PWAD: sunlust.wad
PWAD Name: Sunlust
Map: 24
Skill: 4
Category: UV-Max
Exe: DSDA-Doom 0.29.4 complevel 9
Recorded on: 12/14/25
Time: 10:27
Author: Twilight 
Attempts: Lost count. But I've been running this map and making improvements on and off for about 3 months. 
Description: This is my favorite map.  When I was doing my UVmax playthrough of Sunlust, I kept coming back to this one and trying to improve my time.

The first big routing improvement is the early plasma grab. This allows you to deal with the 3 viles before opening everything else up. Not only is this a lot faster, but it is also safer than the old way of doing the first area.  

You really need the first cyber to cooperate or he can just kill the run. The best case scenario is that he walks out and starts infighting right away.  Then you are less likely to get blocked when coming back out of the 1 vile 4 revenant fight. I had to drop back down and lure the nobles away from the exit.

From Vile's record, I saw how you could go for the switches early and leave the red key fight. I switched the order of rocketing the archies to cut down on the travel time and allow you to press the first button before the knights and specters spawn.

Sometimes when you come back to the 2 cybers that you left early, one of them will be right in your face, so that is fun. Other times they won't kill any imps.  What you want is for them to kill most of the imps and then go away.

I learned about the trick to land on top of the invulnerability switch from A1s's playthrough on his youtube channel.  At first I just thought this was a neat trick that would take the pressure off rocketing down the pinkies and vile in the yellow key fight.  Later I found that it could give you just enough time to get the bfg. 

In the finale, I took from Kinetic's D2all the idea of rocketing through the imps, which brings the cacos in closer to the middle. Usually, I would have 200-400 cells going into the finale, but the 1st cyber was standing on one pack of cells earlier in the run. Then I had to use a lot of cells cleaning up the red key fight because one of the cybers got cornered by 2 specters instead of infighting.
Usually I would use just the cells that I bring into the finale (around 200-400) to clear out the flying enemies once they are grouped in the middle, but I had to dip into the 600 in the arena this time.  I like to save the 600 for speeding up the clean up at the end.  If you use all of your cells too early on the hell knights, you end up with a bunch of revenants that you need to rocket down. So that's why I switch back to rocketing and let them infight before using the rest of the cells.


Potential time save:
The first area can be done ~10 seconds faster (my fastest time was 1:29 going through the first teleporter), but you need good infighting and for the pain elementals to not go crazy with lost souls.  Rockets and plasma ammo are tight so you need to place your shots well. 
If you don't get blocked coming back to the first cyber, that could save a few seconds.  
The pain elemental floating off in the first fight through the teleporter lost a few seconds. (If he drifted any further left, there is an invisible wall that would have made him unhittable.)
If there was better infighting in the red key area (or you are just more efficient at the clean up), that can save some time. 
The hide behind the pillar and peekaboo vile fight can be about 5 seconds faster. But you need the hell knights to spawn in quickly. Best case scenario is only using 2 bfg shots to clear out the 4 close hell knights before switching to rockets. 
The finale can be at least 5-10 seconds faster, especially if you have more cells. 

So with this routing, sub 10 minutes is theoretically possible, but you need a lot of monster assistance, which can make this a frustrating map to run.  It can be exhilarating when everything goes right. 
