Golem

The Golem is an enemy in Heretic. They are hulking tan humanoids that attack up close with their fists. Nitrogolems are more powerful Golems that have an attack where they charge up an aura of flames, and then launch a screaming fire skull that homes in on their victim even if he turns and goes in a different direction. Both the regular Golem and the Nitrogolem come in ghost versions as well.

When Golems are killed, they split in half and collapse into a surprisingly small pile of bloody flesh with no skeleton, releasing an evil spirit that resembles a skeleton, which is visible for a fraction of a second before disappearing harmlessly.

Regular Golems first appear on The Docks; Nitrogolems first appear on The Guard Tower.

Tactical analysis
A lone Golem is barely more than a Gargoyle, and easy prey for any weapon.The Elven Wand is a good choice since they drop ammo for it. Groups of Golems can be taken out with the Ethereal Crossbow.

Nitrogolems are more difficult to deal with, as they don't have to get close to retaliate. They still can be killed with most weapons with little effort, but groups of them mean a storm of screaming skull projectiles that are hard to shake off in open areas. They're best dealt with by using the Hellstaff, the Phoenix Rod (especially if they're close to each other) and the Firemace (unless they're ghosts). The Dragon Claw also works, but its slow rate of fire means not all Nitrogolems will be suppressed in their pain state, and they may let loose a few homing skulls.

With other enemies, both kinds of Golem aren't a great worry. They tend to get in the way of other monsters' projectiles often, and the Nitrogolem's animation before it fires the skull is comparatively long, so their ability to retaliate is lacking. The best course of action is to focus on more dangerous ranged enemies and Sabreclaws if any are present, leaving the Golems for last unless the only ranged enemies left are Nitrogolems, in which case they're the priority target.

Sometimes they drop a Wand Crystal, but these are only worth 3 shots instead of the usual 10. While not as strong as the Sabreclaw, the Golem's melee attack seems to be more powerful than the Sabreclaw's.