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Foodles

Heretic Mace

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All the guns in Heretic have a specific purpose and fill an important role in the gameplay, e.g. the phoenix rod is slow firing but very powerful and takes out the bigger enemies, the crossbow is the default weapon and is used against the medium and weak enemies when they are alone or in small groups etc blah blah.

But the Mace seems to be something that doesnt really have a purpose and isn't very effective. Being the last weapon you recieve I expected an ultimate, BFG type of weapon, instead I was dissapointed with a weapon that is very similar to the hellstaff, maybe a tiny bit more powerful and whose projectiles fall to the floor after they've travelled a few metres and which don't move very fast making it very poor against fast moving or long to medium ranged enemies.

The tome'd up version of the mace isn't any better, it just makes it fire massive cannon balls that stop after a while and move very slow meaning that you have to be at point blank range for them to hit anything, in fact the only time that I'd use the mace is if I was out of ammo for the hellstaff and dragon claw and facing a large group of enemies.

tl;dr the mace is rubbish, why is it in the game?

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The unpowered version makes a good stunning weapon. The powered version is complete garbage, though. Your momentum directly influneces the trajectory, so you can't dodge and shoot at the same time. Otherwise you end up having the "death ball" pathetically shoot sideways and end up hitting a nearby wall.

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The powered up mace is a good weapon to use if you want to save your other (more valuable) forms of ammo. You still need to learn to "throw" the balls, though. The firemace is interesting as its design is somewhat ambitious but I'll agree that it's not very useful.

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I think it was meant to be more of a secret weapon than an ultimate weapon. I don't think Heretic was meant to have an ultimate weapon. As far as I know, only one Firemace can be spawned per map.

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Creaphis said:

The powered up mace is a good weapon to use if you want to save your other (more valuable) forms of ammo. You still need to learn to "throw" the balls, though. The firemace is interesting as its design is somewhat ambitious but I'll agree that it's not very useful.


The phoenix staff is very ammo friendly in its tome'd up form and can kill a maulotor in 2 or 3 ammo things, also the gauntlets are possibly the best weapon to use a tome on as you can take on any enemy and since you regenrate health when attacking with them you can't die

I agree with krispavera in that its probably meant as a joke or secret weapon.

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Powered up mace is good to deal with mobs of tough critters like weredragons and ophidians, since the giant balls are instakillers for non-bosses.

Normal version is good to save some rune, orb or crystal ammo.

The big problem of the firemace is that its projectiles disappear on water, lava, sludge and any other fluid, instead of bouncing back.

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After playing alot of Heretic for the last few weeks, I can say that the Mace is my favorite weapon at the moment, mostly cuz of it's interesting design. It's very very good for close combat one on one battles imo, granted you aren't strafing or anything while shooting, if you make sure every shot hits the target then you can kill lichs, weredragons, ophidians, and disciples of d'sparil in seconds. Even when it's not tomb'd up.

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I think the basic idea here is that: if all else fails, try the tomed firemace. It might save your life.

I agree that the untomed firemace is rubbish, though.

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The firemace (tomed or untomed) is a great mob weapon.

Also, untomed it's great against monsters like Iron liches. The big cannonballs of the tomed mace is perfect for large groups of mob creatures since they are a guaranteed instant death on contact.

Like already explained it's most likely a secret weapon. It's not detailed in the booklet that comes with heretic. And it's got random spawning with a 25% (iirc) chance of not spawning in the map it's place at all.

In DM it will respawn at random locations.

The firemace is like with much other things in Heretic and Hexen. Something that requires a bit of creativity to use well.

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Another thing to note is that when the Firemace is powered up with the Tome of Power, the shots will instantly kill a player, even when they have just used a ring of invulnerability. Plus, the powered-up shots can travel through teleports. So perhaps the weapon was meant to make deathmatch more interesting?

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You do a life steal with the tomed gauntlets. But I wouldn't say that you can't die. If a malotaur do their ground attack there's no reason why you shouldn't still die. And if other monsters attack you at the same time. The life steal won't be enough.

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Krispavera said:

I don't think Heretic was meant to have an ultimate weapon.


Probably because the developers wanted players to try and find more effective uses for heretic's weapons instead of resorting to the ultimate weapon in tough situations like the BFG in Doom.

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Necros20 said:

Probably because the developers wanted players to try and find more effective uses for heretic's weapons instead of resorting to the ultimate weapon in tough situations like the BFG in Doom.


Also at that time there were a lot of DOOM clones around, so maybe the developers were afraid that a BFG-style weapon would make the game look too much like a DOOM rip-off. I agree though that the "ultimate weapon" of Heretic was the Phoenix Rod. That thing tome'd is ridiculous - capable of killing a maulotaur with only a few flame orbs as stated earlier.

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The tomed mace is great in deathmatch!

Slinging my giant steel balls at people is a great way to take out groups of people. I can win a match using it alone and people learn to fear my giant steel balls. The only way to protect yourself against my giant steel balls is by having a chaos device in your possession, but most people don't know about that useful little trick.

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kristus said:

The firemace (tomed or untomed) is a great mob weapon.

Also, untomed it's great against monsters like Iron liches. The big cannonballs of the tomed mace is perfect for large groups of mob creatures since they are a guaranteed instant death on contact.

Like already explained it's most likely a secret weapon. It's not detailed in the booklet that comes with heretic. And it's got random spawning with a 25% (iirc) chance of not spawning in the map it's place at all.

In DM it will respawn at random locations.

The firemace is like with much other things in Heretic and Hexen. Something that requires a bit of creativity to use well.

The regular firemace eats ammo like popcorn though.

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I always perceived the mace as some sort of grenade launcher, so at least I have the feeling it has it's special purpose. Although the physics aren't really that grenade-like.

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Necros20 said:

Probably because the developers wanted players to try and find more effective uses for heretic's weapons instead of resorting to the ultimate weapon in tough situations like the BFG in Doom.


I think that all the weapons in Heretic are slightly watered down compared to their Doom counterparts,
the crossbow isn't powerful enough to be used as a go-to gun when your unsure of what to expect (unlike the shotgun in Doom and the SSG in Doom2) especially since its bolts divide into 3 and 2 of them usually miss the intended target
The phoenix rod is very powerful but has limited ammo
The hellstaff seems to push enemies away from it when its projectiles hit, meaning that its very hard to fire a continuous, accurate stream of ammo and a long to mid range enemy (unlike with the plasma gun).

I agree that this makes the player play more strategically and have to think carefully about how to deal with some of the more trickier fights and which weapons to use, rather than just running around with some "one-gun-kills-all" like the SSG or BFG.

Also, the gauntlets can kill a mauloatur on its own when used with a tome without the player being able to die (from my own experience), but I agree that if other enemies start attacking as well then it is possible to die.

EDIT: I've never played DM but the mace sounds pretty good in it.

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The Iron Lich died for one tomed mace ball!
When I got SOS, it didn't!
Anyway, it is kinda useless.

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A little trick with the powered up mace: Move backwards while launching a ball, and if you do it right, it will bounce in nearly the same spot. Aim downward so it won't start out bouncing very high, since the balls will go up a little bit higher with each bounce. It will seek out any monster that gets too close. It can be handy in your fight with D'Sparil, as those balls will alert you to where he ends up after teleporting, and they will continue to home in on him after multiple teleports.

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I have used all the weapons in heretic, and my least favorite is actually that dragon claw thingy. After getting the hell staff, its just pointless as a weapon.

The mace looks cool, and does great damage to weaker enemies. The pheonix rod I just wind up killing my self with.

The weapon I use most, however, is the crossbow. Its my favorite.

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yellowmadness54 said:

I have used all the weapons in heretic, and my least favorite is actually that dragon claw thingy. After getting the hell staff, its just pointless as a weapon.


Have you tried using the dragon claw as a sniping weapon?

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Baby Bonnie Hood said:

Have you tried using the dragon claw as a sniping weapon?

no, I dont snipe in these games.

I say "fuck it" wait until I get to them, then smite them down.

However, in doom, I often use the shotgun and rocket launcher to perhaps pick enemies out from a distance or hard to shoot place.

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Shot for shot, the Dragon Claw can do more damage than the Hell Staff (4-32 for the DC vs 4-24 for the HS).

Just the Dragon Claw doesn't fire as fast as the Hell Staff (the DC has 2/3 the firing rate of the HS).

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I like the dragon claw more than the hellstaff, it looks cooler, sounds cooler, is a hitscan weapon which is a plus for taking out long range enemies and is easier to fire continual streams of ammo unlike the hellstaff which pushes enemies away from it when its projectiles hit.

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You're forgetting that the powered-up dragonclaw is probably one of the most devastating weapons in the game. Or at least it certainly is that way in multiplayer. It clears out rooms with the same elegance to that of the BFG in Doom. The hellstaff (in either form) can't even compare.

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Its just another weapon with another set of ammo. I quite like it. And when I modified it to bounce of walls and dont disapear in water it instantly become the most useful weapon in set.

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I like the hell staff alot better. It looks so damn awesome, and I like the muffled "pew pew pew" sound it makes, it comparison to the dragon claws very mechanical sounding noise it makes while firing.

The tomb of power makes both weapons rather powerful. I like the hell staffs "rain" effect, does constant damage to an enemy.

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