As a Left4Dead player, if I see a witch in the way I have a tendency to walk up and crown her. Much to the astonished cries of ‘How do you do that!’ Since starting left4dead I have heard lots of people freak out and panic over the witch; and even go to the extremes of creating entire plans to take her down. This panic can be almost as dangerous as the witch itself. And in VS this can be absolutely fatal to the entire team; a well placed Infected squad can and will kill you. What you need to be able to do is kill the witch with as little issue as possible.

Here is how you can clean her out as long as you are carrying a pump shotgun or better.

Understanding the Witch

There is 3 total angles that you will be approaching a witch from. Behind, the side and finally the front. But before we launch into how to ‘crown’ the witch, first you need to understand exactly what you are doing.

To ‘Crown’ the witch, you need to do more than 1000 damage in one shot. The shotgun at close range does 4x damage and can get in access of 1100 damage if all the pellets hit at point blank range on any difficulty.

Normal / Advanced / Expert all require the same 1000 damage or more in a single shot to crown the witch. The only real difficulty is on expert if you mess up; she will kill you in one hit. In VS you are instantly disabled which can get you and/or your entire team killed.

Another thing to come to terms with is that the witch will always go through her full animation. This animation consists of growling, standing up and then running / striking the person that woke her up. This gives you the time you will need to line up the one shot to get a killing blow. The trick here is to understand that you have this time to run in and line up the shot. Once she is startled however; anything hitting her like bullets or special infected will set her off after whoever startled her.

Now another thing that I need to clear up straight away. Crowning the witch does not in any way shape or form require a head shot. In fact shooting her in the head directly is very unlikely to achieve a crowning at all — as this guide will show you.

All screenshots with a GREEN circle are immediately followed up with successful Crowning shots. The screenshot in RED is a failed crown attempt.

Crowning from the Side

This is the easiest situation to crown a witch. Your shotgun needs to center in the middle of her body and you need to be point blank. I like to run up and touch her before centering my crosshair on her body as per the following screenshot. If the center of the shotgun crosshair is level with the center of her body it is likely you will achieve crowned.

Crowning Witch from Right Side ( Kill Shot Follows )

Crowning from Behind

Crowning from behind is a little more difficult. And I would advise a slight sidestep to achieve a greater accuracy on the initial shot. If you don’t have time to adjust your angle (ie in vs) you will want to center your crosshair about mid way up her body to maximize the area in which your shotgun blast will hit. This screenshot offers the perfect area to crown. Again this screenshot was followed by a killing shot.

Crowning Witch from Behind ( Kill Shot Follows )

Crowning From Front (or why you should NEVER do it)

NEVER do this. You will almost never achieve a crowning shot when approaching a witch from the front. As per the following screenshot (this screenshot was followed in my decapitation ) doing direct damage to her head has little to no effect. In this situation if there is no possible way you can side step her side for a better shot ( very rare, occasionally in a train etc ) your best options are to have your companions line up while you stand behind them to shot at her. She won’t hurt anyone else as she is running; instead she will thump them roughly out of the way while covering her head and chasing down whoever startled her allowing your team to shoot her down before she reaches you. Be weary that sometimes once she is startled, if someone does an excessive amount of damage to her immediately afterwards she may switch targets to this person.

If you are lucky enough to have Automatic Weapons, this is much simpler. The above tactic works very well. Also anyone with a hunting rifle can shoot her in the head for a 2-3 second stun leaving her dazed. A good shooter can get a few shots on her head keeping her mostly immobilized.

If you have someone with an automatic shotgun, you can attempt lining up a shot as per the following screenshot. However do not stop firing the shotgun, and after the first shot begin backing up at full speed. Two shots at close range should be more than enough to kill the witch. However your safety is not guaranteed.

Crowning from Front ( Fails, Witch Kills Me )

These rules are not set in stone, these are simply guide lines to the easiest ways to get this achievement. It is not impossible to crown her with a shotgun to the face. It is also not impossible to wait for her to stand up and shoot her in the head to achieve the crowning shot.

This guide is to minimize the use of luck and maximize your ability to be able to line up a killing shot.

Now go out and kill some zombies.
- Rogotin [Isaiah 21:12]