Weapon

Combat is a central part of gameplay even in the most puzzle-oriented of solo maps (and in all deathmatches). The player therefore must know how to handle weapons.

Each weapon has advantages and disadvantages when used against a given monster. Broadly speaking, however, the larger weapons do more damage but are harder to find and harder to keep stocked with ammunition. In each game, one or two weak weapons require no ammo and are therefore always available.

Doom
No matter which weapon a player is wielding, his sprite (in multiplayer games, or source ports with a "chasecam" mode) is perpetually shown to be armed with the same generic assault rifle as the former human troopers; a weapon similar to this, although presumably intended to be the chaingun, appears on the game's title screen.

Doom Alpha
Early alpha releases of Doom armed the player with a semi-automatic rifle, optionally equipped with a double-bladed bayonet as a melee weapon. This weapon was not included in the finished game. The rifle sprites revealed the player character to be wearing elbow pads, which can still be seen on the player character sprite.

Doom/Ultimate Doom

 * Fists: Extremely basic close-range weapon. Never runs out of ammo, but only about as powerful as a pistol shot; normally used only as a last resort or with a berserk pack.
 * Chainsaw: Does damage like the normal fist, but four times faster.
 * Pistol: The default long-range weapon. Not too effective.
 * Shotgun: A good general-purpose weapon, especially at close range. Reload time is slightly longer than normal.
 * Chaingun: Very good against large crowds, but ammo capacity is relatively low.
 * Rocket launcher: Fires explosive rockets. Does a lot of damage, but can also seriously hurt the player if used indiscriminately at close range.
 * Plasma gun: Shoots pulses of blue-hot plasma at high speed, which can take down groups of incoming enemies easily &mdash; if aimed properly.
 * BFG 9000: The "Big Fucking Gun". Somewhat counterintuitive to operate at first, but kills almost any monster in one shot.

Doom II/Final Doom
All of the above weapons, with the addition of:


 * Super shotgun: A double-barrelled, sawed-off shotgun which takes even longer to reload, but at close range is even more deadly than the regular shotgun.

Doom 64
All of the above weapons, with the addition of:


 * Unmaker: A demonic laser gun which is a plasma rifle clone at first but can be upgraded in firepower by the collection of Demon Keys to totally kick butt.

Doom RPG
Doom RPG includes versions of the pistol, shotgun, super shotgun, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, and BFG 9000, as well as two new weapons, the fire axe and fire extinguisher.

Doom 3
All of Doom's weapons are present in some form in Doom 3, with the addition of:


 * Flashlight: Not a weapon per se, but it doubles as a crude club.
 * Machine Gun: Similar to the chaingun, but not as powerful.
 * Grenades: Standard thrown fragmentation grenades on a timer.
 * Soul Cube: Charged by the killing of monsters, and then released as a powerful seeking weapon that transfers health from the monster it hits to the player.

Resurrection of Evil
The Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil expansion pack contains all of Doom 3's weapons, besides the Soul Cube, and additionally a gravity gun and super shotgun (as in Doom II). It also includes an artifact somewhat like the Soul Cube.

Heretic

 * Dragon Claw
 * Elven Wand
 * Ethereal Crossbow
 * Firemace
 * Gauntlets of the Necromancer
 * Hellstaff
 * Phoenix Rod
 * Staff

Fighter

 * Spiked Gauntlets
 * Timon's Axe
 * Hammer of Retribution
 * Quietus

Cleric

 * Mace of Contrition
 * Serpent Staff
 * Firestorm
 * Wraithverge

Mage

 * Sapphire Wand
 * Frost Shards
 * Arc Of Death
 * Bloodscourge

Strife

 * Punch Dagger
 * Crossbow
 * Assault Gun
 * Mini-Missile Launcher
 * Flamethrower
 * Grenade Launcher
 * Mauler
 * The Sigil of the One God