Print

Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Omega Tyrant]

Since I've gotten pure Quartermaster Diamond over a year ago, and then the once-believed near-impossible in 0.9.9.7 Eagerness Anglic and Inquisitor Angelic, it was time I go for the last of the AoRA-related badges I don't have in 0.9.9.7, Quartermaster Angelic. Now this one gives a bit of a "reprieve" by allowing UV instead of only N!, and according to the Badge Hunters thread, three people won it in 0.9.9.7 (Tormuse, papilio, and lainuki), so it doesn't look exceedingly difficult by Angelic standards, there are several Diamonds that were won as or less frequently than this. 80% kills, while a lot, especially with a mere 2 and a half minutes on each floor, is still miles of leeway compared to 100%; unlike in Quartermaster Diamond attempts, you won't have runs ended because a single Imp or Lost Soul wandered off on the opposite side of the map. Still, that 2 and a half minute timer is strict, there's a very serious danger you don't find the stairs at all on every floor, especially when you spend time fighting enemies to rack up the kill count, so this is certainly an Angelic-level challenge.

For the build, I decided to go Blademaster yet again, especially as the prior three recorded runs were Gunrunner. Not getting Fin/Rel/SM will make Phobos a lot more difficult, but I'll be less dependent on Invulns in the later game to rack up the kills needed, and once I get Blademaster, I'll be able to do some safe kill farming on Pain Elementals to buff the kill count if needed, especially if I get it before City Of Skulls. However, the initial few attempts I tried went very rough; without Shotgun-boosting traits, and without HR2 (which I was putting off to try getting Berserker ASAP), I was forced to play much more aggressively with a strict time limit while being unable to adequately fight back, and the result was simply just repeatedly running out of armor and health, while I wasn't levelling up fast enough for my liking. This should work if I kept pushing through and eventually get a good run of luck, but after having a run that made to The Chained Court and still failed very quickly after, I got an idea that would maybe better facilitate this Blademaster strat; go for this badge on Nightmare! instead. This might sound crazy at first, especially in a version where respawns still count towards the kill counter, but with the doubled healing from Health Globes and Small Medkits, doubled armor repair from Armor Shards, crucially any Berserks I get lasting twice as long (as well as Invulns lasting twice as long for big Invuln rampages later), and levelling up significantly faster with the EXP boost + extra enemies, I figured Blademaster might actually have an easier time getting off the ground, and once it does, it can clear out floors even on N!, significantly buffing my kill count. Plus respawns hardly matter when you're spending only 2 and a half minutes on every floor, and any lucky Invulns I do get will eradicate respawns, so Invuln nuking will get me even bigger kill boosts than they would on UV. Plus again, 80% kills is not 100% or even 90%, so some respawns getting up as I exit a level won't matter all that much.

When trying N!, I was getting even more brutal deaths early on, as trying to shotgun down or just run past a bunch of enemies in the open with their 50% increased attack rate meant I got quickly shredded, while I was repeatedly running into several Hell Knights in that always perilous floor 3 to 5 range or mazes that had several enemies in every direction. But these attempts went fast, and I was noticing the much greater impact from just finding a early single Berserk, as well as getting a lot more health from Health Globes/Small Medkits and how much faster I was levelling, so I kept at it. And in less than a dozen attempts (four recorded deaths + several more I quit out on), I was able to make it to The Chained Court, where it went off from there.

At the start of the run, I of course open with HR, but I gun for Berserker after that; there's a case to be made that going for HR2 would be better, but you need to actually kill things very quickly, and Berserker is critical to doing that, especially with N! making it even more likely to spawn you next to large groups of enemies. There's also a case to be made to get a level of Finesse to get that critical early universal combat boost and when I'll want it later anyway, like I did in my Eagerness Angelic run, but any additional delay of Blademaster is painful when the rate you level up still isn't as great as you'll hope. Phobos Base Entry is mostly the same, except you can't run -> wait until the Formers come out and so if the Formers don't play nicely, I can take enough damage here to force a reset. Floor 2 I'll usually make it past, but it too can force a reset if I get a bunch of enemies on me without cover. I try to kill what I can but I'm not too fussed with kills here, just take your time to gather up shells since you can run out later when you won't have the time to gather up all ammo you see, and prioritize nabbing any armor or medkit you see since those are such a commodity early on. Getting a quickly accessible massacre lever here can be huge, you could reset until you get one since they aren't too uncommon, but I don't think it's worth doing so when the hardest floors are coming and your run will likely still end after all those resets to get a floor 2 massacre lever. You could also reset if you get any vaults on floor 2, normally a great thing but you have no hope you to clear them out at this point without a nearby Berserk, especially if they're Cacodemon vaults, and they'll put you in a big kill count hole early as vaults inflate the enemy count. You shouldn't be too fussed with your kill count this early though, and who knows, you might actually be able to get inside a vault for something good, or at least get more EXP than usual if you can kill some Cacodemons, which is more important than your kill count at this point. Speaking of which, I always went into Hell's Arena if I found its stairs in time; actually clearing Hell's Arena in AAoRA is just impossible without coming in with lots of berserk and getting extremely lucky wave spawns, but you can consistently clear out the first wave, getting you desperately needed EXP and fluffing your kill count a little (even if an enemy or two respawns, you can just ignore it and still come out positive in kill percentage).

Then comes floors 3 to 5, your objective is to just survive and make it to The Chained Court. Pick up any safe kills after finding the stairs or fight when it's absolutely necessary, but you really don't want to get bogged down fighting the Hell Knights here if you can avoid it, as corner shooting a single Hell Knight down with just the basic Shotgun + no Shotgun-boosting traits can take up to a dozen seconds, and potentially over twice that if they found any armor or medkits. Try fighting a couple Hell Knights, and you'll likely see the "Warning! Explosion in 60 seconds!" message with most of the floor still unexplored. Leaving behind the EXP of killing a Hell Knight does suck, but you could shotgun down a group of Imps or Formers in less time than it takes to kill a single Hell Knight, while that group gives equal or more EXP and helps your kill count much more, so avoid isolated undamaged Hell Knights if they're not blocking the only way forward. In this particular run, I got a Lost Soul cave in this range, which is a double-edged sword as they are awful for EXP, but in this run I gladly took it, as it meant an easy floor I could kill everything on and safely gather up whatever supplies spawned on it. Then it got followed up with a Pinky cave that had a horizontal acid river, again not good for EXP but it's another level I could actually fully clear without serious danger and safely gather up whatever I find. With these two breather floors, I reach The Chained Court, which is especially huge on N! when you get 500 actions of berserk here instead of 250, and you get more bang for your buck EXP-wise when taking the opportunity to safely kill the Barons. The time limit is too strict to try killing everything, and I also don't have time to get the mods, if I played more aggressively I could have probably gotten the mods but my armor + health supply wasn't too great even after the aforementioned caves and so I didn't risk it. I also pick up the first level of Intuition at this point; it delays Blademaster a level, but Invulns will be spawning soon, and immediately knowing where they are is critical, while detecting other powerups is also very useful, so the delay is worth it. Unfortunately I got no Invuln on Phobos 7, and the last two floors before Anomaly don't go too great, I survive but I'm going into the dreaded N! Phobos Anomaly at only level 5 and having only HR1. Anomaly going from what would have been a relative breather into a big run ender is one other serious drawback of doing this on N!, and without Blademaster or Vampyre, trying to actually fight the N! Anomaly ambush in melee would be suicide. Fortunately as a Scout, HR1 is enough to outrun the ambush, unfortunately it's not fast enough for me to be able to close the door after getting through it and not fast enough to break LoS with the Nightmare Demons before I tire out as I reach the Bruisers. I nearly died, but I'm able to make it through after burning more medkits, and I make it to Deimos with only a single medkit in store.

After that awful Anomaly, Deimos 1 would give me a big break by giving me a relatively close Invuln in a small rooms level, which I'm able to secure and safely camp out to nuke the level. Then the other big benefit of N! comes here as that Invuln not only lets me safely kill everything on the current floor, but the doubled duration means I can take a lot of it with me to the next floor to safely kill a bunch of enemies at the start there too, especially with Berserker. I get another Invuln a couple floors later for another easy floor clear + partial clear of the next floor. I unfortunately don't get Blademaster before City Of Skulls to get a big kill dump there, but I'm snowballing, and upon getting Blademaster + a rocket launcher by later Deimos, the run is nearly secured; I'm fast enough that I can actually clear floors within only 2 and a half minutes, I can stretch Invulns out very far, and Armor Shards repairing doubled on N! keep my Red Armors healthy so I can keep face rocketing to trigger Berserker and rocket jump around. For traits I get Juggler so I can rocket jump into enemies and immediately switch to a melee weapon, or occasionally to instantly swap to the Shotgun if there's an Imp or Former being annoying. Forgot to take a screenshot of my stats before entering of Tower Of Babel, but I had a kill rate of somewhere around ~75% going into Hell, not there yet but certainly within range for me to make up the kills needed for 80%.

Hell 1 would greet me with another Invuln in a small rooms level, this one was near a barrel with lots of Hell Nobles and a Mancubi near it, but I'm able to secure it, then take it with me into Unholy Cathedral after waiting out the nuke to get the Longinus Spear with minimal damage. After another Invuln on Hell 2, Hell 3 would greet me with a Pain Elemental + Lost Soul cave, exactly the level I wanted to see. I'm able to go through it fast enough to farm the last Pain Elemental a bit, he is uncooperative as he kept trying to move into melee range instead of spawning Souls, I'm thinking I should have left a couple Elementals alive to make the farming more efficient, but after this floor I am over 80% kills (I also find a Sniper mod here and so am able to make a Plasmatic Shotgun for easy corpse disposing, though I didn't really need it at this point). Hell 5 would then give me an Onyx mod, not a game changer at this point since I had several healthy Reds and as mentioned the doubled Armor Shards can keep up with repairing them, but still nice to have. Hell 6 would give me a double Invuln near the red stairs (plus a third offscreen on the other side of the map), and after clearing out Hell 6 normally, I take these invulns with me into Mt. Erebus, which the additional kills weren't needed but I still want the Lava Elemental to pad out my Carmack kills for the Apostle rank. The invulns last so long, that with Blademaster and rocket jumping around, I'm able to clear Mt. Erebus and exit before the invuln runs out. Hell 7 was nothing of note, and with a Ripper I built on Hell 6, Carmack dies without being able to put any real fight.

So overall, this took about a dozen attempts over the course of less than two hours, which is a pretty stark contrast to when pure Quartermaster Diamond took me over three times the amount of attempts over the course of several days. I wouldn't necessarily say this was easier than pure Quartermaster Diamond though, I would chalk up the difference to my improvement since then, not being as optimal with my trait selection (notably if I redid Quarter Diamond, I wouldn't have gotten Int2 and would have instead gotten Finesse, Reloader if playing a version after 0.9.9.8, or would have only delayed Blademaster for Int1), and some plain old lousy luck in those Quartermaster Diamond runs (I'll never forget how many attempts it took me to just find a Rocket Launcher by early Deimos...), so any aspiring players should definitely not skip getting Quartermaster Diamond before going for this badge. If anyone is going for Quartermaster Angelic though and are struggling with it on UV, perhaps try it on N!, especially if you're playing on 0.10-onward and so don't even need to worry about respawns negatively affecting the kill count. My sixth Angelic secured, I get the rank of Chaos Major General, joining Tormuse and papilio as the only players I believe to have verifiably achieved that rank. With that all said, here is the mortem:

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

 MASTEROFQUARTERS5,
 level 15 Cyberdemon Chaos Br. General Scout,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 32811 turns and scored 811423 points.
 He played for 59 minutes.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 875 out of 1028 hellspawn. (85%)
 He was an Archangel of Red Alert!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 4
  Levels completed : 2

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

  Cyberdemon's Head
  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Minor Icarus Cross
  Quartermaster Angelic Badge

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

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

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

  Health 50/50   Experience 100422/15
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +8  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +12

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Brute            (Level 4)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Int->HR->Bru->MBm->Fin->Jug->Fin->HR->WK->WK->Bru->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [6] (OP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   ripper (6d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)

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

    [a] plasmatic shotgun (8d3) [1/1]
    [b] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (B1)
    [c] Cybernetic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [d] shotgun shell (x26)
    [e] shotgun shell (x50)
    [f] shotgun shell (x50)
    [g] rocket (x7)
    [h] small med-pack
    [i] small med-pack
    [j] small med-pack
    [k] small med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] large med-pack
    [r] large med-pack
    [s] power mod pack
    [t] plasteel boots [2/2] (98%)

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

    42 former humans
    36 former sergeants
    32 former captains
    127 imps
    74 demons
    357 lost souls
    7 cacodemons
    24 hell knights
    39 barons of hell
    15 arachnotrons
    13 former commandos
    36 pain elementals
    22 revenants
    27 mancubi
    19 arch-viles
    1 lava 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 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 14 he assembled a tactical 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!
  On level 20 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  On level 22 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 22 he assembled a ripper!
  On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
  On level 22 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  He managed to raise Mt. Erebus completely!
  Level 23 blasted him with an unholy atmosphere!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You reload the rocket launcher. You need to taste blood!
 You dodge! Boom! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 John Carmack reloads his rocket launcher. You need to taste blood!
 You prepare the ripper instantly!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You're going berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 Next!

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

 266 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 86 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 95 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 6 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 78 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 6 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 39 killed the bitch and survived.
 33 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

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