Heresiarch

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The Heresiarch is attacking the player in Hexen on Hub 3: Heresiarch's Seminary. His invulnerability field is up and he is shooting flaming skulls at the player.

The Heresiarch is a boss enemy from Hexen. The Heresiarch is incredibly difficult, having 5000 hit points, and even more difficult than Korax himself. It is found at the end of two hubs: Hub 3: Heresiarch's Seminary and Hub 4: Castle of Grief. In Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, there is one at the beginning of the Constable's Gate hub and another in Chantry, one of the maps in the Nave hub.

The Heresiarch is incredibly difficult for a reason. At all times, it has three cubes hovering over its head in a circular pattern. When the Heresiarch prepares to cast a spell, the cubes rotate faster. Even if the player were to hurt the Heresiarch, the spell does not stop.

The Heresiarch can cast spells that can do the following:

  • Cast a barrier that makes itself invincible and deflects projectiles.
  • Shoot a set of many fireballs in a waving pattern.
  • Summon two skulls that bounce along the floor and home in on the target.
  • When its health is low, it can summon Dark Bishops.

For players using Baratus (the Fighter) or Daedolon (the Mage), the Heresiarch can be hard to kill. However, players using Parias (the Cleric) can kill the Heresiarch easily with large numbers of gas clouds (using fléchettes). The gas clouds hurt the Heresiarch even when it has its barrier up.

When the Heresiarch dies, the cubes that were circling around its head will fall to the floor and bounce several times and then explode. The explosion is very powerful and the blast radius for these cubes is much larger than is apparent from the sprites.

A sneakier tactic is to use the Wings of Wrath and Icon of the Defender to fly into the Heresiarch's cubes while he is alive. They will explode and render the Heresiarch defenseless.

Uses outside of Hexen

  • The Heresiarch also appears in the EarthBound Doom modification. They start off with a forcefield to block most enemy attacks and to repel players or other monsters that get in close, but will drop the forcefield temporarily to attack the player, raising it shortly after it finishes the attack. They can also additionally fire more shots at a time, and spawn in Disciples of D'Sparil in addition to Dark Bishops. They also have double the hit points to make them more difficult. Causing them to 'flinch' will stop their attacks as well as opposed to the usual.