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31
on: December 23, 2025, 01:17
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Vigilante | ||
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Thanks for the reply, I've registered on Discord then - so once I get around to moving relevant files to the phone I can post that bug report. Will be hanging around on forums still.
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32
Jupiter Hell / Post Mortem / [1.8h|U|Sc|YAAM] Assassinate with Vengeance, or melee takes a back-seat
on: December 23, 2025, 01:01
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Vigilante | ||
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A Fated run where scoped unique Vengeance played the dominant part, and Assassinate was used as "they have cover, so let's teleport to melee and finish them". With Swashbuckler, you can call Assassinate when you have Vengeance equipped, it switched to the first melee slot counting from 1 (or to last recorded melee weapon slot?). Hence I moved that plasma katana to first slot, as machete tended to get chosen otherwise.
Didn't bother to go into level where you can get Soulstealer, as by IO I realized this is going to stay a primarily ranged game. Basically, what happened is that I screwed melee game (the need to level Vengeance also "helped" to neglect melee). I missed the Katana upgrade from AV2 machete at first, plasma Katana arrived really late. Also, I remember being brave with melee in Callisto did not pay off, as in still didn't get melee AMP. Thankfully, Vengeance with Loading Feed on armor is a build unto itself, and that was gotten early. At mid-Europa, Vengeance was maxed if memory serves. Beside Exosuit on Dante Inferno, later Dante level offered necrotic armor, but I took neither options (I needed Loading Feed to support Vengeance, Meshed to support melee assassinations). Bled out of almost all medkits, but kept military stimpack and large medkit for last level. Used melee assassinations with plasma katana (that rolled Vampiric 2) to refill health. Also, yes, mortems of the base game I post are generally to show UV completed 100% with Dante Inferno, cause while I am a casual player, the JH forum has unfortunately low activity whereas sometimes people have doubts about masteries' performance with regards to full-clearing UV, as those good players who can consistently win N! and write guides about this tend to outright suggest not going for 100% kills or avoiding Dante Inferno when mastery tends to invite ammo issues or trouble arises otherwise. I tend to prefer UV difficulty as I'm stressed enough in real-life and UVmax game is about the right level of challenge for me, still requiring attention but something where I can salvage victory even after making mistakes. Vigilant, level 17 Scout, |
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33
on: December 23, 2025, 00:22
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Vigilante | ||
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This run actually predates the other two I recently posted, at the time I completed it I felt like Gun Kata is shit-tier mastery, later proved wrong with ammo management traits (and generally not caring about JS armor and instead going for experience). Entrenchment, however, was easier for me to figure out than Gun Kata, as in how to do UV 100% necessary including Dante Inferno. Still, because this was an Entrenchment run after I decided Entrenchment Technician is infinitely better than Gun Kata Scout, I played this game more methodically and paranoidly double-checking every cleared floor, as loosing this game would make an ego hit (hence long time). Mentally, I was making a claim against some other person's mastery tier list for 1.8 (they ranked Gun Kata third whereas Entrenchment very bottom, to me was more like the other way around -- their rank is according to N! performance whereas mine about UV with mandatory 100% and Dante Inferno, Gun Kata runs into ammo issues on this UV setting exactly, whereas N! has extra ammo and fire-on-move definitely better there).
I don't remember much about this run except that I planned to use MDF .44 JAC SMG I found, by the way another MDF .44 JAC SMG was printable in this seed (at least on level 3 clearance I had). Past Europa this gun saw very little use, however, was not as effective against adaptive packs as I thought, so winning felt rather "I've recovered from mistake" stuff (that is, .44 weapons are not good without ammo-finding traits and I should have known better, fortunately, I don't need for everything go to plan in order to win). Also, another thing is I think I had command visor to go through Black Site without red keycards, and that armor prior to that point didn't have any durable, which was a pain. So as the result both armor pieces were replaced. Hallowed Focused BFT is nice to have on Entrenchment build (because halved ammo consumption), I packed in the bottom corner of final level and worked BFT "magic" on boss, undistracted by mobs. One mob walked up to me during my "ceremonial" work and I didn't die upon destroying him as collateral to the shot I did on boss, whether Focused is sufficient for this or Cover Master also helped I didn't keep track of. I must have healed during boss fight still since boss had clear shot on me, but I think that was damage from the boss and not BFT; also, I didn't need any other weapon or grenades that fight. Also, 888 out of 888 enemies. Vigilant, level 17 Technician, |
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34
Jupiter Hell / Post Mortem / [1.8h|U|Ma|YAAM] Bulletstorm through Europa with assault SMG, railgun late-game
on: December 22, 2025, 23:58
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Vigilante | ||
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So in recent discussion on Discord submachineguns were brought up as a subject, and when I rolled Bulletstorm in a Fated run I decided to try and make this about SMGs, at least until IO. With the seed generously handing multitools, this made the full-length Conamara Chaos Biolabs a desired (and rather easy) branch. This seed was generous with much more than multitools, however, what with (JS?) medi-fiber armor pickable in Callisto Rift as a random spawn and then another (this time definitely JS) medi-fiber manufacturable on Callisto Rift L3. I did use second medi-fiber to use less healing in Rift's poison when enviro pack worn off, but at Europa L1 I would necessarily discard it. Generally early game exotic armors (such as ablative or medi-fiber) aren't good for me to keep around past Callisto, as I prefer to have more mod slots and don't really dodge well in lategame.
I did use deagle for a while on Callisto Rift but mainly to get AV2 pistol AMP (which rolled with +20% crit chance and pistol focus mode), which I kept until Dante Inferno despite using plasma rifle from IO L1 onwards, as the only auto AMP(s?) I seen didn't have crit chance/damage. The versatility of Bulletstorm mastery is definitely its strong point. On Europa L1, I used "manufacture body armor" option twice due to how many multitools I had, and the second one rolled with Loading Feed, which is what I wanted. I also manufactured 7.62 assault smg, and since I had bloody tears relic from the Rift, Europa was really easy moon for me. All mods on assault SMG except vampiric were put on Europa far as I remember, whereas vampiric was put on IO when I was no longer using it. I left exactly 10 multitools in my inventory to go through Conamara Chaos Biolabs branch, which means only one armor repair, the rest into Attunements, and no dumping multitools into health station. That was risky but paid off. Cryomancer fight was triggered to early, so I then still had bloody tears relic, which was to my detriment, but fortunately I had napalm grenade to at least cut his health significantly. So more stressful fight than I expected and more healing items used up than absolutely necessary, but still a win. I arrived on IO L1 with no multitools (I think?), so I only modded plasma rifle with auto-calibration. The rest mods on it arrived as world drops - no tech stations were found this run anymore. Even though I had come on IO L2 with a couple of red keycards, CRI Laboratory has spawned rather than Blacksite, so Mephitic Mines was the more attractive option and keycards were ditched. In fact, I kept them mainly for the sake of RNG: Mephitic Mines was definitely considered even if Blacksite would exist, but sometimes branches are locked with keycards. This rather illustrates how Bulletstorm at L1 + Army Surplus L2 is really good ammo economy. At this point I still had pistol AMP and, like I said, would keep it until the end Dante Inferno, despite using rifles from now on. On IO L6 I would find railgun, and happily replace the unused jackhammer with it. Generally, my weapons obsoleted each other: that is, I only used 7.62 assault SMG prior to plasma rifle, plasma rifle only prior to railgun (for which Bulletstorm does nothing). Despite the fact that build had progressively less synergy with such moves, my character's strength only increased. Traits taken with Bulletstorm also helped have enough ammo to field railgun - ammo was never a concern and I only used Mephitic Mines L2 manufacture station for like 50 plasma ammo to fill it to 200, left the remaining charge unused, and never used ammo stations afterwards (even for grenades). Dante Inferno was still dangerous and I could have died there with my reckless play (railgun didn't always kill enemies in 1 hit, and I was advancing towards enemies aggressively, and otherwise took blast damage), so this is why the choice of 2 ranks Cover Master, both of which came after Dante Inferno. One could possibly chastize me for not keeping to SMGs since IO, but my build did not feel powerful enough to take on CRI Laboratory, and plasma SMGs are unlikely random drops (and even when they are, you are unlikely to auto-calibrate them). Overall, Bulletstorm L1 with smg-then-rifles is generally a good plan, next time best try to get auto AMP with critchance and not pistol AMP on Rift I guess. Railgun is just that powerful to work with anything that crits, has loading feed and keeps it fed, that Bulletstorm L1 falls out of use is not a weakness, given that it allows to make game easy and frees a lot of room for taking useful skills (but you do want Loading Feed on your armor). I really wish I had that railgun on masterless Tech run I attempted recently, a shame that one worked with scopes and never sought it, whereas Bulletstorm Marine had it gift-wrapped and was much thankful. Vigilant, level 18 Marine, |
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35
on: December 21, 2025, 07:27
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Omega Tyrant | ||
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It's not just you, throughout the past year I've had issues with this forum and the DRL wiki being very slow to load or just not loading at all. They tend to come and go, but are frequent enough for it to be a very noticeable problem.
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36
on: December 21, 2025, 05:44
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Vigilante | ||
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Tends not to load stylesheet most of the time, and I was not able to post a bug report thread with attachment (takes forever to finish, I have given up after trying to create thread four times), although at least created one other thread (without attachments) in Jupiter Hell's Post Mortem so not completely hopeless. Nonetheless, Firefox's Network console only shows access to this site, no third-party sites, just sometimes connection to specific resources (especially css) tends to time out. Is it happening to anyone else across the world, or is it connections on my side / country where I reside?
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37
Jupiter Hell / Post Mortem / [1.8h|U|Sc|YAAM] GunKata Scavenge and Hoard to 100% UV including Dante Inferno
on: December 21, 2025, 03:52
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| Started by Vigilante - Last post by Vigilante | ||
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(GOG version, so 1.8h rather than 1.8j)
As you might know if you've attempted yourself, Gun Kata tends to run out of ammo in Dante L3/L4, even if not going to Dante Inferno. As of recent returning to Jupiter Hell after a long bring, I am doing runs on UV with all various kind of masteries, targeting full clear including Dante Inferno, and this posed the most challenge of masteries tried so far (whereas with Entrenchment Technician, for example, I won two games in a row). The format I am going through this is Fated, then if I fail, I do non-Fated runs with the same mastery selected manually until I succeed. Gun Kata gave me so much trouble I put it off for a while and run other masteries, after I had a non-100% win that did get through Dante Inferno. That run also would have been 100% were it not for the bug, but was then carried by medusa relic making everything in sight bleed, which enabled me to go melee, so I didn't consider that a "proper" victory for this mastery, but rather for the Scout being easiest to go melee in late game when that was not originally in the plans. So this is a "proper" though non-Fated run with Gun Kata in my opinion, not totally absent good items of course (AV3 amp rolled with 40% crit-chance to pistols, even if the other bonus took 4 multitools to reroll to a useful +% crit damage), but one that feels to have more due to execution than mere luck.
So, GunKata can work for 100% clear with emphasis on ammo and some attention to get crit nearer to 100%. Fortunately, the mastery itself does provided bonus to crit chance, depending on distance with it only becoming 0% at distance=6, which given the limited optimal range of pistols pre-calibration, the GunSlinger L1 optimal distance penalty, usually tends to still help enough with pushing crit to 100% apparently, and especially where you most need it (enemies approaching close). Vigilant, level 17 Scout, |
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38
on: December 19, 2025, 16:36
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| Started by Omega Tyrant - Last post by Omega Tyrant | ||
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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 3 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: --------------------------------------------------------------_____________________________________________ EDIT: So in one last 0.9.9.7 run after doing every other badge I could get, I gave N! AoP a try with Vampyre to more accurately assuage how much easier this badge I would have been if I just went for the clear optimal choice to begin with, and yup, I was indeed correct that Vampyre is the way to go. Not only did I pull it off first try (not even needing to discount any first two floors resets), I got the first verified AoP Conqueror above HNTR difficulty, and in stark contrast to this Ammochain run, I was never in any real danger past Phobos. Even getting three Deimos mazes was barely a speed bump for Vampyre, when it took just one to send my Ammochain run spiraling. I did find a random Nano mod near the end of Deimos to make Antigrav Boots, but that was just some extravagant icing for a run that didn't need them at all. I'll put the mortem for that run in the following spoiler: Spoiler (click to show/hide) |
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39
on: December 15, 2025, 18:41
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| Started by Omega Tyrant - Last post by Omega Tyrant | ||
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With three days off from work, I decided to now get the awful grind that is 0.9.9.7's Centurial Angelic out of the way. Centurial Angelic isn't that much harder than Centurial Diamond, but the inability to save on Nightmare in DRL versions prior to 0.9.9.8 makes it awfully prohibitive to try going for, even when rushing it 666 floors still takes a really fucking long time, especially when there are so many damn enemies on each floor. Having to leave DRL running on my computer over the past two nights was very annoying. I also want to get Armorer Diamond out of the way and so have a good chance to double it up with Centurial Angelic here.
Well for the build, I just repeat the same Blademaster strat I used in my Centurial Diamond run, I don't care about breaking new ground here when I'm just trying to get this over with as quickly as I can. The only difference is I do get a second level of Ironman at the end since I figure I can rely enough on Napalm Barrels and face-rocketing with a 3P Rocket Launcher or especially 3P Napalm Launcher to trigger Berserker while I plan to use the Dragonslayer when I found it, and in hindsight I should have gotten a third level when the 3P Napalm Launcher could have reliably triggered Berserker still to keep me near perma-berserked until I got the Dragonslayer. I'm not writing up a walkthrough on this, so some notes:
And that's the run. Frustratingly the Subtle Knife never spawned, so I'm still a Subtle Knife short of getting Armorer Diamond, I can just hope it finally spawns in one of my runs for the remaining badges and so I don't need to speedrun more A666 playthroughs to get it. Overall yeah this badge is much more imposing because of the no save restriction, a few more people certainly would have won it if not for said save restriction, will be interesting to see though if this badge becomes more actually challenging than tedious in the newer DRL versions with the revamp that later A100/666 got (as well as now actually being able to save and so people that can't comfortably leave DRL running on their computers over the course of multiple days aren't automatically prohibited from getting this badge). Now here is the big ass mortem: -------------------------------------------------------------- |
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40
on: December 13, 2025, 18:57
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| Started by Omega Tyrant - Last post by Omega Tyrant | ||
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The next Diamond I decided to go for in 0.9.9.7 was Lightfoot Diamond, which is one of the more common Diamonds with 11 people recorded winning it in 0.9.9.7, 3 of which did it purely and another 5 doubled it up with Lightfoot Angelic. I considered just going straight for Lightfoot Angelic, surely if you could get that you deserve the Diamond anyway right? But Archangel Of Light Travel does give you an even bigger speed boost, so it's not exactly "Lightfoot Diamond but harder" and thus I decided to get it purely first. Also the few extra inventory space does give me more flexibility of which build to use.
Speaking of which, the build. Generally people went one of four builds for this badge; masterless shotgun-centric Scout, masterless melee Scout stairdive (which works by just avoiding finishing off any enemies in melee), Ammochain, or Sharpshooter (which AoLT's speed boost also really helps the brutal early game of). I decided to go with Shottyhead for fun though to get really crazy firing speeds; the thing is with infinite ammo farming on N!, ammo is just not that serious of a concern, I just need a single secured Shotgunner to ensure I have the ammo to clear out any floor and fill out my inventory, while shotguns are plenty ammo efficient without SoB (which relatively barely helps shotguns anyway). I could hit a rough spot in Hell with some bad luck, but I'm so fast I should be able to just leave levels if need be until I find more ammo, and Shottyhead will be so powerful with the AoLT boost that any combat will be trivial (speed is something that's more powerful the more of it you have, at least until you hit the speed cap that is). With trait order, I do delay Shottyhead for Int2, something I would normally strongly recommend against (and often I go without Int2 entirely in my non-A100 Shottyhead runs), but the AoLT speed boost compensates for the lost of combat power that getting Int2 normally entails, while detecting powerups is a lot more valuable when I can only carry one or two medkits at a time, and enemy detection to avoid attrition damage is similarly more valuable when I may not always have the medkits on hand to heal, as well as saves me ammo with radar shooting whenever I do hit one of the aforementioned rough ammo patches. And unlike my other Shottyhead runs, I don't get Brute + Berserker; I was planning to in the lategame, berserked AoLT Shottyhead's firing speed would be incredible, but I couldn't justify getting it in the end without sacrificing Whizkid (and it also gave me insurance anyway from accidentally punching out a weak enemy I bump into, which I already lost too many Lightfoot Diamond runs to when beta testing it in the versions the badge was broken and I lost a Lightfoot Diamond in JHC near the very end from that). In the run itself, I got an incredible floor 2 for N! that gave me the perfect camping corpse disposal spot. Generally though, clearing floors wasn't really hard thanks to the AoLT speed boost, even a floor 4 maze was just more tedious than actually dangerous. Despite having to go in with limited ammo, I did Hell's Arena, which wasn't too bad, as with how fast you are you can limit most of the respawning and effortlessly kite enemies, while getting the Shell Box and Blue Armor were very nice. I would skip Unchained Court, as it would have been too tedious without the Rocket Launcher and I can't kill stuff in melee anyway, while it also has no Shotgunners and so I especially risk running out of ammo here if things went really badly. Military Base was an obvious stop and gave a much appreciated big EXP boost, though I could have easily done Phobos Lab too if I rolled it instead. Then came the Anomaly, which thanks to finding a Rocket Launcher on floor 7, I don't need to worry about outrunning the ambush, and with AoLT's speed boost, I'm able to effectively fight back and kill the Nightmare enemies in the open despite no Shottyhead yet. After an unremarkable Deimos 1, I would go into Hell's Armory, and in its weapon cache I found the best thing I could ask for, a Super Shotgun!. I was contemplating whether to just build an Elephant Gun or try to hold for building a Focused Double Shotgun, but this find settled it for me, neither. Unfortunately I got an Onyx instead of a Nano mod in the lab cache, so no AoLT-boosted Shottyhead with a Nano-Shrapnel Super Shotgun to trivially win the rest of the game damageless, but an Onyx mod isn't bad when it means I won't need to worry about my inability to store backup armors (unfortunately I already A-modded my Red Armor, so I had to wait a few more floors before I got Whizkid to put it on). I would skip the rest of the Deimos special levels after this; I had a Rocket Launcher for The Wall but I temporarily stopped carrying rockets to make room for the aforementioned Onyx mod and Deimos 3 just so happened to not have a single rocket ammo drop nor Revenant/Mancubus on it, City Of Skulls would have risked putting me in a bad ammo spot for little reward, and Spider's Lair has no shells whatsoever on it. After another free Cybie fight thanks for a Deimos 7 Invuln, Hell 1 would spawn another weapon that would be amazing for Shottyhead, the Jackhammer. Unfortunately with the inventory constraints and this being before 0.9.9.8 gave it a single-shot fire mode, I had to leave it behind; the Super Shotgun was more practical for being a lot more ammo efficient and no single-shot mode means it can't replace the Tactical Shotgun either. There was additionally a pair of Agility mods on this floor and a spare pair of Steel Boots, so I rebuilt Tactical Boots incase I found a third A mod to mod them (...but I forgot I didn't have WK2 yet and so was still unable to mod them farther, it didn't matter however as I never found any more A mods after this). Hell 2 gave me a funny floor, spawning me right next to a gasoline lever that would have been fun to hit, but I had no radsuits nor Homing Phase and so it would have been instant death if I hit it. This floor would also mark a point where I went through a drought of finding any Shotgunners nor a Shell box, and so by later Hell I finally faced a real ammo crunch that forced me to leave several floors early, which I couldn't always cleanly do, such as an island level spawning me in a room with a Hell Noble group and an Archvile + Mancubi group right outside it (though thankfully with Shottyhead I had no problem fighting my way out of it), while I got an Arachnotron cave immediately after I had to immediately flee (I could have also stayed and fought with Shottyhead, but it could have left me too crippled ammo-wise). I had to dip into Lava Pits too to escape, which put a big dent in my kill percent. Hell 7 would finally have a Shell Box, as well as a couple Shotgunners, I had enough ammo anyway to finish off the Mastermind and a clean path to the stairs, but I stayed to clear out one last level. It was then on my way to Dis, where the Mastermind was hopeless against a AoLT-boosted Shottyhead wielding a Super Shotgun. I have to admit this wasn't technically a first try, the first one I lost when I overextended near a Cacodemon vault on floor 2 while getting pincer'd by respawns that I then quit out of, but this was a second try win that was a pretty relaxing run overall with very few moments that remotely pressured me. Lightfoot Diamond might be a bit overly easy for a Diamond, but respawns no longer dropping ammo in 0.10-onward should give it the needed difficulty buff; being able to carry limited ammo just does not matter if you can farm infinite ammo whenever you want off of any enemy that drops ammo, and the unlucky Hell shell drought I got wouldn't have mattered if I had a plasma weapon on hand (or could have finished building my Tactical Rocket Launcher to better utilize all the rockets from Revenants and Mancubi). Now here is the mortem: -------------------------------------------------------------- |
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