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[--------------------------------------------------------------]

So of the seven Angelic badges that were never verifiably won in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 and in the few months 0.9.9.8 been out, Inquisitor Angelic was one of them, and as a result, me and Icy have been proposing to nerf its difficulty requirement. 0.9.9.9's first beta brought some huge changes to Nightmare! however; namely enemies can't respawn in vision (without the aid of Archviles that is), respawns don't count towards the kill percentage (so you no longer need to dispose of every corpse to get 100% kills, but also can no longer cheese a respawn to puff up your kill count for any badge that requires less), and respawns no longer drop their inventory on death (so you can no longer farm infinite ammo off of formers). With these changes, I've been playing N! a lot in testing out the beta, and it got me thinking about how they affect these unwon badges. Masochist Angelic becomes a bit more doable, as it'll make getting through Phobos Base Entry without getting hit less luck-based and you can now more safely kill things if you find a nice camping spot, allowing you to get more crucial levels (and perhaps make surviving long enough to get Vampyre viable, so someone should definitely eventually win this badge). Eagerness Angelic becomes actually realistic now without have to cheese with an early Trigun or a miraculous Dragonslayer, though its 90% kill requirement may be still a bit high (so we amended our proposal of lowering it to 75-80% instead of the 50% we proposed before these changes). UAC Angelic becomes slightly more realistic, but I still think it's virtually impossible without save scumming (and so the proposal of nerfing it to UV remains), and Demonic Angelic becomes a lot more viable in theory, but considering how ludicrously impossible it already was, still absolutely no one is getting this without lots of save scumming (and so the proposal of changing it to 100% kills + Untouchable Pin or Medal remains). Then Speedrun Angelic is virtually unaffected, while Pacifist Angelic didn't require Nightmare anyway, and so both remain just as impossible, direly needing their requirements to be changed to something more realistic.

That leaves Inquisitor Angelic, which isn't really affected by these changes all that much, as kill percent is irrelevant, and since it's AoRA, you're typically not staying around in one spot for long nor sticking around the level long enough for respawns to start becoming frequent, so easier to manage respawns isn't much a factor. It got me thinking though if that badge was as impossible as it was hyped up to be; while AoP + AoRA is a very nasty combo (you lose most of your healing in a challenge where you're forced to rush and thus take a lot of damage you can't easily heal off, can't use Maps to find the stairs and other useful items, can't use Berserks to speed you up and lessen damage, and can't use Invulns to avoid damage or as a mulligan if running out of time), there's nothing that makes it inherently impossible unlike the other unwinnable badges, you must simply play quickly to beat the nuke timer and survive well enough to make it to Dis; no avoiding getting hit a single time, no killing more enemies in AoRA than Quartermaster Diamond requires that also respawn and being unable to heal on demand, no beating the game in an inhuman time limit while dealing with absurd enemy density, and no going through 24 floors while praying not a single enemy dies to infighting or kills themselves or spawns on lava. So why has no one won it, was it really that inhumanly difficult, or was it that few people, if any, really gave a real shot because they were that spooked by the combo of AoP + AoRA? Seeing how Angel of Purity is one of the least popular challenges, if not the most unpopular, I was beginning to think it was the latter, and so decided to give this badge a real try to ascertain if the badge really needed nerfing.

Right away, while it was certainly very tough, I got a feeling it was doable, as I was able to make it to Deimos without that many tries. I was unsure of the build, and I was initially trying Scout + early Intuition, but after a few deaths that couldn't make it past mid-Phobos, I ruled Intuition out; the first level practically does nothing, as knowing where powerups are is worthless when you can't use them, and since floors get so dense on N!, you can't avoid enemies anyway and they're often on top of you, so it was much more prudent to improve your combat and speed than being able to detect enemies outside vision. After I made it to Deimos 1 with the Scout and quickly died, I decided to try a Marine instead; this sounds unideal when speed is everything in AoRA and when AoP makes the Marine's powerup bonus irrelevant, but the most often cause of failure by far is simply running out of medkits and then health when you can no longer heal by powerups nor can keep armor in good shape, while punching through lots of enemies is the much greater obstacle than just finding the stairs, so having extra HP and those inherent 20% energy resistances makes a big difference here. Once I started using the Marine, I was able to consistently make it to mid-Deimos, so I knew this was the play if I could just be a bit luckier with items and floors.

As for traits, I naturally lead off with Hellrunner when it's AoRA and I want to limit whatever damage I can. After that it's Reloader + Finesse, you're relying on the Shotgun a lot, and this combo greatly increases the reliability of corner shooting, while giving you a lot more shots you can afford to make on each floor (you go from being able to do 150 shots + reload with the Shotgun per floor at maximum to 193). I was initially going for Rel2 too, but I found it wasn't too necessary and other traits were more imperative. Then you need Hellrunner 2 ASAP; aside from all the big advantages of HR2, you need it to reliably get through Phobos Anomaly without a Phase Device or Rocket Launcher that you often won't have, and even with HR2 you can end up burning all your medkits in the Anomaly if you're unlucky, so you can't risk making it to Anomaly without it. After HR2, I then go for Bru2 and Berserker; you can't really use melee much early on when healing is so limited and having HR blocks getting Vampyre, but when you can't repair armor, Berserker (that stacks very nicely with the Marine's resistances) is a major survivability boost once VMR start popping up (while you can then utilize it to quickly kill tough enemies when it makes sense to do so). After Berserker, I get Ironman to get some desperately needed HP and to better stretch out my few medkits I often have left by mid-Deimos (while slightly reducing physical damage is a nice plus too), and then I got another level of Fin when I made it far enough. As for the special levels, they're mostly a skip unless they let you more quickly escape a level and can be run through without much danger, but I did find it helpful to dip into Hell's Arena and kill some enemies, as with HR + Fin + Rel, you can do so without taking much damage and that extra EXP is helpful. The Chained Court is also mandatory; aside from the value of the Chainsaw itself, its Berserk on pickup still works, so this is essentially a free guaranteed full heal that you often really need, while you can also pick up some more EXP without taking much damage (I wouldn't complete the level though, I would just run through the right, pick off the formers there and kill the two Barons before leaving, that one free Berserk lasts just long enough for that and the two mod packs aren't worth burning your very limited medkits). When I got Deimos Lab, I would also take the opportunity to kill some enemies there as the beginning area gives you a very safe opportunity to do so and you can easily flee once time starts running low (it may even be worth going into the teleporters and possibly getting some medkits from the crates + the two mods and a nice weapon from the cache, but I never risked it as you can easily end up getting plasma'd by a Commando after teleporting or have to punch through a bunch of Cacos at awkward angles).

After making it to mid-Deimos so consistently, I knew this was completely doable, and after 12 attempts (plus about another half dozen or so I Q+Y'd on Phobos Base Entry), my theorycrafting about the badge would be proven correct. Finding a Phaseshift Armor in early Deimos was huge, and getting luckier with a random Nano mod in late Deimos was even better (which I put on the aforementioned Phaseshift Armor to ensure I always had decent armor in conjunction with Berserker and was very fast), while the RNG blessed me with late Phaseshift Boots too. That is not to say my luck was amazing though, I did get some really nasty floors in Deimos, including an Arachnotron cave in mid-Deimos that destroyed my armor reserve before that Nano mod and most of my medkits, and this very nasty maze at the end of Deimos, which I wouldn't have survived without Berserker. Hell started me off with another maze + barrel event, but once again thanks to Berserker, I am able to get through it. First half Hell was a bit shaky, as I only had a couple large medkits, and so I skipped Unholy Cathedral as a result despite how useful the Spear would be. When Hell 4 gave me those aforementioned Phaseshift Boots though, I also found a Homing Phase after killing a Baron and got a bunch of medkits from crates, at which the point the run was sealed. Once you make it to Dis you automatically won, as you can just let the timer run out and get the partial win, but since I had a bunch of medkits and very good armor, I go in and smash the Mastermind to bits.

Unfortunate this was in a beta and so it's not really "official" (which is why I didn't record a video of it), but I still found it worth posting as the first Inquisitor Angelic Badge, and to show that it is indeed possible. This is only the first beta of 0.9.9.9 and so things can end up changing quite a bit by the official release (such as N! possibly adding back a universal speed bonus for enemies that will make this a bit more difficult), but I can't see anything that can be changed that would make this badge impossible, so I'll be removing the proposal to nerf this badge's requirement to UV (and when 0.9.9.9 releases proper, I'll be sure to record a proper run of this badge). As for doing this badge in prior versions, as the Nightmare changes aren't a big difference to this badge as explained prior, this should be fully doable in 0.9.9.8. As for the possibility of this badge back in 0.9.9.7, I did use the Marine here, whose inherent 20% energy resistances did not exist then, and this run certainly wouldn't have succeeded without those resistances (that aforementioned Arachnotron cave that nearly killed me would have done me in for sure, and those resistances crucially stretched out my medkits as explained prior), but this should still be very possible with a Scout if you get good enough item + floor luck (I was able to get to Deimos with a Scout after all, it was just less consistent than with the Marine). Doing it in 0.9.9.7 however, would mean that Deimos and Hell have a bit less enemies (due to 0.9.9.8 modifying the danger formula to get higher values in Deimos and Hell, with the difference being most pronounced on N!), so that is one way this badge would be slightly easier there (and seeing how most of my runs were failing in Deimos, that could be meaningful).

With that all said, here's the glorious mortem:

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.9 BETA 1) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PUER, level 12 Arch-Vile Lt. Colonel Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 40811 turns and scored 581230 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 1 minute and 17 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 629 out of 951 encountered hellspawn. (66%)
 He killed 677 out of 1053 enemy spawns total.
 He was an Angel of Purity!
 He was also an Angel of Red Alert!

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 3
  Levels completed : 0

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Inquisitor Gold Badge      Complete Angel of Purity (AoP)
  Inquisitor Platinum Badge  Complete AoP on UV
  Inquisitor Diamond Badge   Complete AoP on N! as Marine
  Inquisitor Angelic Badge   Complete AoP+AoRA on N!
  Quartermaster Bronze Badge Reach level 16 on Angel of Red Alert
  Quartermaster Silver Badge Complete Angel of Red Alert (AoRA)
  Quartermaster Platinum Badge Complete AoRA on N!

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  #######................................####################
  ######...............####...............###################
  #####.......####.....####.....####.......##################
  ####........####.....####.....####........#################
  ###.........####.....####.....####.........################
  ##..........####..............####..........###############
  #............................................##############
  #....####............................####....##############
  #...&####............................###...0.##############
  #....####............................###.....##############
  #....####.....................X......#.......##############
  #..............................%.............##############
  ##..........####..............####..........###############
  ###.........####.....####.....####.........################
  ####........####.....####.....####........#################
  #####.......####.....####.....####.......##################
  ######...............####...............###################
  #######................................####################
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 77/90   Experience 62068/12
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

  Class : Marine

    Ironman          (Level 3)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)

  HR->Rel->Fin->Bru->HR->Bru->Ber->Iro->Iro->Fin->Iro->WK->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4/4] (100%) (NP)
    [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
    [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%)
    [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x30)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    combat shotgun (8d3) [3/5] (P1)
    rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1]
    Railgun (8d8) [40/40]
    green armor [1/1] (100%)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    rocket (x8)
    power cell (x50)
    small med-pack
    small med-pack
    large med-pack
    large med-pack
    phase device
    phase device
    rocket box (x25)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    bullet     - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    melee      - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    shrapnel   - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    73 former humans
    80 former sergeants
    37 former captains
    104 imps
    83 demons
    162 lost souls
    37 cacodemons
    16 hell knights
    29 barons of hell
    10 arachnotrons
    15 former commandos
    9 pain elementals
    7 mancubi
    13 arch-viles
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 10 he found the Railgun!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a tactical boots!
  Level 23 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 23 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 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 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 hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! 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!

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 67 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 14 of those were killed.
 13 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 5 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 35 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 14 killed the bitch and survived.
 20 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------


Do I count as an oldie? :D I suppose I'm more of a middle era player, although I mostly just lurked for years.

I've mostly been off and on with DoomRL, along with doing various other gaming and non-gaming otherwise. Within DoomRL, I've written a bunch of guides, got lots of cool mortems, and had fun with pushing ideas for the newer versions with Omega Tyrant.

Life's pretty good on the outside too!

Hey man, good to hear from you too - I don't think we were in touch much before either of us temporarily dropped out, but I hear ya on the DRL itch. Recently moved to a new house and still working to get my office/studio set up (I finally have a room to myself rather than occupying space in the living room), but I'll be sure to give 998 a spin once it's up.

Yeah I unfortunately wasn't involved much in the community side pre-JH, only making about a dozen forum posts here and then sporadically editing the wiki over the years. Aside from playing 0.9.9.8, 0.9.9.9 just had its first beta come out (check out JH's discord channel to get it), and getting more help with testing it would be swell.

Without wishing to bring the mood down or anything, Diamond sadly passed away a few years ago, pre-pandemic time.  Autopsy was inconclusive about what caused it, though it did reveal that Diamond was female and I had been misgendering her all along.  :P  It happened suddenly and mysteriously while I was at a New Year's party;  I came home to find she'd been coughing up blood all night.  It was a very gory and upsetting thing to come home to.  :(

Aw man, that sucks. Bit late to still offer my condolences, but they're yours if you want them.

I came back around about a year and a half ago after getting the itch to play DRL again, which was probably going to be a month or two burst that ended after getting a few more Diamonds, but then development on 0.9.9.8 finally started back up after all this time and so I remained around since, both playing the game a lot and helping around where I can on here, beta testing, and on the wiki.

Hey man, good to hear from you too - I don't think we were in touch much before either of us temporarily dropped out, but I hear ya on the DRL itch. Recently moved to a new house and still working to get my office/studio set up (I finally have a room to myself rather than occupying space in the living room), but I'll be sure to give 998 a spin once it's up.

... and there's more to come.

I bet you say that to all the girls :x

...how's Diamond doing?

Without wishing to bring the mood down or anything, Diamond sadly passed away a few years ago, pre-pandemic time.  Autopsy was inconclusive about what caused it, though it did reveal that Diamond was female and I had been misgendering her all along.  :P  It happened suddenly and mysteriously while I was at a New Year's party;  I came home to find she'd been coughing up blood all night.  It was a very gory and upsetting thing to come home to.  :(

[19]

The funny part is I only did this run because I was curious to see if you could use targeting mode in conjunction with "assassinate" trait to assassinate inanimate objects like doors and furniture.  It turns out...  you can not...  but it turned into a nice YAAM UV game anyway.  :)  This would've been a Berserker Gold badge if I hadn't already gotten it, though I think it's worth noting that I'm pretty sure I previously achieved it in an earlier version of the game before Dante or medusae existed, so this still had some significant difficulty.

I've come to the conclusion that Assassinate is probably the best melee master trait in the game, as long as you're careful with it.  It's really easy to accidentally teleport yourself into the middle of a crowd of dangerous enemies, so it's always important to be mindful of that, trying to isolate enemies or at least maneuver them into a position that when you teleport to them, you'll be behind cover.  The fact that it has a 100% to hit chance made it vital for taking out medusae;  any other build would have had a lot more trouble with them, I think.  I had stockpiled gas grenades to help me deal with medusae, but they turned out to be unnecessary.  :)

I made the decision to invest in four levels' worth of traits to get whizkid 3, because I was running low on healing sources and I needed the auto-repair on the medi-fibre armour.  (Or so I told myself;  I didn't actually reach that level until partway through Shattered Abyss, so I guess I was doing okay)  :P  I'm a little surprised to realize that I had 6 stim packs left over at the end, but the 2 ancient salves I got plus the end level large medkit proved more than sufficient for my healing needs in the final battle.

Tormuse, level 19 Scout,
defeated the Harbinger against all odds.

He survived for 18996 turns.
The run time was 6h 17m 20s.
World seed was 83871.
He scored 7941 points.
He was ULTRAVIOLENT!
He was an Angel of Berserk!

CALLISTO L3 - Volatile Storage
CALLISTO L5 -> Callisto Docking Bay
Callisto Docking Bay - Cleared!
EUROPA L5 - Lockdown
EUROPA L5 -> The Pit
The Pit - found Hate
The Pit - Cleared!
IO L3 -> Io Black Site L1
Io Black Site L1 - Desolation
Io Black Site L2 -> Black Site Vaults
Black Site Vaults - Cleared!
The Shattered Abyss - Cleared!
The Shattered Abyss - found Soulstealer
Dante Station L2 - The Hunt
Dante Inferno - Cleared!
Dante Inferno - found Avalanche

Awards
  Medal of Prejudice (+200)
   * Won with 100% kills
  Conqueror Ribbon (+200)
   * Completed all encountered special levels

He killed 894 out of 894 enemies.

 37 former grunts           14 CalSec sentries
 3  corrupted grunts        4  security sentries
 1  former CRI grunt        4  military sentries
 11 former grenadiers       19 CalSec bots
 5  corrupted grenadiers    12 security bots
 3  hellish grenadiers      3  military bots
 19 former soldiers         1  guardian bot
 29 corrupted soldiers      38 reavers
 2  hellish soldiers        21 cryoreavers
 6  former CRI soldiers     29 toxic reavers
 5  former sergeants        53 archreavers
 3  corrupted sergeants     14 kerberi
 1  hellish sergeant        9  cyberi
 1  former CRI sergeant     11 cryoberi
 1  CRI sergeant            10 toxiberi
 12 former guards           14 medusae
 3  former commandoes       11 archmedusae
 20 corrupted commandoes    21 ravagers
 12 hellish commandoes      19 armored ravagers
 7  former CRI commandoes   3  siege ravagers
 3  former heavies          14 plasma ravagers
 3  corrupted heavies       29 CRI marines
 2  hellish heavies         31 CRI bots
 2  former CRI heavies      17 guardians
 6  fanatics                14 frost guardians
 16 security drones         2  sentinels
 4  combat drones           9  warlocks
 2  military drones         9  archwarlocks
 70 fiends                  2  watchers
 19 fire fiends             3  cryowatchers
 34 ice fiends              3  pyrowatchers
 17 toxic fiends

Traits
  Skilled L3
  Dash L1
  Hellrunner L1
  Executioner L3
  Hacker L1
  Whizkid L3
  Energy leech L3
  ASSASSINATE L3

Trait order
  Exe->Exe->Exe->Das->MAS->Skl->EnL->EnL->
  EnL->Skl->Skl->Hak->Whk->Whk->Whk->MAS->
  MAS->Hr

Equipment
  Slot #1 : Soulstealer
  Slot #2 : AV3 katana BA
   * Guarded 10
   * Resilient
   * Mechabane
   * Deadly 30

  Slot #3 : AV2 machete BA
   * Guarded 10
   * Resilient
   * Rush 20
   * Surrounded

  Body : medi-fiber armor PBA
   * Metabolic boost
   * Auto-repair
   * Camoboost
   * Meshed
   * Medi-fiber

  Head : JS analytic visor B2
   * Auto-repair
   * Durable
   * JoviSec
   * Aim assist
   * Bot scanner
   * Tactical computer

  Utility : AV3 utility AMP
   * Energetic
   * Improved stealth

  Relic : ancient necklace
   * Ancient Resistance


Permanents
  CRI backpack

Inventory
  cold mod pack
  plasma grenade (x1)
  gas grenade (x3)
  gas grenade (x3)
  smoke grenade (x1)
  multitool (x5)
  multitool (x1)
  stimpack (x3)
  stimpack (x3)



I came back around about a year and a half ago after getting the itch to play DRL again, which was probably going to be a month or two burst that ended after getting a few more Diamonds, but then development on 0.9.9.8 finally started back up after all this time and so I remained around since, both playing the game a lot and helping around where I can on here, beta testing, and on the wiki.

It's slowly picking up pace since the DRL release to my surprise :).

... and there's more to come.

Hey dude, good to hear from you - how's Diamond doing? I hear you on getting anxious about daily affairs - things aren't really looking better when you live in Europe instead of Canada, but at least I'm still a dab hand at creating my own problems so I can blame myself most of the time XD

I found out DRL actually has its own TvTropes page, which triggered me into wanting to fire up the game again, not to mention I still have a JH Steam key to cash in. It's just that we moved into a new house a month and a half ago, and my setup is currently waiting for my own room to be furnished, so it'll be another couple of weeks.

Regardless, I thought it'd be good to get reacquainted with the Forge again. It's been good to me pre-JH, and I don't easily forget where I came from.

Looking forward to seeing what else is going on here.

Hey LuckyDee.  :)

I still peek in here from time to time.  I recently idly picked up JH and DRL again after a long absence, but I haven't done much in the way of serious attempts at challenges.

Other than that, I haven't been doing great, if I'm honest.  World politics are giving me anxiety, and I'm already prone to anxiety in the first place.  :P  I'm surviving, though, and occasionally streaming myself playing games on my Twitch channel, so good times are still had, at least sometimes.  :)