Revenants, the most annoying enemy in the game.

[hardcore_gamer]

While Doom 2 brought many great new things to the Doom universe, there is one thing it could have left behind completely without me caring one bit: Revenants.

I can barely describe it in words just how much I hate and despise this enemy type. Not because it is a poor enemy per see, but because there is literally no other enemy that can as easily make a custom map/WAD unenjoyable or otherwise frusturating to play when used/placed on the map in a stupid or a unfair way.

This is largely because of the homing missiles. You can walk into a room, and then suddenly you get attacked by lots of monsters including a revenant who starts shooting missiles at you so you try to kill him, except that you can't because the stupid level designer decided to put behind some corner where you can't get to him straight away unless you first pull off some crazy trial and error style movements that allow you to first kill the other monsters before you get blasted into bits so that you can then kill the revenant. Or you are in a empty room that suddenly gets filled with revenants and you can't flee because the doors behind are suddenly locked for some reason and there is no real way to avoid all of the missiles that isn't just based on dumb luck. Or because well you get the idea.

I estimate that something like 70% of all of my rage quits can be blamed on revenants being used in a stupid or a bullshit fashion somehow in the map I am playing. Thus I enjoy maps that have few or no revenants at all the most, hence why I almost never put any of them into my own maps (and when I do I make sure that it is done properly!).

How about you? Do you share my hatred of the dreaded revenant? Discuss!

[esselfortium]

I love them :-)

[bytor]

Revenants are badass!

[Xaser]

Revenants, the most annoying enemy in the game.

I disagree.

[RestlessRodent]

hardcore_gamer said:

While Doom 2 brought many great new things to the Doom universe, there is one thing it could have left behind completely without me caring one bit: Revenants.

I can barely describe it in words just how much I hate and despise this enemy type. Not because it is a poor enemy per see, but because there is literally no other enemy that can as easily make a custom map/WAD unenjoyable or otherwise frusturating to play when used/placed on the map in a stupid or a unfair way.

Play some AV.WAD.

hardcore_gamer said:

This is largely because of the homing missiles.

Missiles are slow.

hardcore_gamer said:

You can walk into a room, and then suddenly you get attacked by lots of monsters including a revenant who starts shooting missiles at you so you try to kill him, except that you can't because the stupid level designer decided to put behind some corner where you can't get to him straight away unless you first pull off some crazy trial and error style movements that allow you to first kill the other monsters before you get blasted into bits so that you can then kill the revenant.

The only time i've been unable to dodge the rockets is in a small 64 wide dead end hallway.

hardcore_gamer said:

Or you are in a empty room that suddenly gets filled with revenants and you can't flee because the doors behind are suddenly locked for some reason and there is no real way to avoid all of the missiles that isn't just based on dumb luck. Or because well you get the idea.

That has happened to me, I circled straffed shit loads of revenants with projectiles building up and up until they were all dead after using practically all of my shotgun shells, rockets, and cells. Then I faced a cyberdemon, it didn't last long when all the revenant projectiles hit it. Looking at the huge mess of them slowed down the game.

hardcore_gamer said:

I estimate that something like 70% of all of my rage quits can be blamed on revenants being used in a stupid or a bullshit fashion somehow in the map I am playing. Thus I enjoy maps that have few or no revenants at all the most, hence why I almost never put any of them into my own maps (and when I do I make sure that it is done properly!).

Revenant traps are fun and challenging for me.

hardcore_gamer said:

How about you? Do you share my hatred of the dreaded revenant? Discuss!

[Vaporizer]

.

[Snakes]

I've found that designing maps has given me a new respect for every monster in Doom (SS not counted). I used to only like the revenant for the, "Woosh-CRACK!" melee, but then I came to appreciate it for its versatility. There's no better distant sniper in Doom, and in closed quarters, its just as difficult to deal with. It's definitely one of my top monsters in the game.

[Vaporizer]

.

[Graf Zahl]

Revenants are the most easily abused monster in Doom, period. When used properly they can be a good challenge but I also have seen far too many levels where they weren't.

The most recent example of Revenant abuse are some of the later levels in Epic2. It's fine to fight one or 2 Revenants when there's enough cover - but when I encounter a map that makes me fight >50 Revenants in an open area there's only one action I perform: Hit the Quit button.

The thing is, seeker missiles are ok. Heavy damage missiles are also ok - but the Revenant uses a heavy damage seeking missile! Get hit twice and it's normally over. So you essentially can't afford to be hit by them and yet mappers insist to use this enemy in packs which is not what it was ever designed for.

And I simply have a strong dislike for the fighting tactics that are required to fight a crowd of Revenants.

[Stupid Bunny]

Everything I have to say about revenants I already said in that other thread about them pretty recently.

[Gez]

I used to find them horrible, too; but they're actually not that tough once you get better at predicting their missile move, exploiting their melee range behavior, and have an SSG, chaingun, or higher-numbered weapon.

[The_MártonJános]

Revenants are just cool... OK? Start using that frickin' SSG in a better way and you'll be surprised that he's beaten by only 2 shots (4 shells)!

[Graf Zahl]

Cell said:

Start using that frickin' SSG in a better way and you'll be surprised that he's beaten by only 2 shots (4 shells)!

So? When you fight 10 you still need 20 shots without getting hit!

[Bishop]

They are pretty freakin' big pains in the asses. (small, fast moving, heat seekers, excessive use by mappers) 2/3 of my deaths in Doom 2 are by Revenants. Luckily I found a nice way to take them out quick with just 2 SSG blasts. But That never kept one of their missiles from coming back at me from behind and taking away half my health...

[Gez]

Graf Zahl said:

So? When you fight 10 you still need 20 shots without getting hit!

That's when you switch to the rocket launcher or BFG.

Few things are as satisfying as taking out a whole squad of revenants with a single BFG blast.


Revenants are also very handy to organize mass infighting. Half their missiles follow you, which means you can lead them to tough monsters and then you just have to reach for cover, grab some popcorn, and watch the fireworks.

[Maes]

StupidBunny said:

Everything I have to say about revenants I already said in that other thread about them pretty recently.

But let's sum it up once again anyway:

1. Highest damage of any standard, single projectyle. One-hit death for any unarmoured player <=80 HP. That alone can be frustrating as fuck, especially considering the sheer numbers this monster is used.
   
2. Homing missiles, which can only be outrunned by a certain Hungarian player, as we all know. Combine with a.
   
3. Ridiculously high damage potential/health ratio. This manifests itself in infighting with other monsters: give a revenant the advantage of two cheap shots, and it can bring down a Knight with ease if the exchange is mostly projectyles. Two of them can kill or seriously cripple a Baron, while three will just gang-rape it. That's not bad in itself if not that Revenants are usually among the last monsters standing even after large infights, so they will still be posing a threat.
   
4. Hard to hit accurately with hitscans, due to narrow sillhouette, unless you focus on sniping one.
   
5. Ridiculously low reaction/counterattack time. A single mistake in a chaingun cha-cha and you get an 80 HP rocket to the face.
   
6. Deceptive looks. They can actually creep in where zombies can (however it's possible to "active lock" them by keeping within a very specific distance range.
   

[Graf Zahl]

Gez said:

That's when you switch to the rocket launcher or BFG.

Few things are as satisfying as taking out a whole squad of revenants with a single BFG blast.

So why is it then that far too often you do not have these weapons (or cannot use the RL due to close proximity...?) And even then, they get out far too many of their missiles before they are dead.


You can rationalize all you want but the Revenant requires special fighting tactics which I thoroughly hate so don't expect me to see and value in your reasoning... :D

[Xtroose]

I did not like them at first, but now I love them - it just takes some time and experience to truly appreciate them. They are one of the few enemies that have aged well, because they can still be challenging even after years of playing the game.

I do not agree that they are "the most easily abused monster in Doom", this is just a personal opinion. If there is a map with 50+ revenants, insufficient cover and no lower skill levels (playing on HNTR or even ITYTD is nothing to be ashamed of), then I just have to accept the fact that it was not designed for a player of my skill level. And again, saying that the revenant was not designed to be used in packs is still a personal opinion. I do not enjoy playing such levels, but I would never say they were not used correctly - such maps usually take many hours of extensive playtesting and there is a lot of thought put into thing placement. You only need to see one demo by an experienced player to see a beautifully choreographed fight in a chaos of projectiles and monsters.

[lupinx-Kassman]

Well, 90% of my deaths can be chalked up to revenants and chaingunners. They sure can take your health down quick. Doesn't mean I don't like them though, as challenge is a good thing if it is done in a fair and interesting way.

[Graf Zahl]

Xtroose said:

And again, saying that the revenant was not designed to be used in packs is still a personal opinion.

Yes, I can say that because there's a definitive reference to look for: Doom2.wad! The only two places where a larger pack of Revenants appears you either have an Invulnerability at your disposal (MAP27) or the Revenants are packed into a room so that using powerful weapons on them is relatively easy. But it never forces the player to battle them in larger numbers in wide open areas without sufficient cover. Whether later mappers have used them or not doesn't matter. This monster was never meant for such fights.

[Vegeta]

Revenants are cool, you don't even need a cover to dispatch their rockets (you can outsmart them so they impact on a wall behind you, or lead them into other monster).
I think there's no annoying monsters, but mappers who use them in annoying ways.

[Graf Zahl]

Vegeta said:

I think there's no annoying monsters, but mappers who use them in annoying ways.

I think that's what I said. But these days too many mappers do that due to the bad precedents.

[hardcore_gamer]

Graf Zahl said:

Yes, I can say that because there's a definitive reference to look for: Doom2.wad! The only two places where a larger pack of Revenants appears you either have an Invulnerability at your disposal (MAP27) or the Revenants are packed into a room so that using powerful weapons on them is relatively easy. But it never forces the player to battle them in larger numbers in wide open areas without sufficient cover. Whether later mappers have used them or not doesn't matter. This monster was never meant for such fights.

This.

If he is going to argue that revenants weren't intended to be fought in huge packs boils down to opinion then I could just as easily claim that whether cyberdemons and spidermasterminds are meant to be fought in huge packs or not also just boils down to opinion.

[Jimmy]

The only things I hate marginally more than revenants are cacodemons.

Think about it:

1. The obvious one - they fly.
   
2. They block the player no matter what height they're at, at least in sourceports that force infinitely tall actors.
   
3. If you get cornered by a horde of them, you are mincemeat unless you have a cell weapon.
   
4. The shotgun and chaingun are not particularly effective against them, especially at a distance - however, you will inevitably be pitted against them sometimes long before you find a better weapon.
   
5. They can take 2 SSG shots to kill, but only if you're dead accurate. The rest of the time you waste a lot of good firepower dealing the third, and (nearly always) fatal shot, unless you use the pistol or something to finish it off.
   
6. When hit with a rocket launcher, they fly backwards until they hit a wall. If that wall is several thousand mapunits away, you're left with a cacodemon which is completely out of your range of fire hurling fireballs at you whenever it can. And when it finally hits the wall, it will start coming back. Slowly. Ever so slowly. You can leave it at that point, but then who knows when it'll finally get back at you.
   
7. If they're in a group and they're hit with a single rocket, they often spread outward and cover a lot of ground because they won't stop hurtling through the air until they hit a wall or a stationary object. And when that happens you're left with less space to shoot at them - hence, it's easier to get yourself wedged between them to get chomped to buggery seconds later, or commit suicide if you continue to use the rocket launcher.
   
8. At a distance, they can dodge projectile attacks surprisingly well, and, as already stated, the hitscan weapons are practically useless because of the horizontal spread.
   
9. Their melee attack isn't even properly implemented. You have to be right up against them and wait until they enter their attack state so that their projectile attack codepointer detects you're at close range and performs the melee offensive instead.
   
10. Their corpses are massive - nearly as tall as the player. Even the Pain Elemental, its much more deliberately annoying cousin, doesn't add insult to injury by obstructing 90% of your vertical line of vision with its bloated carcass. Granted, it does belch out lost souls on death, but at least those can be prevented from spawning.
    
11. If anything, they're abused more than revenants.

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

[Maes]

Jimmy91 said:

At a distance, they can dodge projectile attacks surprisingly well, and, as already stated, the hitscan weapons are practically useless because of the horizontal spread.

SG and SSG are indeed a waste at long distances, but both the pistol and chaingun can be fired with 100% accuracy at -almost- any distance, if you don't hold down the fire key. A single tap of the fire button plants two dead-accurate bullets even at backwards-floating cacos, and if you keep tapping you can kill them with just the right amount of bullets -a very essential skill in certain maps.

But yeah, it's not an ideal situation if you are:

• Under siege/in a hurry.
  
• Unlucky with vertical autoaim/suck at horizontal aiming (higher resolutions help somewhat at greater distances).
  

[Bishop]

Yeah, I use the chaingun tapping technique for distant enemies, pretty ammo effective too, just gotta be at least a little patient. I think that the pain elemental should be more brought into the question too. When I try to kill them, they "sheild" themselves by launching a Lost soul at you.

[Coopersville]

Revenants are one of my favourites, but I agree they can be misused.

[Xtroose]

Graf Zahl said:

Yes, I can say that because there's a definitive reference to look for: Doom2.wad! The only two places where a larger pack of Revenants appears you either have an Invulnerability at your disposal (MAP27) or the Revenants are packed into a room so that using powerful weapons on them is relatively easy. But it never forces the player to battle them in larger numbers in wide open areas without sufficient cover. Whether later mappers have used them or not doesn't matter. This monster was never meant for such fights.

Which proves my point - they were used in packs even in Doom 2. They were extensively used in big groups in Plutonia too - which is an id approved IWAD - proving that revenants were indeed meant to also be used in packs. Bear in mind that I responded to this paragraph:

Graf Zahl said:

The thing is, seeker missiles are ok. Heavy damage missiles are also ok - but the Revenant uses a heavy damage seeking missile! Get hit twice and it's normally over. So you essentially can't afford to be hit by them and yet mappers insist to use this enemy in packs which is not what it was ever designed for.

You did not say a single word about cover, powerup availability, other monsters, etc. You added those points later in a response to my post.

hardcore_gamer said:

If he is going to argue that revenants weren't intended to be fought in huge packs boils down to opinion then I could just as easily claim that whether cyberdemons and spidermasterminds are meant to be fought in huge packs or not also just boils down to opinion.

Why not? If a map is designed well, it could work. Spiderdemons would probably infight before they could significantly damage you. What about cyberdemons? I have seen a lot of them used well in Cyberdreams MAP30, for example. It all boils down to how a mapper designs his map. There is a huge difference between maps like Sunder and Nuts, although some people do not want to see it.

[Icytux]

What makes the revenant so special, loved and hated. Is of course the homing missiles. But also because its the only projectile monster in doom that deals a shitload of damage, AND has very low HP. This is a thing i like with monsters, and what i hate with pretty much every other doom monster out there.(in maps with no higher rank weapons placed) Cacodemons have too much hp, not to mention Barons.(and the other high hp doom2 monsters) Its just so fucken tedious to chop theese down without having a rocketlaucher or cellweapon.
The Revenant dies in 2 SSG shots and 2 rockets, which makes bringing it down pretty easy. But, its attacks are very very dangerous.

I'm currently making some new monsters for myself, and the low-hp high-damage property is going to be in almost all of them. (some strong melee monster, and fast melee monsters are also in the making.)

[Graf Zahl]

Xtroose said:

Which proves my point - they were used in packs even in Doom 2. They were extensively used in big groups in Plutonia too - which is an id approved IWAD - proving that revenants were indeed meant to also be used in packs. Bear in mind that I responded to this paragraph:

This proves absolutely nothing. The 2 cases in Doom2 are special and carefully set up so that the pack of Revenants cannot overwhelm a player who knows how to use his stuff.

Plutonia was done after the fact plus it was designed to be extra hard so it's not something you can use as an example.

Whereas, in many more modern WADs, Revenants are put in in large numbers in areas that a) don't have much cover or b) are too tight for efficient use of large weapons but at the same time open enough to leave you without cover. The fact remains that the Revenant is meant for special purposes. Putting it into maps like zombies, like some people do completely negates its purpose and made it the infamous monster it is today.