Zero Master | Doom II: Sunder - Map 11 (The Furnace) UV-Max in 31:22 @ZeroMaster | Uploaded December 2021 | Updated October 2024, 4 minutes ago.
Runner: Zero-Master
IWAD: Doom2.wad
PWAD: Sunder.wad
Category: UV-Max
Map: 11 (The Furnace)
Source Port: DSDA-Doom v0.22.2
Time: 31:22.37

Description:
4 minutes and 33 seconds faster than the previous record. Pretty much everything here could have gone better, but nothing was particularly awful. Sub 30 minutes is not difficult and I'll probably do that some day if nobody else does it. I would have done it now, but I wanted to upload one more sunder max before I leave on vacation and continue in January. It's not the only level I want to improve, maybe when I've gotten through the rest of sunder I'll return and make cleaner runs for a few of them.

I really do like this level, perhaps my favorite in old sunder, but for some reason I had trouble finding the motivation to run it. Probably because of the mostly straightforward combat at the start didn't interest me much. It's fun to see how much damage you can get done with 4 invulnerabilties when playing casually, but doing it several times gets boring pretty quick.

This level is also far easier than what I would have expected. The platforming section is easily the most dangerous part and it's not even that bad, for everything else there is a low chance of dying. Main issue is by far clean up and not missing any monsters in the starting area before leaving.

The final fight was pretty bad, I had far too few cyberdemons by the entrance (north area) and I knew it wasn't going to be close when I saw all the hell knights alive, so I slowed it down and took it safe, 30 minutes or 32 minutes makes no difference, neither are good enough so I'll just take the exit for now and try again later.

Video uses IDDTx2 near the end to show monster movement while I do absolutely nothing, obviously not used when recording the demo itself.

Route/Strategy:
Start by grabbing the hell knight invulnerability first and use all our initial cells. For the next 3 invulnerabilities I use rockets, the last 2 to clear out a lot of the revenants and jump down to the stairs to activate the imp teleports. Now I want to get to the next 2 areas as quickly as possible so that I can get everything infighting.

I'll leave the megasphere and 600 cells in the next room until everything in this starting area is dead. Next it's back to the hell knights up top so I can grab the last invulnerability, with that I try to jump down to the revenants (often fails) and clear most of the remaining ones out before taking on the arachnotrons. Once at the double cyberdemons I just leave after getting some infighting going, you could get some crazy luck here by having the cybers kill everything and then leave the room, but that's unlikely.

Now it's all a matter of cleaning up, I start by getting the first imp section cleared and getting the soulsphere, then get rid of some imps on the other section. Back to the double cybers which are done infighting and then clear out the remaining imps and everything on the ground. Some revenants are always alive up top unfortunately and they can be annoying to deal with.

The next area can be annoying as the cacodemons will hide between the fences. Mostly use rockets when they are easy to use and BFG otherwise, leave with 100 cells. Pain elementals is simple enough as long as you have some health, I use 3 + 4 BFGs on the 2 rooms usually.

Revs + cybers are no problem, get some rockets in first while the cyberdemon infight and just don't get trapped. Then comes the platforming. I do a setup for the very start since during practice I messed up a few times there. Hardest part was always the corner coming up immediately, the 2nd and 3rd sections aren't difficult.

Hell knights are easy enough, just use all the cells here. A couple of cyberdemons + revs and imps is very simple with all the health and ammo around.

For the final area I have a different strategy, like map10 you want everything to teleport in as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that is to go back outside and just wait. A few times I'll move to the other side of where I am standing to have monsters move around in the monster box so they'll be more likely to teleport near the end.

Of course the next part is obvious, just go around the arena in a U shape, but you don't want to spend too much time on the opposite side of the entrance to avoid dragging monsters into the central room. Ideally the arch-viles will have nothing to resurrect.