This guide is designed for new archons or people planning on archoning soon and want to gain a little knowledge on hunter fights before hand. It's also based on soloing hunters, since sharing AP isn't favored by everyone. Also, this guide is for new archons, so I have left masters off the lists.
A rift appears in time and space, glowing brilliantly!
The above line is an indication that a hunter rifted to you and if it attacks you, it belongs to you.
Type of your hunter?
First thing to do once you have a hunter is determine what type of hunter it is. The quickest way is to look in the room, is it hidden or visible?
If it's hidden you have either (note that combat will dispel the hidden and sneaking affects):
* Generic, these like to kick to start combat when you enter the room.
* Bomber (alchemist), these throw bombs and breathe fire.
If it's visible:
* Magic immune - this type is the only hunter to have just sanctuary on.
* Summoner - as the name implies these summon elementals and cast swarm. (You will need sense life cast to see it though, as with bombers and generics combat negates the sneaking effect)
* Witch - poison breath will identify this type.
* Druid - identified by its casting of druid spells.
Of course you can always get an:
* Ethereal hunter - As the name implies, it's ethereal, and also likes to breathe lightning.
Hunter Profiles:
Generic -
*, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison
*, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: negative energy disease necromantic silver
*, the Archon Hunter is affected by the following magical effects:
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.
* 'Armor', cast at level 177. (If wearing mirror shield)
Additional Info:
Can cast augment aura.
Will attempt to sneak.
Will attempt to hide.
Can kick during combat, up to two times a round.
May summon you, if you flee combat.
Bomber -
*, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm paralysis
*, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: slash poison negative disease necromantic
*, the Archon Hunter is vulnerable to: magic
*, the Archon Hunter is affected by the following magical effects:
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Armor', cast at level 180. (If wearing mirror shield)
Additional Info:
Will attempt to sneak.
Will attempt to hide.
Can bash during combat, up to two times a round.
Magic Immune -
Immune to read aura
Additional Info:
Can cast augment aura.
Summoner -
*, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm disease
*, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: magic pierce poison negative necromantic
*, the Archon Hunter is affected by the following magical effects:
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Haste', cast at level 350.
* 'Armor', cast at level 183. (If wearing mirror shield)
Additional Info:
Will attempt to sneak.
Can bash during combat, up to two times a round.
Can cast elemental shield.
Witch -
*, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison light
*, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: negative disease necromantic
*, the Archon Hunter is vulnerable to: mental
*, the Archon Hunter is affected by the following magical effects:
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Armor', cast at level 177. (If wearing mirror shield)
Additional Info:
May summon you, if you flee combat.
Druid -
*, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison
*, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: bash pierce slash negative energy disease necromantic iron
*, the Archon Hunter is affected by the following magical effects:
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Armor', cast at level 177. (If wearing mirror shield)
Additional Info:
Can cast elemental shield.
Ethereal -
*, the Archon Hunter is immune to: summon charm poison petrification
*, the Archon Hunter is resistant to: negative disease necromantic
*, the Archon\ Hunter is affected by the following magical effects:
* 'Sanctuary', cast at level 350.
* 'Fireshield', cast at level 350.
* 'Armor', cast at level 180. (If wearing mirror shield)
Additional Info:
Can cast elemental shield.
Killing your hunter
While killing all hunters is basically spelling them up and wearing them down without getting killed, each type is has different strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what affects your hunter is important, casting dispel on magic immune for example will just waste sp and sunstones, here's a run down of the different types.
Generic - For those who are able to, this type can be dispelled. Once you've got it dispelled, you can spell them up normally with faerie fire (FF), weaken, plague and curse (whatever you have at your disposal). Once spelled up you can try to counterspell (CS) their spells, since spells are the where the real damage comes from, with the counterspell change this method is hard though. Another 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.
Bombers - This type is my least favorite of all hunters, they spam dispel, high explosive(HE), 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, again like dispel they are hard to land. 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 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.
Magic Immune - 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. CS works on immunes, but they can be killed easier with bash and refresh spam. 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.
Druid - 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 at a decent rate, which will obviously make the fight much easier. Counterspelling is also usually effective on druids. This type tends to have a lot of hp but they also have the benefit of been weak 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.
Witch - 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 or CS. If you can CS silence on to a witch they will start to try cast extinction and fatigue, so keep up with the CS, backfiring an extinction onto a witch will aid you greatly. 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.
Summoner - 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 three 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 second way is to flash bomb the form once it's full, this has the added bonus of sometimes blinding the hunter too. The third 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 don't have detect invisibility so they wont enter combat if you are invisible, but beware of getting webbed and dispelled. 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.
Ethereal - If you are fortunate enough to own 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 eth, though this is quite time-consuming. It's better to farm flash bombs from a mob (the alchemists assistants in Templeton are good for flash and negation bombs, as are the fey monks in Templeton catacombs) and keep the hunter blind then bash or throw HE if you have any. Ethereal hunters also breathe lightning which will lag you occasionally.
A few hints and tips:
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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