WAD: POOGERS
Map: 24
Skill: 4
Category: UV-Max
Exe: Dsda-Doom 0.28.2
Time: 21:27

Author: 	Kinetic
Demo Date:	November 6th, 2025
Attempts:       159
Practice:	Who knows...over the course of 4 years since 2022, at least 20 hours, maybe 5-10 hours when I got serious about routing this
Grind:		4 hr 51 min
Goal:           First Exit
Satisfaction:	:D :D :D

- complevel 9

Comments: 

A while back now, in 2022, I had maxed poog31, and later that year I had played this map, where it seemed substantially harder, mainly due to the movement required at the end and the rocket jump at the start of this one. The general platforming and movement required was way above anything poog31 had to offer, and so this map was pretty out of reach for me at the time. I had tried the movement bit at the end for over an hour and barely saw a single clear, and I tried finding a setup to get rid of the RJ after the first fight and wasn't able to find anything consistent. At the time, I considered it the difficulty ceiling of the player base, and stored the map in the back of my imaginary to-do list for runs, as a sort of top-of-the-shelf-one-day-i'll-do-this challenge.

Throughout the years, I may have booted the map up again 2-3 times to replay it and see if I could find anything. I usually didn't. I recall finding a setup to skip the RJ after the first fight, but it was prone to breaking easily for me due to finger RNG and s50'ing on the first tic of movement off the setup. It didn't really inspire going after it still, so I didn't press any farther.

But I didn't have to. Avey came along late in 2024 and whipped up a pretty insane route. They broke the map's progression pretty hard, using a mix of genius skips and cheeses, to corral the map and tame its most dangerous parts. Almost no section is played conventionally, or how shock intended I'm sure. After watching their demo, I came away wondering how I had not thought of some of these ideas, like the AVJ skip at the start, and getting the AVJ to boost the player's speed at the end to aid the final staircase that requires strong movement. It was really a genius route, but obviously with the route, it purposefully avoided what made the map so hard. The route and run is still difficult to execute, but playing the map straight still hadn't been done.

Afer Avey did their run, I looked at the map again. I played with the AVJ skip at the beginning and the AVJ at the end, but quite frankly both seemed bothersome to perform. For the fun of it, I decided to play the map conventionally after messing around with avey's route a bit, and most parts seemed much easier to me than they had prior. The first fight was much easier than I remembered, and I was able to work out a proper setup for skipping the RJ after the first fight, and in general I was just way better at every encounter.

Most crucially, I had leveled up my movement a lot compared to when I first encountered the map in 2022. I had switched from using mouse s50 to keyboard s50, was adept at both sr50 and sl50, and I had done a handful of nomos since then to become a better movement player. I had even done many UV-Maxe speedruns that required good movement at this point. And so the ending staircase in this map was suddenly 100x easier than it used to be for me. That might not be too much of an exaggeration, I went from getting it maybe once in an hour in 2022, to successfully traversing it every other attempt, maybe every third attempt. That's not to mention the backup megas you can save for it, giving you up to 6+ go's at the staircase. My movement was sufficient for running the map now. Once I buckled down and forged a setup for the jump after the first fight that I could do very reliably, I decided I was ready to take on the run.

I don't have much to say about this run. Really, it is not that difficult for me, besides the cyber 2-shot section. I don't know how, but shock managed to make 2-shotting almost somewhat RNG. It is very hard to run from the center platform onto the first skinny one, and perform the 2-shot successfully, if the cyber fires while you're taking that first leap onto the first skinny platform. You can try to anticipate and expect him to fire instantly, but it still rushes your internal clock a lot and throws off the timing entirely. It's bad combat design, I don't like it. At least allow one teleporter back up or something. I got past it twice in attempts, the second time being this winning run.

This was also the first attempt past the RSK fight. The first time, I momentum-preserved off a cyber into the pit, which was stupid. I was wary of my setup for the jump to the maze on this run. In the most recent rerouting for the map, I tried to make a setup for it from a stationary position, but it just kind of sucked, finger RNG was still a big issue with executing it for me, and the run too the ledge was so short I was worried that if I noticed I fucked the execution, I wouldn't be able to stop myself in time. Right before doing attempts today, I switched my setup to this running-start from higher up the icey catwalk. The idea was just more momentum and speed going downhill, and then aiming for the left corner of the maze entrance. Well my consistency was decent on that despite no setup, and it worked perfectly in this run. I run down the catwalk once before the real jump to the maze, to prep myself for how it would feel to run down the catwalk, so I wouldn't choke and fall off for it feeling weird.

Also, I'm happy I got the final staircase movement in only 2 attempts. I felt somewhat confident in getting it I guess, I had both megas available before I did my first attempt, so I knew I had a lot of wiggle room for fucking attempts up.

I'll shut up with the text file now, super happy to see my skills level up over the years. I'm not sure if this is the hardest maxed map ever right now, it's more like my skillset back then wasn't suited to handle this map. I am not sure what would take me more time to max now, poog31 or this map cheeseless. Probably poog31.