Which character do you use in Hexen?

[Pencil of Doom]

Fighter, thou smite evil with thee mighty Hammer of Retribution, thou slay enemies with the legendary Quietus sword, thou chop them to pieces with the eletrical Timon's Axe and thou beat them to a bloody pulp with thee heavy Spiked Gaunlets!
Sometimes i go with Mage, because the Arc of Death is a very useful weapon, stuns enemies so you can finish them off with Frost Shards, even though you can freeze ettins when face-to-face.
As for Cleric, yea, he seems to be the most balanced and most versatile in terms of weapons, it's like each weapon has it's purpose.
But mostly Fighter, for close quarters combat is my speciality and i love the sound of metal carving through my enemy's flesh and bones.

[Magnusblitz]

Toss-up between the Fighter and Cleric.

Fighter is fast and simple, and doesn't need to worry too much about mana. But he's certainly got some drawbacks (no ranged attack until the hammer, ultimate weapon is lacking).

Cleric has what I consider the most overpowered weapon in the game in the gas flechettes. When I was young he was my go-to to get through Guardian of Steel - just drag all those centaurs into the tiny hallways and boom, poison cloud. Block this with your shields, assholes. His starting weapon is kinda ass though.

Never knew about the gas/disc trick, that's hilarious.

[Demon of the Well]

I use either the fighter or the mage (in about a 50/50 ratio), almost never the cleric. With his functionally simplistic but damage-potent main arsenal (a full Quietus hit is the closest thing Hexen has to a BFG blast), the fighter is an entertaining character to play very aggressively, and his speed and augmented jumping ability compliment that playstyle nicely. The mage, by contrast, has a host of more or less all-purpose weapons with mostly amusing aesthetic side-effects, and his slower speed and lower AC seldom pose much of a problem for him given his general combat style. His only real downside is a boring flechette, and even it would be more entertaining if Hexen had Heretic's weird sense of body mass.

My main beef with the cleric is simply that 3 of his 4 weapons feel really bland to use, particularly in PvE, and his slow (but potent/useful) poison flechettes and the wonder-stick that is Wraithverge don't really make up for this lack of 'verve' in his moment-to-moment game. Other classes have their down periods too--e.g. any time you're playing as the mage and stuck with nothing but the Sapphire Wand for extended periods--but even the Wand at least compensates for its weak damage with a ridiculously useful infinite-range piercing effect, whereas there is simply very little positive to be said about the Mace of Contrition, and the Serpent Staff is only really amusing against human players in Deathmatch, who are capable of being annoyed by its screen-changing effect (in higher difficulties its vampiric melee effect tends to be handily outpaced by the DPS potential of close-range enemy hordes).

Edit: I also did not know that glitch with blasting a gas cloud towards an enemy for a one-hit kill, sounds quite amusing. Not enough to make me change my overall assessment of the cleric, though, since it apparently more or less breaks the game. ;)

[SilverIce]

I tend to go with the cleric, with his life-draining Serpent Staff and poison-cloud flechettes.

I do agree that Wraithverge is overpowered, though.

[Gez]

Demon of the Well said:

Edit: I also did not know that glitch with blasting a gas cloud towards an enemy for a one-hit kill, sounds quite amusing. Not enough to make me change my overall assessment of the cleric, though, since it apparently more or less breaks the game. ;)

You can't use it to kill a boss (Death Wyvern, Heresiarch, or Korax) so it's not more powerful than the fourth weapons which also kill any mook in one hit.

[YukiHerz]

Cleric like a scrublord.

The Wraithverge is overpowered, but i couldn't care less as it's fun to use.

[<inactive>Player Lin]

Always Fighter, as there is not my favorite class in the first game...
(And the Paladin in Hexen 2 become the only class I always played as it's my favorite class. :P)

Tried Cleric and after got the 4th weapon, it became awesome, fun and overpowered class for sure, damn! lol

[Lila Feuer]

Demon of the Well said:

I also did not know that glitch with blasting a gas cloud towards an enemy for a one-hit kill

With the disc of repulsion? That's a thing? Holy shit.

I like all the classes equally but I played Fighter the most.

In overall weapon effectiveness however:

First weapon: Sapphire Wand, may be the weakest but its infinite ammo and railgun-like projectile put it leagues ahead of anything you start out with.

Second weapon: Serpent Staff, by far the easiest way to deal with those deadly Wendigos in the first hub and it's very resourceful with mana.

Third weapon: Hammer of Retribution, in addition to a melee attack it boosts great ranged killing power and seems to cause splash for a little extra damage.

Fourth weapon or 'ultimate weapon': Wraithverge, while the most costly in terms of mana consumption, nothing dare breaks its brilliant path of destruction.

That's 1 for the Fighter, 1 for the Mage and 2 for the Cleric, so he wins in terms of sheer effectiveness. The only bad weapon is obviously the Mace of Contrition, which only causes contrition in an enemy after numerous beatings, sadly.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

Yeah, poor mage, seems a lot of people not chooses him merely because of his lack in power both up close and at ranged damage. I never found HeXen to be at least any balanced to be honest, as mage is only good for hardcore players and fighter is just OP for W+M1 playstyle and cleric is even more OP once he gets his serpent staff and wraithwerge. At least main doom wikipedia agrees with me:

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Hexen )">

Doom Wikia ( http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Hexen ) said:

The fighter is by far the most straightforward class to play in the game, requiring little strategy overall, and thus being the easiest class to master gameplay with. You just have to worry about one thing when playing the fighter: get close enough to kill your enemies. The only 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 practically neutralized once he gets his third weapon, which lets him make powerful, ranged attacks. That, of course, given he has the sufficient amount of mana to do so.

The cleric is probably the easiest class in the game to play as, possessing both enough physical endurance to survive most attacks as well as a powerful magical arsenal for dealing with ranged combat. The primary drawback of the cleric is that his first tier weapon is fairly slow, meaning that players seeking to increase their damage output will find themselves very dependent on mana.

The mage is an interesting, yet difficult class to play in the game, requiring a lot of strategy in order to master his moves. Keeping distance between you and your enemies is essential for the mage, as his low speed and armor make him quite vulnerable to damage; fortunately, Daedolon has an arsenal of ranged attacks which help accomplish this task.

At least in terms of skill floor\ceiling. I'd still wish that there were a Mage mod that improve some of his magic, especially almost worthless ice spell that both wastes more mana, yet do less damage and DPS too, even at point blank where it just freezes than both serpent staff and timon's axe, and improved his "ultimate" weapon that cannot even kill a single pitiful ettin in most situations, so he would be more used, as the Mage really needs some love, especially according the recent votes of "most played class".

BlackFish said:

For some reason I want to make a Co-op mod that involves class involvement like in WoW, like the warrior being the main "tank" and being melee and the mage being main damage. It'd be interesting if it works for an engine like Doom.

Wow, I'd definitelly play it, especially if it's for multiplayer and more cooperative, teamwork based. Like fighter is a tank that have best speed and most health\armour and can attract, mock, and gather all monster together, taking scratch as damage even from whole a lot of enemies stick to him and shoot\fighting him. Mage is a source of all damage and have best DPS, and can do AoE ground based attacks to kill hordes of enemies all possible ways including bosses and have powerful ranged attacks too. Cleric is the medic\support of the team that can heal fighter and give blessing to mage for him to do more damage, could do AoE debuff so the enemies become slower, weaker, take more damage from magic or fear players, probably can give fighter some magical barrier of protection too.

[Woolie Wool]

The Wrath of Cronos mod for ZDoom (which supports Doom, Hexen, and Heretic) greatly increases the complexity and diversity of classes and adds new classes as well, but the leveling system means you become absurdly OP over time.


My fighter at the end of Epic 2. Yes, that's 1117 health, 1560 armor, unbelievable speed, and I could one-shot hell knights with the off-hand altfire punch the fighter gets.

[BaronOfStuff]

Definitely Cleric, the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" class. Able to handle ranged and melee combat well enough to not be at any particular disadvantage, even though he's not exactly particularly efficient at either.

[Lila Feuer]

Well, scratch that 'master of none' part, he's pretty strong, but weak with melee attacks.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Every class has pros and weaknesses, Even in deathmatch.

PVE :

Fighter)
*All weapons have extreme damage. But they all almost fill the same usage. Not very flexible against hordes of fliers but lucky that is never overdone in hexen. Probably the worst against bosses but the bosses in hexen aren't that strong anyway. (The wyvern being the prime one, fak you HexDD map with 4 of them)
*Best class for doing traps. The speed stupidly trivialize it. The only terrible situation is having to jump over platforms with friction, but that is rarely done in a way that makes the fighter's weakness shine.
*Not that great without mana. Forced to use hp as ammo -in practice- against anything with a ranged rapid attack.

Cleric)
*Each weapon of the first 3 is garbage against some monster types. The serpent staff is extremely terrible clearing speed wise especially against centaurs -who are very common. Fire Storm is hit or miss vs the majority of monsters. Mace is just useless and is suicidal to use.
*Flechette has some broken op interactions (Killing heresiarch, Instakilling the 3 class bosses, instakilling korax :\)
*Can do all bosses as long as he has mana without much problem. Even without mana can cheese them all anyway.
*The wraithverge isn't even worth trying to defend balance-wise, that shit will still be op even if each attack costs 50\50 mana.
*Hard early game but very boring and easy lategame. You don't even need to think while playing once you get wraithverge. Maybe beside occasionally cheesing a boss.

Mage)
*Second weapon just has no effective use. The third weapon fills the same niche even better (single target dps). Maybe hitting multiple enemies horizontally is its only use since the first weapon pierces and outdamage it that way, for free.

*The first weapon is borderline overpowered ; for free mana in pve, You can kill bosses. Stunlock everything in a line. You can even beat the game without using anything (Well, you might die a lot against the 3 class bosses).

*The third weapon can oneshot centaurs and slaughtaurs. The two monsters that take the most time to clear out most of the time. It deals triple damage to them and pierces their shield. The only situation you might use frost shards over this is in extremely tight corridor - And by use, I mean you'll use the magic wand most of the time over frost. Extremely op vs large targets.

*The majority of weaknesses (Speed and health) are very easy to negate with potions and discs of repulsion. Easiest class to play early game and midgame (on higher difficulties).

*BloodScourge seems weak but its damage is almost the same as the fighter's sword. Without the range weakness. It also homes and pierces most enemies, with higher damage this would be an even more stupid that explodes instead of passing walls. The biggest weakness is needing to fire in an angle to maximize pierce damage, making it useless in tight corridors.

Flechette) The fighter's flechettes boost clearing speed. They are placed everywhere and are like getting free attacks without a cooldown. This is only way the class can outclear others lategame, since they both have stupidly good arsenals.

The cleric's flechette drops clearing speed rapidly if badly placed (Aka on a centaur). It is extremely op with rings of repulsion and can instakill almost everything at any stage in the game.

The mage's flechette is a worse fighter's flechette but can hit targets behind the first one (monsters can move through it). Extreme synergy with bloodscourge and wand.

Overall the fighter is the easiest class to get into the game but the other two are great choices as you improve in the game. The fighter is the most dependant on the map design to shine or get destroyed. The other two depend on the available weapons and mana items so they might be even worse if the mapper wants to.

Hexen's balance starts to fall apart midgame since all classes can easily kill everything and there is enough items for more than one player to spam attacks nonstop. The majority of weapons also cost nothing compared to the maximum mana allowed. HexenDD remains challenging longer because it doesn't give items as happily and uses bishops\slaughtaurs to chip down the player's hp.

PVP)
Hexen's PvP isn't that fun. The classes are extremely map dependant. In fact you can bet there is always one that is extremely overpowered or useless depending on the map.

Fighter : Great if the map has no discs of repulsion or a lot of armor\flasks. Very terrible if the fourth weapons are easy to gather. Needless to say the class is still extremely easy in deathmatch and the other classes need to outplay the fighter with items to stand a chance. If the map is full of corridors the other classes might as well not play. The sword is very strong because of the fighter's speed.

Cleric : If he can't access firestorm\Serpent staff shortly after spawn he is dead meat. Wraithverge isn't as op as it is in pve (Players resist the ghosts and can out heal them with flasks. Plus their damage drops to 0 if the player is running away. The weapon is still strong (direct hit with the ghost ball can kill unarmored players instantly). He is the strongest against items so that is a plus -Discs of repulsion don't annoy him one bit.
*Serpent staff can always blind another player so that weapon is extremely dangerous. Not to mention it has very high dps.

Mage : Way too squishy and slow for pvp. Lightning weapon is very hard to get a kill with -players outrun it, can dodge it and outheal it with flasks. Frost shards are suddenly a usable weapon but doesn't outdamage the wand by much -which is very hard to dodge. If the mage gets BloodScourge he can get very easy frags for no effort, The weapon can oneshot a player and chases them as well! A smart enemy can force you to play ping pong with it though.

PVP TL;DR Pick fighter unless map is choke full of discs of repulsion and falls to death.

"What class do you play in hexen?" Fighter or mage. Cleric starts challenging and fun but gets really boring later on -clear everything with one click spamfest.

Wth how did this reply get so big.

[Jon]

Wrath of Cronos is cool, but I'd love to see a really light-touch DEHACKED or something that fixed most of the balancing problems with the player characters. Although perhaps some of the issues Pegg lists are too big to fix that way (need to redesign mage weapon 2 entirely)

[MaxRideWizardLord]

BaronOfStuff said:

Definitely Cleric, the "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" class. Able to handle ranged and melee combat well enough to not be at any particular disadvantage, even though he's not exactly particularly efficient at either.

Hell, he is far more op in magic than Mage, that's for sure.

And I don't get people that complain about his melee weapon. Sure it's weakest weapon in game, but that doesn't really necessarily mean it's bad or even worthless, no. It just makes you dance a little more with enemies than fighter does. First of all, you get less obnoxious encounters in first level\first hub unlike Mage, who faces afrits from the very first level and even more in first hub, and fighting bunch of ettins, hell, even centaurus with this weapon is pretty damn easy, the range of this weapon is quite big to be sure none of them will reach you at melee range. And once you get serpent staff, you do both more damage and dps, and waste less manage, while being more accurate than with frost shards, you will almost never out of mana, even if you use it carelessly.

Woolie Wool said:

The Wrath of Cronos mod for ZDoom (which supports Doom, Hexen, and Heretic) greatly increases the complexity and diversity of classes and adds new classes as well, but the leveling system means you become absurdly OP over time.

http://i.imgur.com/K0ljXxnl.jpg
My fighter at the end of Epic 2. Yes, that's 1117 health, 1560 armor, unbelievable speed, and I could one-shot hell knights with the off-hand altfire punch the fighter gets.

I like the idea of that mod, but hell, I completelly hate the balance, and it feels really class biased thing in this mod.

For example, fighter being the only class that gets even more tanky as he level up, without ever progressing and investigating points in to constitutions, means if you need 1.2 Cyber's rockets at your face for you to die without armour in the first level, you will need 2.1 rockets at 200 level, so you can spend all your points for wisdom or anything else so you will get even moar exp and points.

Cleric, while somewhat have balanced scalling in hp and tankyness, i.e. you will die from 1.1 rockets with no armour from first level and 1.1 rockets with no armour on at level 200 without single point spend in constitution, hell, he's even INCREDIBLE overpowered, more overpowered than in vanila. A single click of button cleans whole room\map out of enemies, including cyberdemons in second, literally, even if it's 1 mile x 1 mile big room filled with cybers. And yet, he have overpowered debuff skills that do not even use mana at all that buff either his damage, or increase his damage reistance, or increase his hp regen. Oh, and he have somewhat instant healing spell as addition to all that.

And yet mage, even if you spend ALL the points on constitution, you still get weaker as you progress. Means if you get killed by 0.8 rocket even with full armour on, you will get killed by a single revenant rocket at level 200 even with armour on, and even if you spend all points in constitution, you'd still be weaker than you were at level 1, and this also means your damage will be utter crap and even imp will be damage sponge. You can spend all points on int, but that means a single chaingunner will wipe you across the map. You can as well spam annoying telekinesis to protect yourself as well, but that means that almost all of your attacks, including skills become worthless and cannot be used as they get denied by telekinesis spam.