Doom Roguelike Enemy Analysis: Former Sergeant

HP: 10

Protection: 0

Ranged Accuracy: N/A

Melee Accuracy: -2

Ranged Damage: 8d3 Shrapnel damage

Melee Damage: 1d3 (-1) Melee

Speed: 70%

Inventory: Shotgun Shells*30, plus their equipped Shotgun

Experience: 32

Danger: 2

Minimum floor: 2/1/1

Maximum floor: 15

Experience per Danger: 16

Can open doors, equip Armor, and pick up and use Medpacks, Phase Devices, and Homing Phase Devices.

Attack Chance: 75%

Former Sergeants are a big jump in threat level over Former Humans, though you wouldn't necessarily guess it by just looking at their stats, being slower, only slightly less pathetic in melee (By virtue of hitting more often, specifically), and just as frail. The fact that they're toting a Shotgun makes a world of difference, though. There's the obvious increase in damage, which is high enough that even with Shotguns losing damage with distance it's more lethal at range. (A Pistol high-roll is 8 damage. A Shotgun high-rolling at line of sight is 10.56 damage)

More important, though, is that Shotguns don't miss and don't make Dodge checks: the only way for a Former Sergeant to fire and not hit Doomguy is for it to be a case where the logic for line of fire checks doesn't mesh with line of fire reality. As I noted when talking about difficulty modifiers, this makes Former Sergeants particularly stand out as you go down in difficulties, since they don't care about the Aim penalty enemies get on I'm Too Young To Die nor the Aim boost enemies get on Ultraviolence and Nightmare! But even on the upper difficulties, they still tend to be one of the more deadly enemies from an early-game perspective. (Just crowded out a bit by things like 'I can encounter a Hell Knight this early, and that's much scarier') Among other points, taking corners and opening doors can go very wrong very suddenly by virtue of a Former Sergeant promptly spotting Doomguy and blasting him from close range.

The fact that they do penetrating splash damage is a bit of a mixed bag. The player is just operating Doomguy, so the crowd control aspect isn't an advantage, and in fact Former Sergeants are one of the enemies most prone to killing their buddies in the process of attacking Doomguy. But! When Barrels are about, Former Sergeants get to detonate them atop Doomguy without the Barrel actually preventing Doomguy taking damage from the shot itself. Usually if an enemy detonates a Barrel and Doomguy gets caught in the explosion, he at least didn't also take damage from the attack...

Former Sergeants are in fact the most dramatic enemy in the early game about it being a good idea to get in their face if eg you turn a corner and find yourself 1 tile away from them, because like most enemies they will never actually use their ranged attack if Doomguy is in punching range. (Unless you're playing on Angel of Max Carnage; in that case, Former Captains easily dethrone Former Sergeants in terms of 'horrifically dangerous at range, pathetic in melee')

In the longer haul, Former Sergeants tend to become a bit of a relief to see for non-melee runs -especially runs focusing on Shotguns, since they're a source of ammo- simply because they die so easily that by that point they often don't get a shot at all, and have decent odds of knocking Doomguy out of sight of other enemies if they do manage a shot.

For non-Marine melee runs, they're one of the bigger arguments for having ranged weapons on hand, as without Badass they will reliably knock you back if you attempt to close, and since they can't miss or mis-target you can't zig-zag to solve the problem or anything like that. By extension, for non-Marine Angel of Berserk runs, they can be surprisingly tricky to deal with; don't forget you can try to bait them into following you around corners and the like, being simply charging them as a Blademaster or Malicious Blades character tends to work out poorly. Malicious Blades in particular doesn't get ready access to Berserk: a Blademaster can, if they're already Berserking, often respond to being knocked back 2 tiles by going 'I have Hellrunner 2, Tactical Boots, and am Berserking: I can literally run more than 4 tiles in the time it will take the Former Sergeant to reload and then get another turn'. It's still better to try to fight Former Sergeants more efficiently, but a Blademaster whose build has solidified can often still do the 'just walk forward until I'm in range to cut them' tactic a Vampyre Marine is so good at, so long as there's not too many separate sources of knockback. And possibly even then, depending on how enemy actions are lining up.

All that said, I should point out that once you get far enough into a run seeing Former Sergeants at all means Archviles are about. Plan accordingly when in Hell, or Beyond in Angel of 100/Archangel of 666.

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Next time, we move on to Imps.

See you then.