DOOM: The Dark Ages

DOOM: The Dark Ages

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Ultra Nightmare Difficulty Guide (work in progress)
By No Idea
This is a work in progress guide to help players beat the ultra nightmare difficulty without modifying the sliders. Feel free to leave any tips or tricks you have in the comment section of this guide.
   
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General Tips
Here are some general tips that were suggested to me from the Doom Reddit.

Make a parallel Nightmare save where you run one level ahead of your UN save.

Rush Upgrades for the Super Shotgun, The Shield, The Flail and The Chainshot.

Once you get the shield saw in hebeth, i would recommend using it to shield stun mancubi and then killing them with the shredder

A suggestion I would make is to also use the Impaler and upgrade it, as its upgrades allow you to get ammo back from a shield dash/bash, recharge your melee weapon by headshoting demons and you also have the option to either slow down time to help you aim your Impaler shots or everytime you pick up impaler ammo, your next shot will do more damage (which pairs especially nice with the get ammo from shield bash upgrade)

The rocket launcher is also a good option to upgrade as it has an upgrade where the self blast heals you and comes with a meter to show you how long the effect lasts.

The ravager and its drop health on hit upgrade might be useful but I never lived long enough to upgrade it in ultra nightmare.

The reddit said that it doesn't matter what shield rune you use but i would recommend either the ground fissure (because it allows you to obtain armor shards when it activates and does good damage), the dagger rune (which is a good source of damage) and the lightning rune (which is both a good source of damage and stuns the demons, not sure if it stuns bosses though) I wouldn't recommend the auto turret rune because whilst it was useful, in my opinion it gets outclassed by the other three and you have to aim the auto turret whereas the others dont require aim which can be helpful in tight situations.

Another good tip from the reddit is to stay calm and not charge into battle so that you can either pick off enemies safely, not get overwhelmed or just not panic like me and make stupid mistakes and die a bunch of times.

Save shield dashes for when you need to get the hell out of a tough situation.

This is an optional tip but i saw that pro players in multiplayer games or speedrunners would lower their graphic settings to increase the responsiveness of the PC. Whilst it make sense, I think some players have beefy pcs where lower the graphics wouldn't really increase the responsiveness that much but hey its worth a shot.




Village Of Kallim

My advice for this section would be to run and gun.

This tip and the next apply to the whole game.

Save armour unless you lose it, remember armour shard pick ups restore 1 armour point, helmets restore 8 armour points and chest plates restore 20 armour points.

Save life sigils for when you either lose all armour and cant find any armour pickups, or when you have very low health where the game warns you.

In this level you can use the shield bash to damage enemies but in later levels it would be better to save the shield bash for when you need an escape.

Once you pickup the shredder in this level i would recommend using it over the starting shotgun for the simple reason that it has a better fire rate and that unlike the shotgun, it has some distance to it, allowing you to not get as up close to the demons to damage them.

Hebeth

In this level you get the both the shield saw upgrade and the accelerator (a plasma gun).

I recommend picking up all the gold in the level and upgrading the shield, especially getting the power surge upgrade for the shield. There are a lot of plasma shield enemies in this level and the power surge upgrade makes the shield bounce from one plasma shield to another. It makes getting rid of them easier and at the end of this chain bounce, a demon like the hellknight or mancubus can get stunned by the shield.

I would recommend to buy the starting shotgun shoot fire and get armor upgrade here it will come in handy in the next level, sentinel barracks

Speaking of getting stunned by the shield, in this level there are a lot of mancubi so i would recommend using it to stun them for a while, allowing you to dispense them with relative ease.

When you're at the last arena with the leader demon, save killing the metal shield enemies for when you lose a lot of armour.

Barrier Core

This level is easy so there really isn't much to say.

All ill say is exercise caution, don't get too cocky, avoid the demons hell surge attacks and you'll be good to go.

The final enemy you face is a titan with a shield, when you see red energy coiled around his arms dont hit him as it means he is charging up his shield and if you strike him you will not only lose a bit of health, but you'll also lose all the energy you've have for special attacks such as the rocket punch and stomp.
Sentinel Barracks

in the beginning area, where you get the pulverizer I would recommend just throwing your saw into it, as its crowded and demons only come at you through the entrance from the room you get the pulverizer from.

I would recommend to buy the starting shotgun shoot fire and get armor upgrade here because of a small arena of hellc***s i mean knights.

I would also recommend going for all the challenges in this level since they all give something worth while such as gold.

after the arena with hellknights, you will face them again, this time with exploding barrels. Here i would recommend using the barrels to fight them, just use the shredder to blow them barrels o fun (see what i did there?) when the pesky knights are near them and enjoy the blood fireworks.

When you drop down and get the impaler, be careful because a pinky rider will spawn infront of you and behind you alongside hell knights, id recommend using the impaler here because of its headshot damage, you deal more damage against the hellknights if you hit them in the head and the pinky riders if you hit the riders on top of the pinkies.

When you jump down the bridge where you first meet the chaingunner behind you is a secret area for gold, if you're gonna go down there, be careful because there will be nightmare imp stalkers watch your ass. same applies for the area near the chaingunner where there is a chest of gold.

When it comes to the vagary be careful because now there's two ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mancubi that will try to kill you. I would recommend using the impaler on them whilst using the shotgun (for armor) on the vagary and the shredder on the vagary.
The Holy City Of Aratum

In this level there are four hell carriers.

One is on top of what looks to be a circular plaza which underneath it has a secret area for your dragon to go to

One is below the city and can only be accessed by killing a growth and here you unlock the cycler

One if on the far left of the map where you get the super shotgun

The last one is on the far right next to the send cosmic growth that allows you to go through ventilation to access a hell ship.

I recommend first going to the ship on the far left of the map which allows you to unlock the super shotgun. this super shotgun will be hand with two enemies, the cyberdemon on the ship above the circular plaza and the hell ship on the far right that crashes into a part of the city and has a sentinel shrine where you can upgrade your super shotgun.

Once you get the super shotgun it will make tackling the cyberdemon easier since its a close quarters fight, same thing with the armoured hell knight on the ship that crashes on the far right of the city. before facing the hell knight upgrade your super shotgun to reload faster and do more damage to armour, that way you can kill him easier.

once you kill 3 of the 4 ships leave one ship left, so you can tackle the 2 secret areas only accessible by serrat. the secret area with the titan guarding it will be easy if you upgraded your combat shotgun to do burn damage, drop armour and have fodder drop armour. the other secret area is easy.

once you kill all hell ♥♥♥♥♥, i mean ships, its time for you to progress to the final arena, when you arrive dont drop down just yet. first upgrade anything you might need. then from the platform you'll see a mancubis near some explosive barrels, using the impaler or cycler shoot that barrel to disarm him, then drop down and kill the mancubis to the farm right of the arena. there are 3 chaingunners on the arena one on the left, right and top of arena. there is also a vagary, for whom you should use the cycler since it will heat his armour up quicker to be shattered by the shield. be careful as more manucubi and hellknights will show up to defend him.
To be added and tweaked
Level specific tips

Which challenges you should take

Optional Encounters to avoid or take

Gather feedback and improve the guide

Gather more tips and advice and add them to the guide

2 Comments
No Idea  [author] 7 Jun @ 3:07pm 
Some good points you made Shiro, regarding the pulverizer ill definetly give it a try on a brand new slot once i finish pandemonium or ultra nightmare (or i just fail ultra nightmare for the nth time (i lost count)
ShiroJustParry'dYou 7 Jun @ 3:03pm 
Working on my UN run as well.
Sentinel Barraks
For the hellknights is a matter of practicing in another slot and see what works best for you. (And each level, get them down to perfection in nightmare and remember spawns) In my case it was the third kick that oneshots them after two melee attack against one. Rince and repeat. The soldiers are a pain in the ass tho always keep them in check
The pulverizer works great against the vagary, and for the mancubi, I'd recommend killing one, and exploding one arm of the mancubus that remains that way you'll have less fire balls to dodge or worry about. After that I recommend medium distance with the accelerator and save the impaler to shoot it in the back once the purple bar fills.
Upgrading the shield, melee and the shotgun is a good idea, but also it is upgrading the accelerator which causes good dps at medium distances. Keep your ammo for the impaler and use it against the vagary.