Warhammer Online Career Info:

Empire Witch Hunter

"These poor, simple folk - too fearful or too dull-witted to see the vulgarity and evil in their own midst.

They wail and complain about my...uncompromising methods, but who among you can say that

hanging half a village is too high a price to pay for the assurance that corruption has been exposed

and destroyed this day?"



- Ernst Traugott, Templar Witch Hunter

The Witch Hunter is a tireless foe of Chaos, dark magic and witchery of all kinds. As the taint of Chaos continues to spread and more people are drawn to the dark arts, the Witch Hunters’ role has become increasingly important to the Empire. Fast, cunning and deadly, they dispense merciless judgment upon any who serve Chaos. While the people of the Empire agree that the Witch Hunters’ work is critically important, rare is the citizen who does not feel pangs of dread when they lay eyes upon one, for it is understood that most Witch Hunters would sooner burn an entire village to the ground than see a single follower of Chaos go free.

Witch Hunter Specialty

The Witch Hunter’s sole motivation is rooting out and destroying corruption. To that end, they use the various tools and tactics available to them to weaken their opponents’ strength and resolve via Interrogation before meting out final Judgment. Fast and agile, the Witch Hunter is dangerous in close-quarters, especially when approaching an unsuspecting or startled target from behind. The Witch Hunter will frequently employ holy water, chrisoms, blessed ashes and other relics to further increase the suffering inflicted upon their foes.

Playing as a Witch Hunter

Whether you’re positioning yourself for a devastating strike against an unwary enemy or going toe-to-toe in the thick of the fight, there are few places on the battlefield where a Witch Hunter does not belong. In the face of your tireless assaults and interrogation, your enemies quickly wither and fall – be it by blade, bullet or torch. While your pistol can be a powerful and devastating weapon under the right circumstances, it is slow and awkward to reload in close-quarters. As such, you will make frequent use of the deadly speed and effectiveness of rapiers, knives, stakes, torches and daggers. You will also find it useful to anoint your weapons before a fight to dispatch your unholy enemies with even greater efficiency.

Fighting the Witch Hunter

The Witch Hunter relies heavily on his ability catch targets off guard or to distract them in the thick of a fight. A powerful melee fighter, he is at his most effective when he can move behind an enemy and unleash pistol shots or powerful strikes from his anointed blade upon them. As such, it is critical that you not lose track of a Witch Hunter in the heat of battle. Keep them at range if you can - as their pistols are unreliable from a distance - and stay in front of them if they close in on you. A bullet in the head or a blade through the heart await those who do not.

The Witch Hunter Look

The Ten Ton Thought

Described by Mythic as “the coolest class we’re ever going to do!”, the Witch Hunter is the sneakier of the Empire careers.  Armed with sword and flintlock, the Witch Hunter spends his time skulking about the shadows of the empire hunting those who could be heretics, infiltrators, or worse!  It can be expected that this scoundrel like class will fill the atypical rogue niche of the Empire careers and that one can expect to see quite a bit of underhanded fighting from this well known Empire class.

Interview Information

The following is taken from the May 8th TenTonHammer John Drescher Interview located here.

TTH: Let's start with Empire. One of the classes we really wanted to see more of was the witch hunter. Other than Paul Barnett going a little crazy about the pointy hats, could you talk a little bit about their role and what kind of tools they'll have at hand?

Josh Drescher: The witch hunter is actually the next class on the menu for really detailed treatment in an upcoming newsletter. I can't get into absolute, total detail... I can give you a slightly more involved explanation of his general strategic role. I had lunch yesterday with Eric Mogensen of Games Workshop and he gave us his very definitive opinion on what a witch hunter should be and how he should interact with the world. If you remember the concept art, he's got a big blunderbuss / pistol thing and a rapier. His boring sort-of MMORPG role is the melee / DPS class. Strategically his role is debuffing / damage-over-time stuff. He's going to do things that make it hard to stay close to him and then he'll finish you off with a pistol in the side of the head. Beyond that, we're tripping on ground that we'll be covering in the newsletter.

 

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