Originally Posted by
eorl67
I don't propose to be an expert hunter. Especially not of red line, which I haven't used since the first couple months of Helm's Deep. But not knowing anything has never stopped me from pretending I do. I've been giving the changes here a thought and came up with some ideas of my own on how to improve red line and fix blue line.
First I'll give an overview of the problems with Blue vs Red Hunter as I see them, and then some of my suggestions to fix those problems. tl;dr at the bottom.
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Current Problems
Little distinction in playstyle between specs
- Both specs rely on heavy focus bow spam, the dreaded “1 button rotation”
- Both specs take Deadly Precision and typically use Precision Stance for maximum focus generation
- Both specs have access to most of the other spec’s induction reductions
- However, as I’ll explain below, Blue is better equipped for this playstyle, which is why it tops the DPS charts
Blue provides better skills
- Barrage is Blue exclusive and overpowered, mostly due to excessive buff stacking
- Blue passive focus generation from Fleetness generally better than Needful Haste
- Upshot is underpowered for its focus cost
- Heartseeker’s induction and cooldown is prohibitive without reset from 105 armour
Blue has enough trait points to get most good Red traits
- Typical builds (at least as I've seen) spec around 31 points deep into Blue and dump another 58 (29 traits) into red, which is nearly down to Upshot (like they'd even want it)
- Red’s only exclusive skill, Pinning Shot, is useless for DPS and doesn’t fit the spec
- Red’s signature cooldown, Burn Hot, is easily obtained in Blue at only 42 and 44 points
- Blue’s signature cooldown, Rapid Fire, is 62 points deep and can’t normally be reached in Red
- The best stuff from Blue (Barrage, Fleetness, no focus loss and inductions while moving) is locked into default skills or trait set bonuses, and can't be earned in Red, regardless of points spent
LI Legacies and other bonuses favor Blue skills and playstyle
- Barrage is the only focus skill to receive a damage upgrade legacy of its own, and it’s on mainhand which has plenty of room for good legacies
- Red focused legacies like Heartseeker and Swift Bow Damage buff cooldown skills which make up small percentages of overall damage, and are on overcrowded bows with many other valuable legacies to choose from
- Precision Stance critical magnitude legacy provides more DPS than Strength Stance bonus damage legacy
- Quick Shot crit chance legacy only applies in Precision Stance yet primarily benefits the Red trait Deadly Precision. Strength Stance Slow is comparably less useful
- Both DPS-focused 115 armour set bonuses provide more benefit to Blue than Red. Blood Arrow already has reduced cooldown in Blue traits, and Rapid Fire is (almost) exclusively Blue
- Even the Throne 105 Heartseeker reset most benefits Blue's focus spam playstyle, because it's triggered by focus bow skills
What Should Be Done
- Tweak the way each spec generates focus to make each playstyle unique again, and make the rotations more interesting
- Nerf Barrage, obviously, but without shifting us to Pen Shot spam instead
- Reshuffle some LI legacies so both specs can benefit from them, and move some off the overcrowded bow and onto the sparse mainhand so we don’t have to pick favorites (or stats)
- Not only improve red line damage to be the primary DPS spec for groups, but also utilize its featured skills like Heartseeker and Upshot in the regular rotation
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Focus Changes
- Currently both specs have the same focus generation because both use Precision stance and take Deadly Precision
- !!! I propose moving Deadly Precision and stance traits (+focus in Precision and +damage in Strength) to trait set bonuses or default spec skills, so we can’t double dip !!!
- Blue will get a reliable flow of Precision Stance focus to maintain regular Barrage rotation
- Red will get unpredictable bursts of Deadly Precision focus they can dump in the occasional Pen Shot filler between Upshots, to avoid overcapping
- And most importantly, neither will get both!
- This reduces focus generation in both specs, differentiates the play style, and makes the rotation less reliant on focus bow spam
- Details on how to achieve this in the Red and Blue trait sections below
LI Legacy Changes
Replace Barrage Damage on mainhand with Focus Bow Damage
- This is an easy way to reduce some of Barrage’s OPness, while buffing red line focus skills (especially Upshot)
Replace Precision Stance Critical Magnitude with Bow Critical Magnitude
- This is an easy way to shift the balance towards Strength Stance without actually nerfing Precision
Move Induction Bow Damage and maybe something else (Bleed or -Evade chance) to mainhand
- There are too many good legacies on bow, not enough good legacies on mainhand
- Some of the helpful but marginal legacies can be moved to the mainhand, freeing up slots for better legacies without depriving us of the bonuses
- This also puts Induction Bow Damage and the (proposed) Focus Bow Damage on the same LI, for the OCD among us
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Now for some big stuff.
Red Line
Overview / Goals:
- Build Heartseeker reset directly into the spec; no more reliance on old set bonuses
- Improve Upshot, making it not only a more powerful skill but a key part of the rotation
- Provide avoidance penetration due to reliance on criticals for focus and Upshot cooldown
Traits and Skills:
Marksman (7th tier set bonus): Leave Upshot cooldown reduction on crits, but replace Heartseeker cooldown reduction with this: "Upshot resets the cooldown of Heartseeker and removes its induction if used with at least 6 focus"
- This turns Upshot into a cornerstone skill in our rotation, or at least it will if Upshot and Heartseeker damage are balanced appropriately
- Ideally red line rotations would revolve around big 1-2 bursts of Upshot and instant Heartseeker, followed by a short phase of focus generation and spending excess focus, until we get enough crits to reset Upshot’s cooldown and start over
- I considered making it only trigger if Upshot is used with 9 focus, but I think that may make the rotation too unforgiving and cause focus overcapping
- This means we don’t need the 105 Throne set bonus anymore. I suggest changing that set bonus to something like -5 seconds Upshot cooldown to speed up the burst phase of the rotation (this may be too strong though)
- One of the 115 set bonuses should also be changed to whatever the Throne bonus is changed to, so no one’s tempted to use the 105 set if they’ve got the 115 gear.
- I recommend the Archer’s -5 second Blood Arrow set be changed, mostly because I already crafted the helm but also because the Rapid Fire set is already strictly for Blue and should remain so
Plant Feet (7th tier trait): Evade’s useless. Replace with this flavor text and effect: "You hold your ground and wait for a perfect opening. Gain +5% Upshot damage every second while standing still. Each stack lasts 5 seconds"
- So it’ll cap out at 5 stacks, or +25% extra damage to Upshot. If you have to move for raid mechanics you’ll lose some stacks over time, but not all at once and they’ll recover quickly
- Synergizes stylistically with Upshot’s need for full focus, which is lost on movement
Deadly Precision (3rd tier trait): Fold this effect into the Needful Haste buff and remove the trait
- As mentioned in the Focus Changes section
- With a 15% base proc chance on any attack and +15% from the 1st tier set bonus, Needful Haste buff is up pretty much all the time but doesn’t provide a huge benefit right now
- Now Blue can’t get it, and low level Reds can get it even earlier
Shoot to Kill (2nd tier set bonus): Add +10% Strength Stance damage bonus, then remove/replace the 3rd tier Strength trait which does the same thing
- As mentioned in the Focus Changes section. Self explanatory
Archer’s Mark (3rd tier set bonus): Replace Critical Defence reduction with Avoidance reduction
- We have enough crit magnitude. What we don’t have is some way to get rid of these stupid partials.
- My proposed changes make us more reliant on crits for focus and Upshot, so I'd really like a way to reduce partials
- This would also provide better group utility than a crit defence reduction
Hidden Stalker (6th tier set bonus): 1-shot bonuses on openers don't really do much in a raid DPS spec. Replace with an in-combat bonus like: "Single-Minded Focus: Intent Concentration allows the use of the Focus skill in combat for 10 seconds"
- This way we can benefit from Focus’s 25% crit chance and magnitude bonus for extra Upshot/Heartseeker burst damage, or to speed up the rotation
Heartseeker (1st tier trait): Make Heartseeker a Red line exclusive skill, then replace the Heartseeker trait in 1st row with this 2-rank effect: "Heartseeker applies a 5%/10% critical chance bonus to all ranged skills for 5 seconds"
- This synergizes well with Marksman and Deadly Precision. For 5 seconds after using Heartseeker, you’ll be generating a little more focus and faster Upshot cooldowns
- That will allow you to fire off another full Upshot sooner, speeding up the rotation and maintaining the buff for more of the fight
- Rewards including Upshot and Heartseeker in a regular rotation, as often as possible
- May be too long or strong depending on how often Upshot is reset in a typical fight, but I envision it having around a 50% uptime
Heartseeker (skill): Reduce Heartseeker base cooldown to 1 minute for quality of life at low levels, and to allow them to make better use of this proposed Heartseeker trait in an opening strike
Upshot (skill): Add an additional +25% damage bonus to Upshot if used with 9 focus
- Why not, right?
- This will encourage usage at full focus, instead of at 6 just to trigger free Heartseekers
- B749’s suggestion to add a bleed to Upshot based on focus spent is a great idea too, and would accomplish the same thing with more flair
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Blue Line
Overview:
- Cap Barrage buff stacks and diversify rotation in a single easy step
- Further improve Press Onward as a survival skill
I didn’t make as many changes to this trait line, because I think it serves its purpose as an easy mode solo build quite well, and also because if it’s no longer intended as the top DPS spec I don’t really care about it.
Traits and Skills:
Barrage (skill): I don’t believe the current 20 second cooldown per 3 shots is going to do what you intend. It still dooms us to the same boring rotation only this time with more Pen Shots. I think this simple change will be more effective:
- Increase Barrage cooldown from 1 second to 2 seconds
That’s it. That’s all it really takes. Other suggestions on the forum (resetting to tier 1 after tier 3, applying a (short) cooldown after tier 3, capping tiers at 3, or reducing the bonus damage per tier) all work too, but I like this one. Here's why:
- The Barrage buff lasts 5 seconds, so with a 2 second cd by the time we get to Barrage 3 old buffs will start dropping off and we won’t be able to maintain anything higher. This effectively caps Barrage at 3 tiers
- Increasing the CD to 2 seconds also effectively halves the number of Barrages we use in a fight, reducing its total impact on DPS and giving us plenty of time to mix in more Quick Shots, Barbed Arrows, and Exsanguinate
- This leads to a more relaxed, varied, solo friendly rotation
- However, if the focus changes I proposed are also implemented and Deadly Precision is locked in Red, we’ll have much less focus to work with
- Those 2 seconds will best be spent using induction skills and not Pen Shot spam to ensure we have enough to maintain the Barrage 3 buff
- This will lead to consistent DPS with a large Barrage hit coming every 2 seconds and smaller induction skills in between, as opposed to the current changes which lead to a large burst of Barrages every 20 seconds then Pen Shot spam
- I think this steady DPS fits Blue's philosophy as a reliable solo build better than the 20 second burst in effect now, and Barrage remains a vital skill
Press Onward (skill / trait): Echoing other complaints, I think it’s fine this is in Blue now but the induction goes against the whole philosophy of the spec
- Add a 4th trait to Perseverance which either allows Press Onward to induct while moving (preferred for balance purposes) OR removes the induction of Press Onward
- Also, please make sure you’re not reducing the cooldown to 0 seconds or less with the mainhand legacy
Nock on the Move (1st tier set bonus): Either make the effect a default bonus of blue line or remove it entirely if you consider it OP to induct while moving at 100% normal speed
Fleetness (2nd tier set bonus): Move this to the 1st tier in place of Nock on the Move
These two changes are only to make room for:
Precision (new 2nd tier set bonus): Precision Stance now generates 3 focus per 5 seconds
- As mentioned in the Focus Changes section
- The shuffling around of traits was just to get this into the 2nd tier to mirror Red’s Shoot to Kill suggested change. It can optionally take the place of Nock on the Move in the 1st tier instead
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General Quality of Life, minor suggestions to assorted skills
Reduce animation delay of Cry of the Hunter and increase bubble potency
- Quality of life improvements to our stun removal and damage bubble
- Current animation is as long as most stuns, making it useless for stun removal outside of 8 second Uruk knockdowns or similar
- Not sure if bubble has been improved on Bullroarer, but on live it's barely enough to protect against a single DoT tick
Reduce cooldown of Intent Concentration to 90 seconds
- Aligns better with other cooldowns and helps offset proposed nerfs to focus generation
- Synergizes well with the Improved version in Blue for power restoration
- Also makes it a nice DPS cooldown if my proposed Red 6th tier set bonus suggestion is used
Reduce cooldown of Dazing Blow to 30 seconds
- Gives us a little more crowd control and makes our corruption removal less ######
- Can also extend the duration in Yellow to make it a quality crowd control skill
Reduce Merciful Shot focus cost from 6 to 3
- I rarely use the skill due to the long cooldown and morale threshold, let alone the high focus cost. This will make it more useful outside of Rapid Fire
- Would probably want to change the Red 5th tier set bonus Swift Mercy if this is done, so we’re not getting free Merciful Shots
I don't really have much in the way of Yellow suggestions since I don't play it and don't care. However a couple ideas popped up to make its group utility and crowd control more useful
Lingering Wound (skill): Add a 2% incoming damage debuff to the skill, stacking up to 4 times like the DoT
Pinning Shot (skill): Move this from Red to Yellow and increase the duration to 10 seconds, allowing perma-root of a single target at the cost of a little focus
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tl;dr for the most important changes (the rest is just salad dressing):
- Move Deadly Precision and Precision Stance focus traits into Red and Blue default skills or trait set bonuses (respectively), so we can't get both at the same time
- Allow Upshot to reset the cooldown of Heartseeker and remove its induction
- Change Barrage's cooldown to 2 seconds instead of 1
God I hope this is legible. I wrote most of it at work so little play time wasted at least :D
