Revenants, the most annoying enemy in the game.

One thing I really like about the revenant (In addition to Doom 2 monsters in general) is that it's homing missiles force you to act differently when avoiding its attacks than Doom 1 monsters, who fire straightforward single projectiles. When an imp, hell baron, or cacodemon throw a fireball at you, you literally take one step to the side to evade it, taking extra steps as more monsters come at you. At this point in Doom 1, every experienced player knows you can take any monster at any time by circle strafing.

Revenants are different in that you have to guide its missile into a wall or into an opposing monster, lest it hunt you down. To guide the missile into something, I usually wait patiently until the missile gets close, then move forward while sidestepping to give the missile the largest turning circle possible before it can swing back at me or collide with something. Sometimes your faced with tough decisions when you're waiting for that missle to get close, and an imp is throwing a fireball at the same time. Do you take the fireball in consolation to getting blown up, or do you instinctively move out of the way and lose control of the missile?

Other monsters such as The Mancubus, which fires volleys of high damaging fireballs at varying angles makes them at some times, unpredictable and restricts your movement at the expense of health. These guys are also really good at preventing circle strafing. These guys are the worst with Partial Invisibility!

Pain Elementals too, which attack you with lost souls, forcing you to have to evade its lost soul attacks, while shooting the lost souls before they overpopulate the room.

Archviles are also dangerous and use an attack that isn't easy to evade with repetitive side stepping attacks.

If there's one thing I don't like about the revenant, is the 50-50 chance that the missiles are homing or not. I'd really just prefer one or the other, but not the random ability to do both. But whatever, I still think they're pretty cool. There are times where they are the bitchiest monster I've ever fought. Hell Revealed 2 MAP16 comes to mind, but to me, that's more at fault of the mapper who creates tiny 128x256 rectangle shaped rooms to fight them in, not of the monster's behavior itself. Mappers do need to take concern of the players movement when they make maps that use such dangerous monsters, but I don't think the monster itself is ever at fault.

I find these days that I quite enjoy fighting revenants. I despised them back in the days when I had no method of avoiding their attacks, but when one figures out the turning radius of the homing missiles it's pretty easy to let them veer off and hit a wall behind the player, not to mention herding them into other monsters in larger battles. I also find I have no objection to revenant hordes provided the right circumstances. I have played a lot of maps where hordes of revenants can easily be taken down by a skilled player when there is adequate space, cover and/or opposing demons to slow them down, and have played a lot of maps where 8 million revenants will flood a confined space and leave the player helpless (unless the player is given a BFG and a pile of cell packs, in which case it's just a matter of whether you or the revenants can spam projectiles faster.) I agree that it depends a lot on the mapper, but not that revenant hordes are only proper in very special conditions.

The only enemy that sucks in my book is the Wolfenstein SS, Doom2 would have been a better game without the Wolfenstein resources.

Revenants are cool, the sounds they make when roaming around makes me nervous and keep me on the edge of my seat. A few Archviles combined with a group of Revenants are a deadly force to deal with. Id rather fight several Cyberdemons.

I have to agree with the original post that revenants are easy to abuse in a wad design. It is possible to use packs of revenants if the level design gives some way to deal with the missiles.
If the level has my player trapped in an open room with a bunch of revenants, then I too will abandon playing that (done it too many times already).

I do not avoid them in my level designs, but then I put in lots of corners to snipe at them from. Then it does not matter if there are lots of them. It helps even more if there is a mixture of monster types.

Yea, I finally learned how to duck those homing missiles, but only after years of playing against them, and it does not always work (save game first is recommended).

Try longdays.wad for some revenant fun. You have to avoid the bunch of cyberdemons on the pyramids, and the thing that will get you is some lone homing missile that keeps circling your player forever.

Lost souls are the worst IMO

Jimmy91 said:

These are just some of the reasons why I only use cacodemons sparingly in my maps. :(

C'mon...I cut them down with the chainsaw ;)

I agree that monsters can be abused but, that's no reason to think of the monster as annoying. All monsters are inherently going to bug you by, you know, trying to kill you.

id did a good job of making the action flow and they would pump you up for the battles

wesleyjohnson said:

is possible to use packs of revenants if the level design gives some way to deal with the missiles.

But how often does that actually happen? Most of the time when the level designer decides to put a whole army of them into the same places it just means he/she doesn't know anything about good enemy placement.

I've kicked rev asses with Chainsaws, along with cacos. Before a revenant dies it could punch you twice.

hardcore_gamer said:

But how often does that actually happen? Most of the time when the level designer decides to put a whole army of them into the same places it just means he/she doesn't know anything about good enemy placement.

Well, a 20+ pack of only Revenants indeed sucks balls. If the enemy placement is so Plutonic, I'd place a couple of Barons and/or Mancubi in that place as well. These two are quite effective opponents for the Revs (10 Mancubi and 6 Barons against 20 Revenants does the job well).

I have finished both DV and DV2 (the latter with pistol starting on all maps.I also finished 26 maps of AV.I am near finishing epic2.wad (currently at map 28,also with pistol starting).Needless to say,I played all of these on UV.
My personal opinion on people who think packs of revenants are unfair is that they are crybabies or that their skill is not enough.That's all I had to say.

hardcore_gamer said:
How about you?

I think you should stay away from WADs made by and for skilled players, at least on UV, unless you're a masochist.

Some WADs kick my ass too, but I'm not going to whine about them, or the monsters used in them, like a moaning munchkin because I know there are players who are quite adept against such odds. That's where we can lower the difficulty settings (even down to 2 or 1, if necessary) and then enjoy UV recordings from these DOOM gods once we're done.

Here's my standard countermeasure against Revenant abuse:

Patch File for DeHackEd v3.0

# Note: Use the pound sign ('#') to start comment lines.

Doom version = 19
Patch format = 6

[CODEPTR]
#make the revenant's missile non-homing
FRAME 316 = NULL
FRAME 317 = NULL

Why do that... just so you can tell the pretty next-door blonde you play DOOM on UV? I wouldn't think of applying hacks to cripple the game to manage that unless there are no skill settings and skill 1 is still too tough. I'm glad some authors don't cater to lamers who can't move properly in the game, anyway.

I'm up to MAP20 in Epic 2 (having visited both secret levels), in UV, and so far I haven't seen yet a situation I'd qualify as revenant abuse. They've always been either in little (less than three) groups, or in large groups but stuck on a platform with easy cover and with plenty of rockets at hand to take them out, or in a situation where mass infighting was easy to use to get them killed off by hell knights, cacodemons and mancubuses.

I said 'Revenant abuse'! Meaning, the level contains Revenants in either so high numbers or used in a way that I wouldn't play the level unaltered.

And to be blunt, I am really tired of the dismissive attitude of you and all the other Revenant proponents. There's a magnitude of reasons why one may not like Revenants. Not every person has god-like reflexes that are required to handle many maps out there. I for sure don't and all my movement skills won't help me in such situations because I simply can't react fast enough. In their released form they are unplayable for a signigicant portion of players.

Now, one has two options: ditch it or alter such mods. With option 1 you get nothing out of it, with option 2 you get at least a tamed down version of it. Now, what's the better alternative?

Gez said:

I'm up to MAP20 in Epic 2 (having visited both secret levels), in UV, and so far I haven't seen yet a situation I'd qualify as revenant abuse. They've always been either in little (less than three) groups, or in large groups but stuck on a platform with easy cover and with plenty of rockets at hand to take them out, or in a situation where mass infighting was easy to use to get them killed off by hell knights, cacodemons and mancubuses.

Wait until MAP26 or 27 then... Great fun (... not!)

Graf Zahl said:
And to be blunt, I am really tired of the dismissive attitude of you and all the other Revenant proponents.

The dismissive comments might not make sense taken out of context, as they are said against idiots who assume levels or game features that exceed their skill level on the maximum (normal) difficulty setting are flawed.

Now, one has two options: ditch it or alter such mods. With option 1 you get nothing out of it, with option 2 you get at least a tamed down version of it. Now, what's the better alternative?

No problem as long as it's not combined with shitty complaints at the levels. Asking the authors to cripple UV to suit the skill of these less-than-skilled people would not allow the skilled ones, which are the target audience for the WAD on UV, to play properly. That is why skill levels exist in such a form. Now, if the skill levels aren't balanced, there may be something to complain about, but that is another matter.

myk said:

The dismissive comments might not make sense taken out of context, as they are said against idiots who assume levels or game features that exceed their skill level on the maximum (normal) difficulty setting are flawed.

Ok, seems I misunderstood it. I'm not one of these idiots who doesn't lower the skill if UV turns out too hard.

No problem, as long as it's not combined with shitty complaints at the levels. Asking the authors to cripple UV to suit the skill of these less-than-skilled people would not allow the skilled ones, which are the target audience for the WAD on UV, to play properly. That is why skill levels exist in such a form. Now, if the skill levels aren't balanced, there may be something to complain about, but that is another matter.

Indeed. Sadly, I far too often find that skill levels are not well implemented - and I rarely had to use my patch with those who did use skills properly. I don't even use it that often - but it has salvaged a few mods for me which I would have dumped otherwise.

(I wish Sunder had skills implemented that would make it playable by 'normal' people... :( )

Revenants are definitely the best enemies doom offers in my opinion. I've yet to see a map inducing any rage against these fellows. They are fun, versatile, fast (so they don't block doors/important stuff/corridors etc), weak, skinny (so you can get past of them) and the melee/ranged combo works real nice. And they are good looking. And the sound of cracking bones.

The monsters traditionally seen as annoying are the revenant (homing missiles), the arch-vile (resurrect enemies, find cover and stay behind until the spell is finished) and the pain elemental (spam lost souls like there's no tomorrow). Of those three, arch-viles are the hardest to use well and the easiest to abuse; but when well-used, they are formidable foes. Pain elementals are the least challenging and the least interesting, tactically (though if the lost soul limit is on, it may allow some amusing metagaming). So, if an enemy had to get the "most annoying" crown, that'd be the PE.

Across all Doom-engine games, though, the most annoying is the Hexen centaur.

Hexen's Centaurs are only annoying if you have some sort of ADD and have to kill monsters in a rush, otherwise they add a nice variant to the game (all common non bosses go down with one or two shots from the hammer). I'm surprised you didn't pick the Stalker shooters. I guess you also prefer Heretic over Hexen, not only because of the lack of centaurs.
As I said, in DOOM (and doom engine games) there aren't monsters that by themselves are annoying (like the Blob from Quake), but exist mappers that use them in annoying ways.
In DOOM engine games I think the chaingunner has the biggest potential for annoyance (but it isn't annoying by itself).

Perhaps the spidermastermind is an exception, I find annoying that such kick ass creatures goes down so easy (even without bfg). For mappers perhaps is the one that requires more creativity to use it in good ways (its enormous size doesn't help neither)

Vegeta said:

Hexen's Centaurs are only annoying if you have some sort of ADD and have to kill monsters in a rush, otherwise they add a nice variant to the game (all common non bosses go down with one or two shots from the hammer). I'm surprised you didn't pick the Stalker shooters. I guess you also prefer Heretic over Hexen, not only because of the lack of centaurs.

The Centaurs are fine if you have some nice strong melee weapons like the fighter. Try to kill them with the Mage's wand for a change and probably you might understand why they are annoying. They take forever to kill.

Vegeta said:
(its enormous size doesn't help either)

Fixed that.

it would be better if you could shoot down their missiles, especially when multiple ones start trailing you and forcing you to dodge them, although the player's running speed is fast enough that it isn't a cheap death unless revs are abused

Revenants are annoying, but they look cool. Nuff said.

LOL u mad bro at Revenants?

I guess you haven't played a wad with chaingunner traps....I play on UV fast, and I swear that I only play the game just to get fucked up by chaingunner traps hitscan across the map and 2 seconds you are minced into gibs.

Revenants can be misused but they are a fun enemy to face and add some definition to the game (ypu have to use your mind and put your skills to the test sometimes rather than just circlestrafe 100% of the time).

They can be misused, but I find that they rarely are. (other than in Scythe 2..OH GOD). CHAINGUNNERS are the units you should hate the game fore.

Revenants are one of my favorite doom monsters. They work well in a wide variety of situations, each one providing different strategies.
The SSG, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma gun, and BFG all work well, providing multiple strategies to kill them. They are annoying, but their homing missiles can be avoided by skill. I think the pain elemental is the most annoying monster, especially when the lost souls it spits out go above or around you and start to attack you from behind. Also, without the lost soul limit, it can be extremely difficult to kill a bunch of them in a large open area without a BFG.

Revenants? Most annoying? Nah, you'd have to remove the Archvile from the game for that to be true.

esselfortium said:

I love them :-)

Personally, I always have and always will find the Chaingunner the most annoying enemy in Doom. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate absolute bullshit Chaingunner closets that pretty much rape you instantly, sending you from 200% health and armour to 0% in a matter of seconds.