Mancubus
From DoomWiki.org
The mancubus is a large and formidable monster shambling about on sturdy, stumpy elephant-like legs, glaring at opponents through hateful green eyes, while dribbling the remains of its victims from a lusting mouth, displaying sharp yellow fangs. To make things worse, its arms have been replaced by huge flamethrowers capable of spouting a rapid series of scathing bursts of flame, which are powered by a pair of fuel tanks grafted onto the obese monster's back. The game manual describes the mancubus as follows: "The only good thing about fatso is that he's a nice wide target. Good thing, because it takes a lot of hits to puncture him. He pumps out fireballs like there was no tomorrow.".
This monstrous creature makes its first appearance in MAP07: Dead Simple of Doom II, where the player is forced to fight them to break through a fortified area controlled by the enemy.
Contents
Tactical analysis
A mancubus will make a gurgling/snorting sound that crescendos into a monstrous tiger-like roar when spotting a player. The mancubus is a dangerous opponent, but has a number of exploitable weaknesses. It is slow and makes a large target, so is easy to kill with rapid-fire weapons. The rocket launcher is possibly the most effective weapon against the mancubus. Furthermore, because it will pause briefly before attacking, giving out a distinctive battle cry before firing, it is easy to prevent the attacking using slower weapons to stun, even the super shotgun. When a mancubus does attack, it is helpful to attempt to keep one's distance. Otherwise, the player might take two fireballs instead of just one. When dodging from a greater distance, it is important to avoid over-dodging. With the first two attacks from the mancubus, one fireball will go straight toward the player while the other will fly off diagonally to the other side (to the player's right, then to the player's left); in the third volley, one will go left and one right. This pattern can be figured out and used to avoid mancubus attacks.
Once a mancubus has begun to attack its target, it continues to fire (if it remains unhurt while firing) until all six bursts have been discharged, even if the target has moved out of its sight. This characteristic of their attack can be abused to cause monster infighting.
When killed, it lets out a low-pitched exhale of air as its head is split in two. Its body then begins to slowly divide in half, unleashing deluges of blood, until all that remains are folds of ripped flesh, bloody ribs, and its eyes spilling out onto two disembodied fireball launchers. This is quite possible the goriest death sequence of any enemy.
Notes
- The latex model of the monster used as a base for the sprite, seen here, has three pairs of nipples. The extra nipples are not really distinguishable in the in-game representation, where only the upper "normal" ones are seen, although their intended locations can still be seen.
- The mancubus's face is very similar to that found in the megasphere.
- A fitting explanation for the name of the monster seems to be a bastardized combination of the termination of the medieval demon names succubus and incubus preceded by the syllable man-, possibly refering to the Latin verb manducāre, which means "to chew" or "to devour". Manducus is also the Latin word for glutton. It could also be based on the Latin word mancus, which means "maimed" or "with a crippled or missing hand", referring to the flamethrowers grafted onto its amputated forearms.
- The mancubus, along with the demon, spiderdemon, and cyberdemon are the only monsters whose dying sound clips includes noise other than the monsters' vocals; in this case, there is an audible gurgling as the mancubus' blood pours out.
- John Romero stated that the mancubus says "Menablanablah!!!" before firing.[1]
Data
|
|
|
Blows needed to kill1 | Mean | Standard deviation |
Min | Max |
Player (100% health, no armor) |
3.37 | 0.88 | 2 | 6 |
Player (100% health, security armor) |
4.78 | 1.04 | 3 | 8 |
Player (200% health, combat armor) |
11.68 | 1.70 | 8 | 16 |
Barrel | 1.27 | 0.51 | 1 | 3 |
Trooper | 1.27 | 0.51 | 1 | 3 |
Sergeant | 1.44 | 0.60 | 1 | 4 |
Wolfenstein SS | 2.04 | 0.77 | 1 | 5 |
Imp | 2.25 | 0.76 | 1 | 5 |
Chaingunner | 2.56 | 0.73 | 2 | 5 |
Lost soul | 3.37 | 0.88 | 2 | 6 |
Commander Keen | 3.37 | 0.88 | 2 | 6 |
Demon | 4.78 | 1.04 | 3 | 8 |
Spectre | 4.78 | 1.04 | 3 | 8 |
Romero's head2 | 7.66 | 1.32 | 5 | 11 |
Revenant | 9.04 | 1.46 | 6 | 13 |
Cacodemon | 11.68 | 1.70 | 8 | 16 |
Pain elemental | 11.68 | 1.70 | 8 | 16 |
Hell knight | 14.55 | 1.88 | 10 | 19 |
Arachnotron | 14.55 | 1.88 | 10 | 19 |
Mancubus3 | ||||
Arch-vile | 20.10 | 2.11 | 14 | 25 |
Baron of Hell | 28.43 | 2.43 | 23 | 34 |
Spiderdemon | 84.14 | 2.60 | 79 | 93 |
Cyberdemon | 112.12 | 2.48 | 107 | 117 |
- This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, impact animations, and backfire checks 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.
- Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
- Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).
Appearance statistics
In the IWADs the mancubus is first encountered on these maps per skill level:
|
|
The IWADs contain the following numbers of mancubi per skill level:
|
|
Other games
Doom 64
While their function in Doom 64 is unchanged, their appearance is greatly altered. They have less fat and a more bear-like face, are taller and wear a metal body harness. Their fireballs are smaller and appear more like fiery brimstone.
This type of mancubus appears on the cover of an issue of Nintendo Power featuring a spread of Doom 64, including a two-page poster that features it in conjunction with other demons.
Doom RPG
In Doom RPG, the mancubus appears as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color:
- Behemoth (blue with red eyes)
- Mancubus (normal colors)
- Druj (red)
This monster class is weak against rockets.
See also
References
- ↑ @romero: "Menablanablah!!!" on Twitter
Monsters from Doom and Doom II |
---|
Doom: Baron of Hell | Cacodemon | Cyberdemon | Demon | Imp | Lost soul | Shotgun guy | Spectre | Spiderdemon | Zombieman Doom 2: Arachnotron | Arch-vile | Commander Keen | Heavy weapon dude | Hell knight | Mancubus | Pain elemental | Revenant | Wolfenstein SS | Final boss |
Monsters from Doom 64 |
---|
From Doom: Arachnotron | Baron of Hell | Cacodemon | Cyberdemon | Demon | Hell knight | Imp | Lost soul | Mancubus | Pain elemental | Shotgun guy | Spectre | Zombieman New: Marine | Mother demon | Nightmare imp |
Monsters from the Sony PlayStation version of Doom |
---|
Doom: Baron of Hell | Cacodemon | Cyberdemon | Demon | Imp | Lost soul | Shotgun guy | Spectre | Spiderdemon | Zombieman Doom 2: Arachnotron | Heavy weapon dude | Hell knight | Mancubus | Pain elemental | Revenant New: Nightmare spectre |