Which gun do you like more: Doom Combat Shotgun or Heretic Crossbow?

[Azure_Horror]

Full disclosure: I am yet to play Heretic.

 

But recently I played Heretic Invades Doom WAD. That WAD is my first experience with the Heretic Crossbow.

And personally, the crossbow felt so satisfying to use, even against bigger Doom 2 monsters.

 

So I wish to ask: which of the two weapons do you prefer?

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[volleyvalley]

The Heretic Crossbow, mainly because it feels more consistent and it feels a bit powerful than it's Doom counterpart.

[Jayextee]

I love Heretic and its crossbow, but there's absolutely no weapon in the entire history of FPS that in my opinion eclipses how satisfying and iconic the regular DOOM 1/2 shotgun is. Unfair poll. ;)

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Unironically the crossbow. It looks cool and is fun to use. The shotgun gets boring, but that's probably because I've used it so much. Also, the stock shotgun sound effect sucks. The crossbow just has more personality, and in all honesty feels like it had more love put into it than the shotgun.

Edited October 14, 2023 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Lila Feuer]

Ethereal crossbow damage is so unbelievably garbage but I agree it's very satisfying to hit things with it. 

[Naarok0fkor]

Shotguns are even more stupid in october...

[Amaruψ]

"Normal 1 shell shotgun"

 

Pump action is a term we invented quite a few decades ago.

[idbeholdME]

Shotgun, simply due to consistency. 10-80 of the main crossbow bolt is too wild, compared to the 35-105 of the Shotgun. The two side bolts are also mostly aesthetic, deal pathetic damage (2-16) and have a tendency to fly wherever.

 

The damage is fine relatively speaking, considering the much lower HP pools of Heretic's enemies, but the Shotgun is also hitscan. So the Shotgun wins easily.

[Amaruψ]

6 hours ago, volleyvalley said:

The Heretic Crossbow, mainly because it feels more consistent and it feels a bit powerful than it's Doom counterpart.

 

"feeling" a bit powerful is different than being actually powerful. I do believe that the crossbow deals far less damage than the max damage the shotgun can deal, and even in the lowest damage roll's case, I think the shotgun deals more damage, so the shotgun is the one which is practically more powerful.

[Azure_Horror]

1 hour ago, Amaruψ said:

"feeling" a bit powerful is different than being actually powerful. I do believe that the crossbow deals far less damage than the max damage the shotgun can deal, and even in the lowest damage roll's case, I think the shotgun deals more damage, so the shotgun is the one which is practically more powerful.

Here is the thing, though:

While the pump-action shotgun has more damage per shot, the ethereal crossbow shoots faster, and deals more damage per second.

 

With a good ammo supply for both weapons, the crossbow can easily out-damage the shotgun in any big fight. So it indeed can be more powerful, despite its volleys dealing less damage than a shotgun blast.

[LadyMistDragon]

The crossbow easily. Besides feeling great to use, it's also quite fast and has a wider range..

[thiccyosh]

I hate to bring a boring answer to the table: I kinda like both... Both are very great at getting rid of baddies. And ammo for both is very plentiful.

[Xaser]

Quote

Pump-action 1-shell Combat Shotgun from Doom 1-2

 

This phrasing has a very "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters" energy to it.

[Noiser]

The Crossbow is delicious! 8D



I love how it looks and the sound effects are great (and it's even better when tomed)

[Fonze]

I love how the thread is all 10 of the heretic fans vocally supporting the One True Correct Choice^TM and the poll shows a completely different story 😂

 

Anyway, I'm here to also stan for the clearly vastly beloved heretic weapons 😋 I like that sometimes the side bolts just don't go after your chosen target and instead go off to forge their own paths in life, sometimes attacking the sky or the evil walls that bind us, or sometimes hitting an enemy we didn't want to aggro... the little bundles of joy.

 

I also think there is a cool mechanic to be had with it in that it's side bolts are physical, which allows them to pass through ghosted monsters. Could be some fun setups with meat walls of less threatening ghost golems with some slightly more threatening undead warriors behind them or whatever to encourage the specific use of physical weapons, or something lol. 

[Shepardus]

The crossbow is way more satisfying to use, which I think is mostly down to how it sounds. Its damage is staggeringly random, though it didn't hit me just how random it was until I looked it up on the wiki. It's also kind of weird how each bolt autoaims individually. I think it does slightly better DPS than the pump-action shotgun even without the Tome of Power, but it's a moot comparison since they exist in different games with different enemies. Every enemy in Heretic except for the boss monsters has under 300 HP, which puts them below cacodemons, barons, and almost every monster added in Doom II, so while you're unlikely to mow down multiple enemies at once like you can with Doom's zombiemen, you also don't get as much of the situations where you're chipping away at an enemy for ages waiting for it to die, which is easily the least fun part of using Doom's shotgun.

[rzh]

Heretic has the cooler weapons in general, I don't care about performance necessarily, but simply in terms of how it feels they outperform Doom's arsenal for me.

Visually they look more impressive and colourful (even the wand, seeing that cross of light forming and fading on an enemy looks cool) and the sounds are generally more interesting.

Hexen's are even better though, even the Cleric mace feels like it's crushing a few bones at least with every hit despite it being arguably the weakest weapon in the game.

[OniriA]

Oh baby you hit me like a shotgun.

Oooh, oooh, aaah. ♪

 

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by OniriA