Current best blue line build?

[Nerwena]

Hi everyone!
So I started my LOTRO journey as a champion, now I decided to start over as high elf hunter. Since I have no experience with this class yet and don't want to mess up from the beginning, I tried to find some up to date blue line builds but failed. I would be really grateful for your support!
Mobility is super important to me, so I wouldn't want to switch to red or yellow. I mostly play solo and don't do any PvP, so I'd love to be able to manage the quests on my own and have fun travelling through Middle-earth. I know I should focus mostly on agility and vitality, not sure though how to make sure my skill tree is not useless.
Also, which virtues and race traits do you think are best for high elves?

[WhifOfDespair]

Hi everyone!
So I started my LOTRO journey as a champion, now I decided to start over as high elf hunter. Since I have no experience with this class yet and don't want to mess up from the beginning, I tried to find some up to date blue line builds but failed. I would be really grateful for your support!
Mobility is super important to me, so I wouldn't want to switch to red or yellow. I mostly play solo and don't do any PvP, so I'd love to be able to manage the quests on my own and have fun travelling through Middle-earth. I know I should focus mostly on agility and vitality, not sure though how to make sure my skill tree is not useless.
Also, which virtues and race traits do you think are best for high elves?

Welcome to the Hunter class!

I tried to post my trait builds but I couldn't seem to get the images working.

I also primarily solo these days. I have two solo trait builds and I spend time about 50/50 between them.

One of them is a blue build and that is built up fairly simply: Bought every blue trait possible and then spent all the rest on red. This build is useful for moving quickly and killing lower-level mobs. Especially when grinding deeds. It also is okay for kiting some bigger mobs.

But I advise you to also trait a red line build.

My other build is red. The DPS boosts we've gotten in the last update make this trait line very powerful. I use this for more on-level stuff. And the reality is that there are going to be situations where you can't kite. Where you have to stand and fire and simply hope to kill before being killed. Red line is classic LOTRO hunter. Set up from range. Gather focus and blast them. Hit them with a slow (quick shot in strength stance or barbed arrow in precision stance) and blast them until they get close. Then hit them with Bard's Arrow and repeat. My red build for solo is setup like so: Buy just enough yellow to get Rain of Thorns and just enough blue to get to Path Finder. Spend ALL the rest maxing out Red traits.

The Pathfinder movement boosts make it so you don't feel like a slug switching from blue to red. And Rain of Thorns is just a god-send when you get swarmed and need to root mobs and get the heck outa dodge.

My third line is for groups and that is maxed-out all Red with the rest spent on blue. Don't group much these days though. Too busy with real life and my LOTRO time is too sporadic.

I hope this is helpful.

[Morellian]

Hi everyone!
So I started my LOTRO journey as a champion, now I decided to start over as high elf hunter. Since I have no experience with this class yet and don't want to mess up from the beginning, I tried to find some up to date blue line builds but failed. I would be really grateful for your support!
Mobility is super important to me, so I wouldn't want to switch to red or yellow. I mostly play solo and don't do any PvP, so I'd love to be able to manage the quests on my own and have fun travelling through Middle-earth. I know I should focus mostly on agility and vitality, not sure though how to make sure my skill tree is not useless.
Also, which virtues and race traits do you think are best for high elves?

First off, welcome to Middle-earth!

A similar question was asked a while back and I provided my low-effort blue line build there. Obviously if you've just started you're not going to have nearly so many trait points, so don't stress too much about which points from red are most important, etc. And as I said in that post, if you're playing solo there's no right or wrong way to play, just what works for you - so feel free to play around a bit and see what you prefer. This is just what I use, but you might want to go for some more heals, or for Pathfinder, or whatever. As pointed out in that thread, the True Shot trait for Penetrating Shot debuff is also a good one, but I just leave it out for solo play because things are dead too fast for me to want to bother with a mitigation debuff. So you see, everything is kind of optional when you're playing solo, that's the fun part

If you want some stronger advice though, there are some traits in both blue and red that are, well, a little useless. So I would advise against just maxing out every trait in blue and then going to red. For example, Bow of the Righteous, Moving Target, Strength of the Earth, Improved Intent Concentration, all IMO are wastes of trait points - but don't listen to me, read the tooltips, try 'em out and decide for yourself! If you love them, then go for them

As for being able to manage quests and such on your own, you shouldn't have any problems, hunter is one of the most survivable classes, even for new players. In blue line, your power comes from being able to kite effectively, so make sure you have that down, but it sounds like you do already! Do bear in mind though that blue line is lower in DPS than red, so it is going to take a little bit longer to kill mobs.

You're correct that you should focus on Agility and Vitality, there are a couple of other stats you want to look out for: critical rating, physical mastery rating, and mitigations (mostly tactical mitigation). Critical rating is as it sounds, it increases your chances of scoring a critical hit, and the magnitude that your crits/devs will hit for. Physical mastery just straight up increases the damage of your skills. Mitigations give you protection from different types of damage (physical is from, well, physical damage like swords, bows, etc., tactical is from "magic" damage like Shadow, Lightning, Frost, etc., as well as Fire and Acid damage types). You can get a decent physical mitigation rating just from the armour value of your gear, but tact mit is a bit trickier, hence why it's worth being more aware of it.

Agility is useful because it increases your crit and PM, but there are traits and gear items that can increase those stats on their own. Vitality is useful as it boosts your morale and your tactical mitigation. You can also get tactical mitigation from virtues, which I recommend: I use Fidelity and Tolerance on my hunter (and in fact on all my other toons as well). As for other virtues, I would go with Determination, Valour, and Confidence (or Wit if you prefer). As for racial traits, high elves get an out-of-combat rez which could come in handy seeing as you don't have one otherwise, and there's a run speed boost which I *believe* stacks with Find the Path, so might be worth getting that too.

Hope this helps, am happy to help with any other questions you might have

[Starsmith]

https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/hunter-I1v3R I use those traits for my Blue Hunter. It works well for soloing things the game thinks are small fellowship level.

[RicoFTW]

https://ilovefriedorc.com/traits/hunter-I1v3R I use those traits for my Blue Hunter. It works well for soloing things the game thinks are small fellowship level.

Moving Target as well as Plant Feet never worked as far as I know.

[Starsmith]

Moving Target as well as Plant Feet never worked as far as I know.

No? It says it works in my evade stats mouseover. Never tested it, really, as I'm not sure how I would. Not a lot else I'd use that point for, tho. Run speed I guess?

[Nerwena]

Thanks so much guys, really appreciated! Your tips are very helpful

[Grodo]

First off, welcome to Middle-earth!

A similar question was asked a while back and I provided my low-effort blue line build there. Obviously if you've just started you're not going to have nearly so many trait points, so don't stress too much about which points from red are most important, etc. And as I said in that post, if you're playing solo there's no right or wrong way to play, just what works for you - so feel free to play around a bit and see what you prefer. This is just what I use, but you might want to go for some more heals, or for Pathfinder, or whatever. As pointed out in that thread, the True Shot trait for Penetrating Shot debuff is also a good one, but I just leave it out for solo play because things are dead too fast for me to want to bother with a mitigation debuff. So you see, everything is kind of optional when you're playing solo, that's the fun part

If you want some stronger advice though, there are some traits in both blue and red that are, well, a little useless. So I would advise against just maxing out every trait in blue and then going to red. For example, Bow of the Righteous, Moving Target, Strength of the Earth, Improved Intent Concentration, all IMO are wastes of trait points - but don't listen to me, read the tooltips, try 'em out and decide for yourself! If you love them, then go for them

As for being able to manage quests and such on your own, you shouldn't have any problems, hunter is one of the most survivable classes, even for new players. In blue line, your power comes from being able to kite effectively, so make sure you have that down, but it sounds like you do already! Do bear in mind though that blue line is lower in DPS than red, so it is going to take a little bit longer to kill mobs.

You're correct that you should focus on Agility and Vitality, there are a couple of other stats you want to look out for: critical rating, physical mastery rating, and mitigations (mostly tactical mitigation). Critical rating is as it sounds, it increases your chances of scoring a critical hit, and the magnitude that your crits/devs will hit for. Physical mastery just straight up increases the damage of your skills. Mitigations give you protection from different types of damage (physical is from, well, physical damage like swords, bows, etc., tactical is from "magic" damage like Shadow, Lightning, Frost, etc., as well as Fire and Acid damage types). You can get a decent physical mitigation rating just from the armour value of your gear, but tact mit is a bit trickier, hence why it's worth being more aware of it.

Agility is useful because it increases your crit and PM, but there are traits and gear items that can increase those stats on their own. Vitality is useful as it boosts your morale and your tactical mitigation. You can also get tactical mitigation from virtues, which I recommend: I use Fidelity and Tolerance on my hunter (and in fact on all my other toons as well). As for other virtues, I would go with Determination, Valour, and Confidence (or Wit if you prefer). As for racial traits, high elves get an out-of-combat rez which could come in handy seeing as you don't have one otherwise, and there's a run speed boost which I *believe* stacks with Find the Path, so might be worth getting that too.

Hope this helps, am happy to help with any other questions you might have

As a returning player who's last time played was 2010 - This was extremely helpful! It's been 10 years and my head is spinning just catching up.

Thanks so much for sharing your insight.

One quick question if you could please:


1. What's your rotation with Blue Line?

[Starsmith]

1. What's your rotation with Blue Line?

Not the person you asked, but I can probably answer. Since blue hunters aren't instance DPS, they're soloers (maybe PvmP?) that can do some instances solo, there's not really a set rotation I use. It depends on what I am facing and what I want to do.

For something like a difficult landscape critter (small fellowship quest kind), I would stand as far away as possible in Precision, gather focus, Burn Hot, Barbed Arrow to slow it, Heartseeker, Rapid Fire, Pen Shot, unload all focus skills I can while kiting it in circles. Switch to Endurance with Quick Shot spam, use Blood Arrow whenever available, add some Barrage to taste, and Press Onward if said critter is starting to do a lot of damage, while using Barbed Arrow to slow or Heartseeker whenever I feel comfortable enough to stop the Quick Shot/instant Focus skill spam or whenever I feel like I have a good lead kiting. Cry of the Hunter or Dazing Blow can help to get back some distance or to make everything stop for a moment to use Purge Poison since it roots.

For groups of critters in instances. if I am having trouble with them, I'll lay a trap, Bard's Arrow to pull them, then switch to a middle-distance critter and kill it while one is feared and another is trapped.

I am sure there are better ways to do things, though.