Mancubus
From Doom Wiki
- For the mancubus in Doom 3, see Mancubus (Doom 3).
The mancubus is an enormously bloated yet tough demonic monster shambling about on sturdy stump-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 To make things worse, its arms have been replaced by huge flame throwers capable of spouting a rapid series of scathing bursts of flame, which are powered by a pair of tanks grafted onto the obese monster's back.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 monstrosity makes its first appearance in a level of Doom II where the player is forced to fight them to break through a fortified area controlled by the enemy.
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[edit] Tactical analysis
Mancubi are dangerous opponents, but have a number of exploitable weaknesses. They are slow, and make large targets, so are easy to kill with rapid-fire weapons. Furthermore, because they pause briefly before attacking, and also give out their distinctive battle cry before firing, it is pretty easy to prevent them from attacking using slower weapons, even the super shotgun. When they do 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 two will fly off to the left or right. 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.
[edit] Notes
- The latex model of the monster used as a base for the sprite has three pairs of nipples. [1] Although the extra nipples are not really distinguishable in the in-game representation, where only the upper "normal" ones are seen.
- A fitting explanation for the name of the monster seems to be a bastardized combination of the termination of the medieval demon names succubus or incubus preceded by the root of the Latin word mancus, which means "maimed" or "with a crippled or missing hand" (a derived word that is used in English is manque [2]).
[edit] Data
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| 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 |
| Boss Brain2 | 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 |
| Spider Mastermind | 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).
[edit] Appearance statistics
In classic Doom, the mancubus is first encountered on these maps:
The IWADs contain the following numbers of mancubi:
| Game | ITYTD and HNTR | HMP | UV and NM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doom II | 15 | 36 | 66 |
| TNT: Evilution | 21 | 53 | 84 |
| Plutonia | 92 | 113 | 140 |
[edit] Other games
[edit] Doom 64
While their function 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] See also
| 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 |
