Iron lich

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Revision as of 12:29, 16 December 2018 by ETTiNGRiNDER (talk | contribs) (Iron lich tornadoes do not home in on ghosts.)


Iron Lich encounter in Heretic E1M8: Hell's Maw

Iron liches are enemies in Heretic. Despite their names, iron liches are not the typical skeleton-like foes in robes to which others may be accustomed. They are instead giant, helmet-wearing skulls made of iron. Iron liches have the ability to cast three different kinds of elemental spells, all of which can inflict multiple hits:

  1. A wall of fire which spreads out vertically.
  2. An ice ball which splits into multiple shards when it hits a target or a wall. The main ball passes harmlessly through ghosts but its shards do not.
  3. A tornado which relentlessly chases and throws players into the air if they get too close to it. The tornado cannot home in on targets that have the ghost power, including players using a Shadowsphere.

Iron liches are first encountered at the end of the first episode of Heretic: City of the Damned. They will appear as normal or sub-boss enemies in later levels (beginning in a secret area of The Lava Pits), and a large group of iron liches guards the exit in the last level of The Ossuary, the fourth episode of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders.

Tactical analysis

The iron lich cannot be transformed by the Morph Ovum, nor immediately killed with a firemace under the influence of the Tome of Power. Despite what their appearance might suggest, they are incapable of flight. When killed, they sometimes drop a Claw Orb or Morph Ovum. With their extremely slow speed and relatively large size, the weapon of choice to kill them is the Phoenix Rod, which can dispatch a lone iron lich from a safe distance with five or fewer shots. In addition, the rod's splash damage enables it to take out a group of iron liches with considerably less than five shots per lich. Note that iron liches take half damage from the powered up Dragon Claw, though not from the rippers it shoots out. Each iron lich possesses 700 hit points.

The shadowsphere has increased utility when facing an iron lich: it both prevents the tornado attack from homing in and grants a little extra protection against direct hits by the ice clusterbombs.

Data

Attributes
ID # 6 (decimal and hex)
Hit points 700
Speed 6 map units per frame
(52.5 map units per second)
Width 80
Height 72
Reaction time 8
Pain chance 32 (10.16%)
Mass 325
Bits 4718598
4096
Bits list

1: Obstacle

2: Shootable

19: No Blood

22: Affects Kill %

12: Pass Mobj

Sprites & sounds
Sprite name HEAD
Alert sound HEDSIT
Active sound HEDACT
Pain sound HEDPAI
Death sound HEDDTH
Melee attack
Damage 6-48
Sound ?
Ice Ball ranged attack
Type Projectile
Speed 13 map units per tic
(455 map units per second)
Damage 1-8 (spawns 8 shards on impact)
Width 12
Height 12
Sprite name FX05
Sound HEDAT2
Spawned Ice Shards
Type Projectile
Speed 8 map units per tic
(280 map units per second)
Damage 3-24
Width 12
Height 12
Sprite name FX05
Sound HEDAT2?
Firewall ranged attack
Type Projectile
Speed 10 map units per tic
(350 map units per second)
Damage 5-40 (times 6)
Width 28
Height 12 (times 6)
Sprite name FX06
Sound HEDAT1
Whirlwind ranged attack
Type Projectile
Speed 10 map units per tic
(350 map units per second)
Damage 1-8
Width 32
Height 74
Sprite name FX07
Sound HEDAT3
Melee attacks needed to kill1 Mean Standard
deviation 		Min Max
Player (100%
health, no armor)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (100%
health, Silver Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (200%
health, Enchanted Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player Chicken ? ? ? ?
Bad Guy Chicken ? ? ? ?
Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Fire Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Nitro Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Undead Warrior (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Disciple of D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Sabreclaw ? ? ? ?
Weredragon ? ? ? ?
Ophidian ? ? ? ?
Iron Lich2
Maulotaur ? ? ? ?
Green Chaos Serpent ? ? ? ?
D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Ice balls needed to kill1 Mean Standard
deviation 		Min Max
Player (100%
health, no armor)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (100%
health, Silver Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (200%
health, Enchanted Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player Chicken ? ? ? ?
Bad Guy Chicken ? ? ? ?
Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Fire Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Nitro Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Undead Warrior (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Disciple of D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Sabreclaw ? ? ? ?
Weredragon ? ? ? ?
Ophidian ? ? ? ?
Iron Lich2
Maulotaur ? ? ? ?
Green Chaos Serpent ? ? ? ?
D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Ice ball shards needed to kill1 Mean Standard
deviation 		Min Max
Player (100%
health, no armor)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (100%
health, Silver Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (200%
health, Enchanted Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player Chicken ? ? ? ?
Bad Guy Chicken ? ? ? ?
Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Fire Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Nitro Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Undead Warrior (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Disciple of D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Sabreclaw ? ? ? ?
Weredragon ? ? ? ?
Ophidian ? ? ? ?
Iron Lich2
Maulotaur ? ? ? ?
Green Chaos Serpent ? ? ? ?
D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Firewall segments needed to kill1 Mean Standard
deviation 		Min Max
Player (100%
health, no armor)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (100%
health, Silver Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (200%
health, Enchanted Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player Chicken ? ? ? ?
Bad Guy Chicken ? ? ? ?
Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Fire Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Nitro Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Undead Warrior (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Disciple of D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Sabreclaw ? ? ? ?
Weredragon ? ? ? ?
Ophidian ? ? ? ?
Iron Lich2
Maulotaur ? ? ? ?
Green Chaos Serpent ? ? ? ?
D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Time in Whirlwind needed to kill1 Mean Standard
deviation 		Min Max
Player (100%
health, no armor)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (100%
health, Silver Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player (200%
health, Enchanted Shield)		 ? ? ? ?
Player Chicken ? ? ? ?
Bad Guy Chicken ? ? ? ?
Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Fire Gargoyle ? ? ? ?
Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Nitro Golem (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Undead Warrior (normal and ghost) ? ? ? ?
Disciple of D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Sabreclaw ? ? ? ?
Weredragon ? ? ? ?
Ophidian ? ? ? ?
Iron Lich2
Maulotaur ? ? ? ?
Green Chaos Serpent ? ? ? ?
D'Sparil ? ? ? ?

  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. Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding puff pods).

Appearance statistics

In the IWADs the iron lich is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of iron liches per skill level:

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