Hunter Update - Option #1

[Antophant]

Just my opinions on the individual changes + broad thoughts at the end.

Huntsman
Grants Scourgin Blow
Grants Barrage
No Focus Loss While Moving
No Miss Chance Penalty While Moving

Mostly fine here.

Personally Id move Scourging Blow to Trapper and make it interact with Lingering Wound.

The Skirmisher
Replaces Nock on the Move (Requires 5 traits in Huntsman)

Successful melee attacks grant 1 Focus
Successful critical attacks gran 3 Focus

Blue Hunters don't really have focus issues, I'd say they currently have an issue with what to use Focus on.

Pen Shot spam is not great anymore, Barrage is on a 2sec CD, Blood Arrow is 15sec, Rain of Arrows is 12secs and Split Shot at 10secs.

Current Huntsman rotation mirrors Bowmaster except Barrage replaces Upshot + slower and/or weaker Inductions from lack of trait points.

Strong Arm, Sharp Eye
Replaces Strong Draw (requires 5+ in Huntsman)

6 ranks

Ranks 1-6: +5% Bow Damage on bow skills that consume focus and +2.5% melee damage per rank
Rank 6: 15% chance to reduce the cost of skills by 1 focus for 5s

The melee damage seems oddly tacked on, will be grabbed regardless ofc.

Nock on the Move
Replaces Split Shot - 1 Rank
Induction based attacks can be used while moving

Is this just a 1 point trait that gives Redline 90% of the reason you would normally go Blueline?

Why unbake it from Huntsman?

Now has 2 ranks
Each rank provides 15s cooldown

1 extra point to do what it currently can on live.

Fire on the Run

1 Rank (Requires 10+ in Huntsman)

Reduces the induction movement penalty by 20%

Similar to above why give other specs access to the main reason to go Blueline?

Athleticism
+ Physical Mastery Rating / tier (value is TBD)

No issues just not something I've seen asked for in Blueline.

Barbed Hindrance

15 Deep Set Bonus
+30% to Barbed Arrow Damage
+10% to Babrbed Arrow Bleed Damage
Slows target by 20%

Nice small buffs to the set bonus.

Fleet, Focused, and Fierce

Replaces Improved Fleerness at 25 Rank Set Bonus

On every harmful skill, an additional 20% chance to increase run speed by 10%
Gain 1 focus per 5s
Increase Melee Damage by 10%

Why the sudden focus on adding Melee Damage to a Spec that wants to be on the move away from mobs?

Rupture Artery

Replaces Moving Target (30+ ranks)

Using Scourging Blow on a target affected by the Exsanguinate Bleed removes the bleed and automatically deals a devastating Critical blow.

Scourging Blow wasn't worth using on a mob with Barbed Arrow bleed on, even less reason to use it with Exsanguinate Bleed which can't be reapplied quickly.

Bowmaster

Grants: Pinning Shot
Grants Needful Haste
Reduces Swift Bow induction by .8s
-25% Attack Duration
+10 max range for all ranged skills

"Reduces Swift Bow induction by .8s"

Swift Bow is already pushing 0.3secs the skill is fast enough on live.

Swift Release

5 Rank Set Bonus

33% reduction to Barbed arrow and Swift Bow inductions

Same as Above.

Draw Weight
5 ranks (requires 5+ Bowmaster)

+3% Induction bow damage and 3% induction bow critical multiplier per rank

Unchanged so no issues.

Shoot to Kill

10 Rank set bonus

+10% Ranged Damage
2.5% Critical Magnitude multiplier

Small buff to Red Hunter, not much else to say.

Mercy Kill

Reduced to 2 ranks
+15% Critical Chance on Merciful Shot/rank

Small nerf to Merciful Shot but makes it almost guaranteed to crit, kinda like it.

Bodkin Arrows

5 Ranks
Bypass 2% of target's mitigations/rank
+.6% Bleed damage/rank

Small buff to bleeds, just makes Bodkin Arrows even more of a must have for Huntsman/Trapper.

Plant Feet

Becomes:

Every 1.5s you do not move you gain a tier of Hold Ground to a max of 5 tiers
Hold Ground effects are removed if you move, are out of combat for 9s
Hold Ground removes a tier on each critical strike
Hold Ground: +2% Evade, Damage, and critical chance per tier

Thought it was crazy at first until I read it more.
It makes your opening burst damage super consistent at the start of fights but after that its just 2% critical chance + 2% damage every 1.5 secs as there's little chance you hit tier 2 with Quick Shot spam.

Still 100% worth grabbing compared to what it currently is on live.

Trapper of Foes

Grants skill: Lingering Wound
Grants Skill: Decoy
Traps can be used while moving and have no induction

Lingering Wound needs to be looked at, it went from a weak but quick focus builder that could bleed several mobs to a weaker + expensive focus cost skill that had its CD tripled.

Its tiering buff is fine at +80%ish but the bleed itself is too small, even at tier 4 it is weaker than every other hunter bleed.

Split Shot

Grants Skill: Split Shot

No idea why it moved to Trapper line.

Unless its in the first row it effectively removes Split Shot from Huntsman as well as BowMaster if going for Strength of the Earth.

Explosive Arrow

Grants Skill: Explosive Arrow

Damages a target and explodes around the target damaging all enemies within 5m and burning for 5s

Awkward to use AOE skill in combat that is also pitifully weak.

Combative and Elusive

Replaces Elusive

+Physical Master Rating/rank (Value TBD)
+1% Evade /rank
Evading an attack increases run speed by 5% can trigger up to 3 times every 10s

This should just be Athleticism or vice versa.

Quick Escape

Moves from Red to Yellow (requires 15+ in Trapper of Foes)

No Focus loss on Low Cut
Apples a 3s root

Fine, a bit more fitting for Trapper at least.

Endurance

2 Ranks

+1% to Parry and Evade /rank
Evading or Parrying an attack restores 1% max morale (Can occur 5 times every 30s)

Would feel better if it proc'd on hit and gave a short Evade/Parry buff + the small Morale heal, you don't need healing if you're evading the hit.

Armour Rend

4 ranks

Each Rank grants -4% Physcal mitigation against the target and reduces Block, Parry, and Evade rating by .75%

Assuming Pen Shot keeps its 4% baseline debuff you can get 20% physical mit debuff, kind of OP but somewhat balanced by having 1 hunter needing to go Trapper or Bowmaster + deep yellow.

More of a win for Champ/Burg and Brawler heh.

Purge Poison

Affects fellowship and increases cooldown to 12s

If it keeps the 2 cleanses that's fine.

Emergency Preparations

4 Ranks

Rank 1: After evading an attack you place a Set Trap in front of you.
Rank 2: After Evading an attack you place a Piercing Trap in front of you.
Rank 3: After Evading an attack you place The One Trap in front of you.
Rank 4: Gain Skill: Survivalist Prepper

Survivalist Prepper places a Set Trap 90 degrees to your left, The One Trap in front of you, and a Piercing Trap 90 degrees to your right
Cooldown 180s

When you evade with rank 3-4 can you only place The One Trap? as honestly Id prefer Set Trap for the root + Inc damage debuff.

Having another way to apply traps outside of evade procs is nice as traps are slow to reapply otherwise.

Sturdy Traps

35 Rank Set Bonus
+5s trap Grace Period
+5s Trap Duraion
No Focus Loss on Movement
Survivalist Prepper Cooldown reduction by 60s

All nice, anything that makes traps more active and applied more often is welcome.





The issues I'm seeing is Huntsman is gutted of its identity, *run and gunner*
Scourged Blow interactions added when its better to just Quickshot spam or use some other ranged skill and keep the bleeds,
would still feel like a slower clunkier Bowmaster,
the traits that made Huntsman a on the move DPSer is up for grabs as Bowmaster/Trapper.

Trapper just doesn't gain enough to be a proper CCer
1 more set of traps per minute but still requires being smacked by mobs to get anything extra.
Distraction Shot would still be a 2min cd daze with a tracery for -16.5secs if gold which is not enough,
its identity would become "make sure to pen shot everything on CD".

BowMaster is the big winner,
better DPS than before,
gains on the move inductions if desired OR can be a Phys Mit debuffer for the group if willing to sacrifice Huntsman traits,
loses nothing of importance in BowMaster traitline.