Hunter Types

Overview of hunter types

• Generic - These like to kick to start combat when you enter the room and cast tremor a lot during combat.
• Bomber - These throw bombs and breathe fire.
• Magic immune - Immune to most elemental types of magic and dispel.
• Summoner - As the name implies these summon elementals and cast swarm.
• Witch - Only type to cast energy orb and breathe poison.
• Druid - Identified by its casting of druid spells.
• Ethereal - Protected by ethereal affect and breathes lightning.

Details of hunter types

Generic

Example of a read aura of level 150+ hunter, lower level ones have less resistences and immunities.

Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison
Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: negative energy disease necromantic silver
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• Can cast augment aura.
• Can kick during combat, up to two times a round.
• May summon you, if you flee combat.

For those who are able to, this type can be dispelled via the spell. Once you've got it dispelled, you can spell them up with faerie fire, weaken, fatigue, impede movement, disjunction, maligancy, plague, web, curse and most other witch spells. One way to kill these is if you have some high level flash bombs, you can dispel them, curse and then try to blind them with the flash bombs. This will give you time to spell them up and spam some damage spells and hopefully keep them blinded the whole fight. Generic will start to attempt to flee at around agony so try to web them before then.

Bomber

Example of a read aura of level 150+ hunter, lower level ones have less resistences and immunities.

*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm paralysis
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: slash poison negative disease necromantic
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is vulnerable to: magic
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• Will breath fire, be sure to have defense set to auto.
• Can bash during combat, up to two times a round.

This type can deal a lot of damage and will throw negation bombs and flash bombs, this means lots of fleeing and spelling back up, being blinded and a lot of healing. Fortunately they have the least HP of all the hunters. They can be dispelled to make them easier. However it takes a hell of a lot of casts, so you would rather spell them up normally with whatever spells you have. FF, weaken, plague, poison and curse will all land on them. Bashing bombers and fleeing to heal/avoid web is a good strategy for anyone who has around 2000hp. Bombers will try to flee at agony and are a nightmare to catch, one trick is to fight them in a small area (such as the fighting school in the towne of New Rigel or to room shield yourself in to a 2 room area, when they reach agony so they can only flee one way each time and still leave yourself room to flee into should you need to heal up. Be warned bombers can do some serious damage especially with no weapon equipped, fire breath, spells and all sorts of bombs thrown at you. As of version 4.3 you can also quicksand your room to keep the hunter in it. Witches will find this type very easy with their debuffs and the vulnerability to magic will allow leech to heal a lot per cast.

Magic Immune

Immune to read aura

* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• Can cast augment aura.

This type are completely immune to dispel and most damage type spells. As with all hunters, FF and weaken are good spells to cast first as they land 100% of the time. Magic immune hunters can be plagued and cursed, which this will make the fight very easy. This type doesn't have much hp and bashing will soon wear them down. Magic immune also have the great benefit of not fleeing, leaving you open to spam damage all the way to the end without running around after it trying to web.

Summoner

Example of a read aura of level 150+ hunter, lower level ones have less resistences and immunities.

*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm disease
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: magic pierce poison negative necromantic
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• Can bash during combat, up to two times a round.
• Can cast elemental shield.

Can be dispelled, but are immune to all forms of plague . FF, weaken, curse and poison will all land pretty easily on a summoner. There are a few good strategies for fighting a summoner if you are not psionic, the first is to attack and flee to fill its form up and then run somewhere else that it will have to rift too. Once it rifts look at the hunter to check it's still formed as they do some times break form upon rifting. The next way is to flash bomb the form once it's full, this has the added bonus of sometimes blinding the hunter too. Another way is to web anything it summons and walk 1 room away, let the hunter follow you and repeat, till its form is full and you can then kill it on its own. If you are Sidhe or Fey you can poison gas the rooms you are fighting in, this will save you trying to poison the hunter in combat and it lasts long enough to re-affect the hunter should it wear off. Along with the elementals the hunter will cast swarm, the wasps can paralyze so be careful should they be the creature which swarm calls. Bats swarms are immune to all forms of blind. Summoners will try to flee at agony so they need to be webbed. In addition, psionics can obviously spook the elementals away which is very effective.

Witch

Example of a read aura of level 150+ hunter, lower level ones have less resistences and immunities.

*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison light
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: negative disease necromantic
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is vulnerable to: mental
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• May summon you, if you flee combat.

This type can be dispelled, however of all the hunters these are amongst the hardest to dispel, you can get it in 1 cast or 60 casts. If you aren't too bothered about the dispelling or just can't, you should try to plague it from the start along with the normal spelling up - ff and weaken. Once plagued it's either time to try curse. As with druid and magic immune types, witches wont flee, but they will sometimes cast momentary darkness at the end, so if you can't dispel area be sure to have sense life on so you can loot. Vandyne followers can also illuminate the room to purge the darkness should they cast it.

Druid

Example of a read aura of level 150+ hunter, lower level ones have less resistences and immunities.

*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: bash pierce slash negative energy disease necromantic iron
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• Can cast elemental shield.

Again this is another type that can be dispelled, and the usual FF, weaken, plague and curse combo will make the fight quicker although curse and plague are resisted a lot. High level flash bombs also land, which will obviously make the fight much easier. This type tends to have a lot of hp but they also have the benefit of been resistant to fire based attacks, jade wands, flame wind and HE will all work great, they do however resist both bash landing and the damage from bashing. Also, like magic immune hunters, druids will not attempt to flee.

Ethereal

Example of a read aura of level 150+ hunter, lower level ones have less resistences and immunities.

*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison petrification
*Ynolef, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: negative disease necromantic
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.

Additional information:

• Can cast elemental shield.

If you own a timepiece dispelling these will be easy, if not you will have to try using a dispelling weapon then it's just a case of wearing it and keeping healed up until it's dispelled, then FF, weaken, curse and plague. If you don't have a dispelling weapon you can try to use negation bombs to remove the ethereal, though this is quite time-consuming. Ethereal hunters also breathe lightning which will lag you occasionally.

Tips and tricks

• Get a little help from NPCs. Toy soldiers work great once your hunter is spelled up, make an alias to drop them some equipment and then orders the soldier to get all, equip all. I like to use a haste item (serpent ring), ice sword from hunters and some royal slippers for a bit of extra damage. A shadow golem is also very good if you can make it, or are camping indoors and know someone who can make you one.

• The bronze bell quest item is also handy to use, if you don't have one you can get summon wands from Templeton catacombs (necromancers near the entrance have them occasionally). These will help take away the defences of the hunter so you can do more damage with your weapon.

• Check your hunter for weapons and shield, if it is armed then use shield block, this seems to block more spells than having it on just auto. Also, if it has a shield, try to avoid spells that can be shield blocked, as it is a waste of a round and sp you could have used for something else.

• Keeping safe, you won't always be in a place where you ideally can fight your hunter, but having a safe room close by is always a big advantage. You can wait out spell effects such as energy orb or extinction, and heal at the same time. A safe room with a priest is good if you don't mind spending gold, you can shop buy 9 (aura cleansing) to remove bad affects, I use it mainly for silence, it will takes a couple of casts to remove silence, depending on the cleric's level.

• Avoid spells that will hinder your killing, the main one I look out for is <insert name> the archon hunter begins casting a spell... this is usually fatigue, which will reduce the amount of bashing you can do and make music cost more. It also lasts for ages so try to avoid it. Try to stay free from plague and poison, curing it as soon as you can.

• Try to stay above 1100hp, a HE to the head (hunters like to spam HE) and a full round of combat will more than likely kill you if you fall below this. This is especially true for bombers who also get breathe attacks.

• If you have them scribed and are in a non-pk room, casting poison gas and disease cloud in the room is a excellent idea, hunters seem to resist their effects a lot less than casting the spells individually, and it's more sp efficient for you.

• 100% land spells should always be cast first, the benefit of having them on the hunter far outweights missing rounds trying to land spells that are not 100%. Such spells been faerie fire, weaken, fatigue, maligancy, impede movement, disjunction, irritation.

Some advice on casting strings

Ordantius, the Archon Hunter begins muttering an incantation and making arcane gestures...

This type of spell is usually going to be a damage spell (think HE, ice wind, reflective fireball, chain lightning, flame wind) or a status type spell (weaken, silence, fatigue, web, plague, poison) for this type of spell, try to avoid casting a spell into it, if you do this and it's a shield blockable spell then the hp you just saved from blocking will aid you more than whatever you were going to do.

Ordantius, the Archon Hunter begins muttering an incantation...

This type can be dangerous, for example a generic hunter will spam this, as its casting tremor, but it can also be conjure boulder, which is blockable. Since tremor does very little damage, you can try to avoid casting into this type to save on hp loss, or try get off a cure light. When hunters drop down to around vomiting this type can also be a heal spell, however be warned there is always a chance of this spell being a firebolt or a icebolt. I prefer not to cast into this type, since saving hp from shield blocking is far more useful than the small amount of hp a healing spell will restore.

Ordantius, the Archon Hunter begins making arcane gestures...

Junk spells, we are talking spark and such, no problems here, cast away.

Ordantius, the Archon Hunter begins reciting an evocation...

Again junk spells, hunter druidic spells don't hurt so you can do whatever you need most of the time. Only minor annoyance from druid spells are that smoke evoke can take 2 cures to remove, but it will land whether you cast or not. Secondly ooze evoke can lag you causing damage.

Knowing the rules of when to cast and when not to cast, will make killing hunters much easier. Taking damage from a chain lightning all because you cast a spell isn't worth the damage taken, and if you manage to block it you will have saved a few rounds of healing to restore the hp lost. It does take some practice to get used to, but once you get the feel for it, you'll see how much it helps.