2-BFG-shot cyberdemon kill

dew said:

Right. When someone mentions regularly killing masterminds in one shot, what they're actually saying is "I use Zdoom and I don't even know the difference."

That is exceedingly true. I know for a fact I can't drop masterminds with 1 blast in vanilla or prboom often at all but it is almost easy in ZDoom, gee-zee-doom, ZanSkull, and ZDaemon.

Jimi said:

Me too.. I also shot a cacodemon with one plasma shot and pain elemental with one rocket...

That's nothing. I kill several cybies a day with my bare fists.

Jimi said:

Me too.. I also shot a cacodemon with one plasma shot and pain elemental with one rocket...

With only one shot, neither another weapon before used nor deh cheat. ;)

ducon said:

With only one shot, neither another weapon before used nor deh cheat. ;)

Easy.

With one shot: by setting off a barrel chain reaction, or simply starting an infighting.

With no shots: activating a squasher, or simply causing infighting by moving.

TheCupboard said:

That is exceedingly true. I know for a fact I can't drop masterminds with 1 blast in vanilla or prboom often at all but it is almost easy in ZDoom, gee-zee-doom, ZanSkull, and ZDaemon.

Yeah, years ago I did some back-of-envelope calculations (which broadly agreed with empirical testing). With an arbitrary angle of attack, a perfectly aimed BFG shot will kill a mastermind 3% of the time in Doom2.exe and executables that don't alter its behaviour. For those that "fix" the blockmap behaviour, that percentage becomes 62% (this may be slightly changed again if a different RNG is used).

With vanilla bahaviour, you can increase the chances (I recall claims of about 40% chance) by attacking squarely from a N, S, E or W direction, if you can work that out in the heat of battle. If by some set-piece you can guarantee the spider being within a single block on the blockmap, then you get the full 62% chance.

The blockmap behaviour makes slightly less difference in the case of the cyberdemon, but is still significant. With vanilla behaviour, there is a chance that two perfectly-aimed BFG shots will not kill the cyberdemon, which clearly affects the degree of danger the player is facing, and the amount of fancy footwork that may be required.

Of course, there is the inevitable discussion about Zdoom's "fixing" of a "bug". The consequence in this case is to make the game's top two enemies far easier and safer to kill than the makers of the game intended (as their testing was done with the original behaviour). It also removes an additional source of randomness and uncertainty, ingredients that can increase the replayability of a game and the role of advanced skills on the part of the player.

Well, the Spider Mastermind was a crappy boss to begin with. Whether it's killed outright or severely crippled by one point-blank BFG shot, doesn't really matter, neither whether a cybie can be killed in 2 or 3 shots guaranteed if you take a risk.

Don't forget that Doom also had nearly "rule-breaking" evolution of its controls among the community: nobody anticipated always-on running, novert, super-efficient WASD+mouse controls, SR50, rocket jumping etc.

Maybe there should be a new COMPET-N category: "vanilla controls" meaning keyboard only or non-WASD+mouse usage of the mouse, no novert, no SR50, no rocket jumping.

Maes said:

"vanilla controls" meaning keyboard only or non-WASD+mouse usage of the mouse

Seriously, someone should finally put that myth to rest.

Maes said:

Maybe there should be a new COMPET-N category: "vanilla controls" meaning keyboard only or non-WASD+mouse usage of the mouse, no novert, no SR50, no rocket jumping.

Yeah, go ahead and propose it. Maybe someone will not laugh at you.

I think I started practising two-shotting cybers when I saw Belial talking about it. IMO, it's the most satisfying kill (followed by two-shotting revenants with ssg). Very reliable unless you get really screwed by the blockmap. I think it's awesome because they're dangerous monsters but you can kill them within seconds, so you can use them much more often than just as bosses. I try for a two-shot whenever possible, and try to change up the "dance" by dodging rockets from different sides, to try to be better prepared if I have to improvise.

I'm okay at it. I try, but I don't obsess over it. I just try to get as close as I can, but I don't dance around a ton waiting for the perfect moment, I just go for it. If I get him in 2 shots, cool. If it takes 3 or 4, that's fine too. If it takes more than 4 I start to feel like a fat kid in a game of dodgeball.

Demon of the Well said:

I do this a lot, I'm even fairly good at it vs. two simultaneous cybers (although more than that is really pushing it). I'd say there is some nominal element of luck involved in trying it in certain kinds of environments (e.g. hallways vs. courtyards), but timing the shot and the charge right usually limits risk to an acceptable degree. When I screw it up, usually it's because the cyberdemon manages to resist pain-stun and resumes firing even as the impact is pushing him backwards.

this. trying to berserk-punch a cyber to death is a good training for this, as you have to do the same movement: run at him diagonally (sidestepping his rockets while closing in), fire the bfg the moment he fires his second rocket, and you're right in front of him when he has fired his third. boom. it's pretty fun when a bfg throws him off a ledge. however, the dumb ox will just resume firing sometimes, preferably when the rest of the run had been good so far. against two of them, use one to block the other's rockets? i like two-shotting them whenever i can, also save the game before and repeat it a few times when i like the map.

dew said:

Yeah, go ahead and propose it. Maybe someone will not laugh at you.

And maybe someone will say "Now THAT'S a challenge!" and shut your (and others') mouth(s). You never know what kinds of buttons challenge/competition can push in a man.

Besides, that's not the first time I proposed "segregated controls" COMPET-N leagues. E.g. some people claim that they can play equally well with a gamepad or with a mouse without WASD and without novert. Well, I say, let them prove it. Let them record demos made with those restrictions in place (because that's what they are, in the end) and see how they fare against "unrestricted controls".

Truth be said, there's at least a known pure keyboarder COMPET-N record holder, whatever that might tell about pure keyboard controls. But without controlled conditions, we can never be sure now, can we?