Ascended Witch

The Ascended Witch is a cultist, blessed by her Eldritch god. She utilizes the same moveset as her counterpart, mainly causing massive stress damage and marking with Fate's Reveal, and occasionally using her shuffling attacks. This enemy can be encountered on the first expedition in the Darkest Dungeon.

The Ascended Witch's skills are much the same as her regular counterpart's: she inflicts stress, pulls heroes out of formation, and marks targets. The main differences are that her abilities hit harder, and that she tends to focus her attacks on heroes whose stress is already high.

Behaviour
- COOLDOWNS: The Ascended Witch's "Fate's Pull/Push" cannot be used more then once every fourth turns. They are not mutually exclusive, so her using one of these skills does not prevent her from casting the other on the next turn.

- PREFRENCE: She will most likely open her first turn with "Fate's Reveal" (20x greater chance). The next turn, she has a tenfold higher chance of casting "Fate's Pull".

The Ascended Witch WILL NOT use "Fate's Reveal" if:

· 2 or more of your heroes are MARKED.

· 3 or more of your heroes are VIRTUOUS.

The Ascended Witch is ten times more likely to use "Fate's Reveal" on a hero who is above 50 stress. She is also ten times more likely to use "Fate's Pull" on a marked target, pulling them into the front where the Brawlers can hit them.

Strategy
Much like regular Cultist Witches, they should be your top priority: their stress attacks hit extremely hard, and their mark allows the Ascended Brawlers to do significantly more damage with their Rend for the New God ability. Furthermore, the fact that they focus fire their stress attacks means that they can easily give someone a heart attack if left unchecked.

A Plague Doctor with extra speed in form of trinkets or quirks can stun both witches on the first round, possibly allowing the rest of the party to wail on them and quickly dispatch the Ascended Witches before stress becomes unmanageable. Move skills are drastically less useful on the Witch than other monsters: she can still cast most of her skills from any rank. As common for heavy stress-hitters, stress-healing heroes such as the Crusader or Jester will also allow you to mitigate the incoming stress damage. Try your best keep your stress low, so they won't focus-fire a hero into affliction.