Completed Let's Play an Angel of Marksmanship in DoomRL

[Occasionally Fatal]

Well, well, well. Another DoomRL LP. Clearly a filling the massive demand for more, right? Well, OK, maybe not. But I thought I'd fool around with screen capture software and also I wanted to get my DoomRL on. I may have also felt the need to drone into a mic while playing. All that's known for certain is... things happened. Currently I have been struggling with the Angel of Marksmanship challenge. Feel free to laugh at my feeble efforts.

Fans of pistols, unite! This challenge doesn't allow you to use any weapon besides a pistol (or two if you know how)!

So I've beaten the game once (killed the spider mastermind), but am by no means any kind of expert. So while I try to explain a couple of tricks and things, they're not necessarily the explanations of someone who knows what he's talking about. For some reason, I really enjoy the mental picture of a dude running through hell dual wielding pistols. I don't know. I can't explain it. Perhaps this quick picture I just drew up will help illustrate:

Now then, let's begin!

Index of Possible Pointlessness:
Part 1: I guess they're just called demons
Part 2: I'm a lever guy
Part 3: There's gonna be some skulls
Part 4: Get out while you still can!
Part 5A: Oh god this is a dangerous spot
Part 5B: A good blow to the groin
BONUS MS PAINT UPDATE
Part 6: I'm a big boy I can handle it
Part 7: Hiding in the lava
Part 8: Rife with indecision
Part 9: Now they're toasted
Part 10: I feel ominous

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

So I've already started botching this. First couple of levels are gone, but I do have footage starting from Hell's Arena. Not totally great footage, if I'm honest. And I messed up the sound a little, so my voice is alone without game sounds or music, but what the hell. These first couple of videos are laughably short due to the fact I'm still fucking around with settings.

Part 1: I guess they're just called Demons
Truly amazing commentary where I sort of forget what the pinky demons are called. At this point, I'm level 2 with both points on Son of a Gun. Next up is going to be Dualgunner, of course. Also, a few comments on how I feel blessed to not be buttraped with horrible monster spawns.


Part 2: I'm a lever guy
I pull a lever without really thinking about the consequences, proclaim myself a puller of levers, and promptly ignore the other lever on the level. I think I've got potential. Also, I fuck around with the cleaver. After all, what if I can actually use it on this challenge run? What's the worst that could happen? Also, behold my attempts to justify my ammo compulsive ammo hoarding.

 

[Azira]

Aww, damnation! A video LP with voiced commentary?

I'm sorry, Occasionally Fatal, I'm not sure I'll be following this LP.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'll follow it. Look forward to the prospect of me telling you shit you did wrong when you die!

You're right about the ammo thing though. Ammo is a bitch on marksman runs, especially if you're trying to be a completionist and extra especially if you're using dual gunner. Hoard that shit now and don't be shy about leaving barons and shit alive when you get to the last episode. Hopefully you find some decent gear to help you kill the final boss.

 

[Renegen]

It's so different from other LPs, I'm totally going to watch it. Cool drawing too.

 

[Gregz]

That drawing is awesome.

 

[GarfunkeL]

That drawing is awesome.

 

[SerratedBiz]

I like how it said "this weapon isn't worthy of a marksman!" when you used the cleaver.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Aww, damnation! A video LP with voiced commentary?

I'm sorry, Occasionally Fatal, I'm not sure I'll be following this LP.

What if I promise more ms paint masterpieces?!?!

I'll follow it. Look forward to the prospect of me telling you shit you did wrong when you die!

You're right about the ammo thing though. Ammo is a bitch on marksman runs, especially if you're trying to be a completionist and extra especially if you're using dual gunner. Hoard that shit now and don't be shy about leaving barons and shit alive when you get to the last episode. Hopefully you find some decent gear to help you kill the final boss.

Thank you sir! I did think about what you said in the other thread about son of a gun, so I've been picking another point of it after dualgunner. Seems to help a fair amount, actually. Unfortunately I am a bit of a completionist and I am probably going to try and kill everything unless I get in a really bad situation or start running really low on ammo. Of course, usually when I get in a bad situation, I die horribly because I've made such a poor choice I can't run away.

Renegen your support is appreciated.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Alright, updatan! Going to move fairly rapidly I think, and try and get 10-15 minute updates a day. Character update: SoaG -> SoaG -> Dualgunner -> SoaG aka MOAR DAMAGE PLEASE. That works out to (2d4 + 3)x2. Aaaaand that's pretty much going to be as much damage as I do all game unless I can find a unique pistol.

Dig the prowess, the capacity for violence!

You love your pistols. You clean them every day and make sure they are always in top condition. You know your pistols so well that for every level o fthis trait you can fire them 20% faster deal 1 more damage.

The only thing I believe is I need another gun.

You're the kind of guy for whom one is never enough. When you and your buddies cruised bars Earthside, you always had a beer in each hand and when you left, you left with two girls. Where you're going now there aren't beer or girls, but there are guns! This trait lets you wield two pistols at once, firing them almost as fast one (120% time taken).

Part 3: There's gonna be some skulls
Showcasing a pretty clean run of the Chained Court, possibly because I opt to not use the chainsaw against the arena master and see if it works. Hopefully this will overshadow my bullets tending to hit boxes instead of monsters at irregular diagonal angles (there's a mouthful). So, you have to do Hell's Arena to do the Chained Court, and Chained Court is valuable for the arena master's staff and the 2 agility packs. The staff let's you access The Vaults later on, which could be a source of phat loot. The agility packs will get you half way to the speedloader pistols. If you've already found agility packs, you can use those on the steel boots to make the tactical boots. Very good for my speedy scout.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Not too shabby. Though I cringed a bit when you left the berserk pack in the chained court- you can take them both and make the duration stack, it would have lasted into the next level that way. Marksman protip for the day: When you have dualgunner, you can swap between main and offhand pistols for 0 time cost, which means you can reload them one at a time just as fast as the dual reload takes, but split into two chunks. It'll help you avoid letting imps get double turns on you and damaging you (or mancubi getting double turns on you and ending your run.)

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

I knew about switching instantly, but I think my normal reaction is to either: suck it up (not good) or run (not always an option). I guess my concern is, if you're trapped, and you need to reload, and the enemy still needs a fair amount of shooting, is it still better to just reload one gun instead of both? It should help some when/if I get my speedloader pistols up and gunning. Also, I had no idea about the duration stacking on berserk packs. Probably a good thing I'm still on normal difficulty. And thanks for the tips!

 

[Damned Registrations]

The answer to that question depends on what the enemy does and how fast you can fire. If you reload one gun and he shoots you in the face, bringing you to 10% health, loading the second gun is a bad idea, just hope for good rolls. OTOH, if you load the first gun and he walks towards you and you're sitting pretty, go ahead and load the second. Reloading a single pistols takes over a full second. If you can kill the enemy in less time than it would take to reload and then kill him with both guns, and aren't worried about more enemies showing up, it's better to not reload.

As an example: You have SoaG 3 and only take .33 seconds to fire you gun once. You'll need 3 bullets to kill the enemy. You can reload one gun and fire 3 times taking about ~2 seconds. Or you can reload both guns (taking about 2 seconds already) then fire twice, taking another second anyways, for a total of 3 seconds, and you wasted a bullet. The only advantage in the second scenario is you can fire 8 more bullets before reloading if you need to (i.e. more enemies show up) instead of just 3.

It's ALWAYS better to reload one gun then see if you want to reload the second or run away/eat a medkit/throw a brick through the screen because you're fucked anyways. There's no advantage to dual reload except it takes less real time if you're trying to get a badge for that or something. Or the level is cleared so you know you're safe.

I dual reload a lot of the time too though, so don't sweat it too much. Hard habit to break.

 

[Renegen]

So much good things said about the skulls and bullet resistance, it's unfortunately true. If you don't end up having an awesome pistol, the later levels can be very hard. Can you go for Berserk trait? Though it takes 3 level ups, it's worth it as it kicks in against tough enemies.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

The problem(s) with Berserker is it's going to take 3 level ups I would much rather use on my way to Gun Kata, and it will only activate if I take a lot of damage, since I can't even use fists. And the goal of my build is going to be dodging and not taking damage. Also Brute blocks Gun Kata. So after that I'm probably going to take 2 ranks of Intuition and then maybe Finesse or Reloader.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Finesse isn't worth it, by then you can get a 4th level of SoaG which is kind like getting 4 levels of finesse at once. Get the 4th level of SoaG ASAP.

I'd recommend either ironman or hellrunner levels after intuition and your master trait. Ironman is always good and hellrunner level 3 has a bigger effect because of the way speed bonuses stack.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Unfortunately I saw this after, but it turns out it doesn't matter, because apparently I can only have 3 points on SoaG. You'll notice it will be greyed out at level up. Not sure what the deal with that is, but it looks like I will be bum rushing Gun Kata (if I get that far etc etc).

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Build update: I pick me up some Hellrunner. And assemble some Tactical boots for the speed and dodge bonuses.

Ohh, here it comes! Here comes the night train! Choo choo cha boogie!

You're like a train on legs - not only do you move 15% faster for every level of this trait but you also get an extra 15% chance to dodge those pesky bullets coming your way.

Part 4: Get Out While You Still Can
Time to face the first death trap! And it's those damn skulls. Fortunately the RNG has blessed me with that mightiest of assemblies: THE TACTICAL BOOTS. Okay, they're not really that mighty (although maybe if I could get some tactical tactical boots). But they're better than steel. Unfortunately I don't think the skulls particularly care. And apparently the Cacodemons could give a crap about these supposed dodge bonuses. Hopefully the Bruiser Brothers will be more respectful.

 

[Damned Registrations]

There's a soft cap on traits like SoaG and anything with multiple levels really. I forget which level, but at some point the cap goes up and you can put more points in. If you're on normal difficulty and killing a lot of stuff you'll get at least a couple of those levels before the end. It gets really sick on Ao100, you can get insanely high levels and cap out a ton of things, making you a monster.

Also, I am amused that you cannot into dodging. Maybe Gun Kata will help you figure it out.

 

[Renegen]

You are far better than me as a marksman. I never really did many dodge builds but you are a pro.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

CONFLICTING COMMENTS ON DODGE AHHHHHHH.

As far as I know, you just try and move perpendicular to the path of the shot, kind of like circle strafing in the fps. I know I messed up in a couple places there, and also I miscalculated when to shoot vs move a couple times. Dodgemaster will help a ton, and I'm planning on abusing it on the Cyberdemon. If I can get him in the correct spot, I can pretty much dodge all his rockets.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'll be nice and explain what I meant:

When you're trying to use dodge, you can only dodge while moving. The whole point of a dodge build is that your movement and firing speeds are faster than the enemies firing speed. So you move in a way that will let you dodge until the enemy fires, and then attack for free and they can't fire back. If you move, then they move, then you fire and they fire back, there's no point in dodging. You only want to fire immediately after an enemy has taken an action. You also generally want to use dodge to do things like move far out of enemy range before reloading (which you sort of did, but you dual reloaded and they were back in vision when you were done and probably could have got shots off) and be sure to only fight one enemy at a time. Generally, the theme of dodge builds is that you're invulnerable at long range, so you should dodge until you have the enemy exactly here you want them. Make them stand by barrels, walk through doors, line up single file so they shoot eachother, etc. It's not like dodge in other games where it's a passive defense that likes you exchange fire.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Yeah, obviously I don't have the whole "free action" thing down yet. For some of the bosses, it's pretty easy to know when to shoot/vs run away, like the Arena Master and Archviles have the *Raise hands* message and the Cyberdemon has the "reloading rocket launcher" message. Also, I have a shoot/move/shoot habit from my first successful build, which used Shottyman. Thanks for clarifying that, though the results of your coaching won't instantly take effect.

 

[Destroid]

On my current build, which has been my most successful so far, I accidentally locked myself out of all the masteries.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Masteries are overrated. They're great for challenges so you can focus on a weapon, but the cumulative benefits of other stuff can add up to much more when your weapon selection isn't limited and you're reaching high levels.