[ANSWERED] Why Revenants are an ideal choice for slaughterwad mappers?

EDIT: This thread has been answered, thank you, Doom professionals! Please stop bumping this thread now. Thank you again.

Many slaughterwads I played featured a shitloads of revenants, even on first two/three maps of those wads. They are annoying, their attacks are deadly, and they can be ear-rapers sometimes.
So why do slaughterwad mappers like to use them?
(sorry if this have been asked before)

I think you answered your own question.

Lol.

6 minutes ago, HorrorMovieGuy said:

They are fast, their missiles home in, they have a powerful melee attack, and they have a decent amount of health(sturdy, but not too much that they become a chore to kill like the Barons), and their pain chance is high enough that you can stun lock them quite easily despite their perks. All of that lend itself well to the run and gun nature of Doom. I do think their missiles could do less damage, and their very versatile nature ironically is what makes them overused, but they are indeed one of the better designed enemies in Doom from a gameplay perspective. And hey, they're skeletons, how cool is that.

Also they're skeletons with a cool punching sound effect.

Yes, it also seems to me that those heaps of demonic junk are a headache, especially if they are in remote places and high (which in my opinion are the most crappy places that can be put). Although in open areas and with groups of 10 or more, trying to dodge their projectiles, moving laterally and crouch at the right time, of course, that if you have the super shotgun or minigun. sometimes, even, it's fun to fight them in hand-to-hand battles, if you have the berserk in possession, why of course! A revenant will never hesitate in a fight melee! ... well, at least until you make him angry and resentful shoots you that foul sulfur.
I'm not a mapper, but I think the encounters that I described against those bony ones are the most satisfactory, because the idea of putting them more than 300 meters away from you and at a really uncomfortable height (especially if you have the "freelook" deactivated in departures vanilla) leaves a very bad taste in your mouth. I know that DOOM should not be an easy game, but there is a difference between putting an enemy strategically and putting it in a very uncomfortable place. that's my opinion.

sorry for my english-google translate ☺

Literally the only thing I hate about revs is how noise inducing they are. Rd covered most things already, so I'll just add that revenants are an extremely versatile monster overall (hence they're being used a lot regardless of genre), which also allows for some seriously gimmicky challenges that were otherwise entirely impossible to make. If there's anything about them that I would maybe change, aside of the sound when they go "live", it's the RNG-range on their homing missiles to make them work more reliably in smaller quantities, basically prevent top-end rolls from being overly crippling, and make bottom rolls less forgiving.

Revenants are basically glass cannons. They're fast, aggressive, deal high-damage whether its from their projectile attack or with their melee strike and can be placed anywhere since they're small and can be used for both sniping duties and close quarters but they're also extremely vulnerable with only 300 hitpoints and a high pain chance which makes them easily fall to the more powerful weapons available.

Annoying? Sometimes.

Fun to fight? Always.

Also one of the few monsters that can use stairs fairly capably without getting stuck.

they're fun to berserk and sometimes they kill you which is an aspect of Doom 2 I really like

I find Revenants second to Archviles on the threat scale (not counting the two rare "boss" behemoths). Their attacks are terribly hard to dodge (but not as critically so as Archvile attacks) and tend to add up into nuclear loads when fired several times. Their tiny hitbox and huge speed makes the SSG terribly ineffective against them, and 300 hitpoints is significant if you want to use better weapons, such as the chaingun. And by Murphy's law, it always happens that the hit I take deals me full 80% damage.

In short, they really raise the difficulty level of the area they're in. I'd say that on the threat scale, the Archviles are higher than them, and just below them are the Mancubi with their erratic high-damage attacks (Arachnotrons are too easy to block and attract all attention, Chaingunners too low on HP and Pain Elementals too easy to counter).

Arch Viles are better. Especially if you want to do some island hopping.

7 hours ago, rdwpa said:

It's important too that half of their projectiles don't home. This is a lot of why 'revenant-only' setups are seen as often as they are -- the missiles that keep going straight will intercept your figure-eight pattern or whatever and prevent you from just mindlessly evading the homers

I was gonna say "really they should fire one homing and one normal with each attack" but then I realized that would mean if you randomly strayed near a revenant while it was firing you could end up taking 160 damage before you knew what was happening, which would be hilarious a bit unfair.

Not only slaughter-maps. As example in my maps I've put in ambush closet 3 revenants and 1 arch-vile behind them. Also there are some crates/pillars in area for use it as cover.

one interesting thing that doesn't get covered frequently with revenants: They're much more likely to try to attack than most monsters in the game (roughly twice as much up to a certain distance), which helps make them feel more interesting in my eyes. Monsters like barons frequently feel way too reluctant to attack, limiting their offensive value.

They're a necessary evil. AAAAAAAAAA!

Because it's the best way to make  a difficult map when you are lazy. I don't necessarly talk about slaughtermaps.

Well their attack is still annoying as it has been since the beginning. Sometimes the rockets home in, sometimes they don't. There's a thread here from 2007 with people discussing it in more detail, but what matters is that in the game it's annoying as fuck to get hit by it. Random is fun the first couple of times, not the next 100 times. I bet speedrunners hate them with a passion. At least I would if a random element was involved.

36 minutes ago, pulkmees said:

I bet speedrunners hate them with a passion. At least I would if a random element was involved.

I can think of counter-examples. Maaaaaybe there's at least one above you in this thread.

I'm not a speedrunner myself but I love them with a passion. In fact, if I play a slaughter map, I'm desperate for when they are coming, because there're few things as good as pumping rockets into a bone wall or SSG juggling between two revenants in a tight spot. The only thing that makes me wince is when they all scream in unison, but I learned to appreciate this expression of tough love.

Time to bring back a classic. Warning volume:

On 2/24/2019 at 8:30 PM, pulkmees said:

f a random element was involved

revenant rocket homing is absolutely non-random: it depends only from current game tic. not that it matter much for human player, tho. ;-)

Well yeah, that's what I mean it's random if you aren't a robot, which I assume most...people aren't.

I should also say I was thinking of revenants in close quarters and firing at different times for them to get to their max annoyance. The timing of getting that homing missile just when you try to go past a door. I'd definitely rage.

as for me, i developed almost perfect timing sence for revenant rockets: in vast majority of cases i am loosing my temper and looking around a corner just in time to get a rocked straight in my face. for most other projectiles i can wait for hit sound, but revenant rockets are strangely special.

1 hour ago, ketmar said:

as for me, i developed almost perfect timing sence for revenant rockets: in vast majority of cases i am loosing my temper and looking around a corner just in time to get a rocked straight in my face. for most other projectiles i can wait for hit sound, but revenant rockets are strangely special.

The fact that they are slower than most projectiles means that you have to wait longer for the hit sound, but it also makes it possible to avoid them.

yay. somehow the fact that they're slower than other projectiles never occured to me. i knew that, of course, but never connected that to my "timing glitch". so that's why my timing is bad: i am waiting "just enough" for faster projectile to hit! tnx.

On 2/24/2019 at 12:11 AM, Lila Feuer said:

They're a necessary evil. AAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAAAAA! yourself......

Just now, Master O said:

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAA! yourself......

.........

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

14 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

.........

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Shoutouts to @Era Di Cate:

I'll just leave this here which I feel is relevant to this thread :P