Yahar'gul Hunter | Bloodborne Wiki

Yahar'gul Hunters
Enemy Type	Neither beast nor kin
Health	??
Drops	Bolt Paper (Tonitrus) Quicksilver Bullets (Rifle Spear) Clawmark Caryll Rune (Beast Claw) Madman's Knowledge (Threaded Cane)
Weak	None
Strong	Physical
Locations	Cathedral Ward Yahar'gul Chapel

Yahar'gul Hunter is an enemy in Bloodborne.

Yahar'gul Hunters

"Wearing their strange hooded helmets, these hunters favor atypical weapons like Tonitrus, Beast Claw or Rifle Spear"

Unnamed hostile hunters wearing the Yahar'gul Set. Unlike most hunter encounters, they prefer to attack in teams of two or three. With their combination of ranged and melee attacks, as well as their tendency to stick together, these hunters are not to be underestimated.

Locations

Yahar'Gul Hunters attack the player at two locations:

• Cathedral Ward: On the path to Yahar'gul, Unseen Village, in a plaza with a well in the center.
  • Tonitrus and Wooden Shield (drops 4 Bolt Paper)
  • Rifle Spear and Ludwig's Rifle (drops 10 Quicksilver Bullets)
• Yahar'gul, Unseen Village: In the chapel with the now-inactive Hypogean Gaol Lamp (after defeating Rom, the Vacuous Spider)
  • Beast Claw and Hunter Pistol (drops Clawmark Caryll Rune)
  • Threaded Cane, Flamesprayer, and Tiny Tonitrus (drops 1 Madman's Knowledge)
  • Rifle Spear and Cannon (drops 20 Quicksilver Bullets)

Strategy

Cathedral Ward

• The hunter with the Tonitrus can be lured away without aggroing his partner, making the fight a lot simpler. His weapon can do a good amount of bolt damage, but he emphasizes blocking with his shield over dodging. Punish his passive shield use with charged R2 attacks to break his guard.
  
  
• The Rifle Spear hunter will evade almost every attack that comes his way, but is stuck in place when he fires. Quickstepping forward as soon as you hear the gunshot will leave him open for a quick attack. Be sure to quickly back away, however, since the hunter has a devastating melee combo at point blank range. If you need to heal during the fight, take cover behind the well first to avoid his gunfire.
  
  
  

Yahar'gul Chapel

• These hunters do not respawn (until NG+), so if you kill one of them they will stay dead for the rest of your playthrough. A viable tactic is to focus on one hunter and try to kill them, so next time you face off against them there will only be two hunters to deal with.
• No matter who you target first, all three hunters will immediately aggro on you if you straight down into the main room or stay next to one of them and wait for the others to arrive. The Beast Claw hunter is in the center of the chapel, the Rifle Spear hunter is near the door in the back, and the Threaded Cane hunter is down the stairs to the prison area on the right side (when facing from the Yahar'gul Chapel lamp). The Threaded Cane hunter can sometimes be seen walking to his location, but will otherwise stand still once he gets there.
  
  
• The Beast Claw hunter (distinguished by his lack of armor except for the helmet) will tend to ignore his firearm entirely in favor of just striking at melee. Once his health is down below a certain threshold, he will activate the Beast Blood effect and gain additional power, but his moveset is otherwise unchanged.
  
  
• The Rifle Spear hunter is much more melee-focused than the one at the well, but will fire the cannon on occasion to devastating effect. He will often charge up a transformed R2 attack, so his reach is a lot longer than it appears. Be cautious when approaching him.
  
  
• The Threaded Cane hunter will exploit his weapon's superior reach and attack at maximum range with it transformed. In addition, his Tiny Tonitrus is extremely powerful and can leave most players at critical health, if not kill them outright. If you hear the sound of it activating, be ready to sidestep.
  
  
• None of the trio have blood vials and they don't tend to dodge or quickstep, making it possible to wear them down through hit and run tactics. Funneling them down a narrow corridor and using a weapon with a wide swing like the Hunter's Axe or the Threaded Cane will allow the player to strike them all at once and prevent some of them from attacking.
  
  
• Because the hunters don't move until aggro'd, it's possible to sneak around the left side of the prison stairs and backstab the Threaded Cane hunter for a visceral attack. Since he's easily the most dangerous of the three, dealing with him first will simplify the battle a great deal. After a backstab, he can also be quickly led down the hallway directly behind him and into the rock tunnel that goes to Darkbeast Paarl's boss room. Go into the tunnel, but not out the other side, and the two other hunters should lose aggro, allowing you to deal with the Threaded Cane hunter alone. This is easy, assuming you've already killed the meaty Scourge Beast in the room.                                                 

• After that, head back into the main room of the chapel and the other hunters should still be in their default positions, giving you another free visceral, this time on the Beast Claw hunter. As long as you keep him stunned, he can't roar and call the attention of the Rifle Spear hunter, giving you another easy kill and leaving the Rifle Spear hunter to be killed at your leisure. Be careful, at a vitality of 21, his canon still one-shots you.

Notes & Trivia

• According to the description of the Yahar'gul armor, these hunters are actually kidnappers in service to Mensis, much like the Snatchers. However, dying to the hunters in Cathedral Ward will not transport the player to Hypogean Gaol.                                                                          

• Glitch/Exploit Report (Personal Experience): After spawning at the Yahar'gul Chapel lamp I ran towards the triple hunter spawn area with the broken lamp. Upon reaching it I ran immediately down to the bottom right stairway (with the Threaded Cane and Tiny Tonitrus Hunter enemy) past him through the jail cell area and all the way to the Darkbeast Paarl fog wall. After waiting for roughly 30 seconds to a minute I received 2 blood dregs (from the Corruption Rune effect), indicating that 2 of the hunters had been most likely killed by the meaty, body part variant of the Scourge Beast lurking inside the jail area. Unconfirmed if it is consistent or not.  (could someone test and confirm for me?) Sorry, but your exploit seems isolated. The hunters most certainly do team up with meaty leg-beast to attack me upon multiple trial runs.

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