The Whiplash is a brand new demon appearing in Doom Eternal and Mighty Doom.
Codex Entry
A scavenger of the Hellscape, the Whiplash creature was first discovered by UAC expedition teams in the black desert of the Sanctum Wastelands. These elusive, serpentine demons move with great speed and agility. They are capable of striking from a great distance with retractable bladed whips concealed within their forearms. This particular demon breed became an object of great interest to the UAC engineers on Earth, while attempts to capture live specimens of this nimble and unpredictable creature proved to be exceptionally dangerous. After successfully acquiring living specimens, researchers implanted cybernetic augmentations designed to enhance the Whiplash's innate strength and lethality.
Physical Appearance
The Whiplash is a cybernetic snake-like Enhanced Demon, with two thin horns curving up and backwards over its head, where its brain is exposed. Its arms are covered in what resembles long, black gloves and wields a chain whip ending in a curved blade, hence its name. From its abdomen down, the Whiplash's body is cybernetic and snakelike.
Combat Characteristics
Doom Eternal
The Whiplash crawls and slithers at an alarming speed to flank and slash the Slayer with its energy chain whips. It can hop ledges with its chains, using them like grappling hooks. It can also fire argent energy waves similar to the Summoner.
Due to its tendency to duck its head and slither around on the ground, accurate weapons capable of firing high-speed projectiles such as the Heavy Cannon, Combat Shotgun, Plasma Rifle, and Super Shotgun are highly recommended. The Rocket Launcher's Lock-On Rockets and the Ballista's Destroyer Blade can dispatch a Whiplash in one shot.
In some levels, such as the missions found during The Ancient Gods, Whiplashes are sometimes replaced by Whiplash Spectres. They have the same stats as a regular Whiplash, lacking any alterations similar to the Pinky Spectre's missing armor. Like the original Spectre, their invisibility makes them much harder to keep track of in a fight, and leaves them completely immune to Lock-On Rockets, Microwave Beam, or the Meat Hook if they aren't frozen. This bolsters their already strong flanking ability, and makes them mostly immune to what was originally their greatest weakness, the Lock-On mod.
Mighty Doom
Whiplashes in Mighty Doom are weaker than their original counterparts in that they lack melee whips. Their only attack is to throw undulating balls of plasma energy, and they are vulnerable to explosive weapons. The boss version of the Whiplash can be quite frustrating, as she frequently fires clusters of undulating energy balls that are very difficult to avoid, but at random, she may occasionally throw only a few balls that are much easier to avoid.
Trivia
- The Whiplash bears some resemblance to Nharre's demon from John Romero's Daikatana.
- According to game director Hugo Martin, the Whiplash is female.
- The Spectre Whiplash actually existed in the base game as an unused enemy, seen here.
- Like the Gargoyle, it appears to be based on a monster in the Heretic universe; in this case, the Ophidian. The parallel is somewhat looser, with the two monsters having different equipment and attacks.
- After Bethesda announced the shutdown of Mighty DOOM and the immediate dissolution of its development team on May 7, 2024, a Google Play event announcement for the game revealed that the cancelled fifteenth season for June 2024 was planned to be titled "Mermaid Raid", which sees the Slayer battling evil mermaids while on vacation (or slay-cation). The evil mermaids in question were called Fish-lasses, a mermaid reskin of the Whiplashes.
Gallery
See too
- Whiplash (Original)
- Whiplash Spectre
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