Revenant



Revenants are monsters introduced in Doom II that are easily recognized by their high-pitched shriek. They take the form of very tall animated skeletons in silver metal body armor equipped with shoulder-mounted missile launchers, and blood and gore running down their legs. Their running movements are a herky-jerky approach akin to a stringed puppet. They are officially described as follows: "Apparently when a demon dies, they pick him up, dust him off, wire him some combat gear, and send him back into battle. No rest for the wicked, eh? You wish your missiles did what his can do."

- Doom II instruction manual

Combat characteristics
A revenant emits a loud, high-pitched, hollow scream when spotting the player.

Revenants fire two varieties of missiles, unguided and homing. The homing missiles can be distinguished by a gray smoke trail. During melee combat they can also strike a blow with one of their large fists, complete with an exaggerated punching sound effect. Revenants have a unique characteristic unlike any other monster that has a melee attack: when the distance to its target is less than 196 units, the revenant abandons its missile attack completely and attempts to close to melee range; if attacked and hurt however, it will still immediately counter-attack with a single missile.

When killed, a few of the revenant's bones will shatter and the monster will simply fall on its back, one of the cleanest monster deaths the player will come across.

Tactical analysis
The revenant's missiles are powerful and when homing, particularly hard to dodge when out in the open. Fortunately, the pain chance of a revenant is high, so a chaingun will generally suffice against a single monster, preventing it from attacking. Two solid blasts from the super shotgun will reliably kill a revenant. It is advisable for the player to keep moving in order to avoid distant missiles, and if pillars, walls, or other obstacles are available, then they will be useful as barriers for stopping homing missiles. The homing missiles are very difficult to outrun, but if the player is able to strafe to the side and then forward just before being hit, the projectile may not be able to come around again. This tactic is especially useful if the player has backed up against a wall, as the missile will impact the wall before it has a chance to orbit for another pass. Another way to dodge them is for the player to slide behind an obstacle or around a corner.

The revenant's missiles are uniquely spawned 16 units above the center of its body, in order to accommodate for its shoulder-mounted launchers. This makes the demon capable of firing over obstacles behind which the player might otherwise be safe.

The revenant is fast on its feet, so players must be sure to keep their distance. If they do not, the melee attack of the revenant delivers a fiendishly powerful blow that can easily crush the player with a few hits.

For players with good movement skills however, the knowledge of the revenant's unique melee strategy (see above) can be abused to render them essentially harmless at close range. Berserk punching is effective, and can fell a revenant with as few as two hits. Still, because there is always a danger of the revenant retaliating with a missile, tackling them in melee is strongly discouraged for novice players.

On harder difficulties, they are often found in large groups, especially out in the open. When fighting groups of these towering skeletons, it is useful to use a plasma gun, the BFG9000 or a rocket launcher.

In monster infighting, revenants excel in ranged and positional combat, especially if the terrain restricts their opponent's movement or ranged attack efficiency, while their homing projectiles will reliably score hits over long distances and across height differences. At close range however, they fare substantially worse due to their low health and high pain chance; a mancubus or Hell knight, for instance, can waste a revenant fairly easily.

Data





 * 1) These tables assume that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, impact animations, backfire checks, and smoke trails are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
 * 2) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
 * 3) Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).
 * 4) Assumes that the target is 196 units away. The approximation of consecutive P_Random calls is particularly shaky in the case of a revenant's missile: not only does the total number of calls depend on the flight time of the missile (via the smoke puffs), but the absolute gametic value at launch determines whether the missile is guided or not, and that in turn is highly dependent on how far the revenant walks between attacks.

Appearance statistics
In the IWADs the revenant is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of revenants per skill level:

Of the maps covered on the Doom Wiki, the following have the highest numbers of revenants in single-player: This data was last verified on October 6, 2021.

Doom RPG
In Doom RPG, the revenant appears as a class of monster. There are three variations, in order of power, identified by color:


 * Ghoul (normal colors with green blood on its legs)
 * Fiend (shaded blue, with purple blood on its legs)
 * Revenant (normal colors)

This monster explodes when it is killed and causes damage to any player, monster, or barrel adjacent to it. It is weak against rockets.

References in other games

 * The ghoul and fiend appear as demon skins for the revenant in Doom Eternal.