Chaosforge Forum

DRL => Post Mortem => Nightmare! => Topic started by: Asbadagba on April 18, 2026, 09:21

Title: (v0.10.8) [N!|91%|YAVP] Strongman Angelic
Post by: Asbadagba on April 18, 2026, 09:21
video:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

build order:

Bru, Bru, TaN, TaN, Bru, Ber, HR, HR, Fin, Fin, WK, Bru, Bru, WK, HR

for the build - I went with a weird scout masterless melee/tank.
vampyre used to be the way to go for this badge in earlier versions, the idea being you just find a cozy corner and shift+w until all the enemies stumble their way towards you

That doesn't work at all in the current version of the game, you have to be aggresive now:
first of all vampyre's defence has been nerfed massively, it's nowhere near the killdozer type build that it used to be
enemies now have patrol routes instead of random wandering, so you can't just use the same barrel fort for the whole floor
not to mention the new enrage timer also shuts down any kind of camping strat in the early game - 15 minutes might sound like a lot, but it's not that much when you're constantly dancing around and luring enemies one-by-one into doorways

I went masterless so I could become as tanky as possible:
tough as nails gives you +1 protection and +10% energy resistance per level
berserk gives you +4 resistance and +50% resistance to everything
then i made myself some nanofiber red armor, which is +2 protection (and a further +2 resistance if i can get whizkid and a power mod)

i don't have the constant healing that vampyre provides, but that's fine, most of the enemies won't be dealing much damage to me anyway

I guess survivalist could also work, but that blocks berserker which really sucks for the low damage of the fists and you're still going to be struggling in the early game anyway

i still have to open with at least brute x2, the fists deal a laughable 1d3 damage without brute.
even if I'm fighting things one by one, 1d3 is just not going to cut it,
so I settled on brute 2, that lets me TKO imps after i tap them with a pistol

oh and speaking of, you're not actually going to be playing fists only, you can still use any weapon you want, you just have to make sure that the finishing blow is with your fists
(or with a melee from your guns, which also counts as fisting)
"other" kills are also allowed, this includes stuff like infighting, pinkies diving into lava, enemies killing themselves with barrels, etc.
^your offensive capabilities are very limited, so you might just have to get creative with some of your kills

for the weaker enemies, the play was to tap them with the pistol in order to get their attention and then I JUDO CHOP them while hiding behind cover
I kept a shotgun for stronger enemies, but you have to be careful so as to not accidentally shotgun a zombie/imp in the process
the shotgun can also be used to tap weaker enemies from afar (since the pistol is really bad outside of vision)
there's also the knife, throwing it is a safe bet when the shotgun is too dangerous and if a caco/knight gets in your face... well you might as well knife it a bunch before you finish it off with a punch

floors:

phobos 1 is kind of annoying, but it's not too bad
if the zombies eat your medikits you should just restart,
YOU'RE GONNA NEED'EM

phobos 2-5 is insane, more than 99% of my fails were here!
it's often said that the most difficult part of drl is the early game,
but this badge is by far the most extreme example of that.
if you get any kind of hot start, maze, cacodemon vault with someone opening the door, lack of powerups, and so on; then you are going to die.

i don't think there's any point in going into an in-depth analysis for phobos here, just hope you can get plenty of cover and berserk packs for the knights.
if you get some really stupid floor that you can't do, then at least try and stairdive; 90% kills is a lot, but you do have space to skip a few floors
you can make up for it later once you get to deimos
(and if it's still not enough then you can always just pin a pain elemental up against a wall and keep punting lost souls)

the chained court isn't peanuts either, you can normally gun down all the zombies quite easily, but that's not an option here, so you're gonna be taking a lot of chip damage
still, if you use your berserk packs right, then you leave without any lost medikits

phobos 6-7 is more spinning the wheel of levelgen, but this time you can actually fight back somewhat

anomaly isn't too bad, you get some armor and health for free,
the nightmare enemies are far too strong for me to fight, so I just rocket jumped past all of it

as mentioned earlier, once you get to deimos it gets way easier
the hard part becomes making sure you don't accidently kill something with a gun (as I did... twice...)

eventually you'll become strong enough to where you can just start going ham as if it's a regular melee game
brute x5 means you'll be doing 16-18 damage per punch (x2 if you're berserked), that's actually on par with a chainsaw without brute (if you ignore accuracy); it's enough damage to where you can genuinely start clearing floors fists-only

I didn't bother with any of the other special floors, most of the challenge was in phobos and so I didn't wanna take any chances once I got past it
(i would've checked out deimos lab though. there's plenty of cover and health crates there, but I got the armory instead)

mortem:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)