Career Crunch: Empire Witch Hunter

Returning to the Order army, WAAAGH! examines the much-ballyhooed Witch Hunter career as our 24-part series continues.

CAREER: Empire Witch Hunter

BRIEF OVERVIEW: Merciless in their passion and efforts in hunting down Chaos scum wherever it hides, Witch Hunters are quick and lethal fighters who use multiple weapons in rendering their "judgments".

THINK: A Puritan cross-bred with a Three Musketeer with a strong helping of the Spanish Inquisition.

MOVIE CHARACTER: Judge Dredd -- judge, jury and executioner all in one! Also, you could toss in a bit of Van Helsing and Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean if you felt generous.

ABILITIES & MECHANICS: Deals out burst damage with Accusations-Execution combos. Has a limited form of stealth to close distance to target. Uses other witch huntery items (such as holy water or ashes) in combat. Swords and knives are mostly used, with a pistol being the exclamation mark at the end of a long scuffle. Can bless weapons.

MASTERIES: Confession (direct brutal combat with added protection), Inquisition (whittles an enemy down by weakening them), Judgment (surprise/back attacks).

RATE MY INTEREST: 9/10. Witch Hunters are definitely a "rogue-like" class, which tends to draw a lot of cowards and jerks in many games, hence why I took a point off my interest meter. That and the phantom stealth controversy aside, how can I not roll one of these guys? How awesome is it to play a demon-hunting Pilgrim, where you not only get one of the coolest fashion trends in the WAR universe, but you also can fight with both swords AND guns? They look fairly straightforward to play (dps-dps-dps), but in a more satisfying way than I've seen in other burst-DPS melee classes. Count me in. It's a shame that, as of right now, it seems like 95% of Empire players will be Witch Hunters, which will make me feel like I'm at a weird buckle-and-leather strap convention.

MORE READING:

• The official Witch Hunter description page


• WHA's Witch Hunter forum


• Witch Hunter PvE video