Baratus

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Baratus the Fighter, as seen in the class selection screen in Hexen.
A stained-glass depiction of the Fighter.

Baratus the Fighter is one of the three playable hero classes in Hexen. He is a tall, muscular man that wears a horned helm, metallic shoulderpads, gauntlets and boots, and a quite large, golden belt with a skull engraved on it. All of his armor pieces have deadly spikes on them. Baratus possesses the highest speed, armor and strength of the three classes, meaning he moves faster, can wear the most armor, and his attacks consist of a more physical use of his body than the other two characters. His rough physical training has obviously left him little time to study the arcane arts, meaning he has the least magical ability of the three. Baratus emphasizes melee attacks and uses less mana on average.

The Fighter is by far the most straightforward class to play in the game, requiring less strategy overall, and thus being the easiest class to master gameplay with. He is particularly effective in the first hub. You just have to worry about one thing when playing the Fighter: get close enough to kill your enemies. The weakness the Fighter may show off is when facing ranged attacking enemies; this forces the player to close distance quickly but carefully at the same time. However, this weakness can be partially neutralized once he gets his third weapon, which gives him an effective ranged attack using green mana. His ultimate weapon, the Quietus is powerful and easy to use, but is most effective at mid to close range. In deathmatch mode, he may run into difficulties if the opponent keeps their distance and relies on ranged attacks.

  • The fléchette in the hands of the Fighter acts like a grenade: he throws it forward. If the fléchette makes contact with an enemy, it will explode, damaging anything in a short blast radius, including the Fighter. If it does not contact with anything, the fléchette will bounce on the floor and then stay idle, after 3-4 seconds it will explode, damaging anything in a short blast radius, including the Fighter too. The fléchette can make good use for a ranged attack for the Fighter in earlier stages of the game, though the short throw distance makes it a bit difficult to use effectively.
  • The Fighter does not gain any secondary effect when using the Icon of the Defender, aside from the invulnerability.
  • When using the Mystic Ambit Incant, the Fighter and his nearby allies gain an additional point of armor.

Baratus' armor[edit]

Baratus' default number of armor is 3, and is also his minimum; it cannot drop below that, no matter how much damage is taken. Baratus benefits from armor pieces in the following way:

With his minimum armor and all the four extra pieces, Baratus has a total of 16 armor points; however, his maximum is 20. If the 20 armor points are desired, the four armor parts and the use of dragonskin bracers are required.

Baratus' weapons[edit]

  • Spiked gauntlets: A pair of heavy, metallic gauntlets used for melee range attacking. If two punches in a row land without missing, the third one does more damage.
  • Timon's Axe: A short, one handed axe that uses 2 blue mana to deal high damage at melee range. It can still be used without blue mana, though it only deals half of its regular damage.
  • Hammer of Retribution: A heavy, one handed hammer that uses green mana to fire magical flaming hammers that explode on contact, dealing heavy damage. Without green mana, it can be used as a regular melee weapon with no special effect, dealing roughly the same average damage as Timon's Axe. The melee attack is also used if the player is within 96 units of a wall or shootable thing.
  • Quietus: A giant sword that burns with green fire. It uses 14 of both mana types to fire five magical swords in a cone formation that explode on contact, dealing heavy damage alone and devastating the target when all five shots connect. It cannot be used as a melee weapon.

Data[edit]

  1. Used if the player is brought below -50% health by the killing blow, but without being gibbed.

See also[edit]