Doom Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Heretic-Ophidian

An Ophidian in Heretic E3M4

Ophidian is an enemy in Heretic. They resemble snakes and carry pointed staves. When attacking, they fire a chain of three purple shots from their staff, pause, and then fire a more powerful red fireball.

Description from the manual: The Ophidians slither in the darkest chambers of the Dome of D'sparil and protect their lairs with deadly, energy tossing tridents.

Tactical analysis[]

Ophidians have high health and a low pain chance making them formidable as meat shields. However their missiles do not cause great damage (though being hit by all four still adds up). Ophidians re-target with every missile so the player has to keep moving until it has fired all its shots. While active, they let off a sound resembling the rattle of a rattlesnake. When killed, the Ophidian splits open and collapses into a bloody pile on the floor.

Ophidians sometimes drop a Flame Orb when killed. These particular Flame Orbs are worth 5 shots instead of the usual 1 shot.

Data[]

Attributes
ID # 92 (decimal), 5C (hex)
Hit points 280
Speed 10 map units per frame
(87.5 map units per second)
Width 44
Height 70
Reaction time 8
Pain chance 48 (18.82%)
Mass 100
Bits ?
Bits list

Obstacle

Shootable

Affects Kill %

Foot Clip

Pass Mobj

Sprites & sounds
Sprite name SNKE
Alert sound SNKSIT
Action sound SNKACT
Pain sound SNKPAI
Attack sound SNKATK
Death sound SNKDTH
Purple missile ranged attack
Type Projectile
Speed 14 map units per tic
(490 map units per second)
Damage 1-8
Width 24
Height 8
Sprite name SNFX (in flight)
SNFX (impact)
Orange missile ranged attack
Type Projectile
Speed 14 map units per tic
(490 map units per second)
Damage 3-24
Width 24
Height 8
Sprite name SNFX (in flight)
SNFX (impact)
Shots needed to kill
(Purple Missile)1
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 ? ? ? ?
Ophidian2
Iron Lich ? ? ? ?
Maulotaur ? ? ? ?
Green Chaos Serpent ? ? ? ?
D'Sparil ? ? ? ?
Shots needed to kill
(Purple Missile)1
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 ? ? ? ?
Ophidian2
Iron Lich ? ? ? ?
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[]

The ophidian is first encountered on these maps:

Game TNAWN and YRU BTO TAASM and BPPT
Episode 1 - - -
Episode 2 - - -
Episode 3 E3M1: The Storehouse E3M1: The Storehouse E3M1: The Storehouse
Episode 4 E4M1: Catafalque E4M1: Catafalque E4M1: Catafalque
Episode 5 E5M3: Quay E5M3: Quay E5M3: Quay

The IWAD contains the following numbers of ophidians:

Game TNAWN and YRU BTO TAASM and BPPT
Episode 1 0 0 0
Episode 2 0 0 0
Episode 3 20 52 64
Episode 4 35 57 73
Episode 5 66 101 107
Advertisement