So maybe blue ISN'T the way to go?

[Oelle]

Not sure how the runekeeper getting 75-80k dps and the hunter getting 90k isn't just "slightly edging out", i mean thats only a 10-20% difference. As I said the aurochs set bonus affecting barrage is stupid and needs to be fixed immediately, but that's the way people are getting those insane 100k+ parses.

I also don't understand why everyone is obsessed that red line should be the highest dps. Hunter's weren't designed to have a tank line in blue, instead they have 2 dps lines. One of which (blue) is based on focus skills while the other (red) is based more on induction's, and theoretically big cashouts with upshot. Currently the balance between the two lines is missing since they should be similar dps but red shouldn't automatically have more, it simply has more damage bonuses because its not using instant skills so it has to make up for inductions with higher damage per skill.

I'd say, aurochs set affecting barrage is the same amount of stupidity like erebor-set affecting barrage. boths are sets that clearly say they affect penshot and affect barrage which they dont say.
plus, barrage tiering is clearly unintended and buggy.

I dont agree on red and blue just being two dps lines. blue is clearly better in mobility and this should have a price. its not just about more or less focus, there is more to that. its not just the focus on focus. if ereborset wasnt that good, you could still have nearly the same amout of focus with redline and traited precision, but you would lose focus when moving and wouldnt be able to use inductions on the move.

(and runekeepers still should get nerfed)

[Malathran]

I'd say, aurochs set affecting barrage is the same amount of stupidity like erebor-set affecting barrage. boths are sets that clearly say they affect penshot and affect barrage which they dont say.
plus, barrage tiering is clearly unintended and buggy.

I dont agree on red and blue just being two dps lines. blue is clearly better in mobility and this should have a price. its not just about more or less focus, there is more to that. its not just the focus on focus. if ereborset wasnt that good, you could still have nearly the same amout of focus with redline and traited precision, but you would lose focus when moving and wouldnt be able to use inductions on the move.

(and runekeepers still should get nerfed)

The difference is that aurochs clearly breaks a skill, while erebor just provides an unintended bonus but I get what your saying.

On the other issue I think you overestimating somewhat just how important mobility is. Look no further than fire rk's to see that being mobile, while helpful, is far from a difference maker in the vast majority of situations and by itself doesn't justify lower damage. Even without erebor set or a nerfed set not affecting barrage a good hunter would still rarely if ever use inductions in blue between heartseeker procs, volley, etc so the mobility bonus in blue is mostly nullified anyways since you won't be trying to induct on the move.

I think the main problem with balancing the two lines comes from the fact that mobility and extra focus generation always provide the exact same amount of benefit, while red line's damage bonuses continue to count for less and less over time. An easy band-aid would have red line specific damage bonuses not simply add into mastery, immediately giving them a far larger effect. Balance that with some item sets significantly reducing induction times and you would get a long ways towards rebalancing the two lines. Anyways, I digress slightly since fixing the two lines isn't the point of this particular thread.

[Oelle]

The difference is that aurochs clearly breaks a skill, while erebor just provides an unintended bonus but I get what your saying.

On the other issue I think you overestimating somewhat just how important mobility is. Look no further than fire rk's to see that being mobile, while helpful, is far from a difference maker in the vast majority of situations and by itself doesn't justify lower damage. Even without erebor set or a nerfed set not affecting barrage a good hunter would still rarely if ever use inductions in blue between heartseeker procs, volley, etc so the mobility bonus in blue is mostly nullified anyways since you won't be trying to induct on the move.

I think the main problem with balancing the two lines comes from the fact that mobility and extra focus generation always provide the exact same amount of benefit, while red line's damage bonuses continue to count for less and less over time. An easy band-aid would have red line specific damage bonuses not simply add into mastery, immediately giving them a far larger effect. Balance that with some item sets significantly reducing induction times and you would get a long ways towards rebalancing the two lines. Anyways, I digress slightly since fixing the two lines isn't the point of this particular thread.

Maybe i read you wrong... but do you call red runekeepers mobile damagedealers? They are rooted while casting every single bit of damage they do! Move while smouldering and its cut off. Move while inducting essay of fire and you can start again from the beginning.
The mobile damaging runekeeper that should be the equivalent to the mobile damaging blue-traited hunter is the yellow-traited runekeeper. now compare yellow-traited runekeepers to red-traited ones and do the same for hunters blue-red and you see what i mean: less range and much less damage in exchange for mobility.

And yea, that red bonusses do not much more than just so to say adding mastery obviously makes red worse every time we get better equipment. I've always asked for making buffs and traits multiplicative instead of additive effects, but lotro-devs dont seem to be on my side here.

[Malathran]

Maybe i read you wrong... but do you call red runekeepers mobile damagedealers? They are rooted while casting every single bit of damage they do! Move while smouldering and its cut off. Move while inducting essay of fire and you can start again from the beginning.
The mobile damaging runekeeper that should be the equivalent to the mobile damaging blue-traited hunter is the yellow-traited runekeeper. now compare yellow-traited runekeepers to red-traited ones and do the same for hunters blue-red and you see what i mean: less range and much less damage in exchange for mobility.

I know perfectly well that fire rk's can't move lol, was illustrating a point that mobility isn't all that important. Fire rk's manage without moving just fine so while the extra mobility is nice in blue its not enough of a reason on its own to give blue line less dps, to reiterate my point.

I'll point out btw that a few years ago the general consensus on rk's was that the lines were fairly balanced but you should go fire in groups because it eked out a little more damage, despite the loss of mobility. Perfect illustration of where hunter should fall really. Nearly equivalent dps so you generally go with specific needs of the instance or preferred play style for which line you use, but no idea that there couldn't be two more or less equivalent dps lines.

[Eldarond_EU]

Without Auroch

No auerochset

Only 2 OA

You see with 4 OA the dps can get over 100k

Well, case in point, not achieving 130-140k DPS without Auroch set, and in 1-1.5 minute fights barely scratching 100k, like we all agreed it would be.

[DKenny]

....I dont agree on red and blue just being two dps lines. blue is clearly better in mobility and this should have a price. its not just about more or less focus, there is more to that. its not just the focus on focus. if ereborset wasnt that good, you could still have nearly the same amout of focus with redline and traited precision, but you would lose focus when moving and wouldnt be able to use inductions on the move.

(and runekeepers still should get nerfed)

And red has longer range, which should also have a "price". I agree, red has gotten the short end of the stick so far (mind you not as short as yellow, but that's another question). Blue has always been about focus. I wouldn't wouldn't want to see any nerf to hunter. However, I think red needs a bit of a boost to make it viable again. Some of the red skills higher up the tree should be boosted. Upshot should be awesome when consuming 9 focus, but it isn't. IMHO the problem isn't that blue is too strong, but rather than red needs to be fixed because they boosted focus skills significantly but barely touched induction. Maybe the heartseeker set bonus should be moved into the top of the red trait tree?

[Sk0field]

And red has longer range, which should also have a "price".

You got this twisted. Less range is the price that blue has to pay for mobility. You also should do less DPS in blue.

People will hate me for it, but I hope they fix Barrage soon. It is not working as intended and to be honest, that template is just dumb exploiting. There, I said it. I refuse to play it. I am aware of the consequences. I can still sleep at night...

[DKenny]

You got this twisted. Less range is the price that blue has to pay for mobility. You also should do less DPS in blue.

People will hate me for it, but I hope they fix Barrage soon. It is not working as intended and to be honest, that template is just dumb exploiting. There, I said it. I refuse to play it. I am aware of the consequences. I can still sleep at night...

Well, it's not "twisted". Obviously if A is more than B then B is less than A. Both directions of comparison are entirely valid. OK, so blue gains mobility but loses range, I'm fine with describing it that way. However, having lower dps on top of it is like a double penalty. As I stated I think red should having higher dps than it currently does. I think blue and red should do comparable dps, and the choice should be based on the particular situation. I don't believe either one should clearly be the "best", leaving the other as a clearly inferior "novelty". I would also much prefer that any additional effort put into hunter changes should focus on "fixing" red rather than nerfing blue.

[Ellagas]

Everybody here be like: Everything looks alright... lol ? Hunter with under level gear and with like 70 k mastery or something and outparsing people by an (anormal margin) and having like fricking 137k dps with a rotation 5-yo kid can do And everyone is like "yeah hunters can do that" and no one even said anything about the absurdity. Wth? People here saying like yeah if support is really good or justifiying with other reasons bla bla... Like are u serious bro, thats the reason? lol pls...

This mess should be fixed immediately with a hotfix. That stupid lvl 60 set and also.... Erebor set... Both sets obviously should be fixed to not reduce cooldown of barrage ?!? as it is not intended. Both sets unintentionally decrease cd of barrage while not stated in tooltip Good life right? With that fixed, hunter dps will return back to the reasonable range.

Oh man, the situation of this poor hunter class.. Seen up and downs, whole class changes and everything, what a mess ! It is embarrassing... Devs should not really attempt to fix classes anymore really ... Even just rewinding back (i.e Pre-HD) sounds like it would be good idea atm lol.

Yeah let's nerf hunters just because your kin is too ret.rded to pull those numbers because you have no idea what you're doing on your classes. Watch the videos of your kin fighting and cringe all together

[Sk0field]

Yeah let's nerf hunters just because your kin is too ret.rded to pull those numbers because you have no idea what you're doing on your classes. Watch the videos of your kin fighting and cringe all together

You are clearly confusing a "nerf" with a "fix"...

[Tatharil]

Yeah let's nerf hunters just because your kin is too ret.rded to pull those numbers because you have no idea what you're doing on your classes. Watch the videos of your kin fighting and cringe all together

Fixing hunter doesn't mean nerfing hunter. Dps is ok, but the way it is achieved isn't - bugged skill (barrage tiering), exploiting setbonuses. Barrage needs to be fixed, but induction damage and Lingering Wound damage need to be fixed, too.

[Vimrich]

I think how you do the dps is also critical, as much as you want build diversity and using a wide range of gear, using very low level armour for set bonuses that are providing unintended benefits is just something the devs will hot fix one day and you will be left out in the cold, relying on it isn't a good sustainable position imo.

As for Fire RKs, I have been doing thrones with my minstrel in yellow of late in a group with 3 fire RKs. 3 Anthem of Wars give them +45% tactical damage as opposed to +15% for melee/ranged, in addition to +18,900 tactical/physical mastery. If your training dummy dps is comparable to a fire RK, it wont be if both are buffed by a yellow minstrel.

I am not sure why it is so hard for the devs to create a dps yardstick given stats, set bonuses and class bonus and just run an algorithm based on different skill rotations to see where the damage output is for each build and just tweak the base abilities, set bonuses, etc so there are no significant variances. Whatever toolset they have used to balance has never worked and never been remotely in the ballpark of reasonable variance. It is why entire trees and classes get canned for ridiculously long periods. It is a serious dereliction of duty as a game developer to leave things in such a sorry state for so long.

[Rakanor]

I doubt that the erebor set is actually bugged, back in the day it reduced the cost of focus skills that had a base of 3 cost. The two skills at the time were blood arrow and penetrating shot. Which I might add both share many base characteristics including the damage formula.

Barrage was added after the set was implemented was given the same focus cost as the skills that the set effected and shares many base characteristics as the other two.

[MaxHunter]

I think how you do the dps is also critical, as much as you want build diversity and using a wide range of gear, using very low level armour for set bonuses that are providing unintended benefits is just something the devs will hot fix one day and you will be left out in the cold, relying on it isn't a good sustainable position imo.

As for Fire RKs, I have been doing thrones with my minstrel in yellow of late in a group with 3 fire RKs. 3 Anthem of Wars give them +45% tactical damage as opposed to +15% for melee/ranged, in addition to +18,900 tactical/physical mastery. If your training dummy dps is comparable to a fire RK, it wont be if both are buffed by a yellow minstrel.

I am not sure why it is so hard for the devs to create a dps yardstick given stats, set bonuses and class bonus and just run an algorithm based on different skill rotations to see where the damage output is for each build and just tweak the base abilities, set bonuses, etc so there are no significant variances. Whatever toolset they have used to balance has never worked and never been remotely in the ballpark of reasonable variance. It is why entire trees and classes get canned for ridiculously long periods. It is a serious dereliction of duty as a game developer to leave things in such a sorry state for so long.

I can't imagine actual gear without Erebor set...

[Oelle]

I doubt that the erebor set is actually bugged, back in the day it reduced the cost of focus skills that had a base of 3 cost. The two skills at the time were blood arrow and penetrating shot. Which I might add both share many base characteristics including the damage formula.

Barrage was added after the set was implemented was given the same focus cost as the skills that the set effected and shares many base characteristics as the other two.

and it had a cost of 6 focus instead of being a random nearly100%uptime procc without costs.

[Phindecano]

I can't imagine actual gear without Erebor set...

As I already said in other thread, Erebor set is greatly overestimated in the community. Probably because it simplifies the skills rotation and eliminates the need to think about the rotation at all At best it provides you with additional 5-10% solo target damage in the prejudice of physical mastery, power usage and stats. Tested it on both dummies and most ToDT T2 bosses and decided to stick with 4 red + 2 blue from raid.

[SpicyMacHaggis]

As I already said in other thread, Erebor set is greatly overestimated in the community. Probably because it simplifies the skills rotation and eliminates the need to think about the rotation at all At best it provides you with additional 5-10% solo target damage in the prejudice of physical mastery, power usage and stats. Tested it on both dummies and most ToDT T2 bosses and decided to stick with 4 red + 2 blue from raid.

Erebor set provides more than a 10% damage increase compared to a 4 red + 2 blue build if we're talking sustained dps.
Everytime you have to use an induction skill to regen focus you'll see a noticeable drop in dps, without erebor set you'll have to use inductions fairly often and thus dps will suffer.

The choice for erebor set has nothing to do with other rotations being too hard, it's simply the best option for dps.

[Beastnas]

Erebor is bugged, Aurochs is bugged, Barrage itself is bugged, it's all a big mess right now. That said, Blue line would probably be next to useless without it.

[Sk0field]

Erebor set provides more than a 10% damage increase compared to a 4 red + 2 blue build if we're talking sustained dps.
Everytime you have to use an induction skill to regen focus you'll see a noticeable drop in dps, without erebor set you'll have to use inductions fairly often and thus dps will suffer.

The choice for erebor set has nothing to do with other rotations being too hard, it's simply the best option for dps.

The choice of Erebor set has to do with how Fleetness and Barrage "work" today. As you very well know, Fleetness was a different skill back then and not intended to be used in conjunction with the Erebor set as it is being used today. Also, I am not sure that the Erebort set should reduce the focus cost of Barrage. To be fair, the Barrage part is arguable, but Barrage itself is broken anyway...

So, once this gets fixed (if it EVER gets fixed) I wonder what template you will be running...

I mean, seriously, apply some common sense please. If you believe that the perfect dps built implies using a raid set that is 20 levels below level cap, think again...

I am not even bothering to discuss the Aurochs set bonus...

[Patriotp3a]

I remember when people debated if the HS set was worth it because you had to sacrifice essence slots.

The best dps build is the one that, surprisingly enough, yields the highest dps. WAI or not, no gear is outdated if it gives the best numbers.

[Sk0field]

I remember when people debated if the HS set was worth it because you had to sacrifice essence slots.


The best dps build is the one that, surprisingly enough, yields the highest dps. WAI or not, no gear is outdated if it gives the best numbers.

Ok, and where do you draw the line when it comes to "not WAI" and "exploiting"?


If you truly believe that the HS armor debate is on the same level as the Erebor/Fleetness/Barrage debate, then by all means, do as you please.


Putting the moral aspect aside, I find that template simply boring, dull and no fun.


There are many discussions on this forum about how great hunters exceed mediocre rune-keepers in DPS, and how mediocre rune keepers exceed mediocre hunters. I personally always accepted that challenge, and try to be one of those hunters that, despite having a disadvantage when it comes to mere DPS potential, beats those RKs, purely by skill, which is one of the reasons why I, for now, will not give into the Barrage setup.


This is a choice every individual needs to make.

[petrikur]

People have told me for years that yellow line should not be a damage dealer and that halved range is not enough of a detrimental effect, now this has obviously been true for blue line too but many of the die-hard red liners now tell me Blue is obviously the damage-dealer and that's OK becaus all that is just what hunter as a class does.

Where does that leave yellow?

I'm not arguing blue should be nerfed but I'm having a good laugh at many hunter-advisers on these forums retracing their steps and telling me Nono, we didn't mean that!.

YELLOW needs fixing, regardless of buggy armor sets and regardless of what happens to red and blue.

*

THAT SAID, I really feel the armor sets bugging is an exploit-y thing to use for those that happen to HAVE or happen to have SAVED those old armor sets. Clearly unfair advantage?

[Tatharil]

Where does that leave yellow?
(...)
YELLOW needs fixing, regardless of buggy armor sets and regardless of what happens to red and blue.

Where does it leave yellow? In the dust of uselessness...

Yellow needs a lot of work(has great traitset bonusses, but 70% worthless traits, 15% more CC than red/blue, but 80% less dps), but there are things, that could be done with a hot fix to make the HUGE dps-gap a bit smaller. Buff Lingering Wound in the same manner as Barbed Arrow and Exsanguinate were buffed. Further Decrease of Distracting Shot CD/increase duration in yellow line. These 2 changes would actually help alot to make yellow worthwhile, still much weaker than red or blue, but not as useless as it is right now.

The rest is too much work for a hotfix:
- induction-focus damagebalance
- trap damage scaling (mastery or meleeweapon dps-would make the dps stat on melee LIs useful)
- subtitutes for useless traits (Rain of Thorns rank 2-4, Explosive Arrow, Explosive Powder, Endurance, Complex Mechanisms, Wounded Prey, Armour Rend)
- Strong Intimidation: remove induction of Bard's arrow and Distrating Shot
- light-/fireoil affecting Lingering Wound
- Useful armour setbonusses

[Malathran]

Ok, and where do you draw the line when it comes to "not WAI" and "exploiting"?

Aurochs set is "exploiting", Erebor is "not WAI". At least in my personal opinion.

Auroch's utterly breaks the way a skill works and gives it absolutely insane damage potential. Erebor on the other hand gives an unintended bonus to using a skill the way it is meant to be used. Even if it didn't work on barrage (per the tooltip) the saved focus on pen shot would likely still allow 100% focus spam, it would just get a little more rng dependent since your focus generation would be closer to the edge of running out.

Either set is probably OP at the moment but that's mainly due to barrage being broken, not the set effects. Balance the damage between skills better and aurochs becomes a moot point and erebor becomes a much more reasonable trade off between a simplified rotation with lower stats or a more complex one with higher stats, rather than the substantial dps trade off we see now. Ultimately so long as an old armour set is not the "only" way to get top dps there is really nothing wrong with having cool set effects which might be worthwhile losing stats for, especially when its a set that can only be gained at level cap anyway.

[Sk0field]

Aurochs set is "exploiting", Erebor is "not WAI". At least in my personal opinion.

Auroch's utterly breaks the way a skill works and gives it absolutely insane damage potential. Erebor on the other hand gives an unintended bonus to using a skill the way it is meant to be used. Even if it didn't work on barrage (per the tooltip) the saved focus on pen shot would likely still allow 100% focus spam, it would just get a little more rng dependent since your focus generation would be closer to the edge of running out.

Either set is probably OP at the moment but that's mainly due to barrage being broken, not the set effects. Balance the damage between skills better and aurochs becomes a moot point and erebor becomes a much more reasonable trade off between a simplified rotation with lower stats or a more complex one with higher stats, rather than the substantial dps trade off we see now. Ultimately so long as an old armour set is not the "only" way to get top dps there is really nothing wrong with having cool set effects which might be worthwhile losing stats for, especially when its a set that can only be gained at level cap anyway.

Yes, that sums it up pretty nicely.

Except that the Erebor set is the only way to reach these high numbers today. You can still do fairly decent damage without it though, I find, but Erebor/Barrage is double the DPS last time I checked, but I will look at the numbers again tonight since my equip has quite drastically changed (much more Physical Master now).

There is probably also a reason why the HS bonus made it to the latest armor set, which the Fleetness bonus did not, and I doubt we will ever see it again...