Let's start talking about hunters...

[SSG_Orion]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

[Oelle]

the yellow traitline should get several buffs to be worthwile outside of PvMP. Not (just) more damage, but mostly better stuff for the traps and decoy as thats the base of that traitline.

[19Euan96]

Hi Orion,

I only have a few major things I’d love to see changed with the hunters, which is my main class, so hopefully I know a little something. But I would make clear I mostly do landscape and quests as opposed to raiding etc.

For Blue Line:
- with the massive power creep, especially with the new LI’s I’d love to see barrage go back to not having a cool down. I think instead a higher power cost to make it a limited burst attack outside of rapid fire could be really fun. I think strength of the earth would be great if blue line hunters could use it while moving. Also a visual indication option (toggle perhaps) for when volley has triggered around your character, like the brawler’s mettle gauge for example, so you can maybe be more selecting about what you use it with.

For Red Line:
I love a good bit of red line, but the things I miss the most l, which to me feels less relevant now in power sense, especially when I see things like champ aoe, is I miss rain of arrows old reset chance on critical/devastates as opposed to the cool-down reduction we have now. I never felt it triggered enough to be overpowered, especially since focus meant you could only go so many times at once. I was very fun flavour as much as anything else. That’s always my biggest gripe in red line.

For Yellow Line:
Yellow is really fun…conceptually. There was a brief period when imbued weapons were first introduced where the trap damage scaled with your physical mastery rather than your weapon and they were really viable for solo play for a bit, not competing with the other lines but being pretty decent. Yellow just consistently feels weak compared to the other two, things like explosive arrow do about as much damage as a quick shot or two in the other lines, and it feels very lacklustre. Trap damage just needs a hike to make yellow a viable thing people can play when levelling, that isn’t massively outpaced at max level.

Hunters as a class:
As a personal thing, I’d love it if blood arrow healed maybe like 15% rather than 10 as it just feels very low as the only baseline heal the class gets compared to other, although we are ranged I do appreciate. Speaking of blood arrow, I really dislike the tying of corruption removal to the skill as well as healing. Sometimes you’re having to remove a corruption at full health or heal when you wanted to save it for a corruption etc. I assumed it was removed from merciful shot because of the health threshold requirement meaning you sometime wouldn’t have it for ages, but I just wish it was tethered to another skill instead. Even a new ability with low damage but an instead corruption removal or something, just one that wasn’t tied to a limited low heal.

[Strider5548]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

Hunter was my main for the first 14 years of this game...I have not really touched mine in a meaningful way since Gundabad launched so unfortunately I don't have a ton of feedback, but just wanted to post my appreciation for this thread.

Just a couple obvious things off the top of my head:

1) Red capstone skill has always been useless, an evade bonus for standing still is something no hunter has ever traited for...this could definitely be reworked.

2) Blue/Yellow line need a real purpose, blue used to be a great solo/leveling line but when it got too OP it was totally wrecked in the revamp around level 115 iirc. Yellow has some really niche applications in PvMP but other than that red line is pretty much the way to go for everything in PvE.

Maybe I'll dust off my hunter shortly so that I can provide more helpful thoughts, thanks again for posting this thread!

[Trixie_Me]

I feel like red hunters are in a really, really good place. My only request is please don't break them!

[Aeroniel]

For a casual solo player such as myself, blue line hunter is great! I hope it continues to be great.

Yellow line as people have said lacks...something. Here's a thought - make yellow line for hunters function just like yellow line for brawlers. Let it be a trait line that blue and red can dip into for 1 pt. Fill up yellow line with utility skills, esp crowd control skills. Eliminate yellow line for hunter being a stand alone spec.

Thanks for your work, Orion!

[PartherFar]

For a casual solo player such as myself, blue line hunter is great! I hope it continues to be great.

Yellow line as people have said lacks...something. Here's a thought - make yellow line for hunters function just like yellow line for brawlers. Let it be a trait line that blue and red can dip into for 1 pt. Fill up yellow line with utility skills, esp crowd control skills. Eliminate yellow line for hunter being a stand alone spec.

Thanks for your work, Orion!

Please do not eliminate the yellow line. It is the only line I play on the hunter. Also, do not eliminate the yellow line on any other class as has been suggested in the other threads requesting feedback.

I was never a fan of when they made the change to the the 3 lines. If you have to eliminate triat lines then eliminate them all and go back to no trait trees. One you eliminate one line then in a year eveybody will say the other triat line is useless and there is only one trait line to be played so why not eliminate it also.

Guardian was my favorite class when it launched until they made they move to the trait lines. Now the guardian sucks to play. I keep trying to play it but don't care for any of the lines, right now I find the yellow guardian the most enjoyable.

I solo mostly or play in 2 person groups. Just please when making changes please don't ruin the solo play or small group play for class adjustments for end game or raids. Also keep in mind that some of us are not max level so make sure the changes do not ruin the lower levels of a class.

[Michaleo]

As a Blue hunter, I will limit myself to the singular largest annoyance, which is the bizarre cooldown for Barrage. Introduced as a way to keep Blue hunters from competing with Red in raid DPS, the many other nerfs and adjustments since then have made it unnecessary.

There are already two mechanisms, power and focus, to limit spamming of a skill. Those are predictable and quick to reset when out of combat.

The (in practice) unpredictability of the penalty cooldown (15 seconds instead of 2) comes from the excessive time (17 seconds) after a Barrage 2 that will trigger Barrage 3 and the penalty cooldown.

For example, when questing, if you happen to run out of mobs after a Barrage 2 and you find more in that 17-second window, your first Barrage will be a Barrage 3 with the 15-second cooldown. You have to wait more than 17 seconds to have it go back to Barrage 1 with a 2-second cooldown.

Even the 15-second cooldown itself is inconvenient if you happen to end the fight with Barrage 3. As you go from fight to fight, you don't want to keep track of whether Barrage will be available at the start of a fight or how long the cooldown will be.

Do this experiment: Go back to the original behavior allowing Barrage 3 to repeat with a 2-second cooldown. How many can you actually do before focus and power run out? If too many, adjust the focus or power costs until it seems acceptable.

If you want to keep the penalty cooldown, reduce the window on Barrage 2 to trigger Barrage 3 from 17 to 6 seconds (as on Barrage 1). That way you are more likely to be back at Barrage 1 at the start of a fight.

As far as I know, this is the only cooldown in the game with this erratic behavior. I would be happy to see it go away.

[DoRonRon]

I believe it was Chromite that proved that the chain crit of Rain of Arrows made it destabilising for raid content. With increases to base crit with tracery bonuses this could only be worse now.

Loathed to suggest Blue capstones are not worth traiting because points spent in Bowmaster bring the solo Huntsman landscaper into it's own.

But having a trait, Rapid Fire, to require no focus cost for focus skills without sufficient focus skills that aren't incurring a CD makes no sense. Rather use Burn Hot and Deadly Precision - again from Bowmaster.

Volley is too expensive for the chances and without add-ons to track activity a nightmare to manage.

Moving Target.. we don't need evade cos with Improved Fleetness nothing can catch us up. Even that Troll RT in Mirkwood.

And Purge Poison ofc. We're always on the move in blue so why can we Press Onward but not cure on the move. But bring it into line with other classes animations and not require an immediate to break and move on when you might want that ranged interrupt for it's intended usage instead, Blindside.

For starters.

[DoRonRon]

*cough bring back "Focus Burn" Huntsman...

[alwaysbroke]

Beneath Notice could use a buff now that our LI's are immensely more powerful.

[Tatharil]

1. Define what yellow should be. What's its defined role. It tries to do several things at once and doesn't excel in any of it. Trait tree description states that it focuses on bleeds, cc and debuffing.
1.1 Cc: Too much roots, weakest sort of CC. Distracting shot too long CD since HD. Red line has comparable CC, but does way more damage.
1.2 Debuffs: in theory they are good, in reality applying them is very clunky and red has comparable debuffs. Penetrating shot de uff in red line is a lot stronger than yellow line ps debuffs armour rend.
1.3 bleeds: blue has stronger bleeds, lingering wound is a bad joke. Costs focus, and needs to be tiered up 4 times to be as strong as blue barbed arrow.

Bugs and annoyances in yellow:
2.1 lingering wound a defining attack of yellow line has several weaknesses making it useless. :needs to be tiered up 4 times to do noticeable damage ticks, doesn't benefit from oils or crit legacies, consumes focus
2.2 no defining stance. Strength used to increase lingering wound damage, not anymore since le is neither focus nor induction skill, precision lacks the snare and is hard to invest points in imp precision, endurance is useless. Give endurance yellow specific bonuses like reduced cc skill CD or increased bleed damage. Yellow lacks focus generating traits. Deadly precision and imp precision stance are too deep down in red and blue. Yellow lacks a focus consuming skill that's worth it since upshot can't be traited anymore. Wounded prey bonus damage is too low. Suggestion: change it into a new skill that consumes lw stacks and increases incoming damage per lw stack consumed.
2.3 trait line bonuses are strong, traits aren't. Instant traps, no focus loss on movement, trapdebuffs. Those are great. Rain of thorns damage, evade chance, armour rend... aren't

There are a lot more things to adress, but first of all keep in mind: if you change something because of red/blue, don't forget to think about how it affects yellow. Red buffs were mostly yellow nerfs. New strength stance, upshot redline only, lw losing initial tick, giving red stronger easier to apply debuffs than yellow.....

[Patriotp3a]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

As a long time lurker in these forums, posts like this from devs is honestly really nice to see.

[CasualActual]

Have a look at raid loot, for some reason hunter seems to get warden tanking gear in drops more often than not. To be clear when I say warden tanking jewerly I mean high vit, low agility pcs with mitigation instead of crit/mastery/finesse. Its been this way since Remmorchant and now HH potentially before that I don't know.

Any other feedback I could provide would be to cleanup the trait lines, get rid of stuff nobody uses and simplify things including making sure the tooltips are up to date and concise and verifying that all skills are wai. Hunter seems more dependent on LM then other classes, maybe something to look at balancing.

Above all as others have said, its nice to see a dev having conversations with the players again.

[Morat]

Have a look at raid loot, for some reason hunter seems to get warden tanking gear in drops more often than not. ...

Even wardens have no use for warden tanking gear anymore, alas.

[Atomos]

2 things related to blue-line Hunter:

1. The cure for effects skill "Purge Poison" roots you at your current position for a few seconds, even in blue-line. This kind of seems out of place for me because IMO the whole point of choosing blue-line over red-line is to sacrifice damage and range for increased mobility. I would like to see this skill changed so that it can be used while moving, at least for blue-line Hunter.

2. Often after using the skill "Blood Arrow", I have to press the key for the skill "Exsanguinate" multiple times before "Exsanguinate" is used a few seconds later. Sometimes this does not happen and I can use "Exsanguinate" immediately after using "Blood Arrow", as I would like. Not sure if it's related to lag or something with the animation time/skill delay, or something else. I would appreciate this being fixed or improved.

[CasualActual]

2. Often after using the skill "Blood Arrow", I have to press the key for the skill "Exsanguinate" multiple times before "Exsanguinate" is used a few seconds later. Sometimes this does not happen and I can use "Exsanguinate" immediately after using "Blood Arrow", as I would like. Not sure if it's related to lag or something with the animation time/skill delay, or something else. I would appreciate this being fixed or improved.

I've had this problem too, I thought it was just me.

[cwswim03]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

It's a problem that the best DPS makeup in t4/t5 HH is 3 hunters + yellow mini/yellow warden.

[JMakin]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

Let me start by saying that I don't post a lot on the forums, but I do read them, and I do appreciate this type of exchange! I am posting from my second account, so don't be mislead by my Join Date.

To put things in perspective: My hunter is my main. I do not really play any other class due to time constraints. That said, I do play quite a bit (around 35 to 40 hours a week on average). I log in daily. I only play endgame content. I do not PvP. I actually have two hunters to work around loot IDs. I am a "completionist", trying to complete all deeds. I have played since Beta, and I have had to take personal break between level 65 and 130, with the occasional login, but not playing regularly during that time.

Hunter to me is, was and always will be a DPS class. It is the only true ranged physical DPS class in the game.

Let's take a look at the various trees:

Red
To me, this line is especially important for endgame/raids, because it focuses on highest DPS. Let's be brutally honest: If a class does not deliver high (or rather highest) DPS, the class is being rejected (today: e.g. RKs). This line should always focus on how to deliver the highest DPS possible for the hunter class. It's the stationary, high DPS trait line, with max range.

Today, this line is in really good shape. Nothing (!!!), also for the sake of resource efficiency, needs to be changed here. You should spend your time on blue and especially yellow. There is one exception: the capstone skill "Plant Feet". This skill is, for a capstone skill, utterly useless and absolutely needs a change. If you were to run a reporting on how many endgame hunters actually spend points here, the result must be 0%. Let's not make things complicated: Simply change it to give it a decent ranged damage bonus instead of evade. Fixed!

Blue
To me personally, blue hunter is not in a bad spot. I use it to run solo, landscape content, with moderate range. I heard it's also being used in PvP due to its mobility, which is exactly what this line is about. It does not need a drastic change, but it could use some love. Today, it is mainly being used to be combined with the red line, in order to increase damage (Impact Arrows, Strong Draw, Split Shot, QS Focus, Blood Arrow, Exsanguinate, Barbed Fury) and survivability (Blood Arrow, Press Onwards).

Skills/traits that are useless or do not scale are:

• Bow of the Righteous - unless power consumption becomes a valid component again, it will remain useless
• Strength of the Earth - it does not fit in with the mobility aspect of this line, and the morale restoration from Earthborn does not scale, and power restauration is useless (today)
• Shot Through the Heart - does not scale, i.e. does not make an impact enough to make it worth spending points in. Needs a decent bump!
• Volley - needs some love, see below

So the above skills can be enhanced or possibly replaced with something new.

• Depending on if power consumption becomes a valid component of the game again, Bow of the Righteous and Strength of the Earth simply need to scale.
• I would make Strength of the Earth a skill that can be used while moving, and make it scale properly. I guess the idea would be to leave it on a 90s cooldown, and have it restore around 30% of the power a hunter would consume in these 90 seconds, so that power pots and other means of restoring power (Intent Concentration, Bow of the Righteous, also skills from other classes) still need to be used to manage the hunter's power pool.
• Bow of the Righteous simply needs to scale, or it could be replaced by something new. I find it obsolete to be honest. I guess at the time the idea was to use more focus skills in blue, which also meant higher power consumption. That is somewhat negligible, today. I don't have an idea of what to replace it with at the moment to be honest, but since it is buried quite deep in the blue line, it should be something decent.
• Shot Through the Heart simply needs a decent damage boost. The boost needs to be significant, and it needs to be transparent (i.e. +10% damage on targets with bleeds on them). Could be a ranked approach, too.
• Volley - the problem is that if it procs and your next skill in your rotation is a QS, it's basically wasted. It should proc a buff/skill (like Blood Arrow with Exsanguinate) to be used within a certain timeframe (let's say 5 seconds), because it can remove the induction of Heart seeker, which is probably the only skill it would be used for, unless HS is on cooldown, then it would either be Split Shot or Swift Bow.

Yellow
I have never really played yellow line. I have never tried it. It simply is too far away from what I expect from a hunter. I think this is the perfect line to use as a shared line.

My idea of this line is to be a sort of "buff" line. There are a few examples in there today already that make it useful, like Natural Abstracts or Survival Gear. These are the ones being used in combination with the red line, because they are on the top tier and are available even with zero points spent in yellow, which is kind of the idea of a shared tree/line.

For me, the most important thing is that hunters become a viable choice as a group/raid member when it comes to supporting the group. Today, the only real support we provide is with Improved Penetrating Shot, Hemorrhaging Shot and Archer's Mark, but the benefit for the group is quite poor. By improving the yellow, shared line, hunters should be able to buff the group in a way that at least one hunter should always be part of a raid (which should be the case for any class, ideally). I hear this about other classes sometimes. Although the class itself would not be a preferred class for that particular content, it is still part of the line-up because of its utility. Hunters don't have this today, and this needs to change! Again, this is IMO the most important part of the yellow/shared tree line revamp!

I am not going to go into the specifics here (I might edit this post later on after some brainstorming), but a few things come to mind:

Decoy - Make it a force taunt for a short duration, in the sense of: the tank is down, and while we rezz, hunter decoy to the rescue (similar to LM bear taunt)! Make it a ground-targeted ranged skill.
Tripwire - Raise the chance of this being a knock down. Make it a ground-targeted ranged skill.
Traps - Remove damage from traps, and add more buffs instead (+ incoming damage, -mitigations, etc.). Please make these ground-targeted ranged skills as well!

I mean of all this needs to be in moderation, and relative to what other classes can do. I do not expect the hunter to replace a LM!

More buffs in yellow could be used to improve hunter damage. As an example: True Shot from the red line should really be in yellow/shared, because it helps the whole group.

Also, please move hunter away from being a melee class. We need to move already enough due to the game content (moving out of puddles, moving inside banners, getting up close for buffs, etc.). There is no reason why hunters should be in any shape or form a melee class. The only situation in which I use a melee skill today is Improved Dazing Blow to remove a corruption, or Cry of the Hunters for interrupts if Blindside is on cd, but it's quite rare, and can be removed completely if you ask me.

Some general items
Burn Hot - Please, please, please, please make this an immediate skill, without animation. It's just so annoying to lose DPS having to sidestep/use another immediate skill to shorten the animation.
Purge Poison - Please shorten/remove the animation/stuck part. Make it like for wardens/pots, usable while moving, otherwise it will penalize blue line.
Cry of the hunter - The morale bubble could use a little bump. Make it morale based (like 10%). Could be something that can be improved by ranks from e.g. blue line, maybe replace it with one of the useless skills we have in there today.
Pen Shot - I would vote for increasing the duration of pen shot debuff, and give it a cooldown as well. Having to press it every 10 seconds is just meh. Can we make this 30 seconds please, or 20 at least?
Camp Fire - Please give us more slots for camp fires! Middle Earth is a beautiful, but very large area. Having just one camp fire location is almost useless.
Do we still need stances? I think these can be removed from the class. If not, these need to be revamped.

That is all I can think of right now. I generally like the hunter as it is right now! Do not reinvent the wheel here. I obviously do not expect all of the above changes to be implemented. These are just ideas. I will edit this post or create a new one when new/more ideas come to mind!

Thank you for listening (to me ;-D )! Have fun improving the class, but please don't break it. I like the way it is right now...

[Hastran]

I fully agree that Purge Poison should be useable on the move.

I would like to see the Find the Path skill removed from the Blue tree: Out of Combat run speed just isn't worth points in Blue Line much less a Red or yellow dipping into Blue at 2 points for each 3% . Even if maxed Bears and Wardens are as fast or faster and it costs them no points. High Elves get +10% run speed so a Hunter is barely faster unless they pour points into Find the Path boosts.

On a different note I would to see Hunters get +5% Spear Damage. As there is no Racial trait for Spear damage it would not be an increase in power. Also, Hunters and Spears are just a natural combination, but most everyone uses the Racial Trait Weapon (swords, axes, clubs). It would really fit with the RP of the Class.

Yellow line either needs work or to become a Utility Line as has been suggested.

Capstone skills previously mentioned need replacing and a Channeled Healing skill for Blue line makes no sense even if the Heal was worthwhile (which it is not).

Take away the Elf Bow damage Racial trait and Elves cease to be played as everyone shifts to High Elves which have better animations and racial traits (excluding +5% Bow damage). I admit I would want a High Elven hunter just for the Roll out of a fall...it is cool.

[Tatharil]

Yellow line either needs work or to become a Utility Line as has been suggested.

If yellow was degraded to being an utility line like brawler or butchered minstrel, it would save me lots of free time. Helms deep ruined LM fun(flanking, wind lore, melee damage), yellow hunter was my refuge after that, but due to messed up red changes yellow became worse and worse. Hoping for a yellow hunter rework is what kept me from deinstalling lotro despite the bad changes (Ash and cash driven content, hobbit wizards and such...)

[Guidorocker]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

ARMOR!

I'm scrambling to try to find HUNTER worthy armor.
Several of my other characters were fighter class, and mages/runemaster, loremaster, and haven't played through a high level HUNTER before.

Trying to find good looking hunter armor is hard.
Robes? no.
Chain link? no.
Hauberks? no... the one that does look good is the Green Chest piece of the Armor of the Eorlingas (which came on the pre-order of the Rise of Isengard). That was on what is now my wife's character. MY Characters were started after the Isengard expansion on a newly created account (so we can both play together), so is there any chance for me to own this armor???

[Hastran]

ARMOR!

I'm scrambling to try to find HUNTER worthy armor.
Several of my other characters were fighter class, and mages/runemaster, loremaster, and haven't played through a high level HUNTER before.

Trying to find good looking hunter armor is hard.
Robes? no.
Chain link? no.
Hauberks? no... the one that does look good is the Green Chest piece of the Armor of the Eorlingas (which came on the pre-order of the Rise of Isengard). That was on what is now my wife's character. MY Characters were started after the Isengard expansion on a newly created account (so we can both play together), so is there any chance for me to own this armor???

Solution: Dunland

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Dunland_Armour_Sets

One of my favorite Hauberks for a Hunter is Giard-crus / Nightshade jacket, but Dunland has several nice pieces available from quest rewards.

[Uziel2121]

Given that the Blue line is meant to be mobile it would be nice if there were no abilities that rooted you. As has been stated before regarding the Cure Poison ability.

Perhaps in the Blue Trait line replace Moving Target with something that improves Barrage crit magnitude, or avoid mitigations etc. +Evasion for moving should just be baseline with the Blue line.

[Nardûaninzil]

This is not a post that pretends that there are Hunter changes imminent. It's a discussion to draw forth thoughts on our ranged combatant and where some believe that there is room for improvement, skills, effects, and traits that are underwhelming, and a wishlist of what you might like to see moving forward.

I play mainly yellow hunter now.
Started off as red-line back in 2014, got bored of that play-style by Evendim (level 40-ish) so I switched to blue which I enjoyed playing until level 115 (the level cap at the time). I checked out the yellow line for a brief time but couldn't figure out how to play it effectively so I shelved the hunter for at least a couple years while I played other classes, mainly support roles (lore-master, burglar, minstrel). Learning those play-styles prompted me to take another look at the yellow hunter line which I'm happy I did. Compared to the other two lines I find yellow more engaging and mentally stimulating. I'm not saying blue and red are bad, they are powerful and oh-so-fun to watch someone who plays them well. There are aspects about the yellow-line that appeal to me - the additional layer of strategy behind the pew-pewing and group support (especially in higher tier instances and raids).

A couple of wishes for the yellow-hunter:

1) Purge Corruption - I understand the need for a cool-down since this is an AOE cleanse and very powerful in groups, but for solo content (particularly at higher tier Delving missions) it leaves me vulnerable to repeated applications of de-buffs. This might be something to take a look at. As for its rooting animation, I find it useful to have a skill that prevents knock-backs.

2) Buggy Traps - on occasion, the traps will seemingly get placed randomly or far from where I intended to place them, creating a 2-fold issue. Firstly and most obviously, the trap is placed where you didn't intend for it to go. Secondly and more importantly, once a trap is placed, there is no way to dismiss it which could be detrimental in certain situations.

Overall, I am very happy with my hunter