Hipster Douche is the farthest I have gotten so far with a Doomed. He was defined, as many hipsters are, by what he did not do rather than what he did: He turned up his nose at the Shadows tree, disdained Gestures as a waste of effort, and forwent magic in favor of maintaining a Zigan lifestyle. He eschewed the Vault, ostensibly in favor of organic, locally sourced artifacts, but really there was nothing in there he could use. He took the Fears tree ironically, and then doubled down on that irony by sinking another category point into it.
(I was unable to squeeze in any jokes about kale, skinny jeans or the "warm sound" of vinyl records. My apologies.)
The early game went smooth enough. I was worried that not having shadows to distract my enemies would leave me too vulnerable, but it was not a problem. Flamewrought provided some solid pew-pew to back up my fledgling Hate attacks. Eye of the Dreaming One found it's way into my tool slot and never left. (Side note: Withering Orbs are so incredibly bad. When I first started playing I thought they were amazing, now I look at them, even as a doomed/cursed/solipsist and just think, "I'd rather have a restful/grounding copper amulet.")
Transitioning into T2 was nerve-wracking. I kept waiting to run into the wall I usually do with Doomed, where it's all been fun and games until I hit an actual challenge and fold up like an old wallet, but Old Forest/Lake of Nur were pretty gentle. (Alt Lake, but only one boiling horror to be found.) Eventually I realized I had somehow gotten past the point where you have to run around cringing at everything and somehow managed to become a dude who did pretty respectable damage.
I had thought that skipping Gestures and only having access to crappy Doomed generic trees would mean generics to spare, but between AM, Mindstar Mastery and Harmony, I was hurting. I do not at all regret AM though, as Antimagic Shield soaked up a ton of damage as things went on and Aura of Silence was vital in Melinda's crypt. Vital for popping Timeless anyway. "Elven blood mage is silenced! Elven blood mage casts Timeless. Elven blood mage is no longer silenced." Dunno how you cast a spell while silenced but whatever.
Melinda 1 was very good to the Douche, providing both the Face of Fear and the Writhing Essence of Nightmares lying on the floor within a few steps of each other, almost as if to say "Hey, Fears wasn't a complete waste of your time!" However, this was not true. Even with 1.6 mastery, there was never a point where inflicting a maybe-useful Fears debuff was worth taking out a turn from more useful skills that inflict the "dead" debuff.
He finally met his end in Dreadfell to a skeleton archer archer-type rare, first with a Steady Shot crit that obliterated Deflection all by itself and then with two Shoots in a row. I am not sure how he got both Shoots off before I could react, maybe with a recursion weapon. In any case, the death was entirely preventable; I had a decent healing infusion that was off cooldown, but I didn't use use it because, I don't know, stupidity I guess.
Some thoughts:
Doomed have pretty good AoE and no problems with friendly fire, which was handy.
Doomed have to put up with some truly obnoxious RNG in just about every part of their kit. Shadows run around, blink all over the place and pick fights like belligerent hobos. Darkness spreads where it pleases. Even with Force of will and Punishments, the safer trees, you still have uncomfortable questions like "Is Unseen Force going to knock that rare into my face where I definitely don't want it?" and "Hateful Whisper...how does it work?" Regardless, I built for reliability this run and it was a lot more fun than I've had before with Doomed.
The healmod penalty from Unnatural Body is crippling early game, but mostly a non-factor once the Hate starts flowing more freely. When I play afflicted, the artifacts I'm looking for most are the Girdle of the Calm Waters and the Ring of Growth. Together they counter the penalty and I can breathe easier.