Chaosforge Forum

DoomRL => Post Mortem => Topic started by: Sereg on February 02, 2017, 13:58

Title: [U|100%|AoMC+AoRA|YAAM] Quartermaster Diamond + more
Post by: Sereg on February 02, 2017, 13:58
I've been working on this one for awhile - the early game's a giant pain in the ass. Once the build gets rolling, though, it gets pretty easy - Intuition->Cateye makes it safe and simple to snipe(or blast) enemies before they can get in range, multiple levels of HR and Finesse reduce time passage significantly, and those Phase Boots and an ample supply of A modkits didn't hurt. The only real issue was Ammo - I started dropping medkits as I realized I wasn't really using them, and collecting large quantities of Energy Cells on the levels where I found them, so that issue went away. Managed to find invulnerability on Hell 7, so damageless Mastermind was trivial, since my damage output with HP Plasma Rifle and AoMC was more then enough to finish her before the duration lapsed.

Not sure how doable this badge would be without the AoMC pairing allowed by the Dual Angel challenge mode. Max Carnage synergizes well with the safety of the build, and the extra accuracy and damage is paramount to clearing levels in time. Quartermaster Angelic, requiring AAoRA and so disallowing Dual Angel mode, as well as more then halving the time limit(even with the lower kill percentage requirement), is probably not realistically possible - but then that seems to be true of many Angelic challenges.

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Title: Re: [U|100%|AoMC+AoRA|YAAM] Quartermaster Diamond + more
Post by: Tormuse on February 03, 2017, 22:52
This is pretty cool.  I wouldn't have considered doing an Angel of Red Alert game with a Cateye build!  (And getting Hellrunner so late!)  :o  I guess Int 2 helped you locate your enemies and MC helped you kill them faster, eh?  :)  Well done!  :D  (Though you skipped Chained Court?  All those berserk packs give such nice speed boosts, though!)  :o

And yeah, ArchAoRA is really tough.  Basically, everything you do has to be based on speed, speed, and more speed.  I recommend a Gunrunner build for that, since you can potentially be firing, reloading, and running at the same time.
Title: Re: [U|100%|AoMC+AoRA|YAAM] Quartermaster Diamond + more
Post by: Sereg on February 03, 2017, 23:11
With my first couple of attempts at this, I found that I failed often because I couldn't track down the last few enemies on a level, and with the requirement for YAAM with this challenge, finding everyone within 5 minutes was a priority. I started opening with Intuition, and noticed a significant improvement in progress before death, so I just stuck with it.

Intuition naturally inclined me toward Cateye, and with AoMC this was doubly useful for finding all the enemies, and for staying out of harm's way.

Hellrunner was the next priority after MCe, since movement speed was the next major issue I faced with this challenge. Knowing where everyone is helps a lot and was the top priority, but with some level layouts I still struggled to get where I needed to go - especially levels with teleporters sending enemies back to areas I had previously cleared. I debated Finesse -> Juggler, but decided that movement time was a greater risk then firing and switching time combined, especially with MC helping out the damage output(meaning fewer trigger pulls per kill). After the first two levels of HR and the discovery of Phase boots, that was the next thing I addressed before finishing HR, and instant switches definitely helped while I was having ammo troubles - I was juggling a chaingun and a plasma rifle to conserve ammo and depending on what kind of target I was engaging, and being able to switch in zero time was definitely a plus both for safety and for level completion.

One more comment on the early game - reloading kills. My habit of automatically reloading after every engagement was very costly in terms of time, and I had to switch to a more controlled style where I only reloaded when I was empty, or down to the last burst or two in the magazine with a bigger enemy approaching. AoMC was also an immense help here, because most softer targets only took one burst to go down, and even bigger stuff like Knights went down in two, so not having a full magazine wasn't as much of an issue as it usually is for me. This is another area where I anticipate serious problems with QM Angelic - If I ever decide to try that, I'll definitely look into the gunrunner build.