Current state of Heretics

[The Wrench]

What do you all like about the 2023 heretic? What do you dislike?

[Capsandi]

I dislike that a common solo antag is magic based when magic crap should have kept to the wizard(intelligent & funny theme juxtaposition) and cult(classic horror antagonist).
Replace eldergods with corporations and retheme the rest.

[BrianBackslide]

My only beef is that heretics are too weak early on and that Silver is less of a "duelist" route and more of a "overpower everyone at the same time" route. Also Rust gets its healing before it gets any reasonable way to actually spread rust which is just silly.

Also bring back the gib sacrifice too. It was gory and wonderful and the people that complained about being round removed don't really "get" SS13.

[datorangebottle]

Also bring back the gib sacrifice too. It was gory and wonderful and the people that complained about being round removed don't really "get" SS13.

Heretic was at its peak during organ drop sacrifice, where it didn't permanently round remove someone, it just dropped all their organs on the ground under the circle.
This gave them crucial ingredients for their recipes, but didn't gib people and didn't take this weak "lol spooky hands" minigame approach.
I don't like the spooky hand minigame. It's weird, and makes sacrifice not feel like a messy sacrifice to the dark gods. It just feels like kidnapping.

[Archie700]

You can totally round remove someone if you chopped their heads off and sacrifice the body, then hide the head somewhere.

[Indie-ana Jones]

Mass majority of heretics never get anything done. They need to be stronger earlier in order to compete with how strong we've made security.

Also, from a design standpoint, there's a lot of things I don't like about heretics, but I'm phoneposting right now and will clarify when I'm done being roasted alive

[sinfulbliss]

They're mostly ok. Still think they'd be better off without a focus. Still think sacrifice should go back to gibbing.

Cosmic heretic is still too weak, the star marks are essentially useless.

Ash heretic should be immune to fire earlier. It's silly that an ash heretic has to put himself out with an extinguisher since all his spells/blade ignite people.

The heretic panel should also really tell you how many knowledge points you've unlocked, especially when ascension requires a specific amount. And no you can't just count the ones you've researched because they're either worth 1 or 2 points and you can't know which unless you've memorized the value of every heretic research.

[mrmelbert]

- I'm thinking at this point the brain trauma from sacrificing should be replaced. A replacement I thought of involved some dark portal opening in the victim's chest that yeeted all the organs out of their chest and replaced it with shadow organs, which each would have a negative effect corresponding to what they were, like the shadow tongue causing you to occasionally speak a random language when you talk, the eyes making it so you can't see heretics, etc.

- I'd greenlight a focus rework. I'd still like a way to "disarm" heretics of spells but I can't disagree it feels a little clunky at the moment. Maybe having focus boost their spells rather than being required, or some similar degree

- They need an early game buff and maybe a slight late game nerf. Double the buff for rust (and cosmic?) and double the nerf for blade.

- I think it's in a relatively good spot otherwise, I hear a lot of people say heretic is their favorite antag for flavor and gameplay, even above traitor. So I don't think much needs to be changed outside of tweaks and some reworks.

- Gibbing will never return, it was lame and the reason why heretics were about to be removed pre-rework

Replace eldergods with corporations and retheme the rest.

Weirdest take, I'd like to see how you retheme all the paths, spells, items, and summons

Ash heretic should be immune to fire earlier.

True. Also someone should make them explosive immune

And no you can't just count the ones you've researched because they're either worth 1 or 2 points

Sinful I told you this before, it's not the number of points you spent it's the number of research done. I won't oppose someone adding a count though

[InfiniteGalaxies]

Cant stand the early game, just find myself getting valid hunted and thrown into the gulag forever.

[CPTANT]

- I'm thinking at this point the brain trauma from sacrificing should be replaced. A replacement I thought of involved some dark portal opening in the victim's chest that yeeted all the organs out of their chest and replaced it with shadow organs, which each would have a negative effect corresponding to what they were, like the shadow tongue causing you to occasionally speak a random language when you talk, the eyes making it so you can't see heretics, etc.

- Gibbing will never return, it was lame and the reason why heretics were about to be removed pre-rework

Hard disagree. 100% hate this direction that antags can never be scary or deadly but are a mere inconvenience. It is completely antithetical to the fear and paranoia SS13 is build in.

[sinfulbliss]

- I'm thinking at this point the brain trauma from sacrificing should be replaced. A replacement I thought of involved some dark portal opening in the victim's chest that yeeted all the organs out of their chest and replaced it with shadow organs, which each would have a negative effect corresponding to what they were, like the shadow tongue causing you to occasionally speak a random language when you talk, the eyes making it so you can't see heretics, etc.

It just doesn't really feel like a "sacrifice" if it revives them. Hell sometimes getting sacced is a godsend if you're rotting away somewhere hidden in maint and a heretic finds you. That sorta detracts from the flavor to me. Maybe instead of a gib it just shoots out their organs and leaves the corpse where it stands?

I'd greenlight a focus rework. I'd still like a way to "disarm" heretics of spells but I can't disagree it feels a little clunky at the moment. Maybe having focus boost their spells rather than being required, or some similar degree

You could make a focus reduce the cooldowns or something (or no focus extend the cooldowns).

They need an early game buff and maybe a slight late game nerf. Double the buff for rust (and cosmic?) and double the nerf for blade.

Disagree with the nerf part, I've never encountered a heretic that felt too OP pre-ascension. Blade does get a really good spell with the 3-blade-block, but that's sorta the strength I feel like close-to-ascension heretics should be at.

And no you can't just count the ones you've researched because they're either worth 1 or 2 points

Sinful I told you this before, it's not the number of points you spent it's the number of research done. I won't oppose someone adding a count though

Damn, I've been wasting points on the expensive ones when I could've just bought the cheapies??
Regardless, making me count to 19 isn't cool..

[BrianBackslide]

I kinda liked being showered in gore from making a sacrifice, and I never had a problem being gibbed on MRP. Why play the game if there's no tension to getting fucked over for maint diving or doing other unsafe activities?

I've also noticed that the healing for the minigame doesn't seem to work properly and you can still end up stumbling around blindly or falling unconscious from bloodloss and then dying.

[MooCow12]

Heretics have too much noob bait

Rust early game for example is "oh so as long as i wear these armored robes and stand on these few tiles of rust i should be okay"
*proceeds to get stamcritted by a stun baton and kept in stam crit despite being left on rust because of the extra stamina damage you take when youre stam critted which was added to the game to stop stamina healing from doing its job*

Its literally marketed as a path that makes you tanky and hard to kill at the expense of prohibiting you to rust tiles in order to recieve that benefit (except you gain very little from being on rust pre-ascension so just staying on rust as much as you can just gets you killed)

Meanwhile blade and flesh both get harder to kill than rust as a side effect, hell even void becomes hard to kill just because the teleport jaunt.

Ash jaunt i also consider noob bait, people will use it after they get stun batoned thinking its an actual jaunt and then they cant move because their ethereal body is somehow still effected by things such as stamina/being knocked to the floor before they even dissipated.

Oh right speaking of mobility, certain shuttles completely disable a heretic`s ability to teleport, void is especially hampered because 2 of their main abilities (mark + attack to teleport to target and hit them) and the aoe damage teleport are both stopped by completely invisible and arbitrarily placed anti teleport zones that some shuttles have (including the cargo shuttle)



There is just so much little stuff going on that players have to worry about, most of which isnt even on purpose, its not a long list of noob bait but its just enough to where it becomes too much inflated difficulty.