Overview
A description of the new monsters that Doom II introduced back when it came out. Just like with the Doom 1 guide, this list is sorted by my personal threat level of each monster from least to most dangerous. For a list of the monsters from Doom 1 that also all appear in Doom II, see my guide to the first game “The Original Doom Monsters”.A quick rundown on the monster stats:HP: The amount of hit points a monster has, the more, the tougher they are to kill.Damage: In Doom 1 and 2, damage is done like a dice roll. When anything attacks, the attack will do damage from anywhere from the lowest to the highest number. So yes, RNG can hate you even in retro games!Pain Chance: This percentage decides how likely it is for a monster to flinch from any attack. Monsters who flinch interrupt their attacks and current movement. Rapid fire weapons (Chaingun for ex.) are very good against monsters with high chances! Monsters with low values can often act as if your attacks aren’t doing anything.Danger Level: – 1 (harmless… mostly)- 2 (can be a pain in the rear)- 3 (can kill you fast if you aren’t paying attention)- 4 (gonna need big guns for this one)- 5 (run like hell)
SS Nazi
Damage: 3-15 (Bullet)
Pain Chance: 66.41%
The secret level enemy! These guys are returning from Wolfenstein 3D, although they are quite different from that game. They fire in continous fashion, similar to a zombie commando, albeit not as dangerous. They will appear in small to large groups in the secret levels and don’t appear anywhere else but custom levels.
Countermeasures: Anything really, but the Chaingun is ideal because they drop ammo for it.
Trivia: Due to Dooms’ larger sprite size (compared to Wolf3D), this enemy appears rather short by comparison.
Danger Level: 1
Heavy Weapon Dude
HP: 70
Damage: 3-15 (Bullet)
Pain Chance: 66.41%
The Chaingunner is a new zombie type in Doom II. He is a lot more dangerous than the previous undead and although his chaingun doesn’t fire quite as fast as yours, it can still kill you pronto if you don’t get behind cover or kill im fast. He never stops firing unless hes getting hit or loses track of his target. He can mow down other smaller and even some medium monsters easily if you make him do so.
Countermeasures: Chaingun or Shotgun. Plasma Gun for larger groups.
Trivia: This enemy closely resembles a number of boss characters from Wolfenstein 3D. Its style of armor and usage of a chaingun is highly reminiscent.
Danger Level: 3
Hell Knight
HP: 500
Damage: 10-80 (Claw), 8-64 (Energy Blast)
Pain Chance: 19.53%
The Hell Knight looks just like a Baron of Hell at first glance. Their attacks, speed and size are the same. The Hell Knight however has 50% less HP, making a bit easier to kill. The damage he does with his attacks is still just as high though, so treat him the same as the Baron: dodge at all costs.
Fighting other monsters is a breeze for this guy most of the time.
Countermeasures: Rocket Launcher and Super Shotgun.
Trivia: ID made the Hell Knight because they felt that the Baron was too strong as an ordinary enemy so they made this guy the common mid-range monster in Doom II, whereas the Baron of Hell became a rather rare threat.
Danger Level: 3
Revenant
HP: 300
Damage: 8-64 (Punch), 10-80 (Fireball)
Pain Chance: 39.06%
The Revenant is a pain in the a**. This guy moves very quick and up close punches you to death with his fists. Should you engage him at range, he will fire fireballs. The problem is that you cannot really predict what kind of fireball its gonna be. He either fires ordinary or homing ones. The homing balls can be hard to avoid, especially in narrow corridors. Try to sprint, strafe or get behind a wall to get rid of it, as the ball will never run out of juice. One can even lock these into stable “orbits” around you. Although he is easy to kill, his speed and the insane damage of his attacks makes him one my least favorite monsters to run into. Ironically he tends to lose against most mid-range monsters when infighting.
Countermeasures: Super Shotgun, Chaingun and Plasma Gun. BFG 9000 for larger groups.
Danger Level: 3
Mancubus
HP: 600
Damage: 8-64 (per fireball), 48-384 (total volley)
Pain Chance: 31.25%
The Mancubus is a tank. He moves slowly, is tough and hits hard. His spreadfire fireballs can be very hard to dodge and require observation and experience to avoid. Should he get all shots in, you are pretty much guaranteed to be dead. In close quarters, this thing can be the end of you. He is excellent for monster infighting, as his massive size makes him easy to hit and his attacks tend to hit multiple enemies if they are clustered together. In such a case he quickly kills everything but the bigger monsters in no time.
Countermeasures: Super Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, Plasma Gun and BFG 9000.
Danger Level: 3
Arachnotron
HP: 500
Damage: 5-40 (Plasma Ball)
Pain Chance: 50%
Looks familiar doesn’t it? Although the new spiders are smaller than their mastermind counterpart, they can be just as deadly. Arachnotrons can be seen as siege engines. They start firing plasma and never ever stop unless you die or they get hit. They can be easily tricked into shooting other monsters and can literally be lured into shooting down rows and rows of them. Strafe and/or run to avoid the plasma.
Countermeasures: Chaingun, Rocket Launcher and Plasma Gun.
Danger Level: 3
Pain Elemental
HP: 400
Damage: 0 (spawn)
Pain Chance: 50%
I’m gonna be honest: I don’t like this thing. It may look like a Cacodemon, but other than the fact that they both float and have similar HP they got nothing in common. Pain Elementals don’t even do any damage on their own. So whats so bad about them? They spit Lost Souls instead of fireballs! If you don’t kill this thing quick, you are gonna drown in flying skulls. Just kill this monster on sight with maximum prejudice. The Lost Souls think independently from their creators, so there is no way any monster will ever attack a Pain Elemental intentionally.
Countermeasures: Super Shotgun, Chaingun, Plasma Gun and BFG 9000 (for groups).
WARNING: Do not use rockets. If you do, chances you are gonna hit the Lost Souls charging you after getting “launched”, resulting in frying yourself.
Danger Level: 3
Archvile
HP: 700
Damage: 20 (direct hit), 0-70 (blast radius)
Pain Chance : 3.91%
This is by far the most dangerous non-boss monster in Doom ever and at the same time my absolutely hated nemesis. Although he has less HP than a Baron of Hell, the fact that he is faster than almost any other monster makes them hard to hit, especially with rockets. The Archvile employs 2 moves. The first is an incinerating attack that seems to have no range limit, putting you on fire and then blowing you up. Break line of sight immediately once you can tell you are on fire, otherwise you get roasted. Trying to interrupt its attack is a HUGE gamble, because this thing has a near non-existant pain chance. If the Archvile catches you at point-blank range, one last ditch effort you can do is to use the Super Shotgun, as it has the highest chance of interrupting his attack. His second technique is a resurrection ability that allows him quickly reanimate the corpses of other monsters. Cyberdemons, Spider Masterminds, other Archviles, Lost Souls and Pain Elementals are exempt from that. Kill this guy ASAP.
Countermeasures: Super Shotgun (point-blank), Plasma Gun, BFG 9000. (Rocket Launcher works too, but he moves very quick so you gotta be great at aiming.)
Trivia: Its death sound resembles a garbled “WHY?!”. The reason for this is, that this monster genuinely doesn’t think its doing any harm by help resurrecting its fellow demons. It also has the lowest pain chance of any Doom monster.
Its attack launches players into the air. A common technique among seasoned players is to utilize Archvile attacks to reach platforms that are out of reach. This can also commonly be observed in speedruns.
Danger Level: 4-5 (varies depending on the environment and how many corpses are around)
Icon of Sin
HP: 250 (Head)
Damage: Instant Kill (Teleport Kill)
Pain Chance: 100%
This guy’s head is stuck in a wall and he’s the last obstacle of the game. He continously fires monster cubes that will erupt into flames and spawn a random non-boss monster. He never stops doing so, so you are on a clock to kill him before you get overwhelmed. Shooting him directly has no effect. The trick is to elevate a platform and fire rockets into its exposed brain. 3 rockets will shut him up. He can kill you directly though, if you stand exactly on the spot where a monster is supposed to spawn, thus telefragging you.
Countermeasures: Rocket Launcher.
Trivia: Along with the Lost Soul, this is the only monster in Doom 2 that has a 100% pain chance. Also, when firing rockets into him, this is what you are actually hitting:
Its the head of John Romero, co-founder of ID Software!
The sound you hear when facing the creature reads this when reversed:
“To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero!”
Danger Level: 5