Using Witch Hunter [COMPLETE]

[Cody Nightblade]

Recently, I've been wondering if there were any known specific details about Witch Hunter.
Search results had a lack of specific details, so I decided to investigate this Epic with the help of one of my friends, @ultimatewizardx.
After one month of investigation, I obtained the necessary information.

Since there are likely other people that want to know or could use this information as well, I have created this guide.
This will inform you on the important details of Witch Hunter.
This guide will start with stating the details shown in-game for Witch Hunter. Then, each detail will be expanded on as necessary.

What is Witch Hunter?
In case you are not familiar with it, Witch Hunter is an Epic Talent that allows the user to make a bonus attack if the enemy uses magic on them. This attack occurs before the magic attack that activated it. It also activates before Intuition.
It also is stated to reduce the incoming damage taken from the magical attack that activated Witch Hunter by 50%. (The in-game text states this as "-50% Weapon Power vs Magic." It does not actually reduce the Weapon Power, but just the incoming magic attack's damage.)

The first rank of this Epic may activate once per turn.
At rank 2 and above, it may activate up to three times per turn.
At rank 3 and above, the user's Resistance is increased.
At rank 4 and above, the user gains 1 Critical Rating upon activation.
At rank 5, the attack from Witch Hunter may purge buffs from the enemy.

If you want to view the Pirate101 Central's wiki page for certain ranks of Witch Hunter, click on the corresponding image below.

How does one train Witch Hunter?
Certain companions are able to train Witch Hunter. (Most Witchdoctor companions can train it. Some Privateers like Wing Chun and Lucky Jack Russel can train it as well.)
In terms of Pirates, though, there are currently only three sources for obtaining talent ranks for Witch Hunter, making Witch Hunter 3 the maximum possible rank.
These are the following:

• trained at level 20+ from Kurotadori (the Witchdoctor Clandestine Trainer) for 1 Practice Point. (This requires Staffy Weapons 2 to be trained.)
• granted by Phule's Wand (dropped in the Bruno Chapel instance)
• granted by a pet with the Grants Witch Hunter pet talent

What kind of attack does Witch Hunter deal?
The bonus attack from Witch Hunter actually depends on the user's basic attack type -- melee, ranged, or magic.
If the user with Witch Hunter is a....

• melee unit -- Witch Hunter deals a melee attack
• ranged unit -- Witch Hunter deals a ranged attack
• magic unit -- Witch Hunter deals a magic attack (If the enemy has Witch Hunter, then this may cause its Witch Hunter to activate, causing a Witch Hunter chain.)

How exactly does Witch Hunter activate?
The game states that Witch Hunter activates when you're affected by an enemy's spell.
However, the bonus attack and damage reduction only occur under certain conditions, meaning that it's possible for Witch Hunter to do absolutely nothing when attacked with magic.


Witch Hunter's Damage Reduction
For the damage reduction to occur, you must be next to the unit attacking you with magic.

In this regard, Witch Hunter favors melee units -- Swashbuckler, Buccaneers, and Privateers (to an extent) -- over ranged units, since they will be able to take advantage of its magic damage reduction more often. Witchdoctors and Musketeers do benefit from this, but this requires being next to the enemy attacking you with magic.

Witch Hunter's Bonus Attack
For the bonus attack to occur, one of the following conditions must be met:

• You are the directly-selected target of the magic attack.
• You must be affected by the magic attack (meaning the spell isn't single-target) and must be of the same attacking type (melee / ranged / magic) as the unit directly targeted by the magic attack.

Do note these effects, including the damage reduction, may only happen up to three times per turn if your Witch Hunter rank is greater than 1 (once per turn if you have Witch Hunter 1).


For example, take this scenario:

My pirate is casting Mojo Storm, directly "targeting" (present in the center of the 3x3 square) Old Scratch to hit two Bone Drakes (These enemies have Witch Hunter 1).
Since Scratch was "directly targeted" by the Mojo Storm in this scenario, only magic-attacking enemies could attack my Pirate with Witch Hunter. Therefore, the Bone Drake directly below my pirate did not attack me with Witch Hunter, as it is a melee unit.
However, that same Bone Drake was right next to my Pirate when he cast the Mojo Storm, so it took half of the damage it would have taken normally.

An interesting case with Witch Hunter.....
Something to note about how this Epic activates is the fact that targeting out of range still uses one of the Epic's bonus attack(s).
This causes the user with Witch Hunter to lose a bonus attack in that case. (This does not happen if the magic-attacking unit is hidden.)

For example, here is some video footage.



Before this turn, no Bone Drakes activated Witch Hunter.
Do note how not a single Bone Drake attacked Scratch with Witch Hunter.
This is because my Pirate hit them with Mojo Storm.
However, the Bone Drakes still ended up taking reduced damage from Scratch's spell, except for the one next to my Pirate (whose damage reduction was already used).

Another example would be the scenario in this video:



A hidden unit attacked my Buccaneer with Hoodoo Touch, dealing 10 damage. Its base damage was 18, though, meaning that the attack was halved. (My Buccaneer has 0 Resistance.)
After that, another unit (not hidden) tried to use Ghostwail on my Buccaneer. However, he was attacked with Witch Hunter and was defeated.

Because of these interactions, it's easier to state the bonus attack(s) and damage reduction as effects that act differently from each other.

How much Resistance does Witch Hunter give at ranks 3+?
As I've stated in a different thread, the Resistance you gain from Witch Hunter 3:

• is equal to 25% of your total Spell Power, rounded down. (Scratch greatly helps here with his Spell Power buffs!)
• lasts for 3 turns
• does not show up during turn selection

Similar to other rank 3 Epics, you can only gain Resistance from Witch Hunter 3+ when you successfully hit the enemy with it.

The fact that Witch Hunter 3+'s Resistance lasts for 3 turns means one can stack Resistance values to insane values, such as:



Notice how it says I gained 177 Resistance 7 times.
This is the Resistance you gain from Witch Hunter 3. (Witch Hunter hit seven times in the last 3 turns, hence the repetition.)

How much base damage does Witch Hunter do?
Here's Witch Hunter's base Damage formula:

　base = 1.35 * [Spell Power] * (1 + 0.002 * [main stat])

As you can see, it uses Spell Power and the user's main stat (Strength, Agility, or Will).
Like other Epics, it may deal Physical or Magical Damage, depending on the weapon.

Summary

• Witch Hunter activates against incoming magic attacks.
• Depending on the user, Witch Hunter may deal a melee, ranged, or magic attack to the enemy.
• One may have up to 3 ranks of Witch Hunter via training it or as a grant from Phule's Wand or a pet. (Witch Hunter 3 is obtained when all three are present.)
• Witch Hunter's damage reduction and bonus attack work separately from each other.
• The halved incoming damage from magic attacks only works when adjacent to the enemy attacker. It works independent of the bonus attack the Epic grants.
• Witch Hunter's bonus attack only occurs if you are the direct target of the magic attack or was affected and have the same attacking type (melee / ranged / magic) as the direct target of the magic attack.
• Being targeted by a magic attack will cause the Witch Hunter's bonus attack to trigger, but only under the conditions stated above. (If these conditions are not met, you still lose the bonus attack.)
• Resistance gained from Witch Hunter is directly based on the user's total Spell Power and lasts for 3 turns.
• Witch Hunter's base damage is affected by the user's total Spell Power and attacking stat.

Other Notes

• The images I used for Witch Hunter 4 and 5 are edited images. Witch Hunter 4 and 5 are not currently obtainable.

Special Thanks
Special thanks go to:

• my friend, @ultimatewizardx, for helping with data testing, conclusions, and editing the guide (Amber is not a member of this forum)
• @Willowdreamer for helping me realize I wanted to make a guide and with crediting my friend
• @Jester for helping with crediting my friend
• You, for reading this guide

Thank you for reading this guide!
If there's anything I should do to improve this guide, please let me know!
(This is my first guide ^^')
Also, if there are any questions regarding this Epic, please ask! (I'll try my best to answer it if possible.)

This post contains 4 auto-link(s) to our wiki for your reference.

[Willowdreamer]

This is a very thorough guide - thanks! I didn't know very much about Witch Hunter except that I hated encountering it from enemy units. It looks like you and your friend did a great job!

[Cody Nightblade]

This is a very thorough guide - thanks! I didn't know very much about Witch Hunter except that I hated encountering it from enemy units. It looks like you and your friend did a great job!

Thanks! ^^'

Data collection took about a month, especially with what sparked the entire idea of making an information page for the Epic in the first place -- the fact that there isn't much information on the Epic itself or how it works that's publicly available / easily accessible (if such a thing even existed before this guide, then the search engines didn't seem to do their job >_>).

(What happened was, when I was talking to my friend, I found that the Bone Drakes were taking halved damage from my magic spells when they were next to me. He saw that shortly after, and I wanted to see if there was any more information on how exactly the Epic works.....and cue the introduction to this guide.)

Each new discovery and conclusion was quite surprising to me.
How the Epic's effects activate and work, the Resistance stacking, etc.
Honestly, it's probably the weirdest thing I've investigated in detail -- and I've investigated quite a few P101 things with the combat in detail that I already thought were weird or interesting.

In the end, the guide was worth it.
Well, that's my take on it.
Thanks for reading the guide! ^^'

[Phenoixblizzard]

I was wondering if this was even something worth training at least to have on a pet (either granted to me or they do it themselves) for witchdoctor situations. This is something I think I'll actually look into when I start new pirates

[luvs2sleepalot]

I love people who not only take the time to learn all this information but then also make a guide so that us clueless people can attempt to learn or at least use it as a reference when needed

Thanks so much for your extra effort and work!