Summary:
War of the Sidhe is a mutator (a mod that adds no new graphic or sound assets and relies on lump-based manipulation of IWAD assets to create 'new' ones) weapons mod for Heretic, which puts a new spin on the original game's weaponry.
Basics:
Spoiler:Weapons:
In War of the Sidhe, there are no Tomes of Power to make your weapons temporarily more powerful; every weapon has those abilities from the start, and most have additional attacks beyond that.
The melee attacks of the wand and the non-magically enchanced attacks of the gauntlets consume stamina. Taking damage also reduces stamina. Your stamina slowly recovers when most weapons are idling, and you can pick up or use stamina vials to recover ten stamina (more below).
The basic health pickup will sometimes be replaced by other vials:
Stamina Vial:
These red vials replenish ten stamina, up to a max of one hundred. If your stamina is maxed, you'll add it to your inventory, up to a max of sixteen. You'll lose all but one of your stamina vials when you advance to the next map, so use them up!
Vitality Vial:
A green vial that adds ten health, beyond the standard limit of one hundred, up to a max of two hundred.
Additionally, sometimes a stamina vial and a health or a vitality vial will appear as a set. If you can use one vial but not the other, you'll drop the latter for later acquisition.
Spoiler:Enemies:
Enchanted Gauntlets:
The gauntlets rely on two sources of ammunition; your stamina, and gauntlet energy. Stamina is replenished at a rate of about 1 point per half second when most weapons, including the gauntlets, are equipped and idling, and gauntlet energy recovers at a rate of about 1 point per second.
-Tap primary fire quickly to swipe with the left and right claws. Once you've gotten a two (or more) -hit combo, quickly press secondary to finish with energy tendrils. Standard claw swipes consume stamina; a little is spent to swipe, and a bit more will be taken if the attack connects with something, whether it be an enemy or a surface. Finisher consumes gauntlet energy.
-Press & hold secondary to do green energy tendrils. This attack consumes gauntlet energy at a slower rate than the finisher, but it also attacks slower.
Press reload to bring up the claws. From this state you can do one of two things:
-Press & hold primary to bring up a shield which reflects all projectile fire, including whirlwinds. Consumes gauntlet energy quickly while active.
-Tap secondary to swap between green and red magic. When red magic is equipped, attacks involving the magic tendrils will steal life, but cost twice as much gauntlet energy to perform. The shield functionality remains unchanged.
War Wand:
-Primary fire is the standard hitscan as seen in the vanilla Goldwand. Continue holding the button for autofire.
-Secondary is four shots in rapid sucession. Less accurate than primary, uses five ammo, and hitscans do slightly less damage. Can't autofire.
-Press reload to flip the wand around, changing it to a melee weapon similar to the vanilla staff. Press primary to do a thrust. Consumes stamina, but also steals a bit of magic to power the wand's standard primary attack, when your ammo is critically low. When your stamina is leass than 25% of the max, your melee attack will be a quick jab that does minimal damage, and doesn't push foes as far away. It also doesn't steal wand ammo.
-When the blunt end is out, press secondary to charge it with wand crystal energy, then press primary for a single powerful attack which will also push enemies away from you and possibly daze them, making them infight. Consumes 15 wand crystal ammo. Also consumes stamina; the more you have, the more powerful the attack will be. All of your stamina will be expended on this attack. The charge will only end (and ammo/stamina will only be taken away) if the attack connects with an enemy or surface. Stamina does not refill while the charged end of the staff is idle.
Ethereal Siegebow:
Has three levels of attack for the primary. Press reload to swap between them:
-Level one is an unenchanted bolt that costs one ammo and doesn't do much damage, but it won't alert enemies and rips through them. Keep primary held to fire three more in rapid sucession, provided you have at least three more bolts.
-Level two is the crossbow attack from the vanilla Heretic non-powered crossbow; one powerful bolt and two weaker ones. Costs one ammo.
-Level three fires three powerful bolts and four weak ones at a cost of three ammo. These red bolts also push enemies farther back than the ones fired by the level two primary.
-Press secondary fire to launch Phoenix Eggs from the bow underneath. They're explosives that ricochet off walls.
Dragonclaw:
-Primary fire is same as vanilla; a rapid fire hitscan.
-Press reload to swap between the two altfires:
-First altfire is the tomed attack found on the vanilla Dragonclaw. A projectile is fired which bursts into as many as eight rippers on contact with an enemy or surface.
-Second altfire is a scope. Press altfire to toggle it. While zoomed, your primary changes to a more accurate & powerful three-shot burst, but your movement speed while zoomed is halved. The three-shot burst costs fifteen ammo.
Staff of the Phoenix:
-Primary fire is the flamethrower.
-Secondary fire is the explosive projectiles fired by the vanilla Rod, but with a twist; they will home in on a target projected by the staff. Move your view around, and the projectile will adjust to fly towards it.
-Press reload to convert flame orbs into flamethrower ammo; one orb makes ten ammo
Staff of Rituals:
-Press reload to switch between the staff's three modes, each of which has its own primary and secondary fire:
-First mode is similar to the vanilla hellstaff. Primary rapidfires red energy projectiles, secondary fires a projectile that creates a torrent of red rain on impact.
-Second mode's primary throws cursed flames on a a target, causing them to shatter when they die, leaving behind a magic sigil which will stun enemies caught in its area of effect. The secondary fire is a homing projectile that curses an enemy. If it;s killed before the curse ends, a purple, gas-spewing pod will spawn over the corpse. When other foes get near it, the pod will explode. The bigger the enemy, the bigger the pod, and the more damage it will do; to you as well!
-Third mode's primary launches miniature green gargoyles that will seek after enemies. The secondary summons one large green gargoyle that will attack enemies until it dies.
Alchemace:
Spawns in place of the Firemace, and similarly, only has a chance of spawning.
-Primary launches a big bouncing homing metal ball that explodes after a few bounces or when it hits an enemy. Costs fifteen ammo.
-Secondary causes the spikes around the head to spin. In this mode, run into enemies to do a chainsaw-like attack. Ammo is expended when the head impacts things; less ammo when it hits organic foes, more when it hits metal enemies or walls. Press primary to stop the spin, or secondary while it's spinning to launch a bunch of little homing balls. Costs ten ammo.
-Press and hold reload to convert one unit each of War Wand, Siegebow, Dragonclaw, Phoenix Staff and Staff of Ritual ammo into five units of Alchemace ammo.
Spoiler:Screenshots:
Ash Gargoyle:
Highly agile and immune to fire, Ash Gargoyles also fire three fireballs at a time, each aimed at their target.
Lava Golem:
Immune to fire damage and resistant to explosive damage, these moltern rock constructs can lob balls of lava, but only at closer ranges.
Grappler:
These gray-green Sabreclaws fire a hook that will yank you in their direction.
Undead Captain:
Wearing the blue cape of a decorated warrior, these knights wield golden, magicked axes that bounce off the ground as they track their target.
Cobra:
A black and red variant of the Ophidian that wields a staff similar to the vanilla Hellstaff; they can fire a burst of three shots or one shot with limited homing that creates a torrent of magic rain on impact.
Witch:
These diminuitive dark arts students with blue-fringed robes can't fly and are physically weaker than the Wizard, but have compensated with a few tricks up their sleeves. They can redirect their magic shots when they hit walls to aim at the player; your best bet when fighting these is to always keep moving. In addition, they can resurrect low-level organic enemies that leave corpses, and drop magic mines that explode when the player gets near. They can only drop so many at a time, and must recharge their magical reserves to plant more. The mines can be detonated by shooting them.
Warlock:
Wearing the gold-fringed robe of an master magician, these are the highest tier of Wizard. In addition to the standard three magic projectiles, they know four elemental attacks; a column of fire, ice balls that shatter into more projectiles, whirlwinds, trails of rock spikes that project outward in multiple directions.
Vampire:
Don't mistake these for mere Wizards! These liches have donned red-fringed robes and traded in the standard three-way magic shot with something far more deadly; a magic attack that aggressively targets the player, and can only be avoided by breaking eye contact with the caster. If you see red smoke around you, find cover! Their necromantic research has gifted them enormous amounts of health, but has proved taxing on their physical frame; they can't move fast or fly, but their magic means they don't really need to...
Spoiler:Credits:
Protect yourself with the Enchanted Gauntlet's shield.
Paralyzing enemies with the Staff of Ritual's curse flames.
Picking off foes from a distance with the Dragonclaw's second altfire.
The guided explosive altfire of the Phoenix Staff is based off a resource wad by cybermind.
Download:
War of the Sidhe - Version 0.5
