EE:Heretic

This feature is part of the Extreme Edition fan-made expansion.

Heretic
Tier 4 Class
Class traits
INDULGENT Indulgences are never spent; gain health, base damage, and mana based on indulgences BLASPHEMOUS Gain 3 CP/piety lost when angering a god, immune to punishments OBSCENE MISSION Scout all altars, cannot convert or desecrate, auto-desecrate worshipped altar on level up and reduce piety to 0
Suggested Races
Template:HuHe
Class Challenges
Unlocking
Building: Church Level 4 Church]]

"These hardline antitiests demonstrate impressive religious knowledge and talent. They direct most of their incredible skill to the cause of pranking their nemeses, the Crusaders."

The Heretic is a special Tier 4 class from the Desktop Dungeons: Extreme Edition mod, unlocked by paying 3000 gold at the Church. The class specializes in using gods in unorthodox ways, primarily by deliberately antagonizing them.

Strategy

Heretic strategy is a lot more complex than it initially appears, thanks in no small part to turning the way you must think about the gods on its head. The biggest plus the class has is the ability to worship every god on the map and accrue many boons from different gods with relative ease, in a manner similar to the Goatperson. The difference is, you only get a god once, Goatperson can cycle through the altars multiple times. This means to maximize your potential, you must VERY carefully decide when to worship each god and how to spend the piety gained under them, be that on particular boons or by angering the god to convert piety to conversion points.

Because of the sheer complexity of godplay in general and the limited, random altar spawns, this makes Heretic one of the most difficult classes to plan out. Options will change drastically depending on what gods happen to spawn, and the options within those you will want to take drastically differ depending on the dungeon, your race, and item selection. There is no one main gameplan the Heretic wants to follow, they must adapt on the fly to truly stand out. Being unable to stay with a particular god for long is a severe limitation on each one's individual strategy, stackable boons such as Dracul's lifesteal and sanguine boons especially get much harder to use. Always try to keep in mind how much piety you need, how much you can reasonably gain in one level's time, and even how your god's starting piety works to make smart decisions, and always remember that piety drops to 0 every time you level up. If at all possible, try to vent off remaining unspent piety by angering your god before leveling up.

The only true constant weapon at the Heretic's disposal is INDULGENT, which increases their stats upon automatically desecrating their current god. Having all 6 indulgences is a pretty significant pad to the stats, even disregarding boons altogether. Of particular note is the +3 total mana, which when combined with default boosters tally up to an impressive 16 base, enough to get 6 mana out of a single potion with absolutely no additional investment needed into items, boons, or preps. This can lend itself to some of the most solid hybrid characters around, with the proper setup.

Races

 Human: INDULGENT eventually ends up giving the Heretic 6 additional base damage, slightly more than an entire level's worth. Humans obviously will get good mileage out of that with damage bonus.

 Gnome: INDULGENT also increases base mana, up to 16 when combined with the three boosters. This makes potions pay out 1-1 in fireballs, and 2 potions will buy 3 PISORF casts, which will enjoy the base damage boost INDULGENT also provides.

 Goblin: A much trickier and riskier pick, but not one without use. Goblins make interesting Heretics for two reasons: 1. they can better control when they level up, and therefore leave a god, without killing monsters who would otherwise be very useful for gaining piety with the next god, and B. BLASPEMOUS will allow the goblin to directly convert piety to EXP, which has a range of applications. INDULGENT helps offset Goblin's low stats to boot, though you will still want to snag some boons and items to make full use of the race.

Deities

 The Pactmaker is typically not a good roll for a Heretic. Because the Heretic cannot stay in one god for long and loses all piety on leveling up, it's not possible to sustain the piety cost for pacts even when they might be helpful. Therefore, this altar is more or less a free  Consensus, which can be helpful for a Heretic hurting for piety for their other gods. One should carefully time the  Consensus, as the 50 piety cap can hurt the often-high joining piety some gods grant for joining late in the run that the Heretic normally benefits from. It should also be noted that the piety cost of a pact activating does not count as losing piety for the purpose of BLASPHEMOUS.

 Binlor Ironshield is an excellent early god for a Heretic, offering a lot of bonus damage through  Stone Form and  Stone Fist, magic resistance, strong glyphs, and a free 30 CP on level up (Binlor's level up punishment takes place before the Heretic unworships). Should the player find  IMAWAL, Binlor offers an opportunity to farm a large amount of CP using BLASPHEMOUS by creating and destroying walls. In particular, this gives a very strong synergy with  The Earthmother, who offers a free  IMAWAL for this task and should be worshipped first.  Binlor Ironshield's on-worship piety gain is not very high, and so joining later when there is less blackspace left is far less effective.

 Dracul benefits from the Heretic's ability to sidestep his usual limitations, such as health potions and undead. He is, as usual, a powerful late-game god, and should be worshipped late to maximize the on-join piety gain since the usual method of gaining piety by killing is severely restricted by the Heretic's XP bar. One possibility is to worship during a boss fight so as to be able to buy and gain piety from as many  Blood Tithes as possible. Since  Dracul is so stingy with piety, he will not offer much CP through BLASPHEMOUS. One more thing to note is that since  Body Pact is difficult to get much value out of and  Blood Shield is so expensive, Heretic has trouble stacking resistances very high, making  Blood Hunger a boon that is nearly pure upside.

 The Earthmother gives the always-helpful  IMAWAL, and offers fast piety gain and an easy way to lose piety for BLASPHEMOUS by killing plants. On the other hand, her boons are not all that useful for the early game. A Heretic does not really need the help of  Vine Form, as INDULGENT already offers extra HP, and  Entanglement is best used consistently during leveling, which the Heretic cannot do. Therefore, one must weigh the benefit of an immediate  IMAWAL and CP with the usual late-game  Clearance spike. It should be noted that  The Earthmother only ever gives 5 piety on worship, so late worship will require  Plantation, conflicting with  Dracul.

 Glowing Guardian is a bad roll for a Heretic due to the lack of piety. He offers no starting glyph, and the usual method of generating piety through steady worship is impossible for a Heretic. Therefore,  Enlightenment is almost totally inaccessible, and  Absolution is not particularly useful as Heretic already has an innate source of bonus health. One can worship early and use a couple of conversions to acquire  Humility, or worship at the end of the run and use the paltry joining piety for a handful of  Protections (or  Cleansings if the boss calls for it). Once again, with the lack of piety gain and no easy way to lose piety, BLASPHEMOUS does not offer much value in this god.

 Jehora Jeheyu is a strong find, offering two options: On one hand, he gives you a useful on-worship glyph and allows you to generate piety using blackspace, so he can be worshipped early for some of his strong stat-boosting boons. On the other hand, he also awards on-worship piety based on the character's level and so can be joined at level 8-10 for a last-minute  Chaos Avatar. For a Heretic,  Petition is often a waste of piety due to the inability for long-term worship. It is impossible to lose piety under this god, so BLASPHEMOUS is not relevant.

 Mystera Annur offers some useful boons in  Magic and  Mystic Balance, but no good way to lose much piety for BLASPHEMOUS. Since most Heretics are built primarily for melee as the majority of gods help with melee more than casting, her utility is often limited. As is so often the case,  Flames and  Weakening are not particularly useful. Since she offers no starting glyph, her boons are expensive, and she requires blackspace to farm piety, any other god that allows farming piety using blackspace is preferable early due to her very high on-join piety gain. However, once a significant portion of blackspace has been used, she can be joined at any time for her boons. Should the player choose a race that doesn't need early conversions, one strong option is to join her very late, take  Mystic Balance and a shot of  Magic, and then cast a few glyphs to buy  Refreshment for a massive spike which is boosted by the extra on-join glyphs the Heretic may have available.

 Taurog's resistance boons are less strong than usual, as Heretic has trouble stacking resistances compared to other gods. Moreover the pressure  Taurog's boons place on the player's inventory is more important than usual since the player potentially has multiple gods' starting glyphs to keep. These factors, coupled with Heretic's automatic desecration on level up, make  Unstoppable Fury unrealistic to make use of. However,  Taurog's Blade is as powerful as always, and joining Taurog first as a Heretic doesn't have the usual disadvantage of locking the player out of a different god's starting glyph, making him a viable first god. Additionally, Taurog offers an easy way to lose piety for the purposes of BLASPHEMOUS, which can be very blackspace-efficient, particularly with  BYSSEPS or  GETINDARE. Coupled with Taurog's fast piety gain, especially when killing magical enemies, this makes joining Taurog in the midgame at the start of a level and killing some magical popcorn for piety for this purpose a viable option.

 Tikki Tooki is a strong roll, if only for the free  GETINDARE glyph. It can be difficult to earn enough piety to afford many of his boons without blowing all your gold on  Tribute, so he probably benefits the most from  Consensus out of all the gods. Early worship for maximum availability of  GETINDARE or waiting for midgame and worshipping at the start of a level before mopping up your lowest-level popcorn to potentially afford an additional boon or two are both viable options for this god. With piety being as scarce as it is, he is not a good option to farm CP with.

Items

 Stone Sigil Heretic is VERY pressed for time to get the appropriate piety for their boons, so the usually underwhelming effect of the stone sigil is GREATLY appreciated for squeezing as much piety as possible into one level's time.