I managed to double up Inquisitor Diamond with
Inquisitor Angelic in 0.9.9.8, but given the Marine is significantly worse in 0.9.9.7, I didn't even attempt to do that in my
0.9.9.7 Inquisitor Angelic run, so now it's time to get Inquisitor Diamond on its own. While I managed Inquisitor Angelic, the Diamond badge isn't that much more of a breather comparatively; Angel Of Purity is a deceptively nasty challenge in DRL as you not only aren't able to use Invulnerabilities and Berserk Packs, but being unable to use Health Globes and Supercharges severely reduces your effective health supply, while being unable to use Armor Shards and Megaspheres means you effectively cannot repair armor without getting lucky with levers or finding an Onyx or Nano mod. Then the majority of medkits and armors that do spawn will be nabbed by Formers and Hell Nobles, farther dwindling your health and armor supply, while all these problems get exacerbated significantly on Nightmare. On top of that, Inquisitor Diamond requires beating AoP on N! as a Marine, which invalidates the Marine's passive of extended powerups, leaving the Marine only with their measly 10 extra max HP passive (as this was before later versions gave them their inherent energy resistances bonus). As a testament to this badge's difficulty even when you try cheesing it in AoOC,
only three people have verifiably won it according to the 0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, of which only
papilio did it purely (while
Sereg and
Icy got it through painfully running hundreds of attempts in AoOC), and no one is recorded winning it in any of the versions prior to 0.9.9.7 either.
So what to do for the build. I briefly considered Survivalist, but this is the awful 0.9.9.7 Survivalist with no inherent energy resistances, before Ironman's and TaN's buff, still has its awful prereqs, and before Survivalist got its doubled healing from medkits perk; any extra tankiness it adds will be too little to assuage its complete lack of offense and speed. Then Army Of The Dead and Bullet Dance are obviously out. So that leaves Vampyre, Ammochain, or masterless. papilio in his run used a masterless Marine that immediately gunned for Intuition 2 and then Dodgemaster, claiming they were essential, but I disagree with that assessment; Vampyre would be the clear way to go, as it solves the issue of not having enough health, and while Vampyre churns through armor at a ridiculous rate, with Berserker you'll be tanky enough to subsist on a Nanofiber Red Armor even if you don't get an Onyx/Nano mod to solve the armor problem. Its only real significant problem would be a rough early game, but given that AoP is a challenge that retains difficulty after Phobos, trading a harder start would be worth bolstering your lategame survival. However, given how much I have used melee builds in these 0.9.9.7 runs and will continue to do so in upcoming Diamond/Angelic badges, I wanted to try this first with Ammochain. Ammochain itself doesn't offer much to AoP other than just being one of the Marine's only two good masteries, though Ammochain letting me carry less ammo to make room for more medkits and armors gives it a little something extra for AoP... if you're able to gather up enough medkits and armors to really make use of that advantage.
I considered opening with Finesse -> Juggler, but given how strong Ammochain is and Reloader + SoB giving it a solid enough early game, I decided to just go straight with Ammochain's prereqs. I would reset quite a few times until I got both medkits on Phobos Base Entry and a floor 2 that didn't go badly. Once I did that, I would go and clear Hell's Arena; clearing it is a rough proposition in N! AoP as you won't come in with boosted health nor any berserk/light goggles and can't comfortably eat plasma/acid balls to destroy corpses with such a limited medkit supply, as well as when it carries the cost of making Chained Court much harder later on, but I found
trading a couple Small Medkits worth getting two Large ones, a Blue Armor, and most importantly the Rocket Launcher. Aside from its general corpse disposal and wall busting utilities, the Rocket Launcher is going to be direly necessary to get past Phobos Anomaly without Hellrunner or Phase Device luck. After some so-so Phobos floors in the ever perilous 3 to 5 floor range (the worst being a Pinky cave that cost me a couple medkits), I decide to try Unchained Court, which sounds crazy when the Berserks no longer work, but I think I can make do with the single Chainsaw berserk and really want the mods + EXP. Unfortunately when I'm trying to pepper away at a Baron on the left side of the center building, a Baron the right side immediately storms in. I was going to try saving the Chainsaw's berserk for the Arena Master, but if I don't grab it now, it'll get destroyed and I'll surely die in this position. On my way to retrieve the Chainsaw I get lucky with the Baron's acid ball explosions not rolling high enough to destroy it before I can grab it. After sawing him down and the other Baron coming in, I get more bad lucky with the
Arena Master quickly storming the center building instead of hanging out in the back as he usually does. Fortunately I'm able to
Chaingun him down before the Berserk runs out, and then I'm able to slowly clean up the rest of the level, but I take a
big beating overall and unfortunately the two mods were a Bulk + Power mod, what I wanted to see least. The late Phobos floors were surprisingly light on the nasties they normally have, but no Former Commando spawned and thus left me with no Plasma Rifle, so I ended up building a Gatling Gun with a second Bulk mod I found on floor 7. Luckily I rolled Military Base, if I got Phobos Lab I would have had to skip it when I got no sort of speed boost nor a Plasma Rifle and not a single Phase Device to save me if checkmated by the Nightmare Demons. Military Base goes easy, but I would only get a single Small Medkit from the crates, and again no Agility mod, hopefully that's not a bad omen... Then for the Anomaly, with the Red Armor equipped and using a radsuit 12 steps in the ambush room, I rocket jump through, and then I rocket jump past the Bruisers as well; with no Agility-modded Plasma Rifle and needing all the health + armor I can get, it wasn't worth trying to fight them. I would make it to Deimos with 4 Large Medkits, but the challenge ain't done yet, oh hell no...
Deimos 1 would be pretty rough, being a small room level where two Barons and a Revenant quickly besieged my starting location, nearly destroying my Red Armor, but I get through it. Then it comes the most important special level, either Hell's Armory or Deimos Lab, and unfortunately I rolled the former; the latter is a lot harder, but Ammochain won't have too much a problem with the Shamblers and I could get some Medkits there, while most importantly having much greater odds at getting an Onyx or Nano mod to solve the armor problem. Farther unfortunately, I get bad luck with the Cacodemon starting spawns on Hell's Armory and end up having to burn a medkit, but after securing the starting buildings, I can then camp and clear out the rest of the level without a problem, while the weapon cache would bless me with a
Nuclear Plasma Rifle, which with Ammochain is basically a Nanomachic one. After killing the Shambler, I would get a
Firestorm Mod from the lab cache, which while still very nice for Ammochain, is the rare mod I wanted least, and I also still don't got any Agility mods, so I'm still slow and can't fix Ammochain's accuracy issues. I also started getting Finesse to build towards Whizkid, but don't have enough levels for it yet, so I can't Firestorm the Nuclear Plasma Rifle that already has a Tech mod on it, and I also hold off on Nanofibering my Red Armor, as I'm really going to need to Power mod it after and I won't be able to do that if I build it before getting WK2. After the very mixed Armory, my luck take a sharp turn for the worst with a very nasty Cacodemon cave where I had to fight several of them with no good cover,
burning two medkits from it. I rolled Containment Area for the Deimos 3 special level and went inside hoping to get medkits from the crates, but unfortunately don't get any, and while I could probably handle the Backpack ambush, I don't attempt it as I don't need the Backpack and the EXP isn't worthy burning any of my medkits. Deimos 4 was a pretty nice breather when I get a quick concealed camping spot on it, though something I didn't mention yet is when camping near acid/lava, I have to
clear up all the weapons and ammo left behind by Formers, to ensure that any medkits or armor they do have doesn't get dropped in said acid/lava. I then go into City Of Skulls, which besides being free EXP, I hope to get Blood Skulls for extra health or even Hatred Skulls would be nice, but in yet more bad luck, I get the absolute worst outcome with
three Fire Skulls, especially useless as I don't plan on trying to clear Mortuary/Limbo.
The bad luck continues when I get a terrible Deimos 5 start next to a Former Platoon, Baron, and Archvile near an acid river, where I have to rocket jump across the acid to escape and get shot up by an Arachnotron on the other side. I would find a Plasma Shotgun there to make corpse disposal a nonissue the rest of the run, but things get dire with a
nasty maze on Deimos 6. I find what I thought was a
workable camping spot, but end up nearly dying when a Mancubus pops up at a bad angle and chases me across the bridge to an Archvile + Baron. I survive the encounter and do secure a foothold on the maze with the help of some Napalm Barrels, but I end up running out of medkits and am down to 68% health. Deimos 7 would give me a breather with a
Pain Elemental + Lost Soul cave, but unfortunately it would have no medkits that I desperately need. It did have a
Laser Rifle, normally an amazing find for Ammochain and I would have actually preferred it over the Nuclear Plasma Rifle initially, but as the latter is already FT modded, it'll outperform the Laser Rifle in most cases even without EE. I get a level of HR at this point, as with no medkits, no fire-resistant armor better than a B-modded Red Armor, and no radsuit, my only hope against the Cyberdemon is getting several successful dodges. The Laser Rifle does come clutch here as its accuracy lets me effectively fight back while having Run active and I can dodge most of his rockets while killing him before it er... runs out, but I do still get hit a couple times, including a high roll that leaves me at
27% health as I go into Hell......And the run looked like it was over, as
Hell greets me with an immediate maze. After taking a barrage from a Mancubus on the other side of the river and being on the verge of death, I thought that was it. But I fight off the urge to Q+Y and try this
dodgy looking camping spot as I slowly wait for enemies to wander onto the red starts 1 by 1 and plasmae them down, it's not often you can utilize enemies leaving no corpses on stairs. I level up and get Ironman for some desperate HP, as the +10 max HP does get added to your current HP. That camping spot actually pulls through, but if any Former had medkits they got dropped into the lava, and there was still one enemy left that I had to seek while on the verge of death after it would not show up no matter how much I mashed run -> wait. It ended up being a trapped Baron and after it wouldn't show up when waiting after shooting it, I just hammered away from far out of vision until it died as I couldn't risk walking into its vision when one acid ball could kill me. Unfortunately there was no medkits left behind nor any other helpful items, so after surviving this floor by the skin of my teeth, I had to enter Hell 2 at 14% health... and I
enter an Arachnotron cave immediately surrounded in the open. The stairs are in sight, but not close enough for me to reach them before the two Arachnotrons wake up, and there's a high chance another would be down where the stairs are, so I thought the run was surely dead there. I don't throw in the towel yet and try to kill the two Arachnotrons before they wake up, I unfortunately misclicked the wrong direction on the first burst and so wasted a free shot, which then allowed the second Arachnotron to wake up before I killed it, resulting in it knocking me down to 4% health. After killing it, all I could do then was activate Run and pray no other Arachnotrons were near the stairs. There was one across the river that tried shooting me, but luckily every shot miss and I
made it to the stairs to stave off near-certain death for one more floor.
With only 2 HP remaining however, I needed a miraculous reversal of luck, and so I shambled into Hell 3 thinking if I should just go straight to Vampyre for my next attempt... when I then got
exactly what I needed with an immediate uncontested Large Medkit. while the stairs are in view to boot. There was a Mancubus at the top, but he doesn't see me, and
just like that I'm back in it. I briefly entertained sticking around on what seemed like a pretty easy island level, until I remembered that this floor had a deadly air event and I immediately get out of there, I can't throw away the lifeline given to me. Hell 4 would go well and I would finally get an Homing Phase, which I then use to get some good stuff from Limbo; unfortunately it teleported me to the Assault Shotgun corner, the corner I wanted least, but getting two fresh un-bulked Red Armors and a Large Medkit was still worth trading the Homing Phase for. Hell 5 would be another relative breather, but teases me with a
Hatred Skull right after leaving Limbo, would have been nice to leave Limbo with a lot of berserk. The game decides I haven't had enough mazes and gives me
yet one more on Hell 6. Taking it very carefully and with lots of camping, I do survive it with my last Medkit preserved, and I dip into Erebus to kill all the Pain Elementals + Lost souls to help me get one more Ironman level for more HP before the Mastermind. After getting through Hell 7 without getting any more medkits before fighting the Mastermind, I would find exactly the item I could ask most for at this point:
a nuke to ensure a partial victory. The nuke would not be needed however, as the Nuclear Plasma Rifle I loaded up with the final few mods I found on the last couple floors would
stunlock the Mastermind to death (20 damage is such a low flinching threshold... hopefully she gets the proposed difficulty-dependent flinching thresholds in future versions).
And there it is, perhaps the greatest comeback I pulled off in DRL to get Inquisitor Diamond purely. This was the first attempt that made it past a Q+Y on the first two floors, but that was a very hard fought attempt. Granted I got some horrible luck throughout it, with the awful level generation, and some terrible item luck aside from the Exotic plasma rifles, including getting only one medkit in all of Hell (aside from a guaranteed one in Limbo), and never finding a single Agility Mod while playing the rapid fire mastery that has EE blocked. Winning such a formidable badge with such unideal luck though does make the victory all the sweeter. The most nasty aspect of this badge is that unlike how most DRL runs go, it still remains very difficult past Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab and runs with hours poured into them can still easily end up failing late in the game, as this run shown with how close it skirted near death throughout much of its second half. If anyone else gets inspired to attempt this badge in 0.9.9.7... just go Vampyre, Ammochain can viably win but Vampyre will make it so much less stressful. I hardly even got to benefit from Ammochain letting me carry extra medkits and armors around, when I spent the entire last 2/3rds of the game perpetually short on medkits. Well with all that said, here is the mortem:
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DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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whatsaninquisitor,
level 16 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Marine,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 3240511 turns and scored 735800 points.
He played for 4 hours, 8 minutes and 43 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1675 out of 1827 hellspawn. (91%)
He held his right to remain violent.
He was an Angel of Purity!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 8
Levels completed : 6
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (gold cluster)
Hell Armorer Badge
Hell Champion Medal
Inquisitor Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
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-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 24/80 Experience 125918/16
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +0 ToDmg Ranged +3 ToDmg Melee +3
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Marine
Ironman (Level 2)
Finesse (Level 3)
Hellrunner (Level 1)
Son of a bitch (Level 3)
Reloader (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Triggerhappy (Level 2)
Ammochain (Level 1)
SoB->SoB->Rel->Rel->TH->TH->MAc->Fin->Fin->WK->WK->Fin->HR->Iro->SoB->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] blue armor [4/4] (97%) (P)
[b] [ Weapon ] nuclear plasma rifle (1d8)x8 [5/24] (F1P1T3)
[c] [ Boots ] plasteel boots [2/2] (96%)
[d] [ Prepared ] laser rifle (1d7)x5 [40/40]
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] tactical shotgun (8d3) [2/5]
[b] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1] (B1)
[c] plasma shotgun (7d3) [30/30]
[d] red armor [4/4] (100%)
[e] red armor [6/6] (90%) (P)
[f] nanofiber red armor [4] (P)
[g] red armor [6/6] (86%) (BP)
[h] chainsaw (4d6)
[i] shotgun shell (x50)
[j] shotgun shell (x50)
[k] rocket (x10)
[l] power cell (x50)
[m] power cell (x50)
[n] power cell (x50)
[o] power cell (x50)
[p] large med-pack
[q] thermonuclear bomb
[r] shockwave pack
[s] hatred skull
[t] shell box (x100)
[u] shell box (x100)
[v] rocket box (x19)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Acid - internal 0% torso 0% feet 50%
Fire - internal 0% torso 0% feet 25%
Plasma - internal 0% torso 20% feet 0%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
223 former humans
188 former sergeants
120 former captains
298 imps
104 demons
378 lost souls
63 cacodemons
28 hell knights
56 barons of hell
25 arachnotrons
43 former commandos
48 pain elementals
10 revenants
40 mancubi
27 arch-viles
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
1 shambler
1 agony elemental
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 7 he assembled a gatling gun!
On level 7 he marched into the Military Base.
On level 7 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
He purified his fellow comrades.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
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.
Level 12 was a hard nut to crack!
On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
On level 12 he assembled a nanofiber armor!
He wiped out the City of Skulls.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
He left level 18 as soon as possible.
Level 19 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
Entering level 19 he was almost dead...
On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
He managed to escape from Limbo!
Level 21 was a hard nut to crack!
On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
He decided it was too dangerous.
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. Boom! The missile hits the Spider
Mastermind. Boom! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits
the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Boom!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! Boom!
Boom! Boom! The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind
flinched! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider
Mastermind. The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The missile hits the
Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched!
The missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! The
missile hits the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies.
Congratulations! You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
270 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
86 of those were killed.
1 of those was killed by something unknown.
96 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 6 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
81 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
42 killed the bitch and survived.
33 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
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