Strategy:Ultra-violence

Welcome to Hell

The name does not lie. Ultra-Violence is ultra-hard. Enemies get a +2 bonus to their accuracy, making it almost certain that even weak enemies will hit you if you're not dodging, and hell knights can start spawning on level 3, which means you get one level after Phobos Base Entry, maybe Hell's Arena, before you have to fight them. Demons will be appearing right from the start. Barons of Hell will appear on level 6. Revenants and Former commandos can start spawning while you're still in Phobos, and of course Mancubi and Arch-viles will become common enemies early in Deimos.

Fooling-around builds have no place on Ultra-Violence unless you're really, really good. You have no time to arm up or get stronger, and it's possible to get an unlucky spawn location such that the only door leading out of your starting room will put you face-to-face with a hell knight and six demons, so you'll die and die very early on unless you have a plan and know exactly what you're doing. Never let yourself drop below 40% health, since you can get killed by a great many things in one attack at that health. Get good at corner shooting, giftdropping, and radar-shooting, because you're gonna need them. It's time to really start skipping special levels if you don't have a plan to beat it, because they will just kill you more often than not. Phobos Lab contains over a dozen nightmare demons, which are very likely to kill you even if you're prepared because they'll get stuck in narrow halls you need to enter to progress, and they won't come out until they see you. Without two levels of Hellrunner, even running is too slow to get away from them.

On the bright side, though, there's now a guaranteed green armor in Phobos Base Entry! It'll almost certainly be used, but it's something!

Since you have no time to prepare before the going gets ridiculously tough, you have to be familiar with the game's base mechanics and know what to do for every little situation that crops up. Doom veterans may be tempted to start here, but really, do not. You'll lose so fast that it won't teach you anything. You may also want to skip going for 100% kills every time until you're familiar with the difficulty level. It may level you up faster, but you'll also put yourself in more of the already-increased danger.

Starting

Even the first level of the game will be a huge challenge if you don't know how to handle it. With no plan, it can kill you, or at best make you use one of your starting med-packs while leaving you no way to rescue the others. There is a better way, though. (see Strategy:Phobos Base Entry)

Once you're in, there are a few ways of surviving the first few levels with little issue, even with 100% kills barring a challenge run.

Fast DPS

This is a risky but oftentimes rewarding strategy. Essentially what this entails is going for your DPS-increasing traits first, before any investment in survivability. For Rapid builds, that's Eagle Eye and Son of a Bitch. For Pistols, that's Son of a Gun. For shotgunners, that's Reloader and Finesse. Don't just go for your favorite DPS method, though, you need to have a plan, so it's better if this investment leads to something that also helps you survive.

• If you get Eagle Eye, go for 2 levels of that and then get Intuition 2. Use Rapid weapons over pistols, even if you're going for a pistol build. Being able to see huge clusters of enemies before you open that door and aggro them all is going to save your life. Even good players can't reliably make plans without more information.

• If you get Finesse, get Juggler next. Pick up every single shotgun you see. Now instead of reloading, press 2 to switch to your pistol and 3 to switch back to a shotgun. It will pick a shotgun that's already loaded every time, and this gives shotguns excellent DPS early-game at the cost of inventory slots. If you tossed your pistol, fear not, you can just use the mouse wheel (if you have one) to select fists then switch back to a shotgun.

• If you get Son of a Gun, good luck, because while this can and does definitely work, you're playing on an extra layer of hard mode now, and you're more likely to die by getting unlucky. With at least two levels of SoG, if you hit a Former once, use an aimed shot to finish it off. If you get Dualgunner, aimed shots will take out formers in one attack semi-reliably. Get all 3 levels of Son of a Gun before anything else if you go this route. This is realistically your only option in Angel of Marksmanship.

• If you get Brute, get Berserker. Being able to go berserk can save your life even if you need to run because of the resistances and action speed it grants you.

Fast Movespeed

This is by far the most safe and reliable strategy: get two levels of Hellrunner first and use a shotgun for DPS. Obviously, your damage will be lower out the gate, but Hellrunner gives you so much safety over the long run it's not even funny. By far the biggest hurdle to reaching the rest of the game is survival, and Hellrunner will allow you to outrun Demons without switching tactics to Running as long as you're wearing green armor or lighter, especially as a Scout, and if you do start Running, outrunning them will be trivial. In addition, two levels of Hellrunner gives you an extra 30% chance to dodge attacks while sidestepping. This works independently of enemy Accuracy, but only if you're sidestepping as you move - basically, don't run directly at an enemy's line of fire or directly away from it and you'll roll a chance to dodge. This does basically nothing against formers, who can't really be dodged unless you have Dodgemaster, but against imps, hell knights, cacodemons, and Barons of Hell? You will dodge against those enemies 80% of the time at minimum. Your dodge chance is then capped if you start Running.

Combined together, those stats mean you can now play ring around the rosie using columns and clusters of boxes. Without Hellrunner, if you take a step around a corner of a box cluster while an enemy is at the other corner, you'll take a step and that enemy will take a step forward and still be able to see you. They may even get to attack afterward, and you will NOT get to dodge because the last thing you did from that enemy's PoV was stand perfectly still. With Hellrunner 2, however, you're basically always moving at Running speed. Eventually, you will be able to move and move and move, and then on one of those moves you'll be out of the enemy's vision, which can give you time to reload your weapon, and possibly even enough time to take a step toward that enemy, which gives you a successful dodge roll, which causes them to hit themselves with their own attack as it collides with the wall you were just behind. Risky, but hilarious! It's even more reliable if you're Running.

Because of this trick, you can play Bugs Bunny with the barons of hell, hell knights, and cacodemons. You can even use this trick to make pinkies forget they ever saw you and go running off somewhere else!

Because of how good Hellrunner 2 is, you don't even really need Dodgemaster unless your build calls for it specifically. Once you get Hellrunner 2, it's better to start up your DPS path right away rather than delay it another level. Otherwise, you won't have enough DPS to kill the enemies this doesn't work against.

Fast Intuition

This is mainly an option for Scouts, but can also be used by other classes as a hybrid of Fast DPS by taking Eagle Eye 1/2 first, then taking Intuition 1/2 next. Scouts, however, are the creme de la creme of this option, since they can just go Intuition at level 1 and 2. Now that you always know if there's something around every corner, you never have to take any risks you can't afford to handle right now, and you can also avoid blindly shooting into the fog if there's a powerup over there. Being able to sense powerups and know which levers to avoid is such an immense benefit in the first few levels that it can save a run. For that reason, this is an incredible option that can work even through Nightmare! runs.

Once you get Intuition 2, start up a DPS level or two before you dive straight into Hellrunner (if you're allowed).

Good Luck

From there, it's up to you to know your build and how strong it gets and how fast for what to take next! UV is going to test your fundamentals like no other and some builds may sadly stop being viable here unless you theorycraft something amazing. In which case, share your findings! It's always exciting to have more ways to play the game.