Please Fix The Broken Hunter Class - Real Suggestions

[MaxHunter]

That's the thing, despite how op Hunter travel is, Hunter SHOULD be the best single target dps out there, as Champion SHOULD be the best AOE dps out there.

On another note, please don't mention class forums because I'm pretty sure no one at SSG reads them. Carry on

Hunt and Champ classes are free. Rk and Wardens no.

[Strider5548]

Hunter from day 1, Lifetimer, one single character, not really a freep, definitely no creep. I took two breaks, one before Rohan, came back when we had to pick flowers in North Ithilien, took another break, came back a couple of months ago. Used to be a full-time kin raider (with multiple chars back then) until I left the first time, since then casual player trying to catch up, aiming to do raids again, aka end game content (not sure what other end game content there is apart from raiding if you don't pvp).

I like LOTRO, I really do. It grabs me, and does not let go. I tried other games of different flavors across the board, I keep coming back to LOTRO, and the reason for that is of course because I am Lifetimer, but also, believe or not, because of my hunter...! I love my hunter!

Why do I love my hunter? I played other classes, including a RK, I had the possibility to switch my main class, but I stayed a hunter. What makes this class so special? It's the first question that should come to mind when we discuss any changes, no? What's good, what's bad? Let me start with the good stuff: Let's face it, we love the ports, the run speed buff, we love the range, omg how I LOVE the range. And when I mean range, I mean the full range! Not the blue, nerfed range, the red range, all the way... And of course, we love the damage. It's the main ingredient. It's a damage class, after all, or is it not?


So, ranged damage. The essence. Single target, ok with me. I liked RoA more when there wasn't this proc CD. I came back a few months ago and saw that nerfed. And to be honest, it was a bit OP (certainly in the moors, all those yellow numbers...), of course I loved it, but in retro-perspective made sense to limit it to some extent. I found it was a bit too harsh of a nerfe. The 30 seconds feel like a minute. 20 seconds would have been ok, but that's just details, and it won't kill my hunter passion. I understand we are supposed to be single target damage dealers... Are we not?


I had to smile at whoever posted like a ton, simply because the title of the thread did not entirely reflect its content. Yes, hunters are not broken overall, but there seems to be an issue for group end game content, and it seems this needs to be addressed.


So I can confirm that on my server some LFF group content explicitly look for RKs, sometimes burgs, and other damage classes. Re burgs, I don't recall them being a primary damage class, yet I went on a duo harrowing/roost with one yesterday, and it felt like when I was running with my LM buddy, except I was 123 at the time and he was 130. So I checked the burg's gear, and he didn't have a single teal piece, and it made me feel.... somewhat useless. Not focusing on burgs here, just sharing my experience, but there seems to be something wrong with that class, too (in regards to damage, it feels too high)...


Anyway, so what I definitely did not see so far was any LFF explicitly FOR hunters, i.e. "looking for hunter". It's either "no hunters" or "it does not matter", depending on who is looking. It worries me, because it seems to be a reality. And I only have a hunter, I only have endgame now. I really enjoyed my landscape hunter until max level. I will definitely not invest any time in bringing my other Level 65 chars up to 130.


So if hunters are not as relevant in group end game content, what am I supposed to do in LOTRO? It's somewhat fun with a hunter to do MT dailies and sell those scrolls, to do festival stuff, to grind your gear up, but if it leads to being rejected simply because we cannot fulfill our one and only purpose, which is supposed to be single target damage, then what's the point?


SSG needs to find a way to make this damage class more relevant again in group end game content (aka raids), and for once not try to mess up everything else at the same time, and that's not as easy as it sounds...!


Many suggestions have been made, some pretty good ones, I would like to add a one, just minor: That healing debuff on HS (which is 99.9% useless in pve), why not make that a crit debuff, or something else that makes the target more vulnerable? Something that adds to group dynamic? Something, that will give some incentive to people that are putting together a group to say "hey, hunters do less damage than RKs (which shouldn't be the case anyway, but different topic), but they bring another relevant value to the group".


The way I see it, red hunters should be stationary, longest range, most DPS out of the three trees, and little group support, like a small, but yet relevant debuff/buff/group benefit. Blue should be able to move, with considerably less DPS (mainly for solo content/kiting) with less range (like today), maybe a bit more group support (when not solo/kiting). Yellow should be short range, free to move around, less single target damage than blue, maybe more AoE focused, a bit of CCing, and supporting more than the other lines, but I already realize now that all of this his too much work and resources to be put into the class, so it's of course not going to happen.

Focus on red and blue, make red a viable, single target DPS class for group end game content, make blue a fun build for solo kiting, and leave yellow in the desolate state that it is, because it would take too much effort to fix it...

And as a final comment: I don't understand why a ranged, glass cannon class, that has no other purpose it seems than to deliver single target DPS, should not be dealing the most single target DPS of all classes in the game? because we can port...? And nobody isn't even asking to be the #1 single target DPS class, we are just asking to be relevant...

There are some really good suggestions here, I will try to incorporate into the main post later this week.

[Tatharil]

Rain of Arrows - Remove and replace with Armor Rend (moved from yellow).
Armor Rend - critical damage applies an armor rend effect that stacks 4 times: -2% physical mit/x block parry and evade - last

Yellow: Traps are ideologically cool - but practically impossible to use (not even considering the challenge of placing things on the floor with current server performance) so lets make this a proper trait line - this is AoE and DoT focus'ed. The damage won't be as high to a single target as red and you wont be able to move or dash as much as blue but you'll be able to pump out strong dots with the AoE Utility. Lets see how this looks:
Remove:
Decoy, The One Trap, Piercing Trap, Triple Trap.

Gain when in yellow: Rain of Arrows, Split Shot
Rain of Arrows is now a 20s cd with 3 targets
Split show is now a 20s cd with 3 targets

Endurance would be updated:
Remove the parry and evade 2%.
Include: AoE skill damage and DoT increased by 20% DoT Critical multiplier increased by 25%

Let's cover traits - trait base:
Deadly Decoy is now Poison Arrows - All damaging skills have a chance to apply a damage over time affect - 20% every 2 seconds for 10s - stacks with each other scaled to level
Triple Trap is now Ranger's Secrets - Damage over time skills now deal acid type damage
Master Trapper is now Poison Rewards - Damage over time skills return a portion of health (similar to the bow of the righteous trait but in morale)
Strong Intimidation - reduces threat from damage over time effects (think distracting flame effect)
Heightened Senses is now Improved Endurance - Increased damage by 10%
Purge Poison - Remains - Turns poison etc removal skill to AoE - keep the cd to balance the skill
Sturdy Traps becomes Master Ranger - All AoE skills + 5 targets, Damage over time damage increased by 50%, Skills that are AoE have 25% crit multiplier

in the tree:
Survival Gear - 5% increased morale
Tripwire now Lingering Wound - Skill remains the same with the dot duration increased to every 2s for 20s stackable 3 times (so quicker ramp up and last longer)
Combat Traps now Ranger's Accuracy - AoE skills damage increased 10% * 5 tiers
Explosive Arrow (moves to the One Trap position) - Consumes all bleeds on targets and deals x damage for each bleed and tier on target
Explosive Powder - increased damage of Explosive Arrow 10% up to 50%
Elusive - All forms of cc duration is increased by 50% (noble arrow, cry of the hunter, distracting shot etc)
Rain of Thorns - Rain of Arrows becomes Rain of Thorns which roots all targets and applies a DoT every 2s for 20s (this stacks with other DoTs) / 5s grace period
Endurance now becomes Improved Split Shot - Damage increased by 15%/30% (2 ranks)
Complex tincture - reduces acid mitigation by -2% up to -10%
Advanced Placement - + finesse tiered 3 times
Piercing Trap becomes Toxic Wound - it's a new DoT - Nock a deadly arrow laced with poison that explodes on impact poisoning enemies close to the target - Drops AoE poison on 3 targets that stacks with all other poisons every 2 seconds for 20s - cd 20s
Armour Rend has been moved to red and in its place - Lethal Explosion - Tied to max tiered Toxic Wound - 3 tiers: increased Toxic Wound Damage 10% per tier
Improved Distracting Shot - Reduced cd by 15s +1s grace period / 30s +2 grace period
Emergency Preparations - New Skill Given Emergency Preparations - for a short duration (20s) all skills have 100% chance to apply the Poison Arrows affect (cd 1min 30s)

This would totally mutilate and ruin the essence of yellow. That's cc, offensive debuffing. There are people, more than you assume maybe, that like yellow the way it is supposed to be and the role it is supposed to fulfill. Instead of turning it into a mix of red rk and warden, improve the tools to apply debuffs in yellow. Your ideas aren't bad, but it is a totally different class. I play yellow hunter for years, because I liked the way it feels and the role it is supposed to have. It wasn't that bad before hunter "balance pass" yellow with deep red was fun and damage was OK. Red changes killed yellow.
What we need is: reliable way to apply debuffs, useful endurance stance, focus generating/ cost reduction, DS buff for yellow only, focus consumer that is worth to use... Yellow has PS and merciful shot...

[Saphyrra]

This would totally mutilate and ruin the essence of yellow. That's cc, offensive debuffing. There are people, more than you assume maybe, that like yellow the way it is supposed to be and the role it is supposed to fulfill. Instead of turning it into a mix of red rk and warden, improve the tools to apply debuffs in yellow. Your ideas aren't bad, but it is a totally different class. I play yellow hunter for years, because I liked the way it feels and the role it is supposed to have. It wasn't that bad before hunter "balance pass" yellow with deep red was fun and damage was OK. Red changes killed yellow.
What we need is: reliable way to apply debuffs, useful endurance stance, focus generating/ cost reduction, DS buff for yellow only, focus consumer that is worth to use... Yellow has PS and merciful shot...

Your suggestions certainly help yellow but what you're suggesting is essentially make it red line with debuffs and cc which will make red line not worth using. The thing is right now if you're levelling you go blue - it gives mobility more self healing etc. Red is the only viable option in raid. Yellow is pretty much worthless through the game. The traps are cc but you then have no significant damage so using solo is kinda pointless over other two lines. You'd never be used in a group or raid setting because floor stuff is a variable that in most cases can cause you to wipe (if they dont walk into it or if something is woken up etc). Plus an LM and burg will always take a spot for cc.

So whilst i agree the concept was fun - its not useful anywhere in the game. As such, it needs a fundamental rethink. I get that some people won't enjoy losing the trait line but i would say more hunters would agree it has no use than those that would say "I've used it in x scenario"

Let's consider other classes:
RK - Yellow spam single target and move, red DoT, Blue Heal - all viable (although not the best) in instances and solo (heal being instance only)
Guardian - Red for levelling, blue/yellow for tanking (not sure how viable yellow is but it has alot of useful traits iirc)
Champ - Yellow AoE, Red ST, Blue Tanking
Capt - Yellow ST Tank (a god to some extent), Blue Healing (good for smaller groups), Red for DPS/Group buffs (i've seen some captains pump fairly decent damage in red as welll as the utility they provide)
Burg - Red DPS, Yellow for Debuff/Utility, Blue for gambles (blue is probabyl weaker but can be useful if geared and experienced - red or yellow is ofcourse much more dominant)

All of these classes have trees that serve or can serve a functional role in aspects of the game - yellow hunter doesn't really compare.

[Arnenna]

Hunt and Champ classes are free. Rk and Wardens no.

And? Your point is?

That paid classes should perform better?

What about Burg then? They are free.

No classes should out-perform other based on whether they are premium or not, and I seriously doubt that is the intent of the current imbalance.

[DKenny]

....All of these classes have trees that serve or can serve a functional role in aspects of the game - yellow hunter doesn't really compare.

And that's yet another example of how hunters have been shafted. Of the 3 trait lines, 2 of them are dps and one is completely worthless for anything. Something like RK also has 2 dps lines, but then has a viable, if not best, healing trait line in addition. Even sadder is that hunters aren't even especially good at the one thing they're able to do. And of course RK has a lot of other utility on top of dpso - rez and debuff.

[Strider5548]

Added some additional suggestions based on other threads and comments here.

[Sk0field]

I will re-state what stated before what I believe each traitline should represent, adding more details on yellow.

Red should be highest single target DPS out of the three traitlines, stationary, where movement is penalized to a certain extent, or another way to put it, standing still will be rewarded with more damage (and not more evade, on the contrary, you should be more vulnerable when standing still!), longest range, and group support, similar (and in addition to) to the pen shot crit mitigation debuff, but something a bit more viable for group play, aka the raid traitline.

Blue should be moderate single target DPS, mobile, maybe more evade or mitigation when moving, no group support, a little more survivability than red, medium range, aka the solo/kiting single target build, that will allow you to complete encounters where you would fail in red, at the expense of time, meaning it will take longer, but you will succeed if done correctly.

Yellow should be lowest DPS, highly mobile, more survavibility than blue, CC, debuffs, DOTs, i.e. high effort to bring targets down, taking longer, but more AoE/enemy group focused (e.g. rain of thorns), aka the template you choose when you want to take on several targets at the same time, like when soloing landscape and you need to take down a group in a small encampment or similar.

That is how I see each traitline, and I believe this is how they were intended as a concept in the beginning, and the reality is not too far from the above, but not very close either.

Since this thread is somewhat focused on the fact that hunters are not very attractive for end game group content (and I can assure you, from what I see day to day, it is getting worse by the minute), red should be the raid traitline focusing on DPS, blue and yellow should be for solo content, where obviously a mix is allowed, to a certain extent, which is the whole point of the concept of mixing traitlines.

In no way do I expect SSG to implement this, it's just me thinking out loud. What I expect SSG to do however is to considerably raise our DPS for red traitline ASAP!

[Winsorcat69]

I've played a hunter since the day I started LOTRO (granted, only 3 years ago) and I love it. I have tried all the other classes, but always come back to hunter. I have played all 3 trait trees but love blue the most. Some people need to remember that this game isn't only about end game raids. Yes, they are important, but there is so much more to the game. The journey to get there has to be possible and enjoyable or people won't do it. If more people would take the time to learn to work with what they are given instead of just rushing to end game, they might find that it isn't all that bad. This is just my opinion and not meant to offend anyone. I just want to say THANK YOU SSG for such a wonderful game with so much variety and daily enjoyment.

[Sk0field]

I've played a hunter since the day I started LOTRO (granted, only 3 years ago) and I love it. I have tried all the other classes, but always come back to hunter. I have played all 3 trait trees but love blue the most. Some people need to remember that this game isn't only about end game raids. Yes, they are important, but there is so much more to the game. The journey to get there has to be possible and enjoyable or people won't do it. If more people would take the time to learn to work with what they are given instead of just rushing to end game, they might find that it isn't all that bad. This is just my opinion and not meant to offend anyone. I just want to say THANK YOU SSG for such a wonderful game with so much variety and daily enjoyment.

I couldn't agree more. I have played LOTRO for many years, since launch, with breaks in between. I played many classes, but hunter is the one I fell in love with, and it's the only class I play, today.

I appreciate your feedback, and I am sure almost everyone that posted in this discussion shares it, but the journey to get to end game, and end game group content are not related. They are actually two very different topics.

This thread is not about people complaining about the overall state of the class, just as much as it is not about you trying to offend anybody.

This is not about players valaring their hunter and wanting to raid with another alt. This discussion is from people that feel passionate about the hunter, otherwise they would simply switch to another class, like many have done already over the past years... (mostly FOTW players)

This is to raise concerns to SSG about hunter end game, group content. Hunters simply suck at it, to a point where we are being rejected more and more, which needs to addressed.

But you are right, SSG is mostly doing an excellent job, but we still need to raise our voice when we feel that something unjust is taking place inside this game.

[Teluial]

please, please ssg pay attention to the hunter class.

jajajajajajaja.... (ssg)

[mansjoks]

As a red line Hunter struggling with dps i've searched for ways to make it as high as possible and found out that switching from precision to strength stances every 5 seconds in my rotation gives a slight increase in dps. You also have to time the right skills to use in each stances , for example i want upshot and heart seeker to be used in precision for the crit multiplier buff.
Switching stances proved to be challenging and a very interesting rotation , so i would suggest buffing the switching from one stance to another.

As for the blue line , i haven't really played with it too much and don't want to give any misleading suggestions.

[Strider5548]

As a red line Hunter struggling with dps i've searched for ways to make it as high as possible and found out that switching from precision to strength stances every 5 seconds in my rotation gives a slight increase in dps. You also have to time the right skills to use in each stances , for example i want upshot and heart seeker to be used in precision for the crit multiplier buff.
Switching stances proved to be challenging and a very interesting rotation , so i would suggest buffing the switching from one stance to another.

As for the blue line , i haven't really played with it too much and don't want to give any misleading suggestions.

This is a good suggestion, I hop between precision > strength > precision before my opening hit and it makes a good difference. It's really hard to nail this down mid combat though, I think it comes down to which skills you are using while in strength stance, since overall STR DPS is way lower than precision if you have the precision legacy.

[Saphyrra]

As a red line Hunter struggling with dps i've searched for ways to make it as high as possible and found out that switching from precision to strength stances every 5 seconds in my rotation gives a slight increase in dps. You also have to time the right skills to use in each stances , for example i want upshot and heart seeker to be used in precision for the crit multiplier buff.
Switching stances proved to be challenging and a very interesting rotation , so i would suggest buffing the switching from one stance to another.

As for the blue line , i haven't really played with it too much and don't want to give any misleading suggestions.

I mean i like the idea. they'd need to fix animation/cd/duration so it wasn't so cumbersome but still required effort to be viable.
But it contradicts the point of a stance imo. Its meant to be permanent and a choice aka im sacrificing raw damage in favour of focus generation (okay precision happens to be the best due to legacy but you get my point). I'd much rather have something like burn hot rather than cycling the stances to be viable or more viable damage proc buff effects or cd's to really apply the burn.

I've been playing around with weapon swapping the most personally. I've made a bow dedicated for HS now (already had burn hot as a clicky so just upgraded it). I've basically removed any focus in terms of DoTs in skill tree in favour of just enhancing the power of 4 primary skills and trying to maximising upshot usage by proc'ing the cd reduction:
Quick shot - got damage and crit multiplier legacy plus the extra focus - this thing crits almost 50-60% of the time so its efficient for reducing upshot and getting back to 9
Merciful shot - its a filler and can be used on no focus so worth it
Swift bow - triple crit is strong
UpShot - main source of damage really - bit sucky if it doesn't crit so just need quantity

I do throw in blood arrows for sustain and obv keep up penetrating debuff up on the target to increase crit chance.

So normally i'll just swap to burn hot use HS on there and swap back and cycle for HS. That way you can fit the quick shot legacies and its basically use qs to generate focus, swift bow when you have the buff for instant, upshot on full focus and fit in HS on cd with mercy shot. If you trait right you could potentially fit in the trigger so HS is instant.

Also not saying this innovative :P could be i've just stumbled on to the right way to play who knows.. and it probably wont beat champ/wardens/burgs.

[JoRDee]

Just bring 2 fire RKs 4Head

[Sk0field]

I also like the idea of stance switching. It could replace weapon switching, since both really adds complexity to a relatively complex rotation already (compared to other classes), but it's not THAT complex, either.

I am totally against weapon switching though. To me, it's close to exploiting (as in "not designed"), where as stance switching is further away from that (but probably also not "by design").

[Arnenna]

I've played a hunter since the day I started LOTRO (granted, only 3 years ago) and I love it. I have tried all the other classes, but always come back to hunter. I have played all 3 trait trees but love blue the most. Some people need to remember that this game isn't only about end game raids. Yes, they are important, but there is so much more to the game. The journey to get there has to be possible and enjoyable or people won't do it. If more people would take the time to learn to work with what they are given instead of just rushing to end game, they might find that it isn't all that bad. This is just my opinion and not meant to offend anyone. I just want to say THANK YOU SSG for such a wonderful game with so much variety and daily enjoyment.

Yes, all classes are fine for landscape and landscape makes up a big part of the game. But end game, raids, instances etc, also make up part of the game. The focus on hunter at the moment is nothing to do with how it performs out on landscape or at lower levels, but, that it cannot compete with other dps classes in end game. It brings no utility, which is a suggestion that has often been put forward to try and sort out the issue. I'm up for that, but I'm equally up for them just sorting out hunter dps if they want to keep it simple. Hunters do one thing, and one thing only, and if they wish to keep it that way, then ok, let's do that, but then . . . they should be the best at it as it's their only role.

Some of us have 10+ characters at end game, and even more lower alts working landscape. End game, is very important to those players.

[WorrBinpike]

As a red line Hunter struggling with dps i've searched for ways to make it as high as possible and found out that switching from precision to strength stances every 5 seconds in my rotation gives a slight increase in dps. You also have to time the right skills to use in each stances , for example i want upshot and heart seeker to be used in precision for the crit multiplier buff.
Switching stances proved to be challenging and a very interesting rotation , so i would suggest buffing the switching from one stance to another.

As for the blue line , i haven't really played with it too much and don't want to give any misleading suggestions.

I say no to this suggestion.

In a raid where you have to follow the boss mechanics and run around, you will also switch weapons AND stance ? No thx.

[mkcraft27]

where as stance switching is further away from that (but probably also not "by design").

It probably is by design considering you get a temporary buff when you switch stances. If the devs expected players to pick a stance and never change (or hardly ever change), why would they give buffs for changing stances.

[petrikur]

Hunter. Used to be the only class in LOTRO I was able to play without hands hurting. It's back to being off limits for at least two-three years. Which is odd, since I can play a game like the diablo clone POE for hours without issues.
I get bigger delays here though and that might be why - it's possible that no amount of changes will re-enable LOTRO for me.

[hurant]

As many others have pointed out, hunter has only a single role for group instances (DPS), and currently is extremely weak at this.
It would be good to buff hunter DPS, ASAP.

Some ideas for improvement from me:
- redline evade capstone: useless, replace it with something DPS-oriented (e.g. "Focus Bow attacks have a chance to reset the cooldown of Heart Seeker and make it instant cast")
- too many useful bow legacies, too few useful melee legacies: swap some legacies between melee and ranged slot (e.g. swap focus critical magnitude with melee critical magnitude)
- grant upshot extra critical chance


or just buff damage of skills ^^.

[DKenny]

Well, they "fixed" hunter by wrecking RK. Is the RK nerf enough? Too little? Too much? Since it appears yellow RK has gone the way of blue hunter, it's back to red RK. I suppose there are situations where ranged dps is still advantageous, however, I guess the "melee DPS should be higher" lobby successfully got their point across to the devs. I still don't see why hunter should be desirable - RK will still have a place due to utility beyond just DPS. So will Warden and Burg now be the primary DPS?

[Sk0field]

Well, they "fixed" hunter by wrecking RK. Is the RK nerf enough? Too little? Too much? Since it appears yellow RK has gone the way of blue hunter, it's back to red RK. I suppose there are situations where ranged dps is still advantageous, however, I guess the "melee DPS should be higher" lobby successfully got their point across to the devs. I still don't see why hunter should be desirable - RK will still have a place due to utility beyond just DPS. So will Warden and Burg now be the primary DPS?

I believe that this RK "fix" has brought nothing good for the hunter. RKs are still way more desired than hunters. I cannot feel, but maybe we need to wait some more, any significant positive change. Maybe over time this will get better. Burglar is totally off, and don't get me started on Warden... (broken purpose since almost release).

I do not expect major changes to the hunter class, a considerable base damage boost is long overdue and will do, but it needs to lift hunter DPS considerably above RK, and on par (or slightly above) current burglar DPS, in a T3 environment of course (hunter DPS is fine until you hit end game, same like almost any other class, really).

Otherwise, why bother taking a hunter over a RK?

[Gripn]

I believe that this RK "fix" has brought nothing good for the hunter. RKs are still way more desired than hunters. I cannot feel, but maybe we need to wait some more, any significant positive change. Maybe over time this will get better. Burglar is totally off, and don't get me started on Warden... (broken purpose since almost release).

I do not expect major changes to the hunter class, a considerable base damage boost is long overdue and will do, but it needs to lift hunter DPS considerably above RK, and on par (or slightly above) current burglar DPS, in a T3 environment of course (hunter DPS is fine until you hit end game, same like almost any other class, really).

Otherwise, why bother taking a hunter over a RK?

Agreed. Rather than tinkering with individual skills, it would be simpler to boost base damage so that hunters do the best single target dps again. Either that or boost base damage so that we do similar dps to RKs and give us an in-combat res. The current situation where we do the least damage and we bring nothing else to the raid is ridiculous.