Heretic

Kur-skan, the Heretic is a secret playable character in Risk of Rain 2.

The Heretic cannot be selected from the character selection screen at the start of a run. Instead, she must be transformed into by holding all 4 Heresy items at once.

The items in the set, and their respective skills, are:
 * - Hungering Gaze
 * - Slicing Maelstrom
 * - Shadowfade
 * - Ruin

Along with these skills, the Heretic has extremely high base health, can triple jump, and has negative health regeneration, causing her to lose health over time instead of recovering it.

Skills
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Tips

 * Well-timed usage of is key to surviving as the Heretic. It provides healing to offset her negative regeneration, and invulnerability to ensure she doesn't lose more HP than she already does naturally.
 * Stacking increases the duration of invulnerability and total HP recovered.
 * The Heretic's negative health regeneration is amplified by items such as the and . Without other items to offset the higher HP degeneration, these items can swiftly lead to her death.
 * The, however, will NOT further reduce her negative health regen. This is because the Irradiant Pearl doesn't actually multiply regen, despite it's in-game description.


 * Obtaining at least two will offset the negative health regeneration, and obtaining a third will allow the Heretic to heal normally again. This is only the case after avoiding damage for a sufficient period, which is easier with Shadowfade.


 * Equipping a at level 6 and above will offset the negative regeneration, with even more extra healing the higher level the player is.
 * Obtaining the will completely remove the Heretic's negative regeneration, at the cost of turning all her health into shields.
 * This is also the case when equipping the, although this is much more rare.


 * The Heretic's negative regeneration is not considered taking damage. As such, it cannot be reduced by armor or the, and does not activate or.
 * However, this also means that it does not inhibit shield buildup.
 * Since the Heretic's triple jumps are considered base jumps, each one is affected by, allowing for dramatic levels of air mobility.


 * Activating a Shrine of Order or Cleansing Pool can remove Heresy items. When this happens, the Heretic loses the skills corresponding to the missing Heresy items, and they are replaced with the non-functional Nevermore skill. If unlucky with a Shrine of Order, the Heretic may lose all skills and become unable to directly attack.


 * Selecting at the start of the game and transforming him into the Heretic will allow her to use  to destroy projectiles, as the Microbots are not lost when Captain transforms.
 * Keep in mind that after Captain has become the Heretic, any newly repaired drones or turrets will not be given Microbots, as that is a result of Captain's passive skill and not the item itself.


 * If the is enabled or the player has any, it is highly advised they do not become the Heretic. Her health degeneration is a flat amount, rather than a percentage of her health, unlike the healing from Shadowfade. As a result, lowering her maximum health too much makes her unable to outpace her degeneration with Shadowfade.

Trivia

 * The Heretic has the highest base health and base damage of any playable character, at 440 and 18 respectively. She also has a base speed of 8 m/s, which is 1 m/s faster than every other playable character.
 * The has several unique interactions during his fight:
 * At the beginning of the 4th phase while absorbing items, he will not take the Heresy items and the Heretic will not revert to the previous Survivor.
 * He has unique dialogue, telling the Heretic to "die again." There is also unique dialogue for when the Heretic has the : "THE HERETIC… THE GUARDIAN… HOW? WHO PULLS YOUR STRINGS, VERMIN?"
 * If he kills the Heretic, he will will say, "Return to pieces heretic," referring to the evisceration of the Heretic in which their eyes, arms , legs , and heart were each to be scattered across "the farthest depths of the Moon."
 * The Heretic's Nevermore skill is a reference to the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
 * The Heretic's negative regeneration will be reduced or amplified depending on the difficulty, with reducing the health degenerated per tick and  amplifying the health degeneration.
 * The ending phrases for the Heretic seem to be referencing the fact that she is actually two distinct beings: Kur-skan the Heretic, and the player's previous Survivor that is currently inhabiting her body.
 * The Heretic seems to be a deformed.
 * Completing an Eclipse run as the Heretic will unlock the next Eclipse level for the originally picked Survivor.
 * However, completing a Monsoon run as the Heretic will not unlock the Mastery skin for the original Survivor.