Runner: Zero-Master
IWAD: Doom2.wad
PWAD: Sunder.wad
Category: UV-Max
Map: 09 (The Cage)
Source Port (Demo): Woof v7.0.0
Source Port (Video): DSDA-Doom v0.22.2
Time: 19:52.06
Description:
Improves the previous record by 13 minutes and 4 seconds.
Goal was sub 20 so I played it a bit safe at times. Not too famailiar with the terrain and it's not always flat which means I could easily run off the ledge if I'm not careful, so my movement is slow some places. This run went ok up until the halfway point where I lost more time than what I would have liked.
A couple of monsters wandered off and it took a while to kill them, can't run to them since I'd get locked in from a linedef I skipped earlier. Then I messed up the switch press to activate the wall to the last teleporter, but it didn't cost me too much time. Forgetting to activate the final switch is a disaster and nearly cost me sub 20. I thought it was going to be too slow as the start of the final fight wasn't ideal, it's quite easy so I play really dumb here and nearly died. Sometimes I had to use lots of rockets to clear the remaining monsters, here I had 200 cells left so I have no idea, just got lucky with infighting I guess.
Route/Strategy:
Quite a few tricks to start this level off, first I get on top of the raising bars to skip some monster teleports at the start. Then a rocket jump to skip past blue key door and get to the BFG immediately which is obviously going to save a lot of time. Then a north lindef skip to prevent getting locked in which leaves me with 3 invulnerabilites in that area while it is completely open. I also have access to 1 mega sphere, 3 soul spheres and a mega armor + in the next area 3 soul spheres and a mega armor... needless to say there's a lot of resources here and I can pretty much do whatever I want. However all of that stuff isn't going to mean anything when one of the cyberdemons sends you flying over the edge which happened a few times. One thing I cannot do is enter the area which will take you to the final fight as there is no way out of there and the linedef is too difficult to skip for it to be worth it.
Next step is to just get everything to teleport in, then grab an invulnerability and take care of a couple of cyberdemons so they won't be a problem later. Ideally you wouldn't want to touch the cyberdemons and have them infight, but the one on the other side is both dangerous and useless, while the other 3 don't really get much done. So I figured killing one and dealing damage to the others under the invulnerability is a lot safer without really sacrificing much time. Then just clear out as many monsters as possible before moving on towards the blue key.
There's 500 cells + several rockets before blue key so I use most of my ammo by that point. Sometimes the cacodemons that teleport in the next section are a bit slow, so I'll wait here for a little while to make sure I got them all, would be better to just keep count of them of course. Don't have to wait for the switch to be available here, just go around the wall. Once you get blue key you go straight back to the start, you get a lot of cells and rockets at this point so you can go crazy with it, no need to worry about landing good BFGs. Once I get to blue key door I use the invulnerability to kill both the next cyberdemons instead of just 1, makes it a lot safer. Need to be careful to not shoot the cyberdemon off the map though, which can easily happen if you're not careful, not to mention him sending you off.
You can also go back to the other area by simply walking around one of the torches, which is what I do once I've cleared out everything around blue key door, would be faster to skip it obviously. Clear out the next section, need to double check the area for late teleporters, usually nothing is delayed too much. More cleanup before going into the final area. In the room you get locked in you can easily activate the switch to the teleporter wall first. You could also leave an invulnerability here and use it in the final fight, but it doesn't make much difference.
The final fight is pretty easy since there are monster block lines around the central area. You want to get the viles with the first invulnerability once you notice them. With the second invulnerability you want to use your rockets on the hell knights and barons since there will be several of them alive in the end and you'll probably run out of cells.