Risk of Rain 2 is a popular video game that offers an array of playable characters to choose from, each with its unique abilities and playstyles. However, there is one character that stands out from the rest – the Heretic.
The Heretic is a hidden character that can only be unlocked through a series of specific actions. Once unlocked, players must obtain several Lunar items to transform their current survivor into the Heretic. These Lunar items offer unique benefits to the player, but they come at a cost, as they can also hinder the player’s progress by imposing negative effects.
Despite the challenges, playing as the Heretic is worth the effort. The Heretic is a powerful character that scales well throughout the game, meaning that their abilities and stats improve as the player progresses through each level.
With the right combination of items and strategies, the Heretic can become an unstoppable force that dominates the game.
How To Unlock Heretic, The Secret Character in Risk of Rain 2
Unlocking the Heretic in Risk of Rain 2 is a complex process that involves gathering all four of her Lunar items, which are necessary to transform your survivor into this powerful character. However, obtaining these items is partially based on luck, as they are not guaranteed to appear in every run.
The Risk of Rain 2 Lunar items required to unlock the Heretic are Visions of Heresy, Hooks of Heresy, Strides of Heresy, and Essence of Heresy. Each of these items will replace one of your survivor’s abilities with a corresponding ability of the Heretic.
The abilities tied to these items are unique and can significantly alter your gameplay [1] experience, making them highly sought after by players.
Visions of Heresy: Equipping the projectile launcher in place of the secondary skill grants the character the ability to launch rockets that can penetrate through enemies and deal damage over time. This launcher replaces the character’s previous primary skill.
Hooks of Heresy: The installation of the projectile launcher will substitute the character’s secondary skill and provide them with the capability to launch rockets toward their opponents. These rockets possess the ability to pass through enemies and inflict sustained damage over a period of time.
Strides of Heresy: The Utility skill is substituted with Shadowfade, which grants the user a 30% increase in movement speed and allows them to restore a portion of their health.
Essence of Heresy: After an enemy takes damage, a stack of Ruin is accumulated. The gathered Ruin stacks can be detonated to inflict tremendous damage on a designated adversary by using the Special Skill.
The Heretic can be unlocked by completing the challenge called: Blockade Breaker. This challenge requires players to take out 15 bosses in a single playthrough. While this doesn’t immediately grant access to the character, it does open up the means to do so. By the end of the challenge, participants will be able to claim four Heresy items.
Heretic’s Abilities: How To Use It
Primary: Hunger Gaze
The Heretic’s primary ability is Hunger Gaze, which is provided through the acquisition of the Visions of Heresy Lunar item. It enables the primary ability to release multiple tracking shards that can explode for a substantial amount of damage. This ability is beneficial for survivors with average primary abilities and is not limited to the Heretic character.
Secondary: Slicing Maelstrom
Heretic’s Hooks of Heresy Lunar item provides the character with the secondary ability called Slicing Maelstrom in Risk of Rain 2. This ability allows Heretic to create a small maelstrom that deals 875% damage per second to nearby foes when charged up.
Passive: Nevermore
Nevermore is the Heretic’s passive ability in Risk of Rain 2, and it’s featured in all four of her abilities. The passive makes a noise whenever one of the skills is activated, but it doesn’t do anything substantive until the character has completed the transformation.
The player’s base movement speed, health, and ability to triple jump all increase upon transformation. Negative health restoration forces the player to prioritize healing supplies, however, the character’s Utility talent can temporarily heal over this impact.
Utility: Shadowfade
Strides of Heresy, a Lunar item in Risk of Rain 2, grants the Heretic access to Shadowfade, a Utility skill. Once activated, the Heretic enjoys a brief period of invulnerability, increased movement speed, and healing. The character’s invulnerability phase can be shortened, and they can fly if used in midair.
Specials: Ruin
For the Heretic in Risk of Rain 2, the Lunar Item, Essence of Heresy, provides the Special ability, Ruin. As damage is dealt, the character will passively accrue stacks of Ruin for 10 seconds. When the skill is used, the collected Ruin explodes at an infinite range, delivering massive damage. Note that damage over time effects are ineffective at applying Ruin stacks; only direct damage can do so.
The Finest Heretic Build
Playing as the Heretic character in Risk of Rain 2 is similar to building Void Fiend due to the inability to have alternate choices for abilities, but each stack of the Lunar item that grants the abilities causes slight changes.
Visions of Heresy adds 12 shards to Hungering Gaze but lengthens the reload time, while Hooks of Heresy increases root duration and cooldown for Slicing Maelstrom. Strides of Heresy enhances the healing and invulnerability time of Shadowfade without increasing the cooldown, and Essence of Heresy lengthens the cooldown but extends the lifespan of Ruin stacks.
It is not recommended to stack too many Lunar items unless multiple Strides of Heresy are obtained. Heretic benefits from Armor, Attack Speed, Mobility, and Cooldown Reduction items, with the Hardlight Afterburner being the best item for her due to its ability to increase the number of Shadowfade uses.
Gameplay Tips When Playing As Heretic
- By default, the Heretic character possesses the ability to triple jump, and a considerable increase in HP is obtained with each level up. However, the drawback of playing as the character is that their health depletes continuously over time.
- The Heretic character's negative health regeneration does not count as damage, causing certain items to be ineffective. If a Heresy item is removed, the corresponding skill is replaced by Nevermore.
- If Heresy is cleansed, the ability it grants can only be regained by acquiring the same Lunar item again. This includes items consumed by Egocentrism, which is fatal to the Heretic.
- If you equip Transcendence, your health will not degenerate at all.
- The Heretic can still destroy projectiles with the help of the Captain's passive ability, Defensive Microbots.
- Wax Quail improves the Heretic's triple jump, while two Cautious Slugs can counteract the Heretic's negative health regeneration when they're not in battle.
See Also: Artificer of Risk of Rain 2
Wrapping Up
The Heretic character in Risk of Rain 2 is a rare and difficult-to-unlock survivor, making her one of the more challenging characters to obtain.
The decision to unlock and play as the Heretic character in Risk of Rain 2 ultimately depends on the player’s personal preference and playstyle. If a player is seeking a challenging and unique survivor to play as in Risk of Rain 2, unlocking and mastering the Heretic character can be a rewarding experience.
