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136
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 18, 2017, 15:04 »
Interesting discussion! The extra medals must be dummied out as BBHood said, I would have achieved "Gutts' Sorrow".
Day 41:
After previous struggles, I tried some more for Chessmaster's Cross and got it pretty quickly. Getting better! I was more patient with each wave to wipe out as many Cacodemon corpses as possible before summoning more enemies.
Next, I decided I was going to get my 5th diamond badge to reach the next ranking. I figured that Gatekeeper Diamond Badge would be pretty easy, but wasn't 100% sure about the wording around "clear". I was planning on using a Phase Device in Phobos Anomaly as anyone would, but wanted to know if I would need to kill all the rest of the enemies, so I watched Sereg's video of him earning the achievement.
The first thing that caught my eye was his method of doing Phobos 1, in that, he would stand at a corner and force a monster to instantly appear. It dawned on me that I was unaware of the Run->Wait trick. Usually when I would wait for enemies to approach, I would just mash Wait, or if I was feeling bold and careless, hold it. I never knew you could do Run->Wait! So +1 for watching the run. I also watched Phobos Anomaly of course and was curious about his off-corner position, but it makes sense with Run->Wait since the trick ignores Intuition, the one downside. This will help my gameplay out a bit more, rather than recklessly approaching enemies, though I suppose having done that all this time, my combat positioning is probably a lot better than it could be.
So I started my run. On Phobos 2, I got insane luck:
First time ever seeing one so early! Then on the floor before Phobos Anomaly:
On that note, I was wondering exactly how the damage from a massacre lever works? It gibs weak enemies, but doesn't kill Lost Souls or Demons, so I'm guessing it does 15-20 fire damage?
Anyway, I wasn't 100% sure if nuking Phobos Anomaly would count for the badge, but I had no Phase Device and figured it would be a good learning experience. Except...
:(
On the next run, it went a lot more regularly, and I got a lucky Phase Device positioning; almost the exact same as Sereg had! ;)
From there, I tried out my first major usage of Run->Wait, which helped a lot. Unfortunately, it was still defaulted to 20, which I've since raised to 10000, so it still took awhile. After clearing Phobos Anomaly, I stairdived to Babel and very carefully took out the Cyberdemon with Dodgemaster abuse.
Another diamond badge down and another rank up! I'm excited to get closer to that "Chaos" prefix for my ranking to flaunt!
Day 41:
After previous struggles, I tried some more for Chessmaster's Cross and got it pretty quickly. Getting better! I was more patient with each wave to wipe out as many Cacodemon corpses as possible before summoning more enemies.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Next, I decided I was going to get my 5th diamond badge to reach the next ranking. I figured that Gatekeeper Diamond Badge would be pretty easy, but wasn't 100% sure about the wording around "clear". I was planning on using a Phase Device in Phobos Anomaly as anyone would, but wanted to know if I would need to kill all the rest of the enemies, so I watched Sereg's video of him earning the achievement.
The first thing that caught my eye was his method of doing Phobos 1, in that, he would stand at a corner and force a monster to instantly appear. It dawned on me that I was unaware of the Run->Wait trick. Usually when I would wait for enemies to approach, I would just mash Wait, or if I was feeling bold and careless, hold it. I never knew you could do Run->Wait! So +1 for watching the run. I also watched Phobos Anomaly of course and was curious about his off-corner position, but it makes sense with Run->Wait since the trick ignores Intuition, the one downside. This will help my gameplay out a bit more, rather than recklessly approaching enemies, though I suppose having done that all this time, my combat positioning is probably a lot better than it could be.
So I started my run. On Phobos 2, I got insane luck:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
First time ever seeing one so early! Then on the floor before Phobos Anomaly:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On that note, I was wondering exactly how the damage from a massacre lever works? It gibs weak enemies, but doesn't kill Lost Souls or Demons, so I'm guessing it does 15-20 fire damage?
Anyway, I wasn't 100% sure if nuking Phobos Anomaly would count for the badge, but I had no Phase Device and figured it would be a good learning experience. Except...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
:(
On the next run, it went a lot more regularly, and I got a lucky Phase Device positioning; almost the exact same as Sereg had! ;)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
From there, I tried out my first major usage of Run->Wait, which helped a lot. Unfortunately, it was still defaulted to 20, which I've since raised to 10000, so it still took awhile. After clearing Phobos Anomaly, I stairdived to Babel and very carefully took out the Cyberdemon with Dodgemaster abuse.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Another diamond badge down and another rank up! I'm excited to get closer to that "Chaos" prefix for my ranking to flaunt!
137
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 17, 2017, 15:42 »
Thanks for the responses and information, Tormuse! I'm always happy to read long posts, so if you have more walls of text to share, please do! :)
Referring to my 4th question about Knives/Fists challenges, I was asking if I have a Knife/Fist in my main slot and have a Shotgun in my prepared slot, would that mess with getting the badge? It'd be ideal if I can just set my damaging weapon in my prepared slot, rather than pulling from my inventory each time I need to prep for a kill. That Juggler/Chainsaw trick sounds cool, but I assume it's been corrected now?
Day 40:
Off to Nightmare! I've been a little reluctant to playing Nightmare, not so much because of the difficulty, but moreso because of the lack of feeling of completion when playing. In actual Doom and Doom 2, I never really enjoyed Nightmare mode because there are literally an infinite number of monsters via respawning, and there's no sense of accomplishment or getting that mental checklist check when only temporarily killing a monster. I usually opted to play UV with the -fast parameter because of that.
However, I've come to realize in DoomRL, this isn't a big deal since corpses when destroyed are no longer active. Simply by changing my mentality towards Nightmare to needing to kill and dispose of corpses has actually made the difficulty more playable and more importantly a lot more fun! The tricks with using staircases, fluids, corpses on top of each other, and so forth adds more room for ingenuity in the game, which I like! The other thing is Nightmare offers some player advantages over Ultra-Violence through more experience points, double effect bonuses (I particularly like the Small Health Globes), and extra ammo. Stocking up on Shotgun Guys and Zombiemen is also fun!
One question I had about Nightmare is how the Marine's effect bonus works since the writing is slightly unclear. Is the bonus 25% or is it 50%+25%=75%? I'm assuming the former.
Anyway, I figured the best way to practice and learn would be going for the Hell's Arena related badges and medals. With abuse of Max Carnage+Light Travel, I got Arena Platinum Badge on my first try:
This is also nice to get since I can show off all my missing platinum badges in one screenshot now. :P
Following that, I figured I could do it again, just that I would need to avoid taking damage for Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal, and after a couple tries and careful play, I got it pretty easily:
I dropped it on the ground in favor of ammo, but I had a rare Phobos 2 Rocket Launcher pick-up for Hell's Arena, which helped!
Following that, I grinded for Chessmaster's Cross, but haven't been able to get it yet. I learned a lot about knockback control by mixing up with Chaingun and Shotgun, but my skill with it is still improving. On my last run though, I did get to the third wave, but had extremely bad luck with a Baron being revived immediately after killing him, along with a Cacodemon right behind me. I did learn from this though in that, I should try to time my kills to skip over respawn cycles, which is a very important mechanic to control.
So I'm enjoying learning on Nightmare now and things are going well! I'm going to continue grinded for Chessmaster's Cross and maybe a few more easier badges and medals!
Referring to my 4th question about Knives/Fists challenges, I was asking if I have a Knife/Fist in my main slot and have a Shotgun in my prepared slot, would that mess with getting the badge? It'd be ideal if I can just set my damaging weapon in my prepared slot, rather than pulling from my inventory each time I need to prep for a kill. That Juggler/Chainsaw trick sounds cool, but I assume it's been corrected now?
Day 40:
Off to Nightmare! I've been a little reluctant to playing Nightmare, not so much because of the difficulty, but moreso because of the lack of feeling of completion when playing. In actual Doom and Doom 2, I never really enjoyed Nightmare mode because there are literally an infinite number of monsters via respawning, and there's no sense of accomplishment or getting that mental checklist check when only temporarily killing a monster. I usually opted to play UV with the -fast parameter because of that.
However, I've come to realize in DoomRL, this isn't a big deal since corpses when destroyed are no longer active. Simply by changing my mentality towards Nightmare to needing to kill and dispose of corpses has actually made the difficulty more playable and more importantly a lot more fun! The tricks with using staircases, fluids, corpses on top of each other, and so forth adds more room for ingenuity in the game, which I like! The other thing is Nightmare offers some player advantages over Ultra-Violence through more experience points, double effect bonuses (I particularly like the Small Health Globes), and extra ammo. Stocking up on Shotgun Guys and Zombiemen is also fun!
One question I had about Nightmare is how the Marine's effect bonus works since the writing is slightly unclear. Is the bonus 25% or is it 50%+25%=75%? I'm assuming the former.
Anyway, I figured the best way to practice and learn would be going for the Hell's Arena related badges and medals. With abuse of Max Carnage+Light Travel, I got Arena Platinum Badge on my first try:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is also nice to get since I can show off all my missing platinum badges in one screenshot now. :P
Following that, I figured I could do it again, just that I would need to avoid taking damage for Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal, and after a couple tries and careful play, I got it pretty easily:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I dropped it on the ground in favor of ammo, but I had a rare Phobos 2 Rocket Launcher pick-up for Hell's Arena, which helped!
Following that, I grinded for Chessmaster's Cross, but haven't been able to get it yet. I learned a lot about knockback control by mixing up with Chaingun and Shotgun, but my skill with it is still improving. On my last run though, I did get to the third wave, but had extremely bad luck with a Baron being revived immediately after killing him, along with a Cacodemon right behind me. I did learn from this though in that, I should try to time my kills to skip over respawn cycles, which is a very important mechanic to control.
So I'm enjoying learning on Nightmare now and things are going well! I'm going to continue grinded for Chessmaster's Cross and maybe a few more easier badges and medals!
138
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 16, 2017, 15:42 »
Tormuse, that screenshot you were confused about shows a level where I had both an acid flood ("You feel the sudden need to run!") and a lever to flood the whole floor with water ("The air is really humid"). After the acid flood fills part of the level, you can hit the lever to revert some of the acid to water behind the "wave". Potentially, you could undo the entire flooding of acid.
Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage. I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired, but it would never happen in a real game nor would anyone actually wait out the berserk's effect. :P
Day 39:
My targets this time were my last two gold badges. I started with Hunter Gold Badge and initially thought it would be best to do a full game run for more kills available and to make use of the doubled experience, but I decided to try mixing it with Overconfidence first. I had a pretty nice setup on floor 4 where I blew up every corpse except for one remaining Zombieman, which I killed repeatedly. I figured with a rough high of 20ish monsters per remaining floor (for 60ish total), I could kill the Zombieman enough times to allow me to stairdive through the remaining floors, so I did just that! It took awhile, but that's the power of patience!
Along that run, I was also curious about the "relatively safe" message that comes up when everything is dead. Obviously with respawning monsters, it'd never be the case that you'd be relatively safe, but wondered if on top you disposed of all the corpses if you would then get it. Nope! It never comes up!
That left Strongman Gold Badge and it was quite tough to get! Being that I was only allowed Fists and Knives, it's easy to assume Malicious Knives is the way to go, but it takes awhile to get started with that strategy and after many attempts, I changed course and went with a Scout for the extra speed and knowing where the stairs are. I figured Blademaster would be useful enough too.
I was pretty well set to beat the game with this challenge, but I ended up unncessarily luckboxing it anyway! :) I found a nuke early on in Deimos, some conveniently placed Invulnerabilities, and Hell floors 4 through 7 had the stairs about 50ish tiles total away from the starting point across all four floors. From there I did a nuke sacrifice against the Spider Mastermind and completed 26/26 gold badges!
One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?
Anyway, here's some updated status screenshots!
The unseen missing platinum badge is Arena Platinum Badge.
Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)
Next up will be more picking away at badges and rotating on what I go for! Hopefully I don't get stuck with progress for too long!
Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage. I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired, but it would never happen in a real game nor would anyone actually wait out the berserk's effect. :P
Day 39:
My targets this time were my last two gold badges. I started with Hunter Gold Badge and initially thought it would be best to do a full game run for more kills available and to make use of the doubled experience, but I decided to try mixing it with Overconfidence first. I had a pretty nice setup on floor 4 where I blew up every corpse except for one remaining Zombieman, which I killed repeatedly. I figured with a rough high of 20ish monsters per remaining floor (for 60ish total), I could kill the Zombieman enough times to allow me to stairdive through the remaining floors, so I did just that! It took awhile, but that's the power of patience!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Along that run, I was also curious about the "relatively safe" message that comes up when everything is dead. Obviously with respawning monsters, it'd never be the case that you'd be relatively safe, but wondered if on top you disposed of all the corpses if you would then get it. Nope! It never comes up!
That left Strongman Gold Badge and it was quite tough to get! Being that I was only allowed Fists and Knives, it's easy to assume Malicious Knives is the way to go, but it takes awhile to get started with that strategy and after many attempts, I changed course and went with a Scout for the extra speed and knowing where the stairs are. I figured Blademaster would be useful enough too.
I was pretty well set to beat the game with this challenge, but I ended up unncessarily luckboxing it anyway! :) I found a nuke early on in Deimos, some conveniently placed Invulnerabilities, and Hell floors 4 through 7 had the stairs about 50ish tiles total away from the starting point across all four floors. From there I did a nuke sacrifice against the Spider Mastermind and completed 26/26 gold badges!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?
Anyway, here's some updated status screenshots!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The unseen missing platinum badge is Arena Platinum Badge.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)
Next up will be more picking away at badges and rotating on what I go for! Hopefully I don't get stuck with progress for too long!
139
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 15, 2017, 08:53 »
You know it's funny, I couldn't get a run with Son of a Gun, mistook what the trait did, and managed to rationalize why it wasn't great. :P Definitely meant firing speed, lol.
I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.
Day 38:
Feeling rejuvenated, I went hard for some more gold badges and my first target was Speedrunner Gold Badge. I tried a few Intuition/Shotgun builds, and abused Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon, but even though I wasn't taking any damage, I really couldn't kill him in a decent pace. So, I opted for a Vampyre melee build instead.
None of it was necessary, but I had some really good luck on this run. I Phase Deviced past all the enemies in Phobos Anomaly right by the Bruisers, had just enough Large Med-Packs for the Cyberdemon, found Malek's Armor nearby the staircase on one of the floors (which I almost missed since I was berserk), and then had an Invulnerability just before the Spider Mastermind!
My next target was UAC Gold Badge, which is just beating a standard game on Ultra-Violence. Since re-adjusting my playstyle, I decided to focus on early Hellrunner, and it's SO helpful! I'm really starting to appreciate stronger evasive tactics and the extra movement speed is amazing! I also used Tactical Boots to build on it some more. Of course though, Intuition came first, but Hellrunner was next. I honestly didn't struggle that much at all until I ran into some bad luck:
Just as I decided I was ready to fight the Spider Mastermind and stopped killing everything in favor of stairdiving, the game gave me a triple stacked Invulnerability right by the stairs:
The good luck continued:
Then on Hell 7, I had a really nice setup for cleaning out enemies. I made the mistake of letting an Archvile have a chance to attack though:
But with enough healing and luck, I managed to dash and survive!
Now that I'm greatly appreciating movement speed, I'm having to also re-adjust how I play. When I would use a slower style, I would take a lot less risks and play a campier game. Being much faster early on has lead to me making dumb risks and mistakes I wouldn't otherwise make, so I have to change that a bit as I play more. I'm really starting to think Hellrunner is one of the best traits! The only that I'm a bit hung up on is I still love using the power of infinity with an early game Nanofiber Red Armor, which is -20% movement speed. In the same way, I'm also thinking that Inquisitor Armor (and the set) are ridiculously good more and more.
Obviously with a game as detailed and complex as DoomRL, claiming a single trait path is the best in all cases is wrong, but I think for most of my usual Scout runs, I'll be doing Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Dodgemaster, before putting focus into a master trait. I think the last two gold badges won't be too difficult for me to get now, but might take some luck. Then I'll be ready for lots of Nightmare come collecting platinum badges!
Good progress today and great skill development!
I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.
Day 38:
Feeling rejuvenated, I went hard for some more gold badges and my first target was Speedrunner Gold Badge. I tried a few Intuition/Shotgun builds, and abused Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon, but even though I wasn't taking any damage, I really couldn't kill him in a decent pace. So, I opted for a Vampyre melee build instead.
None of it was necessary, but I had some really good luck on this run. I Phase Deviced past all the enemies in Phobos Anomaly right by the Bruisers, had just enough Large Med-Packs for the Cyberdemon, found Malek's Armor nearby the staircase on one of the floors (which I almost missed since I was berserk), and then had an Invulnerability just before the Spider Mastermind!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My next target was UAC Gold Badge, which is just beating a standard game on Ultra-Violence. Since re-adjusting my playstyle, I decided to focus on early Hellrunner, and it's SO helpful! I'm really starting to appreciate stronger evasive tactics and the extra movement speed is amazing! I also used Tactical Boots to build on it some more. Of course though, Intuition came first, but Hellrunner was next. I honestly didn't struggle that much at all until I ran into some bad luck:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just as I decided I was ready to fight the Spider Mastermind and stopped killing everything in favor of stairdiving, the game gave me a triple stacked Invulnerability right by the stairs:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The good luck continued:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then on Hell 7, I had a really nice setup for cleaning out enemies. I made the mistake of letting an Archvile have a chance to attack though:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But with enough healing and luck, I managed to dash and survive!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Now that I'm greatly appreciating movement speed, I'm having to also re-adjust how I play. When I would use a slower style, I would take a lot less risks and play a campier game. Being much faster early on has lead to me making dumb risks and mistakes I wouldn't otherwise make, so I have to change that a bit as I play more. I'm really starting to think Hellrunner is one of the best traits! The only that I'm a bit hung up on is I still love using the power of infinity with an early game Nanofiber Red Armor, which is -20% movement speed. In the same way, I'm also thinking that Inquisitor Armor (and the set) are ridiculously good more and more.
Obviously with a game as detailed and complex as DoomRL, claiming a single trait path is the best in all cases is wrong, but I think for most of my usual Scout runs, I'll be doing Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Dodgemaster, before putting focus into a master trait. I think the last two gold badges won't be too difficult for me to get now, but might take some luck. Then I'll be ready for lots of Nightmare come collecting platinum badges!
Good progress today and great skill development!
140
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 14, 2017, 13:27 »
Day 37:
Today's target was Arena Gold Badge, one of the five missing gold badges, and it was very challenging and often unforgiving! I tried many runs going into Hell's Arena and did fine with circling the pillars, but the moment I had 2 or more enemies targeting me, it was over. Demons also outsped me, so my strategy was to take pot-shots from a distance, run and hide, then let them stop chasing and repeat. Unfortunately, this was difficult when Demons would group up with each other or other enemies.
I always went with Marksmanship+Light Travel and almost always went with Intuition x2, but changed strategies a few time for the third trait I'd gain part way into the Arena. I started with Son of a Gun for the extra damage and reload speed, but it didn't help too much since the extra damage likely didn't save me an extra shot too often, and I would already reload quickly with the Ammo Chain. I also tried Tough as Nails since I would always enter with very little healing, but again, it didn't really solve my problems.
One thing I started to adapt to was using more aimed shots with the pistols. Initially, I figured taking twice as long to fire offsets the missed shots I would otherwise likely hit with the accuracy bonus, but there are some subtle details that make aimed shots significantly better. For starters, the consistency goes way up, which allows for stronger planning of how to move around and firing. The other thing is if there were nearby enemies that were nearly dead, I would occasionally miss each shot and take unnecessary damage. I've used aimed shots before, but now I've started using them constantly, and it helps a lot!
Another more indirect detail with using aimed shots is avoiding the case where I miss my target and hit something else, leading to more enemies after me. I had a really great run in Hell's Arena where I missed a Cacodemon, hit another Cacodemon instead, and unfortunately got swarmed. To be fair, this is more my mistake and is an important part of the game I should pay more attention to.
With that in mind, I also tried using Eagle Eye for my third trait, especially when taking my shots at Demons, but they would still often get to me before dying and a guaranteed 6+ damage per hit by them stacks up way too quickly. So after some more attempts, I ultimately decided that Hellrunner would be the best trait to go with. In combination of Scout+Light Travel+Hellrunner, I was fast enough to start circling Demons too, which is significantly easier to deal with.
Once I had my gameplan on lock, I still lost a couple runs due to bad spawn luck and enemy movement luck, where I would be forced to hide behind a pillar in dire hopes that one of them would run away somewhere else.
Eventually though, I finally got my completion:
This was very difficult and rewarding! I'm happy to finally get it! I learned a lot through playing and have shifted some minor details in my mindset and playstyle because of it. I'm a little disheartened that in Papillo's difficulty rating thread that he rates this as a 9/30 skill challenge, but I suppose I could repeat this challenge now that I know what I'm doing. Still, I find it hard to believe that there's a solution to runs where you start in the centre of Hell's Arena and surrounded by Demons and Cacodemons. I also don't yet see how players do these kinds of things without Intuition x2.
I got over a plateau I had and feel ready for more!
Today's target was Arena Gold Badge, one of the five missing gold badges, and it was very challenging and often unforgiving! I tried many runs going into Hell's Arena and did fine with circling the pillars, but the moment I had 2 or more enemies targeting me, it was over. Demons also outsped me, so my strategy was to take pot-shots from a distance, run and hide, then let them stop chasing and repeat. Unfortunately, this was difficult when Demons would group up with each other or other enemies.
I always went with Marksmanship+Light Travel and almost always went with Intuition x2, but changed strategies a few time for the third trait I'd gain part way into the Arena. I started with Son of a Gun for the extra damage and reload speed, but it didn't help too much since the extra damage likely didn't save me an extra shot too often, and I would already reload quickly with the Ammo Chain. I also tried Tough as Nails since I would always enter with very little healing, but again, it didn't really solve my problems.
One thing I started to adapt to was using more aimed shots with the pistols. Initially, I figured taking twice as long to fire offsets the missed shots I would otherwise likely hit with the accuracy bonus, but there are some subtle details that make aimed shots significantly better. For starters, the consistency goes way up, which allows for stronger planning of how to move around and firing. The other thing is if there were nearby enemies that were nearly dead, I would occasionally miss each shot and take unnecessary damage. I've used aimed shots before, but now I've started using them constantly, and it helps a lot!
Another more indirect detail with using aimed shots is avoiding the case where I miss my target and hit something else, leading to more enemies after me. I had a really great run in Hell's Arena where I missed a Cacodemon, hit another Cacodemon instead, and unfortunately got swarmed. To be fair, this is more my mistake and is an important part of the game I should pay more attention to.
With that in mind, I also tried using Eagle Eye for my third trait, especially when taking my shots at Demons, but they would still often get to me before dying and a guaranteed 6+ damage per hit by them stacks up way too quickly. So after some more attempts, I ultimately decided that Hellrunner would be the best trait to go with. In combination of Scout+Light Travel+Hellrunner, I was fast enough to start circling Demons too, which is significantly easier to deal with.
Once I had my gameplan on lock, I still lost a couple runs due to bad spawn luck and enemy movement luck, where I would be forced to hide behind a pillar in dire hopes that one of them would run away somewhere else.
Eventually though, I finally got my completion:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This was very difficult and rewarding! I'm happy to finally get it! I learned a lot through playing and have shifted some minor details in my mindset and playstyle because of it. I'm a little disheartened that in Papillo's difficulty rating thread that he rates this as a 9/30 skill challenge, but I suppose I could repeat this challenge now that I know what I'm doing. Still, I find it hard to believe that there's a solution to runs where you start in the centre of Hell's Arena and surrounded by Demons and Cacodemons. I also don't yet see how players do these kinds of things without Intuition x2.
I got over a plateau I had and feel ready for more!
141
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 13, 2017, 15:26 »
Cool, nice to hear. I just wasn't sure if my struggling is a result of bad skill or if that's normal and expected given how difficult the game is.
Day 36:
I rotated around again, but mostly went for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge some more. I can tell most of the story in a few pictures:
I hope this kind of luck isn't always necessary! :P
After that, I didn't get too far in other challenges. I think I'm going to put focus on finishing up the last 5 remaining gold badges to complete that page. In total, I only have 64 remaining medals and badges left to collect, and I'm confident I can get many of them still. I intend to keep going as long as I can continue to achieve more.
Day 36:
I rotated around again, but mostly went for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge some more. I can tell most of the story in a few pictures:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I hope this kind of luck isn't always necessary! :P
After that, I didn't get too far in other challenges. I think I'm going to put focus on finishing up the last 5 remaining gold badges to complete that page. In total, I only have 64 remaining medals and badges left to collect, and I'm confident I can get many of them still. I intend to keep going as long as I can continue to achieve more.
142
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 12, 2017, 15:45 »
Day 35:
More stairdiving and more struggling. I didn't find any Nano or Onyx Packs again, so I just had to keep running for the stairs, collecting health, and conserving ammo. Still was hoping for Inquisitor Armor too. I had some pretty fast floors with Phaseshift Set though, which is very nice. I also learned that you can click over fluids and the in-game movement doesn't get restricted with it, which is cool!
Fortunately, I got a different form of luck:
And that luck continued:
So despite my run not being ideal, I still completed my goals again! And with that, I now have collected 3 of every special and unique, giving me Armorer Diamond Badge!
Next, I started going for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge. I figured Angel of Pacifism would be easiest since I could rely on either Invulnerability + Nuke, or use a Phase Device and hope for the best. Early on, I had two Phase Device runs and was inside the teleporter room, but was hit by splash damage both times. Very troll. I also tried a bit of Max Carnage + Light Travel, but the room before the Bruisers is way too insane to not be getting hit in.
I'm really curious what higher level skill is like in this game. A badge like Arena Diamond Badge (complete Hell's Arena on Nightmare on Angel of Berserk) seems ridiculously impossible to get. Like, certainly after a number of games it would eventually get completed, but I'm curious about consistency. I recall 2Dev claiming he could regularly get Dragonslayers from Unholy Cathedral, or Vandam's achievement of Demonic Angelic Badge, which seems totally fucked.
A higher skill level from what I'm aware of would involve things like knowing the math at a deeper level, planning movements of all enemies simultaneously, optimizing each decision based on probability, and so forth, but with the sheer luck and variance in the game, I don't see any way to complete difficult badges with ease, and not relying on countless attempts on top of great skill. I'm slowly starting to hit that point now that many of my remaining goals require playing on Nightmare, but I'm also a grinder and willing to play repeatedly. I'd just like to know if I should focus on personal gameplay improvement, or pumping out a large number of runs.
Any tips, advice, or wisdom is appreciated. :)
More stairdiving and more struggling. I didn't find any Nano or Onyx Packs again, so I just had to keep running for the stairs, collecting health, and conserving ammo. Still was hoping for Inquisitor Armor too. I had some pretty fast floors with Phaseshift Set though, which is very nice. I also learned that you can click over fluids and the in-game movement doesn't get restricted with it, which is cool!
Fortunately, I got a different form of luck:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And that luck continued:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So despite my run not being ideal, I still completed my goals again! And with that, I now have collected 3 of every special and unique, giving me Armorer Diamond Badge!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Next, I started going for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge. I figured Angel of Pacifism would be easiest since I could rely on either Invulnerability + Nuke, or use a Phase Device and hope for the best. Early on, I had two Phase Device runs and was inside the teleporter room, but was hit by splash damage both times. Very troll. I also tried a bit of Max Carnage + Light Travel, but the room before the Bruisers is way too insane to not be getting hit in.
I'm really curious what higher level skill is like in this game. A badge like Arena Diamond Badge (complete Hell's Arena on Nightmare on Angel of Berserk) seems ridiculously impossible to get. Like, certainly after a number of games it would eventually get completed, but I'm curious about consistency. I recall 2Dev claiming he could regularly get Dragonslayers from Unholy Cathedral, or Vandam's achievement of Demonic Angelic Badge, which seems totally fucked.
A higher skill level from what I'm aware of would involve things like knowing the math at a deeper level, planning movements of all enemies simultaneously, optimizing each decision based on probability, and so forth, but with the sheer luck and variance in the game, I don't see any way to complete difficult badges with ease, and not relying on countless attempts on top of great skill. I'm slowly starting to hit that point now that many of my remaining goals require playing on Nightmare, but I'm also a grinder and willing to play repeatedly. I'd just like to know if I should focus on personal gameplay improvement, or pumping out a large number of runs.
Any tips, advice, or wisdom is appreciated. :)
143
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 11, 2017, 14:29 »
Day 34:
Continuing the same run, I still was struggling with ammo and no sight of Nano Packs either. I had about 150ish shells for emergency, but I decided that I had to start stairdiving in hopes of finding the uniques right away, or bumping into a Nano Pack on my path to the end of each floor. I collected a Phaseshift set to try out and while they're not complete (need Onyx for the armor and Nano for boots), they're still incredibly fast! It's pretty crazy to see all the enemies essentially be inanimate. I'm somewhat tempted to go for a Cybernano Phaseshift Armor, which is better than Phaseshift Armor (AOP), but obviously the disadvantage is being forced to committing to it. No Inquisitor Armor yet.
I'm somewhere in the 200s now, but I've already had a few close calls that I barely survived. Even though I now have 2x Nuclear Plasma Rifles, I'm too deep in to be able to stop stairdiving unless I find the very elusive Nano Pack for my Super Shotgun. The number and danger of the enemies is way too high at this point. I just have to keep running and hope for the best!
With any luck, I'll just find the uniques. I'm thinking of grinding for a Dragonslayer to use against the Spider Mastermind after this goal is complete, so I'll happily settle for just a Subtle Knife this run if I die early on.
Continuing the same run, I still was struggling with ammo and no sight of Nano Packs either. I had about 150ish shells for emergency, but I decided that I had to start stairdiving in hopes of finding the uniques right away, or bumping into a Nano Pack on my path to the end of each floor. I collected a Phaseshift set to try out and while they're not complete (need Onyx for the armor and Nano for boots), they're still incredibly fast! It's pretty crazy to see all the enemies essentially be inanimate. I'm somewhat tempted to go for a Cybernano Phaseshift Armor, which is better than Phaseshift Armor (AOP), but obviously the disadvantage is being forced to committing to it. No Inquisitor Armor yet.
I'm somewhere in the 200s now, but I've already had a few close calls that I barely survived. Even though I now have 2x Nuclear Plasma Rifles, I'm too deep in to be able to stop stairdiving unless I find the very elusive Nano Pack for my Super Shotgun. The number and danger of the enemies is way too high at this point. I just have to keep running and hope for the best!
With any luck, I'll just find the uniques. I'm thinking of grinding for a Dragonslayer to use against the Spider Mastermind after this goal is complete, so I'll happily settle for just a Subtle Knife this run if I die early on.
144
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 10, 2017, 16:12 »
Day 33:
After a very strong start to my run, I continued on mostly stairdiving in hunt for the 3 uniques I was after.
#1:
#2:
#3:
Another successful run! What's interesting is early on, I found a Grammaton Cleric Beretta, despite thinking I had already found one earlier. I was wondering if I somehow misread what the first one was if it were an Anti-Freak Jackal, but also thought that perhaps uniques can re-appear if you don't actually pick them up. After finding my apparently third Grammation Cleric Beretta, indeed that is the case! I had actually skipped a few other uniques which I saw a second time later, so it's fortunate I still found all 3 uniques I needed.
As I also said, I wanted to test the indestructibility of Inquisitor Boots, since the wiki doesn't specifically say they are, just that they self-repair. It was pretty difficult to find some acid so late into the run, but eventually I came across some:
Mystery solved!
Following that, I suicided as intended:
It wouldn't have been very difficult to finish the run, but I'd gain nothing from it so there was no point. Hopefully that decision doesn't break too many hearts. :P I honestly find Ao100/666 games very easy and I imagine most veterans here would too.
With that, I need just one more Dragonslayer and one more Subtle Knife to gain Armorer Diamond Badge and to complete yet another page on my player stats! It'll be very nice because I'll no longer have to put runs at risk when a needed unique appears and I go out of my way to get it. The only exception is a Dragonslayer run for killing the Spider Mastermind, but I'll be working on getting that at some point too.
I already started my 3rd unique hunting run and got an insanely early Super Shotgun:
However, this time I'm struggling a lot more with ammo and lack of Nano Packs. Even a Blaster or Nuclear Plasma Rifle/BFG would be appreciated. Hopefully, I can complete my run!
After a very strong start to my run, I continued on mostly stairdiving in hunt for the 3 uniques I was after.
#1:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#2:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
#3:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Another successful run! What's interesting is early on, I found a Grammaton Cleric Beretta, despite thinking I had already found one earlier. I was wondering if I somehow misread what the first one was if it were an Anti-Freak Jackal, but also thought that perhaps uniques can re-appear if you don't actually pick them up. After finding my apparently third Grammation Cleric Beretta, indeed that is the case! I had actually skipped a few other uniques which I saw a second time later, so it's fortunate I still found all 3 uniques I needed.
As I also said, I wanted to test the indestructibility of Inquisitor Boots, since the wiki doesn't specifically say they are, just that they self-repair. It was pretty difficult to find some acid so late into the run, but eventually I came across some:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Mystery solved!
Following that, I suicided as intended:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It wouldn't have been very difficult to finish the run, but I'd gain nothing from it so there was no point. Hopefully that decision doesn't break too many hearts. :P I honestly find Ao100/666 games very easy and I imagine most veterans here would too.
With that, I need just one more Dragonslayer and one more Subtle Knife to gain Armorer Diamond Badge and to complete yet another page on my player stats! It'll be very nice because I'll no longer have to put runs at risk when a needed unique appears and I go out of my way to get it. The only exception is a Dragonslayer run for killing the Spider Mastermind, but I'll be working on getting that at some point too.
I already started my 3rd unique hunting run and got an insanely early Super Shotgun:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
However, this time I'm struggling a lot more with ammo and lack of Nano Packs. Even a Blaster or Nuclear Plasma Rifle/BFG would be appreciated. Hopefully, I can complete my run!
145
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 09, 2017, 09:39 »
Cool. I prefer playing without ASCII or minimap, so I'll just deal with not being able to see them. It's not too important, but perhaps I'll change my settings for more difficult melee runs when going for badges.
Once I've collected all 3 of the uniques I need, I'll bathe in acid while wearing Inquisitor Boots to test their indestructibility.
Day 32:
I didn't play as much after finishing my Ao666 run on the previous day, so not much to update. I played enough to get a new run going, where I've already collected a Napalm Launcher, 2x Nuclear BFGs, a Nuclear Plasma Rifle, Super Shotgun, Hell Staff, and the Inquisitor Set, all along floors 30-60! I've been very lucky with my drops. Still no BFG10K, Subtle Knife, or Dragonslayer yet though, and I could also use a Nano Pack, but my nuclear weapons have me covered if ammo runs out.
I also had a ridiculously good floor 1:
Not that it matter too much, but it sure was a lucky start before all the additional luck that followed!
As I said, once this run is finished, I'll test out the boots and see if acid destroys them. Even if they do, I can't really imagine that being a realistic situation to happen, and I'd assume most people would have Cerberus Boots as a backup. Maybe on an acid flood, but even then, you can just switch to Cerberus Boots and hide at the edge of the ocean.
One other thing is that Shottyhead + Dodgemaster + Inquisitor Set is ridiculously good at dodging attacks. Most enemies get pulped before they can strike back, and when they are about to, I have so much movement speed and Dodgemaster to avoid most attacks anyway. It's a really great combo! The Blademaster route I took last time is still of course better for a run intending to pick up Dragonslayer, but this is working out very well too!
And of course, once I finish this current run, I'll need to do one more to get a third Dragonslayer and Subtle Knife!
Once I've collected all 3 of the uniques I need, I'll bathe in acid while wearing Inquisitor Boots to test their indestructibility.
Day 32:
I didn't play as much after finishing my Ao666 run on the previous day, so not much to update. I played enough to get a new run going, where I've already collected a Napalm Launcher, 2x Nuclear BFGs, a Nuclear Plasma Rifle, Super Shotgun, Hell Staff, and the Inquisitor Set, all along floors 30-60! I've been very lucky with my drops. Still no BFG10K, Subtle Knife, or Dragonslayer yet though, and I could also use a Nano Pack, but my nuclear weapons have me covered if ammo runs out.
I also had a ridiculously good floor 1:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Not that it matter too much, but it sure was a lucky start before all the additional luck that followed!
As I said, once this run is finished, I'll test out the boots and see if acid destroys them. Even if they do, I can't really imagine that being a realistic situation to happen, and I'd assume most people would have Cerberus Boots as a backup. Maybe on an acid flood, but even then, you can just switch to Cerberus Boots and hide at the edge of the ocean.
One other thing is that Shottyhead + Dodgemaster + Inquisitor Set is ridiculously good at dodging attacks. Most enemies get pulped before they can strike back, and when they are about to, I have so much movement speed and Dodgemaster to avoid most attacks anyway. It's a really great combo! The Blademaster route I took last time is still of course better for a run intending to pick up Dragonslayer, but this is working out very well too!
And of course, once I finish this current run, I'll need to do one more to get a third Dragonslayer and Subtle Knife!
146
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 08, 2017, 10:05 »
Day 31:
The adventure continues!
Shortly after starting, I came across Inquisitor Armor, giving me the complete set for the first time:
That 100% fire resistance is pretty awesome, but I was also really happy to see a very high movement speed with the set:
I tried it out a lot and I can definitely appreciate fire immunity, but it's not a total cakewalk. While Archviles aren't a threat, they still need to be killed while reviving everything, and Mancubi and Revenants end up destroying every wall and item. I mostly took the set as insurance for mistakes. I also miss having acid fluid immunity, but I suppose the set would be too broken if it had that too. I noticed that the armor is indestructible, but while the boots have self-repair, they don't specifically say they're also indestructible. Could I potentially destroy the boots if I stand in acid for too long?
All that said though, I discovered a really cool trick that significantly improves use of the Inquisitor set for this type of run. Despite taking no damage from explosions, they can still trigger Berserker trait and with my Nanomachic Napalm Launcher...
...I can essentially give myself permanent berserk! After every few floors, I'd blow myself up repeatedly to provide myself a ton of berserk for a speed and resistance boost! I imagine there's some sort of hard cap with how much berserk I can stack, so it's not true permanent berserk, but it's pretty dang close!
Throughout the floors, I found some more interesting layouts and happenings. This island stuck out in particular to me:
I also learned on a floor with a flood of acid/lava that also has a flooding lever, you can cut off the area where the incoming flood takes up:
Pretty cool niche mechanic!
Some more floors later, I hit 50%:
I finally got my first Subtle Knife, leaving just the legendary Dragonslayer to complete my collection of specials and uniques! For fun, I also pulled a summoning lever, and they get pretty insane on deeper floors:
At this point, I've collected everything I wanted outside of a pair of Phaseshift Boots, Nuclear BFG, and Dragonslayer of course. Given that I had no problem killing everything, surviving, and I was fast enough with the Inquisitor set, I decided to purely stairdive until I'd get floors that prompt me there's a unique. With my berserk spam trick, tons of health, speed, etc, I was flying through the game. Eventually, near the exit of one of the floors, I found one of the items I was looking for:
With the Firestorm Packs I collected, I built my first Biggest Fucking Nuclear Gun:
I have to say it was pretty underwhelming based on what I've read about it. It's pretty awesome it completely destroys a section of the map, but it's also destroying all the items, the walls for cover, not necessarily killing everything, and has a big recharge. Of course, there needs to be some limitations to avoid being overpowered, but perhaps I'm spoiled with Nano Super Shotgun. Or perhaps it is insane but just doesn't mesh with my playstyle. In any case, I'm not the hugest fan.
After doing a ton more stairdiving, it happened:
eeeeeeeeeeee
I finally got the Dragonslayer! I never figured out how to get it back in the day and had some struggle finding it, but I finally got it! This also completes my item collection and sets me up for also killing the Apostle! I also noticed that I could still put an item into my prepared slot, despite not being able to switch, so I imagine Dragonslayer with Malicious Blades. Perhaps mixing it with Butcher's Cleaver would get into some serious insanity. :P The whirlwind alternate fire is also really awesome!
I cleaned out my inventory of weapons and lesser armors for extra space, though I couldn't bare tossing my Cerberus Ballistic Vest seeing those resistances:
I tossed my Phaseshift Armor since the Inquisitor set was doing just fine, and I wanted to put my focus into just getting to the end. I found about 8 Phaseshift Armors, but only the one Phaseshift Boots that I busted. I did find a second pair though, but left it behind:
Having collected all the uniques I wanted, having all the gear I need, and with just one goal left, I started purely stairdiving without restriction. I was healing faster than I could lose health too with the massive movement speed and Soulspheres/Megaspheres everywhere. On floor 650, I decided it was time to put on the Berserker Armor:
I have to say, I don't like it. It's so much slower, it's a big drop in the resistances I had, and the protection is redundant when I was already taking just 1 damage by most things (or 0):
I noticed my rate of damage went way up and actually had to focus into playing again, which while not being in danger of death, was a bit scary.
I finally got to floor 666:
Met the Apostle:
And got the kill:
That error message is super scary, but it didn't seem to do anything fortunately. So with that, I completed my goal 100%! I got all 3 uniques I wanted, and got my first Apostle kill!
I got to learn a lot from this run, did several things for the first time I had never done, and made a great step forward in progressing in this game! After comparing to all the different super weapons, Nano Super Shotgun is definitely my favorite in the game! I just love the control it offers, not needing to worry about accuracy, the spread it has, and just everything about it! Nanomachic Napalm Launcher is also up there too, and is probably ideal for a Nightmare/Angel of Darkness run. I didn't get to try out the Phaseshift set unfortunately, but I imagine it's pretty similar to Inquisitor set, but even more ridiculously fast. The Inquisitor set is also amazing and I love using it to nullify a ton of potential errors I can make, as well as its combo power with launchers!
Dragonslayer is very cool with permanent berserk and whirlwind, but melee just doesn't quite fit my playstyle, and though healing isn't too big of a deal, it can be a bit tricky with certain situations. Lack of wall destruction, damage spread, Intuition, etc are all downsides I don't like. Killing Cyberdemons in 2-3 hits is pretty sick though.
I also really dislike Berserker Armor and don't think I'll ever use it again outside of desire to kill the Apostle again, which I don't think I'll do. It's just way too slow and not that strong relative to other super armors, which is a big hindrance when playing melee. I don't think I'll be using Biggest Fucking Gun again with how costly it is, but I think it'll have its niche on Ao666 on Nightmare because of corpse destruction. With how well this run went, I think once fully geared that I could beat this on Nightmare, but no plans for that for awhile yet.
So what's next? Well, another run of course! I still need 2 more Dragonslayers and Subtle Knives, as well as another BFG10K to finish getting 3 of every special and unique for Armorer Diamond Badge. I'll likely use the same build, but perhaps use another Cybernetic Energy-Shield Vest since I'm not restricted by cursed armors this time. I think I'll go with Shottyhead this time over Blademaster as well since my run will likely end with finding Dragonslayer anyway. Also, should I find all 3 items, I'll be suiciding immediately since completing the full 666 floors isn't helpful for progressing in the game and would just be a slog.
Very happy to have 100%ed my run here and everything that came with it!
The adventure continues!
Shortly after starting, I came across Inquisitor Armor, giving me the complete set for the first time:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That 100% fire resistance is pretty awesome, but I was also really happy to see a very high movement speed with the set:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I tried it out a lot and I can definitely appreciate fire immunity, but it's not a total cakewalk. While Archviles aren't a threat, they still need to be killed while reviving everything, and Mancubi and Revenants end up destroying every wall and item. I mostly took the set as insurance for mistakes. I also miss having acid fluid immunity, but I suppose the set would be too broken if it had that too. I noticed that the armor is indestructible, but while the boots have self-repair, they don't specifically say they're also indestructible. Could I potentially destroy the boots if I stand in acid for too long?
All that said though, I discovered a really cool trick that significantly improves use of the Inquisitor set for this type of run. Despite taking no damage from explosions, they can still trigger Berserker trait and with my Nanomachic Napalm Launcher...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
...I can essentially give myself permanent berserk! After every few floors, I'd blow myself up repeatedly to provide myself a ton of berserk for a speed and resistance boost! I imagine there's some sort of hard cap with how much berserk I can stack, so it's not true permanent berserk, but it's pretty dang close!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Throughout the floors, I found some more interesting layouts and happenings. This island stuck out in particular to me:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I also learned on a floor with a flood of acid/lava that also has a flooding lever, you can cut off the area where the incoming flood takes up:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pretty cool niche mechanic!
Some more floors later, I hit 50%:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I finally got my first Subtle Knife, leaving just the legendary Dragonslayer to complete my collection of specials and uniques! For fun, I also pulled a summoning lever, and they get pretty insane on deeper floors:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At this point, I've collected everything I wanted outside of a pair of Phaseshift Boots, Nuclear BFG, and Dragonslayer of course. Given that I had no problem killing everything, surviving, and I was fast enough with the Inquisitor set, I decided to purely stairdive until I'd get floors that prompt me there's a unique. With my berserk spam trick, tons of health, speed, etc, I was flying through the game. Eventually, near the exit of one of the floors, I found one of the items I was looking for:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With the Firestorm Packs I collected, I built my first Biggest Fucking Nuclear Gun:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I have to say it was pretty underwhelming based on what I've read about it. It's pretty awesome it completely destroys a section of the map, but it's also destroying all the items, the walls for cover, not necessarily killing everything, and has a big recharge. Of course, there needs to be some limitations to avoid being overpowered, but perhaps I'm spoiled with Nano Super Shotgun. Or perhaps it is insane but just doesn't mesh with my playstyle. In any case, I'm not the hugest fan.
After doing a ton more stairdiving, it happened:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
eeeeeeeeeeee
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I finally got the Dragonslayer! I never figured out how to get it back in the day and had some struggle finding it, but I finally got it! This also completes my item collection and sets me up for also killing the Apostle! I also noticed that I could still put an item into my prepared slot, despite not being able to switch, so I imagine Dragonslayer with Malicious Blades. Perhaps mixing it with Butcher's Cleaver would get into some serious insanity. :P The whirlwind alternate fire is also really awesome!
I cleaned out my inventory of weapons and lesser armors for extra space, though I couldn't bare tossing my Cerberus Ballistic Vest seeing those resistances:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I tossed my Phaseshift Armor since the Inquisitor set was doing just fine, and I wanted to put my focus into just getting to the end. I found about 8 Phaseshift Armors, but only the one Phaseshift Boots that I busted. I did find a second pair though, but left it behind:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Having collected all the uniques I wanted, having all the gear I need, and with just one goal left, I started purely stairdiving without restriction. I was healing faster than I could lose health too with the massive movement speed and Soulspheres/Megaspheres everywhere. On floor 650, I decided it was time to put on the Berserker Armor:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I have to say, I don't like it. It's so much slower, it's a big drop in the resistances I had, and the protection is redundant when I was already taking just 1 damage by most things (or 0):
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I noticed my rate of damage went way up and actually had to focus into playing again, which while not being in danger of death, was a bit scary.
I finally got to floor 666:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Met the Apostle:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And got the kill:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That error message is super scary, but it didn't seem to do anything fortunately. So with that, I completed my goal 100%! I got all 3 uniques I wanted, and got my first Apostle kill!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I got to learn a lot from this run, did several things for the first time I had never done, and made a great step forward in progressing in this game! After comparing to all the different super weapons, Nano Super Shotgun is definitely my favorite in the game! I just love the control it offers, not needing to worry about accuracy, the spread it has, and just everything about it! Nanomachic Napalm Launcher is also up there too, and is probably ideal for a Nightmare/Angel of Darkness run. I didn't get to try out the Phaseshift set unfortunately, but I imagine it's pretty similar to Inquisitor set, but even more ridiculously fast. The Inquisitor set is also amazing and I love using it to nullify a ton of potential errors I can make, as well as its combo power with launchers!
Dragonslayer is very cool with permanent berserk and whirlwind, but melee just doesn't quite fit my playstyle, and though healing isn't too big of a deal, it can be a bit tricky with certain situations. Lack of wall destruction, damage spread, Intuition, etc are all downsides I don't like. Killing Cyberdemons in 2-3 hits is pretty sick though.
I also really dislike Berserker Armor and don't think I'll ever use it again outside of desire to kill the Apostle again, which I don't think I'll do. It's just way too slow and not that strong relative to other super armors, which is a big hindrance when playing melee. I don't think I'll be using Biggest Fucking Gun again with how costly it is, but I think it'll have its niche on Ao666 on Nightmare because of corpse destruction. With how well this run went, I think once fully geared that I could beat this on Nightmare, but no plans for that for awhile yet.
So what's next? Well, another run of course! I still need 2 more Dragonslayers and Subtle Knives, as well as another BFG10K to finish getting 3 of every special and unique for Armorer Diamond Badge. I'll likely use the same build, but perhaps use another Cybernetic Energy-Shield Vest since I'm not restricted by cursed armors this time. I think I'll go with Shottyhead this time over Blademaster as well since my run will likely end with finding Dragonslayer anyway. Also, should I find all 3 items, I'll be suiciding immediately since completing the full 666 floors isn't helpful for progressing in the game and would just be a slog.
Very happy to have 100%ed my run here and everything that came with it!
147
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 07, 2017, 09:57 »
Day 30:
Pictures galore today! I've progressed significantly in my run and am totally ready to be finding Dragonslayer!
Continuing from yesterday, I found an extra Nano Pack, which I can use for a Nano-Shrapnel:
I held onto my Shotgun for awhile if things got tight with ammo and I couldn't find a Super Shotgun. After awhile of close calls and getting annoyed with carrying ammo, I decided to take the plunge and made a Nano Shotgun:
My usual progression when I play Shotgun builds is Shotgun->Combat Shotgun->Tactical Shotgun->Nano Shotgun->Nano Super Shotgun. The first two improvements are nice, but not dramatically different, but going to a Nano Shotgun is worlds better! Infinite ammo implies so much more since I no longer need to worry about reloading, picking up items (ammo) on the ground, I have way more inventory space, I don't need to attack in certain ways to conserve ammo, and so much more! I've read around a lot that people believe Ammochain is one of the best master traits, and I'm honestly sure it is, but I just can't stand not having a source of infinite ammo in Ao100/666. I suppose Ammochain's main advantage is not having damage reduction since modding weapons isn't focused on nanomachic/shrapnel, and it's also great for regular games, but it's totally not my style for Ao100/666.
Later on, I got myself into an interesting situation where a Cyberdemon was trying to fire at me, couldn't damage me, but insisted on not moving. Really weird, but also advantageous tactic:
Further on, I got super lucky and found this, bringing my mission here to 25% completed:
I'm very happy to have found this! Now whether I get 100% of my goals, or die, at least this run wasn't in vain and I've progressed at least somewhat! Now I only need 1 more BFG10K!
Some more floors later and I found one of my #1 items I was on the hunt for:
It's honestly insane the difference between Nano Shotgun (2nd best of its kind) and Nano Super Shotgun! From damage, to knockback, to double firing, it's yet another big step forward in offence!
I had the Power Packs and used my second Nano Pack right away to max it out:
You can really see the power difference here:
Not too much later and I found my third Nano Pack, which is waiting for a fresh pair of Phaseshift Boots:
Shortly after, I also found a Chainsaw:
Given that I'm using Blademaster on this run, a Ripper is arguably the next best melee weapon, so I started building towards that. It provides a little bit of practice with the melee style of this character, as well as providing another source of berserk for when I find Dragonslayer.
After several experience levels, I got to this with my traits:
Anything at this point is no longer useful for a Dragonslayer/Blademaster build, so naturally, I started picking things to help for the pre-Dragonslayer part of this run. Juggler is the obvious pick since I'm rocking a Ripper, but I discovered an amazing purpose for Eagle Eye too! Despite having Brute x5, the Ripper's accuracy goes below the maxed out 98% while running, and is actually off by just 2 accuracy values to max out again, which is where Eagle Eye comes in! An extremely negligible detail really, but it gives a purpose to selecting Eagle Eye over Reloader. It's almost a bit mathematically beautiful how it works out so perfectly!
I started to collect Nano Packs since I kept finding them, since it feels so wrong to throw them away:
Later on, I found my second Onyx Pack to finish my Phaseshift Armor:
I also got a second Firestorm Pack, waiting for a Nuclear BFG:
And then I also built possibly my new favorite weapon:
With this Nanomachic Napalm Launcher, I can do some serious landscaping on each floor! It pairs super well with Cerberus Boots and is yet another handy source of berserk! I usually play with Nano Super Shotgun and Ripper in my direct arsenal, and switch to my launcher if I need it. It helps block off some enemies too when I start to get surrounded, and opens up more direct paths to staircases when there's a nearby Invulnerability. The only disappointing thing was learning it can't be modded with Firestorm, so I went with Power. :P
Later, I also maxed out my experience level:
This is what my inventory generally looks like right now:
I found yet another Onyx Pack, but like my Nanos, I started to chuck them. It still feels so wrong, but there's literally no more use for them:
After some more floors, I decided to start stairdiving and skipping enemies too. This was the first floor I started doing it, whereas I had cleared out every monster beforehand:
As cool as it would be to get 100% kills on Ao666, it's not efficient use of my time, it puts my run at slight risk, and they don't do anything towards my goals. I generally hunt for a Computer/Tracking Map if one is around, or otherwise I'll clear the level before jumping down the stairs. The nice thing is that the only other armor I need is Inquisitor, and since that prompts me at the start of the level, I also don't have to worry about killing every enemy that could pick up an armor. I'm thinking I could start using it too:
(Not really, I would rather have Phaseshift Boots)
So that's everything for today! I'm about as prepared as possible now, and I've at least progressed a little with my BFG10K pickup, so here's hoping it continues well and I can get myself the Dragonslayer!
Pictures galore today! I've progressed significantly in my run and am totally ready to be finding Dragonslayer!
Continuing from yesterday, I found an extra Nano Pack, which I can use for a Nano-Shrapnel:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I held onto my Shotgun for awhile if things got tight with ammo and I couldn't find a Super Shotgun. After awhile of close calls and getting annoyed with carrying ammo, I decided to take the plunge and made a Nano Shotgun:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My usual progression when I play Shotgun builds is Shotgun->Combat Shotgun->Tactical Shotgun->Nano Shotgun->Nano Super Shotgun. The first two improvements are nice, but not dramatically different, but going to a Nano Shotgun is worlds better! Infinite ammo implies so much more since I no longer need to worry about reloading, picking up items (ammo) on the ground, I have way more inventory space, I don't need to attack in certain ways to conserve ammo, and so much more! I've read around a lot that people believe Ammochain is one of the best master traits, and I'm honestly sure it is, but I just can't stand not having a source of infinite ammo in Ao100/666. I suppose Ammochain's main advantage is not having damage reduction since modding weapons isn't focused on nanomachic/shrapnel, and it's also great for regular games, but it's totally not my style for Ao100/666.
Later on, I got myself into an interesting situation where a Cyberdemon was trying to fire at me, couldn't damage me, but insisted on not moving. Really weird, but also advantageous tactic:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Further on, I got super lucky and found this, bringing my mission here to 25% completed:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I'm very happy to have found this! Now whether I get 100% of my goals, or die, at least this run wasn't in vain and I've progressed at least somewhat! Now I only need 1 more BFG10K!
Some more floors later and I found one of my #1 items I was on the hunt for:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It's honestly insane the difference between Nano Shotgun (2nd best of its kind) and Nano Super Shotgun! From damage, to knockback, to double firing, it's yet another big step forward in offence!
I had the Power Packs and used my second Nano Pack right away to max it out:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You can really see the power difference here:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Not too much later and I found my third Nano Pack, which is waiting for a fresh pair of Phaseshift Boots:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Shortly after, I also found a Chainsaw:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Given that I'm using Blademaster on this run, a Ripper is arguably the next best melee weapon, so I started building towards that. It provides a little bit of practice with the melee style of this character, as well as providing another source of berserk for when I find Dragonslayer.
After several experience levels, I got to this with my traits:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Anything at this point is no longer useful for a Dragonslayer/Blademaster build, so naturally, I started picking things to help for the pre-Dragonslayer part of this run. Juggler is the obvious pick since I'm rocking a Ripper, but I discovered an amazing purpose for Eagle Eye too! Despite having Brute x5, the Ripper's accuracy goes below the maxed out 98% while running, and is actually off by just 2 accuracy values to max out again, which is where Eagle Eye comes in! An extremely negligible detail really, but it gives a purpose to selecting Eagle Eye over Reloader. It's almost a bit mathematically beautiful how it works out so perfectly!
I started to collect Nano Packs since I kept finding them, since it feels so wrong to throw them away:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Later on, I found my second Onyx Pack to finish my Phaseshift Armor:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I also got a second Firestorm Pack, waiting for a Nuclear BFG:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And then I also built possibly my new favorite weapon:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With this Nanomachic Napalm Launcher, I can do some serious landscaping on each floor! It pairs super well with Cerberus Boots and is yet another handy source of berserk! I usually play with Nano Super Shotgun and Ripper in my direct arsenal, and switch to my launcher if I need it. It helps block off some enemies too when I start to get surrounded, and opens up more direct paths to staircases when there's a nearby Invulnerability. The only disappointing thing was learning it can't be modded with Firestorm, so I went with Power. :P
Later, I also maxed out my experience level:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is what my inventory generally looks like right now:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I found yet another Onyx Pack, but like my Nanos, I started to chuck them. It still feels so wrong, but there's literally no more use for them:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
After some more floors, I decided to start stairdiving and skipping enemies too. This was the first floor I started doing it, whereas I had cleared out every monster beforehand:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As cool as it would be to get 100% kills on Ao666, it's not efficient use of my time, it puts my run at slight risk, and they don't do anything towards my goals. I generally hunt for a Computer/Tracking Map if one is around, or otherwise I'll clear the level before jumping down the stairs. The nice thing is that the only other armor I need is Inquisitor, and since that prompts me at the start of the level, I also don't have to worry about killing every enemy that could pick up an armor. I'm thinking I could start using it too:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(Not really, I would rather have Phaseshift Boots)
So that's everything for today! I'm about as prepared as possible now, and I've at least progressed a little with my BFG10K pickup, so here's hoping it continues well and I can get myself the Dragonslayer!
148
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 06, 2017, 12:33 »
Thanks, yeah I'm starting to really appreciate extremely high levels of movement speed. It's somewhat like being able to teleport around. I agree that I'll likely be using the Phaseshift set over Inquisitor set since fire immunity isn't that amazing, but I suppose at higher difficulties, taking 1 damage infinite times is far worse than taking 0 damage infinite times. I've also learned to watch the durability when I cooked myself in lava with damaged Cerberus Boots before, but that's nothing like what you did, jeez!
I also imagine Dragonslayer + Phaseshift Armor (AOP) + Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A) is absurdly powerful with Blademaster since I can quickly move to any spot, obliterate an enemy instantaneously, and carry on at the same speed. Sounds like lots of fun!
Day 29:
I started trying some Ao666 after I studied the blade yesterday and got a decent run going, but unfortunately died due to a dumb mistake. Along the way though, I got a pretty cool cave map:
So I started a new run and got caught up pretty quickly. On one map, I ended up in a really cool tactical spot that only works because I had Cerberus Boots quite early:
My setup for traits has been Intuition x2, Finesse x2, Whizkid x2, then mixing with Hellrunner, Ironman, Dodgemaster, and Finesse. I'm taking a slight risk by getting Brute, Berserker, and Blademaster later on, but survivability while playing as a temporary Shotgun build is important.
This was my preliminary equipment setup, which is quite cheap to make:
Not too long after, I found Phaseshift Boots! Unfortunately, I forgot how the Antigrav assembly goes...
Whoops. I'll have to find a second pair.
I also got a Nano Pack and Onyx Pack relatively early, the former being very important. I'll be hanging onto it for as long as possible since I need it for Phaseshift Boots, but if ammo gets tight, it'll be used on either a Super Shotgun or a regular Shotgun:
I later decided to opt for more mid-game survivability and made a Cerberus Ballistic Vest (O), which has 0 armor, but insane resistances with 50% across with 70% for fire and acid! There's actually not enough space to list all 6 resistances in the upper-right corner, which is funny:
Some more time later, I found Inquisitor Boots and Phaseshift Armor! I've since thrown away the Phaseshift Boots though and used my Onyx Pack, but I can get more so it's not a big deal.
Then on the fairly early floor of 49, I got this:
Very happy to get this so early! As long as I can actually find Dragonslayer now, I should be good to go for killing the Apostle!
So with that, I got to floor 51 and am already quite ahead of pace of where I want to be! The most important item I can find right now is a Super Shotgun to complete my Nano Super Shotgun (P). I'm also on the hunt for Inquisitor Armor, another pair of Phaseshift Boots, Onyx and Nano Packs, and of course, Dragonslayer. Here's my status so far:
Funny enough, I haven't accomplished anything yet in terms of actual progress towards 100%. The only useful things that can come from this run are finding Dragonslayer, BFG10K, Subtle Knife, and killing the Apostle, all of which of course haven't happened yet. At this rate though, things are looking good! Hopefully I don't die! :)
I also imagine Dragonslayer + Phaseshift Armor (AOP) + Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A) is absurdly powerful with Blademaster since I can quickly move to any spot, obliterate an enemy instantaneously, and carry on at the same speed. Sounds like lots of fun!
Day 29:
I started trying some Ao666 after I studied the blade yesterday and got a decent run going, but unfortunately died due to a dumb mistake. Along the way though, I got a pretty cool cave map:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So I started a new run and got caught up pretty quickly. On one map, I ended up in a really cool tactical spot that only works because I had Cerberus Boots quite early:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My setup for traits has been Intuition x2, Finesse x2, Whizkid x2, then mixing with Hellrunner, Ironman, Dodgemaster, and Finesse. I'm taking a slight risk by getting Brute, Berserker, and Blademaster later on, but survivability while playing as a temporary Shotgun build is important.
This was my preliminary equipment setup, which is quite cheap to make:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Not too long after, I found Phaseshift Boots! Unfortunately, I forgot how the Antigrav assembly goes...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Whoops. I'll have to find a second pair.
I also got a Nano Pack and Onyx Pack relatively early, the former being very important. I'll be hanging onto it for as long as possible since I need it for Phaseshift Boots, but if ammo gets tight, it'll be used on either a Super Shotgun or a regular Shotgun:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I later decided to opt for more mid-game survivability and made a Cerberus Ballistic Vest (O), which has 0 armor, but insane resistances with 50% across with 70% for fire and acid! There's actually not enough space to list all 6 resistances in the upper-right corner, which is funny:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Some more time later, I found Inquisitor Boots and Phaseshift Armor! I've since thrown away the Phaseshift Boots though and used my Onyx Pack, but I can get more so it's not a big deal.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then on the fairly early floor of 49, I got this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Very happy to get this so early! As long as I can actually find Dragonslayer now, I should be good to go for killing the Apostle!
So with that, I got to floor 51 and am already quite ahead of pace of where I want to be! The most important item I can find right now is a Super Shotgun to complete my Nano Super Shotgun (P). I'm also on the hunt for Inquisitor Armor, another pair of Phaseshift Boots, Onyx and Nano Packs, and of course, Dragonslayer. Here's my status so far:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Funny enough, I haven't accomplished anything yet in terms of actual progress towards 100%. The only useful things that can come from this run are finding Dragonslayer, BFG10K, Subtle Knife, and killing the Apostle, all of which of course haven't happened yet. At this rate though, things are looking good! Hopefully I don't die! :)
149
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 05, 2017, 15:46 »
Day 28:
I went for a variety of badges and medals and actually got quite a few!
To start, my first target was Lightfoot Platinum Badge and figured the easiest way to go for it was Max Carnage+Light Travel. 20000 turns is quite a bit of leeway if you stairdive, and Max Carnage with Shotguns helps cover for a low experience level. It took a couple tries, but easily got it:
...or so I thought. I thought that maybe there was some additional restriction? I checked in-game and definitely completed what it says to do, so I checked the wiki, and it says the challenge must be done on Ultra-Violence, which I did not do. :/ A little annoyed by that, though it does make sense given it's a platinum badge. I'll go for it again on the correct difficulty in the future.
Next target was Chessmaster's Token which I got in one try!
Easy stuff with Max Carnage, though I definitely had a little luck on my side as well.
Next were Untouchable Medal and Untouchable Cross. These I was pretty confident I could get without too much trouble since they work well with my playstyle, though I still had to deal with tricky situations. I made a few foolish mistakes in one run, so ended up with just the Untouchable Medal:
Max Carnage+Light Travel is one of absolute favorite ways to play the game however, and since I was fairly close, I gave it some more effort. This time I played far more cautiously than even I would normally do, which was actually a lot of fun! I only got hit by enemies twice, and was forced to cross two acid rivers, but other than that, it was a flawless run:
So with that, I got 3 more medals, now totalling 36/43! My next target is another medal: Apostle Insignia! Time to grind for another kind of Apostle. :P
Strategy discussion time!
Going for this will be tricky since I rely on getting both Dragonslayer, Berserker Armor, and also surviving until the end. The obvious way of doing this is Ao100 or Ao666, of which, I'm leaning on 666 since I'll likely need as many floors as possible. Last time I did Ao666, I got every unique except for the Apostle set and Subtle Knife, so I don't want to be spending time on Ao100.
I also need a solid melee build for this, and I'm not a huge fan of Vampyre for long games. Malicious Blades looks cool, but it doesn't work in full with Dragonslayer, so that leaves Blademaster and it seems wicked! Of the traits available, I'll be wanting: Blademaster x1, Brute x5, Berserker x1, Hellrunner x3, Dodgemaster x1, Finesse x3, Intuition x2, Whizkid x2, and Ironman x5. That leaves 2 extra slots. Since it's also easiest to go from Shotgun->Melee, I'm one trait shy of Reloader x2 and Shottyman x1. Eagle Eye is useless, Juggler isn't really necessary, and the rest are blocked. I'll probably opt to skip Shottyman or Ironman, not sure which yet. Shottyman also becomes obsolete when I get Nano Super Shotgun, so it'll probably be skipped, and I'll temporarily gain from Reloader. If I stumble upon a very early Dragonslayer, maybe I'll go for Eagle Eye over Reloader since it's very mildly less useless.
As for armor and boots, perma-Berserk covers a good chunk of resistances with 60% to all, so I'll likely be more focused on movement speed. Phaseshift Armor (AOP) and Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A) give 40% + 60% movement speed with 4 protection, indestructibility, 90% total resistance to Melee/Bullet/Shrapnel, and immunity to fluids. Pretty awesome! Inquisitor set is also quite nice with 90% total resistance to the other damage types, with total fire immunity and good movement speed too. I recall acid fluid not being a huge deal late into my Ao666, so I can live without needing that. Early on, I'll likely be rocking Cerberus Boots (A) as usual, or possibly Enviroboots if I find them. It's interesting that Cerberus Boots (A) is -20% movement speed, Enviroboots are -25% and Cerberus Boots are -30%. :P (PPTA+A) is an expensive cost for 5% extra movement speed!
Berserker Armor is pretty cool, but is super slow and protects as much as Phaseshift Armor, though the increase of it is an interesting mechanic. I imagine with my massive resistances already though that I'll be reducing a lot of hits down to 1 anyway and the extra bump to Melee/Bullet/Shrapnel probably isn't worth the slow movement speed and the spawning Nightmare Demons. I'll likely leave it in my inventory until just the very end. When I do wear it, I'll definitely be ditching Inquisitor set for Cerberus Boots (A) and Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A), since the boots when solo are outclassed.
As for weapon before finding Dragonslayer, I'll definitely be using Nano Super Shotgun, or if I can't find one, Nano Shotgun. The other Shotguns are weaker and/or have a worse shotgun blast type, funny enough. Tactical Shotgun (P) is definitely the way to go until finding the needed Nano Pack.
It'll be pretty fun to test out all 3 sets that I haven't used before! I'm definitely going to build around using Shotguns until I find Dragonslayer, but I want to make sure I have Berserker early to help with picking it up. Maybe a spare Rocket Launcher and some Hatred Skulls will come in handy too. Scouts are also great with their extra movement speed and stair sense, along with the speedy Phaseshift set that I'll be able to fly through the floors once my build is complete. I'll need to kill most of everything early on to get that experience, but later will just be trying to get to the end without dying. I imagine the Apostle himself is weak though. This will also be a decent warm-up and learning experience for the eventual Ao666 on Nightmare.
With any luck, I can also find Subtle Knife and BFG10K as well to work on finishing my badges around collecting Uniques. I intend to grind for Apostle Insignia until I get it, but I'm also going to repeat this challenge a couple times until I also get 3x of everything. Shottyhead helped a lot last time, but I think with some caution, I'll be just fine without it.
I'm sure most of this strategizing is known and/or obvious, but it's my favorite part about gaming and I can't help but gush about it! <3 I think this grind will be a blast to do!
I went for a variety of badges and medals and actually got quite a few!
To start, my first target was Lightfoot Platinum Badge and figured the easiest way to go for it was Max Carnage+Light Travel. 20000 turns is quite a bit of leeway if you stairdive, and Max Carnage with Shotguns helps cover for a low experience level. It took a couple tries, but easily got it:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
...or so I thought. I thought that maybe there was some additional restriction? I checked in-game and definitely completed what it says to do, so I checked the wiki, and it says the challenge must be done on Ultra-Violence, which I did not do. :/ A little annoyed by that, though it does make sense given it's a platinum badge. I'll go for it again on the correct difficulty in the future.
Next target was Chessmaster's Token which I got in one try!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Easy stuff with Max Carnage, though I definitely had a little luck on my side as well.
Next were Untouchable Medal and Untouchable Cross. These I was pretty confident I could get without too much trouble since they work well with my playstyle, though I still had to deal with tricky situations. I made a few foolish mistakes in one run, so ended up with just the Untouchable Medal:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Max Carnage+Light Travel is one of absolute favorite ways to play the game however, and since I was fairly close, I gave it some more effort. This time I played far more cautiously than even I would normally do, which was actually a lot of fun! I only got hit by enemies twice, and was forced to cross two acid rivers, but other than that, it was a flawless run:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So with that, I got 3 more medals, now totalling 36/43! My next target is another medal: Apostle Insignia! Time to grind for another kind of Apostle. :P
Strategy discussion time!
Going for this will be tricky since I rely on getting both Dragonslayer, Berserker Armor, and also surviving until the end. The obvious way of doing this is Ao100 or Ao666, of which, I'm leaning on 666 since I'll likely need as many floors as possible. Last time I did Ao666, I got every unique except for the Apostle set and Subtle Knife, so I don't want to be spending time on Ao100.
I also need a solid melee build for this, and I'm not a huge fan of Vampyre for long games. Malicious Blades looks cool, but it doesn't work in full with Dragonslayer, so that leaves Blademaster and it seems wicked! Of the traits available, I'll be wanting: Blademaster x1, Brute x5, Berserker x1, Hellrunner x3, Dodgemaster x1, Finesse x3, Intuition x2, Whizkid x2, and Ironman x5. That leaves 2 extra slots. Since it's also easiest to go from Shotgun->Melee, I'm one trait shy of Reloader x2 and Shottyman x1. Eagle Eye is useless, Juggler isn't really necessary, and the rest are blocked. I'll probably opt to skip Shottyman or Ironman, not sure which yet. Shottyman also becomes obsolete when I get Nano Super Shotgun, so it'll probably be skipped, and I'll temporarily gain from Reloader. If I stumble upon a very early Dragonslayer, maybe I'll go for Eagle Eye over Reloader since it's very mildly less useless.
As for armor and boots, perma-Berserk covers a good chunk of resistances with 60% to all, so I'll likely be more focused on movement speed. Phaseshift Armor (AOP) and Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A) give 40% + 60% movement speed with 4 protection, indestructibility, 90% total resistance to Melee/Bullet/Shrapnel, and immunity to fluids. Pretty awesome! Inquisitor set is also quite nice with 90% total resistance to the other damage types, with total fire immunity and good movement speed too. I recall acid fluid not being a huge deal late into my Ao666, so I can live without needing that. Early on, I'll likely be rocking Cerberus Boots (A) as usual, or possibly Enviroboots if I find them. It's interesting that Cerberus Boots (A) is -20% movement speed, Enviroboots are -25% and Cerberus Boots are -30%. :P (PPTA+A) is an expensive cost for 5% extra movement speed!
Berserker Armor is pretty cool, but is super slow and protects as much as Phaseshift Armor, though the increase of it is an interesting mechanic. I imagine with my massive resistances already though that I'll be reducing a lot of hits down to 1 anyway and the extra bump to Melee/Bullet/Shrapnel probably isn't worth the slow movement speed and the spawning Nightmare Demons. I'll likely leave it in my inventory until just the very end. When I do wear it, I'll definitely be ditching Inquisitor set for Cerberus Boots (A) and Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A), since the boots when solo are outclassed.
As for weapon before finding Dragonslayer, I'll definitely be using Nano Super Shotgun, or if I can't find one, Nano Shotgun. The other Shotguns are weaker and/or have a worse shotgun blast type, funny enough. Tactical Shotgun (P) is definitely the way to go until finding the needed Nano Pack.
It'll be pretty fun to test out all 3 sets that I haven't used before! I'm definitely going to build around using Shotguns until I find Dragonslayer, but I want to make sure I have Berserker early to help with picking it up. Maybe a spare Rocket Launcher and some Hatred Skulls will come in handy too. Scouts are also great with their extra movement speed and stair sense, along with the speedy Phaseshift set that I'll be able to fly through the floors once my build is complete. I'll need to kill most of everything early on to get that experience, but later will just be trying to get to the end without dying. I imagine the Apostle himself is weak though. This will also be a decent warm-up and learning experience for the eventual Ao666 on Nightmare.
With any luck, I can also find Subtle Knife and BFG10K as well to work on finishing my badges around collecting Uniques. I intend to grind for Apostle Insignia until I get it, but I'm also going to repeat this challenge a couple times until I also get 3x of everything. Shottyhead helped a lot last time, but I think with some caution, I'll be just fine without it.
I'm sure most of this strategizing is known and/or obvious, but it's my favorite part about gaming and I can't help but gush about it! <3 I think this grind will be a blast to do!
150
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 04, 2017, 14:42 »
Thanks!
Day 27:
With Apostle now done, I tried out a few challenges and rotated around. I had a few decent runs at some of them, but died repeatedly. Eventually, I decided to try for Masochist Gold Badge, and tried to combine Masochism+Pacifism, given that I'd get a guaranteed health boost every 3 levels. I think it's a decent strategy, but it wasn't working out for me. Instead, I opted for Max Carnage instead and that worked out much better. Since I'm a fairly careful and defensive player, the lack of health wasn't too big of a deal.
I focused a lot on killing everything since I wanted to keep up a flow of healing, and ended up getting 100% kills! I was at the Spider Mastermind and decided to nuke her for fun and continue the run with JC. Until now, I never got a kill on him with Max Carnage, but with more levels, Dodgemaster, and a BFG, it went much better! 51/50! :P
Dodgemaster is slowly becoming one of my new favorite traits! Fighting the Cyberdemon with it is a total joke.
After that, I went for Hunter Platinum Badge with Darkness+Overconfidence. Despite it being Nightmare, I figured I could luck out with Homing Phase Devices, Invulnerability, and nearby staircases. I had quite a few games where I got essentially insta-killed, and lots of troll runs too:
Guess I didn't have a choice with the game taunting me. :P
Eventually though, I managed to get a completed run. With Intuition, the Spider Mastermind fight was easy and I went about my usual corner camping to slowly kill her:
Pretty good to get 2 more badges! I can only expect that I'll have days, and eventually even weeks where I won't be earning anything new. It's already getting pretty tough! Hopefully things will keep going well for now!
Day 27:
With Apostle now done, I tried out a few challenges and rotated around. I had a few decent runs at some of them, but died repeatedly. Eventually, I decided to try for Masochist Gold Badge, and tried to combine Masochism+Pacifism, given that I'd get a guaranteed health boost every 3 levels. I think it's a decent strategy, but it wasn't working out for me. Instead, I opted for Max Carnage instead and that worked out much better. Since I'm a fairly careful and defensive player, the lack of health wasn't too big of a deal.
I focused a lot on killing everything since I wanted to keep up a flow of healing, and ended up getting 100% kills! I was at the Spider Mastermind and decided to nuke her for fun and continue the run with JC. Until now, I never got a kill on him with Max Carnage, but with more levels, Dodgemaster, and a BFG, it went much better! 51/50! :P
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Dodgemaster is slowly becoming one of my new favorite traits! Fighting the Cyberdemon with it is a total joke.
After that, I went for Hunter Platinum Badge with Darkness+Overconfidence. Despite it being Nightmare, I figured I could luck out with Homing Phase Devices, Invulnerability, and nearby staircases. I had quite a few games where I got essentially insta-killed, and lots of troll runs too:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Guess I didn't have a choice with the game taunting me. :P
Eventually though, I managed to get a completed run. With Intuition, the Spider Mastermind fight was easy and I went about my usual corner camping to slowly kill her:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pretty good to get 2 more badges! I can only expect that I'll have days, and eventually even weeks where I won't be earning anything new. It's already getting pretty tough! Hopefully things will keep going well for now!