the first four Deimos floors. Upon reaching Deimos 5, I would finally get an Invuln... but I got an absolutely horrid hot start, that would be a potential run ender in a normal game, let alone in a Destroyer Diamond run where I'm at 48 damage taken and so can take no more than 1 more point of damage or else the run ends. Even with AoMC offense, without Shottyhead, I cannot hope to kill everything with LoS on me before they wake up, so a Phase Device is my only option, and I do have the one I saved from Anomaly earlier, but I also having a Homing Phase. I opt to use the latter, as it would not only have a higher probability to put me in a safe spot (all these enemies means there's likely less or none around the stairs), but in case the stairs are a bad spot too, I could at least then immediately leave and hope the next floor is better, even though I really want that Invuln... The stairs would turn out to have only a single Mancubus in vision, so the Homing Phase not only gets me out of the run ender but also gives me a chance to procure the Invuln. The game makes me work for it with lots of enemies being around the Invuln, but playing very carefully I can slowly chip away at the enemies as they wander out, and thanks to finding the flooding lever near the stairs, I don't need to worry about respawns either. Eventually I manage to get to the Invuln, and it's a good thing I made sure not to shoot towards it too, only shooting enemies through the top or left side of that room, as there turned out to be a barrel right next to the Invuln that would have destroyed it if I did shoot towards it (those Protective Boots are also the first pair of boots I get the whole run, I really didn't get a single pair of Steel Boots in Phobos, and I do have an A mod I've been waiting to put on boots, but I don't put them on yet so the -25% knockback resistance they have doesn't nerf my rocket jumps).
With finally having Invuln and three stacks of rockets in my inventory, I decided it's time to just Invuln rush the rest of the game, as when I can't take any more hits, my best shot is to try remaining Invulnerable for the entirety of the remaining game. I just rocket jump through the final two Deimos floors before Babel, and within Babel I get an inconvenient Cyberdemon spawn on the opposite end of the map, but with how far AoMC rocket jumps send you, it only takes a few before I get to him, where then the berserk Chainsaw kills him with plenty of Invuln left. Hell 1 would then give me an Arachnotron + Cacodemon cave with not just one Invuln, but two of them. I have to make sure the Cacodemons don't blow them up but I managed to get them, so that's a +200 turns Invuln refresh to potentially carry me the rest of the way. I continue the Invulnerable rocket jump mad dash to end, rocket jumping straight to the stairs on every floor, only stopping to pick up rockets and a failed attempt to get an Invuln in another Arachnotron + Cacodemon cave when a Caco did blow it up this time. I reach level 10 shortly into Hell, and since it was clear I wouldn't be getting enough levels for Shottyhead, I use it on HR2 to ensure I can outrun the Mastermind in case the Invuln runs out before I kill or reach her, at which point I would need to chip away at her with hit and run tactics. As I'm blasting through Hell, I get a Hell 6 that perfectly encapsulates why I got Armorer Diamond before doing this run, with a maze that has a Unique within it, which could have very well been the Subtle Knife I was missing for Armorer Diamond previously, but detouring looking for it instead of heading straight for the stairs would likely deplete all the Invuln and potentially ruin the run. With me already having Armorer Diamond, I can just ignore that Unique and stay focused on the current mission. I'm not sure how much Invuln I have left at this point, but Hell 7 gives me close stairs that are reached in a single rocket jump, and just like that I'm in Dis with under 50 damage to keep Destroyer Diamond still intact, when I thought the run was most likely finished after running up 48 damage by early Deimos and was pessimistic about it back in Phobos 5. With the Invuln still not out, I proceed to effortlessly saw the Mastermind down.
Moral of the story? Rocket jumping is damn good, and when you got Invulnerability + AoMC, rocket jumping is really damn good, off that one Deimos 5 Invuln and then those two Hell 1 Invulns, I remained Invulnerable for the entire second half of the game, with a single rocket jump being able to launch me a quarter of the way through any floor without an obstruction in the way. Also, while my first run that wasn't resetted in the first two floors ended up going all the way (two prior runs were resetted on Phobos 2 and over a dozen were resetted in Phobos Base Entry), I think this shows just how hard pure Destroyer Diamond is; altogether I got hit just seven times the entire run + those two rocket jumps in Anomaly for an additional 2 damage, and I finished just 1 damage short of the allowed damage limit, you're given minuscule room for any mistakes. While you don't get AoMC's insane offense in Demonic Diamond, that badge's 199 damage allowance and enemies not having the AoMC boost allowed you to take some hits here and there, so it had a much less strict margin of error in comparison. While there's lots I disagree with in papilio's badge difficulty rankings, I do agree with him that Destroyer Diamond without Dual Angel abuse is one of the two hardest Diamond badges (it remains to be seen if I'll find it harder than Arena Diamond), and that it's more Angelic-worthy than several of the actual Angelics. I see why everyone else took the easy way out on this badge, because very few players could have realistically won it the intended way through pure AoMC, and of those that could, most would have probably needed to do a seriously extended grinding session for it. As for how this badge will fare in the modern DRL versions, you can no longer infinitely camp due to the Enraged Timer, can no longer farm respawns for virtually infinite ammo, and both Int2 + Finesse got nerfed, but I think it might actually not be as bad, as corpses no longer being able to respawn in vision means you don't have to worry about respawn RNG screwing you over with an enemy getting back up at a terrible time, while special levels no longer requiring all respawns be killed for clearing means it'll be easier to do Hell's Arena damageless (once it's unbugged at least), and time-based powerups means your lategame Invulns will effectively last longer. We'll see how it compares across versions when I eventually go for the modern DRL 100%. With Destroyer Diamond won here, I now have 24 Diamonds in 0.9.9.7, surpassing papilio's Diamond count for uncontested #2, and the Untouchable Cross + Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal also bumps my medal count up to 42, I just need Gutts' Heart now for Heroic Diamond (I could have potentially went for it in this run after doing Hell's Arena damageless, but grabbing the Dragonslayer means I then can't rocket jump, and I do not stretch the Invulns out to last the entire rest of the run without rocket jumping, so I'll have to do it in its own dedicated run).
If you're still reading, here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
ONLY50DAMAGE?!,
level 10 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 256773 turns and scored 345501 points.
He played for 2 hours, 32 minutes and 48 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 728 out of 1082 hellspawn. (67%)
He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 2
Levels completed : 2
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Cyberdemon's Head
Mastermind's Brain
UAC Star (gold cluster)
Untouchable Cross
Hell Arena Pwnage Medal
Destroyer Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
#>#####################................................####
######################...............####...............###
#####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
####################........####.....####.....####........#
###################.........####.....#........####.........
##################..........####..............####.........
#################..........................................
#################......##..X%........................####..
#################.....###............................####..
#################....####............................####&.
#################....####............................####..
#################..........................................
##################..........####..............####.........
###################.........####.....####.....####.........
####################........####.....####.....####........#
#####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
######################...............####...............###
#>#####################................................####
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 50/50 Experience 41956/10
ToHit Ranged +12 ToHit Melee +16 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +6
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Finesse (Level 1)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Reloader (Level 1)
Brute (Level 2)
Juggler (Level 1)
Berserker (Level 1)
Intuition (Level 2)
Int->Int->Fin->Jug->Bru->Bru->Ber->Rel->HR->HR->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [6/6] (100%) (P)
[b] [ Weapon ] chainsaw (5d6) (B)
[c] [ Boots ] nothing
[d] [ Prepared ] plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [10/40]
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] double shotgun (9d3)x2 [2/2]
[b] combat shotgun (7d3) [2/5]
[c] combat shotgun (8d3) [3/5] (P1)
[d] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (B1)
[e] shotgun shell (x50)
[f] shotgun shell (x46)
[g] shotgun shell (x50)
[h] shotgun shell (x50)
[i] shotgun shell (x50)
[j] rocket (x7)
[k] power cell (x50)
[l] power cell (x42)
[m] large med-pack
[n] large med-pack
[o] phase device
[p] phase device
[q] agility mod pack
[r] protective boots [2/2] (100%)
-- 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 85% feet 60%
Plasma - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
136 former humans
80 former sergeants
36 former captains
157 imps
95 demons
109 lost souls
44 cacodemons
11 hell knights
22 barons of hell
1 arachnotron
18 former commandos
10 pain elementals
1 revenant
4 mancubi
1 arch-vile
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
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 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
He left level 15 as soon as possible.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
He left level 19 as soon as possible.
He left level 23 as soon as possible.
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
berserk! You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
407 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
194 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 9 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
106 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
62 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
6
Century Lounge / (0.9.9.7) [M|ArchA666|45%|223|YASD] - Armorer Diamond is an abomination
« on: January 29, 2026, 13:00 »
In theory, Armorer Diamond is an "easy" Diamond that nearly any serious player could win, you just need to find three of every special item across all your runs, and as long as you're good enough to beat HMP difficulty for the Azrael Scythe, you should eventually get this badge without ever touching N! or even UV. Yet according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, only two players ever reported winning it; Tormuse and Icy, i.e. two of the greatest DRL players. Oh no... that doesn't sound like an "easy badge anyone can win" at all...
So when I first revisited 0.9.9.7 and started my conquest of it a couple months ago with my Eagerness Angelic run, I was only two uniques shy of getting Armorer Diamond, one Dragonslayer and one Subtle Knife needed to complete finding three of every special. Even back before that I was a very hardcore DRL player despite not playing N! before then, with a playtime of somewhere around 700ish hours and nearly 200 games recorded, I reasonably should have already won it long ago with that sort of time invested into the game. But still, just one Dragonslayer and one Subtle Knife, it can't be that much longer to get it, right? Any given run at this point could win it, while I had just five Diamonds and no Angelics yet, so there would a lot of runs to go through before I could think about having to make dedicated runs for this badge...
Well with those two Uniques, the Dragonslayer is perhaps the rarest single piece of equipment in the game, with it having a minimum spawning depth of 16, a spawning weight of 1, and since it's a melee weapon, it cannot spawn in vaults, nor can it randomly drop in any of the special levels. So in standard game depths, you have exactly only 7 floors it can spawn on (Hell 1 through 7), and there's no place where it could drop with enhanced odds unlike other Uniques. However if the Dragonslayer was all I needed, it wouldn't be too bad, as there is a way to guarantee it spawning in a certain special level;
Getting the Dragonslayer that way is difficult, but wouldn't take too long to do in dedicated runs if it came down to that, especially if I do it in certain challenges. The actual bigger problem is the Subtle Knife, which is among the group of those bafflingly terrible Uniques added in 0.9.9.7 with a minimum spawning depth of 15 and spawning weight of 1, while as a melee weapon, it also cannot spawn in vaults nor in any special level, so it's basically as rare as the Dragonslayer (you only get one more floor you can find it in comparison), except there is no way to force it to spawn if it became the last Unique I needed (the Mjollnir was also among this group of Uniques in 0.9.9.7 and is a melee weapon too, so having that be your last Unique would also be just as bad, but I've had unusual luck finding it with over a half dozen of them on my file). Of all Uniques, I absolutely do not want Armorer Diamond gatekept by this one, as my only recourse would be to speedrun A666 to force this badge...
Well after nearly 60 games in my return to 0.9.9.7, with 11 Diamonds and 5 Angelics achieved, with none of those games having the Dragonslayer nor Subtle Knife, I decided to go for Centurlal Diamond, with some hope I could get Armorer Diamond out of the way there, yet alas I would find neither Unique I needed. 13 games later, with my Diamond count now at 16 and my Angelic count at 6, I decided to go for Centurial Angelic, not only to get that badge but to also double it up with Armorer Diamond, surely I would get both Uniques I need after 666 floors? Well I did find the Dragonslayer in that run after 385 floors, but still never found the Subtle Knife even after 666 floors. The Dragonslayer is the far far far better weapon and did speed up the rest of that particular A666 run, but if I had to only find one, I would have actually preferred the Subtle Knife, since as mentioned, there is a way to force the Dragonslayer to spawn in the standard game and so I could do that as its own run (which I'm probably going to need to do anyway for Gutts' Heart to finish out Heroic Diamond), while with the Subtle Knife, my only recourse would be to grind out A666 games... Still there are many other Diamonds and Angelics left, just maybe I could find it in one of those runs, or otherwise in the several AoOC games I pumped out to get enough Carmack kills for Apostle rank?
Yet here I am, with 22 Diamonds, a record 10 Angelics, and said Apostle ranking, the RNG did not drop the Subtle Knife in any of those runs. With only a few other Diamonds and winnable Angelics left, at this pace I was going to do everything else I could do before I got Armorer Diamond. Since in the remaining runs, I may be unable to detour for Uniques that spawn and not wanting to risk losing something like a Destroyer Diamond or Masochist Angelic run for seeking an out-of-the-way Unique, I decided I should just bite the bullet and grind through A666 to get Armorer Diamond done now. I got unlucky with the Centurial Angelic run not having a Subtle Knife drop, but surely I would get it in the next A666 game, and it wouldn't take that long if I just speedrun through it on HNTR with Blademaster, right?
Well in the first run, I would find the Dragonslayer again (and the Berserker Armor but I forgot to pick it up), yet it'll be a second consecutive A666 game that the Subtle Knife would never drop... (Here's the link to that mortem I posted on the JH Discord if you want to see it, can't post multiple A666 mortems in the same post without running out the character limit.)
Well I could only try again, surely it won't be a third A666 game without the Subtle Knife ever dropping, right? And in this run I had a lot better luck with other items, including an early Chainsaw you almost never see in 0.9.9.7's A100/666 that let me get through the game much faster, many Uniques early on including a floor 17 Lava Armor and floor 23 Malek's Armor that let me comfortably stair dive much sooner, and the Dragonslayer yet again. Yet that luck ended up for nought, as I would go an entire third A666 game without the Subtle Knife ever dropping... (link to mortem.)
To say I was frustrated at this is an understatement, how do I find five Dragonslayers without ever doing the guaranteed method for it in this file before finding a third Subtle Knife, and why does the RNG keep giving me the other stupidly rare yet also useless Uniques like the Mjollnir and Mega Buster (the latter of which I've found 14 fucking times!). There's nothing I can do about it though but just boot up yet another A666 game. My Unique luck this time was much worse, with not finding my first Unique until floor 48, which ended up being that fucking useless ass Mega Buster of course, and the pace didn't pick up that much from there. However on floor 223, at last, the grind for Armorer Diamond would end when the RNG finally decided to drop the Subtle Knife, at which point I just killed myself, as there were too many floors left and 0.9.9.7's A666 is far too repetitive to put up with any longer.
So once I started attempting Armorer Diamond directly, with only two Uniques I needed for it, it took me four A666 games and running through 2221 floors before I finally got the second Unique I was missing for it. The play time on my 0.9.9.7 file as I got Armorer Diamond was 1031 hours!. Even if you assume half that time was from the game being run idle, it's insane it took that long to get a badge that is purely grinding, especially when I ended up having to bruteforce it sooner by running those A666 games, who knows how even longer it would have been if I didn't do that, I almost certainly get the rest of the Diamonds and winnable Angelics before I win Armorer Diamond, it's no wonder only Tormuse and Icy won this badge previously. I wonder what the hell Game Hunter was thinking when he bumped the old easy Armorer requirements to what they are now, surely there was a more sensible middle ground between the two (well to be a bit fair to him, the Armorer badges got changed in 0.9.9.5, before 0.9.9.7 added all those 15 depth 1 weight Uniques including the Subtle Knife, but even prior to 0.9.9.5 with a smaller specials list and Armorer Diamond then requiring just finding one of every special, only Tormuse reported winning it then, so it's not like Armorer Diamond was an overly common Diamond then to merit bumping up its requirement to such an absurd degree). If you're wondering, it also took me finding 1695 specials total before I got Armorer Diamond. Well with Armorer Diamond done, I now got 23 Diamonds, tying papilio's reported total for second most Diamonds, of which I'm especially not looking forward to Destroyer and Arena Diamond, but at least those won't be purely grinding out 666 floors after 666 floors after 666 floors...
So when I first revisited 0.9.9.7 and started my conquest of it a couple months ago with my Eagerness Angelic run, I was only two uniques shy of getting Armorer Diamond, one Dragonslayer and one Subtle Knife needed to complete finding three of every special. Even back before that I was a very hardcore DRL player despite not playing N! before then, with a playtime of somewhere around 700ish hours and nearly 200 games recorded, I reasonably should have already won it long ago with that sort of time invested into the game. But still, just one Dragonslayer and one Subtle Knife, it can't be that much longer to get it, right? Any given run at this point could win it, while I had just five Diamonds and no Angelics yet, so there would a lot of runs to go through before I could think about having to make dedicated runs for this badge...
Well with those two Uniques, the Dragonslayer is perhaps the rarest single piece of equipment in the game, with it having a minimum spawning depth of 16, a spawning weight of 1, and since it's a melee weapon, it cannot spawn in vaults, nor can it randomly drop in any of the special levels. So in standard game depths, you have exactly only 7 floors it can spawn on (Hell 1 through 7), and there's no place where it could drop with enhanced odds unlike other Uniques. However if the Dragonslayer was all I needed, it wouldn't be too bad, as there is a way to guarantee it spawning in a certain special level;
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Getting the Dragonslayer that way is difficult, but wouldn't take too long to do in dedicated runs if it came down to that, especially if I do it in certain challenges. The actual bigger problem is the Subtle Knife, which is among the group of those bafflingly terrible Uniques added in 0.9.9.7 with a minimum spawning depth of 15 and spawning weight of 1, while as a melee weapon, it also cannot spawn in vaults nor in any special level, so it's basically as rare as the Dragonslayer (you only get one more floor you can find it in comparison), except there is no way to force it to spawn if it became the last Unique I needed (the Mjollnir was also among this group of Uniques in 0.9.9.7 and is a melee weapon too, so having that be your last Unique would also be just as bad, but I've had unusual luck finding it with over a half dozen of them on my file). Of all Uniques, I absolutely do not want Armorer Diamond gatekept by this one, as my only recourse would be to speedrun A666 to force this badge...
Well after nearly 60 games in my return to 0.9.9.7, with 11 Diamonds and 5 Angelics achieved, with none of those games having the Dragonslayer nor Subtle Knife, I decided to go for Centurlal Diamond, with some hope I could get Armorer Diamond out of the way there, yet alas I would find neither Unique I needed. 13 games later, with my Diamond count now at 16 and my Angelic count at 6, I decided to go for Centurial Angelic, not only to get that badge but to also double it up with Armorer Diamond, surely I would get both Uniques I need after 666 floors? Well I did find the Dragonslayer in that run after 385 floors, but still never found the Subtle Knife even after 666 floors. The Dragonslayer is the far far far better weapon and did speed up the rest of that particular A666 run, but if I had to only find one, I would have actually preferred the Subtle Knife, since as mentioned, there is a way to force the Dragonslayer to spawn in the standard game and so I could do that as its own run (which I'm probably going to need to do anyway for Gutts' Heart to finish out Heroic Diamond), while with the Subtle Knife, my only recourse would be to grind out A666 games... Still there are many other Diamonds and Angelics left, just maybe I could find it in one of those runs, or otherwise in the several AoOC games I pumped out to get enough Carmack kills for Apostle rank?
Yet here I am, with 22 Diamonds, a record 10 Angelics, and said Apostle ranking, the RNG did not drop the Subtle Knife in any of those runs. With only a few other Diamonds and winnable Angelics left, at this pace I was going to do everything else I could do before I got Armorer Diamond. Since in the remaining runs, I may be unable to detour for Uniques that spawn and not wanting to risk losing something like a Destroyer Diamond or Masochist Angelic run for seeking an out-of-the-way Unique, I decided I should just bite the bullet and grind through A666 to get Armorer Diamond done now. I got unlucky with the Centurial Angelic run not having a Subtle Knife drop, but surely I would get it in the next A666 game, and it wouldn't take that long if I just speedrun through it on HNTR with Blademaster, right?
Well in the first run, I would find the Dragonslayer again (and the Berserker Armor but I forgot to pick it up), yet it'll be a second consecutive A666 game that the Subtle Knife would never drop... (Here's the link to that mortem I posted on the JH Discord if you want to see it, can't post multiple A666 mortems in the same post without running out the character limit.)
Well I could only try again, surely it won't be a third A666 game without the Subtle Knife ever dropping, right? And in this run I had a lot better luck with other items, including an early Chainsaw you almost never see in 0.9.9.7's A100/666 that let me get through the game much faster, many Uniques early on including a floor 17 Lava Armor and floor 23 Malek's Armor that let me comfortably stair dive much sooner, and the Dragonslayer yet again. Yet that luck ended up for nought, as I would go an entire third A666 game without the Subtle Knife ever dropping... (link to mortem.)
To say I was frustrated at this is an understatement, how do I find five Dragonslayers without ever doing the guaranteed method for it in this file before finding a third Subtle Knife, and why does the RNG keep giving me the other stupidly rare yet also useless Uniques like the Mjollnir and Mega Buster (the latter of which I've found 14 fucking times!). There's nothing I can do about it though but just boot up yet another A666 game. My Unique luck this time was much worse, with not finding my first Unique until floor 48, which ended up being that fucking useless ass Mega Buster of course, and the pace didn't pick up that much from there. However on floor 223, at last, the grind for Armorer Diamond would end when the RNG finally decided to drop the Subtle Knife, at which point I just killed myself, as there were too many floors left and 0.9.9.7's A666 is far too repetitive to put up with any longer.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So once I started attempting Armorer Diamond directly, with only two Uniques I needed for it, it took me four A666 games and running through 2221 floors before I finally got the second Unique I was missing for it. The play time on my 0.9.9.7 file as I got Armorer Diamond was 1031 hours!. Even if you assume half that time was from the game being run idle, it's insane it took that long to get a badge that is purely grinding, especially when I ended up having to bruteforce it sooner by running those A666 games, who knows how even longer it would have been if I didn't do that, I almost certainly get the rest of the Diamonds and winnable Angelics before I win Armorer Diamond, it's no wonder only Tormuse and Icy won this badge previously. I wonder what the hell Game Hunter was thinking when he bumped the old easy Armorer requirements to what they are now, surely there was a more sensible middle ground between the two (well to be a bit fair to him, the Armorer badges got changed in 0.9.9.5, before 0.9.9.7 added all those 15 depth 1 weight Uniques including the Subtle Knife, but even prior to 0.9.9.5 with a smaller specials list and Armorer Diamond then requiring just finding one of every special, only Tormuse reported winning it then, so it's not like Armorer Diamond was an overly common Diamond then to merit bumping up its requirement to such an absurd degree). If you're wondering, it also took me finding 1695 specials total before I got Armorer Diamond. Well with Armorer Diamond done, I now got 23 Diamonds, tying papilio's reported total for second most Diamonds, of which I'm especially not looking forward to Destroyer and Arena Diamond, but at least those won't be purely grinding out 666 floors after 666 floors after 666 floors...
7
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoB+AoMs|73%|YAVP] - Berserker Angelic for record 10th Angelic
« on: January 25, 2026, 21:36 »
With few viable Angelics left, for my attempt at setting the new record of 10 Angelics, I decided to go for Berserker Angelic. This badge requires a horribly asynergetic Dual Angel combo of Angel of Berserk + Angel of Masochism, by the nature of how pure melee works, attrition damage is unavoidable yet you will not be able to heal on demand. Beating Nightmare! with such a combo does look nearly impossible at first, however according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, this badge has been won twice, by Gooselord1 and Tormuse, so it can't be that bad, right?
Well you got two viable strategies for this badge. One is play a Scout, make it to The Chained Court, and stair dive the rest of the way, relying on Invulnerabilities to keep you alive. The other is play Marine, and survive long enough to make it to Vampyre, which will allow you to indefinitely heal outside of levelups, at which point the game won't play that much differently from a normal AoB run. Both options have been proven, with Gooselord winning Berserker Angelic with the Scout stairdive strat, while Tormuse won with the Vampyre strat. The problem is both options require an absolutely hideous amount of luck; the Scout strat simply won't work without ample and reachable Invulnerabilities, even a lategame Blademaster build would sustain too much attrition damage through pure melee to survive between the increasingly scarcer levelups, while you still need a lot of luck to even make it to The Chained Court without being on the brink of death, and if you try the Vampyre strat, you simply will not survive to level 6 to get it without even more luck needed to make it to Chained Court and then getting a floor 7 Invulnerability or making it to a certain other special level. The question is which strat requires less luck? According to Tormuse, it took him 92 attempts in the official 0.9.9.7 release and many more attempts he didn't count in that version's beta testing, and while Gooselord didn't say how many attempts it took him, at the time of his last posted mortem, he had 2467 games with 12 wins recorded, while in his Berserker Angelic mortem, he had 2982 games with only 15 wins recorded, maybe he did something else in his other two wins since that severely inflated his game counter but I think it's safe to assume his Berserker Angelic attempts numbered well into the hundreds at least. Here are the list of advantages for each strategy:
For the Scout:
For the Marine:
With no clear answer on which will require less luck, I decided to try Scout first, under the belief that runs will go faster and so even if it does require more luck, I will hit that needed luck in less real time by being able to grind out more runs. I would quickly find out however that even with stair sense and that speed boost, just making it to The Chained Court still required too much luck for my liking; knowing where the stairs are won't matter if a bunch of enemies or Hell Knights are in the way and I got no Berserk. Unlike usually where it doesn't matter how little health you have when you make it to Chained Court because of the Berserks, here your entering health does matter when the Berserks no longer heal you, and the safe camping spots in the exit rooms still require you to push through several Chaingunners; the first few times I made it to Chained Court I just died because I had too little health to get to the exit rooms, and trying to play cautiously in the center room or around the cage corners will eventually result in a Former popping up at an angle where you're wide open. Gooselord did get Int2 for this problem, as that can make camping the center room more viable, but that means giving up early Berserker, Hellrunner, or even Brute 2 as you probably won't hit level 4 before Chained Court when stair diving, which is just an unacceptable tradeoff for me as that would make for more games that don't even reach Chained Court for Int2 to matter. While I alternate with some Marine attempts, on attempt 25 I did get a Scout that got a levelup right before Chained Court to get past it, however Phobos 7 had no Invuln, I had no Phase Device, and Phobos 6 + 7 left me near death, with way too little health to have any hope of getting past Anomaly. I was forced into Military Base, hoping to hit some levelups there and enter Anomaly with the health needed to get through it, which almost worked thanks to being able to safely camp as all the weak-in-melee enemies could be gift dropped into melee range, but slugging it out with too many Elite Commandos eventually whittled me down enough to end the run just one kill away from a levelup. Noticing how Military Base is easily clearable under this badge's constraints and how it gave so much EXP that it was going to bump me up to level 6 all the way from level 3, it made me realize that a Marine doesn't need a floor 7 Invuln and could hit level 6 for Vampyre by just making it to Military Base. At this point I decided to grind out runs with the Marine; a Marine that makes it past Chained Court probably has nearly a coin flip's chance of winning, you just need to make it to Military Base or get a floor 7 Invuln to get through Anomaly, whereas the Scout still needs a lot more luck beyond this point to win, and the Scout was still averaging about a dozen attempts for every one that got past Chained Court (I had another one that made it past but then died on an awful Phobos 6), so I figured that requiring even more early game luck would be worth the tradeoff of a much more reliable post-Phobos. Additionally, attempts with the Scout didn't really go all that much faster, because I'm stair diving basically everything after Phobos 2 until I reach Military Base or hit level 6 with the Marine, and the Scout stairdive being much faster post-Phobos won't matter if I don't even reach that point, so there wasn't much of a real-time advantage to playing Scout here.
As for the Marine, well, early Marine is very rough, and it took me another 12 attempts (not counting runs I quit out on the first two floors) to get a Marine past Chained Court, but I had little health left and Phobos 6 spawned me in a big open room of enemies that killed me before I could levelup. It would take another 15 attempts that weren't Q+Y'd to make it past Chained Court, though again on low health, however a Pain Elemental near the start of Phobos 6 allows me to levelup before dying, and with the supercharged health, I'm able to get out of Phobos 6 despite the stairs being on the complete opposite end of the floor. Phobos 7 would give me a maze that seemed like it would be the end if I didn't find an Invuln or the red stairs quickly, but a levelup midway through gives me the juice to keep going and I do find the red stairs... which turned out to be Phobos Lab instead of Military Base. Entering Phobos Lab here without a Homing Phase would be suicide unless maybe I already had Vampyre or was about to get it, so I had to go back through the maze and hope I find an Invuln or at least the normal stairs so I can make some attempt at Anomaly. My Chained Court Berserk finally ran out not long after while my health dwindled away, and I would then find a Tracking Map that basically confirmed the run was over, as the stairs were on the other side with a bunch of enemies in the way while there was no Invuln on the map, with me indeed dying shortly after despite my best efforts to try salvaging it. A run that that got so close to winnable territory but still dying was pretty crushing, so I would take a break for a few days before running attempts again.
So what little strategy is there to this run, aside from stair diving and pray RNG shines on you? Well with Phobos Base Entry, my strategy is the same it usually is; activate run and get straight to the side of the building to set up camp, and Q+Y if the Shotgunners come out before I reach my camping spot or the Formers shoot me up too much. You don't need to fuss much about the damage you take, as you're going to levelup shortly into Phobos 2 anyway to fully heal whatever damage you take, and making it to Phobos 2 with minimal damage won't matter if you get a fucked Phobos 2 start, while you also don't need to fuss with the medkits (though getting one is nice for gift dropping). The only real strategic point here is to take off the Blue Armor, you don't need it to get past Phobos Entry and so you'll only be depleting it before the floors you actually need it, while you can also use it to gift drop the Formers before you get a medkit. On Phobos 2, at first I was just stair diving through it, but shortly in I changed my gameplan to clearing it; if you can find a workable camping spot with a doorway or fluids, it's possible to clear the floor as long as you don't get too many Pinkies nor get a Cacodemon vault that gets opened up. Clearing Phobos 2 will get you near level 3 to get a quick Supercharge in the deadly Phobos 3-5 range or let you hit level 3 to get that important third trait before entering said floor range, not to mention you still need to be at least somewhat through level 3 to ensure you hit level 6 by the end of Military Base, and if you don't get Military Base, you then want to ensure just one Phobos 7 Invuln can carry you to level 6. If you are about to levelup with enemies still alive on the floor and don't have the stairs found or have otherwise unscouted areas that could have Berserks, you should try finding that stuff before killing the last enemy for the levelup, so you can take as much of that Supercharged health with you, while if you get any Green Armor, you should definitely wear that over the Blue Armor to preserve it for the upcoming floors, even go naked if you can get away with it to preserve that Blue Armor.
As for what traits to pick on the way to Vampyre aside from the obvious Brute 2 opener, it'll depend. Usually you would go straight for Berserker in AoB, but if you're not already berserked, often you'll take too much damage triggering it for it to really help you, and so you still very likely won't make it to Chained Court without finding early Berserks, which would make Berserker basically irrelevant at this point of the game. Badass meanwhile will let you retain boosted health and make Shotgunners knocking you around less of an issue, while Finesse will save you substantial damage, but if you don't get any Berserks, then having Berserker may be your only hope of making it to Chained Court without very lucky stairs, so my trait order would vary depending on if I found Berserk Packs or was on a floor like a Pinky cave where Berserker would be absolutely necessary. As for the Phobos 3 to 5 range, you can only stair dive; with Hell Knights around, clearing floors out (barring Lost Soul caves or maybe Pinky caves if you got Berserker) from a safe camping spot is not viable whatsoever, killing a single Hell Knight at this point in melee without prior berserk will drain over 40 or even over 50% of your health, and the Hell Knights do not give enough EXP for you to levelup anywhere fast enough to stave off this damage. Pinkies are also much more numerous in this range, and while you can get through a horde of them without too much pain if you got Berserker, roshamboing them all down one-at-a-time from a camping spot will see them individually drain your health nearly as fast as the Hell Knights do. Maybe if you got a miraculous early Ballistic Vest or Duelist Armor, clearing these floors could be viable, but I never found either in all these attempts, so do not bank on that. The vast majority of Berserker Angelic runs die in this floor range, with absolutely nothing you can do about it; no amount of perfect decision making can make up for the math not mathing for you with meleeing over a hundred enemies, several of which will be Hell Knights that are nearly as strong as you are, while you got only 60-120 HP to work with between levelups.
After another 8 non-Q+Y'd attempts since that prior crushing failure, I would get a promising run with a Berserk Pack near the stairs on a clearable Phobos 2, and then I would find a second Berserk shortly after. I get to Phobos 5, but I'm near death and I spawn in a room with a Pinky group plus several Imps. By maneuvering myself in a way behind nearby crates to prevent more than one Pinky reaching me at a time and avoid the Imps firing on me, I would get a perfectly timed levelup with only 2 HP remaining, and I would find the stairs to Chained Court quickly after. With this Supercharge right before it, I'm able to easily make it to the exit room to safely camp all the remaining Formers and then exit with ample health. As if the run couldn't get better, Phobos 6 would have quickly found stairs, and then Phobos 7 would not only have the red stairs be in the starting spawn's vision, but I also rolled Miltiary Base! However since I had ample health and berserk still, I decide to explore the floor some before immediately diving to Military Base, and while the nearby Cacodemon vault didn't have anything useful aside from getting me enough EXP to hit level 5, exploring the floor pays off with me finding Technical Mods when extra attack speed on my Chainsaw will be crucial to mitigating damage and triggering Berserker faster, as well as a pair of Steel Boots to get crucially needed faster movement speed once I get A mods. After my berserk runs out and with no Invuln found, I make my way back to Military Base, where I finally get a Marine to level 6 for Vampyre. It's a very good thing I found those boots and Tech Mod on the prior floor too, because the crates would not drop any boots and I would get A + B mods in Military Base, while a faster attacking Chainsaw and faster movespeed will be crucial for Anomaly. To my horror though, I would find the Large Health Globes that normally give you some berserk in AoB no longer do so when AoMs is mixed in; my strategy for Anomaly banked on the berserk from the Large Health Globes in the starting room allowing me to be already berserked as I trigger the ambush, as with no HR, there's no chance in hell you can escape the ambush without berserk. It would be awful to finally get a run to Vampyre only to find out that I do need the floor 7 Invuln or Phase Device to get a Marine past Anomaly in this run, but I have to at least try, so the plan is altered; I Bulk up the Red Armor, get a little closer to the wall before triggering the ambush so I don't get the other side's Nightmare Demons immediately in biting range, and then hope with a T-modded Chainsaw + Fin2 that I can trigger Berserker fast enough before I take too much damage, while then hoping Vampyre and my buffed up attack speed can stave off enough damage to survive standing my ground. I do take a huge beating, but thanks to my buffed up attack speed and the Bulk mod keeping my Red Armor from getting damaged midfight, the audible works and I kill most of the Nightmare enemies in a brawl, while I get a good amount of health back when I reach safety with only a few enemies left. Unfortunately my berserk runs out before reaching the Bruisers, and luring the Bruisers back behind the middle doorway or starting room isn't an option when the Nightmare enemies will start reviving, while the Bruisers could inflict fatal damage if they can double team me before Berserker kicks in. I use the radsuit from Military Base to try mitigating acid balls from the back Bruiser as I melee down the front Bruiser, and again thanks to my buffed attack speed + Bulked Red Armor, I'm able to trigger Berserker before taking too much damage and levelup right as I kill the first Bruiser to get all my health back, while the second Bruiser quickly falls after and at last I get a Berserker Angelic run past Phobos. I'm not sure this works out without the T-modded Chainsaw, hitting level 7 in Military Base for Fin2, or the B-modded Red Armor, it would have been an even bigger nail biter for sure without any one of them.
Making it to Deimos with Vampyre gets me over 98% of the hump here, but I'm not comfortable yet until I get myself adequate indestructible or regenerating armor, Vampyre does chew through armors at a crazy rate and I need solid permanent defenses to keep up being able to comfortably outheal all damage I take, so I'm going through Hell's Armory. Deimos 1 is a manageable small rooms level though, so I do clear it, and I find the single most valuable item for this run, a Homing Phase! The biggest threat to this run at this point are Arachnotron Caves when Arachnotron swarms can very easily outdamage Vampyre's healing, so Homing Phases are vital Arachnotron insurance here to ensure I don't need to go through the Phobos jail again (I also got teased with an Assault Shotgun that I cannot use). In Hell's Armory, I do have a little scary moment when I get knocked below 50% health when securing the starting northern building, but I do get the camping spot secured and can get my health all the way back from respawns, while I clear the rest of it with little issue. Unfortunately I get a useless Sniper mod from the Lab cache instead of an Onyx or Nano mod that I really wanted, but I do get a Power mod so I can Nanofiber my Red Armor at least, and I use my level 8 + 9 traits on Whizkid beforehand so I'll be able to later mod it and the Tactical Boots I just made, as well as buff up my Chainsaw farther. Deimos 2 is immediately rewarding with a second Homing Phase and a Power mod for my Nanofiber Red Armor. After I make sure to kill the enemies in the immediate vicinity before getting the P mod so they don't blow it up, I immediately P-mod my Nanofiber Red Armor, and with that armor, I can now comfortably clear levels as long as I have a solid camping spot, but I will leave floors early if there's any risk to it, such as a Deimos 4 maze (which made me miss City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains when I forgot I was on Deimos 4, getting a Blood Skull is very valuable as they can still heal you in AoMs).
On Deimos 5 I would get another great find with Phaseshift Boots, I already have A-modded Tactical Boots and the Phaseshift's boosted knockback is a detriment in AoB, but I hold onto them in case I do need to run through fluids and in case I find the Phaseshift Armor (I also got two A mods on the same floor, so I immediately A-mod them and keep the second A mod in case I find a Nano mod to Antigrav them). On Deimos 5 I also find a nuke and my first Invuln, the nuke will be insurance to ensure I win against the Mastermind in case I make it to Dis at too little health to kill her (especially if I have to enter Dis without berserk), and Invulns are obviously very useful, though I'll remark not finding one until Deimos 5 goes to show how fragile the stairdiving Scout strat will be even if it gets out of Phobos, I'm sure the Scout does not win in this run if I played him instead. With the Invuln obscuring my vision and not paying attention, in Deimos 6 I accidentally enter Halls Of Carnage, so I have to burn one of my Homing Phases to be absolutely sure the lava flood doesn't overtake me when I have no HR and can't rocket jump. I do take advantage of the Invuln to get to the first mod to see if it's a Power mod for my Chainsaw (I do want a Ripper), and then after phasing I check the second mod, unfortunately neither was a Power mod and so I wasted that Homing Phase for nothing but some extra EXP. Fortunately Deimos 7 immediately gives me another Homing Phase to make up for that wasted one (I also build Grappling Boots, an assembly I can't ever remember making with serious intent to use, since I had so many Tech Mods I could do nothing with, on the off chance I do really need the extra knockback resistance at some point). Then came the Cyberdemon fight, which is normally a pushover for any build with Berserker, but I do have to be a little careful, as due to the Marine's 10 extra max HP making Berserker require you to take 20+ damage in a single hit to trigger it, the Cyberdemon's melee attack will not trigger Berserker (it maxes out at 18 damage), and intentionally face-tanking rockets to trigger Berserker is unreliable when there's a 34.4% chance his rockets will roll below 20 damage. Normally those odds are still very good to just charge in and you can just heal up if he keeps low rolling rockets, but when I can't heal until I kill him, I cannot risk taking several low roll rockets that can deal up to 13 damage through my P Nanofiber Red and make me end up at too low of health to beat him down in melee, so I do play a bit cautiously by waiting behind a pillar for him to get closer, and only charging in once the pillar is nearly destroyed. I do eat a rocket that indeed doesn't trigger Berserker, but I can get in and trigger Berserker fast enough from hitting him to get through him without it getting scary.
After getting past Babel, I'm now in Hell, and while a barrel level could be annoying, I immediately find a perfect camping spot to effortlessly clear the floor (I also finally find a second Red Armor just in case I need stronger or faster armor than this Nanofiber Red Armor), and then going through Unholy Cathedral for the Longinus Spear is a given when I'll get all my health back from killing the Angel Of Death. In Hell 2 I would find yet another Homing Phase, forget Arachnotron insurance I can now basically skip the second half of Hell (I also find a second pair of Phaseshift Boots because the game likes to be funny). Hell 3 is then an annoying looking maze with a big acid river, so with the stairs immediately in sight, I just get out of there, I have basically nothing to gain and everything to lose trying to clear out floors at this point. Then Hell 4 not only has a Power Mod I've been wanting for my Chainsaw, but it also has an Invuln. With three floors left after this, I decide it's time to just use up my Homing Phases to finish this; while they won't cover all four floors I have to get through, I figure chances are good at least one of them has quick stairs to make a Homing Phase not needed for a quick exit. I use up my first Homing Phase to immediately get out of Hell 4 after grabbing the Invuln, that's two left. Hell 5 is then a maze with no stairs in a sight, so that's the second Homing Phase (and the stairs were on the complete opposite end of the floor too). Hell 6 also has no stairs in sight, so I grab the Radsuit just in case I need it for Hell 7 and burn my last Homing Phase (and the stairs would again be on the other side of the map, so using the Homing Phase was worth it). Hell 7 would then be... an easy Pinky + Nightmare Demon cave that will be quick to get through, the run is basically won! And it has a Power Mod I need to finally build the Ripper, not that it's needed though, as the Invuln lasts enough to squash the Spider Mastermind.
So there it is after 60 attempts, plus many more I Q+Y'd out of Phobos Base Entry or on a fucked floor 2. With Berserker Angelic won, Tormuse's near decade-long record of 9 Angelics in 0.9.9.7 (or in any version) has been broken, as this records my 10th Angelic win (this also marks the first time that anyone has verifiably achieved double digit Angelics). Attempting this badge was not a pleasant experience though, oh hell no; out of every badge I won, this is without a doubt the absolute worst badge to play for, and of the few remaining winnable ones I have left aside from the pure-grinding Armorer Diamond, I don't think any will top this. This badge is just an atrocious slot machine where skillful play matters little rather than just spinning the slots until the RNG decides you can win, and the actual gameplay is just spamming stair dives as Scout until you get good enough Berserk + Invuln luck to actually win with little healing, or spamming stair dives as Marine until you get enough Berserk + level generation luck to reach level 6 for Vampyre before dying. I preferred even Strongman Angelic to this; despite it being able to be ruined at any moment by a random enemy dying while you have a weapon equipped and enforcing the most tedious of DRL gameplay on top of needing hefty early game luck too, at least that badge required some actual strategy and skilled play could compensate for some unideal luck. While Everyman Angelic and Arena Diamond are also going to be awful slot machines, at least the former will require skilled gameplay, and latter will have attempts go faster. No disrespect to Gooselord intended here, but it's a testament to this badge's low skill ceiling + absurd luck requirement that the only player besides Tormuse who verifiably won the badge was someone with only two other Diamonds recorded in any versions (both of which were won through simple melee stair dives) while racking up a winrate that makes Sereg's winrate look normal, as well as not even having 15 Silvers (as evidenced by his 1st Lieutenant rank upon winning Berserker Angelic); any halfway-competent player could realistically win this badge as long as they're willing to grind hundreds of runs. As for 0.10-onward, throwing knives actually working would help as you now have a means to reliably deal damage in AoB without putting yourself in harm's way, and proper infighting being added will farther help mitigate damage with groups, but Berserk being nerfed to +50% resistances, time-based powerups meaning early powerups when you're slower won't last as long, enemies hitting harder in melee, Enraged Timer meaning you can no longer extensively camp a floor from a single safe spot, and Vampyre getting significantly nerfed meaning it's no longer a win condition on its own, this badge is still going to be an atrocious luck-based affair to actually win, maybe even moreso than it is in 0.9.9.7. After this experience, I'm going to be putting in a proposal to change Berserker Angelic, it may be winnable but Angelics should have a significant skill component to them and should be more engaging than mind-numbingly spamming stair dives until you get lucky enough to win.
Well if you read through this rant, here is the mortem:
Well you got two viable strategies for this badge. One is play a Scout, make it to The Chained Court, and stair dive the rest of the way, relying on Invulnerabilities to keep you alive. The other is play Marine, and survive long enough to make it to Vampyre, which will allow you to indefinitely heal outside of levelups, at which point the game won't play that much differently from a normal AoB run. Both options have been proven, with Gooselord winning Berserker Angelic with the Scout stairdive strat, while Tormuse won with the Vampyre strat. The problem is both options require an absolutely hideous amount of luck; the Scout strat simply won't work without ample and reachable Invulnerabilities, even a lategame Blademaster build would sustain too much attrition damage through pure melee to survive between the increasingly scarcer levelups, while you still need a lot of luck to even make it to The Chained Court without being on the brink of death, and if you try the Vampyre strat, you simply will not survive to level 6 to get it without even more luck needed to make it to Chained Court and then getting a floor 7 Invulnerability or making it to a certain other special level. The question is which strat requires less luck? According to Tormuse, it took him 92 attempts in the official 0.9.9.7 release and many more attempts he didn't count in that version's beta testing, and while Gooselord didn't say how many attempts it took him, at the time of his last posted mortem, he had 2467 games with 12 wins recorded, while in his Berserker Angelic mortem, he had 2982 games with only 15 wins recorded, maybe he did something else in his other two wins since that severely inflated his game counter but I think it's safe to assume his Berserker Angelic attempts numbered well into the hundreds at least. Here are the list of advantages for each strategy:
For the Scout:
- Stair sense obviously makes stair diving a lot less luck-based, and so making it to The Chained Court won't be as hellish of an affair.
- +10% universal speed passive will allow the Scout to take less damage when slugging out with enemies, as well as help the Scout better escape enemies.
- Scout has immediate access to Intuition to better find early Berserk packs, as well as Invulnerabilities later.
- Scout can get Hellrunner without blocking off a necessary mastery, which not only helps the Scout avoid damage while stair diving or approaching enemies, but Hellrunner is also crucial to get past the N! Phobos Anomaly ambush if you don't get a floor 7 Invuln nor get lucky with a Phase Device.
For the Marine:
- Any Berserk Packs will last longer, and early Berserks are pretty necessary to have any hope of making it to Chained Court, while functionally getting a sixth Berserk from the Chained Court Berserks could also be a run saver if you get a brutal Phobos 6 or 7. Longer Invulns could be clutch as well if a Phobos 7 Invuln spawns far from the stairs.
- The extra 10 max HP doesn't make up for the lack of a speed passive, but that does translate to a formidable extra 20 HP gotten over the Scout from each levelup Supercharge, which can be meaningful if you get that levelup in the midst of a brawl.
- Immediate access to Badass and builds to the melee mastery, which will allow you to retain your levelup Supercharges if you don't immediately burn the boosted health. With just Badass 1, the Marine effectively gets 90 HP after each levelup, nearly twice that of the Scout's HP after the boosted health decays away. The knockback reduction is also helpful when you got Shotgunners harassing you while you're trying to dive to stairs.
- Can pick up Finesse without delaying mastery, nullifying the Scout's combat advantage.
- Reaching level 6 for Vampyre and getting past Phobos Anomaly nearly secures the run for you, while a Scout that makes it past Phobos will still fail with bad Invuln and stair luck.
With no clear answer on which will require less luck, I decided to try Scout first, under the belief that runs will go faster and so even if it does require more luck, I will hit that needed luck in less real time by being able to grind out more runs. I would quickly find out however that even with stair sense and that speed boost, just making it to The Chained Court still required too much luck for my liking; knowing where the stairs are won't matter if a bunch of enemies or Hell Knights are in the way and I got no Berserk. Unlike usually where it doesn't matter how little health you have when you make it to Chained Court because of the Berserks, here your entering health does matter when the Berserks no longer heal you, and the safe camping spots in the exit rooms still require you to push through several Chaingunners; the first few times I made it to Chained Court I just died because I had too little health to get to the exit rooms, and trying to play cautiously in the center room or around the cage corners will eventually result in a Former popping up at an angle where you're wide open. Gooselord did get Int2 for this problem, as that can make camping the center room more viable, but that means giving up early Berserker, Hellrunner, or even Brute 2 as you probably won't hit level 4 before Chained Court when stair diving, which is just an unacceptable tradeoff for me as that would make for more games that don't even reach Chained Court for Int2 to matter. While I alternate with some Marine attempts, on attempt 25 I did get a Scout that got a levelup right before Chained Court to get past it, however Phobos 7 had no Invuln, I had no Phase Device, and Phobos 6 + 7 left me near death, with way too little health to have any hope of getting past Anomaly. I was forced into Military Base, hoping to hit some levelups there and enter Anomaly with the health needed to get through it, which almost worked thanks to being able to safely camp as all the weak-in-melee enemies could be gift dropped into melee range, but slugging it out with too many Elite Commandos eventually whittled me down enough to end the run just one kill away from a levelup. Noticing how Military Base is easily clearable under this badge's constraints and how it gave so much EXP that it was going to bump me up to level 6 all the way from level 3, it made me realize that a Marine doesn't need a floor 7 Invuln and could hit level 6 for Vampyre by just making it to Military Base. At this point I decided to grind out runs with the Marine; a Marine that makes it past Chained Court probably has nearly a coin flip's chance of winning, you just need to make it to Military Base or get a floor 7 Invuln to get through Anomaly, whereas the Scout still needs a lot more luck beyond this point to win, and the Scout was still averaging about a dozen attempts for every one that got past Chained Court (I had another one that made it past but then died on an awful Phobos 6), so I figured that requiring even more early game luck would be worth the tradeoff of a much more reliable post-Phobos. Additionally, attempts with the Scout didn't really go all that much faster, because I'm stair diving basically everything after Phobos 2 until I reach Military Base or hit level 6 with the Marine, and the Scout stairdive being much faster post-Phobos won't matter if I don't even reach that point, so there wasn't much of a real-time advantage to playing Scout here.
As for the Marine, well, early Marine is very rough, and it took me another 12 attempts (not counting runs I quit out on the first two floors) to get a Marine past Chained Court, but I had little health left and Phobos 6 spawned me in a big open room of enemies that killed me before I could levelup. It would take another 15 attempts that weren't Q+Y'd to make it past Chained Court, though again on low health, however a Pain Elemental near the start of Phobos 6 allows me to levelup before dying, and with the supercharged health, I'm able to get out of Phobos 6 despite the stairs being on the complete opposite end of the floor. Phobos 7 would give me a maze that seemed like it would be the end if I didn't find an Invuln or the red stairs quickly, but a levelup midway through gives me the juice to keep going and I do find the red stairs... which turned out to be Phobos Lab instead of Military Base. Entering Phobos Lab here without a Homing Phase would be suicide unless maybe I already had Vampyre or was about to get it, so I had to go back through the maze and hope I find an Invuln or at least the normal stairs so I can make some attempt at Anomaly. My Chained Court Berserk finally ran out not long after while my health dwindled away, and I would then find a Tracking Map that basically confirmed the run was over, as the stairs were on the other side with a bunch of enemies in the way while there was no Invuln on the map, with me indeed dying shortly after despite my best efforts to try salvaging it. A run that that got so close to winnable territory but still dying was pretty crushing, so I would take a break for a few days before running attempts again.
So what little strategy is there to this run, aside from stair diving and pray RNG shines on you? Well with Phobos Base Entry, my strategy is the same it usually is; activate run and get straight to the side of the building to set up camp, and Q+Y if the Shotgunners come out before I reach my camping spot or the Formers shoot me up too much. You don't need to fuss much about the damage you take, as you're going to levelup shortly into Phobos 2 anyway to fully heal whatever damage you take, and making it to Phobos 2 with minimal damage won't matter if you get a fucked Phobos 2 start, while you also don't need to fuss with the medkits (though getting one is nice for gift dropping). The only real strategic point here is to take off the Blue Armor, you don't need it to get past Phobos Entry and so you'll only be depleting it before the floors you actually need it, while you can also use it to gift drop the Formers before you get a medkit. On Phobos 2, at first I was just stair diving through it, but shortly in I changed my gameplan to clearing it; if you can find a workable camping spot with a doorway or fluids, it's possible to clear the floor as long as you don't get too many Pinkies nor get a Cacodemon vault that gets opened up. Clearing Phobos 2 will get you near level 3 to get a quick Supercharge in the deadly Phobos 3-5 range or let you hit level 3 to get that important third trait before entering said floor range, not to mention you still need to be at least somewhat through level 3 to ensure you hit level 6 by the end of Military Base, and if you don't get Military Base, you then want to ensure just one Phobos 7 Invuln can carry you to level 6. If you are about to levelup with enemies still alive on the floor and don't have the stairs found or have otherwise unscouted areas that could have Berserks, you should try finding that stuff before killing the last enemy for the levelup, so you can take as much of that Supercharged health with you, while if you get any Green Armor, you should definitely wear that over the Blue Armor to preserve it for the upcoming floors, even go naked if you can get away with it to preserve that Blue Armor.
As for what traits to pick on the way to Vampyre aside from the obvious Brute 2 opener, it'll depend. Usually you would go straight for Berserker in AoB, but if you're not already berserked, often you'll take too much damage triggering it for it to really help you, and so you still very likely won't make it to Chained Court without finding early Berserks, which would make Berserker basically irrelevant at this point of the game. Badass meanwhile will let you retain boosted health and make Shotgunners knocking you around less of an issue, while Finesse will save you substantial damage, but if you don't get any Berserks, then having Berserker may be your only hope of making it to Chained Court without very lucky stairs, so my trait order would vary depending on if I found Berserk Packs or was on a floor like a Pinky cave where Berserker would be absolutely necessary. As for the Phobos 3 to 5 range, you can only stair dive; with Hell Knights around, clearing floors out (barring Lost Soul caves or maybe Pinky caves if you got Berserker) from a safe camping spot is not viable whatsoever, killing a single Hell Knight at this point in melee without prior berserk will drain over 40 or even over 50% of your health, and the Hell Knights do not give enough EXP for you to levelup anywhere fast enough to stave off this damage. Pinkies are also much more numerous in this range, and while you can get through a horde of them without too much pain if you got Berserker, roshamboing them all down one-at-a-time from a camping spot will see them individually drain your health nearly as fast as the Hell Knights do. Maybe if you got a miraculous early Ballistic Vest or Duelist Armor, clearing these floors could be viable, but I never found either in all these attempts, so do not bank on that. The vast majority of Berserker Angelic runs die in this floor range, with absolutely nothing you can do about it; no amount of perfect decision making can make up for the math not mathing for you with meleeing over a hundred enemies, several of which will be Hell Knights that are nearly as strong as you are, while you got only 60-120 HP to work with between levelups.
After another 8 non-Q+Y'd attempts since that prior crushing failure, I would get a promising run with a Berserk Pack near the stairs on a clearable Phobos 2, and then I would find a second Berserk shortly after. I get to Phobos 5, but I'm near death and I spawn in a room with a Pinky group plus several Imps. By maneuvering myself in a way behind nearby crates to prevent more than one Pinky reaching me at a time and avoid the Imps firing on me, I would get a perfectly timed levelup with only 2 HP remaining, and I would find the stairs to Chained Court quickly after. With this Supercharge right before it, I'm able to easily make it to the exit room to safely camp all the remaining Formers and then exit with ample health. As if the run couldn't get better, Phobos 6 would have quickly found stairs, and then Phobos 7 would not only have the red stairs be in the starting spawn's vision, but I also rolled Miltiary Base! However since I had ample health and berserk still, I decide to explore the floor some before immediately diving to Military Base, and while the nearby Cacodemon vault didn't have anything useful aside from getting me enough EXP to hit level 5, exploring the floor pays off with me finding Technical Mods when extra attack speed on my Chainsaw will be crucial to mitigating damage and triggering Berserker faster, as well as a pair of Steel Boots to get crucially needed faster movement speed once I get A mods. After my berserk runs out and with no Invuln found, I make my way back to Military Base, where I finally get a Marine to level 6 for Vampyre. It's a very good thing I found those boots and Tech Mod on the prior floor too, because the crates would not drop any boots and I would get A + B mods in Military Base, while a faster attacking Chainsaw and faster movespeed will be crucial for Anomaly. To my horror though, I would find the Large Health Globes that normally give you some berserk in AoB no longer do so when AoMs is mixed in; my strategy for Anomaly banked on the berserk from the Large Health Globes in the starting room allowing me to be already berserked as I trigger the ambush, as with no HR, there's no chance in hell you can escape the ambush without berserk. It would be awful to finally get a run to Vampyre only to find out that I do need the floor 7 Invuln or Phase Device to get a Marine past Anomaly in this run, but I have to at least try, so the plan is altered; I Bulk up the Red Armor, get a little closer to the wall before triggering the ambush so I don't get the other side's Nightmare Demons immediately in biting range, and then hope with a T-modded Chainsaw + Fin2 that I can trigger Berserker fast enough before I take too much damage, while then hoping Vampyre and my buffed up attack speed can stave off enough damage to survive standing my ground. I do take a huge beating, but thanks to my buffed up attack speed and the Bulk mod keeping my Red Armor from getting damaged midfight, the audible works and I kill most of the Nightmare enemies in a brawl, while I get a good amount of health back when I reach safety with only a few enemies left. Unfortunately my berserk runs out before reaching the Bruisers, and luring the Bruisers back behind the middle doorway or starting room isn't an option when the Nightmare enemies will start reviving, while the Bruisers could inflict fatal damage if they can double team me before Berserker kicks in. I use the radsuit from Military Base to try mitigating acid balls from the back Bruiser as I melee down the front Bruiser, and again thanks to my buffed attack speed + Bulked Red Armor, I'm able to trigger Berserker before taking too much damage and levelup right as I kill the first Bruiser to get all my health back, while the second Bruiser quickly falls after and at last I get a Berserker Angelic run past Phobos. I'm not sure this works out without the T-modded Chainsaw, hitting level 7 in Military Base for Fin2, or the B-modded Red Armor, it would have been an even bigger nail biter for sure without any one of them.
Making it to Deimos with Vampyre gets me over 98% of the hump here, but I'm not comfortable yet until I get myself adequate indestructible or regenerating armor, Vampyre does chew through armors at a crazy rate and I need solid permanent defenses to keep up being able to comfortably outheal all damage I take, so I'm going through Hell's Armory. Deimos 1 is a manageable small rooms level though, so I do clear it, and I find the single most valuable item for this run, a Homing Phase! The biggest threat to this run at this point are Arachnotron Caves when Arachnotron swarms can very easily outdamage Vampyre's healing, so Homing Phases are vital Arachnotron insurance here to ensure I don't need to go through the Phobos jail again (I also got teased with an Assault Shotgun that I cannot use). In Hell's Armory, I do have a little scary moment when I get knocked below 50% health when securing the starting northern building, but I do get the camping spot secured and can get my health all the way back from respawns, while I clear the rest of it with little issue. Unfortunately I get a useless Sniper mod from the Lab cache instead of an Onyx or Nano mod that I really wanted, but I do get a Power mod so I can Nanofiber my Red Armor at least, and I use my level 8 + 9 traits on Whizkid beforehand so I'll be able to later mod it and the Tactical Boots I just made, as well as buff up my Chainsaw farther. Deimos 2 is immediately rewarding with a second Homing Phase and a Power mod for my Nanofiber Red Armor. After I make sure to kill the enemies in the immediate vicinity before getting the P mod so they don't blow it up, I immediately P-mod my Nanofiber Red Armor, and with that armor, I can now comfortably clear levels as long as I have a solid camping spot, but I will leave floors early if there's any risk to it, such as a Deimos 4 maze (which made me miss City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains when I forgot I was on Deimos 4, getting a Blood Skull is very valuable as they can still heal you in AoMs).
On Deimos 5 I would get another great find with Phaseshift Boots, I already have A-modded Tactical Boots and the Phaseshift's boosted knockback is a detriment in AoB, but I hold onto them in case I do need to run through fluids and in case I find the Phaseshift Armor (I also got two A mods on the same floor, so I immediately A-mod them and keep the second A mod in case I find a Nano mod to Antigrav them). On Deimos 5 I also find a nuke and my first Invuln, the nuke will be insurance to ensure I win against the Mastermind in case I make it to Dis at too little health to kill her (especially if I have to enter Dis without berserk), and Invulns are obviously very useful, though I'll remark not finding one until Deimos 5 goes to show how fragile the stairdiving Scout strat will be even if it gets out of Phobos, I'm sure the Scout does not win in this run if I played him instead. With the Invuln obscuring my vision and not paying attention, in Deimos 6 I accidentally enter Halls Of Carnage, so I have to burn one of my Homing Phases to be absolutely sure the lava flood doesn't overtake me when I have no HR and can't rocket jump. I do take advantage of the Invuln to get to the first mod to see if it's a Power mod for my Chainsaw (I do want a Ripper), and then after phasing I check the second mod, unfortunately neither was a Power mod and so I wasted that Homing Phase for nothing but some extra EXP. Fortunately Deimos 7 immediately gives me another Homing Phase to make up for that wasted one (I also build Grappling Boots, an assembly I can't ever remember making with serious intent to use, since I had so many Tech Mods I could do nothing with, on the off chance I do really need the extra knockback resistance at some point). Then came the Cyberdemon fight, which is normally a pushover for any build with Berserker, but I do have to be a little careful, as due to the Marine's 10 extra max HP making Berserker require you to take 20+ damage in a single hit to trigger it, the Cyberdemon's melee attack will not trigger Berserker (it maxes out at 18 damage), and intentionally face-tanking rockets to trigger Berserker is unreliable when there's a 34.4% chance his rockets will roll below 20 damage. Normally those odds are still very good to just charge in and you can just heal up if he keeps low rolling rockets, but when I can't heal until I kill him, I cannot risk taking several low roll rockets that can deal up to 13 damage through my P Nanofiber Red and make me end up at too low of health to beat him down in melee, so I do play a bit cautiously by waiting behind a pillar for him to get closer, and only charging in once the pillar is nearly destroyed. I do eat a rocket that indeed doesn't trigger Berserker, but I can get in and trigger Berserker fast enough from hitting him to get through him without it getting scary.
After getting past Babel, I'm now in Hell, and while a barrel level could be annoying, I immediately find a perfect camping spot to effortlessly clear the floor (I also finally find a second Red Armor just in case I need stronger or faster armor than this Nanofiber Red Armor), and then going through Unholy Cathedral for the Longinus Spear is a given when I'll get all my health back from killing the Angel Of Death. In Hell 2 I would find yet another Homing Phase, forget Arachnotron insurance I can now basically skip the second half of Hell (I also find a second pair of Phaseshift Boots because the game likes to be funny). Hell 3 is then an annoying looking maze with a big acid river, so with the stairs immediately in sight, I just get out of there, I have basically nothing to gain and everything to lose trying to clear out floors at this point. Then Hell 4 not only has a Power Mod I've been wanting for my Chainsaw, but it also has an Invuln. With three floors left after this, I decide it's time to just use up my Homing Phases to finish this; while they won't cover all four floors I have to get through, I figure chances are good at least one of them has quick stairs to make a Homing Phase not needed for a quick exit. I use up my first Homing Phase to immediately get out of Hell 4 after grabbing the Invuln, that's two left. Hell 5 is then a maze with no stairs in a sight, so that's the second Homing Phase (and the stairs were on the complete opposite end of the floor too). Hell 6 also has no stairs in sight, so I grab the Radsuit just in case I need it for Hell 7 and burn my last Homing Phase (and the stairs would again be on the other side of the map, so using the Homing Phase was worth it). Hell 7 would then be... an easy Pinky + Nightmare Demon cave that will be quick to get through, the run is basically won! And it has a Power Mod I need to finally build the Ripper, not that it's needed though, as the Invuln lasts enough to squash the Spider Mastermind.
So there it is after 60 attempts, plus many more I Q+Y'd out of Phobos Base Entry or on a fucked floor 2. With Berserker Angelic won, Tormuse's near decade-long record of 9 Angelics in 0.9.9.7 (or in any version) has been broken, as this records my 10th Angelic win (this also marks the first time that anyone has verifiably achieved double digit Angelics). Attempting this badge was not a pleasant experience though, oh hell no; out of every badge I won, this is without a doubt the absolute worst badge to play for, and of the few remaining winnable ones I have left aside from the pure-grinding Armorer Diamond, I don't think any will top this. This badge is just an atrocious slot machine where skillful play matters little rather than just spinning the slots until the RNG decides you can win, and the actual gameplay is just spamming stair dives as Scout until you get good enough Berserk + Invuln luck to actually win with little healing, or spamming stair dives as Marine until you get enough Berserk + level generation luck to reach level 6 for Vampyre before dying. I preferred even Strongman Angelic to this; despite it being able to be ruined at any moment by a random enemy dying while you have a weapon equipped and enforcing the most tedious of DRL gameplay on top of needing hefty early game luck too, at least that badge required some actual strategy and skilled play could compensate for some unideal luck. While Everyman Angelic and Arena Diamond are also going to be awful slot machines, at least the former will require skilled gameplay, and latter will have attempts go faster. No disrespect to Gooselord intended here, but it's a testament to this badge's low skill ceiling + absurd luck requirement that the only player besides Tormuse who verifiably won the badge was someone with only two other Diamonds recorded in any versions (both of which were won through simple melee stair dives) while racking up a winrate that makes Sereg's winrate look normal, as well as not even having 15 Silvers (as evidenced by his 1st Lieutenant rank upon winning Berserker Angelic); any halfway-competent player could realistically win this badge as long as they're willing to grind hundreds of runs. As for 0.10-onward, throwing knives actually working would help as you now have a means to reliably deal damage in AoB without putting yourself in harm's way, and proper infighting being added will farther help mitigate damage with groups, but Berserk being nerfed to +50% resistances, time-based powerups meaning early powerups when you're slower won't last as long, enemies hitting harder in melee, Enraged Timer meaning you can no longer extensively camp a floor from a single safe spot, and Vampyre getting significantly nerfed meaning it's no longer a win condition on its own, this badge is still going to be an atrocious luck-based affair to actually win, maybe even moreso than it is in 0.9.9.7. After this experience, I'm going to be putting in a proposal to change Berserker Angelic, it may be winnable but Angelics should have a significant skill component to them and should be more engaging than mind-numbingly spamming stair dives until you get lucky enough to win.
Well if you read through this rant, here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
health...pls60,
level 14 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Marine,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 1634189 turns and scored 550208 points.
He played for 1 hour, 50 minutes and 36 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 960 out of 1315 hellspawn. (73%)
He was an Angel of Berserk!
He was also an Angel of Masochism!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 5
Levels completed : 3
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Mastermind's Brain
UAC Star (bronze cluster)
Hell Armorer Badge
Berserker Angelic Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
####################................................#######
###################...............####...............######
##################.......####.....####.....####.......#####
#################........####.....####.....####........####
################.........####.....####.....####.........###
###############..........####..............####..........##
##############............................................#
##############....####............................####....#
##############....####............................####....#
##############....####............................####&...#
##############....####............................####....#
##############............................................#
###############..........####..............####..........##
################.........####%X...####.....####.........###
#################........####.....####.....####........####
##################.......####.....####.....####.......#####
###################...............####...............######
####################................................#######
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 120/60 Experience 83938/14
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +6 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +9
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Marine
Finesse (Level 3)
Tough as nails (Level 2)
Brute (Level 3)
Berserker (Level 1)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Badass (Level 2)
Vampyre (Level 1)
Bru->Bru->Bad->Fin->Ber->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bad->Bru->Fin->TaN->TaN->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] nanofiber red armor [4] (P)
[b] [ Weapon ] ripper (6d6)
[c] [ Boots ] phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%) (A)
[d] [ Prepared ] Longinus Spear (8d8)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
[b] red armor [4/4] (100%) (A)
[c] combat knife (2d5)
[d] combat knife (2d5)
[e] combat knife (2d5)
[f] combat knife (2d5)
[g] combat knife (2d5)
[h] combat knife (2d5)
[i] small med-pack
[j] small med-pack
[k] phase device
[l] thermonuclear bomb
[m] technical mod pack
[n] technical mod pack
[o] agility mod pack
[p] bulk mod pack
[q] bulk mod pack
[r] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
[s] grappling protective boots [3/3] (100%)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Bullet - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Melee - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Shrapnel - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
Acid - internal 85% torso 85% feet 85%
Fire - internal 85% torso 95% feet 85%
Plasma - internal 60% torso 60% feet 60%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
90 former humans
57 former sergeants
50 former captains
190 imps
119 demons
118 lost souls
118 cacodemons
16 hell knights
50 barons of hell
7 arachnotrons
16 former commandos
10 pain elementals
14 revenants
40 mancubi
8 arch-viles
4 nightmare imps
5 nightmare cacodemons
23 nightmare demons
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
2 bruiser brothers
1 shambler
1 Angel of Death
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
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 assembled a nanofiber armor!
On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
On level 15 he assembled a grappling boots!
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!
He left level 19 as soon as possible.
He left level 21 as soon as possible.
He left level 22 as soon as possible.
On level 23 he assembled a ripper!
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
berserk! You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
berserk! You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
403 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
194 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 8 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
103 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
59 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
8
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|74%|YAVP] - Winning the uncheesable Demonic Diamond
« on: January 15, 2026, 02:44 »
After the extreme damage tanking that Strongman Angelic required, it was time to go in the extreme opposite direction of taking very little damage with Demonic Diamond. This badge sits as perhaps the most imposing Diamond aside from Arena Diamond; completing standard N! with under 500 damage for the Untouchable Pin would already be an impressive achievement, winning with under 200 for the Untouchable Medal is going to make the vast majority of players nope out of even trying it. Additionally, while most of the Diamonds can be cheesed or made at least somewhat easier, Demonic Diamond uniquely sits as an uncheesable Diamond, as you can't mix it with any Angels to make it easier, and there is really nothing you can exploit in the game to win it aside from heavily utilizing general damage avoidance tactics and making the most of Invulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, Demonic Diamond was tied for the second least won Diamond/Angelic badge with only two players recorded winning it; papilio and Icy, i.e. the player who once held the record for most Diamonds in 0.9.9.7, and the player who broke his record and became the first to verifiably win every Diamond in any version. Two more players were also listed winning it in 0.9.9.6, 2DeviationsOut and Firstblood, and well, anyone reading this likely already knows the story behind 2Dev, while Firstblood's Demonic Diamond mortem is one of the most outlandish things I ever seen on this forum and makes most of 2Dev's mortems look believable in comparison (doing Demonic Diamond as a Conqueror, while playing a melee build that doesn't even get Intuition until late in the game, while hitting a ton of levers for Gambler's Shield without said Intuition, while getting Hell Arena Pwnage with no AoMC and no Juggler/Finesse/Intuition, while getting the luck needed for Shambler's Head without good ranged DPS, while also getting the luck needed for Gatekeeper Diamond on N!, while being melee-locked through nearly all of Hell from the guaranteed Dragonslayer and getting through N! Mortuary melee-locked without taking a ton of damage, while by his own admission not knowing how to properly corpse dispose with a melee weapon yet still managing to clear every special level of every respawn, while also also getting the luck for Scavenger Diamond with no Whisper Of Death cheese and being melee-locked so he had to get lucky with several Phase Devices to get in all three vaults, while it was only the second recorded run on his file that he treated like a casual N! run and is the last thing he ever posted? Come the fuck onnnnnnn). So yeah, only two players have verifiably won this badge legit (well Tormuse also won it in 0.9.9.4, but it had a completely different requirement prior to 0.9.9.5 of beating standard N! with only fist kills, so it isn't meaningful for comparison here).
So what to do for the build. Both papilio and Icy went masterless Scouts that opened with Int2 and then Dodgemaster, while papilio got general offense after Dodgemaster and Icy got TaN2 before getting Fin and SoB, and both had the same overarching strategy of playing through the game fast, not sticking around to clear levels and basically ignoring all the special levels besides Chained Court. I of course though don't like the masterless Scout stairdive, as I find it's too reliant on Invuln/Berserk and stair luck, and is lacking in the power to handle bad hot starts or other bad levels like mazes with stairs on the opposite side of the map; even if such a build could survive, it's sure to take a lot of damage doing so and under 200 damage doesn't give much room for error. Cateye is an option as the damage avoidance mastery, but without being backed by AoMC, Cateye similarly has a lack of power to cleanly get through hot starts or being suffocated by enemies with subpar cover. So I want good damage avoidance, and less reliance on powerups or good level generation luck? What do you know, it's gonna be another Shottyhead run for me! Compared to my typical Shottyhead builds, I do go for Int2 after by usual Fin -> Jug opener, as while the attrition damage from general exploration is something I usually can easily shrug off, I will quickly run out that 199 damage allowance by repeatedly walking into an enemy's vision and so Int2 is pretty necessary here, especially if I don't want to run->wait over a hundred thousand turns on every single floor. I also considered Berserker as damage assurance against the VMR and Cyberdemon, but ended up foregoing it as I won't get the levels to easily fit it in without sacrificing other important traits and I plan to not stick around in later levels where the VMR will be more prominent. With the overarching strategy compared to papilio and Icy, I also do plan to clear out earlier floors when I'm able to reasonably do so with little damage since the extra levels will make me less dependent on powerup luck later, but once I get Shottyhead, I'll be looking to just go for the Invuln stairdive the rest of the way when I see the opportunity to do so.
As always, you got Phobos Base Entry at the start, and it's annoying as avoiding damage here is entirely luck-based, but if you just spam my "run straight for the base and hope the Shotgunners don't immediately come out" strat, you should get a damageless Phobos Base Entry without wasting too much time, but you can settle for getting hit by a single Pistol bullet or some Former punches if resetting for the damageless Base Entry would be excessively annoying. One good thing is you don't need to worry about getting the medkits here, as a successful Demonic Diamond run won't need much healing, but they would be nice to have still, if just as a means to restore running. If you get a bad floor 2 generated that makes you take a lot of unavoidable damage early, you might just want to reset, though after my first damageless Phobos Base Entry, I got one of the best floor 2s I could ask for with a very safe camping spot and a vault with a Combat Shotgun, a Tech Mod to put on it, and a Red Armor (while you want to avoid giving enemies the chance to hit you at all, having very good armor is important because you won't play perfectly or will just get put in situations where damage is unavoidable and so minimizing how punishing any hits you take is important). It took a lot of camping, but I'm able to get through the first two floors damageless (and 100% kills too, so I actually briefly had Demonic Angelic online, but you can see from the turn counter there just how ridiculous it was to do that over just the first two floors...).
I then head into Hell's Arena and do actually intend to clear it unlike papilio and Icy in their runs. Giving up the easy Chained Court sucks (and I would indeed skip Unchained Court later on), but that guaranteed Rocket Launcher is just more important for two key reasons; one, you need rocket jumping to stretch Invulns far longer than they would last otherwise, and two, if I don't get a floor 7 Invuln nor can get lucky with a Phase Device, rocket jumping is needed to ensure I don't take a big amount of damage in Phobos Anomaly. Having access to a corpse disposing weapon early is also gonna be important, because you're not gonna be able to cleanly kill every enemy in a doorway or on fluids and a dangerous enemy respawning at a bad time can potentially result in you taking a lot of damage (and if you don't get this Rocket Launcher, you likely won't get one until early Deimos, and possibly won't get one until even later if the RNG isn't cooperative). The Blue Armor before Hell Knights start showing up will also be nice, less important when I already got a Red Armor but still, it's actually slightly better at reducing damage from Hell Knights and Cacodemons than the Red Armor. Clearing Hell's Arena is also why I open with Juggler instead of Intuition, since Juggler is the single best early game trait for clearing Hell's Arena and could save a reset if I get a bad starting wave spawns (not to mention its value in aiding precise corpse stacking when I can't eat projectiles on corpses to destroy them), while floor 2 is easy enough to avoid damage in without Int2 and I should hit level 4 by the end of Hell's Arena to have Int2 before floor 3. As for how Hell's Arena goes, I do immediately lose my damageless bid and would get hit by another Cacodemon shortly after, but the rest of the Arena went without a hitch thanks to having Juggler (the early EXP boost from that that floor 2 Cacodemon vault was also nice for letting me hit level 4 to get Int2 midway into the Arena instead of at the end). After an easy floor 3, my early strategy gets quickly justified with this floor 4 maze with the stairs on the complete opposite end of my starting point. Running through this level would not have been viable, I would have surely been screwed by respawning Hell Knights if I couldn't blow up their corpses with the Rocket Launcher, and even with my early offensive advantage, there were too many enemies to safely push through the maze and so I had to pull back. Fortunately I was able to set up a workable camping spot near an acid pool for corpse disposal, and while some enemies could pop up from the south, the Imps that largely did so I could safely shoot at a distance, so it took a while but I get through that floor with little damage. The next two Phobos floors would have me fight a disgusting amount of Hell Knights but I get through killing nearly everything in them (while also skipping Unchained Court, since I would likely take a large amount of damage in it), however Phobos 7 would be a very nice breather, not only being an easy safe floor but it also had the most important thing to find before the end of Phobos, an Invulnerability Globe. After clearing the floor I skip the Phobos 7 special level (which was Phobos Lab that was going to be an automatic skip anyway, would have done Military Base though if it spawned and I didn't get an Invuln), and then take the Invulnerability into Phobos Anomaly, allowing me to get through damageless. I finish Phobos with only 24 damage taken, considering avoiding damage is hardest in Phobos and a good Demonic Diamond attempt would finish it around 100, this is an incredible pace, but I can't get too complacent, it only takes a couple bad floors to lose Demonic Diamond.
Thanks to rocket jumping, I'm able to take the Invuln into Hell's Armory, allowing me to safely clean the starting area and set up camp to clear it out without taking damage. My plan was always to stop by Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab since the pre-Shambler portion of them could be safely cleared out with minimal damage and getting one of the Exotic shotguns or the Jackhammer from the weapon cache would be a huge help, while the two free mods and Shell Box are also nice, and then I could just leave without fighting the Shamblers. With me having a shot at the Shambler's Head for the guaranteed Nano Mod and being so far ahead of the damage pace, I do take the risk in releasing the Shambler. Unfortunately I don't get good teleportation luck and I don't have Shottyhead yet, so I do get hit a couple times, while the lab cache reward is an Onyx Mod, normally great but it's actually probably the least useful of the four rare mods here, since if I'm taking enough damage for infinite durability to matter in this sort of run, it's probably over anyway (I decide to hold onto it to make Lava Boots later since it could maybe save me more damage than indestructible Red Armor or a pre-buff Tower Shield would). The weapon cache also wasn't useful; it had a Blaster and GCB, amazing if this was a Pistol run but basically useless for Shottyhead... Coming into Armory was still worth it though for the mods (making a Tactical Shotgun and Boots) and the Shell Box. Deimos 2 would follow this up with an awkward starting room, and I would end up in a rather perilous position where I got pincered by a Baron and Commando while I didn't have Shottyhead online yet to fight them both. With running and getting closer to the Commando, it doesn't go as badly as it could have, but I do take a Plasma Rifle burst and lose my shot an Untouchable Cross (one of three medals I'm still missing, but I'm going to need to get it anyway when I go for pure Destroyer Diamond soon, so that doesn't matter as long as I stay under 200). Deimos 3 would give me this annoying warehouse level, where I had to keep luring enemies into this one door, and while I could have probably done The Wall damageless, I don't need the Backpack or Missile Launcher and so it would be a pointless risk. I also find a Bulk Mod to Fireproof one of my Red Armors, as since I won't be getting Berserker, getting hit by the VMR or Cyberdemon will do a lot of damage even in P-modded Red Armor. Speaking of the Cyberdemon, after getting Shottyhead, my plan was to get HR2 and Dodgemaster to ensure I could get through him damageless (as long as I didn't get bad luck with his starting spawn position), however Deimos 5 would have an Invuln on it, where I then pivot and do Invuln'd rocket jumping to skip through the last two Deimos floors to take that Invuln to the Cyberdemon, allowing me to skip getting Dodgemaster for more Finesse and Whizkid to better help me lategame. The Invuln lasts through the Cyberdemon fight, and I end up finishing Deimos with only 59 damage sustained, giving me a generous 140 damage buffer for Hell to work with. (On a side note, that aforementioned Deimos 5 had a second Blaster spawn, a reminder Blasters have a measly spawning weight of 2 in this version, shame I don't get this luck with the special shotguns instead...)
At this point, since the Mastermind will be easy, I'm ready to do a stair dive through Hell to Dis when I get more Invulnerability. Hell does give me a rough intro however, with Hell 1 being a maze that has both set of stairs far from the starting point, while my Invuln from Deimos runs out shortly in. Taking it very slowly and carefully though, I'm able to get through the maze taking no more than 2 points of damage, and then Hell 2 has the Invuln I need to finish this. After clearing out Hell 2, I take that Invuln, level up shortly into Hell 3 to get Whizkid and build myself a Tactical Rocket Launcher, at which point it's a wrap. I rocket jump invulnerable through the rest of Hell, while taking the opportunity to detour through Limbo after getting another Invuln on Hell 4 to get the Assault Shotgun and mod it up just in case the Invulns run out before Dis, but thanks to the Tactical Rocket Launcher letting me rocket jump several times between reloads, I'm able to Invuln skip the rest of Hell. The Invuln does run out shortly into Dis, but they last long enough to get me safely in the Mastermind's face, where I can hammer away with the Double Shotgun and effortlessly stunlock her to death with Shottyhead. I take just 2 points of damage through Hell, so I end up finishing the game with a mere 61 damage sustained.
And there it is, the Demonic Diamond is secured. Despite how scary this bad looks, after a few resets on Phobos Base Entry, my first run that got past Base Entry damageless ended up going all the way. Despite that first try, I wouldn't say this badge doesn't deserve its reputation, I did have to play extremely slowly and carefully before I got the Invulns to skip most of the second half, and that floor 2 vault with Red Armor + a T-modded Combat Shotgun really helped me mitigate damage in Phobos, but it's probably not the hardest Diamond. Aside from the even more infamous Arena Diamond, I think Inquisitor Diamond may have actually been harder, and I'm not looking forward to pure Destroyer Diamond, though you also have to consider that unlike those harder Diamonds, there's nothing you can do to try cheesing Demonic Diamond with its standard game restriction, other than spam quick runs until you get extremely good Invulnerability luck. An interesting thing to me about this run is that if you subtract the 14 damage I took from the Shambler that I could have not released (the Onyx mod I got from killing him did basically nothing anyway, as I made very little use of the Lava Boots I made from it), I actually would have finished with under 50 damage... which means theoretically this run would have won under Masochist Angelic's constraints even without getting any Ironman or Blood Skulls or Medical Armors to expand your health pool there. That gets me thinking, perhaps when I do eventually try to win the first 0.9.9.7 Masochist Angelic, rather than going Vampyre as I was planning, perhaps I should do this Shottyhead build again... We'll cross that bridge when I get there. Also getting this badge and many other Diamonds + Angelics with Shottyhead, perhaps that could convince people that I'm right about it being a top tier mastery? :p Anyway with Demonic Diamond, I'm at 22 Diamonds now and without cheesing any of them through Dual Angels, though Destroyer Diamond and especially Arena Diamond may test my resolve to not resort to Dual Angel abuse...
Now here is the mortem:
So what to do for the build. Both papilio and Icy went masterless Scouts that opened with Int2 and then Dodgemaster, while papilio got general offense after Dodgemaster and Icy got TaN2 before getting Fin and SoB, and both had the same overarching strategy of playing through the game fast, not sticking around to clear levels and basically ignoring all the special levels besides Chained Court. I of course though don't like the masterless Scout stairdive, as I find it's too reliant on Invuln/Berserk and stair luck, and is lacking in the power to handle bad hot starts or other bad levels like mazes with stairs on the opposite side of the map; even if such a build could survive, it's sure to take a lot of damage doing so and under 200 damage doesn't give much room for error. Cateye is an option as the damage avoidance mastery, but without being backed by AoMC, Cateye similarly has a lack of power to cleanly get through hot starts or being suffocated by enemies with subpar cover. So I want good damage avoidance, and less reliance on powerups or good level generation luck? What do you know, it's gonna be another Shottyhead run for me! Compared to my typical Shottyhead builds, I do go for Int2 after by usual Fin -> Jug opener, as while the attrition damage from general exploration is something I usually can easily shrug off, I will quickly run out that 199 damage allowance by repeatedly walking into an enemy's vision and so Int2 is pretty necessary here, especially if I don't want to run->wait over a hundred thousand turns on every single floor. I also considered Berserker as damage assurance against the VMR and Cyberdemon, but ended up foregoing it as I won't get the levels to easily fit it in without sacrificing other important traits and I plan to not stick around in later levels where the VMR will be more prominent. With the overarching strategy compared to papilio and Icy, I also do plan to clear out earlier floors when I'm able to reasonably do so with little damage since the extra levels will make me less dependent on powerup luck later, but once I get Shottyhead, I'll be looking to just go for the Invuln stairdive the rest of the way when I see the opportunity to do so.
As always, you got Phobos Base Entry at the start, and it's annoying as avoiding damage here is entirely luck-based, but if you just spam my "run straight for the base and hope the Shotgunners don't immediately come out" strat, you should get a damageless Phobos Base Entry without wasting too much time, but you can settle for getting hit by a single Pistol bullet or some Former punches if resetting for the damageless Base Entry would be excessively annoying. One good thing is you don't need to worry about getting the medkits here, as a successful Demonic Diamond run won't need much healing, but they would be nice to have still, if just as a means to restore running. If you get a bad floor 2 generated that makes you take a lot of unavoidable damage early, you might just want to reset, though after my first damageless Phobos Base Entry, I got one of the best floor 2s I could ask for with a very safe camping spot and a vault with a Combat Shotgun, a Tech Mod to put on it, and a Red Armor (while you want to avoid giving enemies the chance to hit you at all, having very good armor is important because you won't play perfectly or will just get put in situations where damage is unavoidable and so minimizing how punishing any hits you take is important). It took a lot of camping, but I'm able to get through the first two floors damageless (and 100% kills too, so I actually briefly had Demonic Angelic online, but you can see from the turn counter there just how ridiculous it was to do that over just the first two floors...).
I then head into Hell's Arena and do actually intend to clear it unlike papilio and Icy in their runs. Giving up the easy Chained Court sucks (and I would indeed skip Unchained Court later on), but that guaranteed Rocket Launcher is just more important for two key reasons; one, you need rocket jumping to stretch Invulns far longer than they would last otherwise, and two, if I don't get a floor 7 Invuln nor can get lucky with a Phase Device, rocket jumping is needed to ensure I don't take a big amount of damage in Phobos Anomaly. Having access to a corpse disposing weapon early is also gonna be important, because you're not gonna be able to cleanly kill every enemy in a doorway or on fluids and a dangerous enemy respawning at a bad time can potentially result in you taking a lot of damage (and if you don't get this Rocket Launcher, you likely won't get one until early Deimos, and possibly won't get one until even later if the RNG isn't cooperative). The Blue Armor before Hell Knights start showing up will also be nice, less important when I already got a Red Armor but still, it's actually slightly better at reducing damage from Hell Knights and Cacodemons than the Red Armor. Clearing Hell's Arena is also why I open with Juggler instead of Intuition, since Juggler is the single best early game trait for clearing Hell's Arena and could save a reset if I get a bad starting wave spawns (not to mention its value in aiding precise corpse stacking when I can't eat projectiles on corpses to destroy them), while floor 2 is easy enough to avoid damage in without Int2 and I should hit level 4 by the end of Hell's Arena to have Int2 before floor 3. As for how Hell's Arena goes, I do immediately lose my damageless bid and would get hit by another Cacodemon shortly after, but the rest of the Arena went without a hitch thanks to having Juggler (the early EXP boost from that that floor 2 Cacodemon vault was also nice for letting me hit level 4 to get Int2 midway into the Arena instead of at the end). After an easy floor 3, my early strategy gets quickly justified with this floor 4 maze with the stairs on the complete opposite end of my starting point. Running through this level would not have been viable, I would have surely been screwed by respawning Hell Knights if I couldn't blow up their corpses with the Rocket Launcher, and even with my early offensive advantage, there were too many enemies to safely push through the maze and so I had to pull back. Fortunately I was able to set up a workable camping spot near an acid pool for corpse disposal, and while some enemies could pop up from the south, the Imps that largely did so I could safely shoot at a distance, so it took a while but I get through that floor with little damage. The next two Phobos floors would have me fight a disgusting amount of Hell Knights but I get through killing nearly everything in them (while also skipping Unchained Court, since I would likely take a large amount of damage in it), however Phobos 7 would be a very nice breather, not only being an easy safe floor but it also had the most important thing to find before the end of Phobos, an Invulnerability Globe. After clearing the floor I skip the Phobos 7 special level (which was Phobos Lab that was going to be an automatic skip anyway, would have done Military Base though if it spawned and I didn't get an Invuln), and then take the Invulnerability into Phobos Anomaly, allowing me to get through damageless. I finish Phobos with only 24 damage taken, considering avoiding damage is hardest in Phobos and a good Demonic Diamond attempt would finish it around 100, this is an incredible pace, but I can't get too complacent, it only takes a couple bad floors to lose Demonic Diamond.
Thanks to rocket jumping, I'm able to take the Invuln into Hell's Armory, allowing me to safely clean the starting area and set up camp to clear it out without taking damage. My plan was always to stop by Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab since the pre-Shambler portion of them could be safely cleared out with minimal damage and getting one of the Exotic shotguns or the Jackhammer from the weapon cache would be a huge help, while the two free mods and Shell Box are also nice, and then I could just leave without fighting the Shamblers. With me having a shot at the Shambler's Head for the guaranteed Nano Mod and being so far ahead of the damage pace, I do take the risk in releasing the Shambler. Unfortunately I don't get good teleportation luck and I don't have Shottyhead yet, so I do get hit a couple times, while the lab cache reward is an Onyx Mod, normally great but it's actually probably the least useful of the four rare mods here, since if I'm taking enough damage for infinite durability to matter in this sort of run, it's probably over anyway (I decide to hold onto it to make Lava Boots later since it could maybe save me more damage than indestructible Red Armor or a pre-buff Tower Shield would). The weapon cache also wasn't useful; it had a Blaster and GCB, amazing if this was a Pistol run but basically useless for Shottyhead... Coming into Armory was still worth it though for the mods (making a Tactical Shotgun and Boots) and the Shell Box. Deimos 2 would follow this up with an awkward starting room, and I would end up in a rather perilous position where I got pincered by a Baron and Commando while I didn't have Shottyhead online yet to fight them both. With running and getting closer to the Commando, it doesn't go as badly as it could have, but I do take a Plasma Rifle burst and lose my shot an Untouchable Cross (one of three medals I'm still missing, but I'm going to need to get it anyway when I go for pure Destroyer Diamond soon, so that doesn't matter as long as I stay under 200). Deimos 3 would give me this annoying warehouse level, where I had to keep luring enemies into this one door, and while I could have probably done The Wall damageless, I don't need the Backpack or Missile Launcher and so it would be a pointless risk. I also find a Bulk Mod to Fireproof one of my Red Armors, as since I won't be getting Berserker, getting hit by the VMR or Cyberdemon will do a lot of damage even in P-modded Red Armor. Speaking of the Cyberdemon, after getting Shottyhead, my plan was to get HR2 and Dodgemaster to ensure I could get through him damageless (as long as I didn't get bad luck with his starting spawn position), however Deimos 5 would have an Invuln on it, where I then pivot and do Invuln'd rocket jumping to skip through the last two Deimos floors to take that Invuln to the Cyberdemon, allowing me to skip getting Dodgemaster for more Finesse and Whizkid to better help me lategame. The Invuln lasts through the Cyberdemon fight, and I end up finishing Deimos with only 59 damage sustained, giving me a generous 140 damage buffer for Hell to work with. (On a side note, that aforementioned Deimos 5 had a second Blaster spawn, a reminder Blasters have a measly spawning weight of 2 in this version, shame I don't get this luck with the special shotguns instead...)
At this point, since the Mastermind will be easy, I'm ready to do a stair dive through Hell to Dis when I get more Invulnerability. Hell does give me a rough intro however, with Hell 1 being a maze that has both set of stairs far from the starting point, while my Invuln from Deimos runs out shortly in. Taking it very slowly and carefully though, I'm able to get through the maze taking no more than 2 points of damage, and then Hell 2 has the Invuln I need to finish this. After clearing out Hell 2, I take that Invuln, level up shortly into Hell 3 to get Whizkid and build myself a Tactical Rocket Launcher, at which point it's a wrap. I rocket jump invulnerable through the rest of Hell, while taking the opportunity to detour through Limbo after getting another Invuln on Hell 4 to get the Assault Shotgun and mod it up just in case the Invulns run out before Dis, but thanks to the Tactical Rocket Launcher letting me rocket jump several times between reloads, I'm able to Invuln skip the rest of Hell. The Invuln does run out shortly into Dis, but they last long enough to get me safely in the Mastermind's face, where I can hammer away with the Double Shotgun and effortlessly stunlock her to death with Shottyhead. I take just 2 points of damage through Hell, so I end up finishing the game with a mere 61 damage sustained.
And there it is, the Demonic Diamond is secured. Despite how scary this bad looks, after a few resets on Phobos Base Entry, my first run that got past Base Entry damageless ended up going all the way. Despite that first try, I wouldn't say this badge doesn't deserve its reputation, I did have to play extremely slowly and carefully before I got the Invulns to skip most of the second half, and that floor 2 vault with Red Armor + a T-modded Combat Shotgun really helped me mitigate damage in Phobos, but it's probably not the hardest Diamond. Aside from the even more infamous Arena Diamond, I think Inquisitor Diamond may have actually been harder, and I'm not looking forward to pure Destroyer Diamond, though you also have to consider that unlike those harder Diamonds, there's nothing you can do to try cheesing Demonic Diamond with its standard game restriction, other than spam quick runs until you get extremely good Invulnerability luck. An interesting thing to me about this run is that if you subtract the 14 damage I took from the Shambler that I could have not released (the Onyx mod I got from killing him did basically nothing anyway, as I made very little use of the Lava Boots I made from it), I actually would have finished with under 50 damage... which means theoretically this run would have won under Masochist Angelic's constraints even without getting any Ironman or Blood Skulls or Medical Armors to expand your health pool there. That gets me thinking, perhaps when I do eventually try to win the first 0.9.9.7 Masochist Angelic, rather than going Vampyre as I was planning, perhaps I should do this Shottyhead build again... We'll cross that bridge when I get there. Also getting this badge and many other Diamonds + Angelics with Shottyhead, perhaps that could convince people that I'm right about it being a top tier mastery? :p Anyway with Demonic Diamond, I'm at 22 Diamonds now and without cheesing any of them through Dual Angels, though Destroyer Diamond and especially Arena Diamond may test my resolve to not resort to Dual Angel abuse...
Now here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
ONLY200?!, level 12 Cyberdemon Chaos Lt. General Scout,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 1227766 turns and scored 439960 points.
He played for 3 hours, 58 minutes and 56 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1078 out of 1455 hellspawn. (74%)
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 3
Levels completed : 2
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Cyberdemon's Head
Mastermind's Brain
UAC Star (gold cluster)
Untouchable Medal
Hell Armorer Badge
Hell Champion Medal
Demonic Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
####................................#####################>#
###...............####...............######################
##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
#........####.....####.....####........####################
.........####.....####.....####.........###################
.........####..............####..........##################
..........................................#################
..####........................X%..####....#################
.&####............................####....#################
..####............................###.....#################
..####............................####....#################
..........................................#################
.........####...............###..........##################
.........####.....####.....####.........###################
#........####.....####.....####........####################
##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
###...............####...............######################
####................................#####################>#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 83/50 Experience 62054/12
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +0 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +0
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Finesse (Level 2)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Reloader (Level 2)
Juggler (Level 1)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 1)
Shottyman (Level 1)
Shottyhead (Level 1)
Fin->Jug->Int->Int->HR->Rel->Rel->SM->MSh->HR->Fin->WK->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [6/6] (99%) (P)
[b] [ Weapon ] double shotgun (10d3)x2 [0/2] (P1T1)
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] shell box (x43)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
[b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [3/5]
[c] assault shotgun (9d3) [6/6] (P2T1)
[d] fireproof red armor [4/4] (100%)
[e] shotgun shell (x14)
[f] shotgun shell (x50)
[g] shotgun shell (x50)
[h] shotgun shell (x50)
[i] shotgun shell (x50)
[j] shotgun shell (x50)
[k] shotgun shell (x50)
[l] rocket (x10)
[m] rocket (x2)
[n] large med-pack
[o] large med-pack
[p] large med-pack
[q] lava plasteel boots [2]
[r] shell box (x100)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Fire - internal 0% torso 25% feet 0%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
139 former humans
194 former sergeants
40 former captains
241 imps
121 demons
156 lost souls
59 cacodemons
34 hell knights
19 barons of hell
7 arachnotrons
30 former commandos
17 pain elementals
6 revenants
7 mancubi
5 arch-viles
1 shambler
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
-- 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 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 boots!
On level 9 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he assembled a fireproof armor!
On level 13 he assembled a lava boots!
He left level 15 as soon as possible.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 19 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
He managed to escape from Limbo!
On level 21 he ran for his life from lava!
He left level 22 as soon as possible.
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You quickly reload the double shotgun.
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
You quickly reload the double shotgun.
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind flinched! The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
You quickly reload the double shotgun.
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
You quickly reload the double shotgun.
The Spider Mastermind flinched! The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
332 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
133 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 8 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
94 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
50 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
9
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|95%|YAFW] - Strongman Angelic and 2nd ever Chaos Lt. General rank
« on: January 12, 2026, 02:05 »
Next up in my 0.9.9.7 conquest, I decided it was time to get that 9th Angelic to tie Tormuse's record and become the second ever player to have verifiably gotten the Chaos Lt General rank. Among the dwindling options, I decided to go for Strongman Angelic, a badge with only one verifiable win in 0.9.9.7 by Tormuse (it was also won in 0.9.9.8 by micerang, though it was much easier in that version with the dodging bug, the overly buffed Marine, and that version's hideously broken Vampyre). This is a badge that certainly lives up to its Angelic billing and I'm not surprised only Tormuse got it in 0.9.9.7, even papilio apparently gave up on it after stating he was going for it. In Strongman runs, you don't actually need to only use your fists, you can use other weapons to weaken enemies, as long as all finishing blows are from punching enemies, but even with that reprieve doing this in Nightmare is still extremely difficult. The idea of "weaken enemy to near death with your Pistol/Shotgun, then punch them out in one hit when they get close" sounds nice in theory, but the sheer enemy density of N! means you often can't do this cleanly to enemies one at a time and having to fight several at once in the open like N! often forces will be a death sentence when you're slowly trying to punch out everything. You also need cover to do this, as with N!'s increased enemy aggression, any ranged-attacking enemy that sees you will keep firing on you, and if you weaken them from a distance, you'll still need to get in through their constant barrage to punch them, thus making you even more dependent on floors generating with good cover. Then you of course have N!'s trademark respawning on top, while being unable to kill with weapons that inflict knockback nor be able to use stronger melee weapons that can gib, and using rocket launchers or other large explosives to blow up corpses is very risky, when some Former or other weak enemy could inadvertently get caught in the explosion to end the run, thus making you also heavily dependent on floors generating with doors or fluids in spots with usable cover. Even if you get a perfect camping spot with a doorway or fluid tile, and so can perfectly funnel every enemy single file while being able to weaken each of them before they reach you, anything bigger than an Imp you often won't perfectly weaken to be killed in one punch and even Imps can get hits in annoyingly often, so attrition damage racks up fast in ideal scenarios.
The worst thing however hanging over your head is that if a single enemy dies to any weapon, you are immediately disqualified from earning this badge; an enemy wasn't quite in one-punch kill range but your Shotgun/Pistol shot rolled unexpectedly high and killed them, you tried shooting something with a Shotgun and some enemy behind them you didn't see gets killed by it, a Pistol misses and blows up a barrel behind the enemy you shot at that then kills them or another enemy, that's it run is over, Q+Y and try again. There's also the fucked indirect kill attribution of 0.9.9.7, where if an enemy dies by indirect means (e.g. from items, infighting, telefragging, or damaging fluids), the kill will be attributed to the weapon you had equipped at the time of their death. This means you must ardently limit the time you have a weapon equipped, so you can't run -> wait or move around a floor with a weapon equipped, else if an enemy attacks you and kills something else in the crossfire or Formers keep walking into a teleporter and telefrag each other or some Pinky on the other side of the map dies while running through acid, your run is over if you happened to have any weapon equipped when those things happen, and you might not even notice it if you don't pay good attention to the messages to notice the "You hear the scream of a freed soul" message. Being unable to have your weapon out at all times doesn't just make this run more annoying to play, it makes the attrition damage issue even worse, as without Juggler, the time it takes to swap to a weapon will allow an enemy to move back out of vision or to a tile where they get LoS on you, or it's a bigger enemy that moves closer and costs you a crucial additional shot you could have gotten on them before punching them. At least if you punch an enemy with a weapon equipped, the game will correctly attribute it as a fist kill, so you don't need to waste time swapping back to your fists to punch things (before attempting this I did a quick HNTR AoOC test to verify if I could still get Sunrise Iron Fist after punching enemies to death with a weapon equipped, doing a Strongman Angelic run and then not getting the badge if the kill attribution was fucked that way too would have been very deflating).
For the build, there is really only one viable option and that's Vampyre. As mentioned, you'll take a heavy amount of unavoidable attrition damage and so having the mastery that heals off that attrition damage is imperative, while trying to avoid the attrition damage with Blademaster won't work that well when you'll be unable to one-shot anything bigger than Imps even when berserked. When it comes to your opening traits, in a normal Vampyre run I would usually open with Finesse, or if in AoB, I would go straight for Berserker, but in a Strongman run, getting Brute 3 ASAP is non-negotiable; not only is increasing the damage of your punching vital when it's so weak, but since building up the Berserker counter requires hits to deal at least 10 damage, you can't even trigger Berserker with your fists without having Brute 3. Then you need to get Vampyre ASAP after that; picking up Finesse or TaN instead of Badass is tempting, but as established, you just won't survive if you don't heal off all the attrition damage and you'll probably be running low on medkits by the time you reach level 6, if you have any at all. After Vampyre you then get some differing options to build, Tormuse in his run went straight for TaN, however I go for Fin2 and then WK2 immediately; Finesse is not only a means for increasing DPS, but it'll also help you trigger Berserker faster, which is crucial to reducing the damage you take. For example, punching a full health Baron with no berserk is a very unfun time, as he'll get three hits in before you get four punches in to trigger Berserker, which each Baron swing will deal 9-11 damage that even a Red Armor will only reduce to 5-7 damage, so 15-21 total in said Red Armor (even greater in weaker armor), and he'll still get another hit or two in after Berserker kicks in, while you get 6 HP back for killing him. With Finesse, you can get a double hit or two in on him to reduce the hits he get in before Berserker triggers, significantly reducing the damage you take punching him, and this damage saving will be even more drastic when you're in a midst of a horde and triggering Berserker ASAP is your only hope of survival, thus it will save you more damage than TaN will (not to mention it'll also let you more effectively damage bigger enemies with other weapons before they reach you, so even more damage saving there). Then getting WK2 is important because the most crucial piece of equipment is getting yourself adequate indestructible or regenerating armor, as even with doubled-repairing shards, this run will make you chew through armor like Nightmare Demons chew through noobs, and TaN alone does not suffice, especially when TaN does not reduce the damage your armor takes (as it's applied in damage calculation after your armor). (Your different armor options are explained in the spoiler) After WK2 I go for Juggler, which can be surprising as at this point as I'm not so reliant on using weapons to weaken enemies and so Badass 2 or TaN would be more valuable, but if I make this far, when I do use weapons, I want to absolutely minimize the time I spend with it equipped to reduce the chance some random Pinky dies in lava or something else dies while I have a weapon equipped, which is probably a bigger risk to ending a run at this point than me actually dying. After that is level 12 and so I still don't get Badass nor TaN as I can get more Finesse and Brute; I go for Fin3 first, I already explained the importance of faster attacking speed and speed is something that gets even better the more of it you have (at this point I will be getting 2 punches for nearly every 1 attack from standard speed enemies, and even against Archviles I can now sneak extra punches in without berserk, while with berserk, I'll be getting nearly 3 punches for 1 from standard speed enemies and getting reliable double punches on fast enemies), and then it's maxing out Brute to make my damage less pitiful (with Brute 5, your punches now deal 16-18 damage, 32-36 when berserked, thus with berserk you can now two-shot any enemy below an Archvile, while also one-shotting Revenants and Arachnotrons). It's Badass 2 after that for extra insurance with carrying around more boosted health, and then I finally get TaN for my final two levels, though if I was relying on a Nanofiber Red Armor in this run, I may have gotten TaN sooner (but with the armor I had, I didn't need the farther damage reduction).
With the overarching strategy, there are two ways to approach Strongman Angelic; you either play it the intended way and actually clear out most floors punching everything to get 90+% kills, or you stair dive and pray you get lucky enough with Berserks/Invulns to survive and farm a Pain Elemental or safe respawn for hours later in the run to make up the 90+% kills needed. Tormuse did the latter, and ended up spending a whopping 7 and a half hours on his run, farming Pain Elementals for an absurd 12029 Lost Soul kills (granted he went that far to get Iron Skull and could have made do with half the Lost Souls, but having to kill 6K Lost souls is still a crazy time-consuming amount), Tormuse however doesn't state how many tries it took him, while stair diving seems extremely unreliable when you're playing a Marine (so no stair sense) and can't use any weapons to kill stuff nor can rocket jump with enemies around (as invariably something would get killed by it or infighting while you have the rocket launcher equipped). Considering how unappealling spamming stair dives until I get very lucky is to me and the extremely tedious lategame Lost Soul/respawn grinding needed if I skip most of the floors, I decided to play it the more "legit" way and actually kill most enemies along the way. Micerang in his Strongman Angelic actually pulled off a YAAM Conqueror, but again considering 0.9.9.8 gave you the cheat code that was the dodging bug and its overpowered Marine + its version of Vampyre that was essentially IDDQD, doing that in any other version would be ludicrous, so I won't be going that far and will leave any floor that is not worth staying on (especially in Phobos), while I will only be entering and clearing special levels that are still easily doable with the fist-only kills restriction.
When it comes to the run itself, it immediately gets annoying with Phobos Base Entry; if the Shotgunners come out early when you approach the building, that's it run is over, reset, even if you can run through their shotgun blasts without dying you'll take too much damage. If they don't come out early and you can get to the side of the building, the level is easy to clear as you can gift drop all the Formers to punching range and approaching an initial Former Human isn't hard as they'll have Storm Trooper accuracy when you're running. The next part of aggravation though comes in getting those Small Medkits that you really want when you need all the health you can get early on and getting them is a terrible luck-based ordeal; I found a trick where you can guarantee a double attack on a Shotgunner if he attacks on consecutive quick swaps you do, but with Brute 1 your punch does 4-6 damage, so if you roll 4 on one punch and then don't roll a 6 on the other punch, you won't kill him in two punches, and you only have 74% accuracy too with Brute 1 so your finishing punch will miss annoyingly frequently, where the Shotgunner will then use the medkit up. And unlike in a normal run where you can use the first Shotgunner's Shotgun to one-shot the second Shotgunner with a medkit, you can't do that here, so you will need roll the unreliable odds again. Calculating all the probabilities here would be annoying, but I would say you only have around 25% or less odds of getting a good Phobos Base Entry with both medkits and not taking too much damage, so aiming for that will make you quickly reset a lot, and even getting a good Phobos Base Entry will often be for naught as you get a floor 2 that isn't viable. I kept trying for the ideal Phobos Base Entry, but in retrospect you probably should just settle for the one medkit and not taking too much damage, the extra medkit won't save you getting a fucked early Phobos floor and any run that makes it to Chained Court can be viable (as you'll see), so all those resets that will be caused trying to get both medkits here won't be worth it.
Speaking of floor 2, it'll be the floor with the most deaths or resets if you don't aim for an ideal Phobos Base Entry. To start with, if you spawn near a bunch of enemies in the open without an immediate good escape path, your run is already over, Formers will shred you quickly in the open and you can forget about trying to punch out several Imps at once with only Brute 1. If you get forced to fight a Pinky before you get Brute 2, your run is also over; with only Brute 1 your fist will deal an appalling 2-4 damage to them while their bites deal 6-8 damage and they'll be getting a double attack in for every 2 or 3 punches you throw, so you absolutely need to avoid them before you at least get Brute 2 (ideally you'll want Brute 3, since with Brute 2 you're still dealing only 5-7 damage, but Brute 2 can be workable if you can at least weaken them significantly first). If you don't get an immediate run-ending start, first thing will be trying to find a workable camping spot with a door or water tile ASAP and then set up camp, as well as hoping you can punch out enough Formers before having to punch out Imps with Brute 1 (who are a lot more competent in melee than Formers and will often not die to two punches if not previously damaged, as you will need to roll two 6 damage rolls without missing either punch to do so). Once you got a camping spot, you can gift drop with one of your medkits to lure Formers into punching range, but you can safely shoot them once with your Pistol to aggro them into position or just weaken them into one-punch kill range since saving any damage you take helps (without damage boosts, the Pistol can't do more than 8 damage and so can never kill an undamaged Former in one shot, however the Pistol does frequently miss and so you shouldn't shoot if you can see a barrel behind the Former). Imps are trickier, as they can't be lured in by gifts, and with their just above-average speed, they can get a double move as you wait and so can get a surprise attack in, or immediately pop into melee range, while the math isn't in your favor if you try duking it out with several undamaged Imps (Imps deal 3-5 in melee, 2-4 if you got Green Armor on, and won't frequently miss like Formers will, while they can occasionally get double hits in without Finesse and you can't one-punch a full health Imp without Brute 3, which even then you'll only do so 33% of the time). You'll need to Pistol Imps from behind cover to safely get their attention, and you'll want to Pistol them to one-punch range; usually you can only get one safe Pistol shot on them but if their health is displayed as "lightly wounded" or "scratched", the Pistol low rolled and left them at 9/10 HP, so you can (and should) Pistol them again to ensure they're in one-punch range with Brute 2 or especially Brute 1 (but after you get Brute 3, you'll always one-punch them after any Pistol shot). If an Imp is at least 8 tiles away, a Shotgun will fail to one-shot them even with an incredibly unlikely max damage roll, but using a Shotgun is risky as barrels could be around just outside your vision that would get blown up, or there could be Formers or Lost Souls right outside your vision that get killed in the spread, so you shouldn't use Shotguns to aggro an Imp unless you're damn sure nothing is behind it.
Regarding Lost Souls, with their 50% bullet resistance you can safely get at least two Pistol shots off on them and you won't need to worry about them leaving a corpse, but don't Pistol a wandering Lost Soul that's less than 5 tiles away, as a shot Lost Soul will immediately charge and cover up to 4 tiles in a single move, while their charge hits harder than Imps with 5-7 damage (ideally after you Pistol a Lost Soul, it charges right into punching range for you to finish off). With Pinkies, ideally you have some acid on the level and can just wait for them to kill themselves in the acid or lure them over it, otherwise you are going to want to bust out the Shotgun to weaken them, as the Pistol likely won't get more than a few shots off before they reach you with over half their health intact, which is going to be a very unpleasant time with only Brute 2. If a Pinky's health is displayed as "wounded", they can die to any closish Shotgun blast (they can have as little as 13 HP left, which a very high damage roll can inflict to them even from a few tiles away), but this early it's a risk you have to take as a "wounded" Pinky can have as much as 18 HP and even a 13 HP Pinky will likely take up to three punches with Brute 2 to kill while you lose nearly half your health in the exchange (you should try getting them down to at least "severely wounded" before punching them, when you have Brute 2 I would even say you should probably risk another Shotgun blast on them at "heavily wounded"). For one more note with Pinkies, always check their health before shooting them, otherwise you might risk shooting a Pinky that's already nearly dead from running through acid offscreen (and I did lose a couple runs from shooting at Pinkies that happened to injure themselves to near death, you should also do the same with Imps since they can survive telefrags with 1 HP and I lost another run to shooting at an Imp without looking at its health that indeed survived a telefrag offscreen).
With vaults on Floor 2, they can be a mixed blessing; vaults can have very nice things inside, but on N! they'll be filled with over a half dozen Pinkies or Cacodemons, while you won't be able to get Brute 3 + Berserker this early to berserk through them. First thing is to try finding the vault and setting up camp near its entrance to make sure no enemies open it, you do not want the enemies inside getting out before you get Brute 3. If you can guard the vault and kill all other enemies on the floor, you can then try dealing with it. If there is a nearby Berserk Pack, you should utilize it to clear out the vault, but if not you'll need to approach it more carefully. If it's Pinkies and there's acid, you can try luring them over to it or push an acid barrel near the vault and blow it up, otherwise you'll have to break the door open from a distance and try isolating them once you get them out, while utilizing doors to block them off when needed. Cacodemons have a lot more HP and hit even harder in melee (doing 7-9 damage), while they'll fly over any acid, but they are a lot slower, so they might actually not be as bad if you can isolate them, as you can much more easily escape them and more easily weaken them before they reach you (you want to get them to "mortally wounded" before punching them, you can risk shotgunning a "heavily wounded" Caco this early but should switch to the Pistol if they're "severely wounded" but not yet in your face as a Shotgun has too high of a chance to kill them even near edge of vision, while they're guaranteed to survive at least one Pistol shot at that health range). If you get lucky with a vault and can clear it out, you could get a Red Armor early that will be extremely helpful, a Phase Device of either sort that will be crucial for a certain later level or a Rocket Launcher that will be even better for said level (and do emergency corpse disposal in the meantime), and early Large Medkits. Even just a Blue Armor would be useful for getting through the next few floors, and if there's nothing good inside, at least it'll be extra crucially needed early EXP. Whatever the floor layout is, you should fully clear floor 2 or reset/die trying if you're unable to, killing everything on floor 2 should get you enough EXP to hit level 3 to get the direly needed Brute 3, or it'll at least get you no more than a few kills away from hitting level 3, you do not want to be punching Hell Knights with Brute 2. In my winning run, I got a Massacre lever on floor 2; I got one in a few prior runs that I couldn't find in time before dying, but in this run I was able to escape that nasty looking start and find it. If you get a Massacre lever, you should try finding it and hit it ASAP; as it'll gib all Formers, kill all Imps, and significantly weaken Lost Souls and Pinkies (you'll lose any medkits or armors picked up by the Formers, but it's probably worth the tradeoff here). You could try going into Hell's Arena despite clearing it being out of the question, I usually go in even in runs where it's unviable just to get some kills for EXP, however I skipped it in nearly all my attempts here as it can go quickly awry and I typically already spent 15+ minutes just getting through floor 2 (the only time I went in was when I got a lucky early Shell Box from an ammo crate so I could weaken the Cacos and Pinkies much more safely, maybe if I got a Combat Shotgun from a floor 2 vault I would consider it too). Even if you get any Berserk Packs on floor 2, you shouldn't waste them going into Hell's Arena, as they'll help you survive the upcoming floor much more and you're not clearing Hell's Arena anyway.
After floor 2 is the ever dreaded floor 3-5 range, with the Hell Knights and more dangerous level types showing up. Hell Knights hit as hard as Cacodemons do, but they have even more HP, are faster than you with 110% speed, and can wear any armor they find as well as steal + use medkits. You'll rarely be able to cleanly shotgun down a Hell Knight to one-punch range, and unless you started shotgunning from far away, they'll probably get to you with over half their health remaining, where it'll take you at least three punches to kill them even with Brute 3. Hell Knights also often spawn heading a group of Imps, at which point you can't shotgun them down unless you can get the Hell Knight separated from the Imps. Whenever you find Berserk Packs, seeking and punching out any Hell Knights you see or hear while berserked should be your immediate kill priority, and you should eat an Imp fireball on top of their corpse to destroy it. You need to hit level 4 to get Berserker, as otherwise lethal hot starts and generally unviable floors can be survived with it, while the run's ultimate success still hinges on getting Vampyre, so you should try clearing floors in this range if you can do so. But if a floor is just too tough (such as a Cacodemon cave, Warehouse levels, or any maze), then you should leave upon finding the stairs, reaching The Chained Court is your top priority. In this run, I entered floor 3 with much needed berserk and had another immediately accessible Berserk Pack, so I could clear out the Hell Knights and a vault that spawned (as well as nabbed myself a Phase Device from inside it). The next two floors would be awful Warehouse levels with the mass barrel quasi-event, so clearing them out was unviable and I got brutalized fighting my way to the stairs. I was able to make it to The Chained Court but I thought the run was over as I had no armor and only a single Small Medkit (I didn't even bother taking screenshots because I thought the run was going to die in Chained Court or shortly after anyway).
If you make it to The Chained Court, it's tempting to grab all the Berserks and hightail it, but you should actually clear it, as if done correctly, you can come out of it without burning any medkits and you really want that Baron EXP, while you also want the mods (you can't mod your fists but you need A mods to move faster and P mods to buff your armor, as well as B mods for your armor if you don't get an Onyx nor Nano later). For clearing Chained Court, grab the Chainsaw (and immediately unequip it), then just immediately run to one of the exit rooms; punch out any Formers that are in the way but otherwise run past them until you get to the exit room and set up camp in there. You'll get shot up a lot and will probably be low on health, but you should make it (while a Berserk will fully heal you in a bit), and once you have the exit room secured, you can drop a medkit or armor in the doorway and camp it until all the non-caged Formers come to it (if there's a Chaingunner you had to punch out in the exit room, you'll have to keep punching him as he revives until you're sure no Former is right outside, then you can step out as he gets back up and wait for him to get in the doorway to put him out for good before resuming camping). Once all non-caged Formers are dead, it's onto the Barons; grab a Berserk and then go release the right Barons, punch one out and eat an acid ball on its corpse to destroy it, then immediately run back to the center, where you can then shotgun the Baron until it's sufficiently weakened for you to punch it out in the doorway. You then repeat the process for the Barons on the left side, except you instead lure the last Baron into the exit room instead of to the center room, and once the last Baron is killed in the doorway, you can camp with a gift there until the remaining Formers released in the center room come to you. Doing this I'm still able to clear The Chained Court despite the dire state I was in, and have two Berserks left to take with me to the next floor.
Phobos 6 was a maze that I would have no hope in if I stayed, but I find the stairs quickly enough and nab myself a battered Blue Armor for some armor as well as a Supercharge along the way, and then Phobos 7 is yet another Warehouse level with a hot start, but I survive just long enough to get Vampyre. I also find the red stairs quickly, which turned out to be Military Base! If it was Phobos Lab I would have kept looking for the normal stairs (I already lost my deepest run prior from Phobos Lab after being forced into it when rolling an Arachnotron Cave on floor 7, punching out Nightmare Demons just isn't viable and I didn't have the speed to safely lure out the cave Nightmare Demons nor a Rocket Launcher for preemptively triggering Berserker), but Military Base I could easily clear with Vampyre online regardless of my armor/health supply and it'll be a huge EXP dump alongside having lots of armor, potentially medkits from crates, and two mods, so I just go right in after my berserk runs out. Then it's Phobos Anomaly, you get a much needed Red Armor and two Large Medkits, but you have to get past the Nightmare enemy ambush. The simplest way to get past would be to get an Invuln on floor 7, the next safest way is rocket jump through if you found a Rocket Launcher (and you'll be safe from anything dying as you do so as the Nightmare enemies are so tanky), or if you have no Hellrunner, then you need to get lucky with a Phase Device. I'm unsure how to handle it without those things in this run, especially if you don't even got A-modded boots as I didn't yet in this run; your only shot might be P-modding the Red Armor, punch the Nightmare Demons and hope Berserker activates before you die, then run back to the starting room with berserk and hopefully Vampyre can keep you alive as you punch out everything in the doorway. Luckily that aforementioned Phase Device I got does get me past the ambush, I then pop the radsuit from Military Base as I punch out the Bruisers (should have used the Chainsaw to weaken them but I'm able to successfully punch them out without using my Red Armor), and at last I finally get a run to Deimos after dozens and dozens of attempts. This also serves as a good lesson that as long as you can make it to The Chained Court, Strongman Angelic is still viable, no matter how bad your armor and health situation is.
Deimos would immediately give me a big reprieve, with its first floor having not just One Invuln, two Invulns (plus a Hatred Skull that might be handy), but three Invulnerabilities! I'm able to take them all with me to Deimos Lab, where I just run straight to the Shamblers and punch them out with Invulnerability (the Invuln wasn't really needed when they would have been manageable enough with Berserker, but it was some much needed catharsis). I would have to retreat back to the teleporter room and wait for all the remaining enemies who didn't get their corpses destroyed to teleport in, after this bit of tedious cleanup, I can access the lab cache, and get a Sniper Mod... plus a Nano mod! I have my Red Armor already P-modded and so can make Powered Red Armor, however I'm still a level off from getting WK2 and I'll need it first or else I won't be able to mod it after (yet again I'll question why the hell this restriction with modding pre-WK2 assemblies existed, 0.9.9.8 getting rid of it was seriously one of its best changes). So I'm left at the conundrum of if to just make the Powered Red Armor now or wait until WK2; since my medkit supply is looking much better after Military Base and that good first Deimos floor, I make the decision to try holding out for one more level (and use the Sniper Mod to make a Plasmatic Combat Shotgun for easy anywhere corpse disposal + safe wall destruction, but I have to use it very sparingly as I do not want the run ruined at this point because of something dying while using it). I would get a pretty good Deimos 2 (as well as a stark reminder why you can't walk around with weapons equipped in this version, as I walked into a Mancubus' vision that then fired and killed enemies behind me, the run would have been over right there if I had anything equipped), and then on Deimos 3 I would reach level 10, where I promptly make the Powered Red Armor and P-mod it for a regenerating armor with 7 protection, 50% fire resist, 25% melee resist, and no movement penalty. If that wasn't enough, I find a Rocket Launcher (after having one blown up on the prior floor by the aforementioned Mancubus) that I immediately use all the Bulk mods I had to turn into a Tactical Rocket Launcher (which will let me take more Invulns with me at the end of a floor and the smaller radius can let me more safely rocket jump around enemies in a pinch), and finally an Agility mod for my boots (I somehow did not get a single one in the prior three special levels). At this point the run is mostly won, the Powered Red Armor will reduce all melee damage short of the Nightmare Demon and the biggest bosses down to 1 damage, VMR will be nearly harmless even without berserk, and with berserk basically everything will get reduced to 1 damage with no TaN needed (in this version, only plasma hits that deal over 11 damage won't get reduce to 1 damage, which among common enemies only a max damage roll from a Hell Knight or Cacodemon can do for a single extra point of damage, and the only other enemy I can encounter that can is Nightmare Cacodemon rolling for a maximum of 3 damage after my defenses). I would near exclusively use my fists at this point to be absolutely sure nothing inadvertently dies when I have a weapon out, as weakening enemies prior to punch them is no longer needed when I have achieved a near-IDDQD state, and I can even get more corpses destroyed by just tanking explosive projectiles on them if they're not already destroyed in the crossfire. I just need to be careful to not overextend against Arachnotrons (who can still rack up a lot of damage since their rapid fire bursts add up fast even after reducing each plasma bolt to 1 damage) and not take too many acid balls from Barons without berserk (they can still roll up to as high as 12 damage without berserk and a few acid balls in quick succession can damage my Powered Red Armor, putting me in a bad spot if I can't quickly get a breather for it to repair itself).
I skip Containment Area but head into Abyssal Plains for the Skulls that might be useful and a big easy kill pad, with it pushing me over the needed 90% kills threshold and so I won't need to do any respawn or Pain Elemental farming later as long as I clear out most of the remaining floors. Having a nuke on hand and an Invuln spawning on Deimos 6, I would use the opportunity to nuke Spider's Lair, which conveniently has all its rewards spawn in after the nuke goes off; unfortunately I can't use the BFG but the Plasteel Boots will be nice... yet are immediately rendered irrelevant when Deimos 7 has Enviroboots drop in my immediate vision. Deimos 7 is finished off easily and then I punch out the Cyberdemon effortlessly, not even needing to Chainsaw him down to near death first. Hell gives me an easy opener with a Pain Elemental + Lost Souls cave, and then Unholy Cathedral is free EXP, with me also punching out the Angel of Death without needing to weaken him with the Chainsaw. I find a Bulk in that cave after using all the ones I had prior on the Tactical Rocket Launcher, which I used to make a P-modded Nanofiber Red Armor out of a spare Red Armor I had just in case I got into a fight that damaged the Powered Red Armor... and that proved immediately necessary when Hell 2 gave me an Arena level with an Arachnotron group right near the start as well as a nearby Hell Noble group set to hunt me. Had my closest post-Phobos call here as my Powered Red Armor got damaged and I had to slip into that Nanofiber Red Armor, with one particular bad moment when my berserk ran out while waiting for enemies to approach me from behind the starting cover, a Hatred Skull would indeed prove useful here to get rid of the nearby corpses and get berserk back on to finish the remaining hunting enemies so I can put the Powered Red Armor back on to repair itself, after which I can finish off the remaining enemies. Hell 3 is much smoother and I then enter The Vaults, since it's free EXP and missing a handful of kills won't matter, while I also have two Phase Devices to try getting in the center vault without the Arena Master's Staff. The first one doesn't get me in, but the second Phase does! This turns out to not just be for EXP (and making up for cheesing Scavenger Diamond prior with Whisper Of Death in this version), but is materially worth it as well with the center vault having a Lava Armor, much better backup armor than the Nanofiber Red that I can also easily repair whenever with those Enviroboots (and I would make use of it a couple times, particularly against some Barons on an Island level who I carelessly face tanked too many berserk-less acid balls from). Hell 4 would have an Invuln right near Mortuary's stairs, and I had another nuke on hand, so I decided to nuke Mortuary as well. I would pop the other Hatred Skull I got from the Agony Elemental, then do a couple rocket jumps towards the Nuclear BFG before the Archviles start reviving enemies (immediately swapping off once there was too much risk of something dying while rocket jumping), and then run the rest of the way to get the Nuclear BFG before nuking Mortuary (this was completely unnecessary, but nuking Mortuary is fun). Thanks to Enviroboots, Mt. Erebus is a freebie and it would have Malek's Armor there, would have been much nicer to have this sooner, but it's nice to have for Carmack, who I opt to fight to continue inching closer to Apostle rank and I effortlessly punch Carmack out.
A really nasty thing about Strongman runs is that you don't know for sure if you succeed until you see the ending mortem or the rank up screen, since something may have died at some point while you had a weapon equipped that you didn't notice, and there's no way to see during the run if it's still valid for the Strongman badges, thus you could potentially slug through this ordeal after hours and hours just to not get the badge because you didn't see the message that a fucking Pinky you never even saw ran on lava for the single second you had a weapon out. So upon killing Carmack I sit in anticipation for the rank up screen to verify nothing went wrong..... and there it is! After 24 recorded deaths (the most brutal deaths being the previously alluded to death in Phobos Lab after being forced in by a terribly early Arachnotron cave, and this run immediately after where I made it to Phobos 7 with an Invuln near the Anomaly stairs, only to absolutely throw it by charging on a Revenant in the open backed by a Chaingunner instead of running behind some sort of cover or just using up the Large Medkit I had), probably around another dozen or so I quit out of when getting a fucked floor or something dying while I had a weapon out, and countless resets on Phobos Base Entry if you count those as real attempts, I get Strongman Angelic over two days of attempting it. That is additionally my 9th Angelic, officially tying Tormuse for the most recorded Angelics by any player in 0.9.9.7 and becoming the second player confirmed to have achieved the Chaos Lt. General Rank (this also knocks off the last badge that was only won by Tormuse, which leaves Icy's Arena Diamond as the only badge left exclusively won by a single player aside from my own Eagerness and Inquisitor Angelics). Overall, yeah this badge definitely deserves its Angelic status and I can see why only Tormuse won it in this version, as not only is it extremely difficult, but it also forces the worst of DRL gameplay and it's very frustrating to suddenly lose runs because of anything dying while you had a weapon out. I don't think it's harder than Eagerness Angelic and am not sure it's harder than Inquisitor Angelic either (the difficulty is incredibly front-loaded here and surviving to The Chained Court is heavily luck-based), but it certainly was a lot less fun to go for. Strongman Angelic will be one of the badges most affected by the changes since in 0.10 and beyond; there are lots of good things like respawns no longer counting towards the kill counter, enemies no longer reviving in vision without the aid of Archviles, Tech mods now giving resistances to armors (including +20% melee res), proper infighting being in the game, and best of all, indirect kills are now properly attributed as "other" kills instead of to your equipped weapon, so you can keep a weapon equipped at all times and don't need to waste so much time constantly swapping between armed/unarmed. There are however going to be drawbacks, such as more randomized enemy melee damage meaning enemies can potentially swing harder (notably Pinkies actually average slightly more damage now), berserk being nerfed to giving +50% resistances (the Marine getting an inherent +10% energy resistances will result in your berserked energy resistances being the same if you play the Marine, but you will feel the nerf on the melee side), Vampyre getting some significant but deserved nerfs (Vampyre's HP steal can no longer overheal and Vampyre is now blocked Ironman + TaN, which were buffed to give additional resistances, but as compensation Vampyre can get SoB now for extra punching damage or get EE for Intuition), and most significantly you now have the Enraged Timer that will invalidate excessive camping. I'm not sure if Strongman Angelic will be easier or even harder in 0.10-onward, but it'll certainly be less degenerate to actually play, which would make any grind for it more bearable regardless of if it turns out harder.
Well that was sure a doozy to write up, here is the mortem:
The worst thing however hanging over your head is that if a single enemy dies to any weapon, you are immediately disqualified from earning this badge; an enemy wasn't quite in one-punch kill range but your Shotgun/Pistol shot rolled unexpectedly high and killed them, you tried shooting something with a Shotgun and some enemy behind them you didn't see gets killed by it, a Pistol misses and blows up a barrel behind the enemy you shot at that then kills them or another enemy, that's it run is over, Q+Y and try again. There's also the fucked indirect kill attribution of 0.9.9.7, where if an enemy dies by indirect means (e.g. from items, infighting, telefragging, or damaging fluids), the kill will be attributed to the weapon you had equipped at the time of their death. This means you must ardently limit the time you have a weapon equipped, so you can't run -> wait or move around a floor with a weapon equipped, else if an enemy attacks you and kills something else in the crossfire or Formers keep walking into a teleporter and telefrag each other or some Pinky on the other side of the map dies while running through acid, your run is over if you happened to have any weapon equipped when those things happen, and you might not even notice it if you don't pay good attention to the messages to notice the "You hear the scream of a freed soul" message. Being unable to have your weapon out at all times doesn't just make this run more annoying to play, it makes the attrition damage issue even worse, as without Juggler, the time it takes to swap to a weapon will allow an enemy to move back out of vision or to a tile where they get LoS on you, or it's a bigger enemy that moves closer and costs you a crucial additional shot you could have gotten on them before punching them. At least if you punch an enemy with a weapon equipped, the game will correctly attribute it as a fist kill, so you don't need to waste time swapping back to your fists to punch things (before attempting this I did a quick HNTR AoOC test to verify if I could still get Sunrise Iron Fist after punching enemies to death with a weapon equipped, doing a Strongman Angelic run and then not getting the badge if the kill attribution was fucked that way too would have been very deflating).
For the build, there is really only one viable option and that's Vampyre. As mentioned, you'll take a heavy amount of unavoidable attrition damage and so having the mastery that heals off that attrition damage is imperative, while trying to avoid the attrition damage with Blademaster won't work that well when you'll be unable to one-shot anything bigger than Imps even when berserked. When it comes to your opening traits, in a normal Vampyre run I would usually open with Finesse, or if in AoB, I would go straight for Berserker, but in a Strongman run, getting Brute 3 ASAP is non-negotiable; not only is increasing the damage of your punching vital when it's so weak, but since building up the Berserker counter requires hits to deal at least 10 damage, you can't even trigger Berserker with your fists without having Brute 3. Then you need to get Vampyre ASAP after that; picking up Finesse or TaN instead of Badass is tempting, but as established, you just won't survive if you don't heal off all the attrition damage and you'll probably be running low on medkits by the time you reach level 6, if you have any at all. After Vampyre you then get some differing options to build, Tormuse in his run went straight for TaN, however I go for Fin2 and then WK2 immediately; Finesse is not only a means for increasing DPS, but it'll also help you trigger Berserker faster, which is crucial to reducing the damage you take. For example, punching a full health Baron with no berserk is a very unfun time, as he'll get three hits in before you get four punches in to trigger Berserker, which each Baron swing will deal 9-11 damage that even a Red Armor will only reduce to 5-7 damage, so 15-21 total in said Red Armor (even greater in weaker armor), and he'll still get another hit or two in after Berserker kicks in, while you get 6 HP back for killing him. With Finesse, you can get a double hit or two in on him to reduce the hits he get in before Berserker triggers, significantly reducing the damage you take punching him, and this damage saving will be even more drastic when you're in a midst of a horde and triggering Berserker ASAP is your only hope of survival, thus it will save you more damage than TaN will (not to mention it'll also let you more effectively damage bigger enemies with other weapons before they reach you, so even more damage saving there). Then getting WK2 is important because the most crucial piece of equipment is getting yourself adequate indestructible or regenerating armor, as even with doubled-repairing shards, this run will make you chew through armor like Nightmare Demons chew through noobs, and TaN alone does not suffice, especially when TaN does not reduce the damage your armor takes (as it's applied in damage calculation after your armor). (Your different armor options are explained in the spoiler)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With the overarching strategy, there are two ways to approach Strongman Angelic; you either play it the intended way and actually clear out most floors punching everything to get 90+% kills, or you stair dive and pray you get lucky enough with Berserks/Invulns to survive and farm a Pain Elemental or safe respawn for hours later in the run to make up the 90+% kills needed. Tormuse did the latter, and ended up spending a whopping 7 and a half hours on his run, farming Pain Elementals for an absurd 12029 Lost Soul kills (granted he went that far to get Iron Skull and could have made do with half the Lost Souls, but having to kill 6K Lost souls is still a crazy time-consuming amount), Tormuse however doesn't state how many tries it took him, while stair diving seems extremely unreliable when you're playing a Marine (so no stair sense) and can't use any weapons to kill stuff nor can rocket jump with enemies around (as invariably something would get killed by it or infighting while you have the rocket launcher equipped). Considering how unappealling spamming stair dives until I get very lucky is to me and the extremely tedious lategame Lost Soul/respawn grinding needed if I skip most of the floors, I decided to play it the more "legit" way and actually kill most enemies along the way. Micerang in his Strongman Angelic actually pulled off a YAAM Conqueror, but again considering 0.9.9.8 gave you the cheat code that was the dodging bug and its overpowered Marine + its version of Vampyre that was essentially IDDQD, doing that in any other version would be ludicrous, so I won't be going that far and will leave any floor that is not worth staying on (especially in Phobos), while I will only be entering and clearing special levels that are still easily doable with the fist-only kills restriction.
When it comes to the run itself, it immediately gets annoying with Phobos Base Entry; if the Shotgunners come out early when you approach the building, that's it run is over, reset, even if you can run through their shotgun blasts without dying you'll take too much damage. If they don't come out early and you can get to the side of the building, the level is easy to clear as you can gift drop all the Formers to punching range and approaching an initial Former Human isn't hard as they'll have Storm Trooper accuracy when you're running. The next part of aggravation though comes in getting those Small Medkits that you really want when you need all the health you can get early on and getting them is a terrible luck-based ordeal; I found a trick where you can guarantee a double attack on a Shotgunner if he attacks on consecutive quick swaps you do, but with Brute 1 your punch does 4-6 damage, so if you roll 4 on one punch and then don't roll a 6 on the other punch, you won't kill him in two punches, and you only have 74% accuracy too with Brute 1 so your finishing punch will miss annoyingly frequently, where the Shotgunner will then use the medkit up. And unlike in a normal run where you can use the first Shotgunner's Shotgun to one-shot the second Shotgunner with a medkit, you can't do that here, so you will need roll the unreliable odds again. Calculating all the probabilities here would be annoying, but I would say you only have around 25% or less odds of getting a good Phobos Base Entry with both medkits and not taking too much damage, so aiming for that will make you quickly reset a lot, and even getting a good Phobos Base Entry will often be for naught as you get a floor 2 that isn't viable. I kept trying for the ideal Phobos Base Entry, but in retrospect you probably should just settle for the one medkit and not taking too much damage, the extra medkit won't save you getting a fucked early Phobos floor and any run that makes it to Chained Court can be viable (as you'll see), so all those resets that will be caused trying to get both medkits here won't be worth it.
Speaking of floor 2, it'll be the floor with the most deaths or resets if you don't aim for an ideal Phobos Base Entry. To start with, if you spawn near a bunch of enemies in the open without an immediate good escape path, your run is already over, Formers will shred you quickly in the open and you can forget about trying to punch out several Imps at once with only Brute 1. If you get forced to fight a Pinky before you get Brute 2, your run is also over; with only Brute 1 your fist will deal an appalling 2-4 damage to them while their bites deal 6-8 damage and they'll be getting a double attack in for every 2 or 3 punches you throw, so you absolutely need to avoid them before you at least get Brute 2 (ideally you'll want Brute 3, since with Brute 2 you're still dealing only 5-7 damage, but Brute 2 can be workable if you can at least weaken them significantly first). If you don't get an immediate run-ending start, first thing will be trying to find a workable camping spot with a door or water tile ASAP and then set up camp, as well as hoping you can punch out enough Formers before having to punch out Imps with Brute 1 (who are a lot more competent in melee than Formers and will often not die to two punches if not previously damaged, as you will need to roll two 6 damage rolls without missing either punch to do so). Once you got a camping spot, you can gift drop with one of your medkits to lure Formers into punching range, but you can safely shoot them once with your Pistol to aggro them into position or just weaken them into one-punch kill range since saving any damage you take helps (without damage boosts, the Pistol can't do more than 8 damage and so can never kill an undamaged Former in one shot, however the Pistol does frequently miss and so you shouldn't shoot if you can see a barrel behind the Former). Imps are trickier, as they can't be lured in by gifts, and with their just above-average speed, they can get a double move as you wait and so can get a surprise attack in, or immediately pop into melee range, while the math isn't in your favor if you try duking it out with several undamaged Imps (Imps deal 3-5 in melee, 2-4 if you got Green Armor on, and won't frequently miss like Formers will, while they can occasionally get double hits in without Finesse and you can't one-punch a full health Imp without Brute 3, which even then you'll only do so 33% of the time). You'll need to Pistol Imps from behind cover to safely get their attention, and you'll want to Pistol them to one-punch range; usually you can only get one safe Pistol shot on them but if their health is displayed as "lightly wounded" or "scratched", the Pistol low rolled and left them at 9/10 HP, so you can (and should) Pistol them again to ensure they're in one-punch range with Brute 2 or especially Brute 1 (but after you get Brute 3, you'll always one-punch them after any Pistol shot). If an Imp is at least 8 tiles away, a Shotgun will fail to one-shot them even with an incredibly unlikely max damage roll, but using a Shotgun is risky as barrels could be around just outside your vision that would get blown up, or there could be Formers or Lost Souls right outside your vision that get killed in the spread, so you shouldn't use Shotguns to aggro an Imp unless you're damn sure nothing is behind it.
Regarding Lost Souls, with their 50% bullet resistance you can safely get at least two Pistol shots off on them and you won't need to worry about them leaving a corpse, but don't Pistol a wandering Lost Soul that's less than 5 tiles away, as a shot Lost Soul will immediately charge and cover up to 4 tiles in a single move, while their charge hits harder than Imps with 5-7 damage (ideally after you Pistol a Lost Soul, it charges right into punching range for you to finish off). With Pinkies, ideally you have some acid on the level and can just wait for them to kill themselves in the acid or lure them over it, otherwise you are going to want to bust out the Shotgun to weaken them, as the Pistol likely won't get more than a few shots off before they reach you with over half their health intact, which is going to be a very unpleasant time with only Brute 2. If a Pinky's health is displayed as "wounded", they can die to any closish Shotgun blast (they can have as little as 13 HP left, which a very high damage roll can inflict to them even from a few tiles away), but this early it's a risk you have to take as a "wounded" Pinky can have as much as 18 HP and even a 13 HP Pinky will likely take up to three punches with Brute 2 to kill while you lose nearly half your health in the exchange (you should try getting them down to at least "severely wounded" before punching them, when you have Brute 2 I would even say you should probably risk another Shotgun blast on them at "heavily wounded"). For one more note with Pinkies, always check their health before shooting them, otherwise you might risk shooting a Pinky that's already nearly dead from running through acid offscreen (and I did lose a couple runs from shooting at Pinkies that happened to injure themselves to near death, you should also do the same with Imps since they can survive telefrags with 1 HP and I lost another run to shooting at an Imp without looking at its health that indeed survived a telefrag offscreen).
With vaults on Floor 2, they can be a mixed blessing; vaults can have very nice things inside, but on N! they'll be filled with over a half dozen Pinkies or Cacodemons, while you won't be able to get Brute 3 + Berserker this early to berserk through them. First thing is to try finding the vault and setting up camp near its entrance to make sure no enemies open it, you do not want the enemies inside getting out before you get Brute 3. If you can guard the vault and kill all other enemies on the floor, you can then try dealing with it. If there is a nearby Berserk Pack, you should utilize it to clear out the vault, but if not you'll need to approach it more carefully. If it's Pinkies and there's acid, you can try luring them over to it or push an acid barrel near the vault and blow it up, otherwise you'll have to break the door open from a distance and try isolating them once you get them out, while utilizing doors to block them off when needed. Cacodemons have a lot more HP and hit even harder in melee (doing 7-9 damage), while they'll fly over any acid, but they are a lot slower, so they might actually not be as bad if you can isolate them, as you can much more easily escape them and more easily weaken them before they reach you (you want to get them to "mortally wounded" before punching them, you can risk shotgunning a "heavily wounded" Caco this early but should switch to the Pistol if they're "severely wounded" but not yet in your face as a Shotgun has too high of a chance to kill them even near edge of vision, while they're guaranteed to survive at least one Pistol shot at that health range). If you get lucky with a vault and can clear it out, you could get a Red Armor early that will be extremely helpful, a Phase Device of either sort that will be crucial for a certain later level or a Rocket Launcher that will be even better for said level (and do emergency corpse disposal in the meantime), and early Large Medkits. Even just a Blue Armor would be useful for getting through the next few floors, and if there's nothing good inside, at least it'll be extra crucially needed early EXP. Whatever the floor layout is, you should fully clear floor 2 or reset/die trying if you're unable to, killing everything on floor 2 should get you enough EXP to hit level 3 to get the direly needed Brute 3, or it'll at least get you no more than a few kills away from hitting level 3, you do not want to be punching Hell Knights with Brute 2. In my winning run, I got a Massacre lever on floor 2; I got one in a few prior runs that I couldn't find in time before dying, but in this run I was able to escape that nasty looking start and find it. If you get a Massacre lever, you should try finding it and hit it ASAP; as it'll gib all Formers, kill all Imps, and significantly weaken Lost Souls and Pinkies (you'll lose any medkits or armors picked up by the Formers, but it's probably worth the tradeoff here). You could try going into Hell's Arena despite clearing it being out of the question, I usually go in even in runs where it's unviable just to get some kills for EXP, however I skipped it in nearly all my attempts here as it can go quickly awry and I typically already spent 15+ minutes just getting through floor 2 (the only time I went in was when I got a lucky early Shell Box from an ammo crate so I could weaken the Cacos and Pinkies much more safely, maybe if I got a Combat Shotgun from a floor 2 vault I would consider it too). Even if you get any Berserk Packs on floor 2, you shouldn't waste them going into Hell's Arena, as they'll help you survive the upcoming floor much more and you're not clearing Hell's Arena anyway.
After floor 2 is the ever dreaded floor 3-5 range, with the Hell Knights and more dangerous level types showing up. Hell Knights hit as hard as Cacodemons do, but they have even more HP, are faster than you with 110% speed, and can wear any armor they find as well as steal + use medkits. You'll rarely be able to cleanly shotgun down a Hell Knight to one-punch range, and unless you started shotgunning from far away, they'll probably get to you with over half their health remaining, where it'll take you at least three punches to kill them even with Brute 3. Hell Knights also often spawn heading a group of Imps, at which point you can't shotgun them down unless you can get the Hell Knight separated from the Imps. Whenever you find Berserk Packs, seeking and punching out any Hell Knights you see or hear while berserked should be your immediate kill priority, and you should eat an Imp fireball on top of their corpse to destroy it. You need to hit level 4 to get Berserker, as otherwise lethal hot starts and generally unviable floors can be survived with it, while the run's ultimate success still hinges on getting Vampyre, so you should try clearing floors in this range if you can do so. But if a floor is just too tough (such as a Cacodemon cave, Warehouse levels, or any maze), then you should leave upon finding the stairs, reaching The Chained Court is your top priority. In this run, I entered floor 3 with much needed berserk and had another immediately accessible Berserk Pack, so I could clear out the Hell Knights and a vault that spawned (as well as nabbed myself a Phase Device from inside it). The next two floors would be awful Warehouse levels with the mass barrel quasi-event, so clearing them out was unviable and I got brutalized fighting my way to the stairs. I was able to make it to The Chained Court but I thought the run was over as I had no armor and only a single Small Medkit (I didn't even bother taking screenshots because I thought the run was going to die in Chained Court or shortly after anyway).
If you make it to The Chained Court, it's tempting to grab all the Berserks and hightail it, but you should actually clear it, as if done correctly, you can come out of it without burning any medkits and you really want that Baron EXP, while you also want the mods (you can't mod your fists but you need A mods to move faster and P mods to buff your armor, as well as B mods for your armor if you don't get an Onyx nor Nano later). For clearing Chained Court, grab the Chainsaw (and immediately unequip it), then just immediately run to one of the exit rooms; punch out any Formers that are in the way but otherwise run past them until you get to the exit room and set up camp in there. You'll get shot up a lot and will probably be low on health, but you should make it (while a Berserk will fully heal you in a bit), and once you have the exit room secured, you can drop a medkit or armor in the doorway and camp it until all the non-caged Formers come to it (if there's a Chaingunner you had to punch out in the exit room, you'll have to keep punching him as he revives until you're sure no Former is right outside, then you can step out as he gets back up and wait for him to get in the doorway to put him out for good before resuming camping). Once all non-caged Formers are dead, it's onto the Barons; grab a Berserk and then go release the right Barons, punch one out and eat an acid ball on its corpse to destroy it, then immediately run back to the center, where you can then shotgun the Baron until it's sufficiently weakened for you to punch it out in the doorway. You then repeat the process for the Barons on the left side, except you instead lure the last Baron into the exit room instead of to the center room, and once the last Baron is killed in the doorway, you can camp with a gift there until the remaining Formers released in the center room come to you. Doing this I'm still able to clear The Chained Court despite the dire state I was in, and have two Berserks left to take with me to the next floor.
Phobos 6 was a maze that I would have no hope in if I stayed, but I find the stairs quickly enough and nab myself a battered Blue Armor for some armor as well as a Supercharge along the way, and then Phobos 7 is yet another Warehouse level with a hot start, but I survive just long enough to get Vampyre. I also find the red stairs quickly, which turned out to be Military Base! If it was Phobos Lab I would have kept looking for the normal stairs (I already lost my deepest run prior from Phobos Lab after being forced into it when rolling an Arachnotron Cave on floor 7, punching out Nightmare Demons just isn't viable and I didn't have the speed to safely lure out the cave Nightmare Demons nor a Rocket Launcher for preemptively triggering Berserker), but Military Base I could easily clear with Vampyre online regardless of my armor/health supply and it'll be a huge EXP dump alongside having lots of armor, potentially medkits from crates, and two mods, so I just go right in after my berserk runs out. Then it's Phobos Anomaly, you get a much needed Red Armor and two Large Medkits, but you have to get past the Nightmare enemy ambush. The simplest way to get past would be to get an Invuln on floor 7, the next safest way is rocket jump through if you found a Rocket Launcher (and you'll be safe from anything dying as you do so as the Nightmare enemies are so tanky), or if you have no Hellrunner, then you need to get lucky with a Phase Device. I'm unsure how to handle it without those things in this run, especially if you don't even got A-modded boots as I didn't yet in this run; your only shot might be P-modding the Red Armor, punch the Nightmare Demons and hope Berserker activates before you die, then run back to the starting room with berserk and hopefully Vampyre can keep you alive as you punch out everything in the doorway. Luckily that aforementioned Phase Device I got does get me past the ambush, I then pop the radsuit from Military Base as I punch out the Bruisers (should have used the Chainsaw to weaken them but I'm able to successfully punch them out without using my Red Armor), and at last I finally get a run to Deimos after dozens and dozens of attempts. This also serves as a good lesson that as long as you can make it to The Chained Court, Strongman Angelic is still viable, no matter how bad your armor and health situation is.
Deimos would immediately give me a big reprieve, with its first floor having not just One Invuln, two Invulns (plus a Hatred Skull that might be handy), but three Invulnerabilities! I'm able to take them all with me to Deimos Lab, where I just run straight to the Shamblers and punch them out with Invulnerability (the Invuln wasn't really needed when they would have been manageable enough with Berserker, but it was some much needed catharsis). I would have to retreat back to the teleporter room and wait for all the remaining enemies who didn't get their corpses destroyed to teleport in, after this bit of tedious cleanup, I can access the lab cache, and get a Sniper Mod... plus a Nano mod! I have my Red Armor already P-modded and so can make Powered Red Armor, however I'm still a level off from getting WK2 and I'll need it first or else I won't be able to mod it after (yet again I'll question why the hell this restriction with modding pre-WK2 assemblies existed, 0.9.9.8 getting rid of it was seriously one of its best changes). So I'm left at the conundrum of if to just make the Powered Red Armor now or wait until WK2; since my medkit supply is looking much better after Military Base and that good first Deimos floor, I make the decision to try holding out for one more level (and use the Sniper Mod to make a Plasmatic Combat Shotgun for easy anywhere corpse disposal + safe wall destruction, but I have to use it very sparingly as I do not want the run ruined at this point because of something dying while using it). I would get a pretty good Deimos 2 (as well as a stark reminder why you can't walk around with weapons equipped in this version, as I walked into a Mancubus' vision that then fired and killed enemies behind me, the run would have been over right there if I had anything equipped), and then on Deimos 3 I would reach level 10, where I promptly make the Powered Red Armor and P-mod it for a regenerating armor with 7 protection, 50% fire resist, 25% melee resist, and no movement penalty. If that wasn't enough, I find a Rocket Launcher (after having one blown up on the prior floor by the aforementioned Mancubus) that I immediately use all the Bulk mods I had to turn into a Tactical Rocket Launcher (which will let me take more Invulns with me at the end of a floor and the smaller radius can let me more safely rocket jump around enemies in a pinch), and finally an Agility mod for my boots (I somehow did not get a single one in the prior three special levels). At this point the run is mostly won, the Powered Red Armor will reduce all melee damage short of the Nightmare Demon and the biggest bosses down to 1 damage, VMR will be nearly harmless even without berserk, and with berserk basically everything will get reduced to 1 damage with no TaN needed (in this version, only plasma hits that deal over 11 damage won't get reduce to 1 damage, which among common enemies only a max damage roll from a Hell Knight or Cacodemon can do for a single extra point of damage, and the only other enemy I can encounter that can is Nightmare Cacodemon rolling for a maximum of 3 damage after my defenses). I would near exclusively use my fists at this point to be absolutely sure nothing inadvertently dies when I have a weapon out, as weakening enemies prior to punch them is no longer needed when I have achieved a near-IDDQD state, and I can even get more corpses destroyed by just tanking explosive projectiles on them if they're not already destroyed in the crossfire. I just need to be careful to not overextend against Arachnotrons (who can still rack up a lot of damage since their rapid fire bursts add up fast even after reducing each plasma bolt to 1 damage) and not take too many acid balls from Barons without berserk (they can still roll up to as high as 12 damage without berserk and a few acid balls in quick succession can damage my Powered Red Armor, putting me in a bad spot if I can't quickly get a breather for it to repair itself).
I skip Containment Area but head into Abyssal Plains for the Skulls that might be useful and a big easy kill pad, with it pushing me over the needed 90% kills threshold and so I won't need to do any respawn or Pain Elemental farming later as long as I clear out most of the remaining floors. Having a nuke on hand and an Invuln spawning on Deimos 6, I would use the opportunity to nuke Spider's Lair, which conveniently has all its rewards spawn in after the nuke goes off; unfortunately I can't use the BFG but the Plasteel Boots will be nice... yet are immediately rendered irrelevant when Deimos 7 has Enviroboots drop in my immediate vision. Deimos 7 is finished off easily and then I punch out the Cyberdemon effortlessly, not even needing to Chainsaw him down to near death first. Hell gives me an easy opener with a Pain Elemental + Lost Souls cave, and then Unholy Cathedral is free EXP, with me also punching out the Angel of Death without needing to weaken him with the Chainsaw. I find a Bulk in that cave after using all the ones I had prior on the Tactical Rocket Launcher, which I used to make a P-modded Nanofiber Red Armor out of a spare Red Armor I had just in case I got into a fight that damaged the Powered Red Armor... and that proved immediately necessary when Hell 2 gave me an Arena level with an Arachnotron group right near the start as well as a nearby Hell Noble group set to hunt me. Had my closest post-Phobos call here as my Powered Red Armor got damaged and I had to slip into that Nanofiber Red Armor, with one particular bad moment when my berserk ran out while waiting for enemies to approach me from behind the starting cover, a Hatred Skull would indeed prove useful here to get rid of the nearby corpses and get berserk back on to finish the remaining hunting enemies so I can put the Powered Red Armor back on to repair itself, after which I can finish off the remaining enemies. Hell 3 is much smoother and I then enter The Vaults, since it's free EXP and missing a handful of kills won't matter, while I also have two Phase Devices to try getting in the center vault without the Arena Master's Staff. The first one doesn't get me in, but the second Phase does! This turns out to not just be for EXP (and making up for cheesing Scavenger Diamond prior with Whisper Of Death in this version), but is materially worth it as well with the center vault having a Lava Armor, much better backup armor than the Nanofiber Red that I can also easily repair whenever with those Enviroboots (and I would make use of it a couple times, particularly against some Barons on an Island level who I carelessly face tanked too many berserk-less acid balls from). Hell 4 would have an Invuln right near Mortuary's stairs, and I had another nuke on hand, so I decided to nuke Mortuary as well. I would pop the other Hatred Skull I got from the Agony Elemental, then do a couple rocket jumps towards the Nuclear BFG before the Archviles start reviving enemies (immediately swapping off once there was too much risk of something dying while rocket jumping), and then run the rest of the way to get the Nuclear BFG before nuking Mortuary (this was completely unnecessary, but nuking Mortuary is fun). Thanks to Enviroboots, Mt. Erebus is a freebie and it would have Malek's Armor there, would have been much nicer to have this sooner, but it's nice to have for Carmack, who I opt to fight to continue inching closer to Apostle rank and I effortlessly punch Carmack out.
A really nasty thing about Strongman runs is that you don't know for sure if you succeed until you see the ending mortem or the rank up screen, since something may have died at some point while you had a weapon equipped that you didn't notice, and there's no way to see during the run if it's still valid for the Strongman badges, thus you could potentially slug through this ordeal after hours and hours just to not get the badge because you didn't see the message that a fucking Pinky you never even saw ran on lava for the single second you had a weapon out. So upon killing Carmack I sit in anticipation for the rank up screen to verify nothing went wrong..... and there it is! After 24 recorded deaths (the most brutal deaths being the previously alluded to death in Phobos Lab after being forced in by a terribly early Arachnotron cave, and this run immediately after where I made it to Phobos 7 with an Invuln near the Anomaly stairs, only to absolutely throw it by charging on a Revenant in the open backed by a Chaingunner instead of running behind some sort of cover or just using up the Large Medkit I had), probably around another dozen or so I quit out of when getting a fucked floor or something dying while I had a weapon out, and countless resets on Phobos Base Entry if you count those as real attempts, I get Strongman Angelic over two days of attempting it. That is additionally my 9th Angelic, officially tying Tormuse for the most recorded Angelics by any player in 0.9.9.7 and becoming the second player confirmed to have achieved the Chaos Lt. General Rank (this also knocks off the last badge that was only won by Tormuse, which leaves Icy's Arena Diamond as the only badge left exclusively won by a single player aside from my own Eagerness and Inquisitor Angelics). Overall, yeah this badge definitely deserves its Angelic status and I can see why only Tormuse won it in this version, as not only is it extremely difficult, but it also forces the worst of DRL gameplay and it's very frustrating to suddenly lose runs because of anything dying while you had a weapon out. I don't think it's harder than Eagerness Angelic and am not sure it's harder than Inquisitor Angelic either (the difficulty is incredibly front-loaded here and surviving to The Chained Court is heavily luck-based), but it certainly was a lot less fun to go for. Strongman Angelic will be one of the badges most affected by the changes since in 0.10 and beyond; there are lots of good things like respawns no longer counting towards the kill counter, enemies no longer reviving in vision without the aid of Archviles, Tech mods now giving resistances to armors (including +20% melee res), proper infighting being in the game, and best of all, indirect kills are now properly attributed as "other" kills instead of to your equipped weapon, so you can keep a weapon equipped at all times and don't need to waste so much time constantly swapping between armed/unarmed. There are however going to be drawbacks, such as more randomized enemy melee damage meaning enemies can potentially swing harder (notably Pinkies actually average slightly more damage now), berserk being nerfed to giving +50% resistances (the Marine getting an inherent +10% energy resistances will result in your berserked energy resistances being the same if you play the Marine, but you will feel the nerf on the melee side), Vampyre getting some significant but deserved nerfs (Vampyre's HP steal can no longer overheal and Vampyre is now blocked Ironman + TaN, which were buffed to give additional resistances, but as compensation Vampyre can get SoB now for extra punching damage or get EE for Intuition), and most significantly you now have the Enraged Timer that will invalidate excessive camping. I'm not sure if Strongman Angelic will be easier or even harder in 0.10-onward, but it'll certainly be less degenerate to actually play, which would make any grind for it more bearable regardless of if it turns out harder.
Well that was sure a doozy to write up, here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
GRANDMASTERTYSON25,
level 17 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Marine,
nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 1459188 turns and scored 940230 points.
He played for 3 hours, 13 minutes and 29 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 2016 out of 2122 hellspawn. (95%)
He held his right to remain violent.
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 9
Levels completed : 9
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
Sunrise Iron Fist
UAC Star (silver cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Fallout Gold Cross
Grim Reaper's Badge
Hell Armorer Badge
Strongman Angelic Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
.......................................................|..#
.......................................................X}|#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 120/60 Experience 150112/17
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +10 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +15
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Marine
Finesse (Level 3)
Tough as nails (Level 2)
Brute (Level 5)
Juggler (Level 1)
Berserker (Level 1)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Badass (Level 2)
Vampyre (Level 1)
Bru->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bad->MVm->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->Jug->Fin->Bru->Bru->Bad->TaN->TaN->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] Malek's Armor [3/3] (93%)
[b] [ Weapon ] nothing
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] tactical rocket launcher (6d7) [5/5] (P1)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] plasmatic combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
[b] powered red armor [7/7] (100%) (P)
[c] nanofiber red armor [4] (P)
[d] Lava Armor [4/4] (100%)
[e] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
[f] chainsaw (5d7) (BP)
[g] shotgun shell (x50)
[h] rocket (x2)
[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] phase device
[q] envirosuit pack
[r] power mod pack
[s] Enviroboots [0]
[t] shell box (x100)
-- 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 90% feet 60%
Fire - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
Plasma - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
204 former humans
175 former sergeants
182 former captains
275 imps
90 demons
563 lost souls
104 cacodemons
44 hell knights
58 barons of hell
38 arachnotrons
51 former commandos
44 pain elementals
68 revenants
42 mancubi
28 arch-viles
9 nightmare imps
12 nightmare demons
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
2 bruiser brothers
2 shamblers
1 lava elemental
1 agony elemental
1 Angel of Death
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
1 John Carmack
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
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 Deimos Lab.
On level 9 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he assembled a power armor!
On level 11 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
On level 11 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
He slaughtered the beasts living there.
On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
He nuked level 14!
He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
On level 15 he found the Enviroboots!
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 17 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
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 entered the Vaults.
On level 19 he found the Lava Armor!
He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
On level 20 he assembled a tactical boots!
On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
He nuked level 20!
On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
On level 22 he found the Malek's Armor!
He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
Then at last he found Dis!
He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You are hit! You need to taste
blood!
You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! The lost soul hits you. The lost
soul hits you. John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher. You need to taste
blood!
You hit John Carmack. The lost soul hits you. The lost soul hits you. You
need to taste blood!
You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
You hit John Carmack. The lost soul hits you. You need to taste blood!
You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
You hit John Carmack. You are hit! The lost soul dies. The lost soul dies.
The lost soul dies. The lost soul dies. You need to taste blood!
You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
Carmack! Press <Enter>...
You're going berserk!
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
331 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
133 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 8 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
93 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
49 killed the bitch and survived.
37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
10
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoMs|96%|YAFW] - Masochist Diamond with Explorer and Reaper Pin
« on: January 05, 2026, 14:02 »
In the dwindling list of Diamonds I haven't gotten yet in 0.9.9.7, I decided to go for Masochist Diamond, yet another of the few big scary Diamonds that few have attempted and even fewer have won. On the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, only three people are recorded winning it; Gooselord1, Icy, and papilio, who was also the only one that did it purely. In versions prior to 0.9.9.7, you just have this supposed Masochist Diamond run in 0.9.9.5 by 2Dev (which would have actually been one of his more believable mortems... if not for his trademark unrealistically fast play time), and this 0.9.9.4 Masochist Diamond by Tormuse (unsurprising Tormuse won this before, though surprising he never got it back in 0.9.9.7). This isn't the Diamond with the worst track record, but still among the rarest and I imagine most Diamond-level players were too spooked to even try winning it.
So now time for the build. Looking over the prior Masochist Diamond runs, Icy used a Intuition stair dive Scout, but he also combined AoMs with AoMC, and without AoMC's massive offensive boost, that build would be far too weak to get through any difficult floor without powerups, so it would be exorbitantly luck-based to try in pure AoMs. Gooselord did it through a melee Scout stair dive while combining AoB with AoMs on his way to getting Berserker Angelic, and while combining AoB with AoMs could certainly be considered more impressive than winning AoMs purely, his strategy still relied on a great deal of luck and wouldn't be close to optimal without the constraints of AoB. Papilio did an extreme damage avoidance build similar to Icy's with the same five starting traits, but he would get some offense-boosting traits after, and while papilio doesn't say how many tries it took him, skimming through his video he did get very good level luck with a shocking lack of dangerous hot starts, alongside good Invuln luck (including a clutch Invuln in an Archvile hot start that may have killed him without it), I don't think his build would have the power to survive any bad hot starts and it can't manage most of the special levels either to get their rewards, so it seems overly luck-based for my liking as well (on another note, I was shocked at how inefficient papilio was with his Invulns, with no rocket jumping and other action-inefficient things like not taking advantage of full reload, he could have ran through Hell entirely with invulnerability with better usage of it). 2Dev supposedly did it with the standard Ammochain build, which with it being 2Dev it can be dismissed, and standard Ammochain doesn't make sense for AoMs anyway when it's going to have a hard time avoiding damage nor is it going to be tanky, especially when he got both Triggerhappy levels before any Reloader (and he supposedly did it without using Shotguns, just to add to it being usual 2Dev bullshit).
So I want a build with the power to survive hot starts and good damage avoidance in general? Seems like a good time for my favorite mastery Shottyhead again. As usual, I open with Finesse -> Juggler for the immediate firepower it grants and helping tremendously with beating Hell's Arena, but I deviate from Shottyhead for a few levels to get Berserker; getting Berserker in my Shottyhead runs is common but usually it's post-mastery, I delay Shottyhead for it here for two reasons. One, Berserker is the best defensive trait by a mile, it'll be critical to helping me survive bad hot starts with limited healing and is good defensive insurance against VMR, barrels, or Barons rolling high damage. Two, Brute+Berserker will make beating UnChained Court + Deimos Lab much easier when they're the two special levels that Shottyhead will have a very hard time surviving without any healing, and the rewards are too good to simply pass them up (while if I roll Hell's Armory instead of Deimos Lab, the sole Shambler could still mess me up without Berserker if I get bad teleporting luck). With this Shottyhead + Berserker combo, I'm in the best position to survive hot starts with minimal damage, and Shottyhead ensures I can cornershoot anything to death without it reaching me and not get boned if another enemy pops at a different angle while cornershooting something else, while I'll also be able to repeatedly knockback multiple enemies at edge of vision to avoid damage when cover is unavailable. Once Berserker is secured, it's back to the Shottyhead prereq path, with Hellrunner first for the extra damage avoidance, and after Shottyhead, you can go for Int2 if you plan to rush the rest of the game, but I go for Fin2 and then WK2 to get more power (I also had lots of mods doing nothing in my inventory and really wanted a Focused Double Shotgun + Tactical Rocket Launcher, while I got terrible Invuln luck anyway that would have hindered a late game rush). After WK2, it's then Int1 to see any useful Invulns and Int2 for extra lategame damage avoidance assurance, and then some HR and Finesse with my endgame levels. Coincidentally, when looking over the two pre-0.9.9.7 Masochist Diamond mortems after finishing my run, it seems Tormuse settled on Shottyhead too; it's hard to compare since his run was back in 0.9.9.4 (a version so old that the Mastermind didn't exist yet and the Cyberdemon was still the final boss), though our builds differed as he didn't go for early Berserker (or at all), and he went for Int2 immediately post-mastery with no Whizkid.
For the run, since the Small Medkits do nothing, you don't need to worry about getting the two on Phobos Base Entry, and you don't need to worry much about damage either unless you get really messed up since you'll level up very shortly after to get 200% health, so you shouldn't be resetting here. You should however hold onto a Small Medkit or two when you get them for gift dropping. After an easy Phobos 2, it's onto Hell's Arena; N! Hell's Arena with no immediate healing is scary, but it's not so bad with a good build for it as you'll be guaranteed a Supercharge level up during it, and it's too rewarding in AoMs to pass up, as aside from the Rocket Launcher (which is going to be especially handy for self-triggering Berserker), the Blue Armor gets replaced with early Red Armor (which is also especially handy for mitigating the damage of face rockets for Berserker and non-Invuln'd rocket jumps), and the Large Medkit gets replaced with Plasteel Boots to make any forced fluid traversal a lot less painful. Even if you're doing a build with no melee investment and so will struggle in UnChained Court, I think clearing Hell's Arena and then skipping Chained Court later would be better for your run's overall odds in AoMs than not finishing Hell's Arena to get the easy Chained Court later. Upon killing the last Baron to clear Hell's Arena, I levelled up and so could go into the next floor with boosted health despite being unable to use the Supercharge, I just had to be very quick with picking up everything. Completing Hell's Arena would prove its worth, as I immediately get a maze on Phobos 3 that I take an uncomfortable amount of damage in, and the game is seemingly determined to abort this run, as on Phobos 4 I get a second consecutive maze. If not for the Red Armor, I would have died on the second maze when I still came close to death with it. After surviving that second maze's hot start, the rest of it wasn't so bad, and I would get a reprieve with a Lost Soul cave on Phobos 5, while their low EXP yield I usually gripe about is actually beneficial here as it gives me a levelup Supercharge in UnChained Court. Speaking of which, the detour for Berserker pays off and I'm able to beat it without too much damage, though I unfortunately wasn't able to save any of the berserks this time. The run nearly ended right after this though as I got a horrible Phobos 6, with the floor starting me in the most bottom left corner of a big empty room with a bunch of Formers and Imps, a Pain Elemental, multiple Hell Knights, and a Baron. Going for Berserker gets validated here; sticking to Shottyhead's prereq path would have probably gotten me overwhelmed here with no Shottyhead yet, while the Intuition damage avoidant builds would have gotten their shit quickly pushed in with nowhere to run. Thanks to Berserker and a well-timed facerocket to trigger it, I survive the floor but just barely, I'm a single kill from levelling up however and the next floor's start can make or break this run... and it's a Pinky cave with a Pinky I'm able to immediately kill, the run lives! I roll Phobos Lab, which is going to be dangerous with no Shottyhead, no Double Shotty, and only being able to activate run once while barely outrunning Nightmare Demons when naked without run's speed boost, but with some well timed face rockets to trigger Berserker when I needed the extra speed or when I got a Nightmare Demon in my face, I get through it without taking much damage. When I reach the end I don't stay around to clear it though and give up my bid at a N! AoMs Conqueror, as I level up right near the exit and so left right there to get through the ever dreaded N! Anomaly with Supercharged health to ensure I enter Deimos in good shape, while also taking advantage of the boosted health to kill the Bruisers for EXP without sacrificing such precious health.
After an unremarkable Deimos 1 (aside from a GCB spawning there that I had no use for), I rolled Hell's Armory instead of Deimos Lab, and with good old camping the first north building + triggering Berserker with a facerocket after releasing the Shambler, I get through with little health lost, but unfortunately the rare mod is a Firestorm, the least useful mod for this build and I just slap it on a Plasma Rifle as I'm not sure I'll be getting the BFG later. The weapon cache also didn't have a Double Shotty and only a Missile Launcher for exotics, which was also disappointing, but I do take the Missile Launcher along and P-mod it to ensure the consistency of facerockets triggering Berserker (6d6 rockets have a 90.4% chance to roll the 16+ damage needed to trigger Berserker, mostly reliable but not completely safe and any low damage rolls that fail to trigger Berserker can do as much as 5 damage in P-modded Red Armor, 7 if not P-modded, which adds up really fast in AoMs and can be lethal if such low rolls happen with enemies around, while 6d7 rockets will have a 95.9% chance, not guaranteed but substantially less chance of failure and even a max roll will still deal only 1 damage in P Red Armor as Berserker triggers). Deimos 3 would tease me with another Missile Launcher, finding Missile Launchers randomly always leave a sour feeling when you got two guaranteed ones in the special levels (still anxiously awaiting for the completely redundant second Missile Launcher in City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains to get replaced in the next DRL version). Speaking of guaranteed Missile Launchers, I would go into Containment Area, and while I think I could have beaten the ambush, I play it safe as I won't get a level up during it and so leave the Backpack behind, only going in to get some EXP and the Rocket Box (not that the Backpack is really needed when you can infinitely farm ammo on N!).
The succeeding Abyssal Plains on the other hand (or City Of Skulls if you roll it) is a must stop in AoMs; you know those Blood Skulls that are usually the most disappointing drop from the Agony Elemental? Something most people may not know is that Blood Skulls can actually still heal you in AoMs, being one of only three things in DRL that can do so outside of levelling up (the others being Vampyre and the Medical Armors, the latter being very limited before their big 0.9.9.8 buff as they can only heal up to 25% in this version), making them one of the most valuable things for this run, and luckily I get two of them from the Agony Elemental after I effortlessly kill it with Shottyhead (as well as a Hatred Skull, which I keep too in case I want to pop into Mortuary/Limbo later). I clear out the rest of Abyssal Plains after and get a levelup to get back to full health, but after that good Abyssal Plains, the game decides to give me a very annoying Deimos 5. Luckily with no Enraged Timer yet in this version, I can just camp it in that nice camping spot in the top right and actually clear that floor with no damage (before I was forced to run through lava to reach the stairs that is). Deimos 6 would give me a Cacodemon cave that I would have just immediately left with the stairs near me... but I finally get a Double Shotgun here, so I fight my way through it. With a Homing Phase and really wanting a Power Mod for my Double Shotgun, I go into Halls Of Carnage right after I level up from the Cacos, and I got this funny bug of starting in the wall that I got once before but only in 0.9.9.8, guess it's not 0.9.9.8-exclusive (explanation, the Formers have random starting spawns and can spawn where the player does, which then pushes you into the nearby wall, actually a slightly beneficial bug as you can just move out and thus escape the starting room faster without having to run around or blowing the wall up). I use the Homing Phase after reaching the first mod, pick up the BFG, and then fight my way to the second mod, but unfortunately neither mod was a Power mod and so I'm unable to build the Focused Double Shotgun. I probably could have stuck around and cleared out the maze enemies, as berserked Shottyhead is one of the best builds for it, but since I won't have a level up during it and have already lost the Conqueror, I play it safe and leave after getting the second mod. I get through Deimos 7 and finally finish my Tactical Rocket Launcher there (usually I would ditch the Missile Launcher at this point but hold onto it for the aforementioned extra reliability with triggering Berserker since it's P-modded) and Cybie goes down as easily as you would expect against any Berserker build (I tried shotgunning him down with Shottyhead first, but I wasn't reliably dodging him and I wasn't hitting as hard as I wanted to without a Focused Double, so I just went in and Chainsawed him down to save a few more points of damage plus time), while he gets me only a kill or two away from levelling up to start Hell in good shape.
The first floor of Hell would be a fairly unremarkable small rooms level, but it has an Invulnerability Globe spawn, finally the first one I find this whole run, any run that would have relied on them would have been long dead by now. I consider taking that Invuln and trying to Invuln rush through the remaining rest of the game, but maybe the bad Invuln luck will continue and do the safer play of using it to get through Unholy Cathedral with minimal attrition damage for the Longinus Spear to greatly enhance my melee prowess. After a swell Hell 2, I would get a brutal Hell 3, getting spawned in a room with only crates for cover while a ton of Barons and Archviles to revive them were around, and when I thought I was in a good spot, a Revenant popped out of a southern door and its subsequent rocket failed to trigger Berserker, while the level just had no good quickly accessible camping spot. After my health dropped into the 20ish% range and my P-modded Red Armor got damaged, while still hearing Barons around just outside my vision, I would resort to using one of the Blood Skulls despite only having two corpses around to just get 10 HP back. I do get through the floor, but with only 12 HP left and still some kills away from levelling up (imagine if I had to get through this floor without Shottyhead nor Berserker...). Thankfully N! Vaults in this version has only Archviles and Revenants instead of Nightmare Archviles, Nightmare Arachnotrons, and Red Armored Barons, so I'm able to go in, pop the Arena Master's Staff, and quickly kill a couple Archviles safely for the levelup Supercharge to get back in business. The Vaults also had Enviroboots spawn to invalidate any forced fluid traversal, so holding onto the Staff ended up paying off big time in this run.
Following that close call with a much laxer Hell 4, I make the gutsy move to go into N! Mortuary despite AoMs preventing me from healing on demand without using up my last Blood Skull and Hell 4 having no Invuln to take into it. I do the usual opener of immediately popping my Hatred Skull, and taking advantage of this version not limiting BFG firing range by shooting a couple blasts towards each side from the center, and then rocket jump to the Nuclear BFG. Once it's secured, I just camp the corner a bit and take advantage of the unlimited BFG range to repeatedly shoot it at far out-of-vision targets, while using the Tactical Rocket Launcher or Missile Launcher or Shottyhead-boosted Tactical Shotgun to repeatedly knock enemies back, and with my strong melee I can keep some Mancubi corpses around near me to farm rockets. It takes a bit, but after I suspect most enemies are dead, I make my way to the left, and level up upon killing the last Archvile, at which I point I use the boosted health to rush through the rest. I shortly finish it after said level up and did it taking only 12 damage. Going through Mortuary wasn't just for bragging rights though, as after not getting any Power mods since Hell's Armory, I can get the guaranteed one here to finally build the Focused Double Shotgun, which ended up proving its worth when I got a Hell 6 maze with a hot start and no cover that could have been nasty, but I'm able to blow away quickly thanks to the Focused Double (the Unique by the way was a useless Mega Buster, if the game was going to give me a useless Unique, why not the Subtle Knife I need for Armorer Diamond instead of the useless Unique I already gotten a dozen times somehow despite it having a spawning weight of 1?). With the Enviroboots and Shottyhead, The Lava Pits is free, then Hell 7 gives me a relaxing penultimate level with a Humid lever, and an actually useful Unique in Malek's Armor that I have to kill a Baron for (would have wanted this much earlier but still nice for the Mastermind or Carmack). I nuke the Mastermind and then go for the Carmack kill to get ever closer to Apostle rank, and upon reaching Carmack there was actually an opportunity to take advantage of intentionally having him spawn the penalty Barons for attacking him out of vision since they give EXP and I was pretty close to levelling up, but I wasn't sure if the Barons would be enough and so play it safe. With the Blood Skull still unused, I do it use to get some boosted health after killing some Cacodemons he spawn (one advantage of fighting Carmack instead of the Mastermind in AoMs is this allowing you a mid-fight heal and tactics restoration if needed), but it's unnecessary as berserked Shottyhead with the Focused Double Shotgun effortlessly kills him.
So that's Masochist Diamond now done, and with an Explorer + Grim Reaper Pin to boot (wasn't originally planning on that but it ended up working out that way). Also succeeding despite having to get through several nasty run-ending floors, not being able to get a critical weapon for this build until the run was nearly done, and having probably the worst Invulnerability luck I ever gotten with only that single Invuln the entire run (good thing I played safe with the one I found instead of trying to Invuln rush the rest of the game). I'm telling you, everyone else slept hard on Shottyhead, I'm pretty sure this run doesn't succeed without the combo of Berserker and Shottyhead, and nearly every other qualifying build would have died in those early Phobos mazes, that horrible Phobos 6 hot start, that very rough Hell 3, or even that Hell 6 maze, let alone manage all the special levels (8 of them cleared is more than even 2Dev supposedly did in his Masochist Diamond run, and I realistically could have finished the remaining three for the unprecedented N! AoMs Conqueror if I was willing to play a bit more ballsy, maybe another time...). This should have been a first try clear too, but the first attempt died mid-Deimos after a power outage and my new UPS apparently not having its battery connected to keep my computer on (that run had a Nano Mod too and an early Assault Shotgun, so it probably goes all the way without the run getting a catastrophically terrible second half), I have to settle for a technical second try. Despite the first/second try and having an ideal build for Masochist Diamond, the run did flirted with ending multiple times, including that close call in Hell that would have been especially devastating after expending around four hours into the run, so I do have to respect it as deserving its reputation as one of the toughest Diamonds. Not quite as bad as Inquisitor Diamond though (you might be able to heal on demand in AoP, but you don't get that much more health than AoMs' levelup Supercharges give you and in AoMs your armor won't be in perpetual tatters without an Onyx/Nano in addition to still being able to use Berserks + Invulns), and I'm certain I'm gonna prefer it to the five Diamonds I have left, which are gonna be either even more extreme "don't get hit" hell or grinding hell (for reference, I finished this run with a little over 500 damage taken, I would have to shave off over 60% of that damage taken just for Demonic Diamond without the aid of a guaranteed early Red Armor). All Diamonds is in sight, but it's probably not gonna be a fun time and this will likely be the last first or second try win...
Here is the mortem:
So now time for the build. Looking over the prior Masochist Diamond runs, Icy used a Intuition stair dive Scout, but he also combined AoMs with AoMC, and without AoMC's massive offensive boost, that build would be far too weak to get through any difficult floor without powerups, so it would be exorbitantly luck-based to try in pure AoMs. Gooselord did it through a melee Scout stair dive while combining AoB with AoMs on his way to getting Berserker Angelic, and while combining AoB with AoMs could certainly be considered more impressive than winning AoMs purely, his strategy still relied on a great deal of luck and wouldn't be close to optimal without the constraints of AoB. Papilio did an extreme damage avoidance build similar to Icy's with the same five starting traits, but he would get some offense-boosting traits after, and while papilio doesn't say how many tries it took him, skimming through his video he did get very good level luck with a shocking lack of dangerous hot starts, alongside good Invuln luck (including a clutch Invuln in an Archvile hot start that may have killed him without it), I don't think his build would have the power to survive any bad hot starts and it can't manage most of the special levels either to get their rewards, so it seems overly luck-based for my liking as well (on another note, I was shocked at how inefficient papilio was with his Invulns, with no rocket jumping and other action-inefficient things like not taking advantage of full reload, he could have ran through Hell entirely with invulnerability with better usage of it). 2Dev supposedly did it with the standard Ammochain build, which with it being 2Dev it can be dismissed, and standard Ammochain doesn't make sense for AoMs anyway when it's going to have a hard time avoiding damage nor is it going to be tanky, especially when he got both Triggerhappy levels before any Reloader (and he supposedly did it without using Shotguns, just to add to it being usual 2Dev bullshit).
So I want a build with the power to survive hot starts and good damage avoidance in general? Seems like a good time for my favorite mastery Shottyhead again. As usual, I open with Finesse -> Juggler for the immediate firepower it grants and helping tremendously with beating Hell's Arena, but I deviate from Shottyhead for a few levels to get Berserker; getting Berserker in my Shottyhead runs is common but usually it's post-mastery, I delay Shottyhead for it here for two reasons. One, Berserker is the best defensive trait by a mile, it'll be critical to helping me survive bad hot starts with limited healing and is good defensive insurance against VMR, barrels, or Barons rolling high damage. Two, Brute+Berserker will make beating UnChained Court + Deimos Lab much easier when they're the two special levels that Shottyhead will have a very hard time surviving without any healing, and the rewards are too good to simply pass them up (while if I roll Hell's Armory instead of Deimos Lab, the sole Shambler could still mess me up without Berserker if I get bad teleporting luck). With this Shottyhead + Berserker combo, I'm in the best position to survive hot starts with minimal damage, and Shottyhead ensures I can cornershoot anything to death without it reaching me and not get boned if another enemy pops at a different angle while cornershooting something else, while I'll also be able to repeatedly knockback multiple enemies at edge of vision to avoid damage when cover is unavailable. Once Berserker is secured, it's back to the Shottyhead prereq path, with Hellrunner first for the extra damage avoidance, and after Shottyhead, you can go for Int2 if you plan to rush the rest of the game, but I go for Fin2 and then WK2 to get more power (I also had lots of mods doing nothing in my inventory and really wanted a Focused Double Shotgun + Tactical Rocket Launcher, while I got terrible Invuln luck anyway that would have hindered a late game rush). After WK2, it's then Int1 to see any useful Invulns and Int2 for extra lategame damage avoidance assurance, and then some HR and Finesse with my endgame levels. Coincidentally, when looking over the two pre-0.9.9.7 Masochist Diamond mortems after finishing my run, it seems Tormuse settled on Shottyhead too; it's hard to compare since his run was back in 0.9.9.4 (a version so old that the Mastermind didn't exist yet and the Cyberdemon was still the final boss), though our builds differed as he didn't go for early Berserker (or at all), and he went for Int2 immediately post-mastery with no Whizkid.
For the run, since the Small Medkits do nothing, you don't need to worry about getting the two on Phobos Base Entry, and you don't need to worry much about damage either unless you get really messed up since you'll level up very shortly after to get 200% health, so you shouldn't be resetting here. You should however hold onto a Small Medkit or two when you get them for gift dropping. After an easy Phobos 2, it's onto Hell's Arena; N! Hell's Arena with no immediate healing is scary, but it's not so bad with a good build for it as you'll be guaranteed a Supercharge level up during it, and it's too rewarding in AoMs to pass up, as aside from the Rocket Launcher (which is going to be especially handy for self-triggering Berserker), the Blue Armor gets replaced with early Red Armor (which is also especially handy for mitigating the damage of face rockets for Berserker and non-Invuln'd rocket jumps), and the Large Medkit gets replaced with Plasteel Boots to make any forced fluid traversal a lot less painful. Even if you're doing a build with no melee investment and so will struggle in UnChained Court, I think clearing Hell's Arena and then skipping Chained Court later would be better for your run's overall odds in AoMs than not finishing Hell's Arena to get the easy Chained Court later. Upon killing the last Baron to clear Hell's Arena, I levelled up and so could go into the next floor with boosted health despite being unable to use the Supercharge, I just had to be very quick with picking up everything. Completing Hell's Arena would prove its worth, as I immediately get a maze on Phobos 3 that I take an uncomfortable amount of damage in, and the game is seemingly determined to abort this run, as on Phobos 4 I get a second consecutive maze. If not for the Red Armor, I would have died on the second maze when I still came close to death with it. After surviving that second maze's hot start, the rest of it wasn't so bad, and I would get a reprieve with a Lost Soul cave on Phobos 5, while their low EXP yield I usually gripe about is actually beneficial here as it gives me a levelup Supercharge in UnChained Court. Speaking of which, the detour for Berserker pays off and I'm able to beat it without too much damage, though I unfortunately wasn't able to save any of the berserks this time. The run nearly ended right after this though as I got a horrible Phobos 6, with the floor starting me in the most bottom left corner of a big empty room with a bunch of Formers and Imps, a Pain Elemental, multiple Hell Knights, and a Baron. Going for Berserker gets validated here; sticking to Shottyhead's prereq path would have probably gotten me overwhelmed here with no Shottyhead yet, while the Intuition damage avoidant builds would have gotten their shit quickly pushed in with nowhere to run. Thanks to Berserker and a well-timed facerocket to trigger it, I survive the floor but just barely, I'm a single kill from levelling up however and the next floor's start can make or break this run... and it's a Pinky cave with a Pinky I'm able to immediately kill, the run lives! I roll Phobos Lab, which is going to be dangerous with no Shottyhead, no Double Shotty, and only being able to activate run once while barely outrunning Nightmare Demons when naked without run's speed boost, but with some well timed face rockets to trigger Berserker when I needed the extra speed or when I got a Nightmare Demon in my face, I get through it without taking much damage. When I reach the end I don't stay around to clear it though and give up my bid at a N! AoMs Conqueror, as I level up right near the exit and so left right there to get through the ever dreaded N! Anomaly with Supercharged health to ensure I enter Deimos in good shape, while also taking advantage of the boosted health to kill the Bruisers for EXP without sacrificing such precious health.
After an unremarkable Deimos 1 (aside from a GCB spawning there that I had no use for), I rolled Hell's Armory instead of Deimos Lab, and with good old camping the first north building + triggering Berserker with a facerocket after releasing the Shambler, I get through with little health lost, but unfortunately the rare mod is a Firestorm, the least useful mod for this build and I just slap it on a Plasma Rifle as I'm not sure I'll be getting the BFG later. The weapon cache also didn't have a Double Shotty and only a Missile Launcher for exotics, which was also disappointing, but I do take the Missile Launcher along and P-mod it to ensure the consistency of facerockets triggering Berserker (6d6 rockets have a 90.4% chance to roll the 16+ damage needed to trigger Berserker, mostly reliable but not completely safe and any low damage rolls that fail to trigger Berserker can do as much as 5 damage in P-modded Red Armor, 7 if not P-modded, which adds up really fast in AoMs and can be lethal if such low rolls happen with enemies around, while 6d7 rockets will have a 95.9% chance, not guaranteed but substantially less chance of failure and even a max roll will still deal only 1 damage in P Red Armor as Berserker triggers). Deimos 3 would tease me with another Missile Launcher, finding Missile Launchers randomly always leave a sour feeling when you got two guaranteed ones in the special levels (still anxiously awaiting for the completely redundant second Missile Launcher in City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains to get replaced in the next DRL version). Speaking of guaranteed Missile Launchers, I would go into Containment Area, and while I think I could have beaten the ambush, I play it safe as I won't get a level up during it and so leave the Backpack behind, only going in to get some EXP and the Rocket Box (not that the Backpack is really needed when you can infinitely farm ammo on N!).
The succeeding Abyssal Plains on the other hand (or City Of Skulls if you roll it) is a must stop in AoMs; you know those Blood Skulls that are usually the most disappointing drop from the Agony Elemental? Something most people may not know is that Blood Skulls can actually still heal you in AoMs, being one of only three things in DRL that can do so outside of levelling up (the others being Vampyre and the Medical Armors, the latter being very limited before their big 0.9.9.8 buff as they can only heal up to 25% in this version), making them one of the most valuable things for this run, and luckily I get two of them from the Agony Elemental after I effortlessly kill it with Shottyhead (as well as a Hatred Skull, which I keep too in case I want to pop into Mortuary/Limbo later). I clear out the rest of Abyssal Plains after and get a levelup to get back to full health, but after that good Abyssal Plains, the game decides to give me a very annoying Deimos 5. Luckily with no Enraged Timer yet in this version, I can just camp it in that nice camping spot in the top right and actually clear that floor with no damage (before I was forced to run through lava to reach the stairs that is). Deimos 6 would give me a Cacodemon cave that I would have just immediately left with the stairs near me... but I finally get a Double Shotgun here, so I fight my way through it. With a Homing Phase and really wanting a Power Mod for my Double Shotgun, I go into Halls Of Carnage right after I level up from the Cacos, and I got this funny bug of starting in the wall that I got once before but only in 0.9.9.8, guess it's not 0.9.9.8-exclusive (explanation, the Formers have random starting spawns and can spawn where the player does, which then pushes you into the nearby wall, actually a slightly beneficial bug as you can just move out and thus escape the starting room faster without having to run around or blowing the wall up). I use the Homing Phase after reaching the first mod, pick up the BFG, and then fight my way to the second mod, but unfortunately neither mod was a Power mod and so I'm unable to build the Focused Double Shotgun. I probably could have stuck around and cleared out the maze enemies, as berserked Shottyhead is one of the best builds for it, but since I won't have a level up during it and have already lost the Conqueror, I play it safe and leave after getting the second mod. I get through Deimos 7 and finally finish my Tactical Rocket Launcher there (usually I would ditch the Missile Launcher at this point but hold onto it for the aforementioned extra reliability with triggering Berserker since it's P-modded) and Cybie goes down as easily as you would expect against any Berserker build (I tried shotgunning him down with Shottyhead first, but I wasn't reliably dodging him and I wasn't hitting as hard as I wanted to without a Focused Double, so I just went in and Chainsawed him down to save a few more points of damage plus time), while he gets me only a kill or two away from levelling up to start Hell in good shape.
The first floor of Hell would be a fairly unremarkable small rooms level, but it has an Invulnerability Globe spawn, finally the first one I find this whole run, any run that would have relied on them would have been long dead by now. I consider taking that Invuln and trying to Invuln rush through the remaining rest of the game, but maybe the bad Invuln luck will continue and do the safer play of using it to get through Unholy Cathedral with minimal attrition damage for the Longinus Spear to greatly enhance my melee prowess. After a swell Hell 2, I would get a brutal Hell 3, getting spawned in a room with only crates for cover while a ton of Barons and Archviles to revive them were around, and when I thought I was in a good spot, a Revenant popped out of a southern door and its subsequent rocket failed to trigger Berserker, while the level just had no good quickly accessible camping spot. After my health dropped into the 20ish% range and my P-modded Red Armor got damaged, while still hearing Barons around just outside my vision, I would resort to using one of the Blood Skulls despite only having two corpses around to just get 10 HP back. I do get through the floor, but with only 12 HP left and still some kills away from levelling up (imagine if I had to get through this floor without Shottyhead nor Berserker...). Thankfully N! Vaults in this version has only Archviles and Revenants instead of Nightmare Archviles, Nightmare Arachnotrons, and Red Armored Barons, so I'm able to go in, pop the Arena Master's Staff, and quickly kill a couple Archviles safely for the levelup Supercharge to get back in business. The Vaults also had Enviroboots spawn to invalidate any forced fluid traversal, so holding onto the Staff ended up paying off big time in this run.
Following that close call with a much laxer Hell 4, I make the gutsy move to go into N! Mortuary despite AoMs preventing me from healing on demand without using up my last Blood Skull and Hell 4 having no Invuln to take into it. I do the usual opener of immediately popping my Hatred Skull, and taking advantage of this version not limiting BFG firing range by shooting a couple blasts towards each side from the center, and then rocket jump to the Nuclear BFG. Once it's secured, I just camp the corner a bit and take advantage of the unlimited BFG range to repeatedly shoot it at far out-of-vision targets, while using the Tactical Rocket Launcher or Missile Launcher or Shottyhead-boosted Tactical Shotgun to repeatedly knock enemies back, and with my strong melee I can keep some Mancubi corpses around near me to farm rockets. It takes a bit, but after I suspect most enemies are dead, I make my way to the left, and level up upon killing the last Archvile, at which I point I use the boosted health to rush through the rest. I shortly finish it after said level up and did it taking only 12 damage. Going through Mortuary wasn't just for bragging rights though, as after not getting any Power mods since Hell's Armory, I can get the guaranteed one here to finally build the Focused Double Shotgun, which ended up proving its worth when I got a Hell 6 maze with a hot start and no cover that could have been nasty, but I'm able to blow away quickly thanks to the Focused Double (the Unique by the way was a useless Mega Buster, if the game was going to give me a useless Unique, why not the Subtle Knife I need for Armorer Diamond instead of the useless Unique I already gotten a dozen times somehow despite it having a spawning weight of 1?). With the Enviroboots and Shottyhead, The Lava Pits is free, then Hell 7 gives me a relaxing penultimate level with a Humid lever, and an actually useful Unique in Malek's Armor that I have to kill a Baron for (would have wanted this much earlier but still nice for the Mastermind or Carmack). I nuke the Mastermind and then go for the Carmack kill to get ever closer to Apostle rank, and upon reaching Carmack there was actually an opportunity to take advantage of intentionally having him spawn the penalty Barons for attacking him out of vision since they give EXP and I was pretty close to levelling up, but I wasn't sure if the Barons would be enough and so play it safe. With the Blood Skull still unused, I do it use to get some boosted health after killing some Cacodemons he spawn (one advantage of fighting Carmack instead of the Mastermind in AoMs is this allowing you a mid-fight heal and tactics restoration if needed), but it's unnecessary as berserked Shottyhead with the Focused Double Shotgun effortlessly kills him.
So that's Masochist Diamond now done, and with an Explorer + Grim Reaper Pin to boot (wasn't originally planning on that but it ended up working out that way). Also succeeding despite having to get through several nasty run-ending floors, not being able to get a critical weapon for this build until the run was nearly done, and having probably the worst Invulnerability luck I ever gotten with only that single Invuln the entire run (good thing I played safe with the one I found instead of trying to Invuln rush the rest of the game). I'm telling you, everyone else slept hard on Shottyhead, I'm pretty sure this run doesn't succeed without the combo of Berserker and Shottyhead, and nearly every other qualifying build would have died in those early Phobos mazes, that horrible Phobos 6 hot start, that very rough Hell 3, or even that Hell 6 maze, let alone manage all the special levels (8 of them cleared is more than even 2Dev supposedly did in his Masochist Diamond run, and I realistically could have finished the remaining three for the unprecedented N! AoMs Conqueror if I was willing to play a bit more ballsy, maybe another time...). This should have been a first try clear too, but the first attempt died mid-Deimos after a power outage and my new UPS apparently not having its battery connected to keep my computer on (that run had a Nano Mod too and an early Assault Shotgun, so it probably goes all the way without the run getting a catastrophically terrible second half), I have to settle for a technical second try. Despite the first/second try and having an ideal build for Masochist Diamond, the run did flirted with ending multiple times, including that close call in Hell that would have been especially devastating after expending around four hours into the run, so I do have to respect it as deserving its reputation as one of the toughest Diamonds. Not quite as bad as Inquisitor Diamond though (you might be able to heal on demand in AoP, but you don't get that much more health than AoMs' levelup Supercharges give you and in AoMs your armor won't be in perpetual tatters without an Onyx/Nano in addition to still being able to use Berserks + Invulns), and I'm certain I'm gonna prefer it to the five Diamonds I have left, which are gonna be either even more extreme "don't get hit" hell or grinding hell (for reference, I finished this run with a little over 500 damage taken, I would have to shave off over 60% of that damage taken just for Demonic Diamond without the aid of a guaranteed early Red Armor). All Diamonds is in sight, but it's probably not gonna be a fun time and this will likely be the last first or second try win...
Here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
letmehealpls, level 17 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Scout,
nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 1410070 turns and scored 977071 points.
He played for 5 hours, 16 minutes and 34 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 2026 out of 2107 hellspawn. (96%)
He held his right to remain violent.
He was an Angel of Masochism!
-- 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
Chessmaster's Token
Chessmaster's Cross
Hell Champion Medal
Masochist Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
.................................................|........#
................................................X}........#
.................................................|........#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
..........................................................#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 60/50 Experience 158362/17
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +6
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Finesse (Level 3)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Reloader (Level 2)
Brute (Level 2)
Juggler (Level 1)
Berserker (Level 1)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Shottyman (Level 1)
Shottyhead (Level 1)
Fin->Jug->Bru->Bru->Ber->HR->Rel->Rel->SM->MSh->Fin->WK->WK->Int->Int->HR->Fin->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] Malek's Armor [3/3] (100%)
[b] [ Weapon ] focused double shotgun (8d4)x2 [0/2] (T1)
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] shell box (x52)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
[b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [4/5]
[c] missile launcher (6d7) [4/4] (P1)
[d] nuclear BFG 9000 (8d6) [52/52] (B1)
[e] BFG 9000 (10d6) [169/169] (B2)
[f] red armor [4/4] (100%)
[g] red armor [6/6] (90%) (AP)
[h] Angelic Armor [7/7] (96%)
[i] chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
[j] Longinus Spear (8d8)
[k] shotgun shell (x10)
[l] shotgun shell (x50)
[m] rocket (x10)
[n] rocket (x3)
[o] rocket (x10)
[p] power cell (x50)
[q] Enviroboots [0]
[r] shell box (x100)
[s] rocket box (x20)
-- 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 90% feet 60%
Fire - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
Plasma - internal 60% torso 90% feet 60%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
229 former humans
196 former sergeants
114 former captains
259 imps
110 demons
563 lost souls
80 cacodemons
46 hell knights
61 barons of hell
30 arachnotrons
48 former commandos
54 pain elementals
42 revenants
98 mancubi
43 arch-viles
16 nightmare imps
3 nightmare cacodemons
24 nightmare demons
2 bruiser brothers
1 shambler
1 lava elemental
1 agony elemental
1 Angel of Death
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 found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
He broke into the Containment Area, but gave up against the overwhelming forces.
On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
He slaughtered the beasts living there.
On level 13 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
On level 15 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
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 entered the Vaults.
On level 19 he found the Enviroboots!
He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
On level 20 he assembled a focused double shotgun!
He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
On level 22 he found the Mega Buster!
On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
On level 23 he found the Malek's Armor!
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 --------------------------------------------------
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You dodge! You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press
<Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
305 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
110 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 7 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
91 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
48 killed the bitch and survived.
36 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
11
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoI|98%|YAFW] - Nuking Hell for Eagerness Diamond and Fallout Plat
« on: January 02, 2026, 16:20 »
Eagerness Diamond is another of those scary Diamonds that few people won and even fewer won without Dual Angel cheese; according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, only four people won it 0.9.9.7, which were Fanta Hege, papilio, Sereg, and Icy, of which only papilio did it without mixing AoI with AoOC, while even in 0.9.9.6 and 0.9.9.5 no one is listed winning it after its requirement got changed to the current one. AoI itself is a pretty scary challenge, as without the insurance of carrying medkits with you, any bad level spawn without nearby health can suddenly end the run, even late in the game. Then Eagerness Diamond makes it worse by requiring you to use the Technician, whose passive of near-instant item use is rendered nearly irrelevant, and the Technician is the worst class too in 0.9.9.7, as alongside the already weaker passives, all their masteries are heavily flawed or outright awful. But is it truly one of the top tier Diamonds? I did win the formerly believed-to-be-near-impossible Eagerness Angelic, so can it really be that bad?
For the build, when looking over the aforementioned Eagerness Diamond mortems, we can dismiss the Sereg'd runs that obviously relied on strategies that are not applicable to a full game, so that just leaves papilio's run to examine. He used Fireangel, which makes sense as explosion immunity will really help you survive a bad VMRB hot start when bad hot starts are incredibly dangerous in AoI and free rocket jumps can substitute nicely for no Phase Devices. However, Fireangel itself giving no sort of offensive boost and being blocked SoB makes it a hard sell; your offense will be dreadful without getting Berserker and sidearming melee, while Fireangel has anti-synergy with Berserker when explosions (whether from enemies, barrels, or intentionally face rocketing yourself) can no longer trigger it. Papilio didn't give an attempt count (and he was doing the weird thing of backing up his player.wad whenever he died so his mortem doesn't show how many times he died), but he did claim it was "extremely hard" and killed the Mastermind with only a single hit point remaining, so I don't think this was the optimal build choice. I decided to go with Scavenger; aside from thinking it's the best Technician mastery even before its 0.9.9.8 buff (more mods, especially rare mods, is nice and Scavenger is the only Technician mastery without a serious downside to it), Scavenger has the neat trick where it effectively lets you bypass AoI not letting you store mods, as any mod you come across you can just put on a random weapon and dissemble it later with Scavenger to get the mod back, instead of being forced to use the mod on sub-optimal equipment.
For trait order, I leadoff with Finesse -> Juggler. Scavenger is a mastery whose power manifests later, so I can comfortably delay it for immediately useful traits, and of course the aforementioned leadoff is probably the strongest opener, which is especially going to be needed as I take on Hell's Arena. Then it's a level of SoB since rapids will be the primary source of firepower for any generalist build and making the Chaingun less awful will help in the aforementioned Hell's Arena. It's two levels of EE after that to start building towards Scavenger's Intuition prereq while farther buffing rapids and making the Chainsaw a better sidearm, but I deviate again from the prereq path to get a level of Hellrunner in case I roll Phobos Lab for the Phobos 7 special level. I then get Intuition not only for fulfilling the prereq, but its powerup detection is very important in AoI when you'll be largely relying on powerups for healing and immediately knowing where they are on any given floor will save runs. I once more deviate from the prereq path to get SoB2 as my offense is still feeling lacking, before the two Whizkid levels needed and finally Scavenger. Post-mastery it's Int2 so I don't need to radar shoot or wait spam as much, more Finesse is obvious, as well as another level of HR to help me beat the Cyberdemon. Traits after that are irrelevant, as you'll see later...
After some resets on Phobos Base Entry, I get one of the best floor 2s I can ask for, with it having a horizontal water river for easy corpse disposal and an early obtainable Computer Map, I nearly did the floor damageless. But after that is N! Hell's Arena that is especially brutal in AoI as you can't heal during it whatsoever, which aside from the general difficulty of that, it also means your ability to intentionally eat plasma/acid balls to destroy corpses is very limited, and no medkits also means you can only activate run once. My first run I didn't reset on Phobos Base Entry did end up dying in the third wave after I get hit by two high roll acid balls from a badly spawned Baron. You may want to skip Hell's Arena altogether or only kill some enemies in the first wave for EXP before leaving, but beating N! Hell's Arena in AoI or AoMs is necessary for the Chessmaster's Cross, and while I could save that for AoMs where it will be slightly easier since you can get fully healed with a well-timed level up, I do want the Rocket Launcher so I keep at it. And in just my second attempt I managed to clear Hell's Arena; coming in at nearly 200% after the aforementioned great Hell 2 was nice, but that extra health proved unnecessary.
Phobos 3 would be another easy floor... aside from me accidentally swapping to the Rocket Launcher and face rocketing myself when juggling Shotguns four fucking times. I got pretty tilted from repeating such a stupid costly error, but I was able to recompose and got through Phobos 4 and 5 without any issue. Then came the Unchained Court, which was scary to attempt when the only healing in AoI are the three Berserks that could be easily blown up, but it went so well that I cleared it with two Berserks to spare (only grabbing the Chainsaw once I aggro'd the Arena Master); having a competent Chaingun thanks to SoB + EE makes plinking away at the Barons stuck behind in the lava pools from the doorways more effective, and makes one-shotting the Formers are long range a lot more reliable, while having EE also makes chainsawing the Arena Master down more effective when you aren't missing half your hits. Being able to save those Berserks to take with me to the next floor proved very useful too, as Phobos 6 was a Cacodemon+Arachnotron cave which could have easily killed the run without the Berserk. After an unremarkable Phobos 7, I rolled Military Base instead of the Phobos Lab I got that level of HR for, I actually may have preferred Phobos Lab as Military Base is quite risky in AoI without the ability to gift drop the Elite Formers (can't use armor to gift drop them since they all spawn in a Green or Blue Armor by default), but through very careful play I avoid eating a run-ending close range SSG blast or Napalm rocket and get through it. In N! Phobos Anomaly, I just rocket jump through the ambush and the Bruisers, not attempting to fight back as no Commandos spawn on Phobos 6/7 and so I had no Plasma Rifle (and I was going to need one to remotely entertain the idea of fighting here with no healing outside the opening room), though I didn't have much choice after rocket jumping past the Bruisers when one of them funnily hit me into the portal.
Deimos 1 would start off interesting with a Butcher's Cleaver spawning, unfortunately as this is before Scavenger's 0.9.9.8 buff, I'm unable to dissemble it for a rare mod and so it sits in my inventory. Deimos Lab however would prove to be extremely lucrative; first the weapon cache had a Nuclear Plasma Rifle, I consider just leaving the Shamblers behind to not fumble this reward, but I do decide to take them on, especially as a few of the armor crates did drop Small Medkits that I could heal mid-fight without needing to make a mad dash to the Supercharges. Through Juggling overcharged Plasma Rifles, I'm able to defeat the Shamblers, and I get the coveted Onyx + Nano mod reward from the lab cache. With the Onyx I just immediately slap it on my Red Armor, with the Nano I had some deliberation on what to do with it, thanks to Scavenger I could store it on a Plasma Rifle and get it back later, but I decide to just put it the on the Nuclear Plasma Rifle rather than try to build towards a Nanomachic weapon or Antigrav Boots or save to Nano a Hyperblaster; with the Nano'd Nuclear Plasma Rifle instantly charging 4 cells after every shot, I can fire 10 consecutive times before it'll fully deplete its clip, and even after that it can still indefinitely fire 4-shot bursts if I'm unable to hold off on firing for a couple seconds to let it fully recharge, so it's nearly as good as a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle while retaining 4 more mod slots. I get WK2 not long after and finally build Tactical Boots, Tactical Shotgun, and a Hyperblaster I was holding off on so I could mod them. With those, the Nano'd Nuclear Plasma Rifle, and PO Red Armor, I blow through Deimos and clear Containment Area + Abyssal Plains without a hitch, with Scavenger turning one of those Missile Launchers into a Firestorm that I then put on my Hyperblaster for when I want more DPS than the Nuclear Plasma Rifle can manage. I do skip Halls Of Carnage however to end the Conqueror streak, as N! Halls Of Carnage would have been too dangerous in AoI without an exceptionally fast build, when I would have been unable to heal in the deadly maze full of Nightmare enemies and Barons. Tower Of Babel would give me a terrible Cyberdemon spawn where damage was unavoidable, but after escaping the corner I defeat him without going below 100% health.
Hell 1 would greet me with a relaxing Pain Elemental cave, though it has the downside of not giving me much EXP and so I'm unable to get one more level for the Fin3 I would have needed to outspeed the Angel of Death, thus having to skip Unholy Cathedral. Hell 2 would be a much more interesting floor however... First it's a Hellish Magic level, something I often go entire A100 games without seeing, so that's neat (and also dangerous, all those Commandos makes it a lot more threatening than any of the VMR-only levels), and it has a flood too to spice it up farther. But a Unique spawned... which turned out to be the Trigun! First thought is, with Scavenger, I can turn this into a second Nano, but then I remember I still don't got the Fallout Platinum Cross that I missed out on the last two times I got a Trigun, and there's a handy Invuln nearby to nuke rush the rest of the game while I have about three dozen rockets in my inventory for rocket jumping... The game was probably won regardless at this point with the equipment I had, but I take advantage of this opportunity and nuked the rest of Hell, using the remaining levels I got on Ironman to keep my max HP from going too low (including popping into The Vaults to get the very rare AoI Vaults clear that is only possible with overcharging a Nuclear weapon or Angel Arm while Invuln'd, I would rocket jump to the Unique that spawned here and it turned out to be Enviroboots). The Invuln would run out on Hell 7, but another spawned, so after carefully getting to it with my depleted health, I nuke Hell 7, Dis, and Hell Fortress for the easy win.
With that is Eagerness Diamond, alongside the Chessmaster's Cross and Fallout Platinum Cross (with those two medals checked, I'm now only three medals shy from getting all medals and thus Heroic Diamond, leaving only Untouchable Cross, Hell Arena Pwnage Medal, and Gutts' Heart). Well it's hard to fully accurately gauge the difficulty of the badge when I got to nuke the last third of it, and having such good equipment in the second third, but still this only took two attempts that didn't Q+Y on Phobos Base Entry, and the run never pressured me like Inquisitor Diamond or even Marksman Diamond did. If you go Scavenger to not let AoI limit your equipment potential, while it remains one of the harder Diamonds, I don't think Eagerness Diamond matches up to the top level Diamonds like papilio claimed. After this run, I'm also now at 20 Diamonds, joining I believe only Icy and papilio as the only players to have verifiably reached the big 2-0 Diamond count in 0.9.9.7. I'm going to be entering "don't get hit" and RNG hell for the remaining Diamonds however...
Here is the mortem:
For the build, when looking over the aforementioned Eagerness Diamond mortems, we can dismiss the Sereg'd runs that obviously relied on strategies that are not applicable to a full game, so that just leaves papilio's run to examine. He used Fireangel, which makes sense as explosion immunity will really help you survive a bad VMRB hot start when bad hot starts are incredibly dangerous in AoI and free rocket jumps can substitute nicely for no Phase Devices. However, Fireangel itself giving no sort of offensive boost and being blocked SoB makes it a hard sell; your offense will be dreadful without getting Berserker and sidearming melee, while Fireangel has anti-synergy with Berserker when explosions (whether from enemies, barrels, or intentionally face rocketing yourself) can no longer trigger it. Papilio didn't give an attempt count (and he was doing the weird thing of backing up his player.wad whenever he died so his mortem doesn't show how many times he died), but he did claim it was "extremely hard" and killed the Mastermind with only a single hit point remaining, so I don't think this was the optimal build choice. I decided to go with Scavenger; aside from thinking it's the best Technician mastery even before its 0.9.9.8 buff (more mods, especially rare mods, is nice and Scavenger is the only Technician mastery without a serious downside to it), Scavenger has the neat trick where it effectively lets you bypass AoI not letting you store mods, as any mod you come across you can just put on a random weapon and dissemble it later with Scavenger to get the mod back, instead of being forced to use the mod on sub-optimal equipment.
For trait order, I leadoff with Finesse -> Juggler. Scavenger is a mastery whose power manifests later, so I can comfortably delay it for immediately useful traits, and of course the aforementioned leadoff is probably the strongest opener, which is especially going to be needed as I take on Hell's Arena. Then it's a level of SoB since rapids will be the primary source of firepower for any generalist build and making the Chaingun less awful will help in the aforementioned Hell's Arena. It's two levels of EE after that to start building towards Scavenger's Intuition prereq while farther buffing rapids and making the Chainsaw a better sidearm, but I deviate again from the prereq path to get a level of Hellrunner in case I roll Phobos Lab for the Phobos 7 special level. I then get Intuition not only for fulfilling the prereq, but its powerup detection is very important in AoI when you'll be largely relying on powerups for healing and immediately knowing where they are on any given floor will save runs. I once more deviate from the prereq path to get SoB2 as my offense is still feeling lacking, before the two Whizkid levels needed and finally Scavenger. Post-mastery it's Int2 so I don't need to radar shoot or wait spam as much, more Finesse is obvious, as well as another level of HR to help me beat the Cyberdemon. Traits after that are irrelevant, as you'll see later...
After some resets on Phobos Base Entry, I get one of the best floor 2s I can ask for, with it having a horizontal water river for easy corpse disposal and an early obtainable Computer Map, I nearly did the floor damageless. But after that is N! Hell's Arena that is especially brutal in AoI as you can't heal during it whatsoever, which aside from the general difficulty of that, it also means your ability to intentionally eat plasma/acid balls to destroy corpses is very limited, and no medkits also means you can only activate run once. My first run I didn't reset on Phobos Base Entry did end up dying in the third wave after I get hit by two high roll acid balls from a badly spawned Baron. You may want to skip Hell's Arena altogether or only kill some enemies in the first wave for EXP before leaving, but beating N! Hell's Arena in AoI or AoMs is necessary for the Chessmaster's Cross, and while I could save that for AoMs where it will be slightly easier since you can get fully healed with a well-timed level up, I do want the Rocket Launcher so I keep at it. And in just my second attempt I managed to clear Hell's Arena; coming in at nearly 200% after the aforementioned great Hell 2 was nice, but that extra health proved unnecessary.
Phobos 3 would be another easy floor... aside from me accidentally swapping to the Rocket Launcher and face rocketing myself when juggling Shotguns four fucking times. I got pretty tilted from repeating such a stupid costly error, but I was able to recompose and got through Phobos 4 and 5 without any issue. Then came the Unchained Court, which was scary to attempt when the only healing in AoI are the three Berserks that could be easily blown up, but it went so well that I cleared it with two Berserks to spare (only grabbing the Chainsaw once I aggro'd the Arena Master); having a competent Chaingun thanks to SoB + EE makes plinking away at the Barons stuck behind in the lava pools from the doorways more effective, and makes one-shotting the Formers are long range a lot more reliable, while having EE also makes chainsawing the Arena Master down more effective when you aren't missing half your hits. Being able to save those Berserks to take with me to the next floor proved very useful too, as Phobos 6 was a Cacodemon+Arachnotron cave which could have easily killed the run without the Berserk. After an unremarkable Phobos 7, I rolled Military Base instead of the Phobos Lab I got that level of HR for, I actually may have preferred Phobos Lab as Military Base is quite risky in AoI without the ability to gift drop the Elite Formers (can't use armor to gift drop them since they all spawn in a Green or Blue Armor by default), but through very careful play I avoid eating a run-ending close range SSG blast or Napalm rocket and get through it. In N! Phobos Anomaly, I just rocket jump through the ambush and the Bruisers, not attempting to fight back as no Commandos spawn on Phobos 6/7 and so I had no Plasma Rifle (and I was going to need one to remotely entertain the idea of fighting here with no healing outside the opening room), though I didn't have much choice after rocket jumping past the Bruisers when one of them funnily hit me into the portal.
Deimos 1 would start off interesting with a Butcher's Cleaver spawning, unfortunately as this is before Scavenger's 0.9.9.8 buff, I'm unable to dissemble it for a rare mod and so it sits in my inventory. Deimos Lab however would prove to be extremely lucrative; first the weapon cache had a Nuclear Plasma Rifle, I consider just leaving the Shamblers behind to not fumble this reward, but I do decide to take them on, especially as a few of the armor crates did drop Small Medkits that I could heal mid-fight without needing to make a mad dash to the Supercharges. Through Juggling overcharged Plasma Rifles, I'm able to defeat the Shamblers, and I get the coveted Onyx + Nano mod reward from the lab cache. With the Onyx I just immediately slap it on my Red Armor, with the Nano I had some deliberation on what to do with it, thanks to Scavenger I could store it on a Plasma Rifle and get it back later, but I decide to just put it the on the Nuclear Plasma Rifle rather than try to build towards a Nanomachic weapon or Antigrav Boots or save to Nano a Hyperblaster; with the Nano'd Nuclear Plasma Rifle instantly charging 4 cells after every shot, I can fire 10 consecutive times before it'll fully deplete its clip, and even after that it can still indefinitely fire 4-shot bursts if I'm unable to hold off on firing for a couple seconds to let it fully recharge, so it's nearly as good as a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle while retaining 4 more mod slots. I get WK2 not long after and finally build Tactical Boots, Tactical Shotgun, and a Hyperblaster I was holding off on so I could mod them. With those, the Nano'd Nuclear Plasma Rifle, and PO Red Armor, I blow through Deimos and clear Containment Area + Abyssal Plains without a hitch, with Scavenger turning one of those Missile Launchers into a Firestorm that I then put on my Hyperblaster for when I want more DPS than the Nuclear Plasma Rifle can manage. I do skip Halls Of Carnage however to end the Conqueror streak, as N! Halls Of Carnage would have been too dangerous in AoI without an exceptionally fast build, when I would have been unable to heal in the deadly maze full of Nightmare enemies and Barons. Tower Of Babel would give me a terrible Cyberdemon spawn where damage was unavoidable, but after escaping the corner I defeat him without going below 100% health.
Hell 1 would greet me with a relaxing Pain Elemental cave, though it has the downside of not giving me much EXP and so I'm unable to get one more level for the Fin3 I would have needed to outspeed the Angel of Death, thus having to skip Unholy Cathedral. Hell 2 would be a much more interesting floor however... First it's a Hellish Magic level, something I often go entire A100 games without seeing, so that's neat (and also dangerous, all those Commandos makes it a lot more threatening than any of the VMR-only levels), and it has a flood too to spice it up farther. But a Unique spawned... which turned out to be the Trigun! First thought is, with Scavenger, I can turn this into a second Nano, but then I remember I still don't got the Fallout Platinum Cross that I missed out on the last two times I got a Trigun, and there's a handy Invuln nearby to nuke rush the rest of the game while I have about three dozen rockets in my inventory for rocket jumping... The game was probably won regardless at this point with the equipment I had, but I take advantage of this opportunity and nuked the rest of Hell, using the remaining levels I got on Ironman to keep my max HP from going too low (including popping into The Vaults to get the very rare AoI Vaults clear that is only possible with overcharging a Nuclear weapon or Angel Arm while Invuln'd, I would rocket jump to the Unique that spawned here and it turned out to be Enviroboots). The Invuln would run out on Hell 7, but another spawned, so after carefully getting to it with my depleted health, I nuke Hell 7, Dis, and Hell Fortress for the easy win.
With that is Eagerness Diamond, alongside the Chessmaster's Cross and Fallout Platinum Cross (with those two medals checked, I'm now only three medals shy from getting all medals and thus Heroic Diamond, leaving only Untouchable Cross, Hell Arena Pwnage Medal, and Gutts' Heart). Well it's hard to fully accurately gauge the difficulty of the badge when I got to nuke the last third of it, and having such good equipment in the second third, but still this only took two attempts that didn't Q+Y on Phobos Base Entry, and the run never pressured me like Inquisitor Diamond or even Marksman Diamond did. If you go Scavenger to not let AoI limit your equipment potential, while it remains one of the harder Diamonds, I don't think Eagerness Diamond matches up to the top level Diamonds like papilio claimed. After this run, I'm also now at 20 Diamonds, joining I believe only Icy and papilio as the only players to have verifiably reached the big 2-0 Diamond count in 0.9.9.7. I'm going to be entering "don't get hit" and RNG hell for the remaining Diamonds however...
Here is the mortem:
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
wherearemymedkits2?,
level 16 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Technician,
nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 740406 turns and scored 867932 points.
He played for 4 hours, 39 minutes and 43 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1752 out of 1775 hellspawn. (98%)
He held his right to remain violent.
He was an Angel of Impatience!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 7
Levels completed : 7
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (gold cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Fallout Platinum Cross
Hell Armorer Badge
Chessmaster's Token
Chessmaster's Cross
Hell Champion Medal
Eagerness Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#X.........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
#..........................................................
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 50/25 Experience 135818/16
ToHit Ranged +4 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +2 ToDmg Melee +2
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Technician
Ironman (Level 2)
Finesse (Level 2)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Son of a bitch (Level 2)
Eagle Eye (Level 2)
Juggler (Level 1)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Scavenger (Level 1)
Fin->Jug->SoB->EE->EE->HR->Int->SoB->WK->WK->MSc->Int->Fin->HR->Iro->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [6] (OP)
[b] [ Weapon ] Trigun (3d6) [6/6]
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
[d] [ Prepared ] shell box (x35)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] shotgun (9d3) [1/1] (P1)
[b] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
[c] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1] (B2)
[d] hyperblaster (2d4)x5 [40/40] (F1)
[e] nuclear plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [24/24] (N1)
[f] Necroarmor [6/6] (100%)
[g] chainsaw (4d6)
[h] Butcher's Cleaver (5d6)
[i] shotgun shell (x70)
[j] shotgun shell (x70)
[k] shotgun shell (x70)
[l] shotgun shell (x70)
[m] rocket (x4)
[n] power cell (x70)
[o] power cell (x55)
[p] power cell (x70)
[q] power cell (x70)
[r] power cell (x70)
[s] Enviroboots [0]
[t] shell box (x100)
[u] shell box (x100)
[v] rocket box (x20)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Acid - internal 25% torso 25% feet 25%
Fire - internal 25% torso 50% feet 25%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
233 former humans
171 former sergeants
114 former captains
268 imps
79 demons
417 lost souls
71 cacodemons
38 hell knights
46 barons of hell
33 arachnotrons
100 former commandos
36 pain elementals
25 revenants
41 mancubi
28 arch-viles
8 nightmare imps
18 nightmare demons
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
2 shamblers
1 agony 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.
He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
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 found the Butcher's Cleaver!
On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
On level 11 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
On level 11 he assembled a hyperblaster!
On level 11 he assembled a tactical boots!
He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
He slaughtered the beasts living there.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 18 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
On level 18 he ran for his life from lava!
On level 18 he found the Trigun!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 18!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 19!
On level 19 he found the Necroarmor!
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
He activated the Angel Arm on level 19!
On level 19 he found the Enviroboots!
He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 20!
He left level 20 as soon as possible.
On level 21 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 21!
He left level 21 as soon as possible.
He activated the Angel Arm on level 22!
He left level 22 as soon as possible.
He activated the Angel Arm on level 23!
Then at last he found Dis!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 24!
He left level 24 as soon as possible.
He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 25!
Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You prepare the rocket launcher instantly!
Fire -- Choose target...
You see : floor
You reload the rocket launcher.
Fire -- Choose target...
You see : floor
There are stairs leading downward here.
You reload the rocket launcher. There are stairs leading downward here.
This is it. This is the lair of all evil! What will you meet here?
Use scroll to choose weapon, left button to wield, right to cancel... You
wear/wield : a Trigun (3d6) [6/6]
Do you want to use the dangerous Angel Arm?? [y/n]
You activate the Angel Arm! Your life is drained! Congratulations! You
defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
304 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
110 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 7 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
90 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
48 killed the bitch and survived.
35 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
12
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.11
« on: December 30, 2025, 01:53 »
And now this post will be for all the new badge proposals I added or revised, since it's going to be really long.
*Ensure every badge that requires a specific medal actually explicitly requires said medal.
This covers several different badges such as the Destroyer badges, I listed every one in the OP that is applicable, but simply if Dual Angels remain able to win badges from both challenges, this should be done to patch out the most blatant AoOC and AoCn abuse that clearly go against the badges' intended challenge.
*Make all Veteran Badges disallow AoMC, AoLT, AoCn, and AoOC.
Currently the Veteran Badges can be won in any sort of game mode, which is ok, there should be some badges with freedom on how you win them, but these four challenges in particular make the Veteran Badges much easier to win. In particular, this has contributed to Veteran Diamond being the most won Diamond according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters Thread, with a whopping 18 people winning it, and then Veteran Angelic is the 2nd most won Angelic after the infamously easy Shottyman Angelic, with 13 people recorded winning it, which is also more common than all but six of the Diamond Badges. That was in 0.9.9.7, but nothing was changed about these particular challenges that would prevent them from still making these badges much easier, other than AoOC being made slightly harder with a weaker starting loadout. You can conversely argue however that it's ok to have a few easier Diamonds and Angelics, so I won't push hard on this one.
*Make Armorer Gold, Platinum, and Diamond a less horrendous grind.
Aside from the unwinnable ones, the absolute worst-designed badges are these three, not only having very little skill involved in obtaining them, but they also require an atrociously long grind if you play naturally, and trying to force them any faster would require running several A666 games, while you should obtain most or literally every other badge in their respective classes before getting these Armorer badges. For examples:
These badges theoretically serve as "easy" badges that players of any skill level can get, since the Angelic Set and Azrael's Scythe are the only special items that actually requires you to play above ITYTD to get, and the Scythe is the only one that requires above HNTR, but their requirements are so absurdly high, that no lower level players will ever play remotely enough to get these higher level Armorer Badges. For reference, according to the aforementioned Badge Hunters thread, in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 before I won it myself, only two other players ever reported actually earning Armorer Diamond; Tormuse and Icy i.e. two of the most legendary and hardcore DRL players, and according to the mortems, it was well over 1000 games for Tormuse before he won it, while in Icy's case, it was over 2000 games, not to mention Icy is also a heavy A100/666 player too. We can all agree the grind for these badges is unreasonable, right? Also the more special items that get added, the grind for Gold and Diamond will get even worse (while these badges shouldn't be a factor against adding more special items to the game). For what to exactly do with these badges:
*Increase Lightfoot Bronze's floor requirement to level 16.
I mean this is a Bronze so who really cares, but since AoLT is one of the easiest challenges, it doesn't quite make sense that its Bronze has a floor requirement of 9 like some of the other harder challenges, especially when it's braindead easy to just run through Phobos on HNTR with AoLT's speed boost without even trying to fight back, so I feel it makes more sense for Lightfoot Bronze to have a slightly harder requirement like the other easier challenges.
*Decrease Quartermaster Bronze's floor requirement to level 9.
Conversely, Quartermaster Bronze should be made easier, as AoRA is one of the harder challenges, that people tend to notoriously struggle with their first time playing it, so it also makes no sense that it has one of the harder Bronze requirements. Again this is just Bronze badges so it feels nitpicky, but the requirement of Quartermaster and Lightfoot Bronze are inverse to their challenge's respective difficulties.
*Bump Marksman Gold's difficulty down to HMP.
It never made much sense to me that the Marksman series skipped HMP and jumped straight to UV for Marksman Gold, especially when AoMr wasn't an easy challenge. In fact back in 0.9.9.7, I would say Marksman Gold was the hardest Gold badge, because being locked to pistols on UV was so brutal. The 0.10 SoG change reversing pistols' early games woes did made AoMr a lot easier, but I still think it doesn't justify skipping straight to UV, and regardless if you're able to beat AoMr on UV, you should be able to jump straight to the Platinum requirement and beat it with 100% kills. So for more clear delineation in the difficulty between the Gold and Platinum, this change should be made.
*Give Lightfoot Gold the additional requirement of beating AoLT in under 40000 turns.
As mentioned previously, AoLT is one of easiest challenges, and its Gold just requiring beating HMP with no additional requirement made it one of the easiest Golds. Adding the stipulation of winning in under 40000 turns makes sense to me, to both spice up Lightfoot Gold a bit and to also have a natural progression towards Lightfoot Platinum requiring winning in under 20000 turns.
*Give Daredevil Gold the additional requirement of getting 100% kills.
One of the super free Golds currently is Daredevil Gold. It's infamous how you can just spam quick AoOC games until you get lucky, and on HNTR, you don't even need much luck to get a game where you can easily run to the Mastermind with barely any fighting and then nuke her. I can run pacifist games in HNTR AoOC and easily get the luck needed to win in under 30 minutes. I would say Daredevil Silver is actually much less easy, since you can't so easily rush through it and will have to get through a boss you can't just nuke without Invuln. I think Daredevil Gold should be given a 100% kills stipulation; it would probably still be one of the easiest Golds, but at least this requirement will make players have to play through it more honestly and not just try rushing to the Mastermind with a nuke or Berserker (while also meaning they can't enter Mortuary/Limbo just to snag a free nuke unless they actually clear it).
*Change Arena Gold's requirement to beating it on UV in AoRA.
Prior to 0.10, Arena Gold had a well balanced requirement, since beating it in AoMr on UV was tough but not exceedingly so. However after SoG's change in 0.10 and pistols becoming far better in the early game as a result, beating Hell's Arena in AoMr is far easier, and so this is now overly easy for a Gold badge. What to change the requisite challenge to was a bit hard to decide; AoSh has it even easier, AoMC and AoLT would make this completely free, Hell's Arena is only slightly harder in AoP with it just making you come in with less health and no Berserk/Light Goggles, AoB is already used for the Diamond, AoD would make this harder than Arena Platinum, AoHu would be a bit much, AoPc is obviously unviable, and AoI and/or AoMs would be a good replacement but they already have a medal (Chess Master's Token) for this exact requirement. That leaves AoRA, which would actually be a great replacement challenge, since beating UV Hell's Arena in AoRA is quite tough and requires some luck (especially if you don't get Hellrunner and Reloader), but it shouldn't be harder for players to do than beating Hell's Arena on N! as the Platinum badge requires. Also it would be fun to encourage beating Hell's Arena in a quick manner.
*Perhaps give Longinus Gold an additional stipulation, such as no Berserker and Malicious Blades?
Yet one more super free Gold badge is Longinus Gold, beating Unholy Cathedral is incredibly mindless for any lategame melee build, and even low level melee builds in AoOC can very easily beat it. It just makes no sense that beating Unholy Cathedral gives you the same tier of badge as beating Mortuary/Limbo does, at least The Vaults also giving a Gold badge for just beating it can be justified by it being tricky to figure out without looking it up and needing to beat two prior special levels to do so. Not to mention that it is also much easier to get than the special level Silvers. Giving it the additional stipulation of disallowing Berserker and Malicious Blades would mean players wouldn't just be able to mindlessly steamroll through it with typical melee builds, but unlike the harder Longinus badges, they would still be allowed Brute. Maybe you could add a Bronze and Silver tier to the Longinus series, with the Bronze badge being to simply enter Unholy Cathedral and leave it alive, while the Silver badge can be to just beat it with any traits, and then the Gold can be this proposed requirement, which along with the proposed Platinum requirement, all seems like a much more natural badge progression than how the Longinus series currently is (why is there no Longinus Bronze and Silver to begin with?).
*Change Berserker Platinum's kill requirement to Explorer Pin.
It was proposed previously to just remove Berserker Platinum's kill requirement given the similarity to Gargulec Cross, and beating UV AoB on its own would be an ok Platinum-level challenge, but it would be rather mundane for a Platinum Badge, while you would still be doubling up Berserker Platinum with any Gargulec Cross run. So perhaps give it an Explorer requirement to spice it up, while also making doubling it up with Gargulec Cross a more complicated endeavor, as entering any special levels would mean having to kill everything in them to keep Gargulec Cross alive (or at least everything before additional waves spawn in). I additionally think it would tie in nicely to the proposed new Berserker Diamond requirement of beating N! AoB with no special levels visited.
*Change Shottyman Platinum's requirement to beating it on UV in under 40000 turns.
Shottyman Platinum isn't glaringly imbalanced but has two particular issues, first if you're able to beat AoSh on N!, then doing so with 80% kills for the Diamond isn't meaningfully more difficult and so players would nearly always get the Platinum + Diamond together, and secondly it's just a boring Platinum. With what I'm about to propose for Shottyman Diamond though, I think Shottyman Platinum would make more sense and be more interesting with its difficulty requirement being bumped down to UV, but now have the additional requirement of beating AoSh in under 40000 turns. This would not only have a more natural progression to the proposed new Shottyman Diamond requirement, it would also give players another Platinum they can get without playing N!, but having to play through UV at such a fast pace will make it sufficiently more difficult than the Gold.
*Give Centurial Platinum the additional requirement of getting Experience Medal.
Centurial Platinum is fine as it is and the vast majority of Centurial Platinum runs probably incidentally got the Experience Medal anyway, this will just have a better progression to the proposed Centurial Diamond change of beating N! A100 with an Experience Cross.
*Change UAC Diamond to require only UV, disallow Berserker, or do both.
While UAC Diamond looks imposing at first, it is actually a very easy Diamond, that is easier than at least half the Platinums, with the badge having the clear obvious optimal strategy of rushing through the game with a melee Scout that anyone can copy and 20 minutes being a surprisingly generous time limit when you're rushing through the game berserked most of the time. According to the Badge Hunters thread, this was one of the most won Diamonds in 0.9.9.7 with a dozen people winning it, and if you look at the mortems, they all cleared the 20 minute requirement by several minutes at least, with the majority being under 15 minutes and some even almost getting under 10 minutes. It was suggested that this could be a 0.9.9.7 thing and changes since then would make it harder, but after running it in 0.10, I got a 11:17 first try without even trying hard to be fast with my physical inputs and making some serious time-losing flubs. The berserk nerf does make it more difficult to survive rushing through the game, but the game engine itself becoming faster counterbalances this and it wouldn't take many resets to get the luck needed to not die during a melee rush. An unusual idea to buff this badge's difficulty would be to make it strictly require UV, as speedrunning through the game on UV would actually be harder without N!'s doubled powerups/healing and faster levelling. Alternatively, you just disallow Berserker, as getting to Chained Court ASAP and rushing through the rest of the game with Berserker is the one clear dominant strategy for speedruns, and any time limit that would make this a reasonably difficult Diamond-level challenge for Berserker builds would be unreasonably difficult or even impossible for non-Berserker builds. If you want to be extra sure with making this a Diamond-worthy challenge, you can do both the UV-only and no Berserker requirements.
*Change Shottyman Diamond's kill requirement to beating it on N! in under 20000 turns.
JHC's Shottyman Diamond equivalent got the new much more interesting requirement of beating N! AoSh in under 20000 turns. This ended up being terrible for JHC, as due to that game's different structuring that makes JHC longer and much harder to rush through, beating the game on N! that fast with purely shotguns is probably impossible or close to it, and even Sereging it with a Berserker build requires a ridiculous amount of luck. With DRL's structure being conductive to much faster playthroughs however, this requirement would actually work well here for a Diamond-worthy challenge. There was some concern given that it could still be unreasonably tight even in DRL, but I would prove it was possible with a UAC Diamond run in under 20K turns that was essentially shotguns only, and that was in 0.9.9.7 before the Reloader and Gunrunner buffs that would make this less difficult, as well as under real time pressure that invariably caused many turn-inefficient moves. Plus kill requirements are boring and overdone, so more varied badge requirements would be appreciated.
*Give Marksman Diamond the additional requirement of getting the Explorer Pin.
Marksman Diamond was fine previously, as despite being only one of two Angel-related Diamonds with no secondary requirement (the other being Centurial Diamond), it was actually one of the hardest Diamonds in 0.9.9.7/0.9.9.8 to get purely because of how much pistols sucked, particularly in the early game. They sucked so much that the people who got it through Sereging basically just played it as a pseudo-pacifist run and didn't even bother trying to actually use the pistols. With 0.10's SoG change however, while pistols became weaker in the lategame, they became far far better in the early game and better in the mid game too, so AoMr is overall easier now. Thus an additional stipulation should be added to keep this badge an appropriate Diamond-level challenge, with the idea being to make it require Explorer, as being pistol-locked would especially complicate getting out of the newly added Toxin Refinery/Central Processing, Military Base/Phobos Lab, Abyssal Plains, Halls Of Carnage, and of course Mortuary/Limbo. The upcoming suggestion to change Hunter Diamond would also mean Explorer will be unused as a secondary Diamond requirement.
*Change Inquisitor Diamond's Marine-only requirement to disallowing Ironman and Tough as Nails.
Inquisitor Diamond was one of the most fearsome Diamond badges in 0.9.9.7, with only four people recorded winning it (Sereg, Icy, papilio, and myself, the latter two being the only ones who did it purely). In 0.10 however it's far easier, with the main culprit being the currently OP Survivalist, that even if the Marine-only restriction didn't exist, would be the perfect mastery for significantly nerfing this challenge. My first thought was to disallow Survivalist even if it gets its proposed nerfs, but it would be awfully restrictive to require a specific class and ban one of their masteries on top. I was thinking though, the Marine-only restriction doesn't hit as hard anymore due to the Marine getting the inherent energy-resistances passive, so the Marine in AoP isn't so disadvantaged, and all the Marine's non-Vampyre masteries got buffed too. So instead of having the Marine-only restriction, allow any class but disallow Ironman and Tough as Nails; one of the primary things that makes AoP so difficult is the player's health supply being severely reduced to only medkits and being unable to repair armor without risky levers or rare mods, so traits that let you get more health back from medkits and give you inherent defenses are a lot more valuable, making these traits pivotal to nerfing the threat of AoP (especially so when both of these traits are much better than they were in 0.9.9.7). Banning TaN will additionally prevent the use of Survivalist regardless of its OPness, and it would prevent Entrenchment, which would probably be the second best mastery choice for AoP after Survivalist. Probably still wouldn't be as brutal as 0.9.9.7 Inquisitor Diamond was, but this change should make it go back to being one of the harder Diamonds instead of one of the easiest.
*Change Hunter Diamond's Explorer requirement to disallowing Intuition.
Hunter Diamond's Explorer requirement didn't really add much to its difficulty and seemed rather tacked on. Meanwhile if you run Cateye, which you could get as early as floor 3 with the insane EXP rate of N! AoD, the primary hurdle of the challenge got negated and you'll just be essentially playing a normal N! game with no map memory as a masterless Scout, except with a doubled EXP rate that makes it actually easier than standard N!. Even with just Intuition 2, you significantly nerf the main threat of vision reduction, and Intuition 1 helps too by letting you still see powerup locations despite Computer Maps no longer working. It seems very obvious to me that a no Intuition requirement would be far more fitting and difficult for Hunter Diamond than the Explorer requirement is (an Intuition ban would also prevent the use of Cateye). If either iteration of the proposed Hunter Angelic gets added, it too should get the no Intuition requirement for the same reasoning.
*Increase Daredevil Diamond's kill requirement to 100%.
As explained with Daredevil Gold, the nature of AoOC makes it easy to just spam quick runs until you get lucky, and while Daredevil Diamond has an 80% kill requirement to make you have to at least kill things, this is still easy to achieve rushing through the game, in addition to giving you the leeway to completely skip an overly bad floor or two, such as any Arachnotron or Nightmare Demon caves. It also doesn't make sense that while Elite Diamond requires beating the entire standard game on N! with 90+% kills, you got another Diamond requiring you to beat a third of the game with a smaller kill percent requirement. Plus with the change of respawns no longer counting towards kill percent, the hurdle of lacking corpse disposal no longer matters (not that the difficulty of disposing corpses even mattered previously when nearly two dozen people won Daredevil Diamond across all pre-0.10 versions).
*Change Speedrun Angelic's real time requirement to under 8 minutes.
Icy and I previously agreed that this infamous unwinnable badge should have its requirement bumped up to 10 or even 12 minutes. However when looking at the UAC Diamond times, I found several people came close to getting their UAC Diamond run in under 10 minutes. while I found a run by papilio that got under 10 minutes and a run by Sereg that got under 9 minutes. This is on top of DRL getting engine improvements that makes it play faster since those 0.9.9.7 runs (particularly mitigating all the pauses whenever the game renders projectiles flying around). And as mentioned previously, I got a run nearly under 11 minutes first try despite not trying to play as physically fast as possible and getting some clearly lousy early game level luck (getting any early maze with stairs on the opposite end would make you reset on any serious Speedrun Angelic attempt). 4 minutes is still completely out of the question, but I think 8 minutes will be a reasonable threshold that will be extremely difficult while not venturing into "spin the slot machine thousands of times until you win" territory for top level players, and so will be revising the proposal to that.
*Change Berserker Angelic's requirement to something less absurdly luck-based, preferably a Dual Angel with Angel of Pestilence if it's added, or another challenge like Angel of Purity if it's not.
Berserker Angelic in its current incarnation is a winnable Angelic, but the problem is that winning it is basically a slot machine with little relative skill involved; in AoB your options for strategic play are limited, and by the nature of pure melee combat, damage is unavoidable, while you just will not survive with the only 50/60 to 100/120 HP you get from each levelup Supercharge. The only viable strategies is play a Scout, stairdive, get lucky enough to get through Chained Court and to floor 7 with an Invuln there, then get even luckier with enough Invulns spawning after that to safely stairdive the rest of the game, or play Marine and get lucky enough to survive long enough to reach level 6 for Vampyre. Both strategies will involve metaphorically spinning the slot machine until you get the slim RNG needed for a viable run, with dedicated attempts for this badge being able to easily number into the hundreds for even the best players. Throwing knives now actually working in 0.10-onward would help with this badge, but that would get counterbalanced by the Berserk nerf, time-based powerups making early powerups not last as long, the Enraged Timer meaning you can no longer indefinitely camp to clear out Phobos 2 or later floors with Vampyre, and Vampyre itself being significantly nerfed so getting it is no longer a win condition on its own. Aside from this badge being a horrendous experience to actually play for, according to Kornel, the idea for Angelic badges is that they were supposed to be much more skill-based, so this badge currently does not fit that idea.
For what challenge to replace Angel of Masochism here with, if the proposed Angel of Pestilence gets added, I think that could be a great substitute, as the steady health drain does inhibit your ability to take hits and discourages playing slowly, which is clearly asynergetic with AoB, but you can still heal and so you can actually feasibly fight back after the second floor, allowing for more strategies than just "stair dive and pray". If it proved too easy in testing, a kill requirement or other secondary requirement could be added to make it an appropriate Angelic challenge. If Angel of Pestilence doesn't get added, then alternatively Angel of Purity could be used instead, which AoB will still be asynergetic with due to only having medkits and Vampyre for healing, no longer being able to use Berserks and Invulns, and being unable to easily repair all the armor AoB runs chew through, but again you aren't restricted to only 50/60-100/120 HP between levelups. If AoP would prove too luck-based too, then maybe Angel of Impatience or even Angel of Max Carnage would work as additional asynergetic options. Meanwhile, if the "Demonic" tier badges that were once planned ever get added, which according to Kornel were supposed to require an absurd amount of luck, then the current Berserker Angelic would fit much better as a possible Berserker Demonic.
*Remove Marksman Angelic's kill requirement and replace it with disallowing Cateye.
As I ranted about under Hunter Diamond, Cateye just significantly neuters Angel of Darkness, and indeed everyone who has won Marksman Angelic did so with Cateye despite it not even being a Pistol mastery. This wasn't so bad in 0.9.9.7 when pistols sucked so badly and needed any sort of buoy thrown to them, and said pistol suckiness made it extremely hard to survive long enough with reduced vision even with doubled EXP to reach Cateye, especially as you needed to get SoG3 first to have any chance and thus delaying Cateye. But as also explained prior, pistols are a lot better now with the SoG change, especially in the early game, and so surviving long enough in AoD to get Cateye is no longer such an arduously excruciating task. As such, the pointless kill requirement should instead be replaced with disallowing Cateye, forcing players to engage with this badge the intended way and encouraging more varied builds (you could also just ban Intuition too like was proposed for Hunter Diamond/Angelic, but I think you can leave Intuition allowed as a mercy, as even if you know enemies are right outside your vision, pistols are still heavily disadvantaged when they can't fire back against these enemies without the out-of-vision accuracy penalty).
*If Angel of Drought is added, change Shottyman Angelic to beating AoSh + AoDr on N!
This is preemptive, but if the proposed Angel of Drought does get added, I think the notoriously easy Shottyman Angelic could instead be spruced up by replacing AoOC with AoDr in the requisite Dual Angel combo. It would need testing after that to determine an appropriate kill requirement if any (or perhaps if 100% kills is feasible), but this would be an obviously more fitting asynergistic combo than AoSh + AoOC (which frankly never made much sense), and I basically already did this in JHC with 100% kills to boot in that bugged beta version for one of my most tense runs ever in either game. Also there probably should be an additional stipulation that disallows building Nano-shrapnel, because otherwise the dominant strategy would be resetting until you get a Nano mod in Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab (or find one randomly) to then build a Nano-shrapnel Shotgun that invalidates the challenge (could still apply a Nano raw to a shotgun, but aside from the Plasma Shotgun, raw Nanoing shotguns doesn't work well with their limited or non-existent clips and so you'll still need other shotguns loaded to kill most enemies).
*Revising the proposed Daredevil Angelic to clearing AoOC + AoP with 100% kills.
When Icy originally proposed Daredevil Angelic, it was an AoOC + AoD combo, but when thinking of it now, Angel of Purity is clearly the far more asynergistic combo with AoOC, when successful AoOC runs heavily depend on powerups. Even when Sereg and Icy Sereg'd Inquisitor Diamond, it took them several hundreds of tries and of course both finished with abysmal kill percents. As such, I'm revising the proposal to replace AoD with AoP.
*Add Gatekeeper Angelic, which requires clearing Phobos Anomaly, Tower of Babel, and Hell Fortress all damageless on N! in a single run.
When I originally brought up the idea of Gatekeeper Angelic, Icy shot it down as being too easy for an Angelic. The original suggestion was Anomaly + Babel + Dis, and while the Mastermind should be no longer so easy to beat damageless with its AI change + possibly impending flinching threshold buff, I think it would be better to replace Dis with Hell Fortress. Aside from being more difficult, it makes more sense for an Angelic anyway to require no damaging the true final boss. The only caveat is this badge should only be added if the proposal of having Hell Fortress turn off powerups when you enter it is implemented, as otherwise, it would be too easy and cheesy to just find an Invuln in Hell then rush to Hell Fortress to kill Carmack damageless with Invulnerability (maybe have the badge require not using the Lava Element too so you can't use it to kill Carmack damageless with a high DPS build?). Also of course nuking any of these three levels should disqualify you from earning the badge.
*Ensure every badge that requires a specific medal actually explicitly requires said medal.
This covers several different badges such as the Destroyer badges, I listed every one in the OP that is applicable, but simply if Dual Angels remain able to win badges from both challenges, this should be done to patch out the most blatant AoOC and AoCn abuse that clearly go against the badges' intended challenge.
*Make all Veteran Badges disallow AoMC, AoLT, AoCn, and AoOC.
Currently the Veteran Badges can be won in any sort of game mode, which is ok, there should be some badges with freedom on how you win them, but these four challenges in particular make the Veteran Badges much easier to win. In particular, this has contributed to Veteran Diamond being the most won Diamond according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters Thread, with a whopping 18 people winning it, and then Veteran Angelic is the 2nd most won Angelic after the infamously easy Shottyman Angelic, with 13 people recorded winning it, which is also more common than all but six of the Diamond Badges. That was in 0.9.9.7, but nothing was changed about these particular challenges that would prevent them from still making these badges much easier, other than AoOC being made slightly harder with a weaker starting loadout. You can conversely argue however that it's ok to have a few easier Diamonds and Angelics, so I won't push hard on this one.
*Make Armorer Gold, Platinum, and Diamond a less horrendous grind.
Aside from the unwinnable ones, the absolute worst-designed badges are these three, not only having very little skill involved in obtaining them, but they also require an atrociously long grind if you play naturally, and trying to force them any faster would require running several A666 games, while you should obtain most or literally every other badge in their respective classes before getting these Armorer badges. For examples:
- When I was doing my 100% 0.9.9.8 attempt, I obtained every other Gold and 15 Platinums before Armorer Gold, I had to run an A666 game to force getting Armorer Gold else it would have taken me who knows how many more non-A100/666 games to get it.
- When I stopped playing said 0.9.9.8 file, I had 18 Platinums while still being 357 specials away from Armorer Platinum, so realistically I could have easily won the 7 other remaining Platinums long before getting Armorer Platinum. Even running A100/666 games wouldn't speed it up that much, since each special item only gets counted once per run, so even if I did found every special item in each run, it would still take at last a half dozen A666 games to win Armorer Platinum at this point.
- When it comes to Armorer Diamond, on my 0.9.9.7 file, over the course of 299 recorded games, including over a dozen A100 games and 3 completed A666 games,
I still do not have Armorer Diamond! According to my play time, I got nearly a thousand hours clocked in (938:02:49:35 to be exact with my play time), assume half that time was the game running idle and it's still absurd I do not have Armorer Diamond yet with that much play time. Depending on how stingy the game's RNG wants to keep being with dropping the last Subtle Knife I need for this awful badge, I could very realistically get all the 6 other Diamonds I do not have yet and even get all the remaining 5 winnable Angelics before I get Armorer Diamond, and I only started actively going for all these badges in this version last month!(EDIT: I now do have Armorer Diamond, but only from me bruteforcing it after running three more consecutive A666 games on top of the one I already ran for Centurial Angelic, I almost certainly get all the other winnable badges before Armorer Diamond if I did not bruteforce it like this, and it ended up requiring 1031 hours of playtime on my file before I finally got this badge.)
These badges theoretically serve as "easy" badges that players of any skill level can get, since the Angelic Set and Azrael's Scythe are the only special items that actually requires you to play above ITYTD to get, and the Scythe is the only one that requires above HNTR, but their requirements are so absurdly high, that no lower level players will ever play remotely enough to get these higher level Armorer Badges. For reference, according to the aforementioned Badge Hunters thread, in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 before I won it myself, only two other players ever reported actually earning Armorer Diamond; Tormuse and Icy i.e. two of the most legendary and hardcore DRL players, and according to the mortems, it was well over 1000 games for Tormuse before he won it, while in Icy's case, it was over 2000 games, not to mention Icy is also a heavy A100/666 player too. We can all agree the grind for these badges is unreasonable, right? Also the more special items that get added, the grind for Gold and Diamond will get even worse (while these badges shouldn't be a factor against adding more special items to the game). For what to exactly do with these badges:
- Change Armorer Gold to collecting 100 total special items. This is a much less giant jump compared to the Silver requirement of a mere 30 total special items, and a player good enough to start winning Gold badges should shortly add it to their Gold collection.
- Change Armorer Platinum to collecting 300 total special items. I contemplated the 500 that JHC has for its Armorer Platinum, but I think 300 is more reasonable (Silver gets you a tenth of the way there and Gold gets you one-third), and players capable of winning Platinums won't have this badge delaying them getting all Platinums as long as the 500 or especially 1000 requirement would.
- Change Armorer Diamond to collecting 1 of every special item and 500 total. There's just no reason for why you should need to collect more than 1 of each special item for Armorer Diamond, what does a player prove by finding the Dragonslayer two more additional times after their first time finding it? The secondary requirement ensures you can't win Armorer Diamond before the Platinum.
*Increase Lightfoot Bronze's floor requirement to level 16.
I mean this is a Bronze so who really cares, but since AoLT is one of the easiest challenges, it doesn't quite make sense that its Bronze has a floor requirement of 9 like some of the other harder challenges, especially when it's braindead easy to just run through Phobos on HNTR with AoLT's speed boost without even trying to fight back, so I feel it makes more sense for Lightfoot Bronze to have a slightly harder requirement like the other easier challenges.
*Decrease Quartermaster Bronze's floor requirement to level 9.
Conversely, Quartermaster Bronze should be made easier, as AoRA is one of the harder challenges, that people tend to notoriously struggle with their first time playing it, so it also makes no sense that it has one of the harder Bronze requirements. Again this is just Bronze badges so it feels nitpicky, but the requirement of Quartermaster and Lightfoot Bronze are inverse to their challenge's respective difficulties.
*Bump Marksman Gold's difficulty down to HMP.
It never made much sense to me that the Marksman series skipped HMP and jumped straight to UV for Marksman Gold, especially when AoMr wasn't an easy challenge. In fact back in 0.9.9.7, I would say Marksman Gold was the hardest Gold badge, because being locked to pistols on UV was so brutal. The 0.10 SoG change reversing pistols' early games woes did made AoMr a lot easier, but I still think it doesn't justify skipping straight to UV, and regardless if you're able to beat AoMr on UV, you should be able to jump straight to the Platinum requirement and beat it with 100% kills. So for more clear delineation in the difficulty between the Gold and Platinum, this change should be made.
*Give Lightfoot Gold the additional requirement of beating AoLT in under 40000 turns.
As mentioned previously, AoLT is one of easiest challenges, and its Gold just requiring beating HMP with no additional requirement made it one of the easiest Golds. Adding the stipulation of winning in under 40000 turns makes sense to me, to both spice up Lightfoot Gold a bit and to also have a natural progression towards Lightfoot Platinum requiring winning in under 20000 turns.
*Give Daredevil Gold the additional requirement of getting 100% kills.
One of the super free Golds currently is Daredevil Gold. It's infamous how you can just spam quick AoOC games until you get lucky, and on HNTR, you don't even need much luck to get a game where you can easily run to the Mastermind with barely any fighting and then nuke her. I can run pacifist games in HNTR AoOC and easily get the luck needed to win in under 30 minutes. I would say Daredevil Silver is actually much less easy, since you can't so easily rush through it and will have to get through a boss you can't just nuke without Invuln. I think Daredevil Gold should be given a 100% kills stipulation; it would probably still be one of the easiest Golds, but at least this requirement will make players have to play through it more honestly and not just try rushing to the Mastermind with a nuke or Berserker (while also meaning they can't enter Mortuary/Limbo just to snag a free nuke unless they actually clear it).
*Change Arena Gold's requirement to beating it on UV in AoRA.
Prior to 0.10, Arena Gold had a well balanced requirement, since beating it in AoMr on UV was tough but not exceedingly so. However after SoG's change in 0.10 and pistols becoming far better in the early game as a result, beating Hell's Arena in AoMr is far easier, and so this is now overly easy for a Gold badge. What to change the requisite challenge to was a bit hard to decide; AoSh has it even easier, AoMC and AoLT would make this completely free, Hell's Arena is only slightly harder in AoP with it just making you come in with less health and no Berserk/Light Goggles, AoB is already used for the Diamond, AoD would make this harder than Arena Platinum, AoHu would be a bit much, AoPc is obviously unviable, and AoI and/or AoMs would be a good replacement but they already have a medal (Chess Master's Token) for this exact requirement. That leaves AoRA, which would actually be a great replacement challenge, since beating UV Hell's Arena in AoRA is quite tough and requires some luck (especially if you don't get Hellrunner and Reloader), but it shouldn't be harder for players to do than beating Hell's Arena on N! as the Platinum badge requires. Also it would be fun to encourage beating Hell's Arena in a quick manner.
*Perhaps give Longinus Gold an additional stipulation, such as no Berserker and Malicious Blades?
Yet one more super free Gold badge is Longinus Gold, beating Unholy Cathedral is incredibly mindless for any lategame melee build, and even low level melee builds in AoOC can very easily beat it. It just makes no sense that beating Unholy Cathedral gives you the same tier of badge as beating Mortuary/Limbo does, at least The Vaults also giving a Gold badge for just beating it can be justified by it being tricky to figure out without looking it up and needing to beat two prior special levels to do so. Not to mention that it is also much easier to get than the special level Silvers. Giving it the additional stipulation of disallowing Berserker and Malicious Blades would mean players wouldn't just be able to mindlessly steamroll through it with typical melee builds, but unlike the harder Longinus badges, they would still be allowed Brute. Maybe you could add a Bronze and Silver tier to the Longinus series, with the Bronze badge being to simply enter Unholy Cathedral and leave it alive, while the Silver badge can be to just beat it with any traits, and then the Gold can be this proposed requirement, which along with the proposed Platinum requirement, all seems like a much more natural badge progression than how the Longinus series currently is (why is there no Longinus Bronze and Silver to begin with?).
*Change Berserker Platinum's kill requirement to Explorer Pin.
It was proposed previously to just remove Berserker Platinum's kill requirement given the similarity to Gargulec Cross, and beating UV AoB on its own would be an ok Platinum-level challenge, but it would be rather mundane for a Platinum Badge, while you would still be doubling up Berserker Platinum with any Gargulec Cross run. So perhaps give it an Explorer requirement to spice it up, while also making doubling it up with Gargulec Cross a more complicated endeavor, as entering any special levels would mean having to kill everything in them to keep Gargulec Cross alive (or at least everything before additional waves spawn in). I additionally think it would tie in nicely to the proposed new Berserker Diamond requirement of beating N! AoB with no special levels visited.
*Change Shottyman Platinum's requirement to beating it on UV in under 40000 turns.
Shottyman Platinum isn't glaringly imbalanced but has two particular issues, first if you're able to beat AoSh on N!, then doing so with 80% kills for the Diamond isn't meaningfully more difficult and so players would nearly always get the Platinum + Diamond together, and secondly it's just a boring Platinum. With what I'm about to propose for Shottyman Diamond though, I think Shottyman Platinum would make more sense and be more interesting with its difficulty requirement being bumped down to UV, but now have the additional requirement of beating AoSh in under 40000 turns. This would not only have a more natural progression to the proposed new Shottyman Diamond requirement, it would also give players another Platinum they can get without playing N!, but having to play through UV at such a fast pace will make it sufficiently more difficult than the Gold.
*Give Centurial Platinum the additional requirement of getting Experience Medal.
Centurial Platinum is fine as it is and the vast majority of Centurial Platinum runs probably incidentally got the Experience Medal anyway, this will just have a better progression to the proposed Centurial Diamond change of beating N! A100 with an Experience Cross.
*Change UAC Diamond to require only UV, disallow Berserker, or do both.
While UAC Diamond looks imposing at first, it is actually a very easy Diamond, that is easier than at least half the Platinums, with the badge having the clear obvious optimal strategy of rushing through the game with a melee Scout that anyone can copy and 20 minutes being a surprisingly generous time limit when you're rushing through the game berserked most of the time. According to the Badge Hunters thread, this was one of the most won Diamonds in 0.9.9.7 with a dozen people winning it, and if you look at the mortems, they all cleared the 20 minute requirement by several minutes at least, with the majority being under 15 minutes and some even almost getting under 10 minutes. It was suggested that this could be a 0.9.9.7 thing and changes since then would make it harder, but after running it in 0.10, I got a 11:17 first try without even trying hard to be fast with my physical inputs and making some serious time-losing flubs. The berserk nerf does make it more difficult to survive rushing through the game, but the game engine itself becoming faster counterbalances this and it wouldn't take many resets to get the luck needed to not die during a melee rush. An unusual idea to buff this badge's difficulty would be to make it strictly require UV, as speedrunning through the game on UV would actually be harder without N!'s doubled powerups/healing and faster levelling. Alternatively, you just disallow Berserker, as getting to Chained Court ASAP and rushing through the rest of the game with Berserker is the one clear dominant strategy for speedruns, and any time limit that would make this a reasonably difficult Diamond-level challenge for Berserker builds would be unreasonably difficult or even impossible for non-Berserker builds. If you want to be extra sure with making this a Diamond-worthy challenge, you can do both the UV-only and no Berserker requirements.
*Change Shottyman Diamond's kill requirement to beating it on N! in under 20000 turns.
JHC's Shottyman Diamond equivalent got the new much more interesting requirement of beating N! AoSh in under 20000 turns. This ended up being terrible for JHC, as due to that game's different structuring that makes JHC longer and much harder to rush through, beating the game on N! that fast with purely shotguns is probably impossible or close to it, and even Sereging it with a Berserker build requires a ridiculous amount of luck. With DRL's structure being conductive to much faster playthroughs however, this requirement would actually work well here for a Diamond-worthy challenge. There was some concern given that it could still be unreasonably tight even in DRL, but I would prove it was possible with a UAC Diamond run in under 20K turns that was essentially shotguns only, and that was in 0.9.9.7 before the Reloader and Gunrunner buffs that would make this less difficult, as well as under real time pressure that invariably caused many turn-inefficient moves. Plus kill requirements are boring and overdone, so more varied badge requirements would be appreciated.
*Give Marksman Diamond the additional requirement of getting the Explorer Pin.
Marksman Diamond was fine previously, as despite being only one of two Angel-related Diamonds with no secondary requirement (the other being Centurial Diamond), it was actually one of the hardest Diamonds in 0.9.9.7/0.9.9.8 to get purely because of how much pistols sucked, particularly in the early game. They sucked so much that the people who got it through Sereging basically just played it as a pseudo-pacifist run and didn't even bother trying to actually use the pistols. With 0.10's SoG change however, while pistols became weaker in the lategame, they became far far better in the early game and better in the mid game too, so AoMr is overall easier now. Thus an additional stipulation should be added to keep this badge an appropriate Diamond-level challenge, with the idea being to make it require Explorer, as being pistol-locked would especially complicate getting out of the newly added Toxin Refinery/Central Processing, Military Base/Phobos Lab, Abyssal Plains, Halls Of Carnage, and of course Mortuary/Limbo. The upcoming suggestion to change Hunter Diamond would also mean Explorer will be unused as a secondary Diamond requirement.
*Change Inquisitor Diamond's Marine-only requirement to disallowing Ironman and Tough as Nails.
Inquisitor Diamond was one of the most fearsome Diamond badges in 0.9.9.7, with only four people recorded winning it (Sereg, Icy, papilio, and myself, the latter two being the only ones who did it purely). In 0.10 however it's far easier, with the main culprit being the currently OP Survivalist, that even if the Marine-only restriction didn't exist, would be the perfect mastery for significantly nerfing this challenge. My first thought was to disallow Survivalist even if it gets its proposed nerfs, but it would be awfully restrictive to require a specific class and ban one of their masteries on top. I was thinking though, the Marine-only restriction doesn't hit as hard anymore due to the Marine getting the inherent energy-resistances passive, so the Marine in AoP isn't so disadvantaged, and all the Marine's non-Vampyre masteries got buffed too. So instead of having the Marine-only restriction, allow any class but disallow Ironman and Tough as Nails; one of the primary things that makes AoP so difficult is the player's health supply being severely reduced to only medkits and being unable to repair armor without risky levers or rare mods, so traits that let you get more health back from medkits and give you inherent defenses are a lot more valuable, making these traits pivotal to nerfing the threat of AoP (especially so when both of these traits are much better than they were in 0.9.9.7). Banning TaN will additionally prevent the use of Survivalist regardless of its OPness, and it would prevent Entrenchment, which would probably be the second best mastery choice for AoP after Survivalist. Probably still wouldn't be as brutal as 0.9.9.7 Inquisitor Diamond was, but this change should make it go back to being one of the harder Diamonds instead of one of the easiest.
*Change Hunter Diamond's Explorer requirement to disallowing Intuition.
Hunter Diamond's Explorer requirement didn't really add much to its difficulty and seemed rather tacked on. Meanwhile if you run Cateye, which you could get as early as floor 3 with the insane EXP rate of N! AoD, the primary hurdle of the challenge got negated and you'll just be essentially playing a normal N! game with no map memory as a masterless Scout, except with a doubled EXP rate that makes it actually easier than standard N!. Even with just Intuition 2, you significantly nerf the main threat of vision reduction, and Intuition 1 helps too by letting you still see powerup locations despite Computer Maps no longer working. It seems very obvious to me that a no Intuition requirement would be far more fitting and difficult for Hunter Diamond than the Explorer requirement is (an Intuition ban would also prevent the use of Cateye). If either iteration of the proposed Hunter Angelic gets added, it too should get the no Intuition requirement for the same reasoning.
*Increase Daredevil Diamond's kill requirement to 100%.
As explained with Daredevil Gold, the nature of AoOC makes it easy to just spam quick runs until you get lucky, and while Daredevil Diamond has an 80% kill requirement to make you have to at least kill things, this is still easy to achieve rushing through the game, in addition to giving you the leeway to completely skip an overly bad floor or two, such as any Arachnotron or Nightmare Demon caves. It also doesn't make sense that while Elite Diamond requires beating the entire standard game on N! with 90+% kills, you got another Diamond requiring you to beat a third of the game with a smaller kill percent requirement. Plus with the change of respawns no longer counting towards kill percent, the hurdle of lacking corpse disposal no longer matters (not that the difficulty of disposing corpses even mattered previously when nearly two dozen people won Daredevil Diamond across all pre-0.10 versions).
*Change Speedrun Angelic's real time requirement to under 8 minutes.
Icy and I previously agreed that this infamous unwinnable badge should have its requirement bumped up to 10 or even 12 minutes. However when looking at the UAC Diamond times, I found several people came close to getting their UAC Diamond run in under 10 minutes. while I found a run by papilio that got under 10 minutes and a run by Sereg that got under 9 minutes. This is on top of DRL getting engine improvements that makes it play faster since those 0.9.9.7 runs (particularly mitigating all the pauses whenever the game renders projectiles flying around). And as mentioned previously, I got a run nearly under 11 minutes first try despite not trying to play as physically fast as possible and getting some clearly lousy early game level luck (getting any early maze with stairs on the opposite end would make you reset on any serious Speedrun Angelic attempt). 4 minutes is still completely out of the question, but I think 8 minutes will be a reasonable threshold that will be extremely difficult while not venturing into "spin the slot machine thousands of times until you win" territory for top level players, and so will be revising the proposal to that.
*Change Berserker Angelic's requirement to something less absurdly luck-based, preferably a Dual Angel with Angel of Pestilence if it's added, or another challenge like Angel of Purity if it's not.
Berserker Angelic in its current incarnation is a winnable Angelic, but the problem is that winning it is basically a slot machine with little relative skill involved; in AoB your options for strategic play are limited, and by the nature of pure melee combat, damage is unavoidable, while you just will not survive with the only 50/60 to 100/120 HP you get from each levelup Supercharge. The only viable strategies is play a Scout, stairdive, get lucky enough to get through Chained Court and to floor 7 with an Invuln there, then get even luckier with enough Invulns spawning after that to safely stairdive the rest of the game, or play Marine and get lucky enough to survive long enough to reach level 6 for Vampyre. Both strategies will involve metaphorically spinning the slot machine until you get the slim RNG needed for a viable run, with dedicated attempts for this badge being able to easily number into the hundreds for even the best players. Throwing knives now actually working in 0.10-onward would help with this badge, but that would get counterbalanced by the Berserk nerf, time-based powerups making early powerups not last as long, the Enraged Timer meaning you can no longer indefinitely camp to clear out Phobos 2 or later floors with Vampyre, and Vampyre itself being significantly nerfed so getting it is no longer a win condition on its own. Aside from this badge being a horrendous experience to actually play for, according to Kornel, the idea for Angelic badges is that they were supposed to be much more skill-based, so this badge currently does not fit that idea.
For what challenge to replace Angel of Masochism here with, if the proposed Angel of Pestilence gets added, I think that could be a great substitute, as the steady health drain does inhibit your ability to take hits and discourages playing slowly, which is clearly asynergetic with AoB, but you can still heal and so you can actually feasibly fight back after the second floor, allowing for more strategies than just "stair dive and pray". If it proved too easy in testing, a kill requirement or other secondary requirement could be added to make it an appropriate Angelic challenge. If Angel of Pestilence doesn't get added, then alternatively Angel of Purity could be used instead, which AoB will still be asynergetic with due to only having medkits and Vampyre for healing, no longer being able to use Berserks and Invulns, and being unable to easily repair all the armor AoB runs chew through, but again you aren't restricted to only 50/60-100/120 HP between levelups. If AoP would prove too luck-based too, then maybe Angel of Impatience or even Angel of Max Carnage would work as additional asynergetic options. Meanwhile, if the "Demonic" tier badges that were once planned ever get added, which according to Kornel were supposed to require an absurd amount of luck, then the current Berserker Angelic would fit much better as a possible Berserker Demonic.
*Remove Marksman Angelic's kill requirement and replace it with disallowing Cateye.
As I ranted about under Hunter Diamond, Cateye just significantly neuters Angel of Darkness, and indeed everyone who has won Marksman Angelic did so with Cateye despite it not even being a Pistol mastery. This wasn't so bad in 0.9.9.7 when pistols sucked so badly and needed any sort of buoy thrown to them, and said pistol suckiness made it extremely hard to survive long enough with reduced vision even with doubled EXP to reach Cateye, especially as you needed to get SoG3 first to have any chance and thus delaying Cateye. But as also explained prior, pistols are a lot better now with the SoG change, especially in the early game, and so surviving long enough in AoD to get Cateye is no longer such an arduously excruciating task. As such, the pointless kill requirement should instead be replaced with disallowing Cateye, forcing players to engage with this badge the intended way and encouraging more varied builds (you could also just ban Intuition too like was proposed for Hunter Diamond/Angelic, but I think you can leave Intuition allowed as a mercy, as even if you know enemies are right outside your vision, pistols are still heavily disadvantaged when they can't fire back against these enemies without the out-of-vision accuracy penalty).
*If Angel of Drought is added, change Shottyman Angelic to beating AoSh + AoDr on N!
This is preemptive, but if the proposed Angel of Drought does get added, I think the notoriously easy Shottyman Angelic could instead be spruced up by replacing AoOC with AoDr in the requisite Dual Angel combo. It would need testing after that to determine an appropriate kill requirement if any (or perhaps if 100% kills is feasible), but this would be an obviously more fitting asynergistic combo than AoSh + AoOC (which frankly never made much sense), and I basically already did this in JHC with 100% kills to boot in that bugged beta version for one of my most tense runs ever in either game. Also there probably should be an additional stipulation that disallows building Nano-shrapnel, because otherwise the dominant strategy would be resetting until you get a Nano mod in Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab (or find one randomly) to then build a Nano-shrapnel Shotgun that invalidates the challenge (could still apply a Nano raw to a shotgun, but aside from the Plasma Shotgun, raw Nanoing shotguns doesn't work well with their limited or non-existent clips and so you'll still need other shotguns loaded to kill most enemies).
*Revising the proposed Daredevil Angelic to clearing AoOC + AoP with 100% kills.
When Icy originally proposed Daredevil Angelic, it was an AoOC + AoD combo, but when thinking of it now, Angel of Purity is clearly the far more asynergistic combo with AoOC, when successful AoOC runs heavily depend on powerups. Even when Sereg and Icy Sereg'd Inquisitor Diamond, it took them several hundreds of tries and of course both finished with abysmal kill percents. As such, I'm revising the proposal to replace AoD with AoP.
*Add Gatekeeper Angelic, which requires clearing Phobos Anomaly, Tower of Babel, and Hell Fortress all damageless on N! in a single run.
When I originally brought up the idea of Gatekeeper Angelic, Icy shot it down as being too easy for an Angelic. The original suggestion was Anomaly + Babel + Dis, and while the Mastermind should be no longer so easy to beat damageless with its AI change + possibly impending flinching threshold buff, I think it would be better to replace Dis with Hell Fortress. Aside from being more difficult, it makes more sense for an Angelic anyway to require no damaging the true final boss. The only caveat is this badge should only be added if the proposal of having Hell Fortress turn off powerups when you enter it is implemented, as otherwise, it would be too easy and cheesy to just find an Invuln in Hell then rush to Hell Fortress to kill Carmack damageless with Invulnerability (maybe have the badge require not using the Lava Element too so you can't use it to kill Carmack damageless with a high DPS build?). Also of course nuking any of these three levels should disqualify you from earning the badge.
13
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.11
« on: December 29, 2025, 16:16 »
Since the last post got long, I'm putting all the new medal suggestions here:
*Ensure all medals and badges that require beating a specific special level do not count nuking
This is how it works normally, but there seems to be several exceptions where such a medal/badge does not disqualify nuking, such as the various Hell Arena medals, the Hell Armory/Deimos Medals, Every Soldier's Medal, and Spider-Killer Cross. So these should all be checked and a no nuke exemption should be added to each lacking one.
*With the Fallout and Klear Crosses, do not count multiple nukes activated on the same floor as separate instances of nuking
Something that seems unintended and certainly doesn't make sense is that setting off multiple nukes on the same floor will count as separate instances of nuking. Notably, if you get the Trigun at any point of the game, once you get invulnerability you can keep spamming Angel Arm on the same floor to rack up the nuke counter for an easily cheesed Fallout Platinum and Klear Cross, such as I did in this run, which does not seem to be in the spirit of the medals and certainly doesn't resemble the actual run inspiring Klear Cross, where Klear actually nuked over half the game's levels. So while it would make these already annoying-to-get medals even harder, such a blatant exploit should be fixed.
*Add a new medal called "Sereg's Medallion", for completing Angel of 100 on UV or N! in under 1 hour of real time.
One of the coolest feats I seen on here was Sereg completing A100 on N! in under an hour, and Icy would later perform that feat as well, so a medal commemorating it and encouraging more people to speedrun A100 would be neat, while it would also work as a harder version of the "Marathon Medal" that Game Hunter suggested long ago. While Sereg and Icy did it on N!, and it would make sense to require only N!, I think UV should be allowed for the medal, since it would probably actually be harder to perform this feat on UV without the doubled powerups and the slower leveling.
*Add a new medal called "Tormuse's Medallion", for completing an Angel of Humanity + Angel of 100 Dual Angel challenge.
Another very cool feat was when it was discovered that Thomas' Medal and Everyman Platinum/Diamond didn't actually require the Conqueror Pin back in 0.9.9.7 and so could be could be earned in AoCn/AoOC or even A100, Tormuse gave it a try and successfully pulled off a AoH + Ao100 UV run. This wasn't in the spirit of what Thomas' Medal and the Everyman badges require, but it's arguably an even tougher feat than doing a normal Everyman Diamond run, and basically no one would dream of trying an AoH + A100 run, so I think it should get recognition with a new medal, while also encouraging people to actually try this Dual Angel combo. Tormuse did it on UV and I would be ok with a UV/N! requirement too, but I'm also ok with no difficulty requirement to make this medal less daunting for players to earn themselves.
*If the Unmaker is added, add a new medal too called "Kaiser's Insignia", for killing John Carmack with the fully upgraded Unmaker.
If the Unmaker gets accepted and added to the game, I think it would also be fitting to have a medal for getting it fully upgraded and using it to kill the true final boss, not unlike the two medals we already have like this in the Gutts' Heart and rather random Grammaton Cleric Cross. You could make it require killing the Mastermind instead, but I think the Carmack requirement is more fitting here, since the "Final Evil" is a closer analogue for Doom 64's Mother Demon than the Mastermind is. The name references Samuel Villarreal (whose tag in Doom communities is "Kaiser"), the most famous Doom 64 fan who reverse engineered the game to make the first unofficial Doom 64 PC ports in the early-mid 2000s, and then later actually headed the development of Nightdive's official 2020 Doom 64 ports.
*Add more special level-related medals.
Currently the medals tied to special levels are very weird in their distribution; you got a whopping five of them for Hell's Arena, then Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab and Mortuary/Limbo have two each (that are just a basic "beat this special level" and "beat this special level damageless" medal), then you randomly got "Every Soldier's Medal" and "Spider-Killer Cross" for beating The Wall/Containment Area and Spider's Lair respectively in Angel of Humanity, and that's it. I'm assuming there were more such medals planned at some point (based on Game Hunter's comments about wanting to add a lot of new medals) and this weird distribution is just the result of an in-development game getting its old dev team disbanded after development was shelved for a decade, because otherwise this distribution of them makes no sense. I encourage people to share their own ideas for new special level medals, here are ideas I have:
*Perhaps add more "fail medals"?
The concept of "fail medals" is something people thrown around ideas about for a long time yet were rejected because the devs didn't like the idea of rewarding failure. However they apparently changed their mind on that when 0.9.9.8 made the fabled Gutt's Sorrow medal official, and also added the Purple Heart. As such, while they can be annoying from a completionist's perspective, I think it would be fun to have some more such medals, and it would also make the two current fail medals not be so out of place. Some ideas for new fail medals I have:
*Ensure all medals and badges that require beating a specific special level do not count nuking
This is how it works normally, but there seems to be several exceptions where such a medal/badge does not disqualify nuking, such as the various Hell Arena medals, the Hell Armory/Deimos Medals, Every Soldier's Medal, and Spider-Killer Cross. So these should all be checked and a no nuke exemption should be added to each lacking one.
*With the Fallout and Klear Crosses, do not count multiple nukes activated on the same floor as separate instances of nuking
Something that seems unintended and certainly doesn't make sense is that setting off multiple nukes on the same floor will count as separate instances of nuking. Notably, if you get the Trigun at any point of the game, once you get invulnerability you can keep spamming Angel Arm on the same floor to rack up the nuke counter for an easily cheesed Fallout Platinum and Klear Cross, such as I did in this run, which does not seem to be in the spirit of the medals and certainly doesn't resemble the actual run inspiring Klear Cross, where Klear actually nuked over half the game's levels. So while it would make these already annoying-to-get medals even harder, such a blatant exploit should be fixed.
*Add a new medal called "Sereg's Medallion", for completing Angel of 100 on UV or N! in under 1 hour of real time.
One of the coolest feats I seen on here was Sereg completing A100 on N! in under an hour, and Icy would later perform that feat as well, so a medal commemorating it and encouraging more people to speedrun A100 would be neat, while it would also work as a harder version of the "Marathon Medal" that Game Hunter suggested long ago. While Sereg and Icy did it on N!, and it would make sense to require only N!, I think UV should be allowed for the medal, since it would probably actually be harder to perform this feat on UV without the doubled powerups and the slower leveling.
*Add a new medal called "Tormuse's Medallion", for completing an Angel of Humanity + Angel of 100 Dual Angel challenge.
Another very cool feat was when it was discovered that Thomas' Medal and Everyman Platinum/Diamond didn't actually require the Conqueror Pin back in 0.9.9.7 and so could be could be earned in AoCn/AoOC or even A100, Tormuse gave it a try and successfully pulled off a AoH + Ao100 UV run. This wasn't in the spirit of what Thomas' Medal and the Everyman badges require, but it's arguably an even tougher feat than doing a normal Everyman Diamond run, and basically no one would dream of trying an AoH + A100 run, so I think it should get recognition with a new medal, while also encouraging people to actually try this Dual Angel combo. Tormuse did it on UV and I would be ok with a UV/N! requirement too, but I'm also ok with no difficulty requirement to make this medal less daunting for players to earn themselves.
*If the Unmaker is added, add a new medal too called "Kaiser's Insignia", for killing John Carmack with the fully upgraded Unmaker.
If the Unmaker gets accepted and added to the game, I think it would also be fitting to have a medal for getting it fully upgraded and using it to kill the true final boss, not unlike the two medals we already have like this in the Gutts' Heart and rather random Grammaton Cleric Cross. You could make it require killing the Mastermind instead, but I think the Carmack requirement is more fitting here, since the "Final Evil" is a closer analogue for Doom 64's Mother Demon than the Mastermind is. The name references Samuel Villarreal (whose tag in Doom communities is "Kaiser"), the most famous Doom 64 fan who reverse engineered the game to make the first unofficial Doom 64 PC ports in the early-mid 2000s, and then later actually headed the development of Nightdive's official 2020 Doom 64 ports.
*Add more special level-related medals.
Currently the medals tied to special levels are very weird in their distribution; you got a whopping five of them for Hell's Arena, then Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab and Mortuary/Limbo have two each (that are just a basic "beat this special level" and "beat this special level damageless" medal), then you randomly got "Every Soldier's Medal" and "Spider-Killer Cross" for beating The Wall/Containment Area and Spider's Lair respectively in Angel of Humanity, and that's it. I'm assuming there were more such medals planned at some point (based on Game Hunter's comments about wanting to add a lot of new medals) and this weird distribution is just the result of an in-development game getting its old dev team disbanded after development was shelved for a decade, because otherwise this distribution of them makes no sense. I encourage people to share their own ideas for new special level medals, here are ideas I have:
- "Secret Hunter" - Exit Toxin Refinery through its secret exit.
- "DSDA Gold Medal" - Exit Toxin Refinery or Central Processing on UV in under a minute of real time (but disqualify if the player uses a Phase or Homing Phase Device).
- "DSDA Platinum Medal" - Exit Toxin Refinery or Central Processing on N! in under a minute of real time (but disqualify if the player uses a Phase or Homing Phase Device).
- "Chainless Token" - Clear and exit The Chained Court without picking up the Chainsaw.
- "Blind Gladiator" - Clear The Unchained Court in Angel of Darkness.
- "Blind Champion" - Clear The Unchained Court on UV+ in Angel of Darkness.
- "Tyson Medal" - Clear Military Base in Angel of Berserk without running out the Enraged Timer.
- "Grandmaster Tyson" - Clear Military Base on N! in Angel of Berserk without running out the Enraged timer.
- "Demon's Jaw" - If Angel of Turbo is added as a challenge, add this medal for clearing Phobos Lab on UV+ in Angel of Turbo.
- "Nightmare Demon's Jaw" - Clear Phobos Lab on UV+ in ArchAngel of Turbo.
- "id Memento" - Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab in Angel of Red Alert.
- "Silver Shell Box" - If Angel of Drought is added as a challenge, add this medal for clearing City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains in Angel of Drought.
- "Empty Shell Box" - Clear City of Skulls/Abyssal Plains on UV/N! in Angel of Drought.
- "Charred Watch" - Clear Halls Of Carnage in Angel of Impatience.
- "Loaded Backpack" - Clear The Vaults in Angel of Light Travel.
- "Relic Of Pain" - Clear House Of Pain without using the Arena Master's Staff in Angel of Masochism.
- "Gordian Ribbon" - Clear Unholy Cathedral by nuking and exit alive (not really a challenge but the funny simplest solution to beating Unholy Cathedral without a melee build whenever you can do it).
- "Temporal Relic" - Clear The Mortuary/Limbo in Angel of Purity.
- "Pacifist Star" - Exit The Mortuary/Limbo alive without any enemies dying, including respawns, but disqualify if any sort of Phasing device is used.
- "Biohazard Medal" - If Angel of Pestilence is added as a challenge, add this medal for clearing The Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus on UV+ in Angel of Pestilence.
- "Biohazard Cross" - Clear The Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus on UV+ in Archangel of Pestilence.
*Perhaps add more "fail medals"?
The concept of "fail medals" is something people thrown around ideas about for a long time yet were rejected because the devs didn't like the idea of rewarding failure. However they apparently changed their mind on that when 0.9.9.8 made the fabled Gutt's Sorrow medal official, and also added the Purple Heart. As such, while they can be annoying from a completionist's perspective, I think it would be fun to have some more such medals, and it would also make the two current fail medals not be so out of place. Some ideas for new fail medals I have:
- "Rook's Medallion" - Die with more than 5 Large Medkits in your inventory. (It's infamous how often players die while hoarding medkits, named after the player who is perhaps most guilty of this pitfall :p Could alternatively be called the "Hoarder's Token" instead if you don't want such a medal to be referential.)
- "Glass Jaw" - Get killed by the melee attack of a Former Human, Sergeant, or Captain. (There is no more pathetic way to die than getting punched out by a Former. Commandos are excluded since their melee isn't completely inept.)
- "Cybernetic Husk" - Die in the Cybernetic Armor while it has 0% durability. (Some sucker fell for the Cybernetic Armor trap...)
- "Undestined Hero" - Die in Dis or Hell Fortress with the Longinus Spear equipped, while excluding nuking yourself. (Had the "Spear Of Destiny" yet still failed to vanquish the ultimate evil at the end...)
- "Faust's Pact" - Die after reducing your max HP to 10. (Whisper of Death, Angel Arm, and any other potential max HP drain abilities are among the powerful things in the game, so perhaps something to acknowledge players going overboard with them and dying as a result. Also obviously exclude AoHu from earning this medal.)
- "Pity Token" - Nuke the Tower Of Babel without Invulnerability. (Aside from it being funny to nuke the wrong boss, this also references that nuking Babel would have won you the game if you were playing a version prior to 0.9.9.5. It needs a better name though, can't think of one.)
- "Faux IDDQD" - Die with the Inquisitor Set equipped. (Managing this would be an even harder task than dying with the Dragonslayer equipped. Completely stumped on a good name for it though, so the suggested name is just a placeholder.)
14
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.11
« on: December 28, 2025, 22:38 »
I added bunch of new proposals over time but didn't make a post explaining the rationale behind them, so I'm gonna explain them in this post.
*When enemies are Enraged, have their melee attack deal piercing damage
The Enraged Timer has mostly worked to counter excessive waiting, but one thing found was if you have good enough melee resistance to reduce melee attacks to 1 damage and secure an area with tight corridors that forces enemies into melee range (such as in a vault), you can still safely camp out the Enraged Timer, wth the enraged enemies being of little threat if they'll all be plinking you with their melee attack for 1 damage, making this a viable tactic as long as you don't mind the reduced EXP gain. If it's possible, a fix for this would be once the Enraged Timer is triggered, have all enemies deal piercing damage with their melee attack, so that way the player cannot abuse this on any tough floor once they get a strong melee armor, Berserker, or Malicious Blades.
*Buff the Tristar Blaster's damage to 4d6
The Tristar Blaster is an unusual Exotic weapon that barely gets any use, due to being a cumbersome and dangerous ammo-hungry weapon that doesn't synergize well with any particular build other than Fireangel, and even if you try to use it, it's not even that strong and so the reward for using it properly is underwhelming; you'll probably deal out more cumulative damage against a horde with a single BFG shot than you would with three Tristar Blaster shots that consume even more cells. It's hard to adequately buff this weapon due to the aforementioned asynergy, so you could give it a slight damage buff to make it somewhat more rewarding to actually use, with it being possible for it to actually score one-shots against tougher enemies (4d6 would also have it actually match Mancubus rockets in damage output, and the Tristar Blaster is supposed to be a weaponized version of their attack).
*Buff Blood Skulls to give 10 HP per gibbed corpse.
Blood Skulls don't sound so bad on paper, with healing you by 5 HP per each corpse gibbed around you and being able to overheal you. The problem though is that in order for a Blood Skull to just match a Large Medkit in efficacy for players with default max HP, you need to gib 10 corpses, and outside of Mortuary/Limbo, you're going to have a hard time getting 10 corpses within a 8 x 8 radius, especially not without the corpses getting gibbed in crossfire, and it's gonna be even unlikelier in the sort of situations where you do want to heal. Then as a Marine or for each level of Ironman, you'll need an additional 2 corpses to match the Large Medkit, and you can forget about healing up to 200% with a Blood Skull as good fucking luck getting 20+ corpses packed near each other on any normal floor. As a result, you'll usually only carry a Blood Skull on you if you're short on Large Medkits, and will ditch it as soon as you get 4+ Large Medkits again, while they're also far less desirable for Mortuary/Limbo than Hatred Skulls and even Fire Skulls. Buffing Blood Skulls to give 10 HP per corpse makes sense to me, 5 corpses for a full heal at default max HP and 10 corpses for 200% makes them a lot more usable on normal floors, and as an Exotic, they shouldn't be beaten by the standard Large Medkit so easily, while this would hardly affect their usage in Mortuary/Limbo.
*Decrease Charch's Null Pointer ammo consumption to 5 cells per shot
Another very unusual weapon is Charch's Null Pointer, that sees even less usage than the Tristar Blaster. The Null Pointer has a theoretical niche where you can stunlock a threatening enemy to death with it, but requiring a whopping 10 cells just to inflict 10 damage to a single enemy, the critical issue is it simply consumes too much ammo for that to be worthwhile in all but the most extreme niche of situations, as it'll require an entire cell stack or more to kill anything bigger than a Cacodemon. As such, the ammo consumption should be decreased to 5 cells per shot, which would still be awfully ammo inefficient for killing enemies (in comparison, 5 Plasma Rifle bolts with no SoB would deal 20 damage on average, twice as much as the Null Pointer), but the ammo consumption won't be so out of whack with what it does and so it could maybe not be such a terribly disappointing find. Alternatively, per Clamp's suggestion, you could make it a self-charging weapon so it has more clear utility without such crippling ammo consumption, while also simultaneously preventing the player from stunlocking bosses to death since they wouldn't be able to manually reload it.
*Buff the Subtle Knife farther
Invoke was buffed in 0.9.9.8 by no longer draining max HP and dealing 15 plasma damage to all in-vision enemies instead of 10. This effect though is still very underwhelming, basically just being a slightly better Arena Master Staff that will one-shot Imps and Lost Souls, but won't gib Formers, and the Subtle Knife itself is woefully weak for a Unique, as such it's still a near-worthless Unique even before considering being so damn annoyingly rare. When doing research on the Subtle Knife's inspiration, how the Subtle Knife works in DRL doesn't make much sense, where in its titular book, it is supposed to be a weapon capable of harming intangible supernatural beings and god, while its "reality cutting" ability manifests as creating dimensional doorways, which isn't reflected by the Subtle Knife being a puny 3d5 weapon with no special ability nor by how Invoke works. Invoke draining max HP before was the only thing that made sense for its inspiration, as the actual Subtle Knife is supposed to mutilate its user's hand. As such, I want to propose the following changes to make the Subtle Knife actually worth it as a Unique and to be better faithful to its inspiration:
The first change would give the Subtle Knife a more clearer usecase for melee builds, as it'll be able to hit a large chunk of enemies at Spear or even Scythe damage levels, and exceed even farther beyond that for Malicious Blades, but there will still be a large contingent of threatening enemies that the Subtle Knife would be no stronger than a vanilla Combat Knife against, so it wouldn't obsolete other melee weapons. The second change of a reusable Homing Phase has obvious use to any build, but the max HP cost, aside from being faithful to the source material, prevents it from outclassing the Hell Staff and ensures players can't so easily skip the entirety of the remaining game (especially if they don't have a means to easily kill the Mastermind), just make the max HP drain less severe in A100/666 given the much greater amount of floors makes it a lot more relatively punishing. If the alternative Invoke change is done instead, it'll at least have more clear usefulness as an emergency instant kill button with a cost than it does as a slightly better Arena Master Staff with a negligible cost. If these changes are done, it still should be able to spawn sooner and have a weight of 2 to not be so absurdly rare, especially if melee weapons continue to be unable to spawn in vaults, but maybe with a minimum depth of 12 rather than the originally proposed 7.
*Make Azrael's Scythe "Whisper Of Death" alt-fire require a minimum of over 5 max HP to use
Oddly, while the Trigun's Angel Arm has a minimum >10 max HP to use, the Scythe's Whisper Of Death has no minimum max HP requirement, and so even as you decrease your max HP to 5, you can keep spamming it indefinitely as long as you can restore your tactics. While running around with only 5 max HP is extremely hazardous, this can be abused to cheese several lategame levels, particularly in Angel of Humanity, as was exploited in this Everyman Diamond run.
*Allow the Mastermind to appear in very deep levels of A100/666?
Alongside adding the Angel of Death to A100, I was thinking the Mastermind could still work as a lategame spawn, since it is basically just a big Nightmare Arachnotron with weird AI and isn't exceedingly powerful, while in Doom 2, the Mastermind got used as a normal enemy in several levels. If this is done, you should naturally create Mastermind + Arachnotrons and Mastermind + Nightmare Arachnotrons groups, and perhaps also add a new cave type with only Masterminds. You'll just need to lower its Danger value to like 40, 35, or even 30 to match the Cyberdemon, as 50 would make it give too much EXP and significantly cut into other enemy spawns, while it's not strong enough to merit such a high danger level.
*Allow melee weapons and boots to spawn in vaults
A weird oddity is that melee weapons and boots cannot spawn in vaults, which ends up making special boots and especially special melee weapons harder to come by than special armors and ranged weapons. The reasoning I was told was if they did, vaults would get flooded with useless Combat Knives and Steel Boots, which makes sense, but it should be possible now to exclude specifically Combat Knives and Steel Boots from spawning in vaults, right? If it's not possible, then I suppose it is better that this restriction remain to keep vaults more fruitful, but if it is possible, then I see no reason to continue keeping this restriction with vaults. If this is done, you could maybe add Protective Boots to the restriction list too since they would be useless more often than not and you can already get early Protective Boots from armor crates.
*Allow Single Monster type levels to have Nightmare enemies, and make their generation more varied in general.
Single Monster type levels are a cool idea, but are a bit lame in their current implementation. One, they can not have Nightmare variations unlike Caves, so they become especially non-threatening in deeper A100/666 runs unless you roll one of the rare Bruiser/Shambler/Cyberdemon variants (well I see in the code that the Former variant can have all the Elite Formers show up on higher difficulties, but due to the second point, you'll never see it anyway). Two, there is simply little variety, as if you play UV/N!, you won't ever encounter any variants but one of the VMR types (or one of the rare boss variants if in deep A100), and in A100 on any difficulty, you will only encounter the VMR types beyond the very early floors, despite the Hell Noble level actually having greater potential to threaten you than the VMR levels (since they have more varied damage types, feature Bruisers, and they can nab all the extra armors and medkits that spawn from these levels having increased item generation). Addressing both points not only increases variety, but will also increase difficulty, even the Imp variation might threaten you more than one of the VMR types if you get a ton of Nightmare Imps instead while having no good plasma resistance, whereas you're almost sure to have good fire resistance by the time you can encounter any of the VMR type levels. For one additional note, Single Monster levels should probably also have a lower minimum spawning depth, not being able to encounter them until Hell means you barely even see them outside of A100.
*Add a new Unique called "Big Fucking Shotgun", a 40d5 plasma shotgun with a max range of 10, spread of 5, damage dropoff rate of 10%, a clip size of 40 while requiring 40 cells per shot, a 2 second firing time, and 3 second reload time.
An idea briefly talked about with Kornel in one of his streams when he added the JHC BFT, and he seemed receptive to the idea, so I want to formally propose it, while we could also use a third Unique shotgun. This is essentially a more mechanically faithful recreation of the actual Doom BFG, which despite it appearing to shoot a big plasma ball that explodes in a large splash radius, actually mechanically functions as like a, well, Big Fucking Shotgun, with the BFG firing 40 invisible hitscan tracers in a very large spread after the BFG ball explodes. The 40d5 damage appears absurd at first, but for reference, its average damage of 120 is the same as the Biggest Fucking Gun's average of 120, while unlike the Biggest Fucking Gun that has no damage falloff, this Big Fucking Shotgun would have a severe dropoff rate and cover a lot less ground than a 16 radius explosion, and with its 40 cells a shot that would make it less ammo efficient than the Plasma Shotgun that's already not known for ammo efficiency, it gotta be worth the ammo. Plus it should be able to very reliably one-shot any normal enemy from a few tiles away like the actual BFG, and the 40 dice would match the amount of tracers the BFG has. I think the weapon is strong enough to warrant the 2 second firing time and it would better resemble the actual BFG's very long firing startup, but if this would make it too impractical for non-Shottyhead builds, it could be reduceed to 1.5 seconds. It can also be moddable by Technicians with a 1 mod/basic assembly limit (though no basic assemblies in DRL would be applicable to it other than the Plasmatic Shrapnel that does nothing), and it can have a minimum depth of 20 to match the other BFGs (though maybe 18 or even 15 to give players more of a chance to get it before Mortuary/Limbo where it would see most utility) and naturally a spawning weight of 1.
*Add a new challenge called "Angel of Turbo", which makes all enemies +20% faster, and an Archangel variant that makes them +40% faster.
Among the available challenges, there are currently none that directly buff enemies (AoMC makes them hit a lot harder, but you get the same buff), just various ways to nerf the player or alter the game. A simple effective yet fun one would be a challenge that just makes all enemies faster, which would make them more offensively dangerous, more difficult to outrun, and makes corner shooting them all to death harder, while seeing how the new Enraged mode can make enemies faster, this should be doable to program in as a challenge now. N! was originally supposed to have faster enemies anyway, and this would emulate actual Doom's fast monsters setting, which is commonly played as its own challenge category there. Not to mention this would also serve a purpose for people wanting to make the game harder without having some restriction imposed on them like other challenges do. If implemented, naturally there should be an Archangel variant too that makes enemies even faster (+40% could be tried initially, but it could be +30% if it proves rather unplayable). "Angel of Turbo" is a placeholder name, if someone thinks of a better name that should be used instead. I can think up of new badge ideas for the challenge if this is accepted.
*Add a new challenge called "Angel of Drought", which makes all ammo drops contain a third of the usual ammo amount (including ammo in ammo boxes and ammo dropped by enemies), and makes melee weapons unusable, while also making Brute give no damage bonus.
This was discussed for JHC after playing the one beta with bugged ammo drops, but this challenge idea would work in DRL too, as a more effective ammo-deprivation challenge than Angel of Light Travel since you'll be encountering far less ammo altogether, thus creating a challenge where ammo management is a much more serious obstacle, while there is farther meaningful difference from AoLT since the rest of your inventory is not limited nor do you get a speed boost. A ban on melee weapons will be needed however, since otherwise this would just devolve into a lighter Angel of Berserk, and Brute should give no damage bonus either, since the fist would be able to do respectable damage after several Brute levels and thus significantly lighten the later portion of the challenge. If you want to get cute with the references, "Angel of McGee" would work well, naming it after the Doom developer responsible for some of Doom's most infamous drought maps (such as E4M1: Hell Beneath), but "Angel of Drought" works if you don't want the name to be overly referential (and it's probably better to name the badge series after McGee instead). I can think up of new badges for this challenge if this is accepted.
*Add a new challenge called "Angel of Pestilence", which emulates a permanent deadly air event where the player's health steadily drains nonstop, and perhaps an Archangel version as well with a ramped up health draining rate.
A common criticism of DRL's Angel modes is that a large chunk of them enforce more cautious play (particularly the "don't get hit" challenges of Purity, Impatience, Masochism, Humanity, and even Max Carnage, which all severely inhibit the player's hit-taking ability in some way), while the only one that enforces more aggressive play is Angel of Red Alert, so another challenge that forces the player to play faster would help increase the strategic variety of the available challenges. When discussing this with Icy in the initial 0.9.9.8 proposal compilation thread, I thought up of one that emulates a permanent Deadly Air event with a continually steady HP drain, and while I backed off when Icy rejected it, an idea like it recently got independently brought up by Asbadagba as "Angel of Pestilence", and I still like the idea, so I'm gonna formally propose it. Like AoRA, you'll have to get through the game quickly lest you just get all your health drained away, while the strategic differences arise in rather than there being a strict timer cutoff on each individual level where you die instantly unless Invuln'd, here you can theoretically spend as long as you want on any level but it's a steady degradation in the player's ability to survive, which will carry over to the succeeding floors rather than getting a clean slate timer restart like AoRA gives you, and you'll become increasingly fragile with the health drain so you can't go as balls-to-the-walls as you would in AoRA. Compared to the actual Deadly Air event, enemies shouldn't be affected, so that way the player cannot abuse this by waiting in a safe hidey hole with a nearby full heal until all enemies get severely weakened, and Envirosuits shouldn't stop the health drain, while I also think Invulnerability shouldn't stop it either so that Invuln rushes doesn't dominate this challenge too hard. As a mercy, the health drain shouldn't be able to kill the player and so it should stop whenever the player is at 1 HP (though on that note, can Deadly Air kill the player, I never tried testing that before). An appropriate health drain rate will have to be decided through testing, but it could start at 1 HP every 5 ingame seconds (with an Archangel variant being twice as fast), matching the decay rate of boosted health, and then adjusted down if it's too easy (or up if it's actually too hard). I can think up of new badges for this challenge if this is accepted.
*Allow flooding events to flood with blood on UV/N!
After blood was added as a new damaging fluid in 0.10, this seems to be a sensible addition, especially as lategame floods tend to be rather nonthreatening, or can even be exploited by players with Cerberus/Lava/Enviro Boots to kill off most enemies on a floor if they don't mind losing the items, or just running by them and letting the flood kill them. Maybe add a new message too to let players immediately know it's a blood flood and so they don't leave enemies behind thinking the flood will kill them.
*Add a new "Malice" event, where the Enraged timer gets reduced to 2 and a half minutes on the floor.
With the Enraged Timer being added, we can have ways to play with it to create more time sensitivity, and one idea that came to mind is a lategame event that severely truncates the timer. It could be adjusted, but half of the nuke timer seems reasonable to me; the Enraged Timer running out doesn't instantly kill you like a nuke would, nor does it running out pose much a threat if you only have a few enemies left alive on a floor when it does run out, so the timer will have to be much shorter to seriously threaten the player. Also in my experience, at lategame you should be able to comfortably clear floors even on N! within a few minutes. I would restrict this event to HMP+ however, as it could be overly harsh for lower level players.
*Add a new "Reinforcements" event, where new enemies steadily spawn in on the floor.
DRL has the capability to spawn in new enemies onto a floor, but this capability is pretty underutilized, so an idea of a new event is one where new enemies will spawn in somewhere on the floor at regular time intervals based on difficulty (I'm thinking every 60/50/40/30/20 seconds on each difficulty respectively), and maybe in lategame on UV/N!, you can get a harder version of this event where every third enemy is an Elite Former or Nightmare enemy (or boss enemy if beyond floor 50 in A100/666), allowing these enemies to appear more often in the standard game. These spawned in enemies should naturally give no EXP, so the player is not incentivized to wait around and let them all spawn in, and the reinforcements should stop once the player kills all enemies so players going for 100% kills aren't forced to stick around, or after 12 ingame minutes has passed (shortly before the Enraged Timer runs out) so a player struggling to kill all the enemies don't get overrunned with infinitely spawning enemies and to also prevent players from abusing infinite spawns to inflate their kill rate (the 12 minutes limit means each difficulty would have 12/14/18/24/36 enemies spawn in total, which seems sensible to me). I would additionally disallow this event from showing up in AoRA, as it could otherwise screw over the Quartermaster runs that require a 100% killrate if it keeps spawning enemies on the opposite side of the map.
*Add a new "Turbo" event, where enemies get a +10% speed buff.
Like the rationale for the challenge idea of this, currently there are no events that directly buff enemies (unless you count giving all enemies the hunting flag a buff), so this seems sensible to me to spice up any given floor. The speed boost should be less than the proposed challenge gives, since the player will be less prepared for it as a random event than if they were playing said challenge (especially when playing other challenges that could make it extra dangerous), though on UV/N! there should naturally be a chance to roll a harder variation that gives the +20% speed boost.
*Add "Partial Invisibility" as a new powerup.
Among Doom's powerups, there is one conspicuously missing from DRL, the Partial Invisibility globe, and according to that very old archive I found of planned DRL features in 0.9.9.8-beyond before development stalled, the Partial Invisibility was planned to get added. There are three potential effects it could have implemented; the first one is to make enemies fire in random directions instead of at the player, which would be most faithful to how it actually works in Doom but could be overly chaotic and cause problems with how VMR targeting works. The second idea is to have it reduce enemy accuracy and increase the player's dodging rate like running already does, which would be practical but rather boring and worthless against the VMR. The third idea would be to have it replicate JHC's Stealth, i.e. enemies can't see you until it runs out or you attack, and wouldn't be completely out-of-line with what Doom players expect since that is sorta how it works in ZDoom-based source ports, while the coding for Stealth already exists. Of the three options, I would prefer the third, and I imagine it's what most players would find more exciting. However perhaps you can do a combination of the second and third ideas, where the player is stealthed initially, but if the player attacks before it wears off, the stealth gets turned off while the remaining Partial Invisibility time gives them the reduced enemy accuracy/buffed dodging bonus, as otherwise Stealth as a random powerup might not be that useful for players on completionist playthroughs who often wouldn't find much extended use for sneaking past enemies (while also again this would resemble its ZDoom functionality, where it lets you sneak by enemies that haven't been alerted to your presence yet and then behaves like usual Partial Invisibility once they have been and start attacking you).
*Change the listed difficulty for the challenges
This isn't important because the listed difficulty of challenges don't really matter, but if the difficulty ratings are meant to guide newbies towards which challenges they should try first, the following have difficulty ratings that are significantly off and should be adjusted accordingly:
*When enemies are Enraged, have their melee attack deal piercing damage
The Enraged Timer has mostly worked to counter excessive waiting, but one thing found was if you have good enough melee resistance to reduce melee attacks to 1 damage and secure an area with tight corridors that forces enemies into melee range (such as in a vault), you can still safely camp out the Enraged Timer, wth the enraged enemies being of little threat if they'll all be plinking you with their melee attack for 1 damage, making this a viable tactic as long as you don't mind the reduced EXP gain. If it's possible, a fix for this would be once the Enraged Timer is triggered, have all enemies deal piercing damage with their melee attack, so that way the player cannot abuse this on any tough floor once they get a strong melee armor, Berserker, or Malicious Blades.
*Buff the Tristar Blaster's damage to 4d6
The Tristar Blaster is an unusual Exotic weapon that barely gets any use, due to being a cumbersome and dangerous ammo-hungry weapon that doesn't synergize well with any particular build other than Fireangel, and even if you try to use it, it's not even that strong and so the reward for using it properly is underwhelming; you'll probably deal out more cumulative damage against a horde with a single BFG shot than you would with three Tristar Blaster shots that consume even more cells. It's hard to adequately buff this weapon due to the aforementioned asynergy, so you could give it a slight damage buff to make it somewhat more rewarding to actually use, with it being possible for it to actually score one-shots against tougher enemies (4d6 would also have it actually match Mancubus rockets in damage output, and the Tristar Blaster is supposed to be a weaponized version of their attack).
*Buff Blood Skulls to give 10 HP per gibbed corpse.
Blood Skulls don't sound so bad on paper, with healing you by 5 HP per each corpse gibbed around you and being able to overheal you. The problem though is that in order for a Blood Skull to just match a Large Medkit in efficacy for players with default max HP, you need to gib 10 corpses, and outside of Mortuary/Limbo, you're going to have a hard time getting 10 corpses within a 8 x 8 radius, especially not without the corpses getting gibbed in crossfire, and it's gonna be even unlikelier in the sort of situations where you do want to heal. Then as a Marine or for each level of Ironman, you'll need an additional 2 corpses to match the Large Medkit, and you can forget about healing up to 200% with a Blood Skull as good fucking luck getting 20+ corpses packed near each other on any normal floor. As a result, you'll usually only carry a Blood Skull on you if you're short on Large Medkits, and will ditch it as soon as you get 4+ Large Medkits again, while they're also far less desirable for Mortuary/Limbo than Hatred Skulls and even Fire Skulls. Buffing Blood Skulls to give 10 HP per corpse makes sense to me, 5 corpses for a full heal at default max HP and 10 corpses for 200% makes them a lot more usable on normal floors, and as an Exotic, they shouldn't be beaten by the standard Large Medkit so easily, while this would hardly affect their usage in Mortuary/Limbo.
*Decrease Charch's Null Pointer ammo consumption to 5 cells per shot
Another very unusual weapon is Charch's Null Pointer, that sees even less usage than the Tristar Blaster. The Null Pointer has a theoretical niche where you can stunlock a threatening enemy to death with it, but requiring a whopping 10 cells just to inflict 10 damage to a single enemy, the critical issue is it simply consumes too much ammo for that to be worthwhile in all but the most extreme niche of situations, as it'll require an entire cell stack or more to kill anything bigger than a Cacodemon. As such, the ammo consumption should be decreased to 5 cells per shot, which would still be awfully ammo inefficient for killing enemies (in comparison, 5 Plasma Rifle bolts with no SoB would deal 20 damage on average, twice as much as the Null Pointer), but the ammo consumption won't be so out of whack with what it does and so it could maybe not be such a terribly disappointing find. Alternatively, per Clamp's suggestion, you could make it a self-charging weapon so it has more clear utility without such crippling ammo consumption, while also simultaneously preventing the player from stunlocking bosses to death since they wouldn't be able to manually reload it.
*Buff the Subtle Knife farther
Invoke was buffed in 0.9.9.8 by no longer draining max HP and dealing 15 plasma damage to all in-vision enemies instead of 10. This effect though is still very underwhelming, basically just being a slightly better Arena Master Staff that will one-shot Imps and Lost Souls, but won't gib Formers, and the Subtle Knife itself is woefully weak for a Unique, as such it's still a near-worthless Unique even before considering being so damn annoyingly rare. When doing research on the Subtle Knife's inspiration, how the Subtle Knife works in DRL doesn't make much sense, where in its titular book, it is supposed to be a weapon capable of harming intangible supernatural beings and god, while its "reality cutting" ability manifests as creating dimensional doorways, which isn't reflected by the Subtle Knife being a puny 3d5 weapon with no special ability nor by how Invoke works. Invoke draining max HP before was the only thing that made sense for its inspiration, as the actual Subtle Knife is supposed to mutilate its user's hand. As such, I want to propose the following changes to make the Subtle Knife actually worth it as a Unique and to be better faithful to its inspiration:
- Reduce the Subtle Knife's damage to 2d5 but have it deal tripled damage to any enemy that isn't a former nor cybernetic (cybernetic enemies would include Arachnotrons and their Nightmare variant, Mancubi and their Nightmare variant, Revenants and their Nightmare variant, the Cyberdemon, and the Spider Mastermind), representing its ability to kill supernatural beings (and have its damage bonus work on Carmack too to represent its god-killing ability).
- Change Invoke completely, instead having it work as a Homing Phase while draining 5 max HP on use (2 max HP instead if in A100/666), with a minimum 10 max HP requirement to use it, representing its ability to let its user create dimensional portals and the self-mutilation of its use. If the old effect of Invoke must be kept, still bring back the 2 max HP reduction but it make much stronger, such as having it instantly kill and gib all enemies in vision that aren't a boss monster.
The first change would give the Subtle Knife a more clearer usecase for melee builds, as it'll be able to hit a large chunk of enemies at Spear or even Scythe damage levels, and exceed even farther beyond that for Malicious Blades, but there will still be a large contingent of threatening enemies that the Subtle Knife would be no stronger than a vanilla Combat Knife against, so it wouldn't obsolete other melee weapons. The second change of a reusable Homing Phase has obvious use to any build, but the max HP cost, aside from being faithful to the source material, prevents it from outclassing the Hell Staff and ensures players can't so easily skip the entirety of the remaining game (especially if they don't have a means to easily kill the Mastermind), just make the max HP drain less severe in A100/666 given the much greater amount of floors makes it a lot more relatively punishing. If the alternative Invoke change is done instead, it'll at least have more clear usefulness as an emergency instant kill button with a cost than it does as a slightly better Arena Master Staff with a negligible cost. If these changes are done, it still should be able to spawn sooner and have a weight of 2 to not be so absurdly rare, especially if melee weapons continue to be unable to spawn in vaults, but maybe with a minimum depth of 12 rather than the originally proposed 7.
*Make Azrael's Scythe "Whisper Of Death" alt-fire require a minimum of over 5 max HP to use
Oddly, while the Trigun's Angel Arm has a minimum >10 max HP to use, the Scythe's Whisper Of Death has no minimum max HP requirement, and so even as you decrease your max HP to 5, you can keep spamming it indefinitely as long as you can restore your tactics. While running around with only 5 max HP is extremely hazardous, this can be abused to cheese several lategame levels, particularly in Angel of Humanity, as was exploited in this Everyman Diamond run.
*Allow the Mastermind to appear in very deep levels of A100/666?
Alongside adding the Angel of Death to A100, I was thinking the Mastermind could still work as a lategame spawn, since it is basically just a big Nightmare Arachnotron with weird AI and isn't exceedingly powerful, while in Doom 2, the Mastermind got used as a normal enemy in several levels. If this is done, you should naturally create Mastermind + Arachnotrons and Mastermind + Nightmare Arachnotrons groups, and perhaps also add a new cave type with only Masterminds. You'll just need to lower its Danger value to like 40, 35, or even 30 to match the Cyberdemon, as 50 would make it give too much EXP and significantly cut into other enemy spawns, while it's not strong enough to merit such a high danger level.
*Allow melee weapons and boots to spawn in vaults
A weird oddity is that melee weapons and boots cannot spawn in vaults, which ends up making special boots and especially special melee weapons harder to come by than special armors and ranged weapons. The reasoning I was told was if they did, vaults would get flooded with useless Combat Knives and Steel Boots, which makes sense, but it should be possible now to exclude specifically Combat Knives and Steel Boots from spawning in vaults, right? If it's not possible, then I suppose it is better that this restriction remain to keep vaults more fruitful, but if it is possible, then I see no reason to continue keeping this restriction with vaults. If this is done, you could maybe add Protective Boots to the restriction list too since they would be useless more often than not and you can already get early Protective Boots from armor crates.
*Allow Single Monster type levels to have Nightmare enemies, and make their generation more varied in general.
Single Monster type levels are a cool idea, but are a bit lame in their current implementation. One, they can not have Nightmare variations unlike Caves, so they become especially non-threatening in deeper A100/666 runs unless you roll one of the rare Bruiser/Shambler/Cyberdemon variants (well I see in the code that the Former variant can have all the Elite Formers show up on higher difficulties, but due to the second point, you'll never see it anyway). Two, there is simply little variety, as if you play UV/N!, you won't ever encounter any variants but one of the VMR types (or one of the rare boss variants if in deep A100), and in A100 on any difficulty, you will only encounter the VMR types beyond the very early floors, despite the Hell Noble level actually having greater potential to threaten you than the VMR levels (since they have more varied damage types, feature Bruisers, and they can nab all the extra armors and medkits that spawn from these levels having increased item generation). Addressing both points not only increases variety, but will also increase difficulty, even the Imp variation might threaten you more than one of the VMR types if you get a ton of Nightmare Imps instead while having no good plasma resistance, whereas you're almost sure to have good fire resistance by the time you can encounter any of the VMR type levels. For one additional note, Single Monster levels should probably also have a lower minimum spawning depth, not being able to encounter them until Hell means you barely even see them outside of A100.
*Add a new Unique called "Big Fucking Shotgun", a 40d5 plasma shotgun with a max range of 10, spread of 5, damage dropoff rate of 10%, a clip size of 40 while requiring 40 cells per shot, a 2 second firing time, and 3 second reload time.
An idea briefly talked about with Kornel in one of his streams when he added the JHC BFT, and he seemed receptive to the idea, so I want to formally propose it, while we could also use a third Unique shotgun. This is essentially a more mechanically faithful recreation of the actual Doom BFG, which despite it appearing to shoot a big plasma ball that explodes in a large splash radius, actually mechanically functions as like a, well, Big Fucking Shotgun, with the BFG firing 40 invisible hitscan tracers in a very large spread after the BFG ball explodes. The 40d5 damage appears absurd at first, but for reference, its average damage of 120 is the same as the Biggest Fucking Gun's average of 120, while unlike the Biggest Fucking Gun that has no damage falloff, this Big Fucking Shotgun would have a severe dropoff rate and cover a lot less ground than a 16 radius explosion, and with its 40 cells a shot that would make it less ammo efficient than the Plasma Shotgun that's already not known for ammo efficiency, it gotta be worth the ammo. Plus it should be able to very reliably one-shot any normal enemy from a few tiles away like the actual BFG, and the 40 dice would match the amount of tracers the BFG has. I think the weapon is strong enough to warrant the 2 second firing time and it would better resemble the actual BFG's very long firing startup, but if this would make it too impractical for non-Shottyhead builds, it could be reduceed to 1.5 seconds. It can also be moddable by Technicians with a 1 mod/basic assembly limit (though no basic assemblies in DRL would be applicable to it other than the Plasmatic Shrapnel that does nothing), and it can have a minimum depth of 20 to match the other BFGs (though maybe 18 or even 15 to give players more of a chance to get it before Mortuary/Limbo where it would see most utility) and naturally a spawning weight of 1.
*Add a new challenge called "Angel of Turbo", which makes all enemies +20% faster, and an Archangel variant that makes them +40% faster.
Among the available challenges, there are currently none that directly buff enemies (AoMC makes them hit a lot harder, but you get the same buff), just various ways to nerf the player or alter the game. A simple effective yet fun one would be a challenge that just makes all enemies faster, which would make them more offensively dangerous, more difficult to outrun, and makes corner shooting them all to death harder, while seeing how the new Enraged mode can make enemies faster, this should be doable to program in as a challenge now. N! was originally supposed to have faster enemies anyway, and this would emulate actual Doom's fast monsters setting, which is commonly played as its own challenge category there. Not to mention this would also serve a purpose for people wanting to make the game harder without having some restriction imposed on them like other challenges do. If implemented, naturally there should be an Archangel variant too that makes enemies even faster (+40% could be tried initially, but it could be +30% if it proves rather unplayable). "Angel of Turbo" is a placeholder name, if someone thinks of a better name that should be used instead. I can think up of new badge ideas for the challenge if this is accepted.
*Add a new challenge called "Angel of Drought", which makes all ammo drops contain a third of the usual ammo amount (including ammo in ammo boxes and ammo dropped by enemies), and makes melee weapons unusable, while also making Brute give no damage bonus.
This was discussed for JHC after playing the one beta with bugged ammo drops, but this challenge idea would work in DRL too, as a more effective ammo-deprivation challenge than Angel of Light Travel since you'll be encountering far less ammo altogether, thus creating a challenge where ammo management is a much more serious obstacle, while there is farther meaningful difference from AoLT since the rest of your inventory is not limited nor do you get a speed boost. A ban on melee weapons will be needed however, since otherwise this would just devolve into a lighter Angel of Berserk, and Brute should give no damage bonus either, since the fist would be able to do respectable damage after several Brute levels and thus significantly lighten the later portion of the challenge. If you want to get cute with the references, "Angel of McGee" would work well, naming it after the Doom developer responsible for some of Doom's most infamous drought maps (such as E4M1: Hell Beneath), but "Angel of Drought" works if you don't want the name to be overly referential (and it's probably better to name the badge series after McGee instead). I can think up of new badges for this challenge if this is accepted.
*Add a new challenge called "Angel of Pestilence", which emulates a permanent deadly air event where the player's health steadily drains nonstop, and perhaps an Archangel version as well with a ramped up health draining rate.
A common criticism of DRL's Angel modes is that a large chunk of them enforce more cautious play (particularly the "don't get hit" challenges of Purity, Impatience, Masochism, Humanity, and even Max Carnage, which all severely inhibit the player's hit-taking ability in some way), while the only one that enforces more aggressive play is Angel of Red Alert, so another challenge that forces the player to play faster would help increase the strategic variety of the available challenges. When discussing this with Icy in the initial 0.9.9.8 proposal compilation thread, I thought up of one that emulates a permanent Deadly Air event with a continually steady HP drain, and while I backed off when Icy rejected it, an idea like it recently got independently brought up by Asbadagba as "Angel of Pestilence", and I still like the idea, so I'm gonna formally propose it. Like AoRA, you'll have to get through the game quickly lest you just get all your health drained away, while the strategic differences arise in rather than there being a strict timer cutoff on each individual level where you die instantly unless Invuln'd, here you can theoretically spend as long as you want on any level but it's a steady degradation in the player's ability to survive, which will carry over to the succeeding floors rather than getting a clean slate timer restart like AoRA gives you, and you'll become increasingly fragile with the health drain so you can't go as balls-to-the-walls as you would in AoRA. Compared to the actual Deadly Air event, enemies shouldn't be affected, so that way the player cannot abuse this by waiting in a safe hidey hole with a nearby full heal until all enemies get severely weakened, and Envirosuits shouldn't stop the health drain, while I also think Invulnerability shouldn't stop it either so that Invuln rushes doesn't dominate this challenge too hard. As a mercy, the health drain shouldn't be able to kill the player and so it should stop whenever the player is at 1 HP (though on that note, can Deadly Air kill the player, I never tried testing that before). An appropriate health drain rate will have to be decided through testing, but it could start at 1 HP every 5 ingame seconds (with an Archangel variant being twice as fast), matching the decay rate of boosted health, and then adjusted down if it's too easy (or up if it's actually too hard). I can think up of new badges for this challenge if this is accepted.
*Allow flooding events to flood with blood on UV/N!
After blood was added as a new damaging fluid in 0.10, this seems to be a sensible addition, especially as lategame floods tend to be rather nonthreatening, or can even be exploited by players with Cerberus/Lava/Enviro Boots to kill off most enemies on a floor if they don't mind losing the items, or just running by them and letting the flood kill them. Maybe add a new message too to let players immediately know it's a blood flood and so they don't leave enemies behind thinking the flood will kill them.
*Add a new "Malice" event, where the Enraged timer gets reduced to 2 and a half minutes on the floor.
With the Enraged Timer being added, we can have ways to play with it to create more time sensitivity, and one idea that came to mind is a lategame event that severely truncates the timer. It could be adjusted, but half of the nuke timer seems reasonable to me; the Enraged Timer running out doesn't instantly kill you like a nuke would, nor does it running out pose much a threat if you only have a few enemies left alive on a floor when it does run out, so the timer will have to be much shorter to seriously threaten the player. Also in my experience, at lategame you should be able to comfortably clear floors even on N! within a few minutes. I would restrict this event to HMP+ however, as it could be overly harsh for lower level players.
*Add a new "Reinforcements" event, where new enemies steadily spawn in on the floor.
DRL has the capability to spawn in new enemies onto a floor, but this capability is pretty underutilized, so an idea of a new event is one where new enemies will spawn in somewhere on the floor at regular time intervals based on difficulty (I'm thinking every 60/50/40/30/20 seconds on each difficulty respectively), and maybe in lategame on UV/N!, you can get a harder version of this event where every third enemy is an Elite Former or Nightmare enemy (or boss enemy if beyond floor 50 in A100/666), allowing these enemies to appear more often in the standard game. These spawned in enemies should naturally give no EXP, so the player is not incentivized to wait around and let them all spawn in, and the reinforcements should stop once the player kills all enemies so players going for 100% kills aren't forced to stick around, or after 12 ingame minutes has passed (shortly before the Enraged Timer runs out) so a player struggling to kill all the enemies don't get overrunned with infinitely spawning enemies and to also prevent players from abusing infinite spawns to inflate their kill rate (the 12 minutes limit means each difficulty would have 12/14/18/24/36 enemies spawn in total, which seems sensible to me). I would additionally disallow this event from showing up in AoRA, as it could otherwise screw over the Quartermaster runs that require a 100% killrate if it keeps spawning enemies on the opposite side of the map.
*Add a new "Turbo" event, where enemies get a +10% speed buff.
Like the rationale for the challenge idea of this, currently there are no events that directly buff enemies (unless you count giving all enemies the hunting flag a buff), so this seems sensible to me to spice up any given floor. The speed boost should be less than the proposed challenge gives, since the player will be less prepared for it as a random event than if they were playing said challenge (especially when playing other challenges that could make it extra dangerous), though on UV/N! there should naturally be a chance to roll a harder variation that gives the +20% speed boost.
*Add "Partial Invisibility" as a new powerup.
Among Doom's powerups, there is one conspicuously missing from DRL, the Partial Invisibility globe, and according to that very old archive I found of planned DRL features in 0.9.9.8-beyond before development stalled, the Partial Invisibility was planned to get added. There are three potential effects it could have implemented; the first one is to make enemies fire in random directions instead of at the player, which would be most faithful to how it actually works in Doom but could be overly chaotic and cause problems with how VMR targeting works. The second idea is to have it reduce enemy accuracy and increase the player's dodging rate like running already does, which would be practical but rather boring and worthless against the VMR. The third idea would be to have it replicate JHC's Stealth, i.e. enemies can't see you until it runs out or you attack, and wouldn't be completely out-of-line with what Doom players expect since that is sorta how it works in ZDoom-based source ports, while the coding for Stealth already exists. Of the three options, I would prefer the third, and I imagine it's what most players would find more exciting. However perhaps you can do a combination of the second and third ideas, where the player is stealthed initially, but if the player attacks before it wears off, the stealth gets turned off while the remaining Partial Invisibility time gives them the reduced enemy accuracy/buffed dodging bonus, as otherwise Stealth as a random powerup might not be that useful for players on completionist playthroughs who often wouldn't find much extended use for sneaking past enemies (while also again this would resemble its ZDoom functionality, where it lets you sneak by enemies that haven't been alerted to your presence yet and then behaves like usual Partial Invisibility once they have been and start attacking you).
*Change the listed difficulty for the challenges
This isn't important because the listed difficulty of challenges don't really matter, but if the difficulty ratings are meant to guide newbies towards which challenges they should try first, the following have difficulty ratings that are significantly off and should be adjusted accordingly:
- Angel of Light Travel: Hard -> Easy - The smaller inventory isn't as significant a drawback as you might expect, but mainly the 20% speed boost can make AoLT actually easier than a standard game for melee or very ammo efficient builds. Tellingly, combining challenges with AoLT was exploited by several people to get Diamond badges easier than they would be normally.
- Archangel of Travel: Blade -> Very Hard or even Hard - Only two inventory slots is actually very restrictive, even pure melee builds would want to carry more medkits and spare armors, but you get an even greater speed boost, and as a result AAoLT isn't remotely as difficult as the other Archangels or even the top-end normal Angels. I think you can justify rating it just Hard, but Very Hard could be listed instead just to be a little conservative with not underrating it.
- Angel of Impatience: Hard -> Very Hard - The inability to store medkits is a pretty major limitation; you get yourself in a bad spot with no healing immediately available, and your run can just end right there, even late game runs that otherwise would be near home free in other challenges can abruptly end from getting a bad starting spawn with no healing powerups around. This is on top of many special levels being far more dangerous with no healing available whatsoever in them, and being unable to store mods for better equipment later (without Scavenger that is) nor store other items that could be useful later. As such, I think rating AoI as just Hard is underselling it.
- Angel of Confidence: Very Hard -> Hard - You might need to reset a few times to get a first floor that doesn't kill you, but those few resets wouldn't make completing an AoCn run take more cumulative time than a standard game run, and AoCn overall just isn't that hard to win. If AoOC didn't exist, Sereging probably would have still thrived with AoCn.
- Angel of Red Alert: Medium -> Hard - "Medium" for AoRA? No, absolutely not. Just look at how often people got their shit kicked in when they first played AoRA, and many of them just never really get the hang of it. AoRA not only forces people to test a skill in their routing and overall time efficiency that otherwise often didn't matter in standard play, but it's also very unforgiving and even runs that make it past Phobos can suddenly die from a single bad floor. Medium is jut a gross underrating of what people can expect when delving into AoRA.
- Angel of Pacifism: Easy -> Medium - AoPc being listed as "Blade" prior to 0.9.9.7 was a hilarious overrating, but "Easy" is still underselling it. It's not hard to spam runs until you get the luck needed to win, but since you are completely unable to fight back, there will be many runs even on HNTR that you just cannot win in, and so I think "Easy" is giving an inaccurate picture here.
- Archangel of Masochism: Blade -> Tormuse - Aside from it not making sense to have this share the same difficulty rating as its Angel counterpart, the fact this challenge has so far only been beaten once on N! in over a decade, by someone using the most busted mastery in DRL history, and in a buggy version with the permanent 95% dodging rate to boot, says enough that Blade undersells the difficulty of this.
15
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.7) [N!|36%|YAVP] - UAC Diamond with Shotguns and no Berserker
« on: December 26, 2025, 23:48 »
I've been putting this off since I don't enjoy doing speedruns, but I don't got many Diamonds left in 0.9.9.7 and so it's time for UAC Diamond. According to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, UAC Diamond was one of the more common Diamonds with 11 people recorded win it and that's without being able to cheese it with Angel challenges, so it must be pretty easy for a Diamond despite the sub-20 minute requirement looking imposing at first. With the build, basically everyone used a melee-centric Scout, with any deviation being if to get Blademaster or just Berserker and get other traits outside of Blademaster's prereqs. The only one with a more unique build was Icy's first UAC Diamond, being the only recorded UAC Diamond run that never got Berserker, but even then he still got a level of Brute to more quickly kill the bosses with Invuln. This makes sense as a melee Scout will be far and away the fastest way to beat the game, and I was just going to do that too, however after discussion on how feasible it would be to beat N! AoSh in under 20000 turns (with me proposing that as the new Shottyman Diamond requirement), I thought to give that a test run by getting UAC Diamond with a Shotgun build and no Berserker.
With trait order, I lead off with HR, partially to better outmaneuver enemies and build towards either Shottyhead or Gunrunner, and partially to help towards the secondary goal of finishing in under 20K turns. Then it's obviously gunning for Shottyman, after that is where things can diverge. I was initially aiming with sticking to Shottyhead's prereqs, but the two times I reached the Cyberdemon when doing that, I was only level six and so no Shottyhead, while only a single level of HR doesn't suffice to chip him down with the basic Shotgun or Combat Shotgun without farther offensive boost and much better defenses. You can reach level 7 before the Cyberdemon while remaining ahead of the time pace, and I did so to get Shottyhead a couple other times, but died each time before reaching him. This could work if I kept at it, but with the unreliability of reaching level 7 before the Cyberdemon and Shottyhead still not being RNG-proof to beat him using mediocre shotguns if I don't make it to Tower Of Babel in good shape, I decide the more reliable option would be to get the tried-and-true Dodgemaster to near-guarantee getting past the Cyberdemon as long as I had enough ammo, after which anything could happen. Finesse comes after for the obvious offensive boost and then Juggler despite not being very useful with how little weapon switching I can do on a real time limit, but that opens access to either Shottyhead or Gunrunner for a last big powerup.
After 12 attempts, I would get a victory, but it ended up just short of UAC Diamond and the Major Icarus Cross, with me finishing with a time of 21:01 and a turn count of 22070. A recurring issue in these attempts is not finding a Double Shotgun nor two Power mods to make an Elephant Gun (while not finding any of the special shotguns either), and shotgunning down the N! Cyberdemon with just a P-modded Shotgun will take a couple minutes at least, even longer with the Combat Shotgun or unmodded Shotgun, while the Mastermind took longer since I have to do a lot of careful safe plinking if I don't get Shottyhead or Gunrunner (another recurring problem is reaching level 9 before the Mastermind while remaining on pace is difficult). Even when making it to the Mastermind with some Invuln from rocket jumping and a Plasma Shield that enabled some more aggressive fighting after the Invuln ran out, I just did not have good enough offense to kill the bosses in time. If only when I accidentally went down the stairs to Limbo when Invuln'd and was able to get out, if I remembered to run towards the Nuclear BFG corner, I could have nuked the Mastermind... well that's the pressure the real time limit imposes. (Failed mortems will be put in spoilers)
On attempt 16, I get another good run to Hell 6 with a bunch of Medkits, a P-modded Double Shotgun, had a bunch of medkits, and a Phase Device, while well below the 20 minute and 20K turn barriers, but I then got a warehouse level that put me in a starting room with a ton of Barons and Archviles with the stairs on the other side of the map, while after getting overwhelmed when trying to corner shoot them all behind some crates, the Phase Device just plopped me in a different spot in the room, and when I got out of the room, I got met with more Hell Nobles and end up dying when trying to run through them. I once again did not reach level 9, having Shottyhead here would have allowed me to fight off the Baron/Vile horde in the first room, and then I could fought my way through the second room, but alas it wasn't mean to be.
In the attempt after that, the run didn't seem particularly special and I had to shotgun down the Cyberdemon with a T-modded Combat Shotgun, but I again accidentally went down to Limbo and without having Invuln nor even berserk. I am however able to rocket jump my way out, while this time remembering to go for the Nuclear BFG. After lots of rocket jumping with my healthy Fireproof Red Armor through Hell 5 and 6, I thought I got it when I still had a Homing Phase intact on Hell 7 to immediately get to Dis and nuke the Mastermind for the near-instant kill. The run did succeed in getting me a N! Major Icarus Cross as a primary shotgun build, but devastatingly, its real time clocked in at... 20:01, 2 seconds shy of UAC Diamond.
At this point, I was contemplating calling it with shotguns and just running the melee build, since I did back the theory of winning under 20K turns being feasible in DRL's N! AoSh, but I still wanted a UAC Diamond mortem with no Berserker nor even Brute to make it a bit more interesting, so I kept at it. On attempt 24, I again have a run with no Double Shotgun and have to shotgun down Cybie with only a P-modded Shotgun, but coming in with Invuln near Babel's stairs made the fight quite a bit quicker, as I could just spam the shotgun at point blank not only for a little extra damage with each shot, but it also saved a ton of time by not having to repeatedly dodge and not have the game repeatedly pause as the rockets fly past me. I can't kill him before the Invuln runs out, but I get his health down by about 75% before it does and so the fight ends up taking only about a minute. I still had no Rocket Launcher though to even rocket jump, so it wasn't looking too promising, but I get a Hell that goes surprisingly well with early Invuln luck and I amass a large amount of medkits. Mid Hell it starts getting rough and I'm having to shotgun down hordes of tough enemies, particularly a large Revenant + Vile group on Hell 6, but finally I get enough experience to hit level 9 in one of these attempts and get a mastery, with both Shottyhead and Gunrunner being available. Normally I would vastly prefer Shottyhead, and Shottyhead would have been made fighting my way out of more Revenant + Vile hordes the game kept throwing at me much easier, while Gunrunner in comparison couldn't really be safely utilized against them. However Gunrunner would be the faster real time option for killing the Mastermind, especially so with just a P-modded Shotgun and no Shell Box, so I decide to go with it. And it pays off as planned, Gunrunner + Shottyman lets me safely rush down the Mastermind and kill her much faster than usual despite it still taking roughly around 50 shots to kill her. Upon killing her, I get a time clocked in at 17:36, netting me UAC Diamond without any melee whatsoever, and the turn count finishes at 19592, while unlike the previous run where I made a lot of Rocket Launcher usage, I don't even get a Rocket Launcher here until Hell 7 that I didn't store any rockets to use it and so it's even more purely shotguns only (the only non-shotgun usage being shooting a couple Formers with the Pistol in Phobos Base Entry until I got my first Shotgun).
While very much doable, doing UAC Diamond with no melee certainly made it a lot tougher. To accurately access the difficulty of the badge when played more optimally, I ran it again with the standard Blademaster build... and got a time of 13:27 on my first try without even trying that hard to go fast nor ever getting a Rocket Launcher for rocket jumping (one highlight include going towards one side of a floor and clearing all the enemies within it, only to realize the stairs were on the complete opposite side of the map). Yeah UAC Diamond is one of the easiest Diamonds with a melee Scout (at least without Sereging factored), 20 minutes is surprisingly generous and the doubled powerups + healing of N! really boosts the dominant berserk rush strategy. Even more players would have won this badge for sure if many didn't just absolutely refuse to play any N! nor overestimated how strict the 20 minute time limit actually is.
(Here's the last mortem on the 13:27 melee run just in case anyone wants to see the proof of that)
With trait order, I lead off with HR, partially to better outmaneuver enemies and build towards either Shottyhead or Gunrunner, and partially to help towards the secondary goal of finishing in under 20K turns. Then it's obviously gunning for Shottyman, after that is where things can diverge. I was initially aiming with sticking to Shottyhead's prereqs, but the two times I reached the Cyberdemon when doing that, I was only level six and so no Shottyhead, while only a single level of HR doesn't suffice to chip him down with the basic Shotgun or Combat Shotgun without farther offensive boost and much better defenses. You can reach level 7 before the Cyberdemon while remaining ahead of the time pace, and I did so to get Shottyhead a couple other times, but died each time before reaching him. This could work if I kept at it, but with the unreliability of reaching level 7 before the Cyberdemon and Shottyhead still not being RNG-proof to beat him using mediocre shotguns if I don't make it to Tower Of Babel in good shape, I decide the more reliable option would be to get the tried-and-true Dodgemaster to near-guarantee getting past the Cyberdemon as long as I had enough ammo, after which anything could happen. Finesse comes after for the obvious offensive boost and then Juggler despite not being very useful with how little weapon switching I can do on a real time limit, but that opens access to either Shottyhead or Gunrunner for a last big powerup.
After 12 attempts, I would get a victory, but it ended up just short of UAC Diamond and the Major Icarus Cross, with me finishing with a time of 21:01 and a turn count of 22070. A recurring issue in these attempts is not finding a Double Shotgun nor two Power mods to make an Elephant Gun (while not finding any of the special shotguns either), and shotgunning down the N! Cyberdemon with just a P-modded Shotgun will take a couple minutes at least, even longer with the Combat Shotgun or unmodded Shotgun, while the Mastermind took longer since I have to do a lot of careful safe plinking if I don't get Shottyhead or Gunrunner (another recurring problem is reaching level 9 before the Mastermind while remaining on pace is difficult). Even when making it to the Mastermind with some Invuln from rocket jumping and a Plasma Shield that enabled some more aggressive fighting after the Invuln ran out, I just did not have good enough offense to kill the bosses in time. If only when I accidentally went down the stairs to Limbo when Invuln'd and was able to get out, if I remembered to run towards the Nuclear BFG corner, I could have nuked the Mastermind... well that's the pressure the real time limit imposes. (Failed mortems will be put in spoilers)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On attempt 16, I get another good run to Hell 6 with a bunch of Medkits, a P-modded Double Shotgun, had a bunch of medkits, and a Phase Device, while well below the 20 minute and 20K turn barriers, but I then got a warehouse level that put me in a starting room with a ton of Barons and Archviles with the stairs on the other side of the map, while after getting overwhelmed when trying to corner shoot them all behind some crates, the Phase Device just plopped me in a different spot in the room, and when I got out of the room, I got met with more Hell Nobles and end up dying when trying to run through them. I once again did not reach level 9, having Shottyhead here would have allowed me to fight off the Baron/Vile horde in the first room, and then I could fought my way through the second room, but alas it wasn't mean to be.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In the attempt after that, the run didn't seem particularly special and I had to shotgun down the Cyberdemon with a T-modded Combat Shotgun, but I again accidentally went down to Limbo and without having Invuln nor even berserk. I am however able to rocket jump my way out, while this time remembering to go for the Nuclear BFG. After lots of rocket jumping with my healthy Fireproof Red Armor through Hell 5 and 6, I thought I got it when I still had a Homing Phase intact on Hell 7 to immediately get to Dis and nuke the Mastermind for the near-instant kill. The run did succeed in getting me a N! Major Icarus Cross as a primary shotgun build, but devastatingly, its real time clocked in at... 20:01, 2 seconds shy of UAC Diamond.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At this point, I was contemplating calling it with shotguns and just running the melee build, since I did back the theory of winning under 20K turns being feasible in DRL's N! AoSh, but I still wanted a UAC Diamond mortem with no Berserker nor even Brute to make it a bit more interesting, so I kept at it. On attempt 24, I again have a run with no Double Shotgun and have to shotgun down Cybie with only a P-modded Shotgun, but coming in with Invuln near Babel's stairs made the fight quite a bit quicker, as I could just spam the shotgun at point blank not only for a little extra damage with each shot, but it also saved a ton of time by not having to repeatedly dodge and not have the game repeatedly pause as the rockets fly past me. I can't kill him before the Invuln runs out, but I get his health down by about 75% before it does and so the fight ends up taking only about a minute. I still had no Rocket Launcher though to even rocket jump, so it wasn't looking too promising, but I get a Hell that goes surprisingly well with early Invuln luck and I amass a large amount of medkits. Mid Hell it starts getting rough and I'm having to shotgun down hordes of tough enemies, particularly a large Revenant + Vile group on Hell 6, but finally I get enough experience to hit level 9 in one of these attempts and get a mastery, with both Shottyhead and Gunrunner being available. Normally I would vastly prefer Shottyhead, and Shottyhead would have been made fighting my way out of more Revenant + Vile hordes the game kept throwing at me much easier, while Gunrunner in comparison couldn't really be safely utilized against them. However Gunrunner would be the faster real time option for killing the Mastermind, especially so with just a P-modded Shotgun and no Shell Box, so I decide to go with it. And it pays off as planned, Gunrunner + Shottyman lets me safely rush down the Mastermind and kill her much faster than usual despite it still taking roughly around 50 shots to kill her. Upon killing her, I get a time clocked in at 17:36, netting me UAC Diamond without any melee whatsoever, and the turn count finishes at 19592, while unlike the previous run where I made a lot of Rocket Launcher usage, I don't even get a Rocket Launcher here until Hell 7 that I didn't store any rockets to use it and so it's even more purely shotguns only (the only non-shotgun usage being shooting a couple Formers with the Pistol in Phobos Base Entry until I got my first Shotgun).
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
speed24, level 9 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Scout,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 19592 turns and scored 328880 points.
He played for 17 minutes and 36 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 366 out of 1006 hellspawn. (36%)
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 6
Levels completed : 0
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (bronze cluster)
Major Icarus Cross
Compet-n Gold Cross
UAC Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
####................................#####################>#
###...............####...............######################
##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
#........####.....####.....####........####################
.........####.....####.....####.........###################
.........####..............####..........##################
..........................................#################
..####............................####....#################
.&####............................####....#################
..####............................####....#################
..####............................####....#################
...............................%...........################
.........####..............####..........##################
.........####.....####.....####..X......###################
#........####.....####.....####........####################
##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
###...............####...............######################
####................................#####################>#
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 44/50 Experience 37888/9
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +0 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +0
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Scout
Finesse (Level 1)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Reloader (Level 2)
Juggler (Level 1)
Dodgemaster (Level 1)
Shottyman (Level 1)
Gunrunner (Level 1)
HR->Rel->Rel->SM->HR->DM->Fin->Jug->MGr->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [4/4] (170%) (B)
[b] [ Weapon ] shotgun (9d3) [0/1] (P1)
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1]
[b] green armor [1/1] (100%)
[c] blue armor [2/2] (86%)
[d] shotgun shell (x50)
[e] shotgun shell (x7)
[f] small med-pack
[g] small med-pack
[h] large med-pack
[i] large med-pack
[j] large med-pack
[k] phase device
[l] phase device
[m] bulk mod pack
[n] bulk mod pack
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Fire - internal 0% torso 25% feet 0%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
74 former humans
36 former sergeants
20 former captains
69 imps
49 demons
38 lost souls
16 cacodemons
5 hell knights
1 baron of hell
2 arachnotrons
3 former commandos
2 pain elementals
34 revenants
4 mancubi
11 arch-viles
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
He left the Deimos Lab without drawing too much attention.
He left level 11 as soon as possible.
On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
Not knowing what to do, he left.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
On level 19 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
He sounded the alarm on level 19!
He left level 19 as soon as possible.
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
He came, he saw, but he left.
On level 21 he assembled a tactical boots!
On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
He decided it was too hot there.
He left level 23 as soon as possible.
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom!
The Spider Mastermind flinched!
You dodge! You are hit! You are hit! You dodge! You are hit! You dodge!
The Spider Mastermind flinched! You stop running.
You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You are
hit! You dodge! Boom!
You dodge! You are hit! You dodge! You are hit! You dodge! You dodge!
You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You
dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! Boom! You are hit! You are hit!
You use a small med-pack. You feel healed.
You start running!
You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! You dodge! Boom! Boom! You
dodge! Boom!
The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
298 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
108 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 7 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
86 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
45 killed the bitch and survived.
34 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
While very much doable, doing UAC Diamond with no melee certainly made it a lot tougher. To accurately access the difficulty of the badge when played more optimally, I ran it again with the standard Blademaster build... and got a time of 13:27 on my first try without even trying that hard to go fast nor ever getting a Rocket Launcher for rocket jumping (one highlight include going towards one side of a floor and clearing all the enemies within it, only to realize the stairs were on the complete opposite side of the map). Yeah UAC Diamond is one of the easiest Diamonds with a melee Scout (at least without Sereging factored), 20 minutes is surprisingly generous and the doubled powerups + healing of N! really boosts the dominant berserk rush strategy. Even more players would have won this badge for sure if many didn't just absolutely refuse to play any N! nor overestimated how strict the 20 minute time limit actually is.
(Here's the last mortem on the 13:27 melee run just in case anyone wants to see the proof of that)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)