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SilverMiner

Chainsaw. What for?

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The most doom wads use chainsaw.

IMO it's underpowered and I get really annoyed when I accidentally pick up it.

 

The dps dealt by chainsaw is less than that of berserk fists.

 

Having chainsaw in my inventory forces me to switch to it first when I want to switch to fists. It's annoying.

 

Guys, any ideas why chainsaw is still being used in wads? Maybe there's a good reason?

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There are many good reasons to use the chainsaw, especially in maps where there is no berserk, or in case the berserk is in a secret which can be overlooked. Also, even with the berserk in your inventory, the chainsaw can be better and faster than a zerked fist, it's just that the circumstances are somewhat specific. Chainsawing a dozen zombies in quick succession is much more comfortable with a chainsaw and just as fast, if not faster. Having said that, Chainsaw pickups are a somewhat rare sight, at least when it comes to the kind of stuff I like to play, in which case the berserk is a lot more common than the chainsaw -if the latter is placed anywhere to begin with. And yeah, if you know there's a berserk in the map, or if you already have one, don't pick up the chainsaw and you'll be just fine.

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It's good against imps, pinkies and lost souls if you don't have berserk. It's also good against all zombies types if you flank them to avoid getting a facefull of buckshot. If you play on Zdoom or other ports that fix the melee collision it works wonders against cacos, pain elementals and revenants aswell. And also against arachnotrons if you're feeling a little bold.

You can save a lot of ammo if you know how and when to use it.

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You can stun-lock mancubi with Chainsaw and save ammo on single Mancubi. Granted that it's not 100% because sometimes, the mancubi will get a shot off. If you're the type like me that saves a lot, that isn't an issue. If you don't like saving too often then it can still be a calculated risk but it can still stun-lock them and kill them without you taking any damage 5 out of 6 times.

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1 minute ago, HorrorMovieGuy said:

 If you play on Zdoom or other ports that fix the melee collision it works wonders against cacos, pain elementals and revenants aswell.

None of these monsters belong on the very short list of things that are difficult to punch with vanilla hitboxes. Mancs are tricky, Trons are hard to punch, and SMMs can only be punched reliably if stuck, everything else is trivial to hit, cyberdemons included.

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Pinkies.

At least in the original WADs, I think that's the main use, other than being forced to use it when you have no ammo.

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3 hours ago, SilverMiner said:

The most doom wads use chainsaw.

 

I'm not sure about this. Maybe old doom wads from the 90s such as Requiem, otherwise chainsaw pickups are actually not very common in modern/contemporary wads and even then they appear for specific tasks or generally in early maps in mapsets, and the incidental large or sprawling map with every other weapon around. I could think of popular examples like Resurgence or Sunlust, which give at the most one chainsaw that's superfluous to the context, or Skillsaw's two megawads where the rare chainsaw has a good purpose, and I bet in Eviternity they're just as sparse as well. 

 

IMO chainsaw and berserk shouldn't coexist in the same map unless in specific situations, like one is the "right tool for X" and the other is bonus, or both have their own separate setups where you can choose which to play first, because generally "saving ammo" is a goal you can achieve with just one assuming it's reliable, and most people would find "comfort" with berserk over chainsaw. I agree the double switch can be a little annoying when you want to use the fist, though quickly pressing the key twice is not that huge of a deal.

 

Reasons to place chainsaw in your maps are plenty enough to make them useful. NIH mentioned an interesting quick task that I don't see implemented that often, if ever, maybe I'll make a map where you chainsaw zombies in succession. You can put a single set piece for the chainsaw that isn't reduced to corner-camping pinkies if you add hazards to keep players moving. It's always nice to unpack a chainsaw to cut skulls to half that belonged to a pain elemental, who's also there to be sawed as well. Limited ammo and high-HP monsters where the solution requires selecting targets and unraveling other parts of progression are good combos if done well, a recent example of this is in Nova III. Although there's not a whole pool of options to do with "required chainsawing" like with shotguns or RL, that's when the rare chainsaw can add flavor to your variety.

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Chainsaw is great because it means there's a weapon slot that can be freely modded into something that's actually useful :^)

 

I actually love the saw, I feel like it's one of the most iconic Doom weapons. It's the great communicator, man! It's fun as hell sawing through waves of pinkies or low-tier fodder using that beast.

 

This complaint is pretty valid for DM maps, though. It's fine if there's a saw tucked off to the side somewhere it can easily be avoided, but if it's mingling with the other guns in the middle of a combat zone, picking it up and being gimped for a second by the weapon switching animation is an utter pain in the ass.

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1 hour ago, Saltman said:

It's the ultimate weapon against Pain Elementals.

Nothing more satisfying than rushing Pain Elementals with the chainsaw, killing them, and then telefragging the Lost Souls they spawn as they die.

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Chainsaws are both a useful weapon for carving out lower tier (and even higher if you got the skill) enemies in maps without berserk and an amazing prop to go with certain scenes mappers create (mainly gory/nature scenes), they can also make for good Pinky ambush encounters.

 

I always make sure I place a chainsaw, you never know how useful it can be.

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I find the classic chainsaw to be a very useful tool for not wasting ammunition on Zombiemen and Pinkies. Zombiemen melt like butter under a blowtorch and Pinkies get stun-locked.

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i use chainsaw quite a lot when i'm feeling sawcy.

careful about those pinksters though noxion. they can nom you still. i've been nomed while sawing on them before. it's rare but it happens.

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I only pretty much use it when I don't have berserk to kill off some low level demons, or even a Revenant sometimes, however I do agree that a berserk punch does the job much better in many cases. There are wads that ruin the fun by giving you a fist replacement that does really good damage and then they throw the underpowered chainsaw on you, doesn't happen that much but if you do that to me I won't forget.

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2 hours ago, versionfiv said:

careful about those pinksters though noxion. they can nom you still. i've been nomed while sawing on them before. it's rare but it happens.

 

Always step back just enough so you can reach them but they can't reach you. The little bastards can only harm you if your hitboxes are touching, I think?

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Pain locking enemies is the obvious answer. Basically a melee range, ammo-less Chaingun.

 

As long as you have the blockmap bug fixed that is.

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I get very happy in when I get the chainsaw 

Spoiler

in a mapset that replaces the chainsaw with something like the infinite-BFG or rapidfire-rocketlauncher

 

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Cause you cant spell DOOM without Chainsaw.

 

ps: Hit the walls with it, it makes a lovely sound.

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Have you ever sparred with a baron using a chainsaw? It is the ultimate showdown. A crazy, awkward, stupid adrenaline rush. Like playing a game of red hands in a centrifuge and the prize is not dying.

 

Yes, listen to all the people telling you it had an array of uses, yada yada, but its real value is being a ceremonial duelling weapon for idiots.

 

Embrace it when better options are available. It's the best way to die.

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For continuous play of a set, a chainsaw (unlike a berserk pack) carries over. Utilizing infights together with a chainsaw makes it quite the ammo saver, even against high end monsters. In multiplayer cooperative games it becomes extra valuable and superbly effective since you just use one player as the initial attacker so the other can safely chop away once the target is proper tagged onto the decoy.

The more tools the merrier, a chainsaw is one of the least gameplay intrusive things you can place in a map without ruining the balance, yet a very helpful tool on occasions. 

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