Runner: Zero-Master
Date: 2022-01-07
IWAD: Doom2.wad
PWAD: Sunder.wad
Category: UV-Max
Map: 12 (The Zealous Machine)
Source Port: DSDA-Doom v0.22.5
Time: 19:50.09
Description:
9 minutes and 50 seconds faster than the previous record.
Overall this run went ok, nice level to run. Most the time loss comes from bad BFG use, gambling on the imps being dead would also save quite a few seconds, but wouldn't have worked here. Also both unlucky and lucky with the final monster that had falled down in a pit, usually that doesn't happen, but I found him quickly.
Should have died in the final fight, was quite unlucky with the incoming revenant projectiles, took my time to dodge them which allowed the hell knights to close the gap to the wall. Very fortunate to actually survive once it had gone that bad, especially the cacodemon fireball afterwards dealing only 10 damage... I was 100% sure I was dead when I was in the middle of that with no way through. Messed up my route though costing lots of time since it should be easy to land good BFGs otherwise.
New sunder version has some additional cyberdemons in the last fight making it a lot faster and better.
Route/Strategy:
Once you use drop down to the 4 cyberdemons locked in the center there's no way back, so we can't leave the start until everything is clear. We start off with a straightforward arch-vile jump where you can jam yourself in the corner to maintain some momentum to easily manage it. Next I want to kill those 2 arch-viles so they don't become unpredictable later as well as the pain elementals. I have a few options of where to go now, I go with entering the bridge/3 cyberdemon area from the other side of the intended way first. Just get everything released and infighting, but also activate a linedef that will close an already closed door. The lindef can only be activated once so when I cross it coming the other way after opening the door it won't close behind me.
Then I want to get to the other side of the door as quickly as possible to activate the imp teleporters in the soulsphere room. It takes a lot of time to clear them out and they'll clog up near the entrance and block the teleporter so you constantly have to go back there. Get infighting of course with the hell knights/cacos/cyberdemons in megasphere/armor room first, can't really get past them straight away so I go back and use rockets on imps meanwhile. I will also probably run out of cells by the end so I have to use some rockets anyways and this is a good point to do so.
After a while I should be able to get past the cacodemons and open up the imp/soulsphere room. After killing the vile up top I do a setup to skip a linedef. There's 2 linedefs, 1 that closes the door behind you and 1 that activates the revenants, and you need to be careful here not to skip the lindef for the door or you'll get locked in if you don't cross it before activating the next switch. The cyberdemon here is probably the most dangerous part of this run as it's a small space and a difficult entrance. The rest is just cleanup and hope nothing fell down into some pit or is hiding somewhere which happens like half the time.
Now past yellow key bars for the 4 cyberdemons in the center, ideally you'd want to get them infighting, but you have to wait for the switches and you don't need to save ammo. Of course getting more than 1 cyber to infight seemed impossible so I just went with killing them straight away since it's a lot safer and it costs little time.
Another linedef skip to prevent the revenants from showing up in the following room, I can then run around and easily hit the switch to open up the door to the final area. Getting past the door is usually very dangerous, if it looks like I will get blocked I can run around the revenants on the right side instead.
2 more linedef skips to keep the door to the previous room open so the monsters from there will move in. Now this fight will always end up with a ton of hell knights left over, so it's best to just ignore all revenants as they will infight and die. Instead I try to get a bit of damage in on the hell knights with rockets, but mostly I just want to run around so that as much stuff can see me and try to attack to get infighting going. Once the invulnerability wears off you just gotta circle the area until you nearly run out of cells. This is when I start going for the 600 cells located in each of the rooms, it's a pretty good timing since just about everything has teleported in by that point and the rooms aren't filled with monsters.
Then I want to just circle the room keeping myself between the hell knights and the cells and grab any soulspheres along the way. I leave 600 cells by the final switch for the 4 last arch-viles and any left over monsters. Once I'm left with those cells and another 600 cells is when I leave the room and go back up top to grab the mega armor and additional cells. Getting all the cells in the previous room saves a ton of time.
