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[Omega Tyrant]

The only Diamond badge I had left in 0.9.9.7 was Arena Diamond, the most infamous Diamond that was once believed to be nearly impossible after no one won it in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 until Icy finally won it over a year ago. This badge has an interesting history though, as in the versions prior to 0.9.9.7, it was actually one of the more common Diamonds, with the Badge Hunters thread reporting seven players winning it prior to 0.9.9.7 (as well as 2Dev claiming to have won it of course, but his Arena Diamond run has outright proof of being illegitimate, with him claiming he found a Supercharge near the Arena stairs... even though they don't start spawning until floor 4 and so that's impossible), and Game Hunter himself won it too, albeit in a beta version. All of these were additionally won before Dual Angel abuse was a thing (with Dual Angels being introduced in 0.9.9.7) and the Arena itself has never been directly changed, so what happened to make this once-common badge suddenly go through such a long winless drought? Prior to 0.9.9.7, Hell's Arena did have a 50/50 chance to spawn on floor 3, which would give you an extra floor to come into the Arena a level higher and with more resources, but four of the reported Arena Diamonds were won with a floor 2 Arena, so while Hell's Arena being locked to floor 2 would have certainly made this badge harder, it's evidently not the entire reason why it became so rare. I primarily suspect two other things also contributed to this badge being easier back then; one, berserk itself used to be even more OP, with it quartering damage you took prior to 0.9.9.4 (effectively 75% resistance to everything), and two, enemy AI in very old versions used to have them congregate towards the center of the floor, which in the Arena would have made it easier to kill more enemies in your Berserker chains and get more corpses destroyed in crossfire. Whatever the reason though, the last Arena Diamond before Icy's was Q2ZOv winning it in 0.9.9.6 back in 2012, and Arena Diamond was bad enough that it made papilio give up in his quest for all Diamonds at 23/26 (with his only other two unwon Diamonds being Technician and Armorer that he would have eventually won), despite actively grinding for it before. Additionally while the Arena Diamond drought was ended by Icy and then won two more times since (by micerang in 0.9.9.8 and Asbadagba in 0.10), all three of them were won by combining Angel of Berserk with Angel of Light Travel (with AoLT's +20% universal speed boost making it significantly easier), so the badge still has not been won in pure AoB since Q2ZOv did it 14 years ago in 0.9.9.6. I have done all of my Diamonds purely up to this point, not abusing a Dual Angel for any of them, and I plan to keep it that way, but will pure Arena Diamond break me like it did with papilio?

Since you only got two floors of preparation before Hell's Arena, one of which will be Phobos Base Entry with static enemies and items, you don't got many options for the build, as you'll be entering the Arena at or near only level three, maybe a fourth level if you get a clearable Cacodemon vault on floor 2, and in the Arena itself you won't hit level 4 until near the end of it without clearing floor 2 vaults. Icy did it with a Marine for the longer-lasting Berserk Packs, but I decided on the Scout, so I could outrun Cacodemons and Barons with my base movement speed, in addition to being able to more easily outrun Pinkies with running active, as well as get some crucial double-attacks on Cacos/Barons when I'm not berserked (and reduce double-attacks from Pinkies). For the first three traits, Brute 2 + Berserker is non-negotiable, but the fourth trait would be more interesting if you can get it in time to matter; Brute 3 not only increases your damage output but also ensures you can't roll below 10 damage so Berserker will reliably trigger (as your hits need to deal 10+ damage to build the Berserker counter and a Combat Knife has a 12% chance to roll below 10 damage with Brute 2), Finesse improves DPS and lets you trigger Berserker faster, Hellrunner would allow for better kiting and let you more safely approach Cacos/Barons in addition to preventing Pinkies from outrunning you without you needing berserk or running active, Ironman or Tough as Nails would give the extra survivability that might be needed to win at the end, and even Eagle Eye could be chosen to make throwing knives semi-functional (since it's EE rather than Brute that increases their accuracy in this version). I wasn't completely set on what I would get for my fourth trait, but as it would turn out though, a fourth trait would prove unneeded...

Phobos Base Entry doesn't play differently, though with it being AoB and wanting to maintain as much health as possible, as well as wanting those medkits, I would reset a lot (though it would also turn out you don't necessarily need both medkits here). The main point of strategy is to immediately take off your Blue Armor, you need to keep that Blue Armor fully intact for the Arena. Floor 2 is also not very different from normal AoB, with it coming down to if you can find a decent camping spot (or massacre lever) before you get shot up too much, just again do not waste the Blue Armor here, if you can't make it to the Arena without using up the Blue Armor, then the run isn't going to survive the Arena anyway. Hopefully you can find Green Armors early enough to wear, which are ok to use up on floor 2 since Green Armors help little in the Arena (they do absolutely nothing to reduce the Cacodemons' plasma damage, the single point of reduction in melee amounts to basically just being able to take one more hit inbetween full heals against the Arena enemies, and Baron acid balls deal so much damage that a single point of protection will do shit all to extend survival against them). The main luck of Arena Diamond comes down to a Phobos 2 giving you the resources to viably clear Hell's Arena. It might be tempting at first to reset until you see the "You feel there is something really valuable here!" message on floor 2, indicating you got the fabled floor 2 Butcher Cleaver to spawn, which would be amazing to have but this isn't something you should bother for; one, I've never ever seen a floor 2 Cleaver in my hundreds and hundreds of DRL runs, you could be resetting for days until you ever get one. Two, even if you did get extraordinarily lucky with a floor 2 Cleaver, it wouldn't be an instawin, especially if no Berserks spawned, while you could very well die on floor 2 before you even find the Cleaver. Considering how maddening resetting for the floor 2 Cleaver would get and how morale-shattering it would be to still lose after finally getting the Cleaver, it is just not worth it to spam resets for. More realistically, you could reset until you get floor 2 vaults, which have lots of potentially good things you wouldn't be able to get on floor 2 otherwise, including mods, more Large Medkits, more Blue Armors or even Red Armor, potentially one of the Exotic or even Unique armors that have melee resistance, or even one of the Skulls, as well as giving you extra EXP to get midway to level 3 or even up to level 4 before the Arena. The problem with vaults though is you often won't even be able to clear the enemies they have in AoB, as they'll be either Pinkies or Cacodemons, while unless it's a Pinky vault and you got acid available to kill the Pinkies for you, you'll need to hit level 3 for Berserker before you can clear them or use up a Berserk Pack that you want to save for the Arena, and usually enemies on the floor will open the vaults up to release the enemies inside before you get Berserker to fight them. Then if the vault gets opened early, these Pinkies and Cacos will ruin any camping strat as meleeing them one-by-one at this point will drain way too much health to outlast them all. In two of my failed attempts, I got a Pinky vault on floor 2 that ended up killing me when they got released before I was ready, and in another I got a Cacodemon vault that a Tracking Map shown a potentially useful Agility mod inside while I was able to hit level 3 for Berserker, but by that point they were too spread out outside the vault to cleanly chain in one Berserker rush and I didn't want the three Berserk Packs on the floor to go to waste, so I took them and booked it to the Arena (which ended up failing). It's possible to get a vault that has both stuff that will help you and circumstances end up that you can clear it out without blowing all your resources, but aiming for that will force a ton more resets that will get annoying fast and it would turn out you don't need any vault help for Arena Diamond. The big thing you really need is at least one Berserk Pack on floor 2 that isn't too far from the Arena stairs, preferably a second or even third Berserk, aside from that you just need a floor 2 that is survivable without using up any of your Blue Armor nor any of your Large Medkits, and lets you bring a few Small Medkits into the Arena.

As for the Arena itself, you do need some more strategy than just rushing down every enemy and hoping for the best. My core strategy revolved around trying to get enemies clumped up together, as roshamboing enemies isolated would scatter corpses far apart, making it more difficult to get them destroyed by Cacodemons as well as making it harder to stretch Berserker chains across more enemies, and you can additionally trigger Berserker in fewer hits if you have more than two enemies in vision, which can crucially save you damage as you take fewer hits without berserk active. So whenever I found a single enemy or two, I would try kiting them to where I heard more enemies, though if you're lucky, the enemies will already be clumped up. I additionally will eat some plasma balls on corpses to destroy them whenever it was feasible, and when running around the Arena looking for enemies, I would remove my armor to speed myself up, as the less time spent running around the arena, the less chance for respawns to happen, and you additionally keep the global respawn chance from increasing as much. You want to avoid run -> waiting unless you're down to the final couple enemies or can gather up a big pile of corpses that somehow avoided being destroyed prior, as you'll inevitably get overwhelmed with respawns if you do so. I also had it in my back pocket that if I got down to a couple isolated Barons or Cacos with the other corpses all destroyed, I could try kiting them around pillars while chucking knives at them, the vast majority of the knives would miss in this version but as long as I could outrun them around the pillars, I could get to throw as many knives as needed to eventually kill or soften them up enough. No matter your skill though, it still comes down to a large amount of luck with how the waves spawn and your respawn luck.

In this particular run, I got an imperfect Phobos Base Entry; I took 11 damage and didn't get one of the Small Medkits, which would have made me contemplate a reset but I decided to roll with it. The floor 2 I got didn't look promising, including the Hell Arena stairs being blocked by acid while I had to makedo with an imperfect camping spot, but I was able to clear it. The resources on it also weren't great, with no Green Armors, I only got to keep three Small Medkits to bring into the Arena, I wouldn't be able to come into the Arena with boosted health, and only a single Berserk spawned far away from the Arena stairs that even with the aid of a nearby teleporter to get me closer, I lost a few dozen berserk turns getting to the Arena. However I was able to keep my Blue Armor 100% healthy and kept both Large Medkits intact, and this would end up actually being enough. In the Arena itself, I got a quick stroke of luck at the start with most of the first wave's enemies spawning clumped together on the right side and I was able to reach them with the initial berserk still intact, letting me kill most of the wave with berserk and get several corpses destroyed. Then I found the last Caco of the first wave near the stairs, where I was actually able to take advantage of stairs destroying corpses by killing it on the stairs (using running to avoid getting hit as I lured it over the stairs). I got another stroke of luck on the second wave spawning a few enemies right around me while I could immediately trigger Berserker after building up my Berserker counter on the previously killed Caco. I then got great respawn luck with only a single Cacodemon respawning (though the aforementioned strategy to eliminate many of the corpses helped with this). Then finally I got more good luck with the final wave, as one Baron spawned reasonably close to the third wave's Large Health Globe, letting me kill it with berserk, and then I was able to find the final Baron shortly after before any of the enemies respawned, while I still had two Large Medkits in reserve to kill him without berserk.

Altogether this took me... only five tries that didn't reset on Phobos Base Entry and about an hour total, I didn't expect to get it this fast, I didn't even bother to use a real name as I thought I would be typing it out hundreds of times in quick succession from all the resets and short attempts. And the winning run didn't even have a particularly good first two floors, just coming in with a few extra Small Medkits and a decent amount of berserk was all that was needed with some good Arena luck. Did Arena Diamond's reputation just spook people from ever trying it? Did people just not have the proper strategy for the Arena itself or even for handling the second floor? Arena Diamond you could always theoretically get quickly on a lucky day and plenty won it before 0.9.9.7, while I seen posts of other people saying they attempted it post-0.9.9.7, so maybe its reputation dissuaded some people from trying it, but I'm thinking some of it was people just not doing the right strategy for the badge itself, and perhaps some people did try resetting for the floor 2 Cleaver or good floor 2 vaults and ended up quitting from the inevitable frustration of constant quick resets that never bore fruit. Regardless, Arena Diamond was still very winnable in 0.9.9.7 all along without the aid of AoLT, and as proven here you don't need a miracle floor 2 to win it either. With Arena Diamond won, I now join Icy as being one of only two players to have verifiably won all Diamonds in any version, and I won them all without having to resort to Dual Angel abuse for any of them. It has been a long road, but I do got a couple Angelics left to get before I finish my business in 0.9.9.7...

If you read this far, I actually recorded my Arena Diamond run from start to finish. While I wasn't recording my 0.9.9.7 runs, I figured I should at least record Arena Diamond since it would be the first pure Arena Diamond in over a decade, you can watch it here.

And here is the mortem if you just want to see that:

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

 5, level 4 Apostle Chaos Lt. General Scout,
 was shot by a former sergeant on level 3 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 219351 turns and scored 29929 points.
 He played for 11 minutes and 35 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 70 out of 92 hellspawn. (76%)
 He was an Angel of Berserk!

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

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 1
  Levels completed : 1

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

  Hell Champion Medal
  Arena Diamond Badge

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

  ###########################################################
  ........0#......................c....#....................#
  .........#..........###..............#............###.....#
  ...##0...#..........###..............#............###|....#
  #.0##....+...###....###...###........#.###........###.....#
  #....s..h#...###..........###.###....#.###....h...........#
  ...##....#...###..........###.###....+.###...B....###.|.0.#
  ...##....#.........###........###....#......###...###...c.#
  .........#...========#...............#..###.###...###.0...#
  #....================i==============.#..###.###.....h.....#
  =============.###....===c===============+==....=X==========
  0====....#........i......###....###.============i==========
  ^........#.i..###....###.............#.....====....###....#
  ....##...#i...###..0.###..###...###..#......###..%........#
  ....##...#....###....###..###...###..#......###.....###...#
  .........#i..i|......i.|..###...###..#......#.#.....###...#
  .........#...........................#..............###...#
  .........#................i..........#.................0..#
  .........#.........>...B..i..........#....................#
  ###########################################################

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

  Health 0/50   Experience 4592/4
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

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

  Class : Scout

    Finesse          (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Berserker        (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   nothing
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   combat knife (2d5)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   nothing
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   combat knife (2d5)

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

    [a] large med-pack
    [b] large med-pack
    [c] large med-pack
    [d] homing phase device

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

    None

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

    15 former humans
    8 former sergeants
    1 former captain
    22 imps
    6 demons
    5 lost souls
    10 cacodemons
    1 hell knight
    2 barons of hell

-- 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 3 he finally was shot by a former sergeant.

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

 knight hits you. The barrel explodes! The former human dies. The former
 sergeant dies. The former human dies. Boom!
 The hell knight hits you.
 You hit the hell knight. The hell knight hits you.
 You hit the hell knight. The hell knight hits you.
 You hit the hell knight. The hell knight dies.
 You are hit! You dodge! Boom!
 You are hit! Your blue armor is damaged! You dodge! Boom!
 The missile hits the imp. The imp hits you.
 You dodge! The missile hits the imp.
 You dodge! The missile hits the imp. The imp dies. You dodge! Boom!
 You are hit!
 Boom! You are hit! You are hit! Boom!
 The imp hits you. The former sergeant reloads his shotgun.
 You are hit! The imp dies. You are hit! You dodge! Boom! Boom! Your blue
 armor is completely destroyed! You die!... Press <Enter>...

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

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

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

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


[Omega Tyrant]

It ended up not mattering in this run, but in case anyone else is attempting Arena Diamond and is reading this mortem for advice, here is what I would have done with each of the mods if there were any from vaults I could retrieve:

• Bulk Mod - There's an argument to put this on your Blue Armor to effectively triple its durability, but I think it should definitely go on your Combat Knife. Not only do you increase your average damage by 3 before berserk, but you also decrease your chance of rolling below 10 damage with Brute 2 from 12% to 0.8%. It's basically getting Brute 3 and you near entirely remove the possibility of Berserker not triggering from rolling below 10 damage, which does matter (even in my winning run, it took me 6 hits to trigger Berserker against the last Baron, which meant I rolled below 10 damage twice in 5 hits, which could have cost me the run if I didn't have such a big health surplus to make triggering Berserker not needed). However if you're fortunate enough to also get a Red Armor or one of the Exotic armors in the same vault, I would consider B-modding them since the Red Armor does reduce melee damage so much and something like a B-modded Duelist Armor would let you possibly 1v1 every enemy in the Arena.
• Power Mod - Comparatively, I would unquestionably put a Power Mod on the Blue Armor (or any better armor if I get one from the same vault), rather than putting it on the Combat Knife, as a P Mod increases its average damage by only 1 point and decreases the chance of rolling below 10 damage to 8.33%, not enough to meaningfully eliminate the danger of Berserker not triggering. Meanwhile that extra 2 points of protection would substantially reduce damage and effectively extend the durability of the Blue Armor or whatever armor you put it on, which is certainly going to be a lot more valuable than you dealing marginally more damage. If you're fortunate enough to get both a P and B Mod from a vault, I would absolutely make a Chainsword, as a Chainsword at Brute 2 lets you very consistently two-shot Pinkies without berserk and guarantee one-shot them with berserk, as well as three-shot Cacos without berserk and guarantee two-shot with Berserk (while you could even score one-shots if you get Brute 3), whereas a B-modded Knife has only a 33.18% chance to two-shot Pinkies without Berserk and a 72% chance to one-shot with berserk, while having a measly 19.11% chance to three-shot Cacos without berserk and can fail to two-shot with berserk (having a 6.3% chance to fail it). You could Nanofiber your Blue Armor instead, but that would definitely be far inferior to making a Chainsword or running a B Knife and P Blue Armor, as a Nanofiber Blue Armor is barely better than having no armor. Even if you get Red Armor I would take the stronger equipment over permanent mediocre defense, in my run I didn't lose my Blue Armor until the last Baron, so you're likely screwed if a Chainsword + Red Armor couldn't last you.
• Technical Mod - If you're playing 0.9.9.7 or an even older version, unquestionably put this on your Combat Knife, the 0.8 second attack time would be invaluable when you don't have berserk to getting you double attacks on Cacos and Barons to trigger Berserker faster or just kill them without them getting an extra hit in, and would mostly eliminate double attacks from Pinkies if you're playing Marine or Technician, while entirely eliminating double attacks from them if you're a Scout. If you're playing 0.9.9.8 or later, where Tech mods got changed to give +20% physical and +10% energy resistances to armor, there's much more of an argument to be made on whether to put it on your Knife or Blue Armor, as it will be saving you 2 points of damage on higher melee damage rolls and will shave a point off most plasma balls, but I do think the greater attack speed is more valuable, as every double attack it gets you (or prevents) without berserk is essentially saving you 6+ damage and you won't end up eventually losing it as you would with the armor. If you got Red Armor or one of the melee-resistant Exotic armors, there's much more consideration for putting the T Mod on them instead, as reducing melee damage to the 1-3 damage range would greatly increase your survivability.
• Agility Mod - If you get any boots on the floor in addition to the Agility Mod, you obviously slap the A Mod on the boots. If you don't got boots, you put the A Mod on your Blue Armor or any better armor you get, you'll eventually lose the armor but the faster movement until then will help limit respawns and save you some damage when approaching the Cacos, though if you get both A and P Mods, I would prioritize P-modding the Blue Armor and A-Mod a Green Armor to use for exploration of the Arena. You could A-mod the Knife to reduce misses, but with Brute 2 and the Knife's inherent +1 accuracy, an A Mod increases its hit chance from 95% to 98%, only a 3% increase, so I would only do that if you got the aforementioned P + A combo and absolutely nothing else to put the A Mod on after P-modding the Blue Armor (you could P-mod your Knife and A-mod your Blue Armor in that scenario, but I think the P-modded Blue Armor is so much more useful to make up for the A-modded Knife being negligibly improved). If you get A + T Mods, you have the opportunity to make Ballistic Armor, which sounds obvious at first for the +30% melee res prior to 0.9.9.8 and +40% melee res from 0.9.9.8-onward, while the fire weakness wouldn't matter in the Arena, however currently in all versions that assembly also removes any plasma resistance the armor has, and you really need that plasma res on the Blue Armor to eat some Cacodemon plasma balls to destroy corpses, so I probably wouldn't make that assembly unless you get a Red Armor or at least a spare Blue. It is in the proposal list however to have Ballistic Armor retain the plasma and acid resistances of the base armor, which if that goes through, would make Ballistic Blue Armor a very serious consideration for this run in future versions if you can make it.