Pain elemental

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An encounter with two Pain Elementals (the one at the left is preparing to spawn a Lost Soul) near the edge of the starting pit of Level 9: The Pit, in Doom II.

The Pain Elemental is a Doom II monster that is similar to the Cacodemon; they are both floating spheres with a single eye and a large toothy mouth. The main differences in respect to its counterpart are that its hide is leathery brown, it has two small arms akin to the spiderdemon's pair of limbs, and is crowned by only two dark curved horns (similar to the Cyberdemon's horns) on the top of its spherical body.

The Doom II manual describes the monster this way: What a name. And what a guy. Killing him is almost as bad as letting him live.

Combat characteristics

Instead of shooting a standard projectile, the pain elemental periodically spews lost souls at its opponents from a mouth that flares up with a reddish glow each time one of the minions is delivered. As it does not attack directly, the spherical monster will never be targeted by other monsters, though they may unleash lost souls that will attack monsters that hurt them, at least temporarily. The pain elemental is vulnerable to misdirected attacks from its own children, and will retaliate against them.

The lost souls produced by the pain elemental will begin their existence with a charge forwards, after which it will float about a bit until it attacks again. This initial charge will hurt the target, unless avoided. If the lost soul is shot into a wall or a thing from close range when it is produced, it will explode, and if it is created beyond a wall, it may be trapped on the other side.

In any event, the designers set a limit to the monster's attack, so as to not overpopulate a level with lost souls, making it overly dangerous or resource consuming. If there are 21 or more lost souls in a level, pain elementals will not produce their projectile when they attack. They go through the attack sequence without any effect.

When killed, the pain elemental will spawn three lost souls. Unlike the cacodemon, the pain elemental does not generally leave behind a corpse. The only exception occurs when a pain element is crushed while it is dying, in which case it will leave a small pool of gibs. The gibs can be resurrected by an arch-vile, creating a ghost monster as a result. This event is one of the most rare occurrences in the game.

The pain elemental is one of two monsters (the other being the lost soul), that does not under normal circumstances (see ghost monsters for the exception) leave a corpse and hence it will not respawn when the Nightmare! skill level is chosen or the -respawn parameter is used.

Tactical analysis

Pain Elementals move at the same speed as Cacodemons and have a similar pain chance and hit points, but are prone to produce much more havoc with their attack, being potentially more dangerous than their red counterparts. Unlike the Cacodemon, whose attacks may simply be dodged, Pain Elementals release projectiles which will come around for more attacks and which will not disappear until killed. As such, it is vital to focus one's attention on the Pain Elemental itself as much as possible. The chainsaw, chaingun or plasma gun work fairly well and usually keep its Lost Souls at bay, but the rocket launcher is not recommended as the pain elemental may spit a Lost Soul while the rocket is en route, potentially causing blast damage to the player. Only once it is dead is it recommended to begin killing its minions.

Pain elementals will only spawn lost souls when in line of sight of the player, or another monster who struck it. Therefore an effective tactic against the pain elemental is to deliver a strong attack, then quickly head for cover. In common with the arachnotron and spider mastermind, the pain elemental has a relatively wide character sprite, which allows the player to chip away at its flanks without entering the elemental's line of sight.

Also, there is another tactic to revert the tide of the battle in favor of the player while avoiding the spawn of any Lost Souls: if the monster opens its mouth at zero distance from the player, i.e. directly at the player's face, no Lost Soul will be spawned (if it could, a telefrag would occur, resulting in the instant death of the player or the Lost Soul). This has the odd side-effect of adding a kill to the player's kill list. The same tactic, however, doesn't apply to the monster's death: even if the player is occupying the same area of the Pain Elemental's explosion animation, one or more Lost Souls resulting from the explosion will still be produced.

Data

Attributes
ID # 71 (decimal), 47 (hex)
Hit points 400
Speed 8 map units per frame
(93.3 map units per second)
Width 62
Height 56
Reaction time 8
Pain chance 128 (50%)
Pain time 12 tics
Mass 400
Bits 4211206
Bits list

1: Obstacle

2: Shootable

9: No Gravity

14: Floating

22: Affects Kill %

Sprites & sounds
Sprite name PAIN
Alert sound DSPESIT
Action sound DSDMACT
Pain sound DSPEPAIN
Death sound DSPEDTH

Appearance statistics

In classic Doom, the pain elemental is first encountered on these maps:

Game ITYTD and HNTR HMP UV and NM
Doom II MAP08: Tricks and Traps MAP08: Tricks and Traps MAP08: Tricks and Traps
TNT: Evilution MAP10: Redemption MAP10: Redemption MAP02: Human BBQ
Plutonia MAP01: Congo MAP01: Congo MAP01: Congo

The IWADs contain the following numbers of pain elementals:

Game ITYTD and HNTR HMP UV and NM
Doom II 23 38 64
TNT: Evilution 12 26 40
Plutonia 48 62 74

Other games

Doom 64

File:Doom64PainD64ex.PNG
A pain elemental on Doom 64's starting map
.

The pain elemental appears in Doom 64 with an altered design. It is colored red (like the original cacodemon while the Doom 64 cacodemon was colored brown and had two arms), has a green eye and in place of its arms are two mouths so it can now spawn two lost souls at the same time. Its back has a large horse-like mane. It gives off a low sinister laugh when it has sighted the player.

Doom RPG

The pain elemental appears in Doom RPG as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color:

  • Beholder (green)
  • Rahovart (blue)
  • Pain elemental (normal colors)

They, however, do not spawn lost souls when they attack; only when they are killed. They are particularly weak against attacks from captured hellhounds.

Demo

See also