Most Hunters will not become better

[Laubgaenger]

As tomorrow the RK damage output gets reduced with update 26, but most Hunters will not become better.


The Forum is full in what bad state Hunters are, so i think each player get burnt that in mind, as the Warden reputations was some years ago.
You dig you own grave.

Hunters had a very bad Reputation, that they build over many years.

Yesterday, or the day before i was in a T1 Raid on Anor (we are at 85).
5 Hunter did less damage as a Burgler and Captain.

I get told by the Endurance and Precision Hunters, that the Hunter class is broken.
I replied my not, and earned some smiles by the Burgler.

With good support the Hunter damage is very strong, i know in current endgame you need good supporters to be as nearly good, as other damage dealer are. But if you have played other classes, then you would get the feel, how much the hunter get put in the "back". Things other classes have to work for :-)

I see the call to be the best single target dps. I ask you why the Hunter should that be?
Why should the easiest to play class and the easiest to equip class also be the best damage class?
Why should then other players do the effort for other classes, if at the end the Hunter would be still better?


I am very fine with my Hunter project and also with my Loremaster project.
I see what that classes can do and my respect for good Loremasters rises, and my disrespect for Hunters, as you could often read also increase.
I see often the cry for more and on the other side i see no advancement on the players side. Many Hunter do not know their skills and what they do. That is not new, but now i see even better, what they do and even more what they not do.

Funny fact, as my RK was often synchronous, with other fire RKs in Thron Raids, so i see in my Raidgroup also the Hunters becomes more and more synchronous.

I use my Arrows Out ^tm, as some Burgler do too :-)
I am often the offtank with my Hunter. As long my Healers keep me up i could hold that for a while.

We have Hunters in our Raids, Hunters that are skilled and aimed for Damage and not on dancing around.
But Damage Hunters were and are few. Even on my Common server i could count then on 2 hands, i think on Anor they are fewer. When i exclude my Raidgroup, 3 fingers up to a hand would be enough.


If the Hunter community would take the effort to write Guides instead of the many, many cry Threads, then you could increase the quality of the Hunters.
So you did opposite, you fill the Forum with the Information, that the hunter could not nearly nothing. You want that the Devs increase these and that so that the easy way becomes again the path.
I would see a Guide what a Hunter can do to becomes counterbalanced be doing this and that.

I asked often, that players take some minutes and read their skills (Read and Understand, as my Teacher said).
Let it be a half hour (exclude the ports) and that did many not get done.
Point is, that there is no true need in the open world, except if you want to kill faster.
For 95% of the Hunter is the pace fine, when pressing random some red skills.

When they enter Mordor, this did not worked, even for the 10 Years main Hunters :-)
Here the Cry starts and you get a damage buff.
Now other classes becomes better and even the 5% have problems to get a good output.

The 95% are the Majority, the ones that work on the Reputation.
Increase here the Knowledge and you increase the Quality of the Majority.


-tltr - Then keep up the Port Job :-)

[Strider5548]

I'm going to be honest, I couldn't get through your entire post, but I think the gist of it was that hunters are generally bad players and that won't change after RK's get nerfed.

If I'm wrong, apologies, but if I'm right, *sigh*...

1) RK's getting nerfed has nothing to do with hunters.

2) I'm kind of sick of this attitude that all hunters are useless players...pretty sick of hearing people use the term "#######" in game too. There is so much hatred against hunters, if we had the same OP DPS that RK's have had it would have been undone in 2 weeks. Do you remember blueline hunters? We were top DPS when the wastes was released, and that traitline was completely destroyed before Mordor. People complain about hunters non-stop, and they have a negative view of hunters, but you know what...I've found the hunters that are left playing their class today are some of the smartest, most careful, and hardest working players in the game. They have to be given how much they get tossed aside. They ask to join groups by apologizing first. They follow instructions meticulously because they can't afford to make mistakes. The players who don't know what they are doing have all switched to other FOTM classes.

Hunters are great players, they will continue to be great players, and they deserve a significant revamp in the form of BUFFS.

[Gripn]

Seriously? So you think that hunters do poor dps because we're poor players and that our reputation is well-deserved?

You wrote, "I see the call to be the best single target dps. I ask you why the Hunter should that be?". The reason is that single target dps is ALL that hunters can bring to a fellowship or raid at the moment. If other classes can do more single target dps AND can bring other skills to the fellowship or raid (off-tanking, AoE, CC, buffs, debuffs or heals), why would anyone invite a hunter to a fellowship or raid in preference to one of those other classes?

I'd like hunters to be brought up to the same level of single-target dps as burglars and RKs. I'd be even happier if hunters were given a useful secondary role in a fellowship or raid.

You also wrote, "Why should the easiest to play class ... also be the best damage class?". I agree that hunters are easy to play. I'd be willing to trade increased difficulty for increased damage. Perhaps a good compromise would be an easy-to-play trait tree that gave less dps and a harder-to-play trait tree that gave more dps. I played a mage in World of Warcraft. A mage was a glass cannon. They could do lots of dps, but if an opponent got within melee range, they could be killed in one shot. Mages therefore had to learn to use CC skills if they couldn't kill an opponent before he got within melee range. In LOTRO, hunters can survive in melee. You wrote that you are often the off-tank with your hunter. Conversely, I think that champions are too squishy in LOTRO - they should get more benefit from wearing heavy armour.

You also wrote, "Why should ... the easiest to equip class also be the best damage class?". I wouldn't say that hunters are easy to equip at the moment. Most of the agility drops in Remmorchant are for wardens, while hunters have to compete for dps drops with burglars and wardens. Hunters only need one set of equipment because they've only been given one viable role. If hunters were given multiple roles like other classes, then we'd also need multiple sets of equipment. I'd be delighted to be given a second viable role.

At the moment, RKs and captains seem to be flavour of the month, while hunters, champions and guardians seem to be in a poor place. No doubt, things will be different in a few months' time. Personally, I think that 30 trait trees are too many for SSG to try and balance.

[WhifOfDespair]

About the only part of the OP's dismissive, blanket-ad hominem take on the broader community of hunter players that I concur with is the need for updated knowledge sharing.

Most of the stickies for hunters -- even resources on other sites -- are woefully out of date. They don't at all reflect the way the class has to be played today. A new hunter -- or perhaps worse, for returning hunters after a long absence -- doesn't get good guidance on what trait lines to use, what gear to grind for, what the optimal rotations are, how to use their (current) skill sets in groups and against newer content.

A large reason for the stickies being so obsolete though, has been the wild swings in the way hunter traits and skills work over the years. What's the point of up-dating the documentation when it gets rendered obsolete in 6 months? I suspect many of the original authors also simply walked away from the class or even the game due to the fluctuations.

[Enzolas]

Laubgaenger, damage of any class depends mainly on the support (c) your cap. Can you make a guide for me, so that my hunter would beat out 300-350K DPS as a Rune Keeper before up to U26? No? Then relax.

[Gunhard]

Post by rk main about hunters damage or what was that long read about? Ppl talking about hunters damage buff for current 130lvl raid and if you dont agree with that then you probably didnt try it. In that case better leave your longreads somewhere else instead hunters forum and go play on anor or where you play coz your post is irrelevant.

[groucho42]

Hmmm, I've been playing since 2009. My main's a hunter but I have all classes other than Beorning and Stoned Elf. the OP in this thread is not just illiterate, he's clueless. Hunters used to be the single target dps king and the champion the AOE king. The other classes did dps but were more useful for their support skills, debuffs, crowd control, side heals, etc.

Then along came the idiotic trait trees. Everything became about dps on all classes and Turbine/SSG continued to unbalance things so that the hunter and champ are pretty useless these day, just as useless as all the class skills of other classes. It's pretty much ruined the game except for landscape wandering. Regardless of how they've messed up grouping, at least SSG still has great graphics folks -- when landscape isn't so dark or foggy what we're blind...

[Sk0field]

As tomorrow the RK damage output gets reduced with update 26, but most Hunters will not become better.


The Forum is full in what bad state Hunters are, so i think each player get burnt that in mind, as the Warden reputations was some years ago.
You dig you own grave.

Hunters had a very bad Reputation, that they build over many years.

Yesterday, or the day before i was in a T1 Raid on Anor (we are at 85).
5 Hunter did less damage as a Burgler and Captain.

I get told by the Endurance and Precision Hunters, that the Hunter class is broken.
I replied my not, and earned some smiles by the Burgler.

With good support the Hunter damage is very strong, i know in current endgame you need good supporters to be as nearly good, as other damage dealer are. But if you have played other classes, then you would get the feel, how much the hunter get put in the "back". Things other classes have to work for :-)

I see the call to be the best single target dps. I ask you why the Hunter should that be?
Why should the easiest to play class and the easiest to equip class also be the best damage class?
Why should then other players do the effort for other classes, if at the end the Hunter would be still better?


I am very fine with my Hunter project and also with my Loremaster project.
I see what that classes can do and my respect for good Loremasters rises, and my disrespect for Hunters, as you could often read also increase.
I see often the cry for more and on the other side i see no advancement on the players side. Many Hunter do not know their skills and what they do. That is not new, but now i see even better, what they do and even more what they not do.

Funny fact, as my RK was often synchronous, with other fire RKs in Thron Raids, so i see in my Raidgroup also the Hunters becomes more and more synchronous.

I use my Arrows Out ^tm, as some Burgler do too :-)
I am often the offtank with my Hunter. As long my Healers keep me up i could hold that for a while.

We have Hunters in our Raids, Hunters that are skilled and aimed for Damage and not on dancing around.
But Damage Hunters were and are few. Even on my Common server i could count then on 2 hands, i think on Anor they are fewer. When i exclude my Raidgroup, 3 fingers up to a hand would be enough.


If the Hunter community would take the effort to write Guides instead of the many, many cry Threads, then you could increase the quality of the Hunters.
So you did opposite, you fill the Forum with the Information, that the hunter could not nearly nothing. You want that the Devs increase these and that so that the easy way becomes again the path.
I would see a Guide what a Hunter can do to becomes counterbalanced be doing this and that.

I asked often, that players take some minutes and read their skills (Read and Understand, as my Teacher said).
Let it be a half hour (exclude the ports) and that did many not get done.
Point is, that there is no true need in the open world, except if you want to kill faster.
For 95% of the Hunter is the pace fine, when pressing random some red skills.

When they enter Mordor, this did not worked, even for the 10 Years main Hunters :-)
Here the Cry starts and you get a damage buff.
Now other classes becomes better and even the 5% have problems to get a good output.

The 95% are the Majority, the ones that work on the Reputation.
Increase here the Knowledge and you increase the Quality of the Majority.


-tltr - Then keep up the Port Job :-)

Your intention is only to provoke, not to help. If you improved your hunter skills the way you improved your English over the years, then I am sure my 7-year old can out dps you as a hunter.

Being the type of FOTM player I expect you to be, I am also sure you will play your hunter more and drop your RK with Update 26.1.

[Rialtan]

Seriously? So you think that hunters do poor dps because we're poor players and that our reputation is well-deserved?

Kinda, Yeah. How in the hell there's still no decent feedbacks or parses after the rework of a DPS CLASS?

[Khluzainn]

Kinda, Yeah. How in the hell there's still no decent feedbacks or parses after the rework of a DPS CLASS?

This is spot on. I have worked to get parses and help improve the champ and warden classes for the last 4 years, alongside a huge amount of other really good players. Especially champs there are too many to name. I am not turning this into a 'champ' or 'warden' thread.... However, its not a stretch to say that champs have been pretty much garbage tier ON AND OFF, but mostly OFF for a long time. It took years and forum threads 20+ pages long of parses and feedback to get to be even relevant for like 2 raids in the last 7 years. I mean there are probably 50 threads about it. People have made extensive guides for RK, Champ, Warden, Capt, and Guardian. No one in the hunter community has ever really stepped up and taken the initiative. Just saying how pathetic things are and bad dps is on the forums isnt effort FYI.

I know this last build wasnt on bullroarer, but to pretend whining on the forums is the building of a strong hunter community is just sad. I just went through 5 pages of hunter forums and found maybe 2 post going back 3 years with anything to help figure out the best dps potential of the class. Those few posts were basically about helping with LIs... I mean the fact that there is debate over focus bow/bleedbow swappies that has never been tested and confirmed yet shows there is lots of optimizing to be done with the class yet by skilled players. Then if those skilled players ever pass on the information Hunter dps would rise across the board.

I dont disagree that Hunters were weak compared to the current status quo, but no one can really complain about being weak if they havnt done everything they can to makeup the gap first. Everyone butthurt in this thread that they are being called bad needs to wake up and realize that they arnt squeezing every drop out of their hunter. GRANTED, there are a few out there that have done the testing and through trail and error have maxed out thier hunter. I feel sorry for them.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone else. Champs have had to learn how to optimize their fevor rotation while weapons and rune swapping ever 2-3 seconds. This took years for most serious champs to adjust and those that stuck with it were barely rewarded but at least they did everything they could before going to the forums.

I mean is there even a wishlist or brainstorm forum thread that has suggestions or trait-line reowrk ideas? I found one single yellow line thread from a good Pvmper but that was about it. Otherwise its crying that things are too weak, or they want blue reverted to the faceroll 3 button one shot build similar to OP yellow line RK right after thier update. Its pretty sad honestly if you think that these few hunter posts are the same effort as 7 years and the countless threads of parses and testing champs had to do. Other classes have done much more for that matter too.

Long story short, the OP isnt too far off. The damage boost was welcome, but if you want to be top tier its time test and do more than whatever you were doing before. For all any of you know standing in melee and weaving melee skills is a huge dps increase now... but guess what no skilled hunters post anything on this forum to debate SO WE MAY NEVER KNOW! I mean Christ. Zero effort or knowledge so far.

[apextr]

Kinda, Yeah. How in the hell there's still no decent feedbacks or parses after the rework of a DPS CLASS?

What is your obsession with the parses? Most raider who mained hunter before I’m sure haven’t even bothered to gear their hunters? I realize that your 2 skill rotation got nerfed and you feel like you need to be heard so you vent off in forums but calling hunters trash coming from player of a class for the last 7 years hasn’t even required two digits of iq to play and do competitive dps is extremely hypocritical. If you’re such an amazing player and all of us hunter are bad then by all means roll one and link your parses show us brainless hunters how to do it. If not stop QQing in hunter forums and go back to rk forums to QQ even tho you are still bringing 2 rezzes to a raid as a dps class that now needs to press more than 3 buttons to do DPS.

PS yes I know rks are the bottom of the dps but this tone is not your helping your cause at all.

Pps I forgot to add that rks don’t even require much trait points or even maxed out LIs to do dps whereas on hunter you need to have 2 maxed out bows and every single trait point.

[Rialtan]

What is your obsession with the parses? Most raider who mained hunter before I’m sure haven’t even bothered to gear their hunters? I realize that your 2 skill rotation got nerfed and you feel like you need to be heard so you vent off in forums but calling hunters trash coming from player of a class for the last 7 years hasn’t even required two digits of iq to play and do competitive dps is extremely hypocritical. If you’re such an amazing player and all of us hunter are bad then by all means roll one and link your parses show us brainless hunters how to do it. If not stop QQing in hunter forums and go back to rk forums to QQ even tho you are still bringing 2 rezzes to a raid as a dps class that now needs to press more than 3 buttons to do DPS.

PS yes I know rks are the bottom of the dps but this tone is not your helping your cause at all.

What tone? Im not here to push the Rks agenda for sure.
Just saying, is since at least throne that the hunter class got a bad reputation. Taking a random hunter 90% of time it means playing with a malus, cause cant even compensate his lack of dps with some kind of support.

What parse obsession? Hunter needed a buff, we all knows. How you suppose to tune a class without parses? How you can judge a rework if you cant even compare pre and post parses? Are you for real?

Is not my job to post hunters dps, cause actually i dont care about the class and it wasnt be asking for a buff lol. You asked for a buff, it's your job to give feedback on the changes.

You are 50% troll 50% clueless

[apextr]

What tone? Im not here to push the Rks agenda for sure.
Just saying, is since at least throne that the hunter class got a bad reputation. Taking a random hunter 90% of time it means playing with a malus, cause cant even compensate his lack of dps with some kind of support.

What parse obsession? Hunter needed a buff, we all knows. How you suppose to tune a class without parses? How you can judge a rework if you cant even compare pre and post parses? Are you for real?

Is not my job to post hunters dps, cause actually i dont care about the class and it wasnt be asking for a buff lol. You asked for a buff, it's your job to give feedback on the changes.

You are 50% troll 50% clueless

You mean the throne raid that during the first months of it that hunters were are ridiculously underpowered due to partial bpe and did no dps? So they weren't taken into the raids? That throne raid ? Gotcha. Taking a random hunter means bad dps 90% of the time? LMAO. As far as I know random champions/burglar/wardens I took into my groups prior to hunter buff did massive damage and not got outpdsped by my poor low skill hunter at all or not even did the half dps I do on my champ/warden. Weird man, I guess you got the short stick when inviting randoms from world because they are all very good players apart from garbage hunters . I'm not eve gonna talk about PUG RK's because we all know there the gold lies trying to dps with just lightning turned fire bag with non maxed legacies and still 5% fire type damage on bag or half maxed legacies on LIs. Those were golden cuz get this they still did OK dps actually that should tell you something about the skill cap of a class
As I said before give it time people are just gearing their hunters and most probably haven't touched it in a long time its only expected that people needs time to get comfortable with the current rotation.
Well for someone who doesn't care about the class you sure spend a lot of time on its forums and no it's not my job to do anything as I am the customer it's ssgs job to make every class viable if you feel like your class isn't atm? More power to you man go talk about it on YOUR OWN forums.

Well you've shown your knowledge on the game so far so i'll take your last critique to the heart believe me .

[Fastersun]

I think that 30 trait trees are too many for SSG to try and balance.