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Destroyer Diamond has a fairly infamous history; prior to 0.9.9.5, it was absurdly easy for a Diamond, requiring just beating Angel of Max Carnage on N! with no Ironman or Tough as Nails, traits that were pretty useless in AoMC anyway, while AoMC itself was well known for being easier than the standard game, and as a result it was the most commonly won Diamond, with the old Badge Hunters thread listing nearly two dozen players reporting winning it across pre-0.9.9.5 versions. This badge got completely changed in 0.9.9.5 accordingly, with it having no trait restriction but instead now having a requirement of winning N! AoMC with the Untouchable Cross, i.e. you must win with under 50 damage taken. However the badge was bugged, which wouldn't be fixed until 0.9.9.7, the version that introduced Dual Angels, which brought along the cheese strategy of Sereging, i.e. combining challenges with Angel of Overconfidence or other challenges that makes their badges easier to obtain. One thing with Destroyer Diamond is that it doesn't actually require the Untouchable Cross itself despite the badge's description, rather it directly checks if you finish the game with under 50 damage taken. As a consequence, while AoOC normally disqualifies you from winning the Untouchable Cross, it does not disqualify you from earning the Destroyer badges if you combine AoMC with AoOC. This make Destroyer Diamond one of, if not the most blatantly cheesable badge by Sereging, as it's much easier to finish with under 50 damage taken when you got only 7 floors and a Mastermind that's easily bullied in AoMC to get through, and can just spam resets until you spawn near an Invuln that prevents you from taking any damage. If you have the scruples to not resort to abusing such a blatant oversight and actually go for Destroyer Diamond the intended way in pure Angel of Max Carnage with no other challenges combined with it, it becomes possibly the most difficult Diamond in the game (aside from the slot machine that is pure Arena Diamond) and more difficult than many Angelic badges; the only player who reported actually winning pure Destroyer Diamond in 0.9.9.7 is papilio, one of DRL's greatest players who once held the record for most Diamonds with 23, and unlike most other players, he got all his Diamonds without abusing Dual Angels. I could have easily gotten this badge in 0.9.9.7 long ago if I just Sereg'd it like other people did, but as made clear in all my other Diamond runs, I think Sereging heavily cheapens the accomplishment of any badges won from it, and so I made it a point to get all these Diamonds without any Dual Angel abuse, which meant having to get Destroyer Diamond through the much more brutal way of pure AoMC.

So with the preamble done, what is the difficulty with pure Destroyer Diamond? You do get the massive offensive benefit of AoMC that makes it much easier to avoid ever getting hit, but the 49 damage buffer you're allowed is very very strict, especially when enemies are dealing max damage anytime they do hit you. Getting shot by a Former Human in Green or Blue Armor will result in you taking 6 damage, normally not a big deal at all, but here, that's already over 10% of your total damage allowance. Get hit by an Imp fireball in Blue Armor, that's 8 damage, get caught out by an Imp group in the open and that can be the end of the run right there. Get hit by a Hell Knight or Cacodemon plasma ball in Blue Armor, that's 9 damage, take a few of those and your damage allowance is already over halfway used up. Step into a Shotgunner's sight at mid-range, that's gonna be 12+ damage, even shrapnel doubling armor protection won't save you from taking a big hit. Those Chaingunners you can normally scoff at? A single burst from them will deal 16 damage with Green or Blue Armor on, that's basically a third of the damage you can take. Then you better not get hit by any Barons without a certain trait, when they're dealing 20 damage before armor, even a P-modded Red Armor reduces that to just 14. And you absolutely can't ever give a Commando the chance to fire on you, when their Plasma Rifle burst does 30 damage in Blue or Red Armor, and even with said armor P-modded, the 24 damage they'll inflict is still half of the total damage you can take. Then you got the Arachnotrons and VMR soon after... In short, AoMC may give you obscene offensive power to better control encounters and avoid getting hit, but Destroyer Diamond's under 50 damage requirement alongside enemies also getting AoMC's offensive boost means you can make very few mistakes, and it only takes a couple hot starts with unavoidable damage for you to run out the measly 49 damage total you're allowed to take, even just making it out of Phobos with under 50 damage is a hell of a feat, especially when it ends in N! Phobos Anomaly that is brutal to not just die in, let alone get through it without taking significant damage.

Now to discuss the build. Obviously it's going to be opening up with Intuition 2, a must for any badge where extreme damage avoidance is required, especially so in AoMC where any single stray hit is so overwhelmingly punishing, while AoMC offense means you don't feel the power loss as much with taking Intuition instead of direct combat-boosting traits as you would normally. Papilio in his pure Destroyer Diamond would get Hellrunner, Dodgemaster, and then build to Cateye, a typical AoMC build, however I'm going to be doing things differently. After Int2 I get Finesse and Juggler; as demonstrated in many of my other runs, Juggler is a very powerful early game trait, and that's especially so in Destroyer Diamond when instantly swapping between several Shotguns, AoMC-boosted rapids, and even the Rocket Launcher are going to be required to avoid getting hit in any bad hot starts or other bad combat scenarios where I'm caught out without good cover. I then go for maybe the unusual selections of Brute 2 and Berserker; the Brute levels are pretty much dead levels and actually meleeing enemies is out of the question when you can take so little damage, but Berserker is important for two critical reasons. One, Berserker, already a very powerful defensive trait, becomes even more powerful in AoMC when Revenants, Mancubi, Barons, and Shotgunners from within 5 tiles are now guaranteed to always trigger it if they hit you, which in effect gives you permanent +60% resistance against these enemies, so with just vanilla Red Armor, you'll reduce all Revenant, Mancubi, and close/midrange shotgun blasts to 1 damage, while Baron acid balls will get reduced to 4 damage, 2 if you got your Red Armor Power-modded. Ideally you want to avoid getting hit at all, but reducing their damage by such a huge amount will keep your run alive when any mistakes around them could otherwise instantly end a good run with how hard they hit, or if you get into a scenario where you have to choose getting hit either by them or other enemies, you can kill the other enemies and take the hit from them that will deal much less damage, as well as give you the berserk speed boost to farther avoid additional damage, The second critical reason for Berserker is it's your only way to get through N! Anomaly with minimal damage without a lucky Phobos 7 Invuln or gambling with a Phase Device to not only teleport you past the ambush but also teleport you past the Bruisers. With the 50 max HP you'll have by default as a Scout or Technician, AoMC will make rocket jumps with the vanilla Rocket Launcher always trigger Berserker. Why is this important? Without an Invuln, the reliable way to get past the N! Anomaly ambush and through the Bruisers is to rocket jump, but an AoMC rocket jump does a hefty 18 damage; Red Armor reduces that to 10 damage, 8 if P-modded, and so that will be 20/16 damage if you rocket jump past the ambush and through the Bruisers, which is just too much and chances are you won't even be able to take that damage without it sending your total damage to 50+. If you make a Fireproof Red Armor, that will reduce rocket jump damage to 4 and so 8 total, this is a lot more palatable but every damage point counts and you may not even be able to afford taking that damage without failing Destroyer Diamond by the time of Anomaly, while chances are also that you won't be able to make a Fireproof Red Armor unless you clear both Chained Court and the Phobos 7 special level, which is a tall order within Destroyer Diamond's constraints. A radsuit on top of the Fireproof Red Armor would reduce jump damage to 1, but you're not guaranteed one before Anomaly either unless you do Military Base or Phobos Lab. Meanwhile with Berserker triggering on a rocket jump in AoMC, with just a vanilla Red Armor it'll reduce rocket jump damage to 1, so you're guaranteed to only take 2 damage in Phobos Anomaly if you don't get a Phobos 7 Invuln, eliminating the luck needed to get past N! Anomaly with Destroyer Diamond intact (provided you don't make it to Anomaly with exactly 48 or 49 damage already taken), while it can also save your run if rocket jumping is your only way to escape any hot start with minimal damage. Plus I will try to Invuln rush as much of the post-Phobos portion as possible, and berserked Chainsaw will kill bosses faster than even an AoMC Plasma Rifle will, thus burning less Invuln killing them. After Berserker the aim will be for Shottyhead, which is my best answer to getting through hot starts unscathed, but I may not get the levels for it and may have to audible on it, as you'll see later...

The first major obstacle of the run is Phobos Base Entry. As mentioned prior, even a Former pistol shot takes away over 10% of the damage you're allowed to take total, so you really want to get a damageless Phobos Base Entry, but with the AoMC accuracy boost, Former Humans will now actually be able to hit you while you have running active and even with running's dodge bonus you have a well below 50% chance to dodge their bullets, so now you need a lot more luck than just "hope the Shotgunners don't leave the building early". You really need this Phobos Entry layout in particular, as it'll let you get behind good cover before any of the Formers can see you, which is your only reliable away to avoid damage from the Formers before you can get a Shotgun. This layout can also work despite me normally not liking it (with this being the winning run), as it does give you immediate cover, but you'll still need some luck to make it work, as the Formers can pop up at bad angles or multiple can approach you from different angles at once, where damage then can't be avoided (you also gotta remember that you can't try camping behind the narrow tunnel, as it creates one of those weird diagonal LoS angles that enemies can see you but you can't see them, so you have to camp at the top or bottom to avoid enemies getting free shots on you). Any other layout will require far more luck to get through damageless. If you opt to try killing the Formers in the open instead as papilio did in his run, without a Shotgun, you need to get lucky blind firing with your Pistol, having the timing luckily line up to get a double shot off whenever a Former step into vision, or get very lucky with a Former deciding not to shoot when you're in vision (Formers have a 75% attack chance normally, I'm unsure how that interacts with N!'s +50% enemy attack chance modifier but you might have better odds of Former Humans rolling the minimum 2% miss chance that persists even in AoMC than you would with them deciding to not attack on N!); even if you open with SoB, you can't one-shot the Formers with your Pistol, so avoiding damage here in the open would require even more luck than resetting until you get one of the viable layouts. There are going to be many resets in Phobos Base Entry inbetween real attempts, there's just no way around it, you don't want to settle for an imperfect Phobos Entry and then end up losing Destroyer Diamond in the end by a margin of =<8 damage after you took a Pistol shot at the start.

Phobos 2 will be another reset point, as you won't immediately have Int2 and won't have Juggler, so any hot start can immediately cause unavoidable damage, while you have to play very carefully before you have Int2 if you don't got an immediately accessible good camping spot (or the game just says fuck you and immediately spawns you in a position where acid damage is unavoidable, as happened in this run that I then had to immediately Q+Y out). As long as you don't get a bad start, you should be able to get through Phobos 2 damageless, and if you do get hit, you should probably reset, because again you don't want to play through a long Destroyer Diamond game after getting hit in Phobos 2 just to lose it by a margin of 8 or less damage. After clearing out Phobos 2, there is then the question of if to do Hell's Arena; papilio in his run didn't and it's understandable as anything optional is more chances to get hit, but I would say not doing so is a mistake, since getting a Rocket Launcher before Anomaly is critical as explained previously, while having access to reliable corpse disposal is also obviously immensely useful when a badly timed respawn can end such a fragile run (especially so when intentionally eating fireballs on corpses to destroy them is not viable here), and rocket jumping is needed to much more efficiently Invuln rush the post-Phobos portion of the run. AoMC additionally makes Hell's Arena much easier, even on N! you can manage it damageless without serious difficulty (and I would indeed clear Hell's Arena damageless, which will net me the Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal too, one of the three medals I have left), though you could accept taking a single hit from a non-Baron here if doing Hell's Arena damageless would cause too many resets for you. If you skip Hell's Arena, you have to get lucky with a Rocket Launcher spawning on Phobos 7 or in a vault to get one prior to Anomaly, and if you're unlucky, you may not get one for Invuln rushing until deep into Deimos, if you can even make it that far, while you're far more at the mercy of Phobos level generation when you can't destroy Hell Noble corpses or other troublesome corpses on demand. Papilio didn't say how many attempts it took him, but I'm sure skipping Hell's Arena made him have to reset far more runs past Phobos 2.

The Phobos 3 to 7 range is perilous, and it is tempting to just stair dive through them whenever possible, but I do mostly clear them out in this run, as I need to hit level 7 before Anomaly in order to get Berserker in time for it. Another benefit of clearing Hell's Arena is it ensures you'll hit level 4 before Phobos 3 and so I have Juggler before that floor range. After a damageless Phobos 3, I would get a bad floor on Phobos 4, where I spawned in an open area that I had to use crates for cover while a Cacodemon vault nearby got opened, and at one point I accidentally stepped into a Shotgunner's vision, where that was suddenly 13 damage gone, over 25% of my total damage allowance depleted over a single mistake. I then got hit by a Lost Soul shortly after, not as bad but now I'm at 18 damage, a couple more floors like this and the run is over. There was farther tense moments when Cacodemons were approaching me from multiple angles while I ran around the small stacks of crates I had for cover, but eventually I managed to kill everything without getting hit again, and the vault would have a Combat Shotgun, very nice to have when I may not get one otherwise when I'll be skipping the Phobos 7 special level. In Phobos 5 I would get a bad Warehouse level where corpse disposal wasn't easy but I would manage to avoid getting hit, up until the end when it came to clearing out two straggling Hell Knights, and after killing them, rather than just blowing them up immediately with my Rocket Launcher, I would get overly stingy by trying to let them revive to kill them in the doorway, which only resulted in one getting up while I was out in the open and then getting hit, knocking me to 27 damage taken. Just like that I was already halfway over my damage allowance and was feeling pessimistic about the run, I was initially thinking of skipping Unchained Court but since I didn't think the run was going all the way, I went in anyway just to see if it would be that bad to do damageless, as the Chainsaw and mods would be helpful. Going into Unchained Court does sound like a really bad idea at first, when even with berserk, the Barons will deal 6 damage to you in Blue Armor, the Arena Master's zap will do 4 damage, and there's a lot of Chaingunners who will do 4 damage minimum even when you have berserk with armor on, while the level starts you surrounded with shoddy cover. However with Int2, you can avoid the usually prevalent problem of walking into a Baron's vision as you exit the center building, as well as avoid walking into any of the Formers' vision, while AoMC offense will let you reliably one-shot any Formers that walk into range, let you much more quickly kill the Barons when plinking them from across the lava pools (that their AI then get stuck on instead of walking around it), and let you corner shoot the Arena Master from the center building once you get his attention. As such, I was able to clear Unchained Court damageless without even grabbing the Chainsaw nor berserks.

After keeping the damageless streak going through Phobos 6, Phobos 7 greeted me with this run-ending predicament. I managed to avoid the run ending there but I don't get out unscathed, as I would again get hit by a Hell Knight, which are actually worse than Barons once you get Berserker since the 12 damage they inflict before defenses are factored is 4 damage shy of the Berserker trigger amount, and so my total damage is up to 36 now, not even out of Phobos yet and I'm already at nearly 75% of the damage I can take after getting hit just four times (a shotgun blast for 13, a Lost Soul charge for 5, and two Hell Knight plasma balls for 18). I would manage to clear the rest of that maze without any additional damage, but in more bad news, there is no Invuln on Phobos 7, I was prepared for that, it's why I made sure to get Berserker before Anomaly, still a damageless Anomaly would have been nice and I could have potentially parlayed that into an Invuln chain that this run is probably going to hinge on to survive when I got only 13 damage left I can take. Military Base spawned for the Phobos 7 special level, which would be doable damageless unlike Phobos Lab, so I considered going in, but I didn't want to spend a good 15 minutes or so playing Military Base extremely cautiously just to lose this run at the start of Deimos, and as mentioned, I'm banking on finding Invulns at this point, so all the mods and juicy EXP there won't really do much to enhance this run's odds of winning. Then it's time for the Anomaly, I did have a Phase Device to potentially get through it damageless, but I stuck to the Berserker rocket jump plan for two reasons; one, a Phase Device needs to teleport me past the Bruisers to completely avoid any damage, just getting past the ambush won't do, and a Phase Device dropping me in the later half of the ambush tunnel just ends the run, while two, I may need a Phase to get me out of a hot start later. So I stuck to the plan, and indeed Berserker triggers on the rocket jump to reduce it to 1 damage in the Red Armor conveniently supplied by Anomaly, while thanks to AoMC, a single rocket jump will get you completely out of the Nightmare enemies' vision and completely past the Bruisers once you get to them, thus I get through Anomaly with only 2 damage taken. However, I make the dumb mistake of trying to corner shoot the Bruisers from the teleport room, thinking AoMC would make this easy EXP, but then with Int2 I see one of the Bruisers start walking around the top, at which point he would eventually pop into melee range if I stayed, so I decide to bail and get on the teleporter. As it turns out, stepping onto the teleporter doesn't immediately teleport you out, so the other Bruiser got to attack me as I stepped on it. Thankfully Berserker triggers on their acid balls too, but that was an additional 4 damage that was completely avoidable, and so now I enter Deimos with 42 damage taken, the run is technically alive but I got to get through 16 floors while taking no more than 7 damage across them all...

Deimos 1 would be a little rough, with it pitting me against a Baron in a bad spot that got a hit on me, another point where the run would have ended right there without Berserker but his damage gets reduced to 4 to keep it alive a little longer, and I get hit by something else I don't remember for 2 damage (maybe an Imp after I P-modded my Red Armor?). At this point I don't bother to clear out floors, I just need to find an Invuln ASAP as I'm still a few levels away from getting Shottyhead and I can't take any more hits, so the focus is getting straight to the stairs and only killing what's in the way or otherwise potentially threatens me. I would get through the first half of Deimos with no additional damage but no Invulnerability Globes spawn on the first four Deimos floors. Upon reaching Deimos 5, I would finally get an Invuln... but I got an absolutely horrid hot start, that would be a potential run ender in a normal game, let alone in a Destroyer Diamond run where I'm at 48 damage taken and so can take no more than 1 more point of damage or else the run ends. Even with AoMC offense, without Shottyhead, I cannot hope to kill everything with LoS on me before they wake up, so a Phase Device is my only option, and I do have the one I saved from Anomaly earlier, but I also having a Homing Phase. I opt to use the latter, as it would not only have a higher probability to put me in a safe spot (all these enemies means there's likely less or none around the stairs), but in case the stairs are a bad spot too, I could at least then immediately leave and hope the next floor is better, even though I really want that Invuln... The stairs would turn out to have only a single Mancubus in vision, so the Homing Phase not only gets me out of the run ender but also gives me a chance to procure the Invuln. The game makes me work for it with lots of enemies being around the Invuln, but playing very carefully I can slowly chip away at the enemies as they wander out, and thanks to finding the flooding lever near the stairs, I don't need to worry about respawns either. Eventually I manage to get to the Invuln, and it's a good thing I made sure not to shoot towards it too, only shooting enemies through the top or left side of that room, as there turned out to be a barrel right next to the Invuln that would have destroyed it if I did shoot towards it (those Protective Boots are also the first pair of boots I get the whole run, I really didn't get a single pair of Steel Boots in Phobos, and I do have an A mod I've been waiting to put on boots, but I don't put them on yet so the -25% knockback resistance they have doesn't nerf my rocket jumps).

With finally having Invuln and three stacks of rockets in my inventory, I decided it's time to just Invuln rush the rest of the game, as when I can't take any more hits, my best shot is to try remaining Invulnerable for the entirety of the remaining game. I just rocket jump through the final two Deimos floors before Babel, and within Babel I get an inconvenient Cyberdemon spawn on the opposite end of the map, but with how far AoMC rocket jumps send you, it only takes a few before I get to him, where then the berserk Chainsaw kills him with plenty of Invuln left. Hell 1 would then give me an Arachnotron + Cacodemon cave with not just one Invuln, but two of them. I have to make sure the Cacodemons don't blow them up but I managed to get them, so that's a +200 turns Invuln refresh to potentially carry me the rest of the way. I continue the Invulnerable rocket jump mad dash to end, rocket jumping straight to the stairs on every floor, only stopping to pick up rockets and a failed attempt to get an Invuln in another Arachnotron + Cacodemon cave when a Caco did blow it up this time. I reach level 10 shortly into Hell, and since it was clear I wouldn't be getting enough levels for Shottyhead, I use it on HR2 to ensure I can outrun the Mastermind in case the Invuln runs out before I kill or reach her, at which point I would need to chip away at her with hit and run tactics. As I'm blasting through Hell, I get a Hell 6 that perfectly encapsulates why I got Armorer Diamond before doing this run, with a maze that has a Unique within it, which could have very well been the Subtle Knife I was missing for Armorer Diamond previously, but detouring looking for it instead of heading straight for the stairs would likely deplete all the Invuln and potentially ruin the run. With me already having Armorer Diamond, I can just ignore that Unique and stay focused on the current mission. I'm not sure how much Invuln I have left at this point, but Hell 7 gives me close stairs that are reached in a single rocket jump, and just like that I'm in Dis with under 50 damage to keep Destroyer Diamond still intact, when I thought the run was most likely finished after running up 48 damage by early Deimos and was pessimistic about it back in Phobos 5. With the Invuln still not out, I proceed to effortlessly saw the Mastermind down.

Moral of the story? Rocket jumping is damn good, and when you got Invulnerability + AoMC, rocket jumping is really damn good, off that one Deimos 5 Invuln and then those two Hell 1 Invulns, I remained Invulnerable for the entire second half of the game, with a single rocket jump being able to launch me a quarter of the way through any floor without an obstruction in the way. Also, while my first run that wasn't resetted in the first two floors ended up going all the way (two prior runs were resetted on Phobos 2 and over a dozen were resetted in Phobos Base Entry), I think this shows just how hard pure Destroyer Diamond is; altogether I got hit just seven times the entire run + those two rocket jumps in Anomaly for an additional 2 damage, and I finished just 1 damage short of the allowed damage limit, you're given minuscule room for any mistakes. While you don't get AoMC's insane offense in Demonic Diamond, that badge's 199 damage allowance and enemies not having the AoMC boost allowed you to take some hits here and there, so it had a much less strict margin of error in comparison. While there's lots I disagree with in papilio's badge difficulty rankings, I do agree with him that Destroyer Diamond without Dual Angel abuse is one of the two hardest Diamond badges (it remains to be seen if I'll find it harder than Arena Diamond), and that it's more Angelic-worthy than several of the actual Angelics. I see why everyone else took the easy way out on this badge, because very few players could have realistically won it the intended way through pure AoMC, and of those that could, most would have probably needed to do a seriously extended grinding session for it. As for how this badge will fare in the modern DRL versions, you can no longer infinitely camp due to the Enraged Timer, can no longer farm respawns for virtually infinite ammo, and both Int2 + Finesse got nerfed, but I think it might actually not be as bad, as corpses no longer being able to respawn in vision means you don't have to worry about respawn RNG screwing you over with an enemy getting back up at a terrible time, while special levels no longer requiring all respawns be killed for clearing means it'll be easier to do Hell's Arena damageless (once it's unbugged at least), and time-based powerups means your lategame Invulns will effectively last longer. We'll see how it compares across versions when I eventually go for the modern DRL 100%. With Destroyer Diamond won here, I now have 24 Diamonds in 0.9.9.7, surpassing papilio's Diamond count for uncontested #2, and the Untouchable Cross + Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal also bumps my medal count up to 42, I just need Gutts' Heart now for Heroic Diamond (I could have potentially went for it in this run after doing Hell's Arena damageless, but grabbing the Dragonslayer means I then can't rocket jump, and I do not stretch the Invulns out to last the entire rest of the run without rocket jumping, so I'll have to do it in its own dedicated run).

If you're still reading, here is the mortem:

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 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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 ONLY50DAMAGE?!,
 level 10 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 256773 turns and scored 345501 points.
 He played for 2 hours, 32 minutes and 48 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 728 out of 1082 hellspawn. (67%)
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 2
  Levels completed : 2

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

  Cyberdemon's Head
  Mastermind's Brain
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Untouchable Cross
  Hell Arena Pwnage Medal
  Destroyer Diamond Badge

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

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  #################......##..X%........................####..
  #################.....###............................####..
  #################....####............................####&.
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  #>#####################................................####
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 50/50   Experience 41956/10
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +16  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 1)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)

  Int->Int->Fin->Jug->Bru->Bru->Ber->Rel->HR->HR->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (100%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (5d6) (B)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   nothing
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [10/40]

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

    [a] double shotgun (9d3)x2 [2/2]
    [b] combat shotgun (7d3) [2/5]
    [c] combat shotgun (8d3) [3/5] (P1)
    [d] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (B1)
    [e] shotgun shell (x50)
    [f] shotgun shell (x46)
    [g] shotgun shell (x50)
    [h] shotgun shell (x50)
    [i] shotgun shell (x50)
    [j] rocket (x7)
    [k] power cell (x50)
    [l] power cell (x42)
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] phase device
    [p] phase device
    [q] agility mod pack
    [r] protective boots [2/2] (100%)

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

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 85%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    136 former humans
    80 former sergeants
    36 former captains
    157 imps
    95 demons
    109 lost souls
    44 cacodemons
    11 hell knights
    22 barons of hell
    1 arachnotron
    18 former commandos
    10 pain elementals
    1 revenant
    4 mancubi
    1 arch-vile
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  He left level 15 as soon as possible.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  He left level 19 as soon as possible.
  He left level 23 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...

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

 407 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 194 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 9 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 106 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 62 killed the bitch and survived.
 37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


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

In theory, Armorer Diamond is an "easy" Diamond that nearly any serious player could win, you just need to find three of every special item across all your runs, and as long as you're good enough to beat HMP difficulty for the Azrael Scythe, you should eventually get this badge without ever touching N! or even UV. Yet according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, only two players ever reported winning it; Tormuse and Icy, i.e. two of the greatest DRL players. Oh no... that doesn't sound like an "easy badge anyone can win" at all...

So when I first revisited 0.9.9.7 and started my conquest of it a couple months ago with my Eagerness Angelic run, I was only two uniques shy of getting Armorer Diamond, one Dragonslayer and one Subtle Knife needed to complete finding three of every special. Even back before that I was a very hardcore DRL player despite not playing N! before then, with a playtime of somewhere around 700ish hours and nearly 200 games recorded, I reasonably should have already won it long ago with that sort of time invested into the game. But still, just one Dragonslayer and one Subtle Knife, it can't be that much longer to get it, right? Any given run at this point could win it, while I had just five Diamonds and no Angelics yet, so there would a lot of runs to go through before I could think about having to make dedicated runs for this badge...

Well with those two Uniques, the Dragonslayer is perhaps the rarest single piece of equipment in the game, with it having a minimum spawning depth of 16, a spawning weight of 1, and since it's a melee weapon, it cannot spawn in vaults, nor can it randomly drop in any of the special levels. So in standard game depths, you have exactly only 7 floors it can spawn on (Hell 1 through 7), and there's no place where it could drop with enhanced odds unlike other Uniques. However if the Dragonslayer was all I needed, it wouldn't be too bad, as there is a way to guarantee it spawning in a certain special level;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

clear Hell's Arena on N! with no damage, and then later the artifact weapon in Unholy Cathedral will be replaced with the Dragonslayer.

Getting the Dragonslayer that way is difficult, but wouldn't take too long to do in dedicated runs if it came down to that, especially if I do it in certain challenges. The actual bigger problem is the Subtle Knife, which is among the group of those bafflingly terrible Uniques added in 0.9.9.7 with a minimum spawning depth of 15 and spawning weight of 1, while as a melee weapon, it also cannot spawn in vaults nor in any special level, so it's basically as rare as the Dragonslayer (you only get one more floor you can find it in comparison), except there is no way to force it to spawn if it became the last Unique I needed (the Mjollnir was also among this group of Uniques in 0.9.9.7 and is a melee weapon too, so having that be your last Unique would also be just as bad, but I've had unusual luck finding it with over a half dozen of them on my file). Of all Uniques, I absolutely do not want Armorer Diamond gatekept by this one, as my only recourse would be to speedrun A666 to force this badge...

Well after nearly 60 games in my return to 0.9.9.7, with 11 Diamonds and 5 Angelics achieved, with none of those games having the Dragonslayer nor Subtle Knife, I decided to go for Centurlal Diamond, with some hope I could get Armorer Diamond out of the way there, yet alas I would find neither Unique I needed. 13 games later, with my Diamond count now at 16 and my Angelic count at 6, I decided to go for Centurial Angelic, not only to get that badge but to also double it up with Armorer Diamond, surely I would get both Uniques I need after 666 floors? Well I did find the Dragonslayer in that run after 385 floors, but still never found the Subtle Knife even after 666 floors. The Dragonslayer is the far far far better weapon and did speed up the rest of that particular A666 run, but if I had to only find one, I would have actually preferred the Subtle Knife, since as mentioned, there is a way to force the Dragonslayer to spawn in the standard game and so I could do that as its own run (which I'm probably going to need to do anyway for Gutts' Heart to finish out Heroic Diamond), while with the Subtle Knife, my only recourse would be to grind out A666 games... Still there are many other Diamonds and Angelics left, just maybe I could find it in one of those runs, or otherwise in the several AoOC games I pumped out to get enough Carmack kills for Apostle rank?

Yet here I am, with 22 Diamonds, a record 10 Angelics, and said Apostle ranking, the RNG did not drop the Subtle Knife in any of those runs. With only a few other Diamonds and winnable Angelics left, at this pace I was going to do everything else I could do before I got Armorer Diamond. Since in the remaining runs, I may be unable to detour for Uniques that spawn and not wanting to risk losing something like a Destroyer Diamond or Masochist Angelic run for seeking an out-of-the-way Unique, I decided I should just bite the bullet and grind through A666 to get Armorer Diamond done now. I got unlucky with the Centurial Angelic run not having a Subtle Knife drop, but surely I would get it in the next A666 game, and it wouldn't take that long if I just speedrun through it on HNTR with Blademaster, right?

Well in the first run, I would find the Dragonslayer again (and the Berserker Armor but I forgot to pick it up), yet it'll be a second consecutive A666 game that the Subtle Knife would never drop... (Here's the link to that mortem I posted on the JH Discord if you want to see it, can't post multiple A666 mortems in the same post without running out the character limit.)

Well I could only try again, surely it won't be a third A666 game without the Subtle Knife ever dropping, right? And in this run I had a lot better luck with other items, including an early Chainsaw you almost never see in 0.9.9.7's A100/666 that let me get through the game much faster, many Uniques early on including a floor 17 Lava Armor and floor 23 Malek's Armor that let me comfortably stair dive much sooner, and the Dragonslayer yet again. Yet that luck ended up for nought, as I would go an entire third A666 game without the Subtle Knife ever dropping... (link to mortem.)

To say I was frustrated at this is an understatement, how do I find five Dragonslayers without ever doing the guaranteed method for it in this file before finding a third Subtle Knife, and why does the RNG keep giving me the other stupidly rare yet also useless Uniques like the Mjollnir and Mega Buster (the latter of which I've found 14 fucking times!). There's nothing I can do about it though but just boot up yet another A666 game. My Unique luck this time was much worse, with not finding my first Unique until floor 48, which ended up being that fucking useless ass Mega Buster of course, and the pace didn't pick up that much from there. However on floor 223, at last, the grind for Armorer Diamond would end when the RNG finally decided to drop the Subtle Knife, at which point I just killed myself, as there were too many floors left and 0.9.9.7's A666 is far too repetitive to put up with any longer.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

 WHOCREATEDTHESUBTLEKNIFE?!,
 level 22 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
 committed a stupid suicide on level 223 of Hell.
 He survived 188170 turns and scored 799559 points.
 He played for 4 hours, 34 minutes and 57 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 1980 out of 4378 hellspawn. (45%)
 He was an Archangel of 666!

 He saved himself 3 times.

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

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

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

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Experience Medal
  Armorer Diamond Badge

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

  ######################################################=====
  ###.......#.#.......+...===...........+.........#.....=====
  #########.#.#.......#..=====..........#.......0.#.....=====
  ###.0...#.+.+.......#...===...........#.........+.....Bh=h=
  ###.....#.#+#########......%........}.#.........#.....=====
  ###.....+0#.........+.......%..=......+|.......0#.....=====
  ######+####+####+####=====....==##+#######+####+####+#=====
  ###.......#.......|.+=====...==......++.......#.......=====
  ###.......+.........#=====....#######.#.......#.......=====
  ######=####.........#.=...............#|......+........====
  ###...=...+.........#................%#.......#......A.====
  ###..==h..#.........+.............%...........#........====
  #####=+=###+####+######==#==....##/==.####+####+####+##====
  ###.....=..0........+..=====......=====...............=====
  ###.................#..=====......=====...............=====
  ###=.==.......^.....#...===.>.....=.===......|....[...=====
  ###==......|........#..............===#########+#######====
  ###.................+.................+.....0........".====
  ########################......X....####################====
  #######################################################====

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

  Health 0/70   Experience 551536/22
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +10  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +15

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

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 5)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  Int->Int->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->HR->Bru->MBm->Jug->Bru->Bru->HR->Fin->DM->Iro->Rel->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4] (AOP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nanomachic rocket launcher (6d7) (P1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   antigrav plasteel boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x80)

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

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d7) [0/5] (P1)
    [b] assault shotgun (10d3) [6/6] (P3T2)
    [c] nuclear BFG 9000 (8d6) [68/68] (B2)
    [d] napalm launcher (7d10) [1/1] (B1P3T1)
    [e] red armor [6] (AOP)
    [f] cerberus ballistic vest [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [g] Berserker Armor [0]
    [h] ripper (7d6) (B)
    [i] Subtle Knife (3d5)
    [j] rocket (x6)
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] homing phase device
    [p] agility mod pack
    [q] nano pack
    [r] onyx armor pack
    [s] Hell Staff
    [t] cerberus plasteel boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [u] Nyarlaptotep's Boots [6/6] (100%)
    [v] rocket box (x20)

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

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 95% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 85% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    121 former humans
    189 former sergeants
    197 former captains
    104 imps
    22 demons
    155 lost souls
    62 cacodemons
    78 hell knights
    331 barons of hell
    98 arachnotrons
    9 former commandos
    20 pain elementals
    94 revenants
    109 mancubi
    200 arch-viles
    26 nightmare imps
    25 nightmare cacodemons
    53 nightmare demons
    25 nightmare arachnotrons
    7 nightmare arch-viles
    3 elite former humans
    3 elite former sergeants
    4 elite former captains
    6 elite former commandos
    22 bruiser brothers
    7 shamblers
    5 lava elemental
    2 agony elementals
    3 Cyberdemons

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

  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 10 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  Level 22 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 26 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 26 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  On level 28 he ran for his life from acid!
  On level 28 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 28 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  Level 32 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  Level 34 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  On level 44 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  On level 48, hell froze over!
  On level 48 he found the Mega Buster!
  On level 49 he assembled a cerberus armor!
  Level 50 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  He flooded the entire level 52 with lava!
  On level 53 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  On level 54 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  On level 55 he found the Revenant's Launcher!
  Level 61 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  Level 65 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  He sounded the alarm on level 66!
  On level 68, hell froze over!
  On level 70 he stumbled into a complex full of revenants!
  He left level 75 as soon as possible.
  Level 76 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 77 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 78 he found the Hell Staff!
  Level 79 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 79 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  Level 81 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 86 as soon as possible.
  He left level 87 as soon as possible.
  He nuked level 89!
  He left level 90 as soon as possible.
  He left level 95 as soon as possible.
  On level 96 he was bombarded!
  On level 96 he found the Charch's Null Pointer!
  He left level 100 as soon as possible.
  On level 103 he encountered an armed nuke!
  He left level 104 as soon as possible.
  He left level 107 as soon as possible.
  He left level 109 as soon as possible.
  On level 110 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  He left level 111 as soon as possible.
  On level 115 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 115 as soon as possible.
  Level 116 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 116 as soon as possible.
  He left level 117 as soon as possible.
  He left level 118 as soon as possible.
  On level 119 he stumbled into a nightmare arachnotron cave!
  He left level 119 as soon as possible.
  He left level 121 as soon as possible.
  He left level 122 as soon as possible.
  He left level 126 as soon as possible.
  He left level 127 as soon as possible.
  He left level 128 as soon as possible.
  He left level 129 as soon as possible.
  He left level 130 as soon as possible.
  He left level 133 as soon as possible.
  He left level 134 as soon as possible.
  On level 135 he found the Jackhammer!
  He left level 136 as soon as possible.
  He left level 137 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 138!
  He left level 138 as soon as possible.
  He left level 139 as soon as possible.
  He left level 140 as soon as possible.
  On level 141, hell froze over!
  He left level 142 as soon as possible.
  He left level 143 as soon as possible.
  He left level 144 as soon as possible.
  He left level 145 as soon as possible.
  He left level 146 as soon as possible.
  He left level 147 as soon as possible.
  He left level 148 as soon as possible.
  On level 149 he assembled a ripper!
  He left level 149 as soon as possible.
  He left level 152 as soon as possible.
  He left level 153 as soon as possible.
  He left level 154 as soon as possible.
  He left level 155 as soon as possible.
  He left level 156 as soon as possible.
  On level 157 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 157 as soon as possible.
  He sounded the alarm on level 158!
  He left level 158 as soon as possible.
  On level 159 he found the Necroarmor!
  On level 160 he ran for his life from acid!
  On level 160 he found the Berserker Armor!
  He left level 163 as soon as possible.
  He left level 165 as soon as possible.
  On level 166 he encountered an armed nuke!
  He left level 166 as soon as possible.
  On level 167 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
  He left level 168 as soon as possible.
  He left level 169 as soon as possible.
  He left level 170 as soon as possible.
  He left level 171 as soon as possible.
  On level 172 he assembled a nanomanufacture ammo!
  He left level 172 as soon as possible.
  He left level 173 as soon as possible.
  He left level 174 as soon as possible.
  He left level 175 as soon as possible.
  He left level 176 as soon as possible.
  He left level 177 as soon as possible.
  Level 178 was a hard nut to crack!
  On level 178 he found the Hellwave Pack!
  On level 179 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 179 as soon as possible.
  Level 180 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 180 as soon as possible.
  He left level 181 as soon as possible.
  He left level 182 as soon as possible.
  He left level 183 as soon as possible.
  He left level 184 as soon as possible.
  On level 185 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 185 as soon as possible.
  He left level 186 as soon as possible.
  He left level 187 as soon as possible.
  He left level 188 as soon as possible.
  He left level 189 as soon as possible.
  He left level 190 as soon as possible.
  He left level 191 as soon as possible.
  He left level 192 as soon as possible.
  He left level 193 as soon as possible.
  He left level 194 as soon as possible.
  He left level 195 as soon as possible.
  He left level 196 as soon as possible.
  He left level 197 as soon as possible.
  On level 198 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
  He left level 198 as soon as possible.
  He left level 199 as soon as possible.
  He left level 200 as soon as possible.
  He left level 201 as soon as possible.
  He left level 202 as soon as possible.
  He left level 203 as soon as possible.
  He left level 204 as soon as possible.
  He left level 205 as soon as possible.
  He left level 206 as soon as possible.
  On level 207 he stumbled into a nightmare cacodemon cave!
  He left level 207 as soon as possible.
  He left level 208 as soon as possible.
  On level 209 he found the Trigun!
  He left level 210 as soon as possible.
  He left level 211 as soon as possible.
  On level 212 he was bombarded!
  He left level 212 as soon as possible.
  He left level 213 as soon as possible.
  He left level 214 as soon as possible.
  He left level 215 as soon as possible.
  He left level 216 as soon as possible.
  He left level 217 as soon as possible.
  He left level 218 as soon as possible.
  He left level 219 as soon as possible.
  He left level 220 as soon as possible.
  Level 221 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 221 as soon as possible.
  He left level 222 as soon as possible.
  On level 223 he was bombarded!
  On level 223 he found the Subtle Knife!
  On level 223 he finally committed a stupid suicide.

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

 You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 Boom! That hurt! You' going berserk! You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

 406 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 194 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 9 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 105 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 61 killed the bitch and survived.
 37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


So once I started attempting Armorer Diamond directly, with only two Uniques I needed for it, it took me four A666 games and running through 2221 floors before I finally got the second Unique I was missing for it. The play time on my 0.9.9.7 file as I got Armorer Diamond was 1031 hours!. Even if you assume half that time was from the game being run idle, it's insane it took that long to get a badge that is purely grinding, especially when I ended up having to bruteforce it sooner by running those A666 games, who knows how even longer it would have been if I didn't do that, I almost certainly get the rest of the Diamonds and winnable Angelics before I win Armorer Diamond, it's no wonder only Tormuse and Icy won this badge previously. I wonder what the hell Game Hunter was thinking when he bumped the old easy Armorer requirements to what they are now, surely there was a more sensible middle ground between the two (well to be a bit fair to him, the Armorer badges got changed in 0.9.9.5, before 0.9.9.7 added all those 15 depth 1 weight Uniques including the Subtle Knife, but even prior to 0.9.9.5 with a smaller specials list and Armorer Diamond then requiring just finding one of every special, only Tormuse reported winning it then, so it's not like Armorer Diamond was an overly common Diamond then to merit bumping up its requirement to such an absurd degree). If you're wondering, it also took me finding 1695 specials total before I got Armorer Diamond. Well with Armorer Diamond done, I now got 23 Diamonds, tying papilio's reported total for second most Diamonds, of which I'm especially not looking forward to Destroyer and Arena Diamond, but at least those won't be purely grinding out 666 floors after 666 floors after 666 floors...

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

With few viable Angelics left, for my attempt at setting the new record of 10 Angelics, I decided to go for Berserker Angelic. This badge requires a horribly asynergetic Dual Angel combo of Angel of Berserk + Angel of Masochism, by the nature of how pure melee works, attrition damage is unavoidable yet you will not be able to heal on demand. Beating Nightmare! with such a combo does look nearly impossible at first, however according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, this badge has been won twice, by Gooselord1 and Tormuse, so it can't be that bad, right?

Well you got two viable strategies for this badge. One is play a Scout, make it to The Chained Court, and stair dive the rest of the way, relying on Invulnerabilities to keep you alive. The other is play Marine, and survive long enough to make it to Vampyre, which will allow you to indefinitely heal outside of levelups, at which point the game won't play that much differently from a normal AoB run. Both options have been proven, with Gooselord winning Berserker Angelic with the Scout stairdive strat, while Tormuse won with the Vampyre strat. The problem is both options require an absolutely hideous amount of luck; the Scout strat simply won't work without ample and reachable Invulnerabilities, even a lategame Blademaster build would sustain too much attrition damage through pure melee to survive between the increasingly scarcer levelups, while you still need a lot of luck to even make it to The Chained Court without being on the brink of death, and if you try the Vampyre strat, you simply will not survive to level 6 to get it without even more luck needed to make it to Chained Court and then getting a floor 7 Invulnerability or making it to a certain other special level. The question is which strat requires less luck? According to Tormuse, it took him 92 attempts in the official 0.9.9.7 release and many more attempts he didn't count in that version's beta testing, and while Gooselord didn't say how many attempts it took him, at the time of his last posted mortem, he had 2467 games with 12 wins recorded, while in his Berserker Angelic mortem, he had 2982 games with only 15 wins recorded, maybe he did something else in his other two wins since that severely inflated his game counter but I think it's safe to assume his Berserker Angelic attempts numbered well into the hundreds at least. Here are the list of advantages for each strategy:

For the Scout:

• Stair sense obviously makes stair diving a lot less luck-based, and so making it to The Chained Court won't be as hellish of an affair.
• +10% universal speed passive will allow the Scout to take less damage when slugging out with enemies, as well as help the Scout better escape enemies.
• Scout has immediate access to Intuition to better find early Berserk packs, as well as Invulnerabilities later.
• Scout can get Hellrunner without blocking off a necessary mastery, which not only helps the Scout avoid damage while stair diving or approaching enemies, but Hellrunner is also crucial to get past the N! Phobos Anomaly ambush if you don't get a floor 7 Invuln nor get lucky with a Phase Device.

For the Marine:

• Any Berserk Packs will last longer, and early Berserks are pretty necessary to have any hope of making it to Chained Court, while functionally getting a sixth Berserk from the Chained Court Berserks could also be a run saver if you get a brutal Phobos 6 or 7. Longer Invulns could be clutch as well if a Phobos 7 Invuln spawns far from the stairs.
• The extra 10 max HP doesn't make up for the lack of a speed passive, but that does translate to a formidable extra 20 HP gotten over the Scout from each levelup Supercharge, which can be meaningful if you get that levelup in the midst of a brawl.
• Immediate access to Badass and builds to the melee mastery, which will allow you to retain your levelup Supercharges if you don't immediately burn the boosted health. With just Badass 1, the Marine effectively gets 90 HP after each levelup, nearly twice that of the Scout's HP after the boosted health decays away. The knockback reduction is also helpful when you got Shotgunners harassing you while you're trying to dive to stairs.
• Can pick up Finesse without delaying mastery, nullifying the Scout's combat advantage.
• Reaching level 6 for Vampyre and getting past Phobos Anomaly nearly secures the run for you, while a Scout that makes it past Phobos will still fail with bad Invuln and stair luck.

With no clear answer on which will require less luck, I decided to try Scout first, under the belief that runs will go faster and so even if it does require more luck, I will hit that needed luck in less real time by being able to grind out more runs. I would quickly find out however that even with stair sense and that speed boost, just making it to The Chained Court still required too much luck for my liking; knowing where the stairs are won't matter if a bunch of enemies or Hell Knights are in the way and I got no Berserk. Unlike usually where it doesn't matter how little health you have when you make it to Chained Court because of the Berserks, here your entering health does matter when the Berserks no longer heal you, and the safe camping spots in the exit rooms still require you to push through several Chaingunners; the first few times I made it to Chained Court I just died because I had too little health to get to the exit rooms, and trying to play cautiously in the center room or around the cage corners will eventually result in a Former popping up at an angle where you're wide open. Gooselord did get Int2 for this problem, as that can make camping the center room more viable, but that means giving up early Berserker, Hellrunner, or even Brute 2 as you probably won't hit level 4 before Chained Court when stair diving, which is just an unacceptable tradeoff for me as that would make  for more games that don't even reach Chained Court for Int2 to matter. While I alternate with some Marine attempts, on attempt 25 I did get a Scout that got a levelup right before Chained Court to get past it, however Phobos 7 had no Invuln, I had no Phase Device, and Phobos 6 + 7 left me near death, with way too little health to have any hope of getting past Anomaly. I was forced into Military Base, hoping to hit some levelups there and enter Anomaly with the health needed to get through it, which almost worked thanks to being able to safely camp as all the weak-in-melee enemies could be gift dropped into melee range, but slugging it out with too many Elite Commandos eventually whittled me down enough to end the run just one kill away from a levelup. Noticing how Military Base is easily clearable under this badge's constraints and how it gave so much EXP that it was going to bump me up to level 6 all the way from level 3, it made me realize that a Marine doesn't need a floor 7 Invuln and could hit level 6 for Vampyre by just making it to Military Base. At this point I decided to grind out runs with the Marine; a Marine that makes it past Chained Court probably has nearly a coin flip's chance of winning, you just need to make it to Military Base or get a floor 7 Invuln to get through Anomaly, whereas the Scout still needs a lot more luck beyond this point to win, and the Scout was still averaging about a dozen attempts for every one that got past Chained Court (I had another one that made it past but then died on an awful Phobos 6), so I figured that requiring even more early game luck would be worth the tradeoff of a much more reliable post-Phobos. Additionally, attempts with the Scout didn't really go all that much faster, because I'm stair diving basically everything after Phobos 2 until I reach Military Base or hit level 6 with the Marine, and the Scout stairdive being much faster post-Phobos won't matter if I don't even reach that point, so there wasn't much of a real-time advantage to playing Scout here.

As for the Marine, well, early Marine is very rough, and it took me another 12 attempts (not counting runs I quit out on the first two floors) to get a Marine past Chained Court, but I had little health left and Phobos 6 spawned me in a big open room of enemies that killed me before I could levelup. It would take another 15 attempts that weren't Q+Y'd to make it past Chained Court, though again on low health, however a Pain Elemental near the start of Phobos 6 allows me to levelup before dying, and with the supercharged health, I'm able to get out of Phobos 6 despite the stairs being on the complete opposite end of the floor. Phobos 7 would give me a maze that seemed like it would be the end if I didn't find an Invuln or the red stairs quickly, but a levelup midway through gives me the juice to keep going and I do find the red stairs... which turned out to be Phobos Lab instead of Military Base. Entering Phobos Lab here without a Homing Phase would be suicide unless maybe I already had Vampyre or was about to get it, so I had to go back through the maze and hope I find an Invuln or at least the normal stairs so I can make some attempt at Anomaly. My Chained Court Berserk finally ran out not long after while my health dwindled away, and I would then find a Tracking Map that basically confirmed the run was over, as the stairs were on the other side with a bunch of enemies in the way while there was no Invuln on the map, with me indeed dying shortly after despite my best efforts to try salvaging it. A run that that got so close to winnable territory but still dying was pretty crushing, so I would take a break for a few days before running attempts again.

So what little strategy is there to this run, aside from stair diving and pray RNG shines on you? Well with Phobos Base Entry, my strategy is the same it usually is; activate run and get straight to the side of the building to set up camp, and Q+Y if the Shotgunners come out before I reach my camping spot or the Formers shoot me up too much. You don't need to fuss much about the damage you take, as you're going to levelup shortly into Phobos 2 anyway to fully heal whatever damage you take, and making it to Phobos 2 with minimal damage won't matter if you get a fucked Phobos 2 start, while you also don't need to fuss with the medkits (though getting one is nice for gift dropping). The only real strategic point here is to take off the Blue Armor, you don't need it to get past Phobos Entry and so you'll only be depleting it before the floors you actually need it, while you can also use it to gift drop the Formers before you get a medkit. On Phobos 2, at first I was just stair diving through it, but shortly in I changed my gameplan to clearing it; if you can find a workable camping spot with a doorway or fluids, it's possible to clear the floor as long as you don't get too many Pinkies nor get a Cacodemon vault that gets opened up. Clearing Phobos 2 will get you near level 3 to get a quick Supercharge in the deadly Phobos 3-5 range or let you hit level 3 to get that important third trait before entering said floor range, not to mention you still need to be at least somewhat through level 3 to ensure you hit level 6 by the end of Military Base, and if you don't get Military Base, you then want to ensure just one Phobos 7 Invuln can carry you to level 6. If you are about to levelup with enemies still alive on the floor and don't have the stairs found or have otherwise unscouted areas that could have Berserks, you should try finding that stuff before killing the last enemy for the levelup, so you can take as much of that Supercharged health with you, while if you get any Green Armor, you should definitely wear that over the Blue Armor to preserve it for the upcoming floors, even go naked if you can get away with it to preserve that Blue Armor.

As for what traits to pick on the way to Vampyre aside from the obvious Brute 2 opener, it'll depend. Usually you would go straight for Berserker in AoB, but if you're not already berserked, often you'll take too much damage triggering it for it to really help you, and so you still very likely won't make it to Chained Court without finding early Berserks, which would make Berserker basically irrelevant at this point of the game. Badass meanwhile will let you retain boosted health and make Shotgunners knocking you around less of an issue, while Finesse will save you substantial damage, but if you don't get any Berserks, then having Berserker may be your only hope of making it to Chained Court without very lucky stairs, so my trait order would vary depending on if I found Berserk Packs or was on a floor like a Pinky cave where Berserker would be absolutely necessary. As for the Phobos 3 to 5 range, you can only stair dive; with Hell Knights around, clearing floors out (barring Lost Soul caves or maybe Pinky caves if you got Berserker) from a safe camping is not viable whatsoever, killing a single Hell Knight at this point in melee without prior berserk will drain over 40 or even over 50% of your health, and the Hell Knights do not give enough EXP for you to levelup anywhere fast enough to stave off this damage. Pinkies are also much more numerous in this range, and while you can get through a horde of them without too much pain if you got Berserker, roshamboing them all down one-at-a-time from a camping spot will see them individually drain your health nearly as fast as the Hell Knights do. Maybe if you got a miraculous early Ballistic Vest or Duelist Armor, clearing these floors could be viable, but I never found either in all these attempts, so do not bank on that. The vast majority of Berserker Angelic runs die in this floor range, with absolutely nothing you can do about it; no amount of perfect decision making can make up for the math not mathing for you with meleeing over a hundred enemies, several of which will be Hell Knights that are nearly as strong as you are, while you got only 60-120 HP to work with between levelups.

After another 8 non-Q+Y'd attempts since that prior crushing failure, I would get a promising run with a Berserk Pack near the stairs on a clearable Phobos 2, and then I would find a second Berserk shortly after. I get to Phobos 5, but I'm near death and I spawn in a room with a Pinky group plus several Imps. By maneuvering myself in a way behind nearby crates to prevent more than one Pinky reaching me at a time and avoid the Imps firing on me, I would get a perfectly timed levelup with only 2 HP remaining, and I would find the stairs to Chained Court quickly after. With this Supercharge right before it, I'm able to easily make it to the exit room to safely camp all the remaining Formers and then exit with ample health. As if the run couldn't get better, Phobos 6 would have quickly found stairs, and then Phobos 7 would not only have the red stairs be in the starting spawn's vision, but I also rolled Miltiary Base! However since I had ample health and berserk still, I decide to explore the floor some before immediately diving to Military Base, and while the nearby Cacodemon vault didn't have anything useful aside from getting me enough EXP to hit level 5, exploring the floor pays off with me finding Technical Mods when extra attack speed on my Chainsaw will be crucial to mitigating damage and triggering Berserker faster, as well as a pair of Steel Boots to get crucially needed faster movement speed once I get A mods. After my berserk runs out and with no Invuln found, I make my way back to Military Base, where I finally get a Marine to level 6 for Vampyre. It's a very good thing I found those boots and Tech Mod on the prior floor too, because the crates would not drop any boots and I would get A + B mods in Military Base, while a faster attacking Chainsaw and faster movespeed will be crucial for Anomaly. To my horror though, I would find the Large Health Globes that normally give you some berserk in AoB no longer do so when AoMs is mixed in; my strategy for Anomaly banked on the berserk from the Large Health Globes in the starting room allowing me to be already berserked as I trigger the ambush, as with no HR, there's no chance in hell you can escape the ambush without berserk. It would be awful to finally get a run to Vampyre only to find out that I do need the floor 7 Invuln or Phase Device to get a Marine past Anomaly in this run, but I have to at least try, so the plan is altered; I Bulk up the Red Armor, get a little closer to the wall before triggering the ambush so I don't get the other side's Nightmare Demons immediately in biting range, and then hope with a T-modded Chainsaw + Fin2 that I can trigger Berserker fast enough before I take too much damage, while then hoping Vampyre and my buffed up attack speed can stave off enough damage to survive standing my ground. I do take a huge beating, but thanks to my buffed up attack speed and the Bulk mod keeping my Red Armor from getting damaged midfight, the audible works and I kill most of the Nightmare enemies in a brawl, while I get a good amount of health back when I reach safety with only a few enemies left. Unfortunately my berserk runs out before reaching the Bruisers, and luring the Bruisers back behind the middle doorway or starting room isn't an option when the Nightmare enemies will start reviving, while the Bruisers could inflict fatal damage if they can double team me before Berserker kicks in. I use the radsuit from Military Base to try mitigating acid balls from the back Bruiser as I melee down the front Bruiser, and again thanks to my buffed attack speed + Bulked Red Armor, I'm able to trigger Berserker before taking too much damage and levelup right as I kill the first Bruiser to get all my health back, while the second Bruiser quickly falls after and at last I get a Berserker Angelic run past Phobos. I'm not sure this works out without the T-modded Chainsaw, hitting level 7 in Military Base for Fin2, or the B-modded Red Armor, it would have been an even bigger nail biter for sure without any one of them.

Making it to Deimos with Vampyre gets me over 98% of the hump here, but I'm not comfortable yet until I get myself adequate indestructible or regenerating armor, Vampyre does chew through armors at a crazy rate and I need solid permanent defenses to keep up being able to comfortably outheal all damage I take, so I'm going through Hell's Armory. Deimos 1 is a manageable small rooms level though, so I do clear it, and I find the single most valuable item for this run, a Homing Phase! The biggest threat to this run at this point are Arachnotron Caves when Arachnotron swarms can very easily outdamage Vampyre's healing, so Homing Phases are vital Arachnotron insurance here to ensure I don't need to go through the Phobos jail again (I also got teased with an Assault Shotgun that I cannot use). In Hell's Armory, I do have a little scary moment when I get knocked below 50% health when securing the starting northern building, but I do get the camping spot secured and can get my health all the way back from respawns, while I clear the rest of it with little issue. Unfortunately I get a useless Sniper mod from the Lab cache instead of an Onyx or Nano mod that I really wanted, but I do get a Power mod so I can Nanofiber my Red Armor at least, and I use my level 8 + 9 traits on Whizkid beforehand so I'll be able to later mod it and the Tactical Boots I just made, as well as buff up my Chainsaw farther. Deimos 2 is immediately rewarding with a second Homing Phase and a Power mod for my Nanofiber Red Armor. After I make sure to kill the enemies in the immediate vicinity before getting the P mod so they don't blow it up, I immediately P-mod my Nanofiber Red Armor, and with that armor, I can now comfortably clear levels as long as I have a solid camping spot, but I will leave floors early if there's any risk to it, such as a Deimos 4 maze (which made me miss City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains when I forgot I was on Deimos 4, getting a Blood Skull is very valuable as they can still heal you in AoMs).

On Deimos 5 I would get another great find with Phaseshift Boots, I already have A-modded Tactical Boots and the Phaseshift's boosted knockback is a detriment in AoB, but I hold onto them in case I do need to run through fluids and in case I find the Phaseshift Armor (I also got two A mods on the same floor, so I immediately A-mod them and keep the second A mod in case I find a Nano mod to Antigrav them). On Deimos 5 I also find a nuke and my first Invuln, the nuke will be insurance to ensure I win against the Mastermind in case I make it to Dis at too little health to kill her (especially if I have to enter Dis without berserk), and Invulns are obviously very useful, though I'll remark not finding one until Deimos 5 goes to show how fragile the stairdiving Scout strat will be even if it gets out of Phobos, I'm sure the Scout does not win in this run if I played him instead. With the Invuln obscuring my vision and not paying attention, in Deimos 6 I accidentally enter Halls Of Carnage, so I have to burn one of my Homing Phases to be absolutely sure the lava flood doesn't overtake me when I have no HR and can't rocket jump. I do take advantage of the Invuln to get to the first mod to see if it's a Power mod for my Chainsaw (I do want a Ripper), and then after phasing I check the second mod, unfortunately neither was a Power mod and so I wasted that Homing Phase for nothing but some extra EXP. Fortunately Deimos 7 immediately gives me another Homing Phase to make up for that wasted one (I also build Grappling Boots, an assembly I can't ever remember making with serious intent to use, since I had so many Tech Mods I could do nothing with, on the off chance I do really need the extra knockback resistance at some point). Then came the Cyberdemon fight, which is normally a pushover for any build with Berserker, but I do have to be a little careful, as due to the Marine's 10 extra max HP making Berserker require you to take 20+ damage in a single hit to trigger it, the Cyberdemon's melee attack will not trigger Berserker (it maxes out at 18 damage), and intentionally face-tanking rockets to trigger Berserker is unreliable when there's a 34.4% chance his rockets will roll below 20 damage. Normally those odds are still very good to just charge in and you can just heal up if he keeps low rolling rockets, but when I can't heal until I kill him, I cannot risk taking several low roll rockets that can deal up to 13 damage through my P Nanofiber Red and make me end up at too low of health to beat him down in melee, so I do play a bit cautiously by waiting behind a pillar for him to get closer, and only charging in once the pillar is nearly destroyed. I do eat a rocket that indeed doesn't trigger Berserker, but I can get in and trigger Berserker fast enough from hitting him to get through him without it getting scary.

After getting past Babel, I'm now in Hell, and while a barrel level could be annoying, I immediately find a perfect camping spot to effortlessly clear the floor (I also finally find a second Red Armor just in case I need stronger or faster armor than this Nanofiber Red Armor), and then going through Unholy Cathedral for the Longinus Spear is a given when I'll get all my health back from killing the Angel Of Death. In Hell 2 I would find yet another Homing Phase, forget Arachnotron insurance I can now basically skip the second half of Hell (I also find a second pair of Phaseshift Boots because the game likes to be funny). Hell 3 is then an annoying looking maze with a big acid river, so with the stairs immediately in sight, I just get out of there, I have basically nothing to gain and everything to lose trying to clear out floors at this point. Then Hell 4 not only has a Power Mod I've been wanting for my Chainsaw, but it also has an Invuln. With three floors left after this, I decide it's time to just use up my Homing Phases to finish this; while they won't cover all four floors I have to get through, I figure chances are good at least one of them has quick stairs to make a Homing Phase not needed for a quick exit. I use up my first Homing Phase to immediately get out of Hell 4 after grabbing the Invuln, that's two left. Hell 5 is then a maze with no stairs in a sight, so that's the second Homing Phase (and the stairs were on the complete opposite end of the floor too). Hell 6 also has no stairs in sight, so I grab the Radsuit just in case I need it for Hell 7 and burn my last Homing Phase (and the stairs would again be on the other side of the map, so using the Homing Phase was worth it). Hell 7 would then be... an easy Pinky + Nightmare Demon cave that will be quick to get through, the run is basically won! And it has a Power Mod I need to finally build the Ripper, not that it's needed though, as the Invuln lasts enough to squash the Spider Mastermind.

So there it is after 60 attempts, plus many more I Q+Y'd out of Phobos Base Entry or on a fucked floor 2. With Berserker Angelic won, Tormuse's near decade-long record of 9 Angelics in 0.9.9.7 (or in any version) has been broken, as this records my 10th Angelic win (this also marks the first time that anyone has verifiably achieved double digit Angelics). Attempting this badge was not a pleasant experience though, oh hell no; out of every badge I won, this is without a doubt the absolute worst badge to play for, and of the few remaining winnable ones I have left aside from the pure-grinding Armorer Diamond, I don't think any will top this. This badge is just an atrocious slot machine where skillful play matters little rather than just spinning the slots until the RNG decides you can win, and the actual gameplay is just spamming stair dives as Scout until you get good enough Berserk + Invuln luck to actually win with little healing, or spamming stair dives as Marine until you get enough Berserk + level generation luck to reach level 6 for Vampyre before dying. I preferred even Strongman Angelic to this; despite it being able to be ruined at any moment by a random enemy dying while you have a weapon equipped and enforcing the most tedious of DRL gameplay on top of needing hefty early game luck too, at least that badge required some actual strategy and skilled play could compensate for some unideal luck. While Everyman Angelic and Arena Diamond are also going to be awful slot machines, at least the former will require skilled gameplay, and latter will have attempts go faster. No disrespect to Gooselord intended here, but it's a testament to this badge's low skill ceiling + absurd luck requirement that the only player besides Tormuse who verifiably won the badge was someone with only two other Diamonds recorded in any versions (both of which were won through simple melee stair dives) while racking up a winrate that makes Sereg's winrate look normal, as well as not even having 15 Silvers (as evidenced by his 1st Lieutenant rank upon winning Berserker Angelic); any halfway-competent player could realistically win this badge as long as they're willing to grind hundreds of runs. As for 0.10-onward, throwing knives actually working would help as you now have a means to reliably deal damage in AoB without putting yourself in harm's way, and proper infighting being added will farther help mitigate damage with groups, but Berserk being nerfed to +50% resistances, time-based powerups meaning early powerups when you're slower won't last as long, enemies hitting harder in melee, Enraged Timer meaning you can no longer extensively camp a floor from a single safe spot, and Vampyre getting significantly nerfed meaning it's no longer a win condition on its own, this badge is still going to an atrocious luck-based affair to actually win, maybe even moreso than it is in 0.9.9.7. After this experience, I'm going to be putting in a proposal to change Berserker Angelic, it may be winnable but Angelics should have a significant skill component to them and should be more engaging than mind-numbingly spamming stair dives until you get lucky enough to win.

Well if you read through this rant, here is the mortem:

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 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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 health...pls60,
 level 14 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 1634189 turns and scored 550208 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 50 minutes and 36 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 960 out of 1315 hellspawn. (73%)
 He was an Angel of Berserk!
 He was also an Angel of Masochism!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 5
  Levels completed : 3

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

  Mastermind's Brain
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Berserker Angelic Badge

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

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

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

  Health 120/60   Experience 83938/14
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +6  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 3)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Bad->Fin->Ber->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bad->Bru->Fin->TaN->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nanofiber red armor [4] (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   ripper (6d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)

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

    [a] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
    [b] red armor [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [c] combat knife (2d5)
    [d] combat knife (2d5)
    [e] combat knife (2d5)
    [f] combat knife (2d5)
    [g] combat knife (2d5)
    [h] combat knife (2d5)
    [i] small med-pack
    [j] small med-pack
    [k] phase device
    [l] thermonuclear bomb
    [m] technical mod pack
    [n] technical mod pack
    [o] agility mod pack
    [p] bulk mod pack
    [q] bulk mod pack
    [r] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
    [s] grappling protective boots [3/3] (100%)

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

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 85%   torso 85%   feet 85% 
    Fire       - internal 85%   torso 95%   feet 85% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

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

    90 former humans
    57 former sergeants
    50 former captains
    190 imps
    119 demons
    118 lost souls
    118 cacodemons
    16 hell knights
    50 barons of hell
    7 arachnotrons
    16 former commandos
    10 pain elementals
    14 revenants
    40 mancubi
    8 arch-viles
    4 nightmare imps
    5 nightmare cacodemons
    23 nightmare demons
    7 elite former humans
    5 elite former sergeants
    7 elite former commandos
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
  He purified his fellow comrades.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 15 he assembled a grappling boots!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  He left level 19 as soon as possible.
  He left level 21 as soon as possible.
  He left level 22 as soon as possible.
  On level 23 he assembled a ripper!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...

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

 403 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 194 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 97 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 8 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 103 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 59 killed the bitch and survived.
 37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Also if you noticed that Apostle rank I now have, after my Demonic Diamond run, I did some AoOC runs to finish out the 50 Carmack kills I needed. I figured out too why my full win count didn't line up with my Carmack kill count, 0.9.9.7 has a bug where full wins in AoOC and AoCn erroneously get counted as standard wins, so that is how you can end up with more Carmack kills than you have full wins).

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

After the extreme damage tanking that Strongman Angelic required, it was time to go in the extreme opposite direction of taking very little damage with Demonic Diamond. This badge sits as perhaps the most imposing Diamond aside from Arena Diamond; completing standard N! with under 500 damage for the Untouchable Pin would already be an impressive achievement, winning with under 200 for the Untouchable Medal is going to make the vast majority of players nope out of even trying it. Additionally, while most of the Diamonds can be cheesed or made at least somewhat easier, Demonic Diamond uniquely sits as an uncheesable Diamond, as you can't mix it with any Angels to make it easier, and there is really nothing you can exploit in the game to win it aside from heavily utilizing general damage avoidance tactics and making the most of Invulnerabilities. Unsurprisingly, according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, Demonic Diamond was tied for the second least won Diamond/Angelic badge with only two players recorded winning it; papilio and Icy, i.e. the player who once held the record for most Diamonds in 0.9.9.7, and the player who broke his record and became the first to verifiably win every Diamond in any version. Two more players were also listed winning it in 0.9.9.6, 2DeviationsOut and Firstblood, and well, anyone reading this likely already knows the story behind 2Dev, while Firstblood's Demonic Diamond mortem is one of the most outlandish things I ever seen on this forum and makes most of 2Dev's mortems look believable in comparison (doing Demonic Diamond as a Conqueror, while playing a melee build that doesn't even get Intuition until late in the game, while hitting a ton of levers for Gambler's Shield without said Intuition, while getting Hell Arena Pwnage with no AoMC and no Juggler/Finesse/Intuition, while getting the luck needed for Shambler's Head without good ranged DPS, while also getting the luck needed for Gatekeeper Diamond on N!, while being melee-locked through nearly all of Hell from the guaranteed Dragonslayer and getting through N! Mortuary melee-locked without taking a ton of damage, while by his own admission not knowing how to properly corpse dispose with a melee weapon yet still managing to clear every special level of every respawn, while also also getting the luck for Scavenger Diamond with no Whisper Of Death cheese and being melee-locked so he had to get lucky with several Phase Devices to get in all three vaults, while it was only the second recorded run on his file that he treated like a casual N! run and is the last thing he ever posted? Come the fuck onnnnnnn). So yeah, only two players have verifiably won this badge legit (well Tormuse also won it in 0.9.9.4, but it had a completely different requirement prior to 0.9.9.5 of beating standard N! with only fist kills, so it isn't meaningful for comparison here).

So what to do for the build. Both papilio and Icy went masterless Scouts that opened with Int2 and then Dodgemaster, while papilio got general offense after Dodgemaster and Icy got TaN2 before getting Fin and SoB, and both had the same overarching strategy of playing through the game fast, not sticking around to clear levels and basically ignoring all the special levels besides Chained Court. I of course though don't like the masterless Scout stairdive, as I find it's too reliant on Invuln/Berserk and stair luck, and is lacking in the power to handle bad hot starts or other bad levels like mazes with stairs on the opposite side of the map; even if such a build could survive, it's sure to take a lot of damage doing so and under 200 damage doesn't give much room for error. Cateye is an option as the damage avoidance mastery, but without being backed by AoMC, Cateye similarly has a lack of power to cleanly get through hot starts or being suffocated by enemies with subpar cover. So I want good damage avoidance, and less reliance on powerups or good level generation luck? What do you know, it's gonna be another Shottyhead run for me! Compared to my typical Shottyhead builds, I do go for Int2 after by usual Fin -> Jug opener, as while the attrition damage from general exploration is something I usually can easily shrug off, I will quickly run out that 199 damage allowance by repeatedly walking into an enemy's vision and so Int2 is pretty necessary here, especially if I don't want to run->wait over a hundred thousand turns on every single floor. I also considered Berserker as damage assurance against the VMR and Cyberdemon, but ended up foregoing it as I won't get the levels to easily fit it in without sacrificing other important traits and I plan to not stick around in later levels where the VMR will be more prominent. With the overarching strategy compared to papilio and Icy, I also do plan to clear out earlier floors when I'm able to reasonably do so with little damage since the extra levels will make me less dependent on powerup luck later, but once I get Shottyhead, I'll be looking to just go for the Invuln stairdive the rest of the way when I see the opportunity to do so.

As always, you got Phobos Base Entry at the start, and it's annoying as avoiding damage here is entirely luck-based, but if you just spam my "run straight for the base and hope the Shotgunners don't immediately come out" strat, you should get a damageless Phobos Base Entry without wasting too much time, but you can settle for getting hit by a single Pistol bullet or some Former punches if resetting for the damageless Base Entry would be excessively annoying. One good thing is you don't need to worry about getting the medkits here, as a successful Demonic Diamond run won't need much healing, but they would be nice to have still, if just as a means to restore running. If you get a bad floor 2 generated that makes you take a lot of unavoidable damage early, you might just want to reset, though after my first damageless Phobos Base Entry, I got one of the best floor 2s I could ask for with a very safe camping spot and a vault with a Combat Shotgun, a Tech Mod to put on it, and a Red Armor (while you want to avoid giving enemies the chance to hit you at all, having very good armor is important because you won't play perfectly or will just get put in situations where damage is unavoidable and so minimizing how punishing any hits you take is important). It took a lot of camping, but I'm able to get through the first two floors damageless (and 100% kills too, so I actually briefly had Demonic Angelic online, but you can see from the turn counter there just how ridiculous it was to do that over just the first two floors...).

I then head into Hell's Arena and do actually intend to clear it unlike papilio and Icy in their runs. Giving up the easy Chained Court sucks (and I would indeed skip Unchained Court later on), but that guaranteed Rocket Launcher is just more important for two key reasons; one, you need rocket jumping to stretch Invulns far longer than they would last otherwise, and two, if I don't get a floor 7 Invuln nor can get lucky with a Phase Device, rocket jumping is needed to ensure I don't take a big amount of damage in Phobos Anomaly. Having access to a corpse disposing weapon early is also gonna be important, because you're not gonna be able to cleanly kill every enemy in a doorway or on fluids and a dangerous enemy respawning at a bad time can potentially result in you taking a lot of damage (and if you don't get this Rocket Launcher, you likely won't get one until early Deimos, and possibly won't get one until even later if the RNG isn't cooperative). The Blue Armor before Hell Knights start showing up will also be nice, less important when I already got a Red Armor but still, it's actually slightly better at reducing damage from Hell Knights and Cacodemons than the Red Armor. Clearing Hell's Arena is also why I open with Juggler instead of Intuition, since Juggler is the single best early game trait for clearing Hell's Arena and could save a reset if I get a bad starting wave spawns (not to mention its value in aiding precise corpse stacking when I can't eat projectiles on corpses to destroy them), while floor 2 is easy enough to avoid damage in without Int2 and I should hit level 4 by the end of Hell's Arena to have Int2 before floor 3. As for how Hell's Arena goes, I do immediately lose my damageless bid and would get hit by another Cacodemon shortly after, but the rest of the Arena went without a hitch thanks to having Juggler (the early EXP boost from that that floor 2 Cacodemon vault was also nice for letting me hit level 4 to get Int2 midway into the Arena instead of at the end). After an easy floor 3, my early strategy gets quickly justified with this floor 4 maze with the stairs on the complete opposite end of my starting point. Running through this level would not have been viable, I would have surely been screwed by respawning Hell Knights if I couldn't blow up their corpses with the Rocket Launcher, and even with my early offensive advantage, there were too many enemies to safely push through the maze and so I had to pull back. Fortunately I was able to set up a workable camping spot near an acid pool for corpse disposal, and while some enemies could pop up from the south, the Imps that largely did so I could safely shoot at a distance, so it took a while but I get through that floor with little damage. The next two Phobos floors would have me fight a disgusting amount of Hell Knights but I get through killing nearly everything in them (while also skipping Unchained Court, since I would likely take a large amount of damage in it), however Phobos 7 would be a very nice breather, not only being an easy safe floor but it also had the most important thing to find before the end of Phobos, an Invulnerability Globe. After clearing the floor I skip the Phobos 7 special level (which was Phobos Lab that was going to be an automatic skip anyway, would have done Military Base though if it spawned and I didn't get an Invuln), and then take the Invulnerability into Phobos Anomaly, allowing me to get through damageless. I finish Phobos with only 24 damage taken, considering avoiding damage is hardest in Phobos and a good Demonic Diamond attempt would finish it around 100, this is an incredible pace, but I can't get too complacent, it only takes a couple bad floors to lose Demonic Diamond.

Thanks to rocket jumping, I'm able to take the Invuln into Hell's Armory, allowing me to safely clean the starting area and set up camp to clear it out without taking damage. My plan was always to stop by Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab since the pre-Shambler portion of them could be safely cleared out with minimal damage and getting one of the Exotic shotguns or the Jackhammer from the weapon cache would be a huge help, while the two free mods and Shell Box are also nice, and then I could just leave without fighting the Shamblers. With me having a shot at the Shambler's Head for the guaranteed Nano Mod and being so far ahead of the damage pace, I do take the risk in releasing the Shambler. Unfortunately I don't get good teleportation luck and I don't have Shottyhead yet, so I do get hit a couple times, while the lab cache reward is an Onyx Mod, normally great but it's actually probably the least useful of the four rare mods here, since if I'm taking enough damage for infinite durability to matter in this sort of run, it's probably over anyway (I decide to hold onto it to make Lava Boots later since it could maybe save me more damage than indestructible Red Armor or a pre-buff Tower Shield would). The weapon cache also wasn't useful; it had a Blaster and GCB, amazing if this was a Pistol run but basically useless for Shottyhead... Coming into Armory was still worth it though for the mods (making a Tactical Shotgun and Boots) and the Shell Box. Deimos 2 would follow this up with an awkward starting room, and I would end up in a rather perilous position where I got pincered by a Baron and Commando while I didn't have Shottyhead online yet to fight them both. With running and getting closer to the Commando, it doesn't go as badly as it could have, but I do take a Plasma Rifle burst and lose my shot an Untouchable Cross (one of three medals I'm still missing, but I'm going to need to get it anyway when I go for pure Destroyer Diamond soon, so that doesn't matter as long as I stay under 200). Deimos 3 would give me this annoying warehouse level, where I had to keep luring enemies into this one door, and while I could have probably done The Wall damageless, I don't need the Backpack or Missile Launcher and so it would be a pointless risk. I also find a Bulk Mod to Fireproof one of my Red Armors, as since I won't be getting Berserker, getting hit by the VMR or Cyberdemon will do a lot of damage even in P-modded Red Armor. Speaking of the Cyberdemon, after getting Shottyhead, my plan was to get HR2 and Dodgemaster to ensure I could get through him damageless (as long as I didn't get bad luck with his starting spawn position), however Deimos 5 would have an Invuln on it, where I then pivot and do Invuln'd rocket jumping to skip through the last two Deimos floors to take that Invuln to the Cyberdemon, allowing me to skip getting Dodgemaster for more Finesse and Whizkid to better help me lategame. The Invuln lasts through the Cyberdemon fight, and I end up finishing Deimos with only 59 damage sustained, giving me a generous 140 damage buffer for Hell to work with. (On a side note, that aforementioned Deimos 5 had a second Blaster spawn, a reminder Blasters have a measly spawning weight of 2 in this version, shame I don't get this luck with the special shotguns instead...)

At this point, since the Mastermind will be easy, I'm ready to do a stair dive through Hell to Dis when I get more Invulnerability. Hell does give me a rough intro however, with Hell 1 being a maze that has both set of stairs far from the starting point, while my Invuln from Deimos runs out shortly in. Taking it very slowly and carefully though, I'm able to get through the maze taking no more than 2 points of damage, and then Hell 2 has the Invuln I need to finish this. After clearing out Hell 2, I take that Invuln, level up shortly into Hell 3 to get Whizkid and build myself a Tactical Rocket Launcher, at which point it's a wrap. I rocket jump invulnerable through the rest of Hell, while taking the opportunity to detour through Limbo after getting another Invuln on Hell 4 to get the Assault Shotgun and mod it up just in case the Invulns run out before Dis, but thanks to the Tactical Rocket Launcher letting me rocket jump several times between reloads, I'm able to Invuln skip the rest of Hell. The Invuln does run out shortly into Dis, but they last long enough to get me safely in the Mastermind's face, where I can hammer away with the Double Shotgun and effortlessly stunlock her to death with Shottyhead. I take just 2 points of damage through Hell, so I end up finishing the game with a mere 61 damage sustained.

And there it is, the Demonic Diamond is secured. Despite how scary this bad looks, after a few resets on Phobos Base Entry, my first run that got past Base Entry damageless ended up going all the way. Despite that first try, I wouldn't say this badge doesn't deserve its reputation, I did have to play extremely slowly and carefully before I got the Invulns to skip most of the second half, and that floor 2 vault with Red Armor + a T-modded Combat Shotgun really helped me mitigate damage in Phobos, but it's probably not the hardest Diamond. Aside from the even more infamous Arena Diamond, I think Inquisitor Diamond may have actually been harder, and I'm not looking forward to pure Destroyer Diamond, though you also have to consider that unlike those harder Diamonds, there's nothing you can do to try cheesing Demonic Diamond with its standard game restriction, other than spam quick runs until you get extremely good Invulnerability luck. An interesting thing to me about this run is that if you subtract the 14 damage I took from the Shambler that I could have not released (the Onyx mod I got from killing him did basically nothing anyway, as I made very little use of the Lava Boots I made from it), I actually would have finished with under 50 damage... which means theoretically this run would have won under Masochist Angelic's constraints even without getting any Ironman or Blood Skulls or Medical Armors to expand your health pool there. That gets me thinking, perhaps when I do eventually try to win the first 0.9.9.7 Masochist Angelic, rather than going Vampyre as I was planning, perhaps I should do this Shottyhead build again... We'll cross that bridge when I get there. Also getting this badge and many other Diamonds + Angelics with Shottyhead, perhaps that could convince people that I'm right about it being a top tier mastery? :p Anyway with Demonic Diamond, I'm at 22 Diamonds now and without cheesing any of them through Dual Angels, though Destroyer Diamond and especially Arena Diamond may test my resolve to not resort to Dual Angel abuse...

Now here is the mortem:

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 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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 ONLY200?!, level 12 Cyberdemon Chaos Lt. General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 1227766 turns and scored 439960 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 58 minutes and 56 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1078 out of 1455 hellspawn. (74%)

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 3
  Levels completed : 2

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

  Cyberdemon's Head
  Mastermind's Brain
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Untouchable Medal
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  Demonic Diamond Badge

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

  ###########################################################
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  ##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
  #........####.....####.....####........####################
  .........####.....####.....####.........###################
  .........####..............####..........##################
  ..........................................#################
  ..####........................X%..####....#################
  .&####............................####....#################
  ..####............................###.....#################
  ..####............................####....#################
  ..........................................#################
  .........####...............###..........##################
  .........####.....####.....####.........###################
  #........####.....####.....####........####################
  ##.......####.....####.....####.......#####################
  ###...............####...............######################
  ####................................#####################>#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 83/50   Experience 62054/12
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)
    Shottyman        (Level 1)
    Shottyhead       (Level 1)

  Fin->Jug->Int->Int->HR->Rel->Rel->SM->MSh->HR->Fin->WK->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6/6] (99%) (P)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   double shotgun (10d3)x2 [0/2] (P1T1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x43)

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

    [a] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [3/5]
    [c] assault shotgun (9d3) [6/6] (P2T1)
    [d] fireproof red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [e] shotgun shell (x14)
    [f] shotgun shell (x50)
    [g] shotgun shell (x50)
    [h] shotgun shell (x50)
    [i] shotgun shell (x50)
    [j] shotgun shell (x50)
    [k] shotgun shell (x50)
    [l] rocket (x10)
    [m] rocket (x2)
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] lava plasteel boots [2]
    [r] shell box (x100)

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

    Fire       - internal 0%    torso 25%   feet 0%   

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

    139 former humans
    194 former sergeants
    40 former captains
    241 imps
    121 demons
    156 lost souls
    59 cacodemons
    34 hell knights
    19 barons of hell
    7 arachnotrons
    30 former commandos
    17 pain elementals
    6 revenants
    7 mancubi
    5 arch-viles
    1 shambler
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 13 he assembled a lava boots!
  He left level 15 as soon as possible.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 19 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  He managed to escape from Limbo!
  On level 21 he ran for his life from lava!
  He left level 22 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

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

 You quickly reload the double shotgun.
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You quickly reload the double shotgun.
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind flinched! The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You quickly reload the double shotgun.
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 You quickly reload the double shotgun.
 The Spider Mastermind flinched! The Spider Mastermind flinched!
 The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
 Mastermind! Press <Enter>...

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

 332 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 133 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 8 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 94 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 50 killed the bitch and survived.
 37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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

Next up in my 0.9.9.7 conquest, I decided it was time to get that 9th Angelic to tie Tormuse's record and become the second ever player to have verifiably gotten the Chaos Lt General rank. Among the dwindling options, I decided to go for Strongman Angelic, a badge with only one verifiable win in 0.9.9.7 by Tormuse (it was also won in 0.9.9.8 by micerang, though it was much easier in that version with the dodging bug, the overly buffed Marine, and that version's hideously broken Vampyre). This is a badge that certainly lives up to its Angelic billing and I'm not surprised only Tormuse got it in 0.9.9.7, even papilio apparently gave up on it after stating he was going for it. In Strongman runs, you don't actually need to only use your fists, you can use other weapons to weaken enemies, as long as all finishing blows are from punching enemies, but even with that reprieve doing this in Nightmare is still extremely difficult. The idea of "weaken enemy to near death with your Pistol/Shotgun, then punch them out in one hit when they get close" sounds nice in theory, but the sheer enemy density of N! means you often can't do this cleanly to enemies one at a time and having to fight several at once in the open like N! often forces will be a death sentence when you're slowly trying to punch out everything. You also need cover to do this, as with N!'s increased enemy aggression, any ranged-attacking enemy that sees you will keep firing on you, and if you weaken them from a distance, you'll still need to get in through their constant barrage to punch them, thus making you even more dependent on floors generating with good cover. Then you of course have N!'s trademark respawning on top, while being unable to kill with weapons that inflict knockback nor be able to use stronger melee weapons that can gib, and using rocket launchers or other large explosives to blow up corpses is very risky, when some Former or other weak enemy could inadvertently get caught in the explosion to end the run, thus making you also heavily dependent on floors generating with doors or fluids in spots with usable cover. Even if you get a perfect camping spot with a doorway or fluid tile, and so can perfectly funnel every enemy single file while being able to weaken each of them before they reach you, anything bigger than an Imp you often won't perfectly weaken to be killed in one punch and even Imps can get hits in annoyingly often, so attrition damage racks up fast in ideal scenarios.

The worst thing however hanging over your head is that if a single enemy dies to any weapon, you are immediately disqualified from earning this badge; an enemy wasn't quite in one-punch kill range but your Shotgun/Pistol shot rolled unexpectedly high and killed them, you tried shooting something with a Shotgun and some enemy behind them you didn't see gets killed by it, a Pistol misses and blows up a barrel behind the enemy you shot at that then kills them or another enemy, that's it run is over, Q+Y and try again. There's also the fucked indirect kill attribution of 0.9.9.7, where if an enemy dies by indirect means (e.g. from items, infighting, telefragging, or damaging fluids), the kill will be attributed to the weapon you had equipped at the time of their death. This means you must ardently limit the time you have a weapon equipped, so you can't run -> wait or move around a floor with a weapon equipped, else if an enemy attacks you and kills something else in the crossfire or Formers keep walking into a teleporter and telefrag each other or some Pinky on the other side of the map dies while running through acid, your run is over if you happened to have any weapon equipped when those things happen, and you might not even notice it if you don't pay good attention to the messages to notice the "You hear the scream of a freed soul" message. Being unable to have your weapon out at all times doesn't just make this run more annoying to play, it makes the attrition damage issue even worse, as without Juggler, the time it takes to swap to a weapon will allow an enemy to move back out of vision or to a tile where they get LoS on you, or it's a bigger enemy that moves closer and costs you a crucial additional shot you could have gotten on them before punching them. At least if you punch an enemy with a weapon equipped, the game will correctly attribute it as a fist kill, so you don't need to waste time swapping back to your fists to punch things (before attempting this I did a quick HNTR AoOC test to verify if I could still get Sunrise Iron Fist after punching enemies to death with a weapon equipped, doing a Strongman Angelic run and then not getting the badge if the kill attribution was fucked that way too would have been very deflating).

For the build, there is really only one viable option and that's Vampyre. As mentioned, you'll take a heavy amount of unavoidable attrition damage and so having the mastery that heals off that attrition damage is imperative, while trying to avoid the attrition damage with Blademaster won't work that well when you'll be unable to one-shot anything bigger than Imps even when berserked. When it comes to your opening traits, in a normal Vampyre run I would usually open with Finesse, or if in AoB, I would go straight for Berserker, but in a Strongman run, getting Brute 3 ASAP is non-negotiable; not only is increasing the damage of your punching vital when it's so weak, but since building up the Berserker counter requires hits to deal at least 10 damage, you can't even trigger Berserker with your fists without having Brute 3. Then you need to get Vampyre ASAP after that; picking up Finesse or TaN instead of Badass is tempting, but as established, you just won't survive if you don't heal off all the attrition damage and you'll probably be running low on medkits by the time you reach level 6, if you have any at all. After Vampyre you then get some differing options to build, Tormuse in his run went straight for TaN, however I go for Fin2 and then WK2 immediately; Finesse is not only a means for increasing DPS, but it'll also help you trigger Berserker faster, which is crucial to reducing the damage you take. For example, punching a full health Baron with no berserk is a very unfun time, as he'll get three hits in before you get four punches in to trigger Berserker, which each Baron swing will deal 9-11 damage that even a Red Armor will only reduce to 5-7 damage, so 15-21 total in said Red Armor (even greater in weaker armor), and he'll still get another hit or two in after Berserker kicks in, while you get 6 HP back for killing him. With Finesse, you can get a double hit or two in on him to reduce the hits he get in before Berserker triggers, significantly reducing the damage you take punching him, and this damage saving will be even more drastic when you're in a midst of a horde and triggering Berserker ASAP is your only hope of survival, thus it will save you more damage than TaN will (not to mention it'll also let you more effectively damage bigger enemies with other weapons before they reach you, so even more damage saving there). Then getting WK2 is important because the most crucial piece of equipment is getting yourself adequate indestructible or regenerating armor, as even with doubled-repairing shards, this run will make you chew through armor like Nightmare Demons chew through noobs, and TaN alone does not suffice, especially when TaN does not reduce the damage your armor takes (as it's applied in damage calculation after your armor). (Your different armor options are explained in the spoiler)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Barring getting very lucky with finding one of the indestructible or regenerating rare armors early, such armor will come in one of three forms; a Nanofiber Red Armor, an O-modded Red Armor if you get an Onyx mod from Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, or a Powered Red Armor if you get a Nano mod from said special levels. If you don't get an Onyx or Nano mod from Armory/Lab, then you need to Nanofiber your Red Armor, and you need to get WK2 before doing so to Power mod it after, as Nanofiber Red Armor is pretty lousy without it (even when berserked, Nanofiber Red Armor would fail to reduce tougher melee hits to 1 damage, and hits taken without berserk will really sting). If you get an Onyx mod that's much better, as even just an O-modded Red Armor is better than the aforementioned P-modded Nanofiber Red Armor, but you still want WK to buff it up farther; a PO Red Armor gets you an indestructible 6 protection armor with a 25% fire res, which will reduce nearly everything to 1 damage when berserked and will make slugging it out without berserk not so painful, while with WK2 you could add an A mod on top for a much appreciated speed boost. Getting a Nano mod for a Powered Red Armor is the best, as its armor regeneration is nearly as good as being indestructible but it also doubles the fire resist to 50%, gives a much needed +25% melee resistance, and gets rid of the movement penalty altogether, while with WK2, you can P-mod it after to get a 7 protection armor, which with the aforementioned resistances can let you tank most things even without berserk.

After WK2 I go for Juggler, which can be surprising as at this point as I'm not so reliant on using weapons to weaken enemies and so Badass 2 or TaN would be more valuable, but if I make this far, when I do use weapons, I want to absolutely minimize the time I spend with it equipped to reduce the chance some random Pinky dies in lava or something else dies while I have a weapon equipped, which is probably a bigger risk to ending a run at this point than me actually dying. After that is level 12 and so I still don't get Badass nor TaN as I can get more Finesse and Brute; I go for Fin3 first, I already explained the importance of faster attacking speed and speed is something that gets even better the more of it you have (at this point I will be getting 2 punches for nearly every 1 attack from standard speed enemies, and even against Archviles I can now sneak extra punches in without berserk, while with berserk, I'll be getting nearly 3 punches for 1 from standard speed enemies and getting reliable double punches on fast enemies), and then it's maxing out Brute to make my damage less pitiful (with Brute 5, your punches now deal 16-18 damage, 32-36 when berserked, thus with berserk you can now two-shot any enemy below an Archvile, while also one-shotting Revenants and Arachnotrons). It's Badass 2 after that for extra insurance with carrying around more boosted health, and then I finally get TaN for my final two levels, though if I was relying on a Nanofiber Red Armor in this run, I may have gotten TaN sooner (but with the armor I had, I didn't need the farther damage reduction).

With the overarching strategy, there are two ways to approach Strongman Angelic; you either play it the intended way and actually clear out most floors punching everything to get 90+% kills, or you stair dive and pray you get lucky enough with Berserks/Invulns to survive and farm a Pain Elemental or safe respawn for hours later in the run to make up the 90+% kills needed. Tormuse did the latter, and ended up spending a whopping 7 and a half hours on his run, farming Pain Elementals for an absurd 12029 Lost Soul kills (granted he went that far to get Iron Skull and could have made do with half the Lost Souls, but having to kill 6K Lost souls is still a crazy time-consuming amount), Tormuse however doesn't state how many tries it took him, while stair diving seems extremely unreliable when you're playing a Marine (so no stair sense) and can't use any weapons to kill stuff nor can rocket jump with enemies around (as invariably something would get killed by it or infighting while you have the rocket launcher equipped). Considering how unappealling spamming stair dives until I get very lucky is to me and the extremely tedious lategame Lost Soul/respawn grinding needed if I skip most of the floors, I decided to play it the more "legit" way and actually kill most enemies along the way. Micerang in his Strongman Angelic actually pulled off a YAAM Conqueror, but again considering 0.9.9.8 gave you the cheat code that was the dodging bug and its overpowered Marine + its version of Vampyre that was essentially IDDQD, doing that in any other version would be ludicrous, so I won't be going that far and will leave any floor that is not worth staying on (especially in Phobos), while I will only be entering and clearing special levels that are still easily doable with the fist-only kills restriction.

When it comes to the run itself, it immediately gets annoying with Phobos Base Entry; if the Shotgunners come out early when you approach the building, that's it run is over, reset, even if you can run through their shotgun blasts without dying you'll take too much damage. If they don't come out early and you can get to the side of the building, the level is easy to clear as you can gift drop all the Formers to punching range and approaching an initial Former Human isn't hard as they'll have Storm Trooper accuracy when you're running. The next part of aggravation though comes in getting those Small Medkits that you really want when you need all the health you can get early on and getting them is a terrible luck-based ordeal; I found a trick where you can guarantee a double attack on a Shotgunner if he attacks on consecutive quick swaps you do, but with Brute 1 your punch does 4-6 damage, so if you roll 4 on one punch and then don't roll a 6 on the other punch, you won't kill him in two punches, and you only have 74% accuracy too with Brute 1 so your finishing punch will miss annoyingly frequently, where the Shotgunner will then use the medkit up. And unlike in a normal run where you can use the first Shotgunner's Shotgun to one-shot the second Shotgunner with a medkit, you can't do that here, so you will need roll the unreliable odds again. Calculating all the probabilities here would be annoying, but I would say you only have around 25% or less odds of getting a good Phobos Base Entry with both medkits and not taking too much damage, so aiming for that will make you quickly reset a lot, and even getting a good Phobos Base Entry will often be for naught as you get a floor 2 that isn't viable. I kept trying for the ideal Phobos Base Entry, but in retrospect you probably should just settle for the one medkit and not taking too much damage, the extra medkit won't save you getting a fucked early Phobos floor and any run that makes it to Chained Court can be viable (as you'll see), so all those resets that will be caused trying to get both medkits here won't be worth it.

Speaking of floor 2, it'll be the floor with the most deaths or resets if you don't aim for an ideal Phobos Base Entry. To start with, if you spawn near a bunch of enemies in the open without an immediate good escape path, your run is already over, Formers will shred you quickly in the open and you can forget about trying to punch out several Imps at once with only Brute 1. If you get forced to fight a Pinky before you get Brute 2, your run is also over; with only Brute 1 your fist will deal an appalling 2-4 damage to them while their bites deal 6-8 damage and they'll be getting a double attack in for every 2 or 3 punches you throw, so you absolutely need to avoid them before you at least get Brute 2 (ideally you'll want Brute 3, since with Brute 2 you're still dealing only 5-7 damage, but Brute 2 can be workable if you can at least weaken them significantly first). If you don't get an immediate run-ending start, first thing will be trying to find a workable camping spot with a door or water tile ASAP and then set up camp, as well as hoping you can punch out enough Formers before having to punch out Imps with Brute 1 (who are a lot more competent in melee than Formers and will often not die to two punches if not previously damaged, as you will need to roll two 6 damage rolls without missing either punch to do so). Once you got a camping spot, you can gift drop with one of your medkits to lure Formers into punching range, but you can safely shoot them once with your Pistol to aggro them into position or just weaken them into one-punch kill range since saving any damage you take helps (without damage boosts, the Pistol can't do more than 8 damage and so can never kill an undamaged Former in one shot, however the Pistol does frequently miss and so you shouldn't shoot if you can see a barrel behind the Former). Imps are trickier, as they can't be lured in by gifts, and with their just above-average speed, they can get a double move as you wait and so can get a surprise attack in, or immediately pop into melee range, while the math isn't in your favor if you try duking it out with several undamaged Imps (Imps deal 3-5 in melee, 2-4 if you got Green Armor on, and won't frequently miss like Formers will, while they can occasionally get double hits in without Finesse and you can't one-punch a full health Imp without Brute 3, which even then you'll only do so 33% of the time). You'll need to Pistol Imps from behind cover to safely get their attention, and you'll want to Pistol them to one-punch range; usually you can only get one safe Pistol shot on them but if their health is displayed as "lightly wounded" or "scratched", the Pistol low rolled and left them at 9/10 HP, so you can (and should) Pistol them again to ensure they're in one-punch range with Brute 2 or especially Brute 1 (but after you get Brute 3, you'll always one-punch them after any Pistol shot). If an Imp is at least 8 tiles away, a Shotgun will fail to one-shot them even with an incredibly unlikely max damage roll, but using a Shotgun is risky as barrels could be around just outside your vision that would get blown up, or there could be Formers or Lost Souls right outside your vision that get killed in the spread, so you shouldn't use Shotguns to aggro an Imp unless you're damn sure nothing is behind it.

Regarding Lost Souls, with their 50% bullet resistance you can safely get at least two Pistol shots off on them and you won't need to worry about them leaving a corpse, but don't Pistol a wandering Lost Soul that's less than 5 tiles away, as a shot Lost Soul will immediately charge and cover up to 4 tiles in a single move, while their charge hits harder than Imps with 5-7 damage (ideally after you Pistol a Lost Soul, it charges right into punching range for you to finish off). With Pinkies, ideally you have some acid on the level and can just wait for them to kill themselves in the acid or lure them over it, otherwise you are going to want to bust out the Shotgun to weaken them, as the Pistol likely won't get more than a few shots off before they reach you with over half their health intact, which is going to be a very unpleasant time with only Brute 2. If a Pinky's health is displayed as "wounded", they can die to any closish Shotgun blast (they can have as little as 13 HP left, which a very high damage roll can inflict to them even from a few tiles away), but this early it's a risk you have to take as a "wounded" Pinky can have as much as 18 HP and even a 13 HP Pinky will likely take up to three punches with Brute 2 to kill while you lose nearly half your health in the exchange (you should try getting them down to at least "severely wounded" before punching them, when you have Brute 2 I would even say you should probably risk another Shotgun blast on them at "heavily wounded"). For one more note with Pinkies, always check their health before shooting them, otherwise you might risk shooting a Pinky that's already nearly dead from running through acid offscreen (and I did lose a couple runs from shooting at Pinkies that happened to injure themselves to near death, you should also do the same with Imps since they can survive telefrags with 1 HP and I lost another run to shooting at an Imp without looking at its health that indeed survived a telefrag offscreen).

With vaults on Floor 2, they can be a mixed blessing; vaults can have very nice things inside, but on N! they'll be filled with over a half dozen Pinkies or Cacodemons, while you won't be able to get Brute 3 + Berserker this early to berserk through them. First thing is to try finding the vault and setting up camp near its entrance to make sure no enemies open it, you do not want the enemies inside getting out before you get Brute 3. If you can guard the vault and kill all other enemies on the floor, you can then try dealing with it. If there is a nearby Berserk Pack, you should utilize it to clear out the vault, but if not you'll need to approach it more carefully. If it's Pinkies and there's acid, you can try luring them over to it or push an acid barrel near the vault and blow it up, otherwise you'll have to break the door open from a distance and try isolating them once you get them out, while utilizing doors to block them off when needed. Cacodemons have a lot more HP and hit even harder in melee (doing 7-9 damage), while they'll fly over any acid, but they are a lot slower, so they might actually not be as bad if you can isolate them, as you can much more easily escape them and more easily weaken them before they reach you (you want to get them to "mortally wounded" before punching them, you can risk shotgunning a "heavily wounded" Caco this early but should switch to the Pistol if they're "severely wounded" but not yet in your face as a Shotgun has too high of a chance to kill them even near edge of vision, while they're guaranteed to survive at least one Pistol shot at that health range). If you get lucky with a vault and can clear it out, you could get a Red Armor early that will be extremely helpful, a Phase Device of either sort that will be crucial for a certain later level or a Rocket Launcher that will be even better for said level (and do emergency corpse disposal in the meantime), and early Large Medkits. Even just a Blue Armor would be useful for getting through the next few floors, and if there's nothing good inside, at least it'll be extra crucially needed early EXP. Whatever the floor layout is, you should fully clear floor 2 or reset/die trying if you're unable to, killing everything on floor 2 should get you enough EXP to hit level 3 to get the direly needed Brute 3, or it'll at least get you no more than a few kills away from hitting level 3, you do not want to be punching Hell Knights with Brute 2. In my winning run, I got a Massacre lever on floor 2; I got one in a few prior runs that I couldn't find in time before dying, but in this run I was able to escape that nasty looking start and find it. If you get a Massacre lever, you should try finding it and hit it ASAP; as it'll gib all Formers, kill all Imps, and significantly weaken Lost Souls and Pinkies (you'll lose any medkits or armors picked up by the Formers, but it's probably worth the tradeoff here). You could try going into Hell's Arena despite clearing it being out of the question, I usually go in even in runs where it's unviable just to get some kills for EXP, however I skipped it in nearly all my attempts here as it can go quickly awry and I typically already spent 15+ minutes just getting through floor 2 (the only time I went in was when I got a lucky early Shell Box from an ammo crate so I could weaken the Cacos and Pinkies much more safely, maybe if I got a Combat Shotgun from a floor 2 vault I would consider it too). Even if you get any Berserk Packs on floor 2, you shouldn't waste them going into Hell's Arena, as they'll help you survive the upcoming floor much more and you're not clearing Hell's Arena anyway.

After floor 2 is the ever dreaded floor 3-5 range, with the Hell Knights and more dangerous level types showing up. Hell Knights hit as hard as Cacodemons do, but they have even more HP, are faster than you with 110% speed, and can wear any armor they find as well as steal + use medkits. You'll rarely be able to cleanly shotgun down a Hell Knight to one-punch range, and unless you started shotgunning from far away, they'll probably get to you with over half their health remaining, where it'll take you at least three punches to kill them even with Brute 3. Hell Knights also often spawn heading a group of Imps, at which point you can't shotgun them down unless you can get the Hell Knight separated from the Imps. Whenever you find Berserk Packs, seeking and punching out any Hell Knights you see or hear while berserked should be your immediate kill priority, and you should eat an Imp fireball on top of their corpse to destroy it. You need to hit level 4 to get Berserker, as otherwise lethal hot starts and generally unviable floors can be survived with it, while the run's ultimate success still hinges on getting Vampyre, so you should try clearing floors in this range if you can do so. But if a floor is just too tough (such as a Cacodemon cave, Warehouse levels, or any maze), then you should leave upon finding the stairs, reaching The Chained Court is your top priority. In this run, I entered floor 3 with much needed berserk and had another immediately accessible Berserk Pack, so I could clear out the Hell Knights and a vault that spawned (as well as nabbed myself a Phase Device from inside it). The next two floors would be awful Warehouse levels with the mass barrel quasi-event, so clearing them out was unviable and I got brutalized fighting my way to the stairs. I was able to make it to The Chained Court but I thought the run was over as I had no armor and only a single Small Medkit (I didn't even bother taking screenshots because I thought the run was going to die in Chained Court or shortly after anyway).

If you make it to The Chained Court, it's tempting to grab all the Berserks and hightail it, but you should actually clear it, as if done correctly, you can come out of it without burning any medkits and you really want that Baron EXP, while you also want the mods (you can't mod your fists but you need A mods to move faster and P mods to buff your armor, as well as B mods for your armor if you don't get an Onyx nor Nano later). For clearing Chained Court, grab the Chainsaw (and immediately unequip it), then just immediately run to one of the exit rooms; punch out any Formers that are in the way but otherwise run past them until you get to the exit room and set up camp in there. You'll get shot up a lot and will probably be low on health, but you should make it (while a Berserk will fully heal you in a bit), and once you have the exit room secured, you can drop a medkit or armor in the doorway and camp it until all the non-caged Formers come to it (if there's a Chaingunner you had to punch out in the exit room, you'll have to keep punching him as he revives until you're sure no Former is right outside, then you can step out as he gets back up and wait for him to get in the doorway to put him out for good before resuming camping). Once all non-caged Formers are dead, it's onto the Barons; grab a Berserk and then go release the right Barons, punch one out and eat an acid ball on its corpse to destroy it, then immediately run back to the center, where you can then shotgun the Baron until it's sufficiently weakened for you to punch it out in the doorway. You then repeat the process for the Barons on the left side, except you instead lure the last Baron into the exit room instead of to the center room, and once the last Baron is killed in the doorway, you can camp with a gift there until the remaining Formers released in the center room come to you. Doing this I'm still able to clear The Chained Court despite the dire state I was in, and have two Berserks left to take with me to the next floor.

Phobos 6 was a maze that I would have no hope in if I stayed, but I find the stairs quickly enough and nab myself a battered Blue Armor for some armor as well as a Supercharge along the way, and then Phobos 7 is yet another Warehouse level with a hot start, but I survive just long enough to get Vampyre. I also find the red stairs quickly, which turned out to be Military Base! If it was Phobos Lab I would have kept looking for the normal stairs (I already lost my deepest run prior from Phobos Lab after being forced into it when rolling an Arachnotron Cave on floor 7, punching out Nightmare Demons just isn't viable and I didn't have the speed to safely lure out the cave Nightmare Demons nor a Rocket Launcher for preemptively triggering Berserker), but Military Base I could easily clear with Vampyre online regardless of my armor/health supply and it'll be a huge EXP dump alongside having lots of armor, potentially medkits from crates, and two mods, so I just go right in after my berserk runs out. Then it's Phobos Anomaly, you get a much needed Red Armor and two Large Medkits, but you have to get past the Nightmare enemy ambush. The simplest way to get past would be to get an Invuln on floor 7, the next safest way is rocket jump through if you found a Rocket Launcher (and you'll be safe from anything dying as you do so as the Nightmare enemies are so tanky), or if you have no Hellrunner, then you need to get lucky with a Phase Device. I'm unsure how to handle it without those things in this run, especially if you don't even got A-modded boots as I didn't yet in this run; your only shot might be P-modding the Red Armor, punch the Nightmare Demons and hope Berserker activates before you die, then run back to the starting room with berserk and hopefully Vampyre can keep you alive as you punch out everything in the doorway. Luckily that aforementioned Phase Device I got does get me past the ambush, I then pop the radsuit from Military Base as I punch out the Bruisers (should have used the Chainsaw to weaken them but I'm able to successfully punch them out without using my Red Armor), and at last I finally get a run to Deimos after dozens and dozens of attempts. This also serves as a good lesson that as long as you can make it to The Chained Court, Strongman Angelic is still viable, no matter how bad your armor and health situation is.

Deimos would immediately give me a big reprieve, with its first floor having not just One Invuln, two Invulns (plus a Hatred Skull that might be handy), but three Invulnerabilities! I'm able to take them all with me to Deimos Lab, where I just run straight to the Shamblers and punch them out with Invulnerability (the Invuln wasn't really needed when they would have been manageable enough with Berserker, but it was some much needed catharsis). I would have to retreat back to the teleporter room and wait for all the remaining enemies who didn't get their corpses destroyed to teleport in, after this bit of tedious cleanup, I can access the lab cache, and get a Sniper Mod... plus a Nano mod! I have my Red Armor already P-modded and so can make Powered Red Armor, however I'm still a level off from getting WK2 and I'll need it first or else I won't be able to mod it after (yet again I'll question why the hell this restriction with modding pre-WK2 assemblies existed, 0.9.9.8 getting rid of it was seriously one of its best changes). So I'm left at the conundrum of if to just make the Powered Red Armor now or wait until WK2; since my medkit supply is looking much better after Military Base and that good first Deimos floor, I make the decision to try holding out for one more level (and use the Sniper Mod to make a Plasmatic Combat Shotgun for easy anywhere corpse disposal + safe wall destruction, but I have to use it very sparingly as I do not want the run ruined at this point because of something dying while using it). I would get a pretty good Deimos 2 (as well as a stark reminder why you can't walk around with weapons equipped in this version, as I walked into a Mancubus' vision that then fired and killed enemies behind me, the run would have been over right there if I had anything equipped), and then on Deimos 3 I would reach level 10, where I promptly make the Powered Red Armor and P-mod it for a regenerating armor with 7 protection, 50% fire resist, 25% melee resist, and no movement penalty. If that wasn't enough, I find a Rocket Launcher (after having one blown up on the prior floor by the aforementioned Mancubus) that I immediately use all the Bulk mods I had to turn into a Tactical Rocket Launcher (which will let me take more Invulns with me at the end of a floor and the smaller radius can let me more safely rocket jump around enemies in a pinch), and finally an Agility mod for my boots (I somehow did not get a single one in the prior three special levels). At this point the run is mostly won, the Powered Red Armor will reduce all melee damage short of the Nightmare Demon and the biggest bosses down to 1 damage, VMR will be nearly harmless even without berserk, and with berserk basically everything will get reduced to 1 damage with no TaN needed (in this version, only plasma hits that deal over 11 damage won't get reduce to 1 damage, which among common enemies only a max damage roll from a Hell Knight or Cacodemon can do for a single extra point of damage, and the only other enemy I can encounter that can is Nightmare Cacodemon rolling for a maximum of 3 damage after my defenses). I would near exclusively use my fists at this point to be absolutely sure nothing inadvertently dies when I have a weapon out, as weakening enemies prior to punch them is no longer needed when I have achieved a near-IDDQD state, and I can even get more corpses destroyed by just tanking explosive projectiles on them if they're not already destroyed in the crossfire. I just need to be careful to not overextend against Arachnotrons (who can still rack up a lot of damage since their rapid fire bursts add up fast even after reducing each plasma bolt to 1 damage) and not take too many acid balls from Barons without berserk (they can still roll up to as high as 12 damage without berserk and a few acid balls in quick succession can damage my Powered Red Armor, putting me in a bad spot if I can't quickly get a breather for it to repair itself).

I skip Containment Area but head into Abyssal Plains for the Skulls that might be useful and a big easy kill pad, with it pushing me over the needed 90% kills threshold and so I won't need to do any respawn or Pain Elemental farming later as long as I clear out most of the remaining floors. Having a nuke on hand and an Invuln spawning on Deimos 6, I would use the opportunity to nuke Spider's Lair, which conveniently has all its rewards spawn in after the nuke goes off; unfortunately I can't use the BFG but the Plasteel Boots will be nice... yet are immediately rendered irrelevant when Deimos 7 has Enviroboots drop in my immediate vision. Deimos 7 is finished off easily and then I punch out the Cyberdemon effortlessly, not even needing to Chainsaw him down to near death first. Hell gives me an easy opener with a Pain Elemental + Lost Souls cave, and then Unholy Cathedral is free EXP, with me also punching out the Angel of Death without needing to weaken him with the Chainsaw. I find a Bulk in that cave after using all the ones I had prior on the Tactical Rocket Launcher, which I used to make a P-modded Nanofiber Red Armor out of a spare Red Armor I had just in case I got into a fight that damaged the Powered Red Armor... and that proved immediately necessary when Hell 2 gave me an Arena level with an Arachnotron group right near the start as well as a nearby Hell Noble group set to hunt me. Had my closest post-Phobos call here as my Powered Red Armor got damaged and I had to slip into that Nanofiber Red Armor, with one particular bad moment when my berserk ran out while waiting for enemies to approach me from behind the starting cover, a Hatred Skull would indeed prove useful here to get rid of the nearby corpses and get berserk back on to finish the remaining hunting enemies so I can put the Powered Red Armor back on to repair itself, after which I can finish off the remaining enemies. Hell 3 is much smoother and I then enter The Vaults, since it's free EXP and missing a handful of kills won't matter, while I also have two Phase Devices to try getting in the center vault without the Arena Master's Staff. The first one doesn't get me in, but the second Phase does! This turns out to not just be for EXP (and making up for cheesing Scavenger Diamond prior with Whisper Of Death in this version), but is materially worth it as well with the center vault having a Lava Armor, much better backup armor than the Nanofiber Red that I can also easily repair whenever with those Enviroboots (and I would make use of it a couple times, particularly against some Barons on an Island level who I carelessly face tanked too many berserk-less acid balls from). Hell 4 would have an Invuln right near Mortuary's stairs, and I had another nuke on hand, so I decided to nuke Mortuary as well. I would pop the other Hatred Skull I got from the Agony Elemental, then do a couple rocket jumps towards the Nuclear BFG before the Archviles start reviving enemies (immediately swapping off once there was too much risk of something dying while rocket jumping), and then run the rest of the way to get the Nuclear BFG before nuking Mortuary (this was completely unnecessary, but nuking Mortuary is fun). Thanks to Enviroboots, Mt. Erebus is a freebie and it would have Malek's Armor there, would have been much nicer to have this sooner, but it's nice to have for Carmack, who I opt to fight to continue inching closer to Apostle rank and I effortlessly punch Carmack out.

A really nasty thing about Strongman runs is that you don't know for sure if you succeed until you see the ending mortem or the rank up screen, since something may have died at some point while you had a weapon equipped that you didn't notice, and there's no way to see during the run if it's still valid for the Strongman badges, thus you could potentially slug through this ordeal after hours and hours just to not get the badge because you didn't see the message that a fucking Pinky you never even saw ran on lava for the single second you had a weapon out. So upon killing Carmack I sit in anticipation for the rank up screen to verify nothing went wrong..... and there it is! After 24 recorded deaths (the most brutal deaths being the previously alluded to death in Phobos Lab after being forced in by a terribly early Arachnotron cave, and this run immediately after where I made it to Phobos 7 with an Invuln near the Anomaly stairs, only to absolutely throw it by charging on a Revenant in the open backed by a Chaingunner instead of running behind some sort of cover or just using up the Large Medkit I had), probably around another dozen or so I quit out of when getting a fucked floor or something dying while I had a weapon out, and countless resets on Phobos Base Entry if you count those as real attempts, I get Strongman Angelic over two days of attempting it. That is additionally my 9th Angelic, officially tying Tormuse for the most recorded Angelics by any player in 0.9.9.7 and becoming the second player confirmed to have achieved the Chaos Lt. General Rank (this also knocks off the last badge that was only won by Tormuse, which leaves Icy's Arena Diamond as the only badge left exclusively won by a single player aside from my own Eagerness and Inquisitor Angelics). Overall, yeah this badge definitely deserves its Angelic status and I can see why only Tormuse won it in this version, as not only is it extremely difficult, but it also forces the worst of DRL gameplay and it's very frustrating to suddenly lose runs because of anything dying while you had a weapon out. I don't think it's harder than Eagerness Angelic and am not sure it's harder than Inquisitor Angelic either (the difficulty is incredibly front-loaded here and surviving to The Chained Court is heavily luck-based), but it certainly was a lot less fun to go for. Strongman Angelic will be one of the badges most affected by the changes since in 0.10 and beyond; there are lots of good things like respawns no longer counting towards the kill counter, enemies no longer reviving in vision without the aid of Archviles, Tech mods now giving resistances to armors (including +20% melee res), proper infighting being in the game, and best of all, indirect kills are now properly attributed as "other" kills instead of to your equipped weapon, so you can keep a weapon equipped at all times and don't need to waste so much time constantly swapping between armed/unarmed. There are however going to be drawbacks, such as more randomized enemy melee damage meaning enemies can potentially swing harder (notably Pinkies actually average slightly more damage now), berserk being nerfed to giving +50% resistances (the Marine getting an inherent +10% energy resistances will result in your berserked energy resistances being the same if you play the Marine, but you will feel the nerf on the melee side), Vampyre getting some significant but deserved nerfs (Vampyre's HP steal can no longer overheal and Vampyre is now blocked Ironman + TaN, which were buffed to give additional resistances, but as compensation Vampyre can get SoB now for extra punching damage or get EE for Intuition), and most significantly you now have the Enraged Timer that will invalidate excessive camping. I'm not sure if Strongman Angelic will be easier or even harder in 0.10-onward, but it'll certainly be less degenerate to actually play, which would make any grind for it more bearable regardless of if it turns out harder.

Well that was sure a doozy to write up, here is the mortem:

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 DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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 GRANDMASTERTYSON25,
 level 17 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 1459188 turns and scored 940230 points.
 He played for 3 hours, 13 minutes and 29 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 2016 out of 2122 hellspawn. (95%)
 He held his right to remain violent.

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 9
  Levels completed : 9

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

  Sunrise Iron Fist
  UAC Star (silver cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Fallout Gold Cross
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Strongman Angelic Badge

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

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  ###########################################################

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

  Health 120/60   Experience 150112/17
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +10  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +15

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

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 5)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bad->MVm->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->Jug->Fin->Bru->Bru->Bad->TaN->TaN->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Malek's Armor [3/3] (93%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nothing
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   tactical rocket launcher (6d7) [5/5] (P1)

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

    [a] plasmatic combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
    [b] powered red armor [7/7] (100%) (P)
    [c] nanofiber red armor [4] (P)
    [d] Lava Armor [4/4] (100%)
    [e] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [f] chainsaw (5d7) (BP)
    [g] shotgun shell (x50)
    [h] rocket (x2)
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] phase device
    [q] envirosuit pack
    [r] power mod pack
    [s] Enviroboots [0]
    [t] shell box (x100)

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

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 

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

    204 former humans
    175 former sergeants
    182 former captains
    275 imps
    90 demons
    563 lost souls
    104 cacodemons
    44 hell knights
    58 barons of hell
    38 arachnotrons
    51 former commandos
    44 pain elementals
    68 revenants
    42 mancubi
    28 arch-viles
    9 nightmare imps
    12 nightmare demons
    7 elite former humans
    5 elite former sergeants
    7 elite former commandos
    2 bruiser brothers
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
  He purified his fellow comrades.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 9 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he assembled a power armor!
  On level 11 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
  He slaughtered the beasts living there.
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He nuked level 14!
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 15 he found the Enviroboots!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 19 he found the Lava Armor!
  He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
  On level 20 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  He nuked level 20!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  On level 22 he found the Malek's Armor!
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You are hit! You need to taste
 blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! The lost soul hits you. The lost
 soul hits you. John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher. You need to taste
 blood!
 You hit John Carmack. The lost soul hits you. The lost soul hits you. You
 need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. The lost soul hits you. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You are hit! The lost soul dies. The lost soul dies.
 The lost soul dies. The lost soul dies. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You're going berserk!

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

 331 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 133 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 8 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 93 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 49 killed the bitch and survived.
 37 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


If the Unexplored Star medal is added, I'd personally prefer if it's called the Medal of Chance. "Unexplored Star" makes it sound like you're being rewarded for not doing something that's completely optional, which the special levels are. "Medal of Chance" on the other hand is an ironic name.

As for weapons:

* Thank you for adding the M6D Pistol to the proposal list. I'm glad balance changes make implementing it in its full glory a workable idea.

* I feel like the WSTE-M5 Combat Shotgun could work as a weapon if it was given a damage boost to be better than the tactical/assault shotguns, and if its generation chance was weighted to favor early levels (as early as level 2 I'd say).

* I'm fine with Ammochain working with the Unmaker on its final level, since getting to that point requires significant investment to do so. I think I'm alright with having its final level work with Triggerhappy if it's a rapidfire weapon, as long as it means more rapidfire shots in succession like eg. the chaingun, instead of shooting more than 3 beams at once. Accuracy for the base Unmaker should be fairly high but not perfect, with better accuracy being one of the rewards of upgrading.

* As for upgrading the Unmaker, I'd probably go with demon keys hidden in certain special levels, in spots that aren't totally obvious but fairly easy to find for players who are paying attention. Think of the destructible walls that are in (IIRC) Toxin Refinery, or a switch hidden in a destructible crate. That's how it was in Doom 64, after all. Alternatively they could just be rewards for killing certain boss enemies while having the Unmaker. "You feel the Unmaker calling out to a demonic artifact here/possessed by a powerful demon!" could be the hint text for either situation.

* Two new weapon ideas from me that tie more closely to Doom's history and legacy:

The Wolfenstein 3D pistol, stated in The Official Hint Manual for Wolfenstein 3D™ to be a Walther P38 but should probably be called the Old Pistol. A unique pistol, with firing sound lifted straight from Wolf3D and sprite graphic...probably lifted from some modder who made one for a Doom mod or something. 8 round magazine, faster reload, more accurate and a bit more damaging than the base pistol. Does additional damage damage the closer you are to an enemy. I wish that WolfRL total conversion mod from a while back actually got finished, but this will do.

The grenade launcher from Quake, assuming that programming and implementing grenade projectiles that don't explode on impact (if they don't hit an enemy) is feasible and desirable.

So I was considering adding this to the compilation thread of suggestions I just made, as I think a unique pistol that has an Aimed Shot alt-fire that extends visibility while targeting is interesting, which can be especially handy as lategame Pistol builds will frequently knockback enemies out of their vision. My concern however is with how you described it, it'll just completely outclass all other pistols. You didn't give a number on damage, but I'm assuming you're thinking of something as strong as the Trigun's 3d6, or at least no weaker than 3d5, yet has a clip twice the size of the Trigun and Jackal, while also having the aforementioned sniping ability that would be very powerful on just the base Pistol. If it's to have that sort of power, I think it'll have to have a 1.5 second firing speed at base (which will come down to .15 second firing speed with SoG5), in addition to still having the half speed penalty when aim shooting, so that it isn't just the best pistol at everything and broken out of the box (at least not without also having heavy Finesse investment too to hit that minimum firing speed with it). I never played Halo, so I don't know if that slower firing speed is faithful, but some compromise would have to be made and the power + sniping are the defining parts of the weapon, so slow firing speed seems to the best place to compromise on (also reading the Wikipedia page, the pistol even got changed in Halo 3 to fire slower, so there's precedent for that balancing).

Not sure how I missed this, but the firing speed is a fairly integral part of the pistol in Halo CE. You could reduce the firing speed to be more like the Halo 3 pistol, but then it wouldn't be the specific M6D pistol that has its on Wikipedia page. I will probably post more about this in the compilation thread.

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

In the dwindling list of Diamonds I haven't gotten yet in 0.9.9.7, I decided to go for Masochist Diamond, yet another of the few big scary Diamonds that few have attempted and even fewer have won. On the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, only three people are recorded winning it; Gooselord1, Icy, and papilio, who was also the only one that did it purely. In versions prior to 0.9.9.7, you just have this supposed Masochist Diamond run in 0.9.9.5 by 2Dev (which would have actually been one of his more believable mortems... if not for his trademark unrealistically fast play time), and this 0.9.9.4 Masochist Diamond by Tormuse (unsurprising Tormuse won this before, though surprising he never got it back in 0.9.9.7). This isn't the Diamond with the worst track record, but still among the rarest and I imagine most Diamond-level players were too spooked to even try winning it.

So now time for the build. Looking over the prior Masochist Diamond runs, Icy used a Intuition stair dive Scout, but he also combined AoMs with AoMC, and without AoMC's massive offensive boost, that build would be far too weak to get through any difficult floor without powerups, so it would be exorbitantly luck-based to try in pure AoMs. Gooselord did it through a melee Scout stair dive while combining AoB with AoMs on his way to getting Berserker Angelic, and while combining AoB with AoMs could certainly be considered more impressive than winning AoMs purely, his strategy still relied on a great deal of luck and wouldn't be close to optimal without the constraints of AoB. Papilio did an extreme damage avoidance build similar to Icy's with the same five starting traits, but he would get some offense-boosting traits after, and while papilio doesn't say how many tries it took him, skimming through his video he did get very good level luck with a shocking lack of dangerous hot starts, alongside good Invuln luck (including a clutch Invuln in an Archvile hot start that may have killed him without it), I don't think his build would have the power to survive any bad hot starts and it can't manage most of the special levels either to get their rewards, so it seems overly luck-based for my liking as well (on another note, I was shocked at how inefficient papilio was with his Invulns, with no rocket jumping and other action-inefficient things like not taking advantage of full reload, he could have ran through Hell entirely with invulnerability with better usage of it). 2Dev supposedly did it with the standard Ammochain build, which with it being 2Dev it can be dismissed, and standard Ammochain doesn't make sense for AoMs anyway when it's going to have a hard time avoiding damage nor is it going to be tanky, especially when he got both Triggerhappy levels before any Reloader (and he supposedly did it without using Shotguns, just to add to it being usual 2Dev bullshit).

So I want a build with the power to survive hot starts and good damage avoidance in general? Seems like a good time for my favorite mastery Shottyhead again. As usual, I open with Finesse -> Juggler for the immediate firepower it grants and helping tremendously with beating Hell's Arena, but I deviate from Shottyhead for a few levels to get Berserker; getting Berserker in my Shottyhead runs is common but usually it's post-mastery, I delay Shottyhead for it here for two reasons. One, Berserker is the best defensive trait by a mile, it'll be critical to helping me survive bad hot starts with limited healing and is good defensive insurance against VMR, barrels, or Barons rolling high damage. Two, Brute+Berserker will make beating UnChained Court + Deimos Lab much easier when they're the two special levels that Shottyhead will have a very hard time surviving without any healing, and the rewards are too good to simply pass them up (while if I roll Hell's Armory instead of Deimos Lab, the sole Shambler could still mess me up without Berserker if I get bad teleporting luck). With this Shottyhead + Berserker combo, I'm in the best position to survive hot starts with minimal damage, and Shottyhead ensures I can cornershoot anything to death without it reaching me and not get boned if another enemy pops at a different angle while cornershooting something else, while I'll also be able to repeatedly knockback multiple enemies at edge of vision to avoid damage when cover is unavailable. Once Berserker is secured, it's back to the Shottyhead prereq path, with Hellrunner first for the extra damage avoidance, and after Shottyhead, you can go for Int2 if you plan to rush the rest of the game, but I go for Fin2 and then WK2 to get more power (I also had lots of mods doing nothing in my inventory and really wanted a Focused Double Shotgun + Tactical Rocket Launcher, while I got terrible Invuln luck anyway that would have hindered a late game rush). After WK2, it's then Int1 to see any useful Invulns and Int2 for extra lategame damage avoidance assurance, and then some HR and Finesse with my endgame levels. Coincidentally, when looking over the two pre-0.9.9.7 Masochist Diamond mortems after finishing my run, it seems Tormuse settled on Shottyhead too; it's hard to compare since his run was back in 0.9.9.4 (a version so old that the Mastermind didn't exist yet and the Cyberdemon was still the final boss), though our builds differed as he didn't go for early Berserker (or at all), and he went for Int2 immediately post-mastery with no Whizkid.

For the run, since the Small Medkits do nothing, you don't need to worry about getting the two on Phobos Base Entry, and you don't need to worry much about damage either unless you get really messed up since you'll level up very shortly after to get 200% health, so you shouldn't be resetting here. You should however hold onto a Small Medkit or two when you get them for gift dropping. After an easy Phobos 2, it's onto Hell's Arena; N! Hell's Arena with no immediate healing is scary, but it's not so bad with a good build for it as you'll be guaranteed a Supercharge level up during it, and it's too rewarding in AoMs to pass up, as aside from the Rocket Launcher (which is going to be especially handy for self-triggering Berserker), the Blue Armor gets replaced with early Red Armor (which is also especially handy for mitigating the damage of face rockets for Berserker and non-Invuln'd rocket jumps), and the Large Medkit gets replaced with Plasteel Boots to make any forced fluid traversal a lot less painful. Even if you're doing a build with no melee investment and so will struggle in UnChained Court, I think clearing Hell's Arena and then skipping Chained Court later would be better for your run's overall odds in AoMs than not finishing Hell's Arena to get the easy Chained Court later. Upon killing the last Baron to clear Hell's Arena, I levelled up and so could go into the next floor with boosted health despite being unable to use the Supercharge, I just had to be very quick with picking up everything. Completing Hell's Arena would prove its worth, as I immediately get a maze on Phobos 3 that I take an uncomfortable amount of damage in, and the game is seemingly determined to abort this run, as on Phobos 4 I get a second consecutive maze. If not for the Red Armor, I would have died on the second maze when I still came close to death with it. After surviving that second maze's hot start, the rest of it wasn't so bad, and I would get a reprieve with a Lost Soul cave on Phobos 5, while their low EXP yield I usually gripe about is actually beneficial here as it gives me a levelup Supercharge in UnChained Court. Speaking of which, the detour for Berserker pays off and I'm able to beat it without too much damage, though I unfortunately wasn't able to save any of the berserks this time. The run nearly ended right after this though as I got a horrible Phobos 6, with the floor starting me in the most bottom left corner of a big empty room with a bunch of Formers and Imps, a Pain Elemental, multiple Hell Knights, and a Baron. Going for Berserker gets validated here; sticking to Shottyhead's prereq path would have probably gotten me overwhelmed here with no Shottyhead yet, while the Intuition damage avoidant builds would have gotten their shit quickly pushed in with nowhere to run. Thanks to Berserker and a well-timed facerocket to trigger it, I survive the floor but just barely, I'm a single kill from levelling up however and the next floor's start can make or break this run... and it's a Pinky cave with a Pinky I'm able to immediately kill, the run lives! I roll Phobos Lab, which is going to be dangerous with no Shottyhead, no Double Shotty, and only being able to activate run once while barely outrunning Nightmare Demons when naked without run's speed boost, but with some well timed face rockets to trigger Berserker when I needed the extra speed or when I got a Nightmare Demon in my face, I get through it without taking much damage. When I reach the end I don't stay around to clear it though and give up my bid at a N! AoMs Conqueror, as I level up right near the exit and so left right there to get through the ever dreaded N! Anomaly with Supercharged health to ensure I enter Deimos in good shape, while also taking advantage of the boosted health to kill the Bruisers for EXP without sacrificing such precious health.

After an unremarkable Deimos 1 (aside from a GCB spawning there that I had no use for), I rolled Hell's Armory instead of Deimos Lab, and with good old camping the first north building + triggering Berserker with a facerocket after releasing the Shambler, I get through with little health lost, but unfortunately the rare mod is a Firestorm, the least useful mod for this build and I just slap it on a Plasma Rifle as I'm not sure I'll be getting the BFG later. The weapon cache also didn't have a Double Shotty and only a Missile Launcher for exotics, which was also disappointing, but I do take the Missile Launcher along and P-mod it to ensure the consistency of facerockets triggering Berserker (6d6 rockets have a 90.4% chance to roll the 16+ damage needed to trigger Berserker, mostly reliable but not completely safe and any low damage rolls that fail to trigger Berserker can do as much as 5 damage in P-modded Red Armor, 7 if not P-modded, which adds up really fast in AoMs and can be lethal if such low rolls happen with enemies around, while 6d7 rockets will have a 95.9% chance, not guaranteed but substantially less chance of failure and even a max roll will still deal only 1 damage in P Red Armor as Berserker triggers). Deimos 3 would tease me with another Missile Launcher, finding Missile Launchers randomly always leave a sour feeling when you got two guaranteed ones in the special levels (still anxiously awaiting for the completely redundant second Missile Launcher in City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains to get replaced in the next DRL version). Speaking of guaranteed Missile Launchers, I would go into Containment Area, and while I think I could have beaten the ambush, I play it safe as I won't get a level up during it and so leave the Backpack behind, only going in to get some EXP and the Rocket Box (not that the Backpack is really needed when you can infinitely farm ammo on N!).

The succeeding Abyssal Plains on the other hand (or City Of Skulls if you roll it) is a must stop in AoMs; you know those Blood Skulls that are usually the most disappointing drop from the Agony Elemental? Something most people may not know is that Blood Skulls can actually still heal you in AoMs, being one of only three things in DRL that can do so outside of levelling up (the others being Vampyre and the Medical Armors, the latter being very limited before their big 0.9.9.8 buff as they can only heal up to 25% in this version), making them one of the most valuable things for this run, and luckily I get two of them from the Agony Elemental after I effortlessly kill it with Shottyhead (as well as a Hatred Skull, which I keep too in case I want to pop into Mortuary/Limbo later). I clear out the rest of Abyssal Plains after and get a levelup to get back to full health, but after that good Abyssal Plains, the game decides to give me a very annoying Deimos 5. Luckily with no Enraged Timer yet in this version, I can just camp it in that nice camping spot in the top right and actually clear that floor with no damage (before I was forced to run through lava to reach the stairs that is). Deimos 6 would give me a Cacodemon cave that I would have just immediately left with the stairs near me... but I finally get a Double Shotgun here, so I fight my way through it. With a Homing Phase and really wanting a Power Mod for my Double Shotgun, I go into Halls Of Carnage right after I level up from the Cacos, and I got this funny bug of starting in the wall that I got once before but only in 0.9.9.8, guess it's not 0.9.9.8-exclusive (explanation, the Formers have random starting spawns and can spawn where the player does, which then pushes you into the nearby wall, actually a slightly beneficial bug as you can just move out and thus escape the starting room faster without having to run around or blowing the wall up). I use the Homing Phase after reaching the first mod, pick up the BFG, and then fight my way to the second mod, but unfortunately neither mod was a Power mod and so I'm unable to build the Focused Double Shotgun. I probably could have stuck around and cleared out the maze enemies, as berserked Shottyhead is one of the best builds for it, but since I won't have a level up during it and have already lost the Conqueror, I play it safe and leave after getting the second mod. I get through Deimos 7 and finally finish my Tactical Rocket Launcher there (usually I would ditch the Missile Launcher at this point but hold onto it for the aforementioned extra reliability with triggering Berserker since it's P-modded) and Cybie goes down as easily as you would expect against any Berserker build (I tried shotgunning him down with Shottyhead first, but I wasn't reliably dodging him and I wasn't hitting as hard as I wanted to without a Focused Double, so I just went in and Chainsawed him down to save a few more points of damage plus time), while he gets me only a kill or two away from levelling up to start Hell in good shape.

The first floor of Hell would be a fairly unremarkable small rooms level, but it has an Invulnerability Globe spawn, finally the first one I find this whole run, any run that would have relied on them would have been long dead by now. I consider taking that Invuln and trying to Invuln rush through the remaining rest of the game, but maybe the bad Invuln luck will continue and do the safer play of using it to get through Unholy Cathedral with minimal attrition damage for the Longinus Spear to greatly enhance my melee prowess. After a swell Hell 2, I would get a brutal Hell 3, getting spawned in a room with only crates for cover while a ton of Barons and Archviles to revive them were around, and when I thought I was in a good spot, a Revenant popped out of a southern door and its subsequent rocket failed to trigger Berserker, while the level just had no good quickly accessible camping spot. After my health dropped into the 20ish% range and my P-modded Red Armor got damaged, while still hearing Barons around just outside my vision, I would resort to using one of the Blood Skulls despite only having two corpses around to just get 10 HP back. I do get through the floor, but with only 12 HP left and still some kills away from levelling up (imagine if I had to get through this floor without Shottyhead nor Berserker...). Thankfully N! Vaults in this version has only Archviles and Revenants instead of Nightmare Archviles, Nightmare Arachnotrons, and Red Armored Barons, so I'm able to go in, pop the Arena Master's Staff, and quickly kill a couple Archviles safely for the levelup Supercharge to get back in business. The Vaults also had Enviroboots spawn to invalidate any forced fluid traversal, so holding onto the Staff ended up paying off big time in this run.

Following that close call with a much laxer Hell 4, I make the gutsy move to go into N! Mortuary despite AoMs preventing me from healing on demand without using up my last Blood Skull and Hell 4 having no Invuln to take into it. I do the usual opener of immediately popping my Hatred Skull, and taking advantage of this version not limiting BFG firing range by shooting a couple blasts towards each side from the center, and then rocket jump to the Nuclear BFG. Once it's secured, I just camp the corner a bit and take advantage of the unlimited BFG range to repeatedly shoot it at far out-of-vision targets, while using the Tactical Rocket Launcher or Missile Launcher or Shottyhead-boosted Tactical Shotgun to repeatedly knock enemies back, and with my strong melee I can keep some Mancubi corpses around near me to farm rockets. It takes a bit, but after I suspect most enemies are dead, I make my way to the left, and level up upon killing the last Archvile, at which I point I use the boosted health to rush through the rest. I shortly finish it after said level up and did it taking only 12 damage. Going through Mortuary wasn't just for bragging rights though, as after not getting any Power mods since Hell's Armory, I can get the guaranteed one here to finally build the Focused Double Shotgun, which ended up proving its worth when I got a Hell 6 maze with a hot start and no cover that could have been nasty, but I'm able to blow away quickly thanks to the Focused Double (the Unique by the way was a useless Mega Buster, if the game was going to give me a useless Unique, why not the Subtle Knife I need for Armorer Diamond instead of the useless Unique I already gotten a dozen times somehow despite it having a spawning weight of 1?). With the Enviroboots and Shottyhead, The Lava Pits is free, then Hell 7 gives me a relaxing penultimate level with a Humid lever, and an actually useful Unique in Malek's Armor that I have to kill a Baron for (would have wanted this much earlier but still nice for the Mastermind or Carmack). I nuke the Mastermind and then go for the Carmack kill to get ever closer to Apostle rank, and upon reaching Carmack there was actually an opportunity to take advantage of intentionally having him spawn the penalty Barons for attacking him out of vision since they give EXP and I was pretty close to levelling up, but I wasn't sure if the Barons would be enough and so play it safe. With the Blood Skull still unused, I do it use to get some boosted health after killing some Cacodemons he spawn (one advantage of fighting Carmack instead of the Mastermind in AoMs is this allowing you a mid-fight heal and tactics restoration if needed), but it's unnecessary as berserked Shottyhead with the Focused Double Shotgun effortlessly kills him.

So that's Masochist Diamond now done, and with an Explorer + Grim Reaper Pin to boot (wasn't originally planning on that but it ended up working out that way). Also succeeding despite having to get through several nasty run-ending floors, not being able to get a critical weapon for this build until the run was nearly done, and having probably the worst Invulnerability luck I ever gotten with only that single Invuln the entire run (good thing I played safe with the one I found instead of trying to Invuln rush the rest of the game). I'm telling you, everyone else slept hard on Shottyhead, I'm pretty sure this run doesn't succeed without the combo of Berserker and Shottyhead, and nearly every other qualifying build would have died in those early Phobos mazes, that horrible Phobos 6 hot start, that very rough Hell 3, or even that Hell 6 maze, let alone manage all the special levels (8 of them cleared is more than even 2Dev supposedly did in his Masochist Diamond run, and I realistically could have finished the remaining three for the unprecedented N! AoMs Conqueror if I was willing to play a bit more ballsy, maybe another time...). This should have been a first try clear too, but the first attempt died mid-Deimos after a power outage and my new UPS apparently not having its battery connected to keep my computer on (that run had a Nano Mod too and an early Assault Shotgun, so it probably goes all the way without the run getting a catastrophically terrible second half), I have to settle for a technical second try. Despite the first/second try and having an ideal build for Masochist Diamond, the run did flirted with ending multiple times, including that close call in Hell that would have been especially devastating after expending around four hours into the run, so I do have to respect it as deserving its reputation as one of the toughest Diamonds. Not quite as bad as Inquisitor Diamond though (you might be able to heal on demand in AoP, but you don't get that much more health than AoMs' levelup Supercharges give you and in AoMs your armor won't be in perpetual tatters without an Onyx/Nano in addition to still being able to use Berserks + Invulns), and I'm certain I'm gonna prefer it to the five Diamonds I have left, which are gonna be either even more extreme "don't get hit" hell or grinding hell (for reference, I finished this run with a little over 500 damage taken, I would have to shave off over 60% of that damage taken just for Demonic Diamond without the aid of a guaranteed early Red Armor). All Diamonds is in sight, but it's probably not gonna be a fun time and this will likely be the last first or second try win...

Here is the mortem:

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

 letmehealpls, level 17 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 1410070 turns and scored 977071 points.
 He played for 5 hours, 16 minutes and 34 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 2026 out of 2107 hellspawn. (96%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Masochism!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 11
  Levels completed : 8

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

  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Explorer Badge
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Chessmaster's Token
  Chessmaster's Cross
  Hell Champion Medal
  Masochist Diamond Badge

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

  ###########################################################
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  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
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  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  .................................................|........#
  ................................................X}........#
  .................................................|........#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
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  ###########################################################

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

  Health 60/50   Experience 158362/17
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 2)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Shottyman        (Level 1)
    Shottyhead       (Level 1)

  Fin->Jug->Bru->Bru->Ber->HR->Rel->Rel->SM->MSh->Fin->WK->WK->Int->Int->HR->Fin->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Malek's Armor [3/3] (100%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   focused double shotgun (8d4)x2 [0/2] (T1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x52)

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

    [a] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
    [b] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [4/5]
    [c] missile launcher (6d7) [4/4] (P1)
    [d] nuclear BFG 9000 (8d6) [52/52] (B1)
    [e] BFG 9000 (10d6) [169/169] (B2)
    [f] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [g] red armor [6/6] (90%) (AP)
    [h] Angelic Armor [7/7] (96%)
    [i] chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
    [j] Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [k] shotgun shell (x10)
    [l] shotgun shell (x50)
    [m] rocket (x10)
    [n] rocket (x3)
    [o] rocket (x10)
    [p] power cell (x50)
    [q] Enviroboots [0]
    [r] shell box (x100)
    [s] rocket box (x20)

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

    Bullet     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Melee      - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    Acid       - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Fire       - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    Plasma     - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 

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

    229 former humans
    196 former sergeants
    114 former captains
    259 imps
    110 demons
    563 lost souls
    80 cacodemons
    46 hell knights
    61 barons of hell
    30 arachnotrons
    48 former commandos
    54 pain elementals
    42 revenants
    98 mancubi
    43 arch-viles
    16 nightmare imps
    3 nightmare cacodemons
    24 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 7 he sneaked into the Phobos Lab.
  He broke through the lab.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 9 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He broke into the Containment Area, but gave up against the overwhelming forces.
  On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
  He slaughtered the beasts living there.
  On level 13 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 15 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 19 he found the Enviroboots!
  He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  On level 20 he assembled a focused double shotgun!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 22 he found the Mega Buster!
  On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  On level 23 he found the Malek's Armor!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He nuked level 24!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You dodge! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You quickly reload the focused double shotgun. You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press
 <Enter>...

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

 305 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 110 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 7 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 91 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 48 killed the bitch and survived.
 36 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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


[18]

1.8h GOG version, take note.

After previous non-Fated Fireangel run, this was the game I played directly next, it was Fated and it rolled Fireangel. Exam time, I guess?

And at first, conditions looked unfavorable. Callisto Rift didn't spawn, CCB spawned from E4 so I took The Pit, Mephitic Mines did not spawn. The Pit drops, and multiple Mk2  manufacturing stations on IO compensated for lack of desired branches handsomely, though, so this is definitely NOT absent good fortune.

Callisto gave toxic fiend's fang (poison immunity, melee poison, -10% damage), stayed with the rest of the game.
MDF Habitat -- used my clearance to manufacture a (MDF) focused shotgun, came with Autoloader, main weapon prior to Denial that I put auto-calibration on. on Europa not seeing a E2 CCB I realized I must main shotguns to get shotgun amp.
The Pit -- the absolute best AV3 shotgun AMP one could hope for, in the mortem (never needed to reroll), also Denial which I mained for long from that point, despite focused shotgun having more solid shot overall
IO L2 - MK2 manufacture station, made AV2 rail rifle, spawned with Speed-loader and (not sure, maybe result of another reroll) Balanced 2, rerolled Speed-loader into Fresh Mag. Balanced actually turned out to be practical in some situations later. I also had auto-calibration kit saved from Europa, and I put it on this rifle. Dismantled VP+ Mdf Chaingun (which never finished auto-calibrating) at the station, put V on vanilla unmodded plasma shotgun taken from IO L1, P on rail rifle for Hunter. I had to main shotguns to get shotgun amp at the Pit.
IO L3 - second MK2 manufacture station, kerberos infestation helped push auto-calibration of AV2 rail rifle (wound with Denial, finish with rail, if something goes wrong Denial needs experience for the last level-up too). I may have made AV2 plasma shotgun here, I think it came with Critical 50 Rush 10. I might not have rerolled Rush 10 here, probably at another station? Normal plasma shotty I carried from IO L1 I dismantled, put Vampiric on this new plasma shotty.
IO Nexus - ammo station, health station. Used ammo station for gas grenades and cells, didn't use for shells because always at 250 shells at that point. Recapped for medusa biting me on IO L2.
Infernal Lock - this is where I took Whizkid 3, but was not sure whether I used it optimally. Put Sustain on AV2 plasma shotgun. Second chamber on plasma shotgun and focused shotgun would come later (I think?). I did notice focused shotgun is better at killing warlocks than Denial, and as of yet had doubts about whether this character is strong enough for Dante Inferno.
IO L6 - yet another manufacture station, I left this with two charges (always at 5 multitools sitting in my inventory). I don't remember which tier it was, but it must have had rerolling still, I may have rerolled something once (perhaps to have Calibrated 2 on plasma shotgun instead of something else, and then there was nothing left to reroll). There was also Storage room here, if I am not mistaken.
Gateway, fighting Ancient: used all four shots from Denial, then threw a gas grenade (since sitting at 3 and another found on this level), switched to Autoloader focused shotgun and used that afterwards. Yes, I took a break to think through that one and it was the plan - a good plan that worked. Focused shotgun was not then Second Chambered still, I think, but this was unusually an easy-peasy fight, especially considering that I had no movement speed bonuses.

In complete defiance of usual game progression, my strength grew in Dante. By Dante Station L2, my plasma shotgun was Second Chambered, and before analyzing the performance, I concluded it is the best weapon to go through Dante Inferno, despite lacking Autoloader, since it has guaranteed crits due to Critical 50, my SoG ranks, highest damage per shot when reloading not taken into account. This was correct assessment, and my balance after going through Dante Inferno was -75 cells, health down from 106 to 71 (plasma shotgun was vampiric), -2 multitools (I made sure to keep armor healthy). No gas grenades or healing items used except at reward island (past all enemies) where I spent a large medkit and got ancient salve instead. The remaining charges of Dante station were spent on max health increase. I actually have screenshots for entering Dante Inferno and staying on the reward island before all opened chests (they are already posted on Discord, here they would never finish uploading). This was the cheesiest Dante Inferno performance of all games I played. My plasma shotgun could two-shot archwarlocks from optimal range, and for its astounding performance, it was the weapon that received final slot extension and Hallowed perk at the reward island. It turns out this upgrade may have made rail rifle almost obsolete as anti-guardian weapon (and I remember I had doubts whether to put Sustain on rail rifle or plasma shotgun before, I have chosen wisely to put it on plasma shotgun).

Dante L3,L4 continued in similar fashion of being overpowered, not needing gas grenades, much healing, etc. The change was maining plasma shotgun instead of Denial from now on. Still used rail rifle on demonic guardian bots, but sometimes was caught using plasma shotgun on other enemies and yet it would wipe them. I also camped a lot (which would not have been a respawn-friendly strat) to try to have openining shot on them at max aim with rail rifle whenever possible. Only on boss fight I blew through my healing resources, and was dangerously close to dying (but I forgot to use gas grenades more often and thus was taking hits from boss in the open; ended only using 2 gas grenades). Still victorious, but yes I admit I don't know in general how to properly fight last two game bosses.

Other thing of note was taking another rank in Sustained Fire in the mid of Dante Inferno, due to concluding that whatever protracted fights plasma shotty may enter, they probably need that second rank. I think it was second, I am surprised I have three. Overall, it seems being heavily armored does help to fight more confidently (though I dismissed Exosuit reward at Dante Inferno, as it would not have my Meshed and Acid immunities nor Critical 10).

Vigilant, level 18 Technician,
defeated the Harbinger against all odds.

He survived for 23646 turns.
The run time was 3h 17m 21s.
World seed was 70971.
He scored 7741 points.
He was a child of the Random Number Gods!
He was ULTRAVIOLENT!

CALLISTO L2 -> Mimir Habitat L1
Mimir Habitat L1 - Lockdown
Mimir Habitat L3 - Low Power
Mimir Habitat L3 -> MDF Central
MDF Central - Cleared!
CALLISTO L6 - The Hunt
Europa Concourse - Lockdown
EUROPA L5 -> The Pit
The Pit - found Denial
The Pit - Cleared!
IO L3 - Infestation
IO L5 -> Infernal Lock
Infernal Lock - Cleared!
Dante Inferno - Cleared!
Dante Inferno - found Exosuit
Dante Station L3 - Exalted Summons

Awards
  Medal of Prejudice (+200)
   * Won with 100% kills
  CRI Star (bronze cluster) (+50)
   * 25+ kills without taking damage
  Conqueror Ribbon (+200)
   * Completed all encountered special levels

He killed 811 out of 811 enemies.

 55 former grunts           6  security sentries
 3  corrupted grunts        6  military sentries
 1  former CRI grunt        6  CalSec bots
 4  former grenadiers       6  security bots
 5  corrupted grenadiers    4  military bots
 2  former CRI  grenadiers  3  guardian bots
 21 former soldiers         13 reavers
 24 corrupted soldiers      28 cryoreavers
 5  former CRI soldiers     20 toxic reavers
 11 former sergeants        22 archreavers
 6  corrupted sergeants     19 kerberi
 1  former CRI sergeant     18 cyberi
 21 former guards           11 cryoberi
 6  corrupted guards        10 toxiberi
 1  former commando         19 medusae
 13 corrupted commandoes    6  archmedusae
 2  former CRI commandoes   18 ravagers
 2  CRI commandoes          10 armored ravagers
 3  former heavies          8  siege ravagers
 3  corrupted heavies       10 plasma ravagers
 4  former CRI heavies      19 CRI marines
 8  fanatics                9  CRI bots
 15 security drones         25 guardians
 2  combat drones           10 frost guardians
 2  military drones         5  sentinels
 78 fiends                  13 warlocks
 9  fire fiends             12 archwarlocks
 15 ice fiends              3  watchers
 9  toxic fiends            3  cryowatchers
 24 CalSec sentries         13 MDF sentries

Traits
  Whizkid L3
  Cover Master L1
  Son of a Gun L3
  Sustained fire L3
  Hoarder L1
  Headshot L1
  Scavenger L1
  Sysop L2
  FIREANGEL L2

Trait order
  Cov->SF->Whk->Sys->MFA->Whk->Hor->Scv->
  MFA->Sys->SoG->Whk->SoG->SoG->SF->SF->
  Hsh

Equipment
  Slot #1 : AV2 rail rifle +PA
   * Critical 25
   * Fresh Mag 8
   * Hunter 4
   * Auto-calibrated
   * Balanced 2
   * Scope

  Slot #2 : Denial
   * Slowdown

  Slot #3 : AV2 plasma shotgun HBSV
   * Hallowed
   * Calibrated 2
   * Second chamber
   * Sustain
   * Vampiric 3
   * Critical 50
   * Slowdown

  Slot #4 : MDF 12ga focused shotgun +B
   * Second chamber
   * Auto-calibrated
   * Mimir Defence Force
   * Autoloader
   * Focused
   * Slowdown

  Body : combat armor P3BA
   * Carrier
   * Critical 10
   * Durable
   * Acid shield
   * Meshed

  Head : marine helmet PB2A2
   * Crit Enhancer 25
   * Health Monitor
   * Durable
   * Critical 10
   * Long-range tracking

  Utility : AV3 shotgun AMP
   * Shotgun shred capacitor
   * Shotgun crit system

  Relic : toxic fiend's fang
   * Toxic aura


Permanents
  Medusa's Curse
  CRI backpack

Inventory
  energy cell (x100)
  energy cell (x100)
  energy cell (x68)
  12ga shell (x50)
  12ga shell (x50)
  12ga shell (x50)
  gas grenade (x3)
  gas grenade (x1)
  CRI phase kit (x1)
  multitool (x5)
  stimpack (x2)


[18]

Reminder: 1.8h is GOG version. If that affects the seed (I have not installed mods otherwise).

I used to love Fireangel back in the day when I was willing to go Callisto Mines for maximum reward, but these days I don't feel like it, and I had several games which had neither Callisto Rift nor Conamara Chaos. When not willing to die every time you can't get that warlock's relic that grants immunity to his aura AND his resistances in exchange for -20 experience, Fireangel runs are dependent on game spawning BOTH specific branches: Callisto Rift and branch elevator to Conamara Chaos Biolabs spawning on E2 specifically, so that you can get maximum possible immunities + exalted essence atunement for extra damage. If neither Mines major relic, nor Rift AND exalted from Conamara, it seems one might as well abort.

Even then, the lategame suffers from health (and quite likely ammo) attrition as you lack the raw power to one-shot enemies, and Tech can't reposition good enough if caught in bad positioning, nor this is Entrenchment game where you have damage reduction, nor can you invoke smoke more than once per level most of the time. You are really dependent on weapons capable to hit out-of-sight, that is blast damage, grenades (to block sight also when caught in bad position), and shotguns. You can suffer attrition from warlocks if you fight them when they are behind cover (nevermind if you lack the raw power to outdamage archwarlock's regen). And guardian demonic bots, are the ultimate bane, as you are absolutely unlikely to one-shot them with anything at all.

Notice this UV run is not Fated. I had several Fireangel runs in a row, and this is the only one I won. The other that was at least somewhat powerful got through CRI labs of all places, and splatted on Dante (a more skilled player than me could have still won that run, but among casuals, I do consider myself experienced at this game). I still can say I have not truly figured this mastery, and it requires quite a knowledge of game mechanics (shotgun through smoke, shotgun manual targeting, shotgun out of range, armor and weapon mods necessarily to prevent attrition/deaths to Ancient, etc.) to still get a victory with all the rng I had.

What carried the victory, is the lucky drops of the first moon: AV1 shotgun with Critical 40, and AV2 shotgun amp with +50% crit damage and +1 optimal range (this triggered by spawning enemies in Rift with script, bots maybe? or demons, but demons would have dropped relic, so it must be bots. I remember it was like "I am not sure I can handle it, but let's do". Actually, now I am not quite sure it was Rift and not like CCB). All Hallowed mods arrived post-clearing Inferno, rail rifle was rarely at all used, and both rail rifle and EMP rifle are lucky drops from Mephitic Mines. Pre-IO, I think I had Critical 40 Chaingun from Callisto Rift. I passed off necrotic armor and duramesh armor in this game -- nothing is an upgrade over JS armor, even if it is basic.

Also, yes, I think plasma shotgun is too strong and just outclasses other shotguns under normal conditions, so I am glad I didn't owe THIS game to it: I didn't pick up any plasma shotguns AT ALL in the first place. Because I hate how plasma weapons tend to be a non-brainer upgrade (unless concerns about running out of plasma ammo on IO, and even then you probably will have taken one IO L1 weapon). This game on IO L1, I just modded plasma rifle with Efficient, and that is it (no usual auto-calibration and I didn't have the multitools for it), which then was dismantled on the go with Tech powers to get it on rail rifle (expected upgrade, although would have liked railgun even more), but I got EMP rifle soon afterwards. Rail rifle was still occasionally used even in Dante, but mostly to conserve plasma ammo for the EMP rifle. On some Dante level, I was caught with it, fortunately with Headshot it did some decent damage. I was tipped about possibly using Headshot (with rail rifle) in Fireangel runs on Discord, in regards to fighting bots specifically, as I seem to always have SoG 2 on my Fireangel runs one way or another. Other suggestion was Grenadier, might also work since, in experience, Fireangel tend to be a little dry on used ammo types in IO, unless you go to levels with CRI and cells is your main damage source I guess.

Firestorm, picked on CCB final "rewards" (and ammo attrition) level, really helped me feel more confident about ammo situation, so I could take Hoarder after SoG 2, and Scavenger after Headshot 1. I screwed up on Mephitic Mines and forgot to take Mephitic Taint, either didn't walk through the crowd OR it may not have been spawn, as when I rerouted gas on Mephitic L1, nothing happened, the gas stayed (I rerouted after visiting Strongroom). Also, Exalted curse on Mephitic L3 made situation easier for me, as there has been less enemies, some suffered from gas, they dropped health, and generally shotgun took care of them as quickly as the normal enemies (and exalted medusas I think can't spawn this early on UV). Not to say that both Mephitic L3 and IO L6 had health station (it even affected my choices of which health items to take, that is, I used large medkit at the end of Mephitic L3 before going to IO l6, and kept small medkits. On the next level, was able to use station for healing twice, and procuring a large medkit).

Final boss fight was tricky just like fighting the Ancient, or even trickier still because in final boss fight, I have used up both ancient salves I got from Dante Inferno's medical station (with Sysop 2, 1 full heal + 2 ancient salves), 1 large medkit that I picked up at that level, some more healing items (stimpacks?). I was fighting it in the open again ("thanks" that those remaining pillars are destructible) and always bordered near death. If I did not take so much health increases (and mind you, I went to Dante with a lot of healing items, though a lot bled at Dante Inferno), I would not have survived, if third phase didn't fly away from me out of sight, I would not have survived, etc. And that is after all the luck: the acid dreams relic, the attunements, everything. Really, after masteries that attack on the run and/or dodge well, or games where you can stealth, or at least have damage reduction (Entrenchment), you forget how to fight Ancient, how to fight final boss. So if you struggle at winning with Fireangel, know that you are not alone: this loadout is perfect, I think, really insane luck and yet still borders on death.

Vigilant, level 18 Technician,
defeated the Harbinger against all odds.

He survived for 22091 turns.
The run time was 3h 0m 11s.
World seed was 84529.
He scored 7882 points.
He was ULTRAVIOLENT!

CALLISTO L3 - Low Power
Callisto Hub -> Callisto Rift L1
Callisto Rift L2 -> The Rift
The Rift - Cleared!
EUROPA L2 - Low Power
EUROPA L2 -> Conamara Chaos Biolabs L1
Conamara Chaos Biolabs L3 - Secure Vault
Conamara Chaos Biolabs L3 -> Containment Area
Containment Area - Cleared!
Containment Area - found Firestorm
IO L2 - Secure Vault
IO L2 -> Mephitic Mines L1
Mephitic Mines L3 - Exalted Curse
Mephitic Mines L3 -> Noxious Hollow
Noxious Hollow - Cleared!
Dante Inferno - Cleared!
Dante Inferno - found Avalanche
Dante Inferno - found Death
Dante Station L3 - Exalted Summons

Awards
  Medal of Prejudice (+200)
   * Won with 100% kills
  CRI Star (bronze cluster) (+50)
   * 25+ kills without taking damage
  Conqueror Ribbon (+200)
   * Completed all encountered special levels

He killed 905 out of 905 enemies.

 60 former grunts           7  security sentries
 15 corrupted grunts        6  military sentries
 1  former CRI grunt        7  CalSec bots
 12 former grenadiers       8  security bots
 4  corrupted grenadiers    2  military bots
 10 former soldiers         22 reavers
 18 corrupted soldiers      24 cryoreavers
 15 former CRI soldiers     36 toxic reavers
 9  former sergeants        23 archreavers
 5  corrupted sergeants     13 kerberi
 2  former CRI sergeants    8  cyberi
 1  CRI sergeant            16 cryoberi
 22 former guards           3  toxiberi
 4  corrupted guards        24 medusae
 2  CRI guards              14 archmedusae
 2  former commandoes       30 ravagers
 23 corrupted commandoes    7  armored ravagers
 4  former CRI commandoes   17 plasma ravagers
 3  corrupted heavies       31 CRI marines
 2  CRI heavies             10 CRI bots
 8  fanatics                12 guardians
 16 security drones         5  frost guardians
 3  combat drones           3  sentinels
 100fiends                  9  warlocks
 56 fire fiends             16 archwarlocks
 43 ice fiends              4  watchers
 20 toxic fiends            4  cryowatchers
 12 CalSec sentries         2  pyrowatchers

Traits
  Whizkid L3
  Cover Master L1
  Son of a Gun L2
  Sustained fire L2
  Hoarder L1
  Headshot L3
  Scavenger L1
  Sysop L2
  FIREANGEL L2

Trait order
  Cov->SF->Whk->Sys->MFA->Sys->Whk->SoG->
  MFA->Whk->SoG->Hor->Hsh->Scv->Hsh->Hsh->
  SF

Equipment
  Slot #1 : IDR rail rifle BA2
   * Balanced 1
   * Critical 25
   * Efficient
   * Io Defence Reserve
   * Scope

  Slot #2 : AV1 12ga shotgun +HB2A
   * Hallowed
   * Second chamber
   * Calibrated 1
   * Autoloader
   * Auto-calibrated
   * Critical 40
   * Slowdown

  Slot #3 : Firestorm
  Slot #4 : IDR EMP rifle HBA
   * Hallowed
   * Critical 25
   * Swap Harness
   * Io Defence Reserve
   * Rush 10
   * Advanced EMP

  Body : JS basic armor B3A2
   * Swift
   * Metabolic boost
   * Padded
   * Loading feed
   * Durable
   * JoviSec

  Head : JS basic helmet P2B2A
   * Health Monitor
   * Crit Enhancer 25
   * Plated
   * Long-range tracking
   * Durable
   * JoviSec

  Utility : AV2 shotgun AMP
   * Shotgun shred capacitor
   * Shotgun spread control

  Relic : archreaver's claw
   * Acid dreams


Permanents
  Medusa's Curse
  Exalted Essence Attunement
  Fire Essence Attunement
  Blood Essence Attunement
  Pain Essence Attunement
  Rift Attunement

Inventory
  energy cell (x100)
  energy cell (x100)
  energy cell (x100)
  12ga shell (x47)
  multitool (x5)
  stimpack (x1)