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DoomRL: Angel of Overconfidence



Overconfidence is the first challenge mode I'll be playing. It starts you off on the first level of Hell at character level 1.



I'll be playing as a Technician. I haven't really gone over any of the classes in detail, so let's take a closer look.

Every class gets some intrinsic benefits. The technician's main benefit is that they use consumable items (which means both inventory consumables like medkits, and powerups like health globes) in 0.1s, the shortest amount of time that still counts as "taking a turn" (which is important for some things like invulnerability that have a duration measured in player turns rather than seconds). This means you can down a medkit in the middle of a fight without letting the monsters get a free hit on you.

Their secondary benefit is that any Computer Map picked up by a Technician counts as a Tracking Map instead. This is more useful in the early game when maps are more common, though.



As mentioned way back in update 1, each class also gets early access to one advanced skill, and a unique set of master skills. The Technician advanced skill is Whizkid, which lets you add more modpacks to equipment and build more advanced assemblies. Honestly, the ability to take Whizkid at level 1 isn't that great because iPt'll be quite a while before you have enough modpacks to make use of it, but the ability to take it without spending two levels on Finesse first is good for builds that wouldn't be taking Finesse otherwise.

None of the Master traits will be seeing use on this run, but I'll go over them briefly anyways, because it's unlikely that I'll be using all or even most of them in these LPs. There are five Master traits for each class; one each for melee, pistols, shotguns, and rapid-fire weapons, and one "general" trait.

Malicious Blades lets you dual-wield blades, and grants you bonus resistances if you have a blade in your off-hand (even if you're attacking with a gun), but it only applies to blades -- which doesn't include the chainsaw or the Spear.

Sharpshooter makes you always roll max damage with pistols, but prevents you from dual-wielding them.

Fireangel makes you immune to fire damage, both your own (point blank rockets are now safe) and enemies' (meaning you can now pretty much ignore Revenants, Mancubi, and Arch-Viles). It's probably my favourite Technician trait, but the skills it requires as a prereq are very shotgun-oriented.

Entrenchment gives you 30% resist all when chain-firing a rapid fire weapon.

Finally, Scavenger lets you disassemble modified, exotic, or unique weapons to get modpacks. I've never found much use for it in a normal game, but in Angel of 100 you can use the extra mods to make some truly absurd hardware.

For this run, I won't be using any of them, but instead take a level of Tough as Nails.

Tough as Nails posted:

"The horrors of Hell could not kill you!"

That sound you're hearing isn't from the bullets flying off the walls, but from the bullets flying off of YOU! Your skin is so hard that you'll shrug off 1 more point of damage for every level of this trait.


This trait is intrinsic protection, and stacks with any armour you're wearing. Since I start with no armour and facing enemies that can easily take off more than half my health, every bit of protection helps.



And here we are.

As mentioned in the challenge description, it's not completely heartless. We start off with some better gear. This combat pistol holds 15 rounds and has more damage and accuracy than a standard pistol. But that's not all. If we take inventory...



Wow! The assault shotgun is basically a better combat shotgun, and the minigun is a better chaingun, with twice the rate of fire and five times the ammo capacity. And like the combat pistol, these are all Exotics, meaning that they are fully moddable.



Next to my spawnpoint I find the Onyx Armour. This is a stroke of good fortune; it's slightly worse than blue armour (with the same protection, but a worse movespeed penalty and no resistances), but is completely indestructable and fully moddable, too.



I quickly equip the shotgun and shell box and proceed to play cat and mouse with the rest of the level. Mancubi are showing up already, of course, and I can expect Revenants and Arch-Viles, if not now, then soon.



By the time I run out of enemies, I've killed a Baron of Hell and a Former Commando to go with the Mancubus and leveled up twice -- one advantage of starting in Hell is that the enemies are worth a lot of XP. I take another TaN for the first level, and Badass for the second.

Badass posted:

"Who's the man? I'm the man! How bad? Real bad! I'm 12.0 on a 10.0 scale of badness!"

You're the ultimate badass. Your blood runs so cold that it could make Hell freeze over -- if they weren't too scared to take you. For each level, your maximum health before decay sets in is 50% higher, and you're knocked back one space less.


Note that this doesn't increase my actual maximum -- medkits still top out at 100%. But supercharges and health globes will now decay to 150% health if above that rather than to 100%, making them go a lot further. Another rank in Badass and they won't decay at all.



I skip the Unholy Cathedral (as if I'm going to take on the Angel of Death with no melee training and nothing but a knife) and head down to Hell 2.

The "weird alarm starts howling" level feeling means that all enemies on the level are awake, know where I am, and are actively hunting me.



And I immediately run into a bunch of them -- right around that corner is an Arch-Vile and there's a few others you either can't see, or which I already shotgunned into the acid.

The good part of the "weird alarm" level feeling is that I don't need to hunt down enemies. I can set up shop in this little hut and shotgun them into the acid as they arrive.



Which is not to say that it doesn't get a bit hairy at times. These two Barons managed to destroy a lot of my cover with their acid blasts.



After clearing out the level I find some modpacks and upgrade my Onyx Armour into Fireproof Onyx Armour, granting me some much-needed fire resistance.



Hell 3 uses standard level generation but is heavy on the lava, and some rooms are difficult or impossible to get to without wading through it.



There's also a river of acid bisecting the level, but for once the bridge is conveniently located and not covered in explosive barrels. The red stairs are on the other side, leading to the Vaults, but without a rocket launcher or the Staff, there's no point in visiting them.



Level 5 yields two more level-ups -- I put both into Finesse -- and, at last, a rocket launcher. And the stairs to the Mortuary, but I'd think hard before visiting that place even in a normal game.



Hell 5 contains a vault full of cacodemons guarding a Unique weapon...which turns out to be the Acid Spitter again.



Lava makes it impossible to progress further into the level, but now that I have a rocket launcher I can make my own doors.



The rest of the level is as boring as it is full of formers.



Hell 6 features Arachnotrons and another level. This one goes into Eagle Eye.

Eagle Eye posted:

"One in the heart and one in the head, and don't you hesitate."

You could knock a fly off the wall at 200 yards, but you prefer to hunt bigger, nastier prey. With each level in this trait, you'll increase your chance to hit by 2 points.


I'm relying on the minigun and plasma rifle more, both of which require actual to-hit rolls. I'm honestly not sure whether I'd be better off taking Son of a Bitch for more damage from the shots that actually hit, or this to make more of them hit in the first place.



The red stairs end up in the middle of a lava lake. They lead to the Lava Pits, though, so I wasn't planning to visit it anyways; I've got two envirosuits, but while I might risk it if it were Mt. Erebus, the Pits are a lot more chancy.

There's an Arch-Vile lurking around somewhere in the lava pools to the north. I decide it's not worth trying for 100% kills anymore and head down to level 7.



Well fuck.

Even with fire resistance, two Arch-Viles and three Revenants can put out a lot of damage, and none of it can be dodged. I have four turns before they wake up, which isn't quite enough to make it to cover.



The Technician ability to use consumables instantly comes in handy here. 0.2 seconds later, I'm healed to full and Envirosuited -- which, in addition to immunity to acid and lava pools, grants 25% resistance to fire and acid damage from enemies. It's not a lot, but it stacks with the fire resistance from my armour and gives me at least a chance of tanking their attacks.

Then I pull out my shotgun and go to town.



This is definitely the high point of the battle. When I said that Revenant missiles couldn't be dodged, that's not quite true. The problem is that "dodging" just means that the missile detonates in midair next to you and you still take full damage.

Sometimes, however, such a dodge will change the path of the missile enough that it hits an obstacle before reaching you. And if you're really lucky, you can cause friendly fire incidents this way!



After a bit of a running battle and killing one of the Revenants twice, I finally put down both Arch-Viles.



I'm so close to the end I don't want to risk running into another ambush like that. I explore just enough to find a Supercharge and then run for the stairs.



And just like that, it's final boss time! This time I get to fight it properly. Yay.

quote:

You guess the Arachnotrons had to come from somewhere. Hi, mom. She doesn't have a plasma gun, so thank heaven for small favors. Instead, she has a super-chaingun.


Despite the description calling it a "super-chaingun", it actually deals plasma damage. (3d5)x4 plasma damage, in fact. And the Mastermind is fast, with 150% speed. In this screenshot the turns worked out perfectly wrong, and it got three turns to my one, for a total of 12 projectiles.

The good news is that it appears to fire in a sort of sweep pattern, rather than firing all the shots straight at your position, so it's extremely unlikely -- perhaps even impossible -- that you'll eat all four shots from one burst.



The Mastermind is also extremely uncooperative regarding positioning. It knows where you are, but won't charge straight in like other enemies, preferring to circle around you pounding you with its guns. And while it's extremely weak in melee, it won't stay in melee if you get close to it -- again, unlike other enemies, which will tend to stay in melee combat even if they're really bad at it.



Eventually I abandon all pretense of subtlety and just start chain-firing my minigun at it, trusting that with 12 rounds/turn and a few medkits in my inventory I can wear it down before it does the same to me.



It turns out that I can.

quote:

The loathsome Spiderdemon that masterminded the invasion of the moon bases and caused so much death has had her ass kicked for all time.

A hidden doorway opens and you enter. You've proven too tough for Hell to contain, and now Hell at last plays fair -- for you emerge from the door to see the green fields of Earth! Home at last.

You wonder what's been happening on Earth while you were battling evil unleashed. It's good that no Hellspawn could have come through that door with you...

Or could it...?


code:
ToxicFrog, level 7 Hell Baron 2nd Lieutenant Technician,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 42133 turns and scored 33825 points.
 He played for 21 hours, 44 minutes and 5 seconds.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 119 out of 122 hellspawn. (97%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Overconfidence!

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

  Daredevil Gold Badge

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   fireproof onyx armor [2]
    [b][/b] [ Weapon     ]   minigun (1d6)x8 [100/200] (A1)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   protective boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   10mm ammo chain (x250)

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

    [a] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1] (B1)
    [b][/b] plasma rifle (1d7)x6 [30/40] (A1)
    [c] assault shotgun (7d3) [6/6]
    [d] chainsaw (4d6)

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He sounded the alarm on level 2!
  On level 2 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 5 he found the Acid Spitter!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 8 he finally defeated the Mastermind.


I'm not sure why I picked up that chainsaw given that I had no idea how to use it effectively and, in fact, never even tried.

I did get a new badge, though: Daredevil Gold! In most cases getting Gold means you must have gotten Silver and Bronze as well, since they usually have less strict but similar requirements; in this case, though, Daredevil Gold is earned for completing Angel of Overconfidence, while the Silver and Bronze versions require playing the easier version of this challenge, Angel of Confidence.

That's it for Angel of Overconfidence! Stay tuned for my next update, Angel of Darkness.