Heretics need a buff BADLY

[Shadowflame909]

>roundstart heretics
>24 threat
>None of them are able to get 1 sacrifice

heretic blade buff plz

[blackdav123]

I tested heretic blade a while ago its like 7 hits to drop a crew member and 10 for sec due to their armor.

With the stinky hand and a blade, a heretic should maybe possibly be able to win a 1v1 assuming the person doesnt baton them twice.

1v2 gets into the territory of losing against unarmed crew punching and shoving you to death and in a 1v3 you'd better snap your blade or leave.

[oranges]

did you consider that maybe these heretic players just sucked?

[Shadowflame909]

everyone sucks at ss13 its the weapons that are OP

and heretics just arent scary in 1v1s

[toemas]

it needs a slight damage buff

[Shadowflame909]

I tested heretic blade a while ago its like 7 hits to drop a crew member and 10 for sec due to their armor.

With the stinky hand and a blade, a heretic should maybe possibly be able to win a 1v1 assuming the person doesnt baton them twice.

1v2 gets into the territory of losing against unarmed crew punching and shoving you to death and in a 1v3 you'd better snap your blade or leave.

I once lost against a humanized monkey that got good shoves and knock down punches

It sure isn't the e-sword or even e-pen that's for sure

[mrmelbert]

Their dynamic ruleset probably could be tweaked a bit.
I didn't touch it at all when I reworked them, and now they no longer gib / take a bit longer to ramp up their threat cost and min player requirement can be bumped down.

As for actual combat balance, idk. I've seen heretics stomp and i've seen them get stomped. Might be a skill issue I can't tell. I think giving their sword some armor pen would be a good start though.

[Pandarsenic]

I was going to say "just steal a fireaxe or something" but then realized that maybe having them lack any equivalent of Esword/Armblade kind of sucks actually

So instead

just steal a fireaxe or something until they get buffed? idk

[XII3912]

firstly shit like this can definitely occur, the heretics may have been unskilled/unknowledgeable about how to play heretics, new or they may not have had a opportunity to sac somebody. a stun baton can make a heretic very powerful in combat i think they're in a good place right now. this just isn't enough to judge whether they need a buff or not.

[chocolate_bickie]

Heretics suck because all their early abilities kinda suck.

Think about it, early on you need to a. gather influences and b. kill targets.

The only abilities that assist with these goals are mobility spells, since they let you grab hard to reach influences and evade sec.

If you want to succeed as heretic your abilities won't help you.

Imo manus grasp needs a buff. As is a knockdown plus 7-10 hits to kill loses to any sec officer. Even non-sec players have a decent time to call out for help and once out'd they are fucked.

The blade nerf (max 3) also completely ignored why people made a billion blades.

Since heretics have a near 100% chance of being out'd early on and a very low chance of beating an army of seccies bumrushing them they needed those blades to survive.

A random teleport to engie storage dosen't help when the AI calls out your new position, so you have to try again.

[Pandarsenic]

a stun baton can make a heretic very powerful in combat

A stun baton can make anyone very powerful in combat

[sinfulbliss]

Agree, it seems to me heretics are having a harder time after the rework than an easier time. I think the primary reason being they always have to sac a member of command and a sec officer to ascend, which is significantly harder than the usual 4-5 random crew members (who you can shuffle from after each sac). Also harder to reroll your sacs than before.

Add this to the sacrifice bringing the victim back in a few minutes to tell everyone, and you have extremely few ascensions. This is sorta one situation where MRP and LRP clash pretty heavily and need different solutions, but can’t have them. RR and gibbing your victims is discouraged on MRP (perhaps even banned?), but no one has an issue with this on LRP. What’s more, on MRP people can’t validhunt so heretics won’t just get instantly attacked by whoever sees them doing back things.

Possible solutions - more mobility spells for the paths besides void. Mansus grasp could be a longer/more powerful spell on sac targets. The blade could pierce armor or even give a blockchance. Too many combat buffs would be bad but I haven’t actually seen a single heretic ascension in 50+ rounds so I think it’s definitely harder for people on LRP

[XII3912]

a stun baton can make a heretic very powerful in combat

A stun baton can make anyone very powerful in combat

yeah but heretics can basically instant stun you with a combo you its alot more different

[XII3912]

.

>Possible solutions - more mobility spells for the paths besides void. Mansus grasp could be a longer/more powerful spell on sac targets.

idk what more you want grasp can easily win you a 1v1 esp if you got a baton (can still easily win without) and 90% of the time sac targets are helpless.

[XII3912]

actually seen a single heretic ascension in 50+ rounds so I think it’s definitely harder for people on LRP
(failed to quote)

it hasn't even been spawning lately even on highpop. ascensions are difficult to get and they're meant to be i agree with the sec/command thing though 6 kills should be enough to seal the deal it doesn't have to be made harder then that

[Pandarsenic]

Add this to the sacrifice bringing the victim back in a few minutes to tell everyone, and you have extremely few ascensions.

I'm like 90% sure you should be immediately ahelping anyone who tells you they were sacrificed? Can someone factcheck me here?

[Drag]

Add this to the sacrifice bringing the victim back in a few minutes to tell everyone, and you have extremely few ascensions.

I'm like 90% sure you should be immediately ahelping anyone who tells you they were sacrificed? Can someone factcheck me here?

Correct, anyone sacrificed on LRP and MRP does not remember what events led up to them being sacrificed. This says so in the tool tip sacrificed players are given after they return from heretic gbj

[blackdav123]

a stun baton can make a heretic very powerful in combat

A stun baton can make anyone very powerful in combat

yeah but heretics can basically instant stun you with a combo you its alot more different

The knockdown is great and all but you can do the same thing with a shove and a nice wall.

Adding the stinky hand into your combo seems like a great idea but because you can only attack so fast adding in more non damaging clicks doesnt help you kill anyone faster in a 1v2 or 1v3 scenario so heretic hand is only useful in the 1v1 scenario.

[massa]

did you consider that maybe these heretic players just sucked?

2 of these players were extremely robust and skilled, heretic is very very weak.

Agree, it seems to me heretics are having a harder time after the rework than an easier time. I think the primary reason being they always have to sac a member of command and a sec officer to ascend, which is significantly harder than the usual 4-5 random crew members (who you can shuffle from after each sac). Also harder to reroll your sacs than before.

This is true. There wasn't much reason for this? Why not just let us sacrifice 5 people and do the funny heart thing as we did before. It's such a forced system. Ritual murder shouldn't revive the victim? That's so weird.

Also, the blade nerf. People made 8 blades because they are unreliable and get you killed often. A limit of 3 sucks.

Add this to the sacrifice bringing the victim back in a few minutes to tell everyone, and you have extremely few ascensions.

I'm like 90% sure you should be immediately ahelping anyone who tells you they were sacrificed? Can someone factcheck me here?

Correct, anyone sacrificed on LRP and MRP does not remember what events led up to them being sacrificed. This says so in the tool tip sacrificed players are given after they return from heretic gbj

Pure cope. People don't read that glowing ass flavor text and plenty just ignore it. People get vindictive and form vendettas and they come to kill you. Ritual murder should not give them this opportunity for free, and insulated it with a layer of safety.

[HeyHey]

Hey I was in this round! I do suck.
But I used to be able to consistently get 1-2 sacrifices when Heretics first came out a couple changes made it worse for (ash) Heretics.
Amber fucking focuses being required to use spells.
Living heart is a static list of 4 people to kill and you can't make a half dozen hearts to have more targets
Heretic gear is locked behind 4+ points of unlocks which either means I get lucky and pull three rifts at round start or I wait for half the round.
Also having to kill a member of sec with only a instant stun while they have a stunbaton is fucking torture.

[Drag]

Pure cope. People don't read that glowing ass flavor text and plenty just ignore it. People get vindictive and form vendettas and they come to kill you. Ritual murder should not give them this opportunity for free, and insulated it with a layer of safety.

No people seem to read it just fine, this exclusively sounds like an issue on your part. I recited what the rule is and until it changes, cope. If people are breaking the rules suck up your pride and ahelp it.

[kieth4]

Pure cope. People don't read that glowing ass flavor text and plenty just ignore it. People get vindictive and form vendettas and they come to kill you. Ritual murder should not give them this opportunity for free, and insulated it with a layer of safety.

No people seem to read it just fine, this exclusively sounds like an issue on your part. I recited what the rule is and until it changes, cope. If people are breaking the rules suck up your pride and ahelp it.

A rule like that is SO easy to break and almost uh-ahelpable, how do you prove that someone is going after you when they might just always be in the corner "hanging about" waiting for you to slip up. Or they might just find you maint doing heretic things. It's such a stupid rule which is neigh impossible to enforce.

[NoxVS]

I think the problem with heretic is you don't really have the capability to win in a fight with your equipment until way into the path. 1v1 against an officer, you probably are going to lose. Because of this, you need jaunts. Only available to 2 paths, and only one is really reliable, so regardless of what path you take you are pretty much required to dip into void or ash to pick up mobility to escape fights.

There is also the problem of a LOT of extremely niche ingredients that, depending on your job, are either almost impossible to get or extremely easy. It's a little better than it was before but the issue with needing a ton of flowers has sort of shifted towards needing a ton of organs.

Pure cope. People don't read that glowing ass flavor text and plenty just ignore it. People get vindictive and form vendettas and they come to kill you. Ritual murder should not give them this opportunity for free, and insulated it with a layer of safety.

You have no idea how often someone asks "do i forget what happened if i got sacrificed" and I just have to ask them what the giant neon sign of a flavor text says

[CMDR_Gungnir]

Pure cope. People don't read that glowing ass flavor text and plenty just ignore it. People get vindictive and form vendettas and they come to kill you. Ritual murder should not give them this opportunity for free, and insulated it with a layer of safety.

No people seem to read it just fine, this exclusively sounds like an issue on your part. I recited what the rule is and until it changes, cope. If people are breaking the rules suck up your pride and ahelp it.

A rule like that is SO easy to break and almost uh-ahelpable, how do you prove that someone is going after you when they might just always be in the corner "hanging about" waiting for you to slip up. Or they might just find you maint doing heretic things. It's such a stupid rule which is neigh impossible to enforce.

Credit where it's due, we do have a lot of rules that function the same way (RE text given when something happens). And it's pretty easy to just...ahelp when someone says they got sac'd. Doesn't have to mean they get in Super Trouble, they can just be told to pay more attention.

[blackdav123]

I will not hear anyone tell me the jaunt is good. Runetext killed sneaking away with jaunts and it only moves you five tiles away. Hurray! I'm one room over.

[NoxVS]

I will not hear anyone tell me the jaunt is good. Runetext killed sneaking away with jaunts and it only moves you five tiles away. Hurray! I'm one room over.

Amazing in maintenance, where you are suddenly on the other side of a wall officers cant easily get over to.

[san7890]

-snip-

a skill issue

-snip-

[mrmelbert]

having them lack any equivalent of Esword/Armblade kind of sucks actually

I thought about adding a heretic whetstone that strengthens a sickly blade.
Alternatively, maybe unlocking the blade upgrade can up the blade's force?

We'll see. I don't really want heretics running around with 2/3/5 esword equivalents very early on.

Mansus grasp could be a longer/more powerful spell on sac targets

That's actually a very interesting idea.

extremely niche ingredients...shifted towards needing a ton of organs.

I try to be very conscious about that.
In the past, like 5 recipes used "eyes" and "hearts" and 0 recipes used livers, stomachs, or lungs, so you needed 3 monkeys to make 4 things.
Now, it's a bit more distributed with less overlap - 1 monkey can likely make you 4 recipes on its own.

It's still notably hard for most jobs though.

It's very difficult to think of uncommon items that can be used in rituals. It's the same problem Armhulen had for thieves.
I think I might consider some "intermediate ritual components" that all heretics can make and have multiple recipes.

"Create Cursed Oil by combining a lantern with x, y, or z. This is used to create powerful recipes." Where x is something easily obtainable in medical, y in engineering, and z science.

kill a member of sec with only a instant stun while they have a stunbaton is fucking torture.

lol.

I think this is a stunbaton problem and not a heretic problem, but also it's like the entire reason why I designed blade heretic to be able to block attacks (stunbatons).

[XII3912]

>Adding the stinky hand into your combo seems like a great idea but because you can only attack so fast adding in more non damaging clicks doesnt help you kill anyone faster in a 1v2 or 1v3 scenario so heretic hand is only useful in the 1v1 scenario.
]
If you're a antag in a 1v2 then you are likely fucked and should escape. Idk how this really matters actually, If a antag can't win take out 2 people or more with ease thats just the game, if 2 or more seccies rush you and you're currently weak, you should escape, like heretics aren't a heavy threat like wizards & nukies

[Pandarsenic]

having them lack any equivalent of Esword/Armblade kind of sucks actually

I thought about adding a heretic whetstone that strengthens a sickly blade.
Alternatively, maybe unlocking the blade upgrade can up the blade's force?

We'll see. I don't really want heretics running around with 2/3/5 esword equivalents very early on.

Does having more than one really matter? What are you gonna do with the extras?

[blackdav123]

>Adding the stinky hand into your combo seems like a great idea but because you can only attack so fast adding in more non damaging clicks doesnt help you kill anyone faster in a 1v2 or 1v3 scenario so heretic hand is only useful in the 1v1 scenario.
]
If you're a antag in a 1v2 then you are likely fucked and should escape. Idk how this really matters actually, If a antag can't win take out 2 people or more with ease thats just the game, if 2 or more seccies rush you and you're currently weak, you should escape, like heretics aren't a heavy threat like wizards & nukies

You will often need to fight 1v2s as a heretic to complete your sacs. Roboticists and botanists come to mind as two jobs that will almost always be near a partner willing to fight with them, as well as both of these jobs are in glass boxes visible from the halls for any passerbys to come and help aswell. The issue isnt that these combos are a challenge to fight (1v2s and other larger fights SHOULD be difficult to win) but that heretic's weapon options give them nothing to deal with this kind of scenario. Loudly slashing two botanists 7 times each while both of them are fighting back is the best case scenario and this is why heretics are losing so often.

[NoxVS]

Also I just realized. Two of the guys in that picture didn't even pick a path. You start with enough points to do so, how are you so bad at heretic that you can't even complete the step that is literally handed to you.

[mrmelbert]

Does having more than one really matter? What are you gonna do with the extras?

Give them to your minions, which can use them freely, creating a goonsquad of two-three people with armblade equivalents dunking people

[wesoda25]

Imo it’d be better to buff their tools, not inherent abilities

[celularLAmp]

Real issue with heretics is why anyone would go anything that doesn't lead to Aristocrat's Way as fast as possible. 99% of the time you're gonna end up needing that if other shit happens in the shift or you want to escape from security and they can't go somewhere due to it.

[celularLAmp]

Flesh path is good though because you could just pick off a asistant or something give him sec gear and get a baton and now you can go tell him to get people for ya

[sinfulbliss]

Add this to the sacrifice bringing the victim back in a few minutes to tell everyone, and you have extremely few ascensions.

I'm like 90% sure you should be immediately ahelping anyone who tells you they were sacrificed? Can someone factcheck me here?

Correct, anyone sacrificed on LRP and MRP does not remember what events led up to them being sacrificed. This says so in the tool tip sacrificed players are given after they return from heretic gbj

Sometimes it's not as clear-cut as someone just breaking the rules and outing you to sec. If they do do that though it'll be incredibly hard to figure out and ahelp. For instance, one time I was outted as a heretic and then had to sac a seccie and the captain. I sacced them and they respawned. Now they won't remember the events that led up to them being sacced, but they will still know I am a heretic, and be able to hunt me immediately after being safely teleported somewhere on the station. And you definitely can be damn sure they are going to hunt you with a passion after losing once and getting sacced if they have even a shred of IC justification.

It just made things a bit harder, luckily it was lowpop so it didn't matter much, but on highpop this is likely often the difference between a heretic ascending or not. Heretics are one of the loudest antags by force, so if you are already outted, people that get sacced are allowed to use public knowledge that you are indeed a heretic to then hunt you down. Traitors are allowed and even forced to round-remove/decap their objectives, and it's only worth 1 TC. So it seems silly heretics are changed to avoid this, just for Manuel, and with stakes much higher than a 1 TC optional objective.

Consider that this happens: You do everything perfect - you mansus hand your target alone, stamcrit them, and begin killing them while dragging them to your rune. Suppose they do what most players will do and yell "VEX BAD" or "VEX HERETIC." Okay, now security and the crew know you are evil. You likely have wanted records now. You sac your target, and they respawn back on the station. They don't know they were sacced IC, or remember the events leading up to it, but it is now public knowledge you are a heretic - you have a wanted record too! They can now validhunt a confirmed valid, and kill you. This happens all the time.

[chocolate_bickie]

Does having more than one really matter? What are you gonna do with the extras?

Give them to your minions, which can use them freely, creating a goonsquad of two-three people with armblade equivalents dunking people

Can flesh zombies use heretic blades?

[mrmelbert]

Does having more than one really matter? What are you gonna do with the extras?

Give them to your minions, which can use them freely, creating a goonsquad of two-three people with armblade equivalents dunking people

Can flesh zombies use heretic blades?

Yes, heretic ghouls can use heretic blades (and 99% of heretic equipment in general for that matter).

[Jonathan Gupta]

Does having more than one really matter? What are you gonna do with the extras?

Give them to your minions, which can use them freely, creating a goonsquad of two-three people with armblade equivalents dunking people

Can flesh zombies use heretic blades?

Yes, heretic ghouls can use heretic blades (and 99% of heretic equipment in general for that matter).

what 1% can they not use.

[Shadowflame909]

>Mid pop sybil, roll roundstart heretic.
>My assistant sac target goes into medbay for liver damage. KO with anesthetic and sac
> Sec is focused on the CE traitor. Not worried about me or searching for heretics. (Based)
>Go through my path, get the ritual of knowledge
>Need 2 lizard tails, 3 pens, 1 bear-trap.
>Only lizard and Non-Human on station suicided, steal their tail.
>Go to lavaland look for legion ash-lizards, get trapped in an ash-storm, etc.
>Just gib runtime for their tail
>Shuttle is called because they're bored and tbf I've been on a fetch quest and haven't actually engaged with sec/made anyones round interesting
>Shuttle lands and round ends because I couldn't get the bear-trap in the janitors office in delta-station maint.
>Engaged with no one except for my sac target who landed in my lap.

Heyy...Fetch-Quest balancing is distracting and doesn't really leave much interaction with other players. If your busy spending your round finding an item that might be very hard to find depending whats happened in that course of the round.

I would also like to point out that this is why it was viewed with great joy that progression tot moved away from holding an item for a long time and bugging rooms, to contractor style kidnapping people, stealing eyes, and blowing up rooms.

If heretics got a lot of funny tools, I think they should at least have the time to use It!!!

Conclusion & TLDR: Double the amount of points they get from their sources so we can actually see the cool effects of their tools. Not even a threat whilst unimpeded because its a struggle to get points to progress!

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

You guys are still trying to use the heretic blades? I usually steal the syringe gun and break into chemistry to use funny chemicals, or use a stun baton. Heretic blades are useless lmao. Its even worse when you do something like flesh heretic who gets a huge bleed bonus for using their mansus grasp, but it still feels like 0 impact. You're better off using a carrot shiv than a fucking heretic blade.

[Jonathan Gupta]

You guys are still trying to use the heretic blades? I usually steal the syringe gun and break into chemistry to use funny chemicals, or use a stun baton. Heretic blades are useless lmao.

no? They provide buffs depending on the paths. Also you can shatter them for a get away...

[XII3912]

I'm coming back here after playing a round of the new heretic (on highpop), I believe that needing to complete your objectives is kinda ridiculous, e.g. - spend 17 points I think gathering points via sacs and pierced realities to ascend requires enough effort on its own I dont see why it'd have to be harder. And next up is the focuses, Heretic spells aren't that strong I mean they aren't terrible but I dont think heretics should have to wear something that outs them as a heretic to anybody who examines them is fair especially since their spells really aren't that strong to warrant such a restriction. It's only fair

[blackdav123]

You guys are still trying to use the heretic blades? I usually steal the syringe gun and break into chemistry to use funny chemicals, or use a stun baton. Heretic blades are useless lmao. Its even worse when you do something like flesh heretic who gets a huge bleed bonus for using their mansus grasp, but it still feels like 0 impact. You're better off using a carrot shiv than a fucking heretic blade.

nobody is using heretic blades thats the issue heretic has all of these cool items with lots of flavor and none of them are as good as things crew already have

whenever I am heretic I will shove my target against a wall and beat them to death with either my fists or a nearby fire extinguisher or toolbox. nobody calls sec on me when it just looks like a brawl, and using the blade would take just as long to kill while validing me

[NecromancerAnne]

Last time I played heretic I killed people with a shovel. Good times.

[massa]

make sacs kill (wtf was this silly hugbox change? lol)

figure out some way to make stinky had not awful

amber focus is ass and death just make it all work

the knowledge requirements are too high or ascension is just bugged. Sometimes when I'm at the ascension ritual I can't even buy it without admin help. I have the points, the sacrifices, I've sucked influences, yet I can never buy that stupid ascension spell and I'm pretty sure it's bugged.

the specific targets as opposed to any targets is stupid, why does my god care if i kill a middle manager? they want human sacrifices, not employment rosters

you guys need to realize how impossible heretic is, it's sooooo fucking bad. just let us sac anyone, specific targets are silly. they do shit like destroy their bodies or literally never leave public spaces at all for entire shifts.

no one uses heretic blades for a reason

in many ways old heretic was much smoother, but removing start items from them was great

heretic #1 goal is generally to get a batong, and once you have a batong, fists, fire extinguisher, or tick blade are all the same. 95% of the shit on the heretic tree i do not use or even know about. these tools are ALL bad, they take a bare minimum of 10 minutes to complete a single silly ritual just hunting all the trash you need, and they aren't worth it. I can't trade that time on rounds that are already 40 minute max. I have to hunt down and kill 4 members of the crew bare minimum, one of which is a cop and the other is a head of staff. I cannot hunt for every silly organ and niche item from one specific job's locker (this happens often) as well.

this is all such a tall order. it's not just murder, it's a whole fuckin ritual with a circle that takes 300000 hours to appear for NO reason that you need an entire corpse for, one with coworkers and friends who almost never leave them. and it's that, 4 times+having to gain a bunch of bullshit knowledge that bugs so you can't even buy the final ritual. and once it's all said and done, a batong still beats you.

they literally added mechanics that force someone you murdered to be revived. lol. then they get a very big noisy text blob that says "do NOT heckin do that thing you're gonna do that we KNOW you're gonna do because you're a terry player!"
then they do it then you get even more fucked by basically metaghosting

if there's anything to fix it's this, sac must full kill. death is part of this game.

[Shadowflame909]

Agreed.

1. Buff the damage of the blades. I'm supposed to be scary in a 1v1 as an antag. If it takes too long to kill, then they'll call for help and now im in a 3v1 outnumbered and against weapons of equal or better caliber to my blades. Like a makeshift crew weapon ala spear or a stun baton.

2. Lower the amount of stuff you need for the rituals. They're all job specific, so I should just have to go to one specific department for the funny ritual and not several. This will greatly increase the amount of unique stuff we will actually be able to see heretics use. It can just be eldritch 1-1s. Like a blade to an eldritch god's blade. Or a codex to an eldritch gods version of a bible.

3. double the amount of points you get from your sources. Heretics already take a long time to get through their progress tree because of the fetch-quest rituals. Allowing them to play with more tools is a good thing. Actually causes chaos worthy of their dynamic rep.

I really like this antag flavor wise, it has a lot of cool stuff. But if the cool stuff can be out damaged by an NPC humanized monkey with a lucky disarm. Your antag isnt even a threat

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

the knowledge requirements are too high or ascension is just bugged. Sometimes when I'm at the ascension ritual I can't even buy it without admin help. I have the points, the sacrifices, I've sucked influences, yet I can never buy that stupid ascension spell and I'm pretty sure it's bugged.

if there's anything to fix it's this, sac must full kill. death is part of this game.

It's not bugged, it's just not based on available knowledge points, it's based on having all of your objectives complete.

Also, I said this even before the heretic changes - the real redpill on heretic is that flesh path should be the only path, because it's the only one that brings the dead back into the round. Kill sac + flesh is the way to go, imo. But I know that will never happen.

[massa]

I really like this antag flavor wise, it has a lot of cool stuff. But if the cool stuff can be out damaged by an NPC humanized monkey with a lucky disarm. Your antag isnt even a threat

I too love this antag too, and I do like some of the changes. This is constructive even if it's bitchy. I would say a good experience on heretic is as good as the funnest antags like nukie or xenos.