Arch-vile
From Doom Wiki
- For the Arch-vile in Doom 3, see Arch-Vile (Doom 3).
Arch-viles are emaciated-looking, yellowish-skinned humanoid figures with a grotesque appearance, including stigmata. They also have no flesh around their abdomens, revealing some of their ribcage. Arch-viles first appeared in Doom II. Their manual description is:
One of the worst of a bad lot. You can't think of enough rotten things to say about him. He's fast, hard to kill, casts spells, and resurrects dead monsters! At least these suckers are rare.
Contents |
[edit] Combat characteristics
Arch-viles can take a considerably high amount of damage (700 hit points, the fourth highest in the game), and their attack consists of a unique ability to immolate their enemies in flames by raising their arms up, summoning fire upon the targeted foe, regardless of range (though they will not use their attack from more than 1024 map units away unless hurt). They then hunch over and clasp their hands together, causing the fire to erupt, usually send the enemy flying into the air, while causing up to 90 points in damage. This attack will always hit the enemy as long as there is a line of sight between the arch-vile and the target, and can be avoided by hiding behind walls, which is relatively easy since it takes the arch-vile about three full seconds to do one attack, from when it first calls the fire to when it actually sends out the blast.
Arch-viles are the fastest monsters in the game, almost 50% quicker than even the cyberdemon and a charging lost soul, and meeting two of them at once spells doom for most players. They are also the most resistant monster to pain, which makes canceling their attacks difficult. The only way to do this effectively in fact is a close-up blast with the super shotgun, and even this only disrupts their spell about two-thirds of the time.
The arch-vile has the power to resurrect other, lower-level monsters. They can revive all monsters that leave corpses except cyberdemons, spiderdemons and other arch-viles. They also cannot revive corpses that were placed on map by the level designer. This resurrecting power makes them top priority to kill in battle, to stop them from reviving monsters and forcing the player to waste precious ammo. However, the player does get credit for killing resurrected monsters, so in levels containing an arch-vile the KILLS percentage displayed at the end may exceed 100%.
Being hit by an arch-vile attack will not provoke other monsters to start infighting. So he will continue to attack enemies until they die. Unlike most other monsters, attacking an arch-vile which is attacking another monster will cause it to change its target to whatever attacked it last. This happens in the same attack cycle, i.e. shooting an arch-vile that is preoccupied with burning another monster may mean a quick death. Arch-viles are hurt by the splash damage of their own flame attack at close range, so it is possible for an arch-vile to hurt another arch-vile, but there will still be no retaliation even when this occurs.
There are some interesting and probably unintentional "bugs" associated with the arch-vile's attack and abilities, such as monsters resurrected in other monsters/walls, assisting players with jumps and no-clipping ghost monsters.
[edit] Inspiration and development
The idea and name for the arch-vile is due to Sandy Petersen [1]
Bobby Prince said: "The Archvile is an evil healer. Anyone getting in his way is blasted with fire and disintegrated. This includes other demons. But, after he has wrought his destruction, he then goes around and reanimates all of the demons. Because of this interesting dual personality, I decided to give him a very evil laugh as an active sound. For his death sound, I recorded a young girl saying 'why,' pitch shifted it down and mixed it with other sounds. The Archvile just doesn't understand why anyone would want to kill him as he sees himself as only doing good for his fellow demon." [2]
[edit] Notes
- A lifesize cardboard cutout of the arch-vile has been made. Photos of it are found here and here.
- MAP11 of The Plutonia Experiment, Hunted, is a maze wherein arch-viles are the only enemies.
[edit] Data
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shots needed to kill1 | Mean | Standard deviation | Min | Max |
| Player (100% health, no armor) | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
| Player (100% health, security armor) | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
| Player (200% health, combat armor) | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5 | 5 |
| Barrel2 | ||||
| Trooper | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
| Sergeant | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
| Wolfenstein SS | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
| Imp | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
| Chaingunner | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
| Lost Soul | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
| Commander Keen2 | ||||
| Demon | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
| Spectre | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
| Boss Brain2 | ||||
| Revenant | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4 | 4 |
| Cacodemon | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5 | 5 |
| Pain Elemental2 | ||||
| Hell Knight | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6 | 6 |
| Arachnotron | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6 | 6 |
| Mancubus | 7.00 | 0.00 | 7 | 7 |
| Arch-Vile2 | ||||
| Baron of Hell | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12 | 12 |
| Spider Mastermind | 150.00 | 0.00 | 150 | 150 |
| Cyberdemon | 200.00 | 0.00 | 200 | 200 |
- Assumes that the victim never takes blast damage from an attack on a different target.
- Cannot be targeted because the arch-vile attacks other monsters only in retaliation.
[edit] Appearance statistics
In classic Doom, the arch-vile is first encountered on these maps:
The IWADs contain the following numbers of Arch-Viles:
| Game | ITYTD and HNTR | HMP | UV and NM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doom II | 8 | 15 | 17 |
| TNT: Evilution | 10 | 27 | 38 |
| Plutonia | 65 | 86 | 99 |
[edit] Doom RPG
In Doom RPG, the arch-vile appears as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color:
- Infernis (blue)
- Archvile [sic] (gold)
- Apollyon (red)
The arch-vile class of monsters are particularly susceptible to axe attacks and also appear to share a similar weakness to the fire extinguisher that lost soul-class monsters do, much the same as in the novelisation of Hell on Earth. They also possess the ability to revive dead monsters, though this will fail if the player is standing on its target's corpse at the time.
[edit] See also
- Arch-vile attack targets not preserved in saved games
- Arch-vile gluing monsters together
- Arch-vile jump
- Ghost monster
- Models
- Monsters open locked doors
| Monsters from Doom and Doom II |
|---|
| Arachnotron | Arch-vile | Baron of hell | Cacodemon | Commander Keen | Cyberdemon | Demon | Heavy weapon dude | Hell knight | Imp | Lost soul | Mancubus | Pain elemental | Revenant | Shotgun guy | Spectre | Spiderdemon | Zombieman | Wolfenstein SS | See also final boss |
