Skulldash: How to die less (A guide by Lazorical)

Hello DoomWorld, Lazorical here. I'm pretty new to the community, not new to doom though. I've been doing a skulldash nightmare run for the past few months- I died a lot. With a lot, i mean probably 1.5 thousand times. I'm willing to share a guide for it, so you don't die as often as i have. So, well, nightmare or not, you can die less. (Please do note this guide will be updated and all, because i'm not done yet myself.)

 

Welcome to Skulldash, how to die less (Mostly for nightmare, but okay)

 

I'm gonna be assuming you're playing on nightmare, because, well, you want to be able to know everything, right? And what to do and all.

 

So let's start off- The tutorial should be pretty easy, it's just a matter of grabbing the coins, and there's not much enemies around to kill you. So i'm passing on the tutorial.

 

Level 1: Yellow Submarine

This map should be pretty straightforward, but here's what you do:
Don't grab all the coins at the start, firstly- You have to return anyway, so you can grab them later. Save that time, baby!

You want to rush to the shotgun, but make sure not to get cornered by the demons. When the demons are dealt with, you can back off into the armor coin pillar, shoot the switch across, and grab the coin! Should be simple so far. Continuing, you will fight 3 imps and a demon. Kill the demon first, then the imps. Grab the red coin if you can overheal*. Bounce up, micropeek** the shotgunners, and proceed to grab the keycard. Flick the switch, enter the room, kill the monsters. Do NOT grab the blue coin until you're stocked up on health and everything else is dealt with, because the blue coin spawns 3 shotgunners. Kill those, grab the soulsphere at the switch if you feel like taking a small risk, and exit the level. Good job!

 

* More than 100 health is what i consider overhealing right now.

** Peek just around the corner, shoot, back off. Repeat until they're dead. That's sorta a micropeek, i guess.

 

Level 2: Ancient Treasure

Ancient treasure is the first map i started to struggle on. Died around 10 times before finishing it 100%. But that's fair considering it was nightmare. Anyway, moving on- There's a pistolguy infront of you, kill it. Then grab all the coins, move on to the room with the 2 pillars. There's gonna be a shotgunner on your right, jack his gun off of him. From there, kill the pistolguy on your left, move on. Grab everything beside the red coin, THEN grab the red coin, kill the imps, move on to the right. When you're in the right hallway, there's a coin in a small gap/tunnel thing on your left, grab it. There's a blue coin there too, grab it, and lower the wall left from the blue coin. Good job, another blue coin. From there, move on to the lava, flick the switch, drop down to the stairs, grab the coin and TP back. Jump to get the green coin, move on. Backpack then chaingun, use the chaingun from here. Flick the switch in the pillar room, and watch out for the hitscans. When that's dealt with, grab the remaining coins in the upper halls, take the elevator. Deal with hitscans first, then imps. Just grab every coin, and the narrow pathway to the red coin- there's coins behind that. Oh, and lost souls so deal with those. You basically want to skip the caco fight, run the actual hell back up, grab every coin and jump over the demon, get the soulsphere and you're done!

 

Level 3: Clifftop Base

This map is ok, i guess. You deal with the hitscans, then move on to the outside. Preferably get the guns on both sides. keep in mind that there's coins on the sides of the stairs. Avoid flicking the switch until you cleared out the top rock things. When entering the rocky part with the jump pad, when you just entered, drop off to the right, as there's red armor and red armor is useful. Proceed to jump up, take all the coins. Take the teleporter, take the coins, and now you can flick the switch. You want to dodge the belphegor, killing is unnecessary unless you feel brave enough to. Jump on a demon or rocket jump for the golden coin, and yeet your way to the exit. Good job you won. Unless you want to take the soulsphere, which is a risky thing to do as probably literally everything respawned.

 

Level 4: Frostbound

Okay, so this map actually needs well coordinated pathing. This is the first map i actually had to tactically think for, as the others were pretty straightforward.

Luckily, you start off with a shotgun. Before being a trigger happy idiot and shooting around, i recommend you drop to your left, into the water, and get the secret coins in the cave. Teleport back, take the coins on the right, go to the right. The lion thing on the wall to your left, shoot it. It reveals a small chamber with a coin in it. Proceed onward, to the right room. Slowly peek the hitscan monsters, as you don't want all of them to be ultra triggered and kill you. Take the coins, go to the elevator, go up, micropeek the imps carefully with a chaingun, and proceed onward. Get the blue key, go back, kill the spectre to your right (don't forget please), and move on. Before opening the blue door, you need 62 coins remaining. get the SSG, back off, slowly kill the caco. Proceed to kill the hitscan hell room, and grab the coins there before they respawn. Proceed to the teleporter after grabbing the coins in the switch hallway and kill the imps. Watch out for the caco by the way. The moment you teleport, fire your SSG because you probably get a quad kill on some hitscans. Drop down, don't use the elevator. Grab all the coins, hope you turned off reflections, and proceed to jump over the gap. Grab the green and red coins after dealing with all the hitscans and proj monsters, then drop into the water and get a gold coin. Don't take the teleporter, swim back. After killing all the things again, proceed to the last part of the map- Flick the switch, kill the revenant and everything else, get the coins, go back. Good job, you got all the coins but it's not over. Go back to the right path, grab the BFG, take care of the baron, and exit. Good job, you finished tier one.

 

That's tier one! Good job, you made it really far already! Just.. This is where the bad part begins. From this point onward, expect to die. A lot. Unless you're on UV or below, expect to die even less. Or not at all. Whatever floats your boat.

 

Pre-Level measures

IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you do bonus1 before every single level. WHY? 200 HP. That's why. Because, well, since i'm assuming you're on nightmare, 100 HP won't do it, unless you're some kind of god. DO THIS FOR EVERY LEVEL, EVERY BOSS AND EVERY TIER. Thank you, i hope i took some stress from you.

 

Level 5: Citadel

Starting off with level 5, which is tier 2's first level, which is also the level i probably despised the most, here's Citadel. And you thought anything else was bad? Well, this is where the SSG guy is introduced. You're gonna love him. I'll rant about that dumbo later.

So the first thing you want to do is get ahold of a shotty. Also, grab all the cell packs, because you'll need 'em. Dispose of the 2 pistolguys infront of you, flick the elevator switch, but do not go up the elevator unless you want to tank a million hits. Imp is a bit of a pain to deal with, just peek shoot peek shoot. Don't engage him in that narrow as hell hall.

Go up the stairs, take the shotgun, and for now it should be a piece of cake. Play safe, engage shortly, fire, and retreat. Or be a badass matrix guy and dodge the fireballs like a true nightmare player.

You grab all the coins, also the ones on the double staircases to your left, trust me you'll hate what comes through that door. Walk to the 2 doors, open them, yeet yourself away, kill whatever comes through, rush for the SSG, and deal with the remaining monsters. Retreat if you have to. Now, go onward as fast as possible, since the caco+demons will respawn. Actually, you can take it slow because they're gonna respawn anyway. Screw nightmare. Deal with the demons before you go outside, because demons will cockblock you. Flick the switch, go back to the room you exited from. There's a health coin there, take it. Ignore the baron, run back to the SSG room. Take the closest door, and take a right, another red coin. Proceed to the red key. So far, so good? Yes. But now it becomes fun. Deal with every imp past the red key door, beside the ones behind barriers, and flick the switch. Watch out! Lost souls. There's 2 things you can do here: One, deal with them. Or two, flick the switch and run for the stairs instantly. DO NOT GO DOWN TOO FA- You went down too fast didn't you. That's fine, just don't take a turn. Yet. Deal with the imps to your right, CAREFULLY. There's a SSG guy if you continue to go down the hallway. Here's the thing with SSG guys on nightmare: They see you, and you're dead. You have to perfectly prefire them, and make sure you're crouched at all times to minimize damage. Dealt with the SSG guy? Great! The flaming hell marble thing, open it. Don't flick the switch yet. Watch out, shotgun guys and imps. But the shotgun guys are supposed to infight, even if not you shouldn't worry all that much. Dispose of them anyway. Go back and flick the switch. Good job you got a plasmagun. From here on out, if you grabbed all the cell packs, should be a piece of cake. Watch out with going back- There's an archvile. Kill the archvile, go to the hallway it was blocking, crouch, deal with the chaingunners, move the actual hell through, grab the coins. You got all the tokens, great! Great.. There's just one more hell you have to deal with. Everyone respawned, and the exit door has a cacolantern. Good luck, atleast you have a plasmagun. I recommend baiting the cacolantern out of the exit, and then exiting. Good job, you got every token (probably), and you managed to beat one of the hardest maps in this tier.

 

Again, move to bonus 1 if you're not on 175+ HP, and move on to:

 

Level 6: Abandonment

This map. Is. Easy. You have to know one thing: Where is that rune? Well, i'll tell you. Soon.

First things first move to the right to get the red coin so you don't have to yeet back to get it.

Proceed to kill the phantom thing, get the shotgun, easy from here for now. Get the coins in this room, don't enter the hallway. Go up the stairs, which is the left hallway.

Deal with the demons and the phantoms, then run to the end. From here, kill the phantoms to your right, flick the switch, and grab the Vampire Rune. Good job you won the level.

Go back to the shotgun room, and go to the middle hallway. It should be really easy to take care of literally everything- You have a vampire run, c'mon. Proceed to grab all the coins in the building, then go outside. After you go into this weird room with a box in the middle, and took all the coins there- Go to the hallway on your left, then take all the coins there, flick the switch, go back. Only take the redcoin if it overheals you, otherwise just hit a few monsters. Proceed to go into the garden.. Thing? Shoot the hellknight, blah blah. Go around the outside of the square leaf thing to grab the coins behind it, proceed to the maze. Go around the maze to grab the coins, also go up those stairs to kill the hellknight and grab those coins if you haven't. You should be at 7 coins before entering the maze. Be careful with taking the maze's soulsphere as there's a hellknight guarding it. Deal with that guy, take the SoulSphere, and exit. You should have all the coins. Good job, another level 100%'ed.

 

The next map is, well, quite short i believe. I liked how it worked, and it isn't all that hard honestly:
 

Level 7: Time Warp

Can't say a SSG start is bad. Don't be alarmed, all the enemies are careless about your existance. For now. Flick the switch, grab the coins, go back up the stairs, jump on the railing. Jump for the blue coin, now jump behind the demons and get that coin. Proceed onward, take all the coins. Open the door, jump behind the imps, take the coin. Proceed to the blue coin, flick the switch, etc. Take the chaingun + the coins, flick the switch, turn around, equip the chaingun, and kill everything. Proceed onward with your SSG- Prefire the chaingunners. Deal with the enemies, go on. Open the door, move out, move to the middle, run back. Deal with the blood demons and grab the coins. Proceed to kill the revenants by micropeeking, then grab their coins. The imps are unbarred when you move up the stairs, so deal with those. Dodge the baron balls, they hurt. Soulsphere at the starting room, take it. Deal with the baron, and exit.

 

Okay, proceed to bonus 1, get your health and all, blah blah.

 

Level 8: Water Station

Get the shotgun, deal with every pistolguy. Move on to the big room, deal with the demons. Grab the SSG before that if you can, if not, too bad.

Proceed to flick the switch on the wall, move up the stairs. Get on the railing, move to the next bit. In this narrow hallway, grab the coins, jump ON the platform things, grab the coins, do a side jump* to the next platform. Move off the platforms, grab the coins you forgot below them, and proceed to the invisible walkthrough wall to your left. It's hard to see sometimes, but on the left of the second platform, there's a room. Grab the backpack. Flick the switch with a chaingun equipped, deal with the chaingunners. Grab the blue key, back off a bit. Kill the demons, deal with the hellknight, grab the coins. Move back to start, flick the blue switch, RUN FOR THE OUTSIDE WATER. Jump into the water, get the underwater coins. To the left, there's a small underwater cave. Grab the coins there, they WILL help. Proceed to the right part of the underwater. Swim all the way to the right back side, resurface on the rocks. Kill the imps, take the coins. Proceed back to the main platform, be careful though. Get all the coins, get the soulsphere, exit. Good job, you completed tier 2- Oh wait.

 

*Side jumping is jumping sideways, it gives you more velocity.

 

If you're not on 200 HP, get 200 HP. Next fight will be tough.

 

BOSS 1: Lava Sanctuary

There's one thing you have to know about this whole boss fight- The boss and i died, simultaneously.

So here goes. Grab all the coins except for the red ones. Keep the red ones until you need them. So grab the top coins, grab all the ammo you can, flick the switch.

Deal with the boss- Get him to 75% HP, grab the weapons etc. There's one thing you have to do here: Spawn Blocking. What that means? You have to know where the mancubi spawn, and block one of their spawns just by standing there. It will help you a lot, since you avoid a lot of potential damage. Anyway, back to the boss fight- It's just a simple matter of SSG him, and when he teleports into his boss chamber, wait until it shoots 3-4 times (i can't remember how often he shoots). On the last burst, grenade the middle of the room- It will damage him, if you do it right.

On 50%, walls will lower. Grab the minigun and the red coins if you need it, use the minigun from here. Don't bother with any monsters except demons and hell knights, because infighting.

Don't waste too much time on killing stuff beside the boss.

On 25%, more monsters will spawn, i recommend going ballistic on the boss with whatever you got.

Infighting is a thing, remember that. Don't focus on it too much though.

And now you just hope to beat him, either through your skill or the infighting.

Did you kill him? GOOD JOB, tier 2 is complete.

 

---To Be Updated---

Lazorical out, for now.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Lazorical : Had to add more level descriptions.

Edited the guide for tier 2 maps- Hope it helps you guys.

I'm finally finished with my nightmare run- Pretty much everything is 100%, beside nightclub, vibetech, strength and the last boss. Strength and the last boss are both 75%'d, but the last 2 bonuses have yet to be completed.

 

Which means i can *finally* continue writing this guide.

 

Tier 3

 

Might wanna get 200 HP, because the tier 3 opener is a big bad.

 

Level 9: Jungle Altar

 

In front of you there's coins, grab those. Shoot the switch you can literally see at the start- It lowers a wall.

2 things you can do- Keep the berserk, or take it to punch everything in the face. I recommend keeping it for when you're low. Proceed to grab all the coins on the low ground, starting with the right side- RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! You want to back off into the back of the right- There's a SSG guy. Kill the demon left from you, grab the red coin he was guarding, and snipe the SSG guy with your shotty. That's the first dealt with, hope he doesn't respawn for ya. Next, go to the left from the door, and behind the cave you shot open there's a stairway up right? Take it. Not the exit one, no. That's bad. Take the one across. Proceed to take the 2 coins on the small ledge and back off instantly after that- Kill the chaingunner and grab that. Now open the door you passed by and instantly take cover and crouchpeek if needed- There's a SSG guy. I recommend using the chaingun. And infights.

Get Prosperity, and take the left door to the caco. Proceed to kill everything in your way, and to the right of the caco- the wood part, yes, that has an arrow pointing to it on the automap? use it. Grab the gold coin. Exit the room, go forward. take the door to your left after the caco room. Good job so far! Trigger the monsters down the ramp next to the door, and crouchsnipe the SSG guy. This area is safe, so go on. Proceed to snipe the first SSG guy if he's alive and roaming. Take the small door down- Kill the demons and hope you don't die. Rush to the next small door, open it, back all the way off. Snipe the SSG guy, continue. Proceed to the higher part of that room by going to the door the first SSG guy came from. Grab all the coins and cell packs, shouldn't be too hard. Go back to where you found prosperity, kill the SSG guy. Take the door infront this time. Kill the monsters, grab the railgun, flick the switch, take out your railgun. 5-6 railgun shots on the archvile to kill it. Continue, take the white coins there- Kill the mancubus and its dark imps, open the door, take the red coin kill the dark imp etc. Backtrack back to where the demons were in last room- There's a wood part missing on the left. Use the elevator, since it's an elevator. Grab the remaining coin- You should be done! Try getting to the exit- and exit.

 

Level 10: To hell and back

Map's pretty straightforward so far i remember. Shoot once, hide behind the pillars, and proceed to snipe the zombiemen one by one. Conserve health. Take the SSG, deal with the demons. Now jump on the left pillar from where you spawned and jump on the big pillar with the blue coin on it. Proceed to grab every other coin and flick the switches in the meantime. Take all the coins after the switches are flicked in the next room, and jump down the pit. Move ALL THE WAY so you land on a ledge. There's a red coin. Now jump down. Don't take any blue coins until you have the railgun and every other coin. 6 railgun shots for a cacolantern, i think. Proceed to jump to the dark imp pillar thing and take his blue coins. Jump down into the pit. Flick the switch, take the backpack, etc. Backtrack to where you came from, but this time the low ground- Some coins dropped. 3, to be exact. One green, one red, and a white. Now go up the staircase with your railgun ready.

Try to line up the barons and shoot them with your railgun. You want to conserve ammo a bit. You can also use the SSG since it's safer ammo wise. Go to the revenants, dispose of them. Go ahead- There's a belphegor. Lure it out, then run forward. SSG guy on your left, kill him take the coin. If you were smart enough not to use your railgun, now's the time to use it a bit- There's a demon swarm. After killing that, move forward. There's another big room, take care of the mancubi with your SSG.

Take the cell ammo, on nightmare you should have enough for the next fight.

Flick the switch, back off to a pillar.

If you have 200 cell ammo, you should be able to do this with railgun alone.

Kill the Spider Mastermind, take all the coins if you haven't yet, and exit.

 

Level 11: Liquidation

Please do note this level is very, very, very hard without rocket jumping. You can try, but the safest bet is to rocket jump at the end.

Take the minigun, and one ammo pack. Then take the green coin, dispose of the demons and the caco. Take the other ammo pack, proceed onward. Don't grab any colored coins until i tell you to. Deal with the monsters in this room, and walk through the green area. Notice that everything is green? Yeah, it's because you picked up a colored coin. Basically, the colors match the portals. If everything is red, you can only enter red portals, etc. So don't grab the blue coin yet. Anyway, proceed to your right and kill all the stuff. Take the coins, flick the switch. Don't take the golden coin either yet. After flicking the switch, enter the cave. Proceed onward, grab the blue coin at the end- Grab the backpack. Proceed onward, flick the switch, etc. Kill the demons, take all the coins, jump across to the imps, take the coins there.

You should have 75 or 74 coins when exiting the area. Go back and take the blue coin, then the yellow one. Don't grab any colored coins from here- You want to keep the yellow liquid for now. Proceed onward, take the coins in the left area. Go on, kill the pain elemental, then the imps, etc.

Jump down to the chaingunner, and enter the yellow portal. Take the red coin and run back. Take the red armor now. Try to keep that as long as possible. So the door has a SSG guy behind it, so open it and prefire carefully. Proceed to open the door with the switch. You should have 11 coins after dealing with the pain elemental and taking the pathway's coins. Open the exit door and crouch through the left- Prefire the SSG guy. 3 coins left after flicking the switches? Good! flick the left/right one last. Proceed to take the coins without alerting the hell knight, and rocket jump on the platform. Good job you won.

 

Level 12: Black Death

Take the SSG and deal with the demons, You can even telefrag them. Keep the redcoins for heal. Open door, deal with stuff in building. Flick the switch, take the minigun. Back off to the right (when you're looking at it, the right, otherwise the left) of the switch. That tiny corner magically makes only 1 demon able to chomp you at once. Deal with the demons, continue. Oh and take the clips for ammo. Next, flick the elevator switch and jump off- There's a golden coin under it. From the left of the elevator, there's a gap you might've seen in the building with the green coin and all. jump there. Take the teleporter and kill the dark imps. Unless you want to die, don't flick the switch yet. Go to the right, dispose the chaingunner. When you look behind the chaingunner, you can see https://imgur.com/a/5lP82yi

Shoot that switch from afar. You can now get the 5 coins by running on the platforms. Flick the switch, and kill the revenants. I recommend crouching near them, and behind eachother, then disposing of them. Open the door, move down, kill everything. Take the grenade launcher. At the bottom of the stairs, don't turn around, grenade the next part. Just bounce them off of the wall, and kill the shotgun guys. Take the coins and rocket ammo. So behind the shotgun guys there's a walled off corner. Grenade it, carefully, from the open gaps until you hear a mancubus death sound. Flick the switch- flick the mancubus switch, and move to the open part left from the mancubus. Take the coins and yeet away. Now go up the stairs across where you picked up the blue/white coins and got harassed by chaingunners and imps. That should've opened up. Either carefully grenade everything, or minigun it down. Left from the demons, that odd wooden wall, use it. Golden coin! Yeet the hellknight, move on. Basically, after taking all the coins outside, jump into the next room. It's barricaded, but there's an opening on the left. Kill the chaingunner and take his coins if you haven't yet. Go back into the room, kill the hellknight etc. Don't flick the switch, please, for your own safety. Just go behind the switch, on the tiny ledge, and jump grab the coins. You should have all the tokens! Go back to the exit, somehow, and exit.

 

Boss time!

Boss 2: Emerald Inquisition

So this boss should be easy. Take the coins except for the reds, take enough ammo, flick the switches. Circlestrafe like hell, and change direction sometimes if you can- You gotta learn how this guy acts. Don't bother with the tesla coils, just dodge them. Thunder will kill em anyway. The only thing you really have to watch out for is when he teleports and you want to learn how to counteract it. Basically, don't move near him. After doing all this, you should've beaten tier 3!

Good job. You made it far.

 

Have fun with tier 4, which will be added later, when i feel like it. I can say one thing however- Maltreatment is stupid.