Eagerness Diamond is another of those scary Diamonds that few people won and even fewer won without Dual Angel cheese; according to the
0.9.9.7 Badge Hunters thread, only four people won it 0.9.9.7, which were
Fanta Hege,
papilio,
Sereg, and
Icy, of which only papilio did it without mixing AoI with AoOC, while even in 0.9.9.6 and 0.9.9.5 no one is listed winning it after its requirement got changed to the current one. AoI itself is a pretty scary challenge, as without the insurance of carrying medkits with you, any bad level spawn without nearby health can suddenly end the run, even late in the game. Then Eagerness Diamond makes it worse by requiring you to use the Technician, whose passive of near-instant item use is rendered nearly irrelevant, and the Technician is the worst class too in 0.9.9.7, as alongside the already weaker passives, all their masteries are heavily flawed or outright awful. But is it truly one of the top tier Diamonds? I did win the formerly believed-to-be-near-impossible Eagerness Angelic, so can it really be that bad?
For the build, when looking over the aforementioned Eagerness Diamond mortems, we can dismiss the Sereg'd runs that obviously relied on strategies that are not applicable to a full game, so that just leaves papilio's run to examine. He used Fireangel, which makes sense as explosion immunity will really help you survive a bad VMRB hot start when bad hot starts are incredibly dangerous in AoI and free rocket jumps can substitute nicely for no Phase Devices. However, Fireangel itself giving no sort of offensive boost and being blocked SoB makes it a hard sell; your offense will be dreadful without getting Berserker and sidearming melee, while Fireangel has anti-synergy with Berserker when explosions (whether from enemies, barrels, or intentionally face rocketing yourself) can no longer trigger it. Papilio didn't give an attempt count (and he was doing the weird thing of backing up his player.wad whenever he died so his mortem doesn't show how many times he died), but he did claim it was "extremely hard" and killed the Mastermind with only a single hit point remaining, so I don't think this was the optimal build choice. I decided to go with Scavenger; aside from thinking it's the best Technician mastery even before its 0.9.9.8 buff (more mods, especially rare mods, is nice and Scavenger is the only Technician mastery without a serious downside to it), Scavenger has the neat trick where it effectively lets you bypass AoI not letting you store mods, as any mod you come across you can just put on a random weapon and dissemble it later with Scavenger to get the mod back, instead of being forced to use the mod on sub-optimal equipment.
For trait order, I leadoff with Finesse -> Juggler. Scavenger is a mastery whose power manifests later, so I can comfortably delay it for immediately useful traits, and of course the aforementioned leadoff is probably the strongest opener, which is especially going to be needed as I take on Hell's Arena. Then it's a level of SoB since rapids will be the primary source of firepower for any generalist build and making the Chaingun less awful will help in the aforementioned Hell's Arena. It's two levels of EE after that to start building towards Scavenger's Intuition prereq while farther buffing rapids and making the Chainsaw a better sidearm, but I deviate again from the prereq path to get a level of Hellrunner in case I roll Phobos Lab for the Phobos 7 special level. I then get Intuition not only for fulfilling the prereq, but its powerup detection is very important in AoI when you'll be largely relying on powerups for healing and immediately knowing where they are on any given floor will save runs. I once more deviate from the prereq path to get SoB2 as my offense is still feeling lacking, before the two Whizkid levels needed and finally Scavenger. Post-mastery it's Int2 so I don't need to radar shoot or wait spam as much, more Finesse is obvious, as well as another level of HR to help me beat the Cyberdemon. Traits after that are irrelevant, as you'll see later...
After some resets on Phobos Base Entry, I get one of the best floor 2s I can ask for, with it having a
horizontal water river for easy corpse disposal and an early obtainable Computer Map, I nearly did the floor damageless. But after that is N! Hell's Arena that is especially brutal in AoI as you can't heal during it whatsoever, which aside from the general difficulty of that, it also means your ability to intentionally eat plasma/acid balls to destroy corpses is very limited, and no medkits also means you can only activate run once. My first run I didn't reset on Phobos Base Entry did end up dying in the third wave after I get hit by two high roll acid balls from a badly spawned Baron. You may want to skip Hell's Arena altogether or only kill some enemies in the first for EXP before leaving, but beating N! Hell's Arena in AoI or AoMs is necessary for the Chessmaster's Cross, and while I could save that for AoMs where it will be slightly easier since you can get fully healed with a well-timed level up, I do want the Rocket Launcher so I keep at it. And in just my second attempt I managed to clear Hell's Arena; coming in at nearly 200% after the aforementioned great Hell 2 was nice, but that extra health
proved unnecessary.
Phobos 3 would be another easy floor... aside from me accidentally swapping to the Rocket Launcher and face rocketing myself when juggling Shotguns
four fucking times. I got pretty tilted from repeating such a stupid costly error, but I was able to recompose and got through Phobos 4 and 5 without any issue. Then came the Unchained Court, which was scary to attempt when the only healing in AoI are the three Berserks that could be easily blown up, but it went so well that I cleared it
with two Berserks to spare (only grabbing the Chainsaw once I aggro'd the Arena Master); having a competent Chaingun thanks to SoB + EE makes plinking away at the Barons stuck behind in the lava pools from the doorways more effective, and makes one-shotting the Formers are long range a lot more reliable, while having EE also makes chainsawing the Arena Master down more effective when you aren't missing half your hits. Being able to save those Berserks to take with me to the next floor proved very useful too, as Phobos 6 was a
Cacodemon+Arachnotron cave which could have easily killed the run without the Berserk. After an unremarkable Phobos 7, I rolled Military Base instead of the Phobos Lab I got that level of HR for, I actually may have preferred Phobos Lab as Military Base is quite risky in AoI without the ability to gift drop the Elite Formers (can't use armor to gift drop them since they all spawn in a Green or Blue Armor by default), but through very careful play I avoid eating a run-ending close range SSG blast or Napalm rocket and get through it. In N! Phobos Anomaly, I just rocket jump through the ambush and the Bruisers, not attempting to fight back as no Commandos spawn on Phobos 6/7 and so I had no Plasma Rifle (and I was going to need one to remotely entertain the idea of fighting here with no healing outside the opening room), though I didn't have much choice after rocket jumping past the Bruisers when one of them funnily
hit me into the portal.
Deimos 1 would start off interesting with a
Butcher's Cleaver spawning, unfortunately as this is before Scavenger's 0.9.9.8 buff, I'm unable to dissemble it for a rare mod and so it sits in my inventory. Deimos Lab however would prove to be extremely lucrative; first the weapon cache had a
Nuclear Plasma Rifle, I consider just leaving the Shamblers behind to not fumble this reward, but I do decide to take them on, especially as a few of the armor crates did drop Small Medkits that I could heal mid-fight without needing to make a mad dash to the Supercharges. Through Juggling overcharged Plasma Rifles, I'm able to
defeat the Shamblers, and I get the coveted
Onyx + Nano mod reward from the lab cache. With the Onyx I just immediately slap it on my Red Armor, with the Nano I had some deliberation on what to do with it, thanks to Scavenger I could store it on a Plasma Rifle and get it back later, but I decide to just put it the on the Nuclear Plasma Rifle rather than try to build towards a Nanomachic weapon or Antigrav Boots or save to Nano a Hyperblaster; with the Nano'd Nuclear Plasma Rifle instantly charging 4 cells after every shot, I can fire 10 consecutive times before it'll fully deplete its clip, and even after that it can still indefinitely fire 4-shot bursts if I'm unable to hold off on firing for a couple seconds to let it fully recharge, so it's nearly as good as a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle while retaining 4 more mod slots. I get WK2 not long after and finally build Tactical Boots, Tactical Shotgun, and a Hyperblaster I was holding off on so I could mod them. With those, the Nano'd Nuclear Plasma Rifle, and PO Red Armor, I blow through Deimos and clear Containment Area + Abyssal Plains without a hitch, with Scavenger turning one of those Missile Launchers into a Firestorm that I then put on my Hyperblaster for when I want more DPS than the Nuclear Plasma Rifle can manage. I do skip Halls Of Carnage however to end the Conqueror streak, as N! Halls Of Carnage would have been too dangerous in AoI without an exceptionally fast build, when I would have been unable to heal in the deadly maze full of Nightmare enemies and Barons. Tower Of Babel would give me a
terrible Cyberdemon spawn where damage was unavoidable, but after escaping the corner I defeat him without going below 100% health.
Hell 1 would greet me with a
relaxing Pain Elemental cave, though it has the downside of not giving me much EXP and so I'm unable to get one more level for the Fin3 I would have needed to outspeed the Angel of Death, thus having to skip Unholy Cathedral. Hell 2 would be a
much more interesting floor however... First it's a Hellish Magic level, something I often go entire A100 games without seeing, so that's neat (and also dangerous, all those Commandos makes it a lot more threatening than any of the VMR-only levels), and it has a flood too to spice it up farther. But a Unique spawned... which turned out to be the
Trigun! First thought is, with Scavenger, I can turn this into a second Nano, but then I remember I still don't got the Fallout Platinum Cross that I missed out on the last two times I got a Trigun, and there's a handy Invuln nearby to nuke rush the rest of the game while I have about three dozen rockets in my inventory for rocket jumping... The game was probably won regardless at this point with the equipment I had, but I take advantage of this opportunity and nuked the rest of Hell, using the remaining levels I got on Ironman to keep my max HP from going too low (including
popping into The Vaults to get the very rare AoI Vaults clear that is only possible with overcharging a Nuclear weapon or Angel Arm while Invuln'd, I would rocket jump to the Unique that spawned here and it turned out to be Enviroboots). The Invuln would run out on Hell 7, but another spawned, so after carefully getting to it with my depleted health, I nuke Hell 7, Dis, and
Hell Fortress for the easy win.
With that is Eagerness Diamond, alongside the Chessmaster's Cross and Fallout Platinum Cross (with those two medals checked, I'm now only three medals shy from getting all medals and thus Heroic Diamond, leaving only Untouchable Cross, Hell Arena Pwnage Medal, and Gutts' Heart). Well it's hard to fully accurately gauge the difficulty of the badge when I got to nuke the last third of it, and having such good equipment in the second third, but still this only took two attempts that didn't Q+Y on Phobos Base Entry, and the run never pressured me like Inquisitor Diamond or even Marksman Diamond did. If you go Scavenger to not let AoI limit your equipment potential, while it remains one of the harder Diamonds, I don't think Eagerness Diamond matches up to the top level Diamonds let papilio claimed. After this run, I'm also now at
20 Diamonds, joining I believe only Icy and papilio as the only players to have verifiably reached the big 2-0 Diamond count in 0.9.9.7. I'm going to be entering "don't get hit" and RNG hell for the remaining Diamonds however...
Here is the mortem:
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DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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wherearemymedkits2?,
level 16 Cyberdemon Chaos Mjr General Technician,
nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
He survived 740406 turns and scored 867932 points.
He played for 4 hours, 39 minutes and 43 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 1752 out of 1775 hellspawn. (98%)
He held his right to remain violent.
He was an Angel of Impatience!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 7
Levels completed : 7
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (gold cluster)
Aurora Medallion
Fallout Platinum Cross
Hell Armorer Badge
Chessmaster's Token
Chessmaster's Cross
Hell Champion Medal
Eagerness Diamond Badge
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
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-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 50/25 Experience 135818/16
ToHit Ranged +4 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +2 ToDmg Melee +2
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Technician
Ironman (Level 2)
Finesse (Level 2)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Son of a bitch (Level 2)
Eagle Eye (Level 2)
Juggler (Level 1)
Intuition (Level 2)
Whizkid (Level 2)
Scavenger (Level 1)
Fin->Jug->SoB->EE->EE->HR->Int->SoB->WK->WK->MSc->Int->Fin->HR->Iro->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [6] (OP)
[b] [ Weapon ] Trigun (3d6) [6/6]
[c] [ Boots ] tactical boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
[d] [ Prepared ] shell box (x35)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] shotgun (9d3) [1/1] (P1)
[b] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
[c] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1] (B2)
[d] hyperblaster (2d4)x5 [40/40] (F1)
[e] nuclear plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [24/24] (N1)
[f] Necroarmor [6/6] (100%)
[g] chainsaw (4d6)
[h] Butcher's Cleaver (5d6)
[i] shotgun shell (x70)
[j] shotgun shell (x70)
[k] shotgun shell (x70)
[l] shotgun shell (x70)
[m] rocket (x4)
[n] power cell (x70)
[o] power cell (x55)
[p] power cell (x70)
[q] power cell (x70)
[r] power cell (x70)
[s] Enviroboots [0]
[t] shell box (x100)
[u] shell box (x100)
[v] rocket box (x20)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Acid - internal 25% torso 25% feet 25%
Fire - internal 25% torso 50% feet 25%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
233 former humans
171 former sergeants
114 former captains
268 imps
79 demons
417 lost souls
71 cacodemons
38 hell knights
46 barons of hell
33 arachnotrons
100 former commandos
36 pain elementals
25 revenants
41 mancubi
28 arch-viles
8 nightmare imps
18 nightmare demons
7 elite former humans
5 elite former sergeants
7 elite former commandos
2 shamblers
1 agony elemental
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.
He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
On level 5 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
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 found the Butcher's Cleaver!
On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
On level 11 he arrived at the Containment Area.
On level 11 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
On level 11 he assembled a hyperblaster!
On level 11 he assembled a tactical boots!
He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
On level 12 he romped upon the Abyssal Plains.
He slaughtered the beasts living there.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 18 he stumbled into a complex full of arch-viles!
On level 18 he ran for his life from lava!
On level 18 he found the Trigun!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 18!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 19!
On level 19 he found the Necroarmor!
On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
He activated the Angel Arm on level 19!
On level 19 he found the Enviroboots!
He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 20!
He left level 20 as soon as possible.
On level 21 he stumbled into a nightmare demon cave!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 21!
He left level 21 as soon as possible.
He activated the Angel Arm on level 22!
He left level 22 as soon as possible.
He activated the Angel Arm on level 23!
Then at last he found Dis!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 24!
He left level 24 as soon as possible.
He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
He activated the Angel Arm on level 25!
Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You prepare the rocket launcher instantly!
Fire -- Choose target...
You see : floor
You reload the rocket launcher.
Fire -- Choose target...
You see : floor
There are stairs leading downward here.
You reload the rocket launcher. There are stairs leading downward here.
This is it. This is the lair of all evil! What will you meet here?
Use scroll to choose weapon, left button to wield, right to cancel... You
wear/wield : a Trigun (3d6) [6/6]
Do you want to use the dangerous Angel Arm?? [y/n]
You activate the Angel Arm! Your life is drained! Congratulations! You
defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
304 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.
90 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
7 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
48 killed the bitch and survived.
35 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
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Author
Topic: (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoI|98%|YAFW] - Nuking Hell for Eagerness Diamond and Fallout Plat (Read 62 times)