Feedback: New Player Tips for Hunters

[Frelorn]

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the classes in our Tell the Community Team threads. In keeping with that theme, we want your help. If you could give one tip to a new player about playing the Hunter class, what would it be?

[Snoman73]

While leveling, Desperate Flight can be your best friend, not only to get out of bad situations, but as a shortcut back to camp to turn in quests

[Shirlzknight]

While levelling, Desperate Flight can be your best friend, not only to get out of bad situations, but as a short-cut back to camp to turn in quests

Hi, I'm aware this is a little off thread but while I'm here may i ask you a question I am having trouble finding any answer to?! I'm a Lvl 28 Hunter class Man, i can't find out what to put in my 'class slot' in my character inventory! Believe me when I say I have tried everything from weapons to cakes and pies !! Am I just too low a level or what ?
Help me Kind Sir your my only Hope!!

[rewrando5]

Not off-thread at all! There are books like this available from your trainer, also there are upgrades every 10 levels, so when you get to level 30, go to the auction house and look under the Class Items tab, then look under Hunter Items. You want the Tome of the Wind-Rider. Whenever you upgrade, go for the Tomes, they are the Critical Success of the recipes that the scholars make.

Hope this helps! Post if you need more help!

[Cappyman]

If you see your tank getting hammered by several mobs and he looks like he's gonna die, don't be afraid to use rain of arrows, even if you grab all the aggro, you'll be surprised at how survivable you can be when you pour on the dps. I did this on the Retaking Weathertop instance, and I can't tell you how many times I kept the tank from wiping because he had 6 mobs on him.

By the way, How do I get my main character to appear under my post?

[sirwillow]

If you see your tank getting hammered by several mobs and he looks like he's gonna die, don't be afraid to use rain of arrows, even if you grab all the aggro, you'll be surprised at how survivable you can be when you pour on the dps. I did this on the Retaking Weathertop instance, and I can't tell you how many times I kept the tank from wiping because he had 6 mobs on him.

By the way, How do I get my main character to appear under my post?

Sounds to me like your healer wasns't keeping up with the tank, or was busy having to heal others besides the tank. The hunter shouldn't have to grab aggro from the tank, and if he did to keep the tank from dying, then something was going wrong with the healing, but that may not have been the healer's fault.

RoA from a hunter in a group setting should almost never happen. It's been the cause of many a group wipe and some of the bad names hunters are called.

As for your siggie, look under "My Preferences/ My Forum Settings" and look for the signature link on the left.

[Ayrolen]

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the classes in our Tell the Community Team threads. In keeping with that theme, we want your help. If you could give one tip to a new player about playing the Hunter class, what would it be?

It's a tie between:

1. Let the heavy classes do the mob pulls.
2. Don't break CC -aka- do not use Rain of Arrows unless specifically told to do so.

[Doronlas]

Keep your port and Desperate Flight skills away from your damage skills so you don't click them by accident.

2nd tip: If you have a problem with dragging skills off the quickslots by accident, there is a hot key to lock/unlock your quickslots to keep that from happening. (I think "Y" is the default)

[seyahat]

1. Start learning to work with a group early. Practice with a tank friend, learning to target through them and moderating your damage output to allow them to keep aggro. It may not be "necessary" on the trash pulls, but developing these skills early will make you much beloved in groups.

2. Stand by the main healer in groups and be ready to grab aggro from him if loose mobs start attacking him.

[Snowlock]

Endurance stance is your friend in groups. It will help you manage your power and your aggro while at the same time still providing plenty of dps. Remember, for the hunter class, you're not looking for those big sexy crit numbers. They're nice, but dps is damage per second, meaning a steady stream of damage coming into your foe.

Trait four into the huntsman line for quick inductions.

Use Strength of the Earth alot to regain power.

Be a historian! Hunters rely on consumables. Be able to make your own traps, oils and chants.

Get the barbed arrow legacy and trait barbed fury for lots of additional damage.

For PVP always be in strength stance, quickshot applies a slow. Also always trait heightened senses.

Mitigate melee damage! You want to nearly always have Innocence traited and relics that add melee defense. Brass Anvil is as much a plus for hunters as any other class.

Follow raid assist targets if your not the raid assist target yourself. Hunter damage is most effective when added to the dps of others.

[jerry77]

Endurance stance is your friend in groups. It will help you manage your power and your aggro while at the same time still providing plenty of dps. Remember, for the hunter class, you're not looking for those big sexy crit numbers. They're nice, but dps is damage per second, meaning a steady stream of damage coming into your foe.

Trait four into the huntsman line for quick inductions.

Use Strength of the Earth alot to regain power.

Be a historian! Hunters rely on consumables. Be able to make your own traps, oils and chants.

Get the barbed arrow legacy and trait barbed fury for lots of additional damage.

For PVP always be in strength stance, quickshot applies a slow. Also always trait heightened senses.

Mitigate melee damage! You want to nearly always have Innocence traited and relics that add melee defense. Brass Anvil is as much a plus for hunters as any other class.

Follow raid assist targets if your not the raid assist target yourself. Hunter damage is most effective when added to the dps of others.

i actually found explorer to be a fantastic trade for hunters.. especially if your hunter is your highest lvl toon, you can farm ALOT of stuff FAST!!!

[Paladiran]

Endurance stance is your friend in groups. It will help you manage your power and your aggro while at the same time still providing plenty of dps. Remember, for the hunter class, you're not looking for those big sexy crit numbers. They're nice, but dps is damage per second, meaning a steady stream of damage coming into your foe.

Trait four into the huntsman line for quick inductions.

Use Strength of the Earth alot to regain power.

Be a historian! Hunters rely on consumables. Be able to make your own traps, oils and chants.

Get the barbed arrow legacy and trait barbed fury for lots of additional damage.

For PVP always be in strength stance, quickshot applies a slow. Also always trait heightened senses.

Mitigate melee damage! You want to nearly always have Innocence traited and relics that add melee defense. Brass Anvil is as much a plus for hunters as any other class.

Follow raid assist targets if your not the raid assist target yourself. Hunter damage is most effective when added to the dps of others.

i an a new 38 hunter can you explain how to use "raid assist targets"?

[henry316]

1. When soloing multiple mobs, try to grab them in sets of two if you can and always drop a trap.

If it's two melee mobs: quickshot the furthest one away from you. He will be slowed getting to you and the closer one will fall into the trap while you finish his friend.

If it's a melee and ranged, shoot the ranged. Let the melee fall into the trap. Finish the ranged guy, rinse, repeat.

2. When fighting melee mobs, always keep your swift stroke parry buff up. Keep an eye on it by your character panel and make sure to keep throwing it into rotation when the action is thick.

3. Rain of thorns can be used as a get out of jail free card. Try saving it for emergencies and it you get overwhelmed attack the nearest for with it to trap foes, escape to ranged advantage, then pick them off or run.

4. Use Bard's Arrow to break up triplets. Send one running, trap the closer / melee, and kill the remainder.

5. Cautionary note about Bard's Arrow. Do not fear enemies in such a way as to drive them towards their friends. When they get over the fear, they will be upset and bring their friends back with them.

6. Use low cut to slow enemies for escape or kite them about. But instead of trying to back up, run THROUGH them to behind. Frontal attacks and forward arc AOEs will miss you and you get to a clear distance faster than if you retreated.

7. Advanced: learn to manage aggro (no matter what fellowships tell you about always running in endurance stance) If you healer is getting creamed and the tank is off in his own little world, switch to strength stance and attack his aggressors to get them off of him. (Side note: You are the backup protector of the healer. You should be as concerned about him as the tank should be) Learn to turn aggo up and down in small fellowships to give other fellows a chance to heal or recoup cool downs while you take a little beating or kite as best you can. There are quite a few aggro management tools in your kit. They are there for a reason. Use them.

8. Wanna hit that guy you can see just up over a ledge ahead of you but can't quite get line of sight for your character from where you are? Jump up into the air and hit auto-attack. Auto attack works while moving, even in the air!

9. Keep a few poison pots on you. Regardless of the fact that you can cure your own poison, sometimes under heavy duress you just can't take a break from the killing to heal yourself. The pot won't interrupt your attacks like curing poison will.

10. Keep a positive attitude. Maybe someday Turbine will let us finish our Hlifheror Armour sets that they removed from the Moors. (+50% lowcut duration was awesome, would love to get my helm and gloves someday... *sigh*)

[Angadan]

Never give a port to anyone who calls for the "taxi service," or join any group leader who is looking for [the word hunters with ards on the end instead of ers...the language filter wouldn't show this word if I typed it in directly].

p.s. Henry and Snowlock, he said one hint, not a page! lol I know everyone above you gave two, but you guys just blew the directions off entirely!

[theblackdwarf]

1. When soloing multiple mobs, try to grab them in sets of two if you can and always drop a trap.

If it's two melee mobs: quickshot the furthest one away from you. He will be slowed getting to you and the closer one will fall into the trap while you finish his friend.

If it's a melee and ranged, shoot the ranged. Let the melee fall into the trap. Finish the ranged guy, rinse, repeat.

2. When fighting melee mobs, always keep your swift stroke parry buff up. Keep an eye on it by your character panel and make sure to keep throwing it into rotation when the action is thick.

3. Rain of thorns can be used as a get out of jail free card. Try saving it for emergencies and it you get overwhelmed attack the nearest for with it to trap foes, escape to ranged advantage, then pick them off or run.

4. Use Bard's Arrow to break up triplets. Send one running, trap the closer / melee, and kill the remainder.

5. Cautionary note about Bard's Arrow. Do not fear enemies in such a way as to drive them towards their friends. When they get over the fear, they will be upset and bring their friends back with them.

6. Use low cut to slow enemies for escape or kite them about. But instead of trying to back up, run THROUGH them to behind. Frontal attacks and forward arc AOEs will miss you and you get to a clear distance faster than if you retreated.

7. Advanced: learn to manage aggro (no matter what fellowships tell you about always running in endurance stance) If you healer is getting creamed and the tank is off in his own little world, switch to strength stance and attack his aggressors to get them off of him. (Side note: You are the backup protector of the healer. You should be as concerned about him as the tank should be) Learn to turn aggo up and down in small fellowships to give other fellows a chance to heal or recoup cool downs while you take a little beating or kite as best you can. There are quite a few aggro management tools in your kit. They are there for a reason. Use them.

8. Wanna hit that guy you can see just up over a ledge ahead of you but can't quite get line of sight for your character from where you are? Jump up into the air and hit auto-attack. Auto attack works while moving, even in the air!

9. Keep a few poison pots on you. Regardless of the fact that you can cure your own poison, sometimes under heavy duress you just can't take a break from the killing to heal yourself. The pot won't interrupt your attacks like curing poison will.

10. Keep a positive attitude. Maybe someday Turbine will let us finish our Hlifheror Armour sets that they removed from the Moors. (+50% lowcut duration was awesome, would love to get my helm and gloves someday... *sigh*)

This is pretty good. Thanks!

[hunterbyn]

Keep your port and Desperate Flight skills away from your damage skills so you don't click them by accident.

2nd tip: If you have a problem with dragging skills off the quickslots by accident, there is a hot key to lock/unlock your quickslots to keep that from happening. (I think "Y" is the default)

Yes please make sure you keep the desperate flight skills away from all your damage skills. During boss fights and some other stuff I've accidently pressed it and had to start over (especially when your clicking everything at a fast rate).

[Kannos1600]

The difference to using Set Snare and Set Trap. Some things areimmune to rooting so it's pointless to place a set trap down. Use Set Snare instead.

Purge Poison an be used on your fellowmates as well as yourself. Don't be self centered.

[anwar]

Although I have always played a hunter-type, I'd advise another class at this time because:

1) As in all PvE fantasy MMOs, there are lots and lots of hunters in LotRO, the difference is that Turbine seems to judge who needs a buff or a nerf by how many of a class there are, forgetting that there would be a lot of them regardless of how powerful they are. Hunter-types are simply popular globally.

2) The classes' abilities are being slowly marginalized because of the opening up of instant travel, summoning, porting, stables, and run speed and finding objectives ...... for everybody....this is a good thing for the game, but makes having a generic hunter along not all that important, so grouping when you need to may be a bit tough.

Getting in a raid may even be difficult wthin your kin since only so many spots for hunters and 5 times that many in the kin.

...........

Ok, perhaps you are like me and just plain feel more comfortable as a hunter and choose to be one regardless...the main complaint anyone has about hunters is that they tend to steal agro when grouped.

This is mainly because they, like everybody, solo almost all the time and never get a good sense of agro control and, since the game is set up for solo, they rarely get instant death when they mess up since they couldn't solo if that happened...thus the lesson just doesn't seem to take hold in many hunters.

Remember that whether you will die if you grab agro is not the whole reason to avoid doing so...it also means no melee damage from the rest of the fellowship for a few seconds and probably loss of spells due to losing line of sight when the mob runs to you and the rest of the team has to adjust and aoe considerations and that the healer has to keep multiple members up, rather than just worry about the tank. Often it is only irritating rather than critical, but you have just made it a tiny bit more difficult for your fellow hunters to get a group.

[laughterkillsme]

In PvE Hunters are about doing high damage over time. If you set yourself up for high crits, you're hurting your overall damage output.

[BerenTelcontar]

Use Cry of the Predator and Bard's Arrow. Use them till you appreciate how they work.

Get used to setting traps and, when grouping, making campfires.

[duvelmoortgat]

Best way to manage your purge poison on fellowship in timely manner (Great for fights like Spider boss in Helegrod) is to target another fellow and queue up the purse poison while your character is animating the purge poison on the fellow you targeted previously. This way you get to purge all 6 players (and yourself) within 7 seconds. No need to wait for animation and the delay between animation finishing and casting purge poison on next target is zero!

[Trybal24]

First off I'm not an expert hunter (currently 54); Second if any of this has already been covered please disregard (I'm at work and have only read the first page).

1) If you are still having aggro issues in a group and are in endurance stance try weaving quick shot in every other or every third shot; In endurance stance quick shot reduces your aggro by 10%.

2) Hunters are a high offensive class by design, with class traits they can become much more offensive. So use your virtues to slap on some defense, Innocence adds 5% melee mitigation as well as some shadow def, Tolerance adds 5% tactical mitigation as well as 15 agility, Compassion adds 5% ranged mitigation as well as more tactical, Justice is the virtue of choice for more morale, and Determination is nice for the +30 agility, extra morale and in combat morale regen.

3) When fighting signature or elite mobs; Take your time, Hunters do much better if you set up before the fight. Setting traps/snares, gathering focus, Eat regen food (this goes for all classes), and getting max distance can make or break a otherwise tough fight.

4) Use Strength of earth and set campfire often while soloing, This can really speed up the leveling process.

5) If you chose any race other than elf then it may pay off the slot the normally useless skills (Headbutt-Dwarf, Uppercut-Man, or Stoop for stone-Hobbit). The 3 sec daze can help if you get forced into melee. Theres another melee CC skill hunters get later on; forget the name.
I use these short melee daze/stuns to get off an easy swift bow followed by a (traited: strong draw) penetrating shot.

6) As said before Historian is overall the best craft vocation for a hunter; I decided to add why. Scholars can make healing, power and cure potions (for all classes), hunter books, hunter scrolls, battle/defense scrolls as well as light and fire oils to enhance your arrows with. Weaponsmith (you will need an alt or kinship to help gathering minerals) can make melee weapons while leveling as well as all the special hunter traps (which come in real handy).Basically everything a hunter needs aside from armour can be made with the Historian vocation.

[rewrando5]

Know where Beneath Notice is on your toolbar while grouping (later called Beneath Care when you get the improved version). This skill saves your butt.

Say the healer starts taking aggro, and you do your hunter duty and start taking it back. Switch to Strength Stance, fire Quick Shot, which will allow the healer to back away if need be. Line up a more powerful attack, preferably Swift Bow. You should have their attention now, but you need to keep it for a couple of seconds, so keep going through your rotation of shots until about half to three- fourths health, then hit Beneath Notice or Care, switch to Endurance Stance, which hopefully you have traited so it lessens aggro by 20% instead of just 10%, and fire Quick Shot until the tank starts controlling aggro again.

Traits you absolutely need to learn as soon as possible are Resolute Aim (level 40, use Needful Haste) and the one for Penetrating Shot, reduces Focus need to 2.

[Hydgal]

Know where Beneath Notice is on your toolbar while grouping (later called Beneath Care when you get the improved version). This skill saves your butt.

I agree! I don't know how many times my Hunter has been saved by Beneath Care. And the tank certainly appreciates it when they are able to to their job and regain control of the aggro. It's all about working together!

[Eiresson28]

hi everyone, im a returning hunter. i played a lvl 65 hunter on riddermark named odahvwhing. iam new to this since all of the changes have taken place within lotro and as such ill b starting fresh with a new hunter to learn the ropes again so to speak. at the time i stopped playin i was lvl 65 with somewhere around 17k phys mastery and average morale. i would like advice on endgame builds or setups for gear, legacies, traits, etc. my ideal build is a hunter that focuses on overall dps over time while maintaining decent morale. i. e., i dont want to glass cannon it. any advice on building a decent solo hunter would be awesome.