Most and Least versatile IWAD monsters?

What do you think are the most and least versatile IWAD (Doom,Heretic,Hexen,Strife etc...) monsters?

Imps. Imps can be popcorn enemies you can kill off in groups with a Rocket Launcher or a BFG. Imps can be tanks if you only have a pistol. Imps can be long-range nuisances up on ledges. Imps even have limited melee capabilities. 

They are essentially the jack-of-all-trades monster, which is why they are so common in the original IWADs and most PWADs.

Mastermind must be the least versatile, she's as wide as a house, and generally needs a large section of the map designed specifically for her to be effective in any way

Most: Revs

Least: Mastermind

I share the same opinions from others about Doom monsters, the imp sometimes feels overused but it is true that fits everywhere, and the spider is drastically underrated and usually avoided for multiple reasons, one of them is her size. I would also add the SS Nazi as the least versatile, it doesn't fit anywhere except in secret maps, joke wads, or specific random (humorous) situations.

As for Heretic, the equivalent to the imp is the nitrogargoyle, also small targets potentially annoying due to their flying ability, but practically harmless fireballs and melee attack, more than the imp. The least versatile... well, D'Sparil on its dragon is the only one I can think of. It's a boss enemy and unlike cyberdemons and spiderdemons, every other monster alive in the map dies upon its death (if IIRC), so it can't be used randomly in, for example, a slaughtermap. It would be the equivalent to the icon of sin. 

10 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Most: Revs

Yeah but revs don't go as well as imps on, for example, wide ledges where they can move freely. Revs will laugh at your rocket launcher, imps generally won't have a chance.

I had this written shortly after the thread was started but hadn't gotten around to posting it: 

- Revenants: Can be tactically interesting to fight in small numbers and in large numbers. On their lonesome or complementing other species. Fight them with the shotgun or the BFG or anything in between. As part of light challenges or more strenuous ones. They are skinny with a pass-through head, and that compact hitbox allows them to maneuver freely around other monsters and fit into tight spaces. 

- Spider mastermind: The environment really needs to be tailor made for masterminds, a lot more so than every other monster. Huge hitboxes; clumsy interplay with other monsters, whether maneuvering or with infighting.

44 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Yeah but revs don't go as well as imps on, for example, wide ledges where they can move freely. Revs will laugh at your rocket launcher, imps generally won't have a chance.

That is a pretty specific case. Imps and revenants are both pretty versatile, but the revenant has a wider variety of uses when you want to design challenging scenarios. 

I think Cacos (Doom 1) and revs (Doom2) win it for each game. Imps can be placed almost everywhere but it is almost always fodder and they get kicked to the backseat for hell knights a lot in doom2.

most versatile: Barons. they have goat legs and can climb anything

least versatile: Spider Mastermind. legs are made out of metal that could shear clean off on a difficult ascent

Lol outside game limits a mastermind would probably crush through walls,stairs and move while shooting. Way stronger than most demons.

Doom 1:

Most versatile - Imp. It can serve so many purposes. It be in hordes, it can be on ledges, it can be in close quarters combat etc.. Simple monster with simple attack pattern yet can be very deadly to the player.

Least versatile - Spider Mastermind. Yea I agree with the others. You need to design the area/map specifically in order to achieve an effective Spider Mastermind fight.

Doom 2:

Most versatile - Archvile. This guy can fill so many roles whether a boss, area of denial, high priority in a firefight, resurrection of monsters(including infinite towers), create ghost monsters, it can obscure the player's view and it can vile-jump. Fast, hard to kill and deadly, just in general a well designed monster.

Least versatile - Arachnotron. I absolutely love the Arachnotron, it's a good monster but I feel like it can only serve one purpose and that is being generally a sniper monster. Technically it can be used as a monster which can block the player due to its large hitbox, but I think they really shine as a far away ledge/sniper foe.

Heretic:

Most versatile - Disciples. Mid-tier monster that can fly, has a good attack pattern and can cause plenty of damage. Drops ammo and occasionally a Tome of Power.

Least versatile - It was a tie between the Sabreclaw and the Weredragon but I chose the Weredragon. Looks cool, large and intimidating but when you actually fight them, they're just weak and lame. No melee attack, relatively low HP for this sort of monster, weak projectile attack. Yes it's fast and it can be hard to see in caves but the low mass causes it to be pushed back pretty consistently and it's not strong enough to be a real threat. Can be easily replaced with an Undead Warrior.

Hexen:

Most versatile - Was a tie between the Slaughtaur and the Reiver but I went with the Slaughtaur. 

Least versatile - That would be obviously the Stalkers for the simple reason that they're limited to only be used in waters.

Most versatile: Revenants, just like Imps but tougher and more annoying. They are like that "tough skinny motherfucker" kind of enemy in brawling games -they come by the truckload, are as common as garden weeds, yet you can never truly underestimate them or dismiss them with no real danger to yourself, and the damage they can do individually is always significant.

Whether they gang up in your face, throw you a sucker punch here and there or even shank/backstab you (with a rogue homing missile), you must always be on your toes when those guys are around, which may mean "all the time" depending on how liberal their usage is.

Least versatile: Commander Keens, obviously. They are so un-versatile that you can only use them in one specific map slot, literally (well, at least if you want their death to mean something....)

13 minutes ago, Maes said:

Least versatile: Commander Keens, obviously. They are so un-versatile that you can only use them in one specific map slot, literally (well, at least if you want their death to mean something....)

You can use them in any map slot and their death special (open 666-tagged doors) will still work.

1 hour ago, Maes said:

Least versatile: Commander Keens, obviously. They are so un-versatile that you can only use them in one specific map slot, literally (well, at least if you want their death to mean something....)

52 minutes ago, scifista42 said:

You can use them in any map slot and their death special (open 666-tagged doors) will still work.

Which makes Keens more versatile, particularly for doing things in vanilla that you wouldn't normally be able to do.

Most versatile: Probably the zombies. Like the imp, he can be used almost anywhere, and they can give the player some extra ammo where simples item would suffice, but without that extra challenge. Even in later maps. In the case of the shotgun guy and chaingunner, it's a way to give the player a new weapon without having to put one on the ground.

For Heretic, I might go with the undead warriors (not so much the ghost form). The weredragons can be useful because of the 10 arrows it sometimes drops. Another very useful monster is the gargoyle, though they're mostly for the nuisance factor.

As for Hexen, most of the monsters seem to be useful on their own. I can't really think of one that's the most useful.

Least versatile: The spider mastermind obviously. Sure, you need to make a massive area to house the monster, that's not the only problem with it. It has a huge hitbox, but it will only start shooting at you when it's center sees you. In the case of E3M8, you can go to the center pylon where the plasma rifle is, wait for it to get close, and unload on it when all you can see are its legs. This monster is really only good when it's far away from you or when there's very little cover (i.e. when you have to run across its line of fire to collect something or hit a switch and you have insufficient firepower). Even then, it's kind of hard to get this to work just right.

A close second might be Korax. However, he becomes more useful due to the endless variety of scripts one can come up with for him to use during the fight.

Another tough monster to use properly is the death wyvern. This thing needs a huge area so that it won't get stuck on a wall, but the heavy damaging napalm-like attack makes up for it. Also, once it's active, it will fire at its target even when that target is behind a wall. The easiest way to go is to use one mapspot for the start which references another one which references itself. This way it will loop around in a fairly tight circle (or sometimes a figure 8 when it goes in the other direction).

As for D'Sparil, you definitely can't use more than one of them in a map at once. Once one dies, the other one dies too, unless the other is still on the serpent. In which case, he just goes to his non-serpent form.

1 hour ago, Uni said:

 

Least versatile - That would be obviously the Stalkers for the simple reason that they're limited to only be used in waters.

 

 

Nothing beside theme stops anyone from placing them on rocks and sand. Specter them and they are way more spammable. 

I'm going to go again with revenants. Their decent health and multiple attack patterns can make them a reasonable choice for almost any combat situation. They're not always the best choice, but they work.

Least useful I'll have to go with the spider mastermind. Not much to say about that that hasn't already been said.

1 hour ago, Pegleg said:

 

Which makes Keens more versatile, particularly for doing things in vanilla that you wouldn't normally be able to do.

But does it make them more versatile than the Spider Mastermind, that is the question... they don't normally shoot, but at least they don't take a crapton of space.

1 hour ago, Maes said:

But does it make them more versatile than the Spider Mastermind, that is the question... they don't normally shoot, but at least they don't take a crapton of space.

OK, so then there is a distinction between versatility from the perspective of a player vs. the perspective of a mapper. As a player, if it can't do something to another actor or can only do something in a very limited way, it's not terribly versatile. From a mapper's perspective, if you can't use it in multiple ways to do multiple things, then it's not versatile.

So, as a player, the most versatile monster is probably the chaingunner, the demon, or the baron.

• The chaingunner, as a hitscanner, can deal out punishment from a distance and fires quickly. Furthermore, since it fires bullets, it will willing attack anything, even other chaingunners, so they would be more flexible in who they would infight against. As such, they could make a nice shield.
• The demon, particularly in a horde, will happily chomp down on anything and can deal out a lot of damage during infighting, especially (again) in groups. So, another nice shield.
• The baron of hell is relatively fast and tough and has both melee and projectile attacks, so it can attack at multiple ranges. It can also take a great deal of punishment while dishing it out.

As a player, the least versatile monster is either the Commander Keen or Romero's Head. Neither can attack. Neither can move. From a player's perspective, they're pretty well useless, except that killing them in the levels they're in is typically necessary.

As a mapper, the most versatile monster is probably the chaingunner, revenant, or archvile.

• Chaingunners have the advantage of being hitscanners with high firing rates, so you can put them up close or far away and they can be deadly either way. Look at the distant chaingunners near the beginning of Map 29 of Doom 2.
• Revenants have homing projectiles (so a ranged attack) as well as a melee attack, so they can deal damage to the player in multiple ways. They're also rather quick, so they're dangerous, particularly in packs. Or you can put them on a ledge, where they would make a rather effective turret, owing to the higher hitpoints.
• Arch-viles are fast, have high hitpoints, a strong attack that includes splash damage, and they can resurrect other monsters. You probably don't want to make a map entirely of arch-viles, but you could use them in any number of ways. Unique among the monsters, they can even be the "healer" that gets released later in the level and resurrects monsters you've already killed so they can menace you again.

As a mapper, the least versatile monster is the Spider Mastermind. She's BIG, so the space where she can be deployed has to be similarly BIG. Even bigger if you wanted to have more than one present (which would defeat the purpose of being THE MASTERMIND, and thus unique, but I digress). So, the space where you could properly deploy the Mastermind and have it be a deadly encounter is limited. I suppose you could put them on a turret, but it would have to be a rather large turret. Or you could put them at the end of a long hallway that you have to run down to get from one door to another (and have there be sparse cover). Overall, not the most versatile monster. The arachnotron and mancubus are also big, but not as big, so you can use them in more places, making them more versatile.

I'd have to agree with everyone else on here, that Arch-Viles,Revenants, Imps, and Chaingunners are the most versatile, with the Spider Mastermind being the least.

However, iirc Dwango5 used the Cyberdemon as a sort of map hazard in one of its maps, so I'm willing to bet a similar use could be found for the mastermind in a deathmatch map.

Doom:

I will say Hell Knights are the most versatile (how original of me). They have a good speed, they throw fireballs, they do melee damage and if used as a group, they can be really strong.

And agreed on Mastermind for less versatile.

Heretic:

Ophidian / Weredragon: Ophidian is very versatile. You have to kill them immediately and you need to dodge their attack chain. Also, they have a stronger attack, so it will take more than just moving around them to dodge and kill them. Pretty good area denial.

And the Weredragon is a cool looking tank. Also, he feels like he should. Good damage and ideal health for his size and movement speed. Can't have an IWAD without a proper tank.

I guess Sabreclaw is the least versatile. Just put him somewhere in a group and hope that he threatens the player a bit (the only use I found in him is that he made me fear him a bit, with his awful screeching sound).

Hexen: 

Dark Bishop: This guy is fun. He is not limited by space, as he flies around and he has a chain of semi homing attacks (if that's what you can call it). And he explodes on death.

Heresiarch / Stalker: I have never seen a Heresiarch battle that is unique. It is just: 1) Place Heresiarch in room (a huge room is good or choose a small room if you want to piss off the player and force him to doorcamp), 2) Play Peek a Boo and shoot when shields are down (or throw the Cleric flechettes in front of him, if you don't care about playing fair), 3) Kill him and run away from the explosion. I thought it was a great battle at first, but now I get bored just by thinking it (Korax was better). And the Stalker is an annoying monster that slows you down for no reason and is only found in water. I always hated it when I stumbled upon one, while running full speed and slowed down to a snail's craw.

Shall we talk about Strife too? Because I still haven't finished it, but I think I would recommend the normal hitscanners or the ones with the flamethrowers for versatile monsters. Or the countless drones with super heavy weapons.

Spiders and turrets are less versatile. And it sucks when a spider falls on your head (why???).