Game: Doom 2
Pwad: rustydrill.wad
Filename: rd30-2830.lmp
Skill and Style: 4 (UV-Max)
Map Level: 30 (The Edge of Death's Scythe)
Exe/Port used: DSDA-Doom 0.29.4 -complevel 9

Totals:
Kills       109%
Items        69%
Secrets     100% and (Time - 28:30)

Comments:
Surprising how there hasn't been more activity on this wad to be honest.  After this wad was featured on a recent Zdaemon Thursday Night Survival session, one of the maps, in true me fashion, screamed out for me to do a UV-Max on.  Naturally, it's the one with a monstrous enemy count!

You know a map means serious business when you get a backpack and all weapons aside from the BFG, full ammo for all those weapons, and a megasphere right at the start.

Oh, and if you turn around at the start, you'll see the BFG which happens to be the sole secret of the map.  You just need the yellow & blue skull keys to get it...both of which are VERY heavily guarded in the western & eastern wings of the level after taking the teleporter at the start.

Gaining access to those wings requires you to a hit a switch to gain access to them...both of which have a cyber in the hallway taking up damn near the entire space.  You probably noticed that I ran into this without weapons, but there's a reason...let the hell knights & imps get struck by one of the cybers, ideally the one guarding the way to the eastern wing, then you can jump into the acid and run into a teleporter that brings you back to the top of the lift.  You can then run back to start and grab your weapons.  Only the rocket launcher & plasma gun are really needed, but the SSG can be useful for dealing with a rogue imp or two.

As for which wing to tackle first, I find the east wing much quicker to rush through.  The west wing is jam packed with enemies with the cybs being able to pester you while you're trying to push through the rabble.

The eastern wing is jam packed with enemies, but the only ones you really need to deal with right now are the imps past a mastermind.  Assuming you don't get blocked by a cyberdemon and lose most of your health & armor to a point blank rocket in your face, you can cut through the imps with the plasma gun.  There's a megasphere near the mastermind if you feel you need it.

Heading down the imp staircase, stop on the last step before reaching the bottom as taking that last step brings up a group of revs from the north and south plus an arch-vile guarding a switch. You can rocket out the revs before bringing them up via splash damage if you want, but you only need to clear one side of revs to make it easier to maneuver around.

Once you hit the switch, break out the plasma gun and start firing it to deal with any revs that get in your way.  You can get up the staircase long before the northern and southern walls fully lower, both with a huge group of revs with an arch-vile in the back of each group.  I stall a bit here until those monsters wake up, then bolt out to the previous room.

That switch that was just hit lets you get into the central courtyard via an opening on the cyber platforms.  Be prepared because once you jump into it, a massive enemy force pops up and you have to survive for roughly 20-30 seconds for a teleporter to lower.  The BSK is available here too, but you're going to need to run to the spider side, plasma gun firing full time, to clear out some of the spiders while infighting on the other side opens up a way to the BSK.  Be mindful of the cybers outside the courtyard that can fire rockets in your direction while you're dealing with the spiders.

Once you can nab the BSK and get in the warp, things will let up for a bit.  It takes you to back to the room with the first two cybers, but now you're on the side with a bunch of imps and a couple megaspheres.  Clear them out now with rockets if you wish.  Otherwise, you can start clearing out the western wing.  So long as you can clear out the big clumps of revenants when you can, things are pretty smooth...until you head out the western door.  Hope you like another heavily enemy packed area!

Here, you need to pick a side to slowly rocket your way through so you can get down to the lower level.  There's a couple cybers that can easily snipe you while you're doing this so don't be afraid to duck into the previous room after firing a couple rockets on the arachnotrons until you can safely get down the stairs.  Also, don't be afraid to backtrack for a megasphere if your health & armor fall below 100.

Once you get down the staircases, you can start making your way towards the two cybers.  Getting close though brings up a ton of hell knights and four viles.  I'd like to get some infighting going, but those viles don't make it easy.  I do want to step on to the lava river though as doing so lowers a wall to let you go further west.  If you did start the wall lowering successfully, you'll know due to some bull demons that warp in back the way you came.  Blast through them and head back to the entrance of this room so you can wake up the rev army at the spot where the wall lowered, then run to grab a megasphere if you need it.

Next step is to head to the side that you cleared out and starting killing enemies.  Ideally, you'll kill all four viles and as many revenants & hell knights as you can.  Bonus if the cyberdemons take a bunch of them down with them.

When you feel you've cleaned enough of them out, ensure you have high health & armor and keep your plasma gun out.  You're going to run down the lava river to the west, but hugging the edges so you can get by a few groups of enemies that pop up from the floor.  After reaching the mega at the end of the river, a huge group of enemies pop up, but if you dive in deep enough, you'll lower the pedestal with the YSK on it and begin lowering another teleporter that takes you back to the imp platform in the central area.  Do a 180 and haul ass back to safety, letting your plasma gun fire all the time (and hope most of the viles get into some infighting so you don't get blasted hard).

Once back at a more safe spot, you're just going to bide your time and clear out some monsters until you feel you can run down the lava river again, grab the YSK, and dive into the teleporter.

Back at the imp platform in the central room, there's some warps in the lava that take you back to the teleporter to the start of the level where you can go snag your BFG.  Don't go all reckless into it though as shortly after entering the room, you'll see a TON of revenants which thankfully don't wake up until you grab the BFG.

This secret fight is extremely nasty and even a little rng reliant in trying to survive for the first 20-30 seconds. There's tons of cells with a megasphere in each corner, but it's not gonna help if the revenants roll max damage shots too many times as you're cutting through them.  I try to sit in one corner for as long as I can clearing out revs until I need to grab the mega, then begin trying to loop around the edge of the arena and get to the side where there's some room to move around and keep firing BFG shots like mad.  Hopefully now you can start to thin the horde, switching sides when they get too close, until they're all dead.

After this, cleanup is pretty simple all things considered.  You'll want to be at 2000 kills exactly before heading through the teleporter in the north past the YSK & BSK walls since it's a point of no return.

The final room takes some inspiration from Scythe 2 map 30 with its design...and the fact the rest of the 4666 enemies are in this area.  Tons of ammo & health here, the former being effectively infinite so you can go wild with the BFG.

First order of business is to deal with the first few viles in the middle of an imp horde.  You could grab that invul sphere in the middle, but I need to save that for later.

In this final area are two switches, both heavily guarded by some monsters that rise up when you get near them.  One of the switches is near the mancubi in the north while the other is up a staircase in the southeast.  That latter one I need to hit first before I hit the one by the mancubi.  Takes some time since I need to thin out the massive horde before I can attempt to run for them.

When that switch by the mancubi is safe enough to rush to, that's where I put that invul sphere to use.  I need to grab that, then haul ass to the switch.  Both switches being hit lowers a platform in the east with the RSK while giving you infinite bfg ammo, but I'm actually hauling my ass back to the start of the room.  Why?  Cause no less than THREE DOZEN viles warp in there...with absolutely no cover there to deal with them.

My strat with the invul sphere is to get into a position where the vile blasts throw me up into one of the two walls with the demon face where I can sit there thinning them out.  I could also get shot up to where a few mancubi were which isn't ideal, but at least there I can't be knocked into the death pits.

Here though, the absolute best case scenario happens...I'm able to get into the corridor where the RSK door is, making it easy to remove a majority of the viles before the invul wears off.

From there, just a matter of cleaning up the rest of the rabble (especially any cybers that get knocked off the edge and I have to snipe them with the BFG, that's always fun), then make sure to grab the RSK and head to the exit where you blast a romero face to end the map.

This level took me a good couple weeks to get down to a time I felt was acceptable, but thankfully it went about as well as any run that nears the half hour mark for me.  Still room for improvement, maybe a minute or two at least.

Brian "Anima Zero" Nesser
animareborn@gmail.com