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Actually, my mistake, I was using the N! number there, the earliest a nightmare arachnotron cave should appear (assuming I have the difficulty numbers right) is 46 on UV.  On N! they can start at 43.  Assuming the wiki is accurate, this difference isn't that big.  The real problem is that you have to be able to murder your way through a pile of nightmare arachnotrons by dungeon level 43 or so, and it's not immediately clear to me what the best way to do that is.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Yeah, without a lucky invulnerability globe on the previous floor, these would be incredibly dangerous, and I'm also not sure how I'd approach one.

Is there no way to avoid or limit the damage from them?  Shamblers and cyberdemons are huge HP sponges, but their burst damage potential is weaker than many normal enemies.  Is it the accumulation of damage or the burst that's the problem?  Why is fire immunity mandatory, as opposed to very high fire resistance being sufficient?

It's been a long time since I've played much, so maybe my memory is not quite perfectly accurate, but I recall shamblers as being very accurate and doing very high damage. Cyberdemons come in Complexes, not Caves, and they'll soon start to annihilate all the walls near you, exposing you to fire from more and more of them simultaneously and severely limiting your positioning options. It's not so much accumulation or burst as it is aggregation - once you have 5 or 6 of them firing at you every action, it's pretty easy to get one-shot, even if you could otherwise mitigate damage from a smaller number. And 5 or 6 is a low estimate of what you might be facing even on spawn, much less later on as they start to collapse on you. Fire Immunity is necessary for Cyberdemons because as I mentioned, they tear up the walls and you're soon under attack from absolutely stupid numbers of them every turn, while lava elementals, if memory serves, have a napalm effect, which will eventually leave you with nowhere on the level to stand that isn't fire.

A nanoshrapnel shotgun would be the best non-melee option, but any nanomanufacture high damage weapon would probably be sufficient with an appropriate build.  I don't think melee is required.

You are correct, nanoshrapnel is excellent for agony/pain elementals and lost souls, while other nanomachic weapons would certainly help. Of course, this does mean that, in addition to everywhere else on the run where luck is going to be key, you'll need to find a nano pack before your first agony cave. Not impossible, certainly, but by no means a given.

FWIW I encountered two late-game Nightmare Demon caves this game and cleared both of them without any significant trouble.  Having the Jackhammer helped, but I suspect any build with sufficient shotgun firepower could manage.

Jackhammer was actually probably a lot more clutch there than you think - most other shotguns don't have the same potential for AoE knockback even in a single firing, and nothing else offers multiple bursts prior to a reload. A nanoshrapnel shotgun would be helpful here, but offers far less damage per shot(meaning both less killing potential and less knockback), putting you in severe danger of being surrounded and overwhelmed. However, you make a valid point - with proper positioning and a reasonably powerful shotgun build, they might not be run-ending.

Gambler's ruin is definitely the problem I would absolutely be worried about, though I think horrible normal levels should also be on the list.  (Elite formers feature prominently in my nightmares.)

Yeah, I have a feeling this would be the true death of any attempt at such a mortem. Even with excellent luck for hundreds of levels, most attempts will eventually encounter a situation that can't be survived while maintaining the 100% killcount. I can't imagine many people would have the persistence to keep at this one long enough to complete it, especially considering the very high difficulty of even getting such a run started, and the overwhelming tedium and time investment required by the full N! clears.

I wouldn't go quite that far, I think the Speedrun Angelic is outright impossible ;).  This one is merely almost impossible.

Actually, I suspect Speedrun is quite doable. I've never been much of a speedrunner at any game, and I managed an 8:07 N! win on graphical mode after a relatively small number of attempts. Granted, that's still less than half the speed demanded by the badge, but I think that if someone were to dedicate enough time and practice to speedruns, they'd eventually get a set of floors that was winnable in that time. A big part of that is building up the instinct needed to react almost instantly to various situations, and then have that instinct be correct during the winnable run. In any case, while the number of attempts to achieve this would certainly be higher than for Centurial Archangelic, the time cost per failed attempt is, by definition, almost insignificant.

Now, if we want to create a Speedrun Challenge worthy of an Archangelic Badge, might I suggest Compet-n Silver Cross on N! Ao100? ;)

Of course, if we insist on Archangelic Badges requiring Archangel challenge games, then Compet-n Silver is probably out of the running - maybe N! AAo666 in under three hours?

Either one is about 3-4 floors a minute(18 seconds per floor for Ao100, or 16 seconds per floor for AAo666), which is slightly more lenient than the current Speedrunner Angelic - the extra challenge comes from the lack of exploitable special floors, and the marathon grind(note that the slowest actual award, Compet-n Silver, would require a pace of 22.2 floors per minute, or about 2.7 seconds per floor[!], which I suspect is well and truly outside of the realm of possibility - probably even for an optimal AI, at least in a number of attempts that could be made in anything approaching a human lifespan).

Not necessarily - but on N!, they spawn earlier and with larger numbers of enemies than on U.

Actually, my mistake, I was using the N! number there, the earliest a nightmare arachnotron cave should appear (assuming I have the difficulty numbers right) is 46 on UV.  On N! they can start at 43.  Assuming the wiki is accurate, this difference isn't that big.  The real problem is that you have to be able to murder your way through a pile of nightmare arachnotrons by dungeon level 43 or so, and it's not immediately clear to me what the best way to do that is.

And as I mentioned, there are worse types of caves that can also spawn - I mentioned Shamblers and Cyberdemons, which are both worse than even Nightmare Arachnotrons.   Lava and Agony Elemental Caves are also possible, and without fire immunity, Cyberdemons and Lava Elementals are all but certain death.

Is there no way to avoid or limit the damage from them?  Shamblers and cyberdemons are huge HP sponges, but their burst damage potential is weaker than many normal enemies.  Is it the accumulation of damage or the burst that's the problem?  Why is fire immunity mandatory, as opposed to very high fire resistance being sufficient?

Agony Elementals aren't quite so deadly, but clearing them with ammo is almost impossible, and clearing them with melee can be extremely painful - I don't think I'd want to try it without Vampire, which imposes some rather problematic restrictions on your build path.

A nanoshrapnel shotgun would be the best non-melee option, but any nanomanufacture high damage weapon would probably be sufficient with an appropriate build.  I don't think melee is required.

There are also Nightmare Demon caves, which are an absolute atrocity to survive, much less clear.

FWIW I encountered two late-game Nightmare Demon caves this game and cleared both of them without any significant trouble.  Having the Jackhammer helped, but I suspect any build with sufficient shotgun firepower could manage.

Ultimately, the point I was making is that there are a hell of a lot of ways to end an AAo666 run, especially on Nightmare!, and a lot of those ways are out of your control as a player - if you get a bad level/spawn, you need to flee or die, and a prospective YAAM run prevents fleeing, leaving only death as an option.

Gambler's ruin is definitely the problem I would absolutely be worried about, though I think horrible normal levels should also be on the list.  (Elite formers feature prominently in my nightmares.)

While I certainly still believe it's within the realm of possibility, I think it's easily more challenging than almost any Angelic badge in existence - certainly it's a big step farther than the associated Angelic badge, Centurial Angelic. If it were an actual challenge, I'd call it Archangelic Centurial - but of course, we don't need such a category when only a handful of players can even touch the ordinary Angelics =P

I wouldn't go quite that far, I think the Speedrun Angelic is outright impossible ;).  This one is merely almost impossible.

I encountered the nightmare arachnotron cave on 47, which is close to as early as it's possible to get one.  (43, if I'm reading the wiki correctly and its information is up to date, I haven't looked at the code for this section myself.)  I killed about one half arc of arachnotrons before I had to flee, and I assumed that part of this was because of my newness and relative incompetence.  (I ran out of plasma cells because of bad ammo management, my weapons and traits weren't particularly optimized, I didn't have back up armor for when the energy shield fell apart, and so on.)  The rest of it was that I wasn't actually committed to fighting it out: rather than standing and fighting where I'd landed, I wasted some actions moving to the up stairs, which were in an open area in the center of the cavern.  If I'd wanted to maximize my odds of clearing it, I would have tried to find reduce the damage I was taking at the cost of maybe not making it out.  Because of this, I'd assumed that nightmare arachnotron caves would be more tractable for a stronger character played by someone with more experience expecting to fight it out.

Even if I hadn't made these choices and mistakes, for a much stronger character, nightmare arachnotron caves are still likely death?

Not necessarily - but on N!, they spawn earlier and with larger numbers of enemies than on U. And as I mentioned, there are worse types of caves that can also spawn - I mentioned Shamblers and Cyberdemons, which are both worse than even Nightmare Arachnotrons. Lava and Agony Elemental Caves are also possible, and without fire immunity, Cyberdemons and Lava Elementals are all but certain death. Agony Elementals aren't quite so deadly, but clearing them with ammo is almost impossible, and clearing them with melee can be extremely painful - I don't think I'd want to try it without Vampire, which imposes some rather problematic restrictions on your build path. There are also Nightmare Demon caves, which are an absolute atrocity to survive, much less clear. Also bear in mind that such levels can spawn back to back, or at least near enough together to preclude fully recovering supplies expended on a previous level.

Ultimately, the point I was making is that there are a hell of a lot of ways to end an AAo666 run, especially on Nightmare!, and a lot of those ways are out of your control as a player - if you get a bad level/spawn, you need to flee or die, and a prospective YAAM run prevents fleeing, leaving only death as an option.

While I certainly still believe it's within the realm of possibility, I think it's easily more challenging than almost any Angelic badge in existence - certainly it's a big step farther than the associated Angelic badge, Centurial Angelic. If it were an actual challenge, I'd call it Archangelic Centurial - but of course, we don't need such a category when only a handful of players can even touch the ordinary Angelics =P

Nightmare! has a lot of ways to generate really nasty situations way earlier than you are prepared to handle them. Yeah, the beginning would definitely be rough, but even getting through that, you could easily spawn into a floor that might barely offer the opportunity for survival, much less safe clearing - and some don't even offer that. The Inquisitor set would almost be a must have, since I don't know another way to handle Cyberdemon caves, and Nightmare Arachnotron caves or shambler caves could still ruin the run.

Keep in mind most N! Centurial runs, whether 666 or merely the base 100, rely on finding an exit ASAP and getting the hell on to the next floor... *not* setting up for a clear.

I encountered the nightmare arachnotron cave on 47, which is close to as early as it's possible to get one.  (43, if I'm reading the wiki correctly and its information is up to date, I haven't looked at the code for this section myself.)  I killed about one half arc of arachnotrons before I had to flee, and I assumed that part of this was because of my newness and relative incompetence.  (I ran out of plasma cells because of bad ammo management, my weapons and traits weren't particularly optimized, I didn't have back up armor for when the energy shield fell apart, and so on.)  The rest of it was that I wasn't actually committed to fighting it out: rather than standing and fighting where I'd landed, I wasted some actions moving to the up stairs, which were in an open area in the center of the cavern.  If I'd wanted to maximize my odds of clearing it, I would have tried to find reduce the damage I was taking at the cost of maybe not making it out.  Because of this, I'd assumed that nightmare arachnotron caves would be more tractable for a stronger character played by someone with more experience expecting to fight it out.

Even if I hadn't made these choices and mistakes, for a much stronger character, nightmare arachnotron caves are still likely death?

On top of that, it's 666 floors of no saving. Imagine making it down to floor 500, calling it a night, and forgetting your computer had an automatic restart planned =P

I play on Linux so I don't have that problem ;).

Just for the record - that ArchAo666 UV YAAM run of mine was also full of D***RL running idle, "real" playtime would amount to some 50 hours, give or take some. The run from start to end took me slightly over a month, usually playing no more than 20-ish levels per session. Sometimes only two or three.

<SharpshooterCommercial>
But in the end it paid. Sharpshooters rock even in marathon runs! :)
</SharpshooterCommercial>

Nightmare! has a lot of ways to generate really nasty situations way earlier than you are prepared to handle them. Yeah, the beginning would definitely be rough, but even getting through that, you could easily spawn into a floor that might barely offer the opportunity for survival, much less safe clearing - and some don't even offer that. The Inquisitor set would almost be a must have, since I don't know another way to handle Cyberdemon caves, and Nightmare Arachnotron caves or shambler caves could still ruin the run.

Keep in mind most N! Centurial runs, whether 666 or merely the base 100, rely on finding an exit ASAP and getting the hell on to the next floor... *not* setting up for a clear.

On top of that, it's 666 floors of no saving. Imagine making it down to floor 500, calling it a night, and forgetting your computer had an automatic restart planned =P

Centurial Angelic is doable, if only with great luck, skill, and persistence. The requirements for Centurial Angelic with Prejudice are far steeper - but possibly still achievable, if only by an extremely skilled player with absurdly good luck - which is why I put forth the name I did, since he seems to fulfil those conditions.

But your comment on time got me curious, and I went browsing the Century Lounge archives... my own Medium ArchAo666 YAAM took nine hours, and ZicherCZ managed it on Ultraviolence in three and a half days.

Personally I wouldn't have been able to finish this run in one session, even if I hadn't left the game running over night by accident.  I don't have that kind of stamina.  A Nightmare run in one session would be right out.

And now I'm tempted to try for a 100% Centurial Angelic run, just for "fun", but unfortunately my profile is on a computer that isn't easily accessible to me in the near future... nor have I ever really even come close to a N! 666 run. My Dervis' Medallion was a melee stairdive(Edit: and I apparently did it in under an hour, with a Minor Icarus Cross to boot) - to replicate even those first 100 levels going for 100% would be much more difficult, to say nothing of extremely tedious =P

Who knows, maybe Tormuse will eventually post such a mortem, though. He has a habit of doing insane things like that...

This might be more doable than you think.  The brutal part would be the beginning, it would be just as hard to get it started as any other early Nightmare challenge.  Assuming you survived that, the one thing that you have in Ao100 in abundance is rockets, so disposing of lots of corpses is doable.  Eventually you'd hope to find a sniper modpack or at least a firestorm modpack (for demolition ammo), or one of the exotics/uniques that blows up corpses, but until then, I suspect rockets would suffice.  Once you have reliable corpse destruction N! is not much worse than UV.

Gonna test that... as I thought you can disassemble anything modded, not just weapons. If it's not true, then you'd anyway need two onyx packs to build that tower shield and lava boots.

You can definitely only disassemble weapons, I tested this as a scavenger at one point because I was curious.

Note for the future - nightmare arachnotrons can shoot in melee range, so they were likely perforating you instead of hitting with melee. This makes them the worst opponents in AoB or melee runs.

That does explain it, thanks.  That's a good thing to know for future runs.

Also I'm not sure why maxing SoB - you'll get increasing knockback chances with rapid fire, mostly moving your target off the line of fire. This helps shotguns, sure, but works worse for whatever shoots more than once and does not cover an area. I'd rather amp EE instead of SoB at level 13, since more frequent hits at full distance really mean saving ammo.

If I had it to do over again, I'd probably advance EE sooner.  (Also, not accidentally getting Ironman so early would have helped.)  I was checking the combat logs, though, and missing was not that big a problem with the hyperblaster.  I missed a fair amount with the gatling gun, but I didn't care because I had more than enough ammo for it.  I didn't notice many enemies getting knocked out of my line of fire?

And finally, how come your Ao100 lasted 4 DAYS?! This timer only counts in-game elapsed time, so you really had to spend over a hundred hours on that game. And it says you saved several times. Saving more than once is normal, but 4 days with saving? REALLY? For records, my only UV Ao100 run took 9 hours of elapsed time and a single save.

Forgetfulness :).  I left the game running overnight at least twice because I forgot to save before bed, then didn't come back to it until the next evening.  I also left it running while doing things like cooking and eating dinner because I was having trouble deciding what to keep and what to drop in my inventory, and I couldn't save before making that decision.  You do these things a few times and it starts to add up.  The game took more than a week to play.

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

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Crash, level 14 Mancubus Warrant Officer Technician,
 committed a stupid suicide on level 41 of Hell.
 He survived 107399 turns and scored 138914 points.
 He played for 2 hours, 4 minutes and 8 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 648 out of 689 hellspawn. (94%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of 100!

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

  Levels generated : 0
  Levels visited   : 0
  Levels completed : 0

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

  None

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

  ###########################################################
  ###.#.............#.+.......#.........+...0#.......#\...+..
  ###.#^...0........#.#.......#^......0.#....#.......#....#..
  ###.#..........[..#.#......./.........#...0+.......+....#..
  ###.#######+#######.#.......#.^.......#....#.......#....#..
  ###.................+.......#....=....+...}#......0#....+..
  ######+####+####/#######/####/##==+#######=####+####+######
  ###................./.......#.====....+====#.......#..../..
  ###.................#.......#..==...=.#==..#......===.+.#..
  ###.................#......./..==.==..#==..=.......===..#..
  ###...............|.#.......#..===....#.=====..[...===.0#..
  ###.......|.........+.......#.=====...+.==.#=.....=====.+..
  ######/####/#.##/#..===#===#====##+#######=####/####+######
  ###........0....c..==X===..====.......+.....;./............
  ###........i.........=....===.=.......#.......#/#########..
  ###.................#.......==/.......####/####./......\#..
  ###########+#.#.#############=#.......#.......#.#.......#..
  ###.................+.........#......./.......#.#0..0...+%.
  ###########################################################
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 92708/14
  ToHit Ranged +6  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +3  ToDmg Melee +3

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

  Class : Technician

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 3)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Scavenger        (Level 1)

  EE->EE->Int->WK->WK->MSc->Int->Fin->Jug->SoB->SoB->Fin->EE->SoB->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [2/5] (S1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   cerberus steel boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   rocket box (x6)

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

    [a] hyperblaster (2d4)x3 [40/40]
    [b] fire shield [4/4] (153%)
    [c] ballistic vest [1/1] (100%)
    [d] rocket (x6)
    [e] power cell (x50)
    [f] power cell (x25)
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] homing phase device
    [o] homing phase device
    [p] bulk mod pack
    [q] bulk mod pack
    [r] bulk mod pack
    [s] nano pack
    [t] shockwave pack
    [u] antigrav protective boots [2/2] (100%)
    [v] rocket box (x20)

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

    Acid       - internal 0%    torso 0%    feet 100%
    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 0%    feet 100%

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

    84 former humans
    98 former sergeants
    64 former captains
    87 imps
    37 demons
    73 lost souls
    21 cacodemons
    19 hell knights
    23 barons of hell
    29 arachnotrons
    9 former commandos
    4 pain elementals
    12 revenants
    37 mancubi
    40 arch-viles
    5 nightmare imps
    6 nightmare demons

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

  Level 17 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 17 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 20 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  On level 21 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 23 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  On level 28 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 28 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 29, hell froze over!
  On level 34 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
  On level 35 he assembled a fire shield!
  On level 35 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  Level 37 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 41 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  On level 41 he finally committed a stupid suicide.

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

 wear/wield : a tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [0/5] (S1)
 You quickly reload the tactical rocket launcher.
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : a nightmare imp (unhurt) | floor | [ m ]ore
 The missile hits the nightmare imp.
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : a nightmare imp (wounded) | floor | [ m ]ore
 The missile hits the nightmare imp.
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : a nightmare imp (severely wounded) | floor | [ m ]ore
 Targeting canceled.
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : a nightmare demon (wounded) | open door | [ m ]ore
 The missile hits the nightmare demon. The barrel explodes! Your duelist armor
 is damaged! The barrel explodes! Your duelist armor is completely destroyed!
 You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 256 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 222 of those were killed.
 2 of those were killed by something unknown.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 21 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 10 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 2 killed the bitch and survived.
 7 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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

So I'd been doing a bunch of Angel of 100 runs as a Scavenger, primarily for the sake of building all Assemblies, every time I washed out and mostly pretty early.

Here I got in DEEP, from having managed to buid a load of awesome stuff, then nearaly halfway through I rocket-jumped with my projectile hitting a barrel and the explosions annihliated me...

I could probably pull it off again, but this feels so bad that I really want to do something else isntead.