Duration: 0:00

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11

Map name: Valve House
Map author: Pavel Hodek

Alright, now I have the sub-3, I can elaborate on this run some more, as it really turned into a massive grind. The line skip that I had that Kinetic omitted seemed like it would make the run sort of beatable, but it really doesn't save a ton of time; you don't get too many rockets, so in most cases, you still need to do a lot of SSG cleanup, and it leads to two bad things: too many revs in the rocketing room (can make it incredibly hard to survive) or missing monsters (particularly ones stuck down the stairs in the BK area). But I think I mostly persevered though this run because, despite the frustration, I agree with Kinetic that the gunplay is actually good, it's just extra frustrating because you have so little room for error with so much hitscan and no armor. But that part is part of what made the run appealing; it really forced me to stay ultra-focused on my SSGing and dodging skills, and ultimately, I felt like I was improving general skills of handling runs like this. There's still a hefty dose of RNG, particularly for the best times; I mean, this run survived in part due to good RNG at the end, but in the parts of the run that are less governed by RNG, it's genuinely rewarding when shots work well and I'm able to effectively react and dodge to unexpected situations (equally infuriating when I make really stupid mistakes, though, heh).

Other than the line skip, the main changes I made from Kinetic's run are using chaingun in the outside area after the YK (time seemed same as SSG, but it felt easier to aim for infights this way) and using two rockets for the perched revs before the main rocketing section instead of three, as you have enough time to fire off two SSG shots before the lift raises, and one extra rocket can't hurt. The rest is largely the same, maybe with some differences in how I do some shots. The biggest RNG barriers IMO were start resets (easy to get blocked by the demon, and you almost certainly need a 3-shot shotgunner to get past the demon at all), resets at the BK (mostly fine, but sometimes I would go on long streaks where the monsters always conspired to block me in that area). After that, it's basically fine up to the first time you run past the rocketing room (sometimes you just get annihilated there), and then the rocketing and exit rooms where it's very easy to lose a lot of health fast if you play a bit aggressively. There's lots of little things along the way that can also screw you like skipping either the double lift line before the RL or the lift at the two revs, and various weird scenarios that sometimes occur. The rev and monsters at the start variably go into the BK area or not; you kinda want the rev to go in so you can maybe rocket it at the end, but it doesn't actually matter that much, and here I spent a lot of time SSGing the monsters there, but still made it to the end ok. The worst RNG part is probably missing monsters; two other sub-3s failed to some monster being somewhere, like monsters going up the lift with the chaingunner/demon or even revs going into the alcove with the two revs from outside. Monsters wander a lot in general, and you really never know what you'll encounter, which makes the run fun and sometimes impossible to actually survive on a good pace in. :^)

There's not much to say about this specific exit. The first half is a bit slow, but I mostly make it up in the second half; I'm not sure what exactly happened, but it felt like somehow I had fewer monsters to kill there, which is just kinda how the run feels ngl. Sometimes it feels like you get really good rockets in that main rocketing area, but still need to spend a ton of time on cleanup. This time, I got decent rockets, but a couple even missed, and I was like "where tf are the monsters???" But I guess I killed them all anyway? The fun part I guess is a whole two 1% health moments, which should at least make for an entertaining watch. The time isn't particularly great, though, and can go to probably sub-2:50 with great RNG and solid execution.

Including a couple bonus demo; one demonstrating the rev stuck in an alcove (I was on a fairly quick pace, and you can see me hear the rev but be totally confused where the heck it is), and one where I segmented the last part (didn't exit, missed monster, was slow anyway), but with some bizarre infighting where monsters in the exit room were dead before I ever reached there. You really need to watch with chasecam to figure out wtf happened there, lol.

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