Tips for nightmare?

[#1 Revive Bolt Hater]

I had played initially during launch and found Ultra Violence really easy, so easy that I lost interest and didn't actually complete it despite getting pretty close to the end of the campaign, plus I wanted to uninstall before Denuvo got patched back in.

Came back since they removed Denuvo, tried it on nightmare at the recommendation of a friend (i was under the impression that it was 1-hit-death mode before then), and am finding myself really frustrated with how tanky some of the enemies can be at times and how much raw damage they deal, even with full health and armor I get hit once and I'm already getting the "HEALTH LOW" popup. Some enemies are just instantly getting back up from stagger, so I stagger them and rush in for a glory kill only to harmlessly ♥♥♥♥♥ slap them and get punished for what feels like no reason. Feels like a completely different game, which to be fair, is what I asked for. Any tips that I may be missing out on?

TL:DR Ultraviolence is way too easy, but getting frustrated at Nightmare.

[Hundinger]

Enemies aren't tankier, they have the same amount of health on all difficulties, which is good, so combos you learn on hurt me plenty still apply on higher diffs. They deal a lot more damage however and they attack more often and more of them can attack at the same time.

The most important thing in this game is managing your ressources. Always use your flame belch on groups, even if you're full on armor. The armor shards keep laying on the ground for a long time, almost as long as your flame belch needs to recharge, and you can always come back for them in a moment of need. Also use your chainsaw often. Don't wait until you run out of ammo, don't try to save up three pips (there are exceptions for that), just work it into the rhythm of combat. A pip fills up, a fodder goes down. That way you will always have ammo.

Did you know that grenades don't only do damage, but also falter demons? Faltering is a very important mechanic. There are demons that punish you for getting close to them, like the mancubus. But if you falter them before closing in, they can't do anything for a few seconds and you're safe for a shotgun to the face or a blood punch.

Not only grenades falter demons, also removing weak points, the heat blast, exploding barrels, the blood punch, the remote detonation mod (if upgraded), a lot of damage in a short amount of time (like a ssg blast, or a chaingun salvo). I'm sure I forgot something. The importance of faltering can not be overstated, that's why I link videos on it here.

Movement is key of course, always be on the move and use the air, you are relatively safe there. Your meathook and jumping pads help you get up there, and you can let it rain down on your foes from there.

In this game, especially on nightmare, you will take a lot of damage. That's why the game gives you tools to get your health and armor back. Glory kills and flame belch are the obvious thing, but demons will give health back on death if you are low, an upgraded ice grenade will give health on damaging frozen demons. Freezing a group, flamebelching and killing them is a great way to get huge amounts of health and armor back.

Most importantly, don't let frustration take over. You will die a lot, that's normal, and you will get better. If you get frustrated, just take a break. It will get better.

While extra lives are a great tool for survival, not taking them will help you improve because you will be forced to restart the fight and learn from your mistakes. It's up to you, do what feels best for you.

That's all that comes to mind now. Others will surely offer more help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwWjuQITPQI&ab_channel=UnderTheMayo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyTPVX7MeY&ab_channel=UnderTheMayo

[#1 Revive Bolt Hater]

Originally posted by Hundinger:

Enemies aren't tankier, they have the same amount of health on all difficulties, which is good, so combos you learn on hurt me plenty still apply on higher diffs. They deal a lot more damage however and they attack more often and more of them can attack at the same time.

The most important thing in this game is managing your ressources. Always use your flame belch on groups, even if you're full on armor. The armor shards keep laying on the ground for a long time, almost as long as your flame belch needs to recharge, and you can always come back for them in a moment of need. Also use your chainsaw often. Don't wait until you run out of ammo, don't try to save up three pips (there are exceptions for that), just work it into the rhythm of combat. A pip fills up, a fodder goes down. That way you will always have ammo.

Did you know that grenades don't only do damage, but also falter demons? Faltering is a very important mechanic. There are demons that punish you for getting close to them, like the mancubus. But if you falter them before closing in, they can't do anything for a few seconds and you're safe for a shotgun to the face or a blood punch.

Not only grenades falter demons, also removing weak points, the heat blast, exploding barrels, the blood punch, the remote detonation mod (if upgraded), a lot of damage in a short amount of time (like a ssg blast, or a chaingun salvo). I'm sure I forgot something. The importance of faltering can not be overstated, that's why I link a video on it here.

Movement is key of course, always be on the move and use the air, you are relatively safe there. Your meathook and jumping pads help you get up there, and you can let it rain down on your foes from there.

In this game, especially on nightmare, you will take a lot of damage. That's why the game gives you tools to get your health and armor back. Glory kills and flame belch are the obvious thing, but demons will give health back on death if you are low, an upgraded ice grenade will give health on damaging frozen demons. Freezing a group, flamebelching and killing them is a great way to get huge amounts of health and armor back.

Most importantly, don't let frustration take over. You will die a lot, that's normal, and you will get better. If you get frustrated, just take a break. It will get better.

While extra lives are a great tool for survival, not taking them will help you improve because you will be forced to restart the fight and learn from your mistakes. It's up to you, do what's feels best for you.

That's all that comes to mind now. Others will surely offer more help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwWjuQITPQI&ab_channel=UnderTheMayo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyTPVX7MeY&ab_channel=UnderTheMayo

Thanks, I really appreciate the advice. UV was not super engaging for me, was pretty much a breeze to just roll through it, so coming back after 3 years and trying Nightmare has been a bit of a system shock for me. Went from rolling through 80% of the game without dying once to getting absolutely pounded, spending 20+ minutes on single encounters.

I just managed to beat the first slayer gate after only a few tries, though, starting to get the rhythm down.

[Hundinger]

The first slayer gate is the hardest in my opinion. You don't have many of your most important tools yet and not a lot of health and armor. You managed to beat that one, and that means you are well on your way.

[#1 Revive Bolt Hater]

Originally posted by Virilamis:

Greetings, Competitive slayer here.

Nightmare is relatively my standard difficulty and I play it on any mode. If I wish to play ultra-nightmare, that's usually when I have the whole day to myself. and when I am ready to take my time going full ham. It is definitely an amp up from Ultra-Violence, a hard lesson I learned from. However don't get frustrated, this means you gotta amp up your style of play. In fact I just beat TAG2 on nightmare this morning as I was feeling energized to finish it for them sweet gold tints. However be sure to take your time, breaks, and the willingness to Rip and Tear. I beat the campaign and dlcs on nightmare so how was I able to do this?

1. Nightmare makes the enemies react a lot faster, more aggressive which means you need to do the same thing, YOU need to be the aggressor, and you're going to sweat, no doubt. You need keep your mindset on one thing, staying motivated. STAY determined and do not let up for one moment. HOWEVER do not kill your breathing, or your brain, and make sure to relax your muscles as you do this. STAY CONSISTENT, but also don't be competitive, HAVE FUN. Literally find the joy that what you're doing in the game helps you realized the game WANTS you to be the doom slayer, so f****** rip and tear.

2. Set up your key-binds for hot-swapping, do not ever use the weapon wheel. Weapon wheel will kill your entire momentum and rhythm when you use it. Primarily the only weapons you're going to synergize with is the Super shotgun, Tactical Scope heavy cannon, Lock-on Rocket launcher and standard launcher, standard ballista, and full-auto shotgun. However you need to practice hot-swapping by setting up specific key-binds that is second nature to your muscle memory. I figured out my rhythm when I thought having rocket as 3 keybind would mean my finger was closer, however I kept pressing 4 instead which is what my mind kept telling me to do, so I switched it. That's when I was able to hot swap in a specific order to utilize the full use of my weapon synergy. Also an important note, hot-swapping allows you to stagger demons more often because you're switching in between your weapons.

3. Stay in the air, use meat-hook and your dashes to stay in the air as much as possible. The reason for this is because demons are default to throw their projectiles at you when you're too far. The higher you air the longer it takes for your projectiles to reach you, which in turn gives you more than enough time to reach and dodge. IMPORTANTLY, YOUR FIRST CHOICE FOR RUNES IS GREAT AIR-MOBILITY CONTROL. This is an insanely powerful rune simply because it allows you to move in the air like jet without gravitational restrictions. DO NOT SKIP THIS AT ALL, IT IS WAY TOO GOOD!

4. Don't play smart, don't be tactical, don't be personally demoralized, BE F****** RUTHLESS. You have to inspire yourself to play the game like it challenges you to. You're the bad-ass, you're the doom slayer. YOU'RE the bane of every demon's existence. ENTER the world of DOOM and start wreaking havoc. Try not to hesitate at all and absolutely go ham on every single demon you see, they will show you no mercy, you will do the same...

5. Spend your sentinel coins on the utility first, like faster weapon swapping, faster ledge monkey bar grappling, faster dash refill. These are extremely important to your overall effectiveness first. You need to be fast because the demons are not going to let you breathe. DO NOT skip these or you will be slower later as you progress into nightmare, which is not a ideal choice.
Spend your weapon talents on tactical scope and meat hook first. You want faster meat-hook for that fast mobility, and tactical scope for the rapid recharge timer. Everything else is based on your choice.
Get extra lives BEFORE you leave the level. Finish the level first then fast travel to get your lives. On nightmare it has checkpoints, you can restart and do over so that you get use to the overall difficulty. It's not Ultra-nightmare where you die, that's it, game over...

Here are some tips as well.
Remember destructible demons? Take out their weak points, like the Arachnatron with its cute little cannon, or the mancubus with its two fat cannons. Focus the demons that have more velocity towards shooting you down than the ones who want to run you down like the big boy demons.
They are fast indeed, however while you're in the air, they cannot chase after you. They basically stand in their position until you land on the ground which is absolutely brilliant. Its a literally a zoning mechanic that I love using as often as possible, and should not be underestimated.
Survey your surrounds and use every ability to separate demons from the crowd, YOU DO NOT want to enclose yourself to multiple demons or you will die immediately. You can do this by taking the time to run away, flank around the arena then hop back into the fight; this is where you can catch your breath for at least 5-7 seconds.

Overall conclusion? Have FUN, that is the most important rule I follow in Doom Eternal. I love this game, its a burning passion I have than any other game I played in my life. It's therapeutic, its inspiring, it makes me feel masucline, and helps me get up to work hard in my personal life.
I got better because the game taught me to better, I WANTED to be better, I WANTED to be an absolute chad at the game. So I kept playing when I was completely ready to RIP AND TEAR, and I got some awesome cosmetics from it which makes me look like the Doom Slayer I wanted to be.

If you have any other questions, I subscribed to your thread so that I get notified if there is any other tips you would like to hear. Have fun fellow Doom Slayer, and good luck.

Edit: Also props to Hundinger for showing the grenade syngeries as well, I forgot to mention to use your flame belch in groups and frost grenade to CC most demons that are the most aggressive!

Is there a trick to the chainsaw targeting? Running into situations where I'm clearly trying to chainsaw a 1 pip enemy right in front of me, but the game seems to think that I'm trying to chainsaw a cacodemon or hellknight 8 meters away or something, and then I just harmlessly swipe over the weak enemy and lose access to my weapons for the duration of the animation.

[furbleburble]

Hundinger is one of the people that helped me get much better at this game. Grampire is another. I'd highly recommend taking heed of what they have to say. I've gone from struggling on HMP to completing all campaigns and 2 Master Levels on Nightmare in part because of their help. You might want to check out the video thread that I started as well. There's some great footage from them and others. Watching videos there might give you ideas to help better your play.

One thing that really helped me get better was finding a control scheme that worked for me. i am disabled and I had to spend some time finding a scheme that worked with my issues. My control scheme.

I unbound many buttons and left them unbound in part because i have no need for them, but also so that I don't hit/use them by accident. I have nerve problems in my hands so leaving those unbound lessens the risk of doing something unintentionally.

[#1 Revive Bolt Hater]

Originally posted by Virilamis:

Originally posted by Card-Holding LeMat SImp:

Is there a trick to the chainsaw targeting? Running into situations where I'm clearly trying to chainsaw a 1 pip enemy right in front of me, but the game seems to think that I'm trying to chainsaw a cacodemon or hellknight 8 meters away or something, and then I just harmlessly swipe over the weak enemy and lose access to my weapons for the duration of the animation.

I know exactly what you're talking about. Cacademons are the bane of my existence, most of the demons have a large hitbox radius and Cacademons are one of them, hate those fricks.
Remember when I said separate the crowd? do that exactly, cacademons are actually quite fast and they will approach you once you're close enough. Best solution is to sticky bomb for instant glory kill, then use your chainsaw.

Though when you have meathook you can actually strafe yourself around the cacademon to get behind them and use the chainsaw on the specific demon you want to exploit resources from. You can do the same in any other scenario. Just make sure you actually hit the demon you want to chainsaw before strafing.

To answer your question in simple terms, SEPERATE THE CROWD! Don't close up the demons if you want to get resources. You can simply turn around, run around the arena, find the demon that needs only 1 fuel, then use it! Hence and repeat, you'll eventually figure out how to strafe around for the chainsaw kills.

Edit: ALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION. If you're constantly in the air you can meathook to the lesser demons to get a quick chainsaw kill, which is way more accessible than on ground.

I think using the Seek and Destroy rune might be having an impact on the frequency in which this occurs as well.

[furbleburble]

There's really been some great contribution in here.

[#1 Revive Bolt Hater]

Originally posted by Virilamis:

Originally posted by Card-Holding LeMat SImp:

I think using the Seek and Destroy rune might be having an impact on the frequency in which this occurs as well.

I could be wrong but I don't believe seek and destroy actually contributes to Chainsaw range, prove me right if actually impacts your game-play and I will wholeheartedly accept that possibility.

I actually used this rune in every bit of my game-play in the past. However I realized after I got even better at the game, I decided that since I utilize my mobility very efficiently, I don't need farther glory kills. If it DOES help to exercise your momentum, use it. The advantage at staying consistent is to practice using control schemes like Furbleburble said. Whatever button you press in a hasty succession, use those buttons instead and that will strengthen your muscle memory, which is where your rhythm is going to become extremely better.

I wish I could record my game-plays and show you how exactly I play. Unfortunately since my laptop albeit is designed for high performance gaming, doesn't have the capacity to record while dropping to a lower FPS. I will still remain on this topic though for any other questions in the future as you progress.

So far I’ve been using it as a piece of my mobility kit. I’ve been able to get up ledges that I would have otherwise needed to wrap around the arena and come at from another angle and to get myself out of bad situations by teleporting myself to a demon who’s away from danger and staggered. I have a feeling once I get the meathook it’ll be less usrful in general though

[Hundinger]

Originally posted by Virilamis:

Originally posted by Card-Holding LeMat SImp:

So far I’ve been using it as a piece of my mobility kit. I’ve been able to get up ledges that I would have otherwise needed to wrap around the arena and come at from another angle and to get myself out of bad situations by teleporting myself to a demon who’s away from danger and staggered. I have a feeling once I get the meathook it’ll be less usrful in general though

Objectively I am sure any other Doom Slayer would agree that meathook is the best addition to Doom Eternal, since its style of play allows any other slayer to close gaps and launch themselves in unreachable points. .

Absolutely.

[furbleburble]

Seek and Destroy used to be one of my go-to runes specifically because it's effectively a teleport. And that does make it fantastic. However, I've come to realize that meathook is superior. It's a bit slower in movement, but its cooldown is better and doesn't require something to be GK-ready. Also, the chainsaw works as a teleport to some extent.

For me, Air Control is so incredibly important that there really are only two rune slots, as I once saw someone say a long time ago. I don't recall who the person was, but I agree with the sentiment completely. My rune choice today is Air Control, Equipment Fiend, and Dazed and Confused. Dazed and Confused may seem odd to some people but it's been amazingly effective at keeping me alive when, for example, I Blood Punch a group of (super-) heavies.

[Furious Fap]

Enemies just feel more tanky on nightmare because they're so much deadlier. NM demon damage is about DOUBLE UV demon damage. This makes it much more urgent to dispose of them.
Use good weapon choice, quickswap combos, exploiting enemy weaknesses, grenades, and blood punch together to deal damage more effectively.

Obviously the importance of movement cannot be overstated but there are other ways of avoiding damage as well.
One key way is falters. It looks like someone upthread has discussed this and linked Underthemayo's video about the falter system already so I'll leave it at that.
Another way to avoid damage is invincibility frames. You can use glory kill and chainsaw animations strategically for the invulnerability they provide.
Another way is the chaingun shield. You can even buffer inputs to activate this immediately upon leaving a GK or CS animation.
Yet another way is active mitigation through armor pooling. Armor shards persist on the ground for 20 sec and are sucked up as needed with loot magnet if you're close enough. This means burning and killing a group of fodder can give you a significant amount of extra EHP to work with as long as you remain in the area. Excess armor can also fuel blood punch with armor for blood, and it doesn't take a lot of armor at all to fill a BP!

Finally, the best defense is sometimes a good offense. Identifying and eliminating the most dangerous foes as quickly as possible is one of the best ways to avoid damage.

You don't always have to glory kill staggered enemies and sometimes it's better not to.
I personally use the dazed and confused rune to extend staggers because it doesn't just make glory kills easier to get - it also allows you to deliberately leave a staggered foe there for a second while you deal with something else or gives you a chance to decide whether you want to GK, meathook SSG for armor, or just PB/ballista/rocket them to secure the kill from a safe range. Demons unstaggering also heals them a significant amount so it's really annoying when they just get up right as you're about to twist their heads off lol

I see some discussion of Seek and Destroy, so I will briefly add that I do not like that rune very much. It feels a bit redundant when you already have a double dash on such a short cooldown, bunny hopping, and the meathook. Especially since the chainsaw and glory kills already have a surprisingly long range. It's not that seek and destroy is bad but that other options are more beneficial.

[Drei]

Lots of great answers here. Here's a few things that really help:

1. The cardinal rule: never, ever stop moving. The enemy AI on NM is aggressive as hell (no pun intended).
2. NM is assuming you know the fundamentals of the gameplay loop, demon weakpoints etc because you will have to use them if you want to kill quickly.
3. Learn to love the shotgun grenades and PB for the early game. Those first 4 levels are the toughest, SGN onwards gets much easier.
4. Bind your weapons to keys you can comfortably switch at will with. Learn the weapon combinations and what works well against what enemy.
5. Air control as one of your runes is an absolute must.
6. You'll suffer, but if you can do the Slayer Gates + not spend any weapon upgrades, you can be on your way to the Meathook mastery + rocket lock on by the end of Cultist Base.
7. Focus on the "Fundamentals" section for tokens, and do Quickdraw Belch > Loot Magnet > everything else for the crystals.
8. Pick up extra lives in each of the levels, there are 52 (I believe) across the game.
9. You're dying quickly because you're in the early game. You'll find once you get dash, more health and armor, faster cooldowns etc it will feel more manageable.
10. Don't give up, skeleton!

[furbleburble]

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

Obviously the importance of movement cannot be overstated but there are other ways of avoiding damage as well.
One key way is falters. It looks like someone upthread has discussed this and linked Underthemayo's video about the falter system already so I'll leave it at that.

Mayo's videos proved to be quite helpful for me. Zero Master as well.

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

Another way to avoid damage is invincibility frames. You can use glory kill and chainsaw animations strategically for the invulnerability they provide.

I do this a lot, often out of panic. I can't tell you how many times a panic chainsaw has saved me. GK, too, but I'm more prone to chainsaw. I'm not aware if Blood Punch has i-frames, but it can make it so you can GK immediately and some times do a GK chains, and even better when it's BP, GK, GK, BP, GK, GK, chainsaw, ice bomb, gtfo! Or something like that.

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

Another way is the chaingun shield. You can even buffer inputs to activate this immediately upon leaving a GK or CS animation.

Grampire taught me this one. It was hard at first for me to integrate the chaingun shield, but it was completely worth learning how.

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

Yet another way is active mitigation through armor pooling. Armor shards persist on the ground for 20 sec and are sucked up as needed with loot magnet if you're close enough. This means burning and killing a group of fodder can give you a significant amount of extra EHP to work with as long as you remain in the area. Excess armor can also fuel blood punch with armor for blood, and it doesn't take a lot of armor at all to fill a BP!

Don't forget you can get health this way as well. Flame Belch a bunch of fodder and then grenade them, for example, and you can quickly go from almost dead to quite alive.

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

Finally, the best defense is sometimes a good offense. Identifying and eliminating the most dangerous foes as quickly as possible is one of the best ways to avoid damage.

Learning to be offensive was very difficult for me because of the health problems that I have, but I found I started playing much better when I got more offensive. (This statement is funny if out of context.)

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

You don't always have to glory kill staggered enemies and sometimes it's better not to.

I agree but at least this isn't 2016... I died a lot in my Nightmare run in 2016 because I didn't really understand this at the time.

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

I personally use the dazed and confused rune to extend staggers because it doesn't just make glory kills easier to get - it also allows you to deliberately leave a staggered foe there for a second while you deal with something else or gives you a chance to decide whether you want to GK, meathook SSG for armor, or just PB/ballista/rocket them to secure the kill from a safe range. Demons unstaggering also heals them a significant amount so it's really annoying when they just get up right as you're about to twist their heads off lol

I do this as well. I didn't even think about it so I am glad that you did. I alluded to it earlier, but you were more direct. I didn't know about the healing thing though, good to know.

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

I see some discussion of Seek and Destroy (/snip) It's not that seek and destroy is bad but that other options are more beneficial.

Yeah, when you have enough tools to do a thing, it can be better to throw in a different tool instead.

OP, Keep us informed!

[#1 Revive Bolt Hater]

Originally posted by Furious Fap:

Enemies just feel more tanky on nightmare because they're so much deadlier. NM demon damage is about DOUBLE UV demon damage. This makes it much more urgent to dispose of them.
Use good weapon choice, quickswap combos, exploiting enemy weaknesses, grenades, and blood punch together to deal damage more effectively.

Obviously the importance of movement cannot be overstated but there are other ways of avoiding damage as well.
One key way is falters. It looks like someone upthread has discussed this and linked Underthemayo's video about the falter system already so I'll leave it at that.
Another way to avoid damage is invincibility frames. You can use glory kill and chainsaw animations strategically for the invulnerability they provide.
Another way is the chaingun shield. You can even buffer inputs to activate this immediately upon leaving a GK or CS animation.
Yet another way is active mitigation through armor pooling. Armor shards persist on the ground for 20 sec and are sucked up as needed with loot magnet if you're close enough. This means burning and killing a group of fodder can give you a significant amount of extra EHP to work with as long as you remain in the area. Excess armor can also fuel blood punch with armor for blood, and it doesn't take a lot of armor at all to fill a BP!

Finally, the best defense is sometimes a good offense. Identifying and eliminating the most dangerous foes as quickly as possible is one of the best ways to avoid damage.

You don't always have to glory kill staggered enemies and sometimes it's better not to.
I personally use the dazed and confused rune to extend staggers because it doesn't just make glory kills easier to get - it also allows you to deliberately leave a staggered foe there for a second while you deal with something else or gives you a chance to decide whether you want to GK, meathook SSG for armor, or just PB/ballista/rocket them to secure the kill from a safe range. Demons unstaggering also heals them a significant amount so it's really annoying when they just get up right as you're about to twist their heads off lol

I see some discussion of Seek and Destroy, so I will briefly add that I do not like that rune very much. It feels a bit redundant when you already have a double dash on such a short cooldown, bunny hopping, and the meathook. Especially since the chainsaw and glory kills already have a surprisingly long range. It's not that seek and destroy is bad but that other options are more beneficial.

Seek and destroy would definitely be redundant with the meathook but atm I'm using it for its vertical mobility, the ability to essentially teleport myself over ledges I couldn't reach otherwise without taking a significant amount of time to run around to the 'intended' ways of getting up. Since I'm still in the early game this has been a pretty significant boost to my ability to get around so long as a demon is in the area I want to go as I won't have the meathook for a few levels.

Probably a pretty niche use in all honesty but I've been keeping my eye out for opportunities to use it in creative ways and it's really paid out, being able to stagger an imp or gargoyle who's higher than I would normally be able to get from where I'm standing then GK teleporting to it has come up surprisingly often when I've been in a tough spot and needed a quick "out" so I could catch my breath and reorient.

[furbleburble]

So uh... I kinda discovered that I kinda goofed when I made my video for my control scheme . I made a new video and made sure I got it all correct this time... hopefully. When I loaded the game a little bit ago I noticed I couldn't switch weapon mods, nor could I open the dossier. I took down my original video and uploaded a new one. I edited in the link for the new video in post #7, but here it is again for the sake of ease... cause I'm a failure.