Headhunter

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"Headhunter has just one job: taking out enemy heroes. As her other job, she works at the village apothecary. She's lightweight enough to jump over walls and her poisoned weapons make her targets move and attack slower."

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Level 1	Level 2	Level 3

Summary

• The Headhunter is a troop unlocked once the Dark Barracks is upgraded to level 9, which requires the player to be at Town Hall level 12.
• Headhunters prioritize Heroes above all other targets, and will bypass all other types of enemy buildings and troops while any enemy Heroes remain on the battlefield. This is true even if they are under attack by enemy Clan Castle troops or Skeleton Trap skeletons. Note that the defending Grand Warden is considered a defense and not a Hero.
  Once all enemy Heroes are knocked out, Headhunters become like any other troop with no preferred target; they will attack the nearest building to them regardless of type, and will turn and attack enemy units if they become aware of any nearby.
• The Headhunter's attacks have a Poison Spell effect, which temporarily slows down troops and heroes that are attacked. The poison doesn't affect buildings and doesn't deal damage by itself.
  • The Headhunter's abilities don't apply to a defending Grand Warden since he is considered as a building.
• Headhunters can bypass Walls to reach any targets behind them.
• The Headhunter shares the same movement speed with Goblins, Sneaky Goblins, Minions, and Miners.

Strategy

Offensive

• Since Headhunters can jump over Walls, you do not need to support her with a Jump Spell or Earthquake Spell. You can send them with the main army of a hybrid, as they can take out the enemy heroes instead of something else.
• Due to Headhunters being able to jump over Walls, they can be used to lure out an enemy Clan Castle provided that an enemy hero is nearby. This may require more than one Headhunter (or protection from a meat shield such as a Giant) due to their low hitpoints.
• If all enemy heroes are down, they will alternatively target enemy Clan Castle troops. This is useful on bases that already have their heroes down, either because they are regenerating or being upgraded.
  • However, this is quite rare as the heroes are commonly well protected enough to either force the activation of a Clan Castle or require too much time to individually kill all of them.
• Sneaking in a Headhunter or two during a Queen Walk/Charge can gain massive value as long as it doesn't get targeted by defenses, saving Poison Spells or Freeze Spells used against heroes.
  • This is extremely effective when the Archer Queen runs into the enemy Barbarian King. This can save the Archer Queen from using her Royal Cloak ability, which can be used in a later part of the attack.
  • You can also sneak one in during a Suicide Hero, where the planned objectives are near or include an enemy hero to save some health of the hero.
• If a defending Hero needs to go down for the strategy your doing, but your main army won't deal with that hero, you can send a group of headhunters combined with the Grand Warden's Eternal Tome ability to make the headhunters immune to all of the damage that they would take getting to that hero, effectively making them powerful hero killers.

Defensive

• As defending Clan Castle troops, Headhunters are effective against attackers' heroes, including the Grand Warden, regardless of whether he is set to Ground or Air mode. Even if no heroes are present, its ability to poison attacking troops make it a valuable unit on defense.
• Headhunters are amazing troops to defend against a Queen Charge. Their extremely high damage and slowing poison forces the Archer Queen's ability every time, even while under Poison Spells. If the attacker doesn't respond fast enough with spells such as Lightning Spell or Freeze Spell, Headhunters can easily take out the Archer Queen, even with the ability.
• Defensive Headhunters are great counters to an attacker's Siege Machines (with the exception of the Siege Barracks) Their poison effect will make Siege Machines move and attack slower, rendering their main functions next-to-useless.
• Headhunters will jump over Walls and dive straight for the hero. Putting your Heroes closer to the core of your base will force the Headhunters to go away from most possible tanks and get targeted themselves.
• Headhunters are most often sneaked under cover from other troops so that they do not die easily. Multi-target Inferno Towers and Scattershots are effective countermeasures to prevent them from reaching and damaging your heroes.

Upgrade Differences

• At level 1, the Headhunter has a purple-and-black robe covering her whole body. Her face is covered in darkness, except for the eyes which are black with a yellow-orange sclera.
• At level 2, the part of the robe covering the face gains a silver trim. She also gains a poison symbol on her robe's back.
• At level 3, the trim turns to gold, as well as appearing on the start of her gloves. Her symbol on the back of her robe also turns gold.

History

January 29, 2013		greenTerrtleTran suggests adding a troop with a poison attack.
February 5, 2013		clashofclans2013 suggests adding an assassin.
February 27, 2013		Rogrider suggests adding a troop associated with Dark Elixir that targets heroes.
Patch	Type	Description
June 21, 2020	Sneak Peek	Announced the Headhunter in the sneak peek, with 3 levels.
June 22, 2020	Update	Added the Headhunter.
October 12, 2020	Update	Fixed an issue of shrinking characters when targeted by the Headhunter.
April 12, 2021	Update	Fixed minor inaccuracy from Headhunter poison timer.
April 29, 2021	Balance Changes	Reduced Headhunter’s DPS at all levels. Level 1: 108 -> 105 Level 2: 120 -> 115 Level 3: 132 -> 125
June 15, 2021	Update	Added Season Challenges and Clan Games task associated with the Headhunter, "Heads Will Roll".

Gallery

Headhunter icon

Concept designs of Headhunter.

Trivia

• You can have a maximum of 50 Headhunters at one time in a complete set of fully upgraded Army Camps. This number increases to 57 if you include the 7 that can fit into a level 9 or higher Clan Castle. On the battlefield, you can clone an additional 24 Headhunters with four fully upgraded Clone Spells (three from the regular spell inventory and one from a max-level Clan Castle), for a total of 81 Headhunters.
  • However, since Headhunters are ineffective against buildings, this is generally not an advisable practice. You won't need that many of them anyway.
• In the developer Livestream, the Headhunter was responsible for stalking for heroes, as stated by TV Royale, but the original suspects were the Bandit from Clash Royale and Tara from Brawl Stars.
• It may be assumed that Headhunters are the wizards responsible for brewing Dark Elixir Spells or at least the Poison Spells.
• In the trailer, her third card had the Clash of Clans Logo. In in-game artwork, she only appears to wield two cards, and in battle, she only appears to use sword cards (needs confirmation). In the level 9 Dark Barracks (the only other place where cards can be seen), three cards are present; two sword cards and one crown card.
• Headhunter's hood resembles Raven's from DC Comics.
• One of her cards has a hero crown on it, which is fitting seeing as she is the only unit that prefers to target heroes.

Comparisons

• The Headhunter is one of the several troops not to have Super Troop or Builder Base counterparts, the others being the Healer, Dragon, Miner, Electro Dragon, Yeti, Dragon Rider, Golem, Bowler, and Ice Golem.
• The Headhunter is one of the five troops to have upgrade differences at each level, the others being the Dragon, P.E.K.K.A, Yeti, and the Dragon Rider.
• The Headhunter, Yeti, and the Dragon Rider are the three troops with the least amount of levels, excluding Super Troops.
• She is one of the three troops that has three preferred target stages (unless there are no Clan Castle Troops, in which case she has 2), the others being the Lava Hound and the Ice Hound.
• She, along with the Dragon, Yeti and the Dragon Rider are the only Home Village troops not to appear in Clash Royale, excluding Super Troops (with the exception of Inferno Dragon).
• When used as Clan Castle defensive troops, the Headhunter is the only troop that has preferred targets on the attacking army.

Statistic Modifiers

Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly

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Gold Pass modifiers

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Preferred Target	Attack Type	Housing Space	Movement Speed	Attack Speed	Dark Barracks Level Required	Range
Heroes (x4 Damage)	Single Target	6	32	0.6s	9	3 tiles

Training Time of Headhunters
1 Dark Barracks	2 Dark Barracks
2m	1m

Level	Damage per Second	Damage per Hit	DPS on Heroes	Speed Decrease	Attack Rate Decrease	Hitpoints	Training Cost	Research Cost	Research Time	Laboratory Level Required
1	105	63	420	40%	55%	360	100	N/A	N/A	N/A
2	115	69	460	42%	60%	400	120	180,000	14d	10
3	125	75	500	44%	65%	440	140	240,000	16d	11