Strategy:Arena Master

0.9.9.7

NOTE: These methods are almost completely backwards compatible with earlier versions.

The Arena Master is the boss found in The Chained Court (if and only if you completely cleared all 3 waves of Hell's Arena). The Arena Master is really nothing more than an Arch-vile with amped up durability and a weaker but still very powerful attack. However, considering that you have to deal with the Arena Master after only dlevel 5, where you'll only have about 3-5 traits at this point (depending on difficulty), and weak equipment (particularly being very unlikely to have any armor with fire resistance this early), you have a potential problem.

The main strategy for beating the Arena Master will typically involve waiting for him to get close to the central building (as otherwise you would have to fight him in the open, a strat very unlikely to be viable against an Arch-vile this early), and then leveraging Berserk from the Chainsaw and Berserk Packs to kill him, even if you're not investing in melee. But you will have to promptly eliminate the Cacodemons, Hell knights, or Barons of Hell that start right outside the building, as fighting them alongside the Arena Master will make for a rough time, and you also have to take care to not let them blow up the Berserk Packs, or even worse the Chainsaw (as well as also dispose their corpses to ensure they can't be brought back by him). The formers are mostly a nonissue, but if you try to rush the Arena Master on Ultra-violence or Nightmare! after taking all the Berserks at once, all the Former captains concentrated on his side will shred you. On difficulties below that, rushing the Arena Master could be a viable option, as Sergeants and especially Zombiemen can't cut you down through the Berserk like the Captains will, just be sure to utilize Rocket jumping to blitz through.

Another note is that if you are waiting for him to come, the Arena Master makes no sounds, which makes it difficult to know he is near before you see him or that you're even hitting him with your radar shooting. As such, you likely won't even know he is near and have his attention on you until you outright see him, at which point it may be too late to avoid a hit from him. One way to tell he is near is if you see any of the formers you killed begin reviving, at which point you can start radar shooting with a shotgun and likely hit him to get his attention. You can also mod in sounds for him by editing the sound.lua file to make it obvious when your radar shooting does nail him and thus know it's time to retreat to your Berserk packs (you can find his internal name here).