Doom Roguelike Enemy Analysis: Cacodemon

HP: 40

Protection: 1

Ranged Accuracy: +4

Melee Accuracy: +4

Ranged Damage: 2d6 Plasma

Blast Radius: 1

Melee Damage: 1d3 (+6) Melee

Speed: 100%

Inventory: Nothing.

Experience: 128

Danger: 6

Minimum floor: 10/7/4

Maximum floor: 50

Experience per Danger: 21.33

Unaffected by and ignores Acid and Lava.

Evasion: Base of 50%, +4% per tile of distance, making for a maximum of 82%

Attack chance: 40%

Functionally a substantial upgrade over Imps, except for the small detail that they can't open doors. Which is a very relevant quality, as Vaults are designed to only spawn enemies that can't open them on their own, and Cacodemons are the apex example for that purpose within a standard run. (In Angel of 100/Archangel of 666, they eventually get displaced from this slot by Nightmare Cacodemons) But when doors aren't around to foil Cacodemons, they're pretty straightforwardly Better Imps. They're even less susceptible to their shots being Dodged than Imps, albeit only a little.

Cacodemons are kind of oddly common overall. As I alluded to a moment ago, they show up in Vaults a lot, especially on higher difficulties, and Special Levels use them a fair amount, pretty clearly in part because they're the only regular enemy that's a ranged attacker able to operate freely around Acid and Lava, resulting in them being used in eg Mount Erebus/The Lava Pits to fill out ranged attackers in the no-safe-ground areas.

It's worth pointing out that Cacodemons are a ranged attacking enemy that actually tend to be more lethal if you get in close, switching from 2-12 damage to 7-9 damage; unless you're doing Angel of Max Carnage, have fairly high Protection for their ranged attack to ignore half of, or have noticeably higher Melee resistance than Plasma resistance, trying to neuter a Cacodemon by getting into its face is generally going to backfire. They'll attack more consistently, you can't Dodge melee attacks, they'll be more Accurate, and usually do more damage per hit. If you're not a melee build, it's generally better to try to keep your distance from Cacodemons.

Overall, though, Cacodemons are a surprisingly straightforward and bland enemy in practice, not giving me a ton to say.

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Next time, we cover Pain Elementals.

See you then.