Heretic Sangheili

Heretic Elites are Covenant Sangheili that rebelled against the Covenant's High Council during the events prior to the discovery of the first Halo ring.

Summary
Heretic Elites are the Elites of the artifact retrieval group led by Sesa 'Refumee. When 'Refumee discovered the truth about the Halos, his Elites followed him in the rebellion against the High Prophets, knowing what the Halo's would do if they continued The Great Journey. They used the Gas Mine above Threshold as a base, and placed Banshees and at least one Seraph starfighter as an "Air force" to defend the mine. They also set up a makeshift camp on Basis, Threshold's moon.

This camp is a playable multiplayer map, called Burial Mounds.

They do what they can to stand out to all other Covenant, especially Elites.

Rank System
They have a limited Rank System, as there are:


 * Heretic Elite Minors


 * Heretic Elite Majors

Appearance
Heretic Elites do not wear helmets like their Covenant counterparts, but instead don breathing apparatus to assist in respiration on the Gas Mining facility. Heretic Elites also have four ridges on the back of their armor, which presumably contain breathable oxygen. The Heretic Leader Sesa 'Refumee does not share these ridges, but instead has a Jet pack on his back that presumably also contains a store of oxygen in it.

Heretic Elites can be found in both Brown and Gold armored variants, as well as the Heretic Leader's personal red-colored armor. Elites who wear gold armor are the equivalent of a Elite Majors with more health and stronger shields, while those with brown armor seem similar to Elite Minors.

They are only seen in two levels: The Arbiter and Oracle.

Combat
They mostly use Carbines, Sentinel Beams, and also Energy Swords, but are never seen using plasma grenades. Plasma Rifles are only used by Heretic Banshee pilots and the Heretic leader. This is probably because the Heretics want to stand out from all other Covenant to show that they do not have anything in common with all Elites who have faith in the Great Journey.

The energy shields of the gold Heretics are as strong as a Major Domo's, while the energy shields of the brown ones are as strong as a Minor Domo's. Note that their shields glow purple instead of the blue that Covenant-loyal Elites use.

Trivia

 * A glitch causes the melee attacks of Heretic Elites to have little or no effect, unless they are wielding Energy Swords. However, their melee attacks have a small chance of hitting when standing to the left of the Elite.
 * The Heretic Elite is one of the least used Bipeds, sharing their inactivity with the Heretic Grunts, in the Halo trilogy, as it only appears on two levels.
 * In the level The Oracle there is an Elite using a Needler, which is odd because they use Carbines and Energy Swords mostly, this is the only Heretic Elite seen using a Needler and note he only appears a few times, not always.
 * You can get a Heretic Elite by throwing a plasma grenade on it while the Mythic skull is active. Once they drop their weapon they charge at you and have the sword animation, but will not hurt you. If you have any allies they will shoot the disarmed Heretic.

Known Heretics

 * Sesa 'Refumee- Heretic Leader

Related links

 * Heretic Leader
 * Heretic Grunt
 * Heretic Banshee
 * Heretics
 * Elites