Witch Hunters – oh how I detest thee

To be honest, until last night, Witch Hunters had never really been much of an issue. Sure, they tend to pop up when you don’t expect them to, but usually I would just strafe away, pop a few heals and find the nearest friendly. In T2 I have been mainly running Mourkain’s Temple and in there they don’t really even sneak up on you due to the confined nature of the map.

So, last night, me and a few guild mates went looking for some Keeps to take. We found one in Marshes of Madness which we took back with very little resistance so we moved on to Ostland to try and take back the keep there. This one turned out to be a little more difficult. By the time we got the doors down, we had amassed nearly 18 people in the raid and we were pushing up against a group of 10-12 Order who were holed up on the 2nd floor. We pushing up onto the 2nd floor with a strong force, but due to lack of coordination, our healers ended up with most of the NPCs on them and we wiped badly.

By the time we rezzed and regrouped, the Order ranks had been reinforced to the point where we now had two groups of 24+ people going toe-to-toe out the front of the keep. We weren’t able to make too much progress and they were able to defend quite effectively. It was around this time, with our forces out in the open that I began to experience the pain of the higher level Witch Hunters. Order had a couple of them and they were pretty well coordinated. I died several times to Sudden Accusation while trying to escape their grasp and being a little slow, I just didn’t pick up on the fact that moving was what was killing me.

Thankfully, Ulfryk over at The Raven Calls has some handy tips for dealing with Witch Hunters. As a counter point, Cathbadh has written a nice little article providing advice to Witch Hunters on hunting healers which I also recommend. Getting into the head of an enemy will help you better combat their attacks.

So as the night wore on and our large group of attackers slowly dwindled as people looked for more effective means to level, I continued to run into these troublesome Witch Hunters. I learnt that to survive, I needed to stick close to the freindly DPS and keep moving so as to thwart a sneak attack. I had to stay still if they did manage to jump me, use both Chaotic Blur and Embrace the Warp to limit the incoming damage and switched to healing myself sooner. They still managed to kill me a couple more times, but I also spotted them on approach a few times and deflected the brunt of their attacks.