# Heretic Redesign
Heretic has a few problems, as identified in [this thread.](https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=622282#p622282)
Essentially:
1. Their skills aren't good enough.
2. They're the only solo antagonist that can be instantly found as valid upon spawning if they get bag checked.
3. They don't have enough early access to things to get to their rifts.(ties into 1?)
4. Sidepaths are ignored over rushing for ascension
Let me explain.

Their skills aren't good enough
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Let's compare the heretic's kit to another antagonist with a fairly limited kit: changeling.
At base, every heretic gets the ability to make a funny knife(force: 17) and a stinky hand(10 brute, 5s knockdown, 80 stamina). They can be disarmed of their funny knife(which they have to go out of their way to make), but if they aren't, they can smash it to teleport to a random place on the station in an emergency. They can carry multiple knives but will eventually run out. The stinky hand has a brief knockdown, but otherwise does a poor job of inhibiting its target and is visible in-hand and on-character as a green flame sprite.
At base, every changeling can acquire an armblade and cryogenic sting. The armblade has 25 force and gives them the ability to slowly pry open doors. They cannot be easily disarmed of this weapon, and even if the arm with the blade on it is cut off, they can reform the blade on the other arm if necessary. If both arms are cut off, they can regenerate their limbs. The sting is unnoticeable in-hand and slows the target severely, giving them a minor amount of damage as well and making it much easier to carve them into tiny pieces with the armblade.
Let's count the differences:
- the changeling does significantly more damage than the heretic despite them sharing a similar role

7 damage is a significant number, especially when accounting for armor. Without armor, it takes the changeling 4 hits to crit a target, while it takes the heretic 5 or 6, giving the target more time to react. With armor included, this makes armor far more effective against a heretic than a changeling, especially when heretics are practically required to use their knives later to get use of half their main tree abilities.

- the changeling's combat utility doesn't visibly out them as a changeling, yet it's far more effective.

The stings are all 'hidden' until used. Further, slowing a target down with minor cold damage makes them a lot easier to hit, in a game where mobility and doing your best to not get clicked on can make the difference between life and death. On the other hand, heretic's knockdown lasts a pitiable amount of time, and the slow from stamina loss is negligible because **it recovers during the knockdown time**. Granted, the heretic's stinky hand gets marginally better as the round goes on(assuming they succeed) and the changeling's sting does not.

- the changeling's weapon is easier to hide and harder for people it's fighting to get rid of.

The 'ling can put its armblade away without using an inventory slot. You can't search someone to check if they have an armblade. It only ever gets one- but it only needs one, because nobody can take it away from them. Meanwhile, heretic knives: sure, you can have multiple. But one disarm forces you to grab another from your bag, and god help you if they land multiple disarms. If you get overwhelmed and are forced to break a knife to escape, good news: you are never recovering any knives you were disarmed of, because nonheretics can also smash them.
The changeling at all stages is stronger than the heretic before(and possibly after) their final stage, and it's likely that even with all their powers that an ascended non-ash heretic would have incredible difficulty dealing with an equally proficient changeling.
Outside of the changeling comparison, there's useless chaff in the heretic's already small and limited kit. Like the curses. They're cool, yes. But they're a gimmick at best, and having to take them to get real side-path options essentially deletes side-paths for that tier as an ash heretic. Raw Prophets also fall into the 'nigh useless' category, in my opinion. I'd rather have extra ghouls.

# They can be easily outed with a bag check
Traitors are given several methods of securely hiding their gear. Visible changeling powers can all be 'retracted'. Wizards can easily go robeless and/or mindswap, then not have to care about being outed. Of the solo antagonists, they're the only ones who are both *required* to have their gear and are also given virtually no methods to hide it. They need their hearts to track their targets, they need their book to gather points and level up, and they need their knives to use half their abilities- including their best method of escaping conflict.

# They don't have easy access early despite practically requiring it
One method a heretic can use to level up early on is the rifts that only they can see. They spawn randomly around the station, and the heretic needs to sit next to them for a while with their book out to properly interact with them and gain their one point. However, exactly zero of the trees have inconspicuous access abilities early in the tree. Rust can use its stinky hand, but it has to use it twice to get through a wall, leaving the wall with the rusted sprite during the long-ass cooldown. Ash can use its jaunt, but anyone with sight of the area can see them do so and immediately know that they're a heretic.
Every. Single. Solo antagonist. Has abilities that are better at gaining access and/or are less obvious than the heretic's. Let me rattle off the list, in no particular order:
- changelings can turn into monkeys to ventcrawl, or use their armblades to pry open doors
- traitors have Agent IDs, C4/X4, holoparasite, double esword, EMP grenades/implant, EMP bomb, minibomb, EMP flashlight, airlock auth. keycard, *fully loaded toolbox + insulated gloves*, powersink, briefcase launchpad,
- robed wizards have Rod Form, Mutate, Disable Technology, Spacetime Distortion, Blink, Teleport, Jaunt
- robeless wizards AND robed wizards have Knock, wand of door creation, staff of door creation, warp whistle, holoparasite
- heretics have ash path jaunt, rust, brew of the crucible soul, and void path blink.

You may look at this and say, "Oh, heretics have plenty of options!" And you would be... very wrong. Rust is only really useful to rust path heretics, so investing in it as another path is a bad idea. Getting ash jaunt as a void heretic or brews as an ash heretic is prohibitively expensive, same for Ash getting void's blink. And half of the listed abilities aren't available until tier four, with one of them being a side-path option.
# Sidepaths are ignored
Sidepath abilities, some of which are really powerful, are ignored for a number of reasons. Primarily, spending points on them gets in the way of getting to ascension. These are things like an amulet that functions like thermals, a knife that lets you make powerful traps and functions as a good throwing knife, invisible armor that functions as a storage implant and can also hold a heretic knife in the suit storage slot, etc. A lot of them are extremely powerful and versatile, while

# Proposed solutions

- Increase the damage dealt by the heretic knife, and add some amount of armor piercing.

It should be comparable in some way to other antagonists' revealing melee weapons(energy sword(force 30+armor pen 35 + block 50%)/dagger(force 18, throwforce 35, 100% embed), armblade(force 25, undisarmable)).
I'm aware that this would push it past the locker opening threshold, and that's fine, as holding one instantly makes you valid.

- Severely decrease the cooldown on the heretic's stinky hand.

This would make it comparable in combat to a baton while buffing several other heretic abilities- namely, the marks and rust's rusting.
- Turn the heart into an internal pinpointer.

This would give them less 'required' gear. It would perhaps need some other changes- like making it an actual, better pinpointer, or allowing you to change targets to make up for the fact that you couldn't make multiple of them anymore. Seriously, this thing feels so shit to use.
- Give them more 'subtle storage'.

Void has its invisible cloak, but that's about it. Flesh could go with having something similar to the storage implant, forming an internal pocket within their own body(or, yknow, flesh). I have no idea what Ash would do; given heretic's focus on strange visibility things, maybe they can make an invisible chest that only people with thermal vision see(which ties into their ability to make the thermal vision amulet). If someone calls me a heretic and says I tried to murder them with a heretic knife, I should be able to make/have a safe place to hide my gear so that a search doesn't 100% out me and people can't easily find my shit that I hid in a locker somewhere.
- Shuffle their abilities around so that mobility comes first.

Rust and Ash already get their mobility right at the start- why doesn't void get it? Also, flesh should get something. Maybe they can turn into some kind of fleshy blob monstrosity that can ventcrawl, similar to how changelings turn into monkeys, but less perfect.
- Buff their mobility options, or provide more of them.

Their cooldowns are monstrously long. Rust's mobility is tied to their mansus grasp, which is less than ideal, but the above grasp buff would help them quite a bit. Ash can only move like six tiles and feels like it has a longer cooldown than wizard's perfect jaunt. Void's cooldown seems unacceptably long for something that requires short range and visibility. Flesh has no mobility/access options and i've already suggested a fix for that.

- Improve/remove/replace/shuffle the curses with cooler/better options so that Ash can use the sidepaths in tier 4.

Seriously. The curses are a huge limiter on the sidepath and, in their current state, serve as punishments/roadblocks to anyone trying to access the mask of madness from another path- or any ash heretics trying to get to mawed crucible or carving knife.
I'll briefly touch on the reasons they suck: they require an item the target touched with bare hands, corrosion's curse doesn't do enough, and they both require obnoxious ingredients for a temporary effect.
- Improve Raw Prophets or get them outta here.

The voiceless dead ability is better by a longshot by virtue of them having hands. Raw Prophets have no ability to defend themselves or escape, and simply spy through walls for their master. Perhaps the raw prophets could be replaced by some sort of mobility, as mentioned above. It would, of course, have to be swapped with the imperfect ritual.
- Give heretics one free side path option per tier they're available in.

This would allow heretics to grab some useful abilities aside from their main path ones, and encourage them to continue down the side path instead of rushing for ascension by giving them a starting point so they can spend less points to get the abilities they want, whether that means ash heretics actually grabbing their thermals, or void having an easier time getting to ash's jaunt. It would also help solve their early power issues by giving them access to more abilities right out of the gate.
- Combine the research to make a knife with the special grasps

Having to spend two points to 'lock in' wastes a point. You don't have any options to choose from anyway, at this point. You should gain your ability to make knives AND your first grasp upgrade with one point, instead of having to spend multiple on those upgrades.