Chainsaw Tier List

[Mangcubus]

A little chart I made about the effectiveness of the chainsaw against different types of monsters. Takes into account the following things:

• Pain chance
• Attack type/Attack damage
• HP

 

Feedback would be appreciated.

 

*Edit* Based entirely on the physics in ZDoom-based ports. Thanks, guys.

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by Mangcubus
disclaimer

[taufan99]

Nice, simple chart. Good for beginner's guides!

[baja blast rd.]

That chart looks made for ZDoom hitboxes. In oldschool ports, it is really tricky to even damage an arachnotron with a chainsaw. You basically need to get it stuck. 

 

I'd rename the second tier to "works well" -- bridging the gap between working "very well" and working "in a pinch" -- and arrange it as something like (no order within tiers): 

 

Made for chainsawing: pinky, lost soul, pain elemental, imp, zombieman

Works well: cacodemon, SS Nazi, [hell knight, baron]*

Works in a pinch: revenant, shotgunner, chaingunner

Only if necessary: archvile, hell knight, baron, mancubus

Bad idea: arachnotron 

No: spider mastermind, cyberdemon

 

The "made for chainsawing" tier has little hope of even getting an attack off. Chainsawing a pain elemental pretty much counters it. (I'll bold each monster in the section devoted to it, just to make it easier to find.) 

 

With a cacodemon, there is a slight possibility of retaliation even when continually stunning it, which is why it's a tier above. SS Nazis are not very dangerous to close the distance against. The hell knight and baron listing are "special cases" here (you might want to stop and guess when). 

 

Revenants are very stun-prone too, but distance management becomes necessary, and you should disengage a couple of times rather than taking them from 300 -> 0 in one motion. Shotgunners and chaingunners are super fragile, but you can easily get damaged while closing the distance and their fragility usually presents better options.

 

Now we get into monsters that aren't very chainsaw-friendly. 

 

Archviles are slow attackers so you can get a lot of hits in during their windup, dodge, and repeat. Still, in most cases, there's a fine line between unnecessary risk  and undesirable dullness. That applies to the rest of this tier. 

 

Grinding down hell knights and barons one-on-one is trickier than a vile -- the goats will constantly swipe at you -- but you can technically do it. On the plus side, their hitbox makes them easy to damage. That means distracting them with another monster and sawing them in the butt is a very practical strategy. There are a lot of UDoom pwads I've played where I had some imps and a baron in the same area, and equipped with a chainsaw, immediately thought "nice, free baron kill." (Even if you don't kill it, you might take off half or more of its HP.) All the other mid-tiers have high pain chances (so no need to bother with distractions) or are hard to hit even when distracted. The vile abandons the grudges you seed instantly, and low-tiers die quickly. So the goats are the one case this possibility affects meaningfully. 

 

A mancubus with oldschool physics is "easier" than a HK/baron (the mancubus attacks a lot more rarely). I hadn't tried that before this post, so I did for experimentation. I was able to do it without taking damage but found it very dull/unsatisfying. 

 

With arachnotrons and SMMs, getting them stuck is your only recourse with oldschool physics. SMMs? Dull beyond the novelty factor. Cyberdemon? I'd rather use a non-berserk fist. 

Edited March 17, 2020 by rdwpa

[Roofi]

In some situations , it's a lot easier to kill an arch-vile with chainsaw than any monster in the "bad idea" tier.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

I'd bump the PE up to the same tier as pinky's IF you're in close combat with one since rubbing your face into a PE stops them from spitting out lost souls.

[yakfak]

I love boredom chainsaw fights with the archvile! just don't put them in levels that have fast music giggle
melee vs revenants is cool too, not because you can guarantee not randomly getting punched to death but because you can't. that THWACK sound the revenant has for punching you is designed to be played over and over

[NoahRules]

What about commander keen?

[seed]

An interesting guide, but I think it needs to be accompanied by a disclaimer that ZDoom and its derivatives were probably used for reference.

 

As rwd pointed out above, enemies such as the Arachnotron are horrible to use the Chainsaw on due to their hitboxes (which are great for conventional weapons, but not melee ones). In vanilla you'd need to get them stuck first to saw them off or punch them.

 

It's also not that difficult to use it on an AV, but it is quite risky.

[Magicana]

Mancubus and Cacodemons seem to retaliate to the chainsaw about the same amount (Cacos a bit more actually), but for obvious reasons it's far more dangerous to do it to a Mancubus because of the huge damage.

[Pegleg]

I like the analysis rdwpa! Were you intending this list to reflect ZDoom emulating vanilla behavior?

 

On 3/17/2020 at 7:49 AM, rdwpa said:

With a cacodemon, there is a slight possibility of retaliation even when continually stunning it, which is why it's a tier above.

 

From what I remember, cacodemons will actually turn around while they're being sawed, effectively meaning that if you can take on a caco one-on-one and hit it before it has a chance to retaliate, it will most likely never be able to attack you.

 

EDIT: As I wrote in my new post below, this isn't true. I remembered an incident with a caco turning around while being chainsawed, but it was likely just coincidence, because I just tried to duplicate it last night, and cacos don't behave like that. As I said below, I defer to rdwpa's assessment of cacos and their suitability for being chainsawed.

 

Quote

A mancubus with oldschool physics is "easier" than a HK/baron (the mancubus attacks a lot more rarely). I hadn't tried that before this post, so I did for experimentation. I was able to do it without taking damage but found it very dull/unsatisfying.

 

With arachnotrons and SMMs, getting them stuck is your only recourse with oldschool physics. SMMs?

 

According to a note on the wiki section on the chainsaw, "Due to flawed collision detection, the chainsaw is ineffective against the arachnotron, mancubus and spider mastermind without a source port that modifies vanilla hitscan behavior." I recently tried chainsawing a SMM in Chocolate Doom (for reasons unrelated to this post, obviously) and wasn't able to touch it. I suppose the trick is to corner it or get it stuck on something else, as you said.

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Pegleg
Struck through erroneous statement and added an explanation.

[galileo31dos01]

17 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

I suppose the trick is to corner it or get it stuck on something else, as you said.

 

Effectively yea

 

(applies to fists as well)

Edited March 17, 2020 by galileo31dos01

[baja blast rd.]

34 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

I like the analysis rdwpa! Were you intending this list to reflect ZDoom emulating vanilla behavior?

Vanilla itself. It seems like ZDoom's Doom (strict) actually has a tight chainsaw range, so I'm guessing the tiers would be similar. I tried with the mancubus under those settings, and it's slightly easier than in vanilla, but still grindy even if all blades connect -- plus you have to react to it well. And I tried with the arachnotron and I can hit it easier in ZDoom, but nowhere near well enough to make engaging it that way efficient. (And to my knowledge you can't get monsters stuck the same way in ZDoom physics, so sawing a spider might be even less viable with "(strict)" settings.) 
 

Edited March 17, 2020 by rdwpa

[Mangcubus]

You guys were totally right, I was basing this off of Zandronum. Didn't even consider that the chainsaw would be affected by engine quirks, that was a bit silly. Good catch. Arachnotrons are "Bad Idea" for sure.

 

Pain Elementals and Lost Souls should definitely be bumped up to "Made for Chainsawing". I still wouldn't quite put Imps and Zombiemen there because they aren't totally defenseless while you're approaching them.

 

I feel like Archviles should at least be in "Bad Idea", because whether or not it's even possible to chainsaw them without getting charred is 100% dependant on level geometry. It's doable, yes, but it's also suicidal.

 

Might post an updated version later.

[idbeholdME]

Fast monsters will quickly make you stop thinking chainsawing pinkies is a good idea :P. The only thing that can reliably prevent them from biting you is plasma.

 

It takes just 2 damage instances in a row of not proccing the pain chance and you run a huge risk of getting bit in return. And when there are more of them at once, the others will easily flank you as you are focusing on the first one.

 

This all assumes the blockmap bug is fixed:

 

Arachnotrons are defenseless either way once you dive into them. Their super long wind up makes them harmless.

 

Revenant can usually be held but the high damage potential makes it painful in the few cases where it doesn't work out. If he only tried to punch you while chainsawing him, it would be OK, but him shooting a point blank missile into your face after getting pained is what makes it risky.

 

Everything besides the last 2 tiers is easily chainsawable as long as you wait for it behind a corner. And as long as any kind of cover is available, Arch-Vile is pretty easy to do too.

 

The only monsters where I wouldn't recommend it in any case are Hell Knight, Baron, SMM and Cyberdemon. The pain chance is too low and they all deal high damage at close range

[D4NUK1]

I just readed this thread as comparing Doom ChainsawsOP Tier

1.Eternal
2.Doom 2016.
3.Doom 64
4.Doom 3
5.Doom

[Pegleg]

On 3/17/2020 at 5:06 PM, Pegleg said:

From what I remember, cacodemons will actually turn around while they're being sawed, effectively meaning that if you can take on a caco one-on-one and hit it before it has a chance to retaliate, it will most likely never be able to attack you.

 

Prompted by a post on another thread, I tried this last night, because I was sure I remembered cacodemons turning around while being chainsawed. Yes, it would be a strange reaction for the monster to have, but that memory from the mid-90's was there. I fired up Doom and went after the cacos at the beginning of E3M1 and they did not turn completely around. Usually, they didn't turn at all. I was wrong. I never ran around chainsawing things a lot, so it was probably just coincidental happenstance that it happened back then. I will defer to rdwpa's assessment of chainsawing cacos.

 

 

On 3/19/2020 at 7:12 AM, Mangcubus said:

Pain Elementals and Lost Souls should definitely be bumped up to "Made for Chainsawing".

 

For lost souls, your timing would have to be right, unless you just held down the trigger and figured they would fly directly into you.

 

For Pain Elementals one-on-one, I agree that you can bump them up. They have no melee attack, and can't spawn lost souls while you're chainsawing them. Furthermore, chainsawing them has the distinct advantage that they can't spawn 3 lost souls upon death like they normally would. Of course, if you were in a swarm of pain elementals, the chainsaw would be a rather poor choice.

 

 

5 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Fast monsters will quickly make you stop thinking chainsawing pinkies is a good idea :P. The only thing that can reliably prevent them from biting you is plasma.

 

It takes just 2 damage instances in a row of not proccing the pain chance and you run a huge risk of getting bit in return. And when there are more of them at once, the others will easily flank you as you are focusing on the first one.

 

I've been bitten by a regular speed demon while chainsawing it, which I didn't even think was possible. I would argue that they are still pretty well made for chainsawing if you can confront them in a relatively narrow space.

 

But yes, a horde of demons in an open space where they can flank you is a rather poor idea.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Pegleg
Added hyperlink.