Hunter Update - Option #1

[SSG_Orion]

Before you read further let's establish what this is. This is a very early pass on what changes might come to the Hunter class.

I am calling this option one, because there are two potential options that we are considering. Option two will be in a forthcoming post. We will gather feedback from both sets of options and make decisions once we have more clarity on how to best proceed.

As with my posts in the Guardian forums. If a trait is not mentioned then it is not currently being considered for revision or updating.

Huntsman

Grants Scourgin Blow
Grants Barrage
No Focus Loss While Moving
No Miss Chance Penalty While Moving

The Skirmisher

Replaces Nock on the Move (Requires 5 traits in Huntsman)

Successful melee attacks grant 1 Focus
Successful critical attacks gran 3 Focus

Strong Arm, Sharp Eye

Replaces Strong Draw (requires 5+ in Huntsman)

6 ranks

Ranks 1-6: +5% Bow Damage on bow skills that consume focus and +2.5% melee damage per rank
Rank 6: 15% chance to reduce the cost of skills by 1 focus for 5s

Nock on the Move

Replaces Split Shot - 1 Rank
Induction based attacks can be used while moving

Improved Intent Concentration

Now has 2 ranks
Each rank provides 15s cooldown

Fire on the Run

1 Rank (Requires 10+ in Huntsman)

Reduces the induction movement penalty by 20%

Athleticism
+ Physical Mastery Rating / tier (value is TBD)

Barbed Hindrance

15 Deep Set Bonus
+30% to Barbed Arrow Damage
+10% to Babrbed Arrow Bleed Damage
Slows target by 20%

Fleet, Focused, and Fierce

Replaces Improved Fleerness at 25 Rank Set Bonus

On every harmful skill, an additional 20% chance to increase run speed by 10%
Gain 1 focus per 5s
Increase Melee Damage by 10%

Rupture Artery

Replaces Moving Target (30+ ranks)

Using Scourging Blow on a target affected by the Exsanguinate Bleed removes the bleed and automatically deals a devastating Critical blow.

Bowmaster

Grants: Pinning Shot
Grants Needful Haste
Reduces Swift Bow induction by .8s
-25% Attack Duration
+10 max range for all ranged skills

Swift Release

5 Rank Set Bonus

33% reduction to Barbed arrow and Swift Bow inductions

Draw Weight
5 ranks (requires 5+ Bowmaster)

+3% Induction bow damage and 3% induction bow critical multiplier per rank

Shoot to Kill

10 Rank set bonus

+10% Ranged Damage
2.5% Critical Magnitude multiplier

Mercy Kill

Reduced to 2 ranks
+15% Critical Chance on Merciful Shot/rank

Bodkin Arrows

5 Ranks
Bypass 2% of target's mitigations/rank
+.6% Bleed damage/rank

Plant Feet

Becomes:

Every 1.5s you do not move you gain a tier of Hold Groung to a max of 5 tiers
Hold Ground effects are removed if you move, are out of combat for 9s
Hold Ground removes a tier on each critical strike
Hold Ground: +2% Evade, Damage, and critical chance per tier

Trapper of Foes

Grants skill: Lingering Wound
Grants Skill: Decoy
Traps can be used while moving and have no induction

Split Shot

Grants Skill: Split Shot

Explosive Arrow

Grants Skill: Explosive Arrow

Damages a target and explodes around the target damaging all enemies within 5m and burning for 5s

Combative and Elusive

Replaces Elusive

+Physical Master Rating/rank (Value TBD)
+1% Evade /rank
Evading an attack increases run speed by 5% can trigger up to 3 times every 10s

Quick Escape

Moves from Red to Yellow (requires 15+ in Trapper of Foes)

No Focus loss on Low Cut
Apples a 3s root

Endurance

2 Ranks

+1% to Parry and Evade /rank
Evading or Parrying an attack restores 1% max morale (Can occur 5 times every 30s)

Armour Rend

4 ranks

Each Rank grants -4% Physcal mitigation against the target and reduces Block, Parry, and Evade rating by .75%

Purge Poison

Affects fellowship and increases cooldown to 12s

Emergency Preparations

4 Ranks

Rank 1: After evading an attack you place a Set Trap in front of you.
Rank 2: After Evading an attack you place a Piercing Trap in front of you.
Rank 3: After Evading an attack you place The One Trap in front of you.
Rank 4: Gain Skill: Survivalist Prepper

Survivalist Prepper places a Set Trap 90 degrees to your left, The One Trap in front of you, and a Piercing Trap 90 degrees to your right
Cooldown 180s

Sturdy Traps

35 Rank Set Bonus
+5s trap Grace Period
+5s Trap Duraion
No Focus Loss on Movement
Survivalist Prepper Cooldown reduction by 60s

That is the outline. Let's discuss.

[Ryvick]

Interesting thoughts, not sure yellow trait-able is really all that important to keep, but is that +10 to range in Red in addition to the tracery or will the +range tracery be going away? Am I wrong or would that be further range. I'm not in game at the moment.

[DoRonRon]

Huntsman:

The point of the huntsman is to avoid getting hit so our melee skills are for slow/root, cashing in of bleed and daze/corruption removal. Damage bonuses for melee belong elsewhere. And now we are the donor for trapper line too, loosing our focus using induction AE?

Fire on the run? Is this for other trees to buy into as we should have no penalty? Notch on the move too?

Fleet, Focus and Farse: Why buff our speed and then give us melee bonus, we aren't rushing into melee...

Rapid fire: we don't have sufficient focus non induction skills for this trait - still pointless going this deep and loose what we get much better from the red tree.

If the intent was to only provide Bow masters with something else to spend points in, job done. Please make it viable in it's own right. Or just let us buy what we can get from Red now for viability. Will gladly make you some huntsman videos*, you maybe have bad source material.

*Edit: if I can get my mic recording

[Snowlock]

The problem with the hunter is he has one role, and that is single target dps. Whenever another class starts to creep into that role as an equal - RK or champ for example - the hunter loses his spot. The RK can bring heals as an alternate. The Champ has more survivabliity.

Option 1 doesn't seem to address this problem and I think any rework of the hunter has to start with that problem.

Otherwise it looks like Bowmaster will still be the primary role and huntsman and trapper will continue to be niche builds. Even with the changes, they won't compete with bowmaster.

[Antophant]

Just my opinions on the individual changes + broad thoughts at the end.

Huntsman
Grants Scourgin Blow
Grants Barrage
No Focus Loss While Moving
No Miss Chance Penalty While Moving

Mostly fine here.

Personally Id move Scourging Blow to Trapper and make it interact with Lingering Wound.

The Skirmisher
Replaces Nock on the Move (Requires 5 traits in Huntsman)

Successful melee attacks grant 1 Focus
Successful critical attacks gran 3 Focus

Blue Hunters don't really have focus issues, I'd say they currently have an issue with what to use Focus on.

Pen Shot spam is not great anymore, Barrage is on a 2sec CD, Blood Arrow is 15sec, Rain of Arrows is 12secs and Split Shot at 10secs.

Current Huntsman rotation mirrors Bowmaster except Barrage replaces Upshot + slower and/or weaker Inductions from lack of trait points.

Strong Arm, Sharp Eye
Replaces Strong Draw (requires 5+ in Huntsman)

6 ranks

Ranks 1-6: +5% Bow Damage on bow skills that consume focus and +2.5% melee damage per rank
Rank 6: 15% chance to reduce the cost of skills by 1 focus for 5s

The melee damage seems oddly tacked on, will be grabbed regardless ofc.

Nock on the Move
Replaces Split Shot - 1 Rank
Induction based attacks can be used while moving

Is this just a 1 point trait that gives Redline 90% of the reason you would normally go Blueline?

Why unbake it from Huntsman?

Now has 2 ranks
Each rank provides 15s cooldown

1 extra point to do what it currently can on live.

Fire on the Run

1 Rank (Requires 10+ in Huntsman)

Reduces the induction movement penalty by 20%

Similar to above why give other specs access to the main reason to go Blueline?

Athleticism
+ Physical Mastery Rating / tier (value is TBD)

No issues just not something I've seen asked for in Blueline.

Barbed Hindrance

15 Deep Set Bonus
+30% to Barbed Arrow Damage
+10% to Babrbed Arrow Bleed Damage
Slows target by 20%

Nice small buffs to the set bonus.

Fleet, Focused, and Fierce

Replaces Improved Fleerness at 25 Rank Set Bonus

On every harmful skill, an additional 20% chance to increase run speed by 10%
Gain 1 focus per 5s
Increase Melee Damage by 10%

Why the sudden focus on adding Melee Damage to a Spec that wants to be on the move away from mobs?

Rupture Artery

Replaces Moving Target (30+ ranks)

Using Scourging Blow on a target affected by the Exsanguinate Bleed removes the bleed and automatically deals a devastating Critical blow.

Scourging Blow wasn't worth using on a mob with Barbed Arrow bleed on, even less reason to use it with Exsanguinate Bleed which can't be reapplied quickly.

Bowmaster

Grants: Pinning Shot
Grants Needful Haste
Reduces Swift Bow induction by .8s
-25% Attack Duration
+10 max range for all ranged skills

"Reduces Swift Bow induction by .8s"

Swift Bow is already pushing 0.3secs the skill is fast enough on live.

Swift Release

5 Rank Set Bonus

33% reduction to Barbed arrow and Swift Bow inductions

Same as Above.

Draw Weight
5 ranks (requires 5+ Bowmaster)

+3% Induction bow damage and 3% induction bow critical multiplier per rank

Unchanged so no issues.

Shoot to Kill

10 Rank set bonus

+10% Ranged Damage
2.5% Critical Magnitude multiplier

Small buff to Red Hunter, not much else to say.

Mercy Kill

Reduced to 2 ranks
+15% Critical Chance on Merciful Shot/rank

Small nerf to Merciful Shot but makes it almost guaranteed to crit, kinda like it.

Bodkin Arrows

5 Ranks
Bypass 2% of target's mitigations/rank
+.6% Bleed damage/rank

Small buff to bleeds, just makes Bodkin Arrows even more of a must have for Huntsman/Trapper.

Plant Feet

Becomes:

Every 1.5s you do not move you gain a tier of Hold Ground to a max of 5 tiers
Hold Ground effects are removed if you move, are out of combat for 9s
Hold Ground removes a tier on each critical strike
Hold Ground: +2% Evade, Damage, and critical chance per tier

Thought it was crazy at first until I read it more.
It makes your opening burst damage super consistent at the start of fights but after that its just 2% critical chance + 2% damage every 1.5 secs as there's little chance you hit tier 2 with Quick Shot spam.

Still 100% worth grabbing compared to what it currently is on live.

Trapper of Foes

Grants skill: Lingering Wound
Grants Skill: Decoy
Traps can be used while moving and have no induction

Lingering Wound needs to be looked at, it went from a weak but quick focus builder that could bleed several mobs to a weaker + expensive focus cost skill that had its CD tripled.

Its tiering buff is fine at +80%ish but the bleed itself is too small, even at tier 4 it is weaker than every other hunter bleed.

Split Shot

Grants Skill: Split Shot

No idea why it moved to Trapper line.

Unless its in the first row it effectively removes Split Shot from Huntsman as well as BowMaster if going for Strength of the Earth.

Explosive Arrow

Grants Skill: Explosive Arrow

Damages a target and explodes around the target damaging all enemies within 5m and burning for 5s

Awkward to use AOE skill in combat that is also pitifully weak.

Combative and Elusive

Replaces Elusive

+Physical Master Rating/rank (Value TBD)
+1% Evade /rank
Evading an attack increases run speed by 5% can trigger up to 3 times every 10s

This should just be Athleticism or vice versa.

Quick Escape

Moves from Red to Yellow (requires 15+ in Trapper of Foes)

No Focus loss on Low Cut
Apples a 3s root

Fine, a bit more fitting for Trapper at least.

Endurance

2 Ranks

+1% to Parry and Evade /rank
Evading or Parrying an attack restores 1% max morale (Can occur 5 times every 30s)

Would feel better if it proc'd on hit and gave a short Evade/Parry buff + the small Morale heal, you don't need healing if you're evading the hit.

Armour Rend

4 ranks

Each Rank grants -4% Physcal mitigation against the target and reduces Block, Parry, and Evade rating by .75%

Assuming Pen Shot keeps its 4% baseline debuff you can get 20% physical mit debuff, kind of OP but somewhat balanced by having 1 hunter needing to go Trapper or Bowmaster + deep yellow.

More of a win for Champ/Burg and Brawler heh.

Purge Poison

Affects fellowship and increases cooldown to 12s

If it keeps the 2 cleanses that's fine.

Emergency Preparations

4 Ranks

Rank 1: After evading an attack you place a Set Trap in front of you.
Rank 2: After Evading an attack you place a Piercing Trap in front of you.
Rank 3: After Evading an attack you place The One Trap in front of you.
Rank 4: Gain Skill: Survivalist Prepper

Survivalist Prepper places a Set Trap 90 degrees to your left, The One Trap in front of you, and a Piercing Trap 90 degrees to your right
Cooldown 180s

When you evade with rank 3-4 can you only place The One Trap? as honestly Id prefer Set Trap for the root + Inc damage debuff.

Having another way to apply traps outside of evade procs is nice as traps are slow to reapply otherwise.

Sturdy Traps

35 Rank Set Bonus
+5s trap Grace Period
+5s Trap Duraion
No Focus Loss on Movement
Survivalist Prepper Cooldown reduction by 60s

All nice, anything that makes traps more active and applied more often is welcome.





The issues I'm seeing is Huntsman is gutted of its identity, *run and gunner*
Scourged Blow interactions added when its better to just Quickshot spam or use some other ranged skill and keep the bleeds,
would still feel like a slower clunkier Bowmaster,
the traits that made Huntsman a on the move DPSer is up for grabs as Bowmaster/Trapper.

Trapper just doesn't gain enough to be a proper CCer
1 more set of traps per minute but still requires being smacked by mobs to get anything extra.
Distraction Shot would still be a 2min cd daze with a tracery for -16.5secs if gold which is not enough,
its identity would become "make sure to pen shot everything on CD".

BowMaster is the big winner,
better DPS than before,
gains on the move inductions if desired OR can be a Phys Mit debuffer for the group if willing to sacrifice Huntsman traits,
loses nothing of importance in BowMaster traitline.

[Belechael]

No to everything before you tell us what you believe is wrong and the reasoning to fix it.

I won't bother to read about changes, compare with what we currently have and provide feedback for things that are working perfectly fine.

As a previous poster wrote, Hunters' main issue is that they have ONE role only, so having 3 different ways to satisfy this role is hard, and personally I am perfectly satisfied to just have ONE way (tree) that is working great and forget the other ones.

This means that I would very much appreciate if you LET THE BOWMASTER TREE AS IT IS and just make any changes to the other ones.

Thank you.

[Agollas]

To me it seems like there's a lot of changes but they're all just for the sake of making changes without providing a real benefit to each line.

To start with, red line is in a good place. Don't make significant changes to it, instead use it as a baseline.

In my opinion, the aim should be to give each trait line a reason to be used, with 2 trait lines being desirable in instances/raids and one trait line being ideal for landscape. Making blue in to a melee hybrid doesn't make sense to me (people play hunter because they want to do ranged damage) especially as red would be able to dip in to blue for the inductions while moving, removing a key selling point of blue.

I believe blue should become a mobile burst/stealth ranged DPS line, while red should be able to provide more sustained high numbers as it does now. I would achieve this by moving the Hidden Stalker (+50% crit from stealth) set bonus over to blue line and separately modify camouflage so that it consumes 1 focus every 3 seconds but allows movement (this would allow other trait lines to move slightly in stealth, but blue would be able to move indefinitely). The addition of mobile stealth would make people want to play blue line more than they do at the moment. I know this encroaches on burglar playstyle slightly but I think one being ranged stealth and one being melee stealth is enough of a distinction to separate the playstyles, especially when neither red burg or blue hunter is the most used in raids anyway.


For me the issue with yellow line is that it tries to do lots of things badly rather than one thing well and these proposed changes don't really do much to help that. IMO you need to decide what role to fill and modify the trap bonuses etc to fit that role, rather than provide a bit of everything.

If you want yellow to be a CC build, give all traps stuns/roots, reduce distracting shot cd more etc, make decoy fear all enemies withing a certain range (essentially providing a protective bubble around the group for a short time)

If you want yellow to be a buff/debuff build, make all the trap bonuses do that - for example piercing could increase incoming damage, the one trap could reduce outgoing etc, the decoy could debuff all enemies in its range.

If you want yellow to be a healing build (not recommended), give the traps bonuses similar to piercing.

I like the fellowship purge poison cd reduction to 12s, please make it an optional trait rather than a set bonus though - in some instances purging everyon's poison isn't the right thing to do and more control is better. Also make it able to be used while moving.




A final request which doesn't specifically relate to the trait trees, but the hunter does have a lot of interesting skills which could be reworked slightly: Tracking enemies doesn't need 3 separate skills - just clutters the quicklsot bars when a single skill to track all types would work just as well.

Make campfire provide more benefit, maybe give it a very small AoE HoT - not enough to main heal anything by far, but just enough to provide a tiny benefit to the group

[SSG_Orion]

Huntsman:

The point of the huntsman is to avoid getting hit so our melee skills are for slow/root, cashing in of bleed and daze/corruption removal. Damage bonuses for melee belong elsewhere. And now we are the donor for trapper line too, loosing our focus using induction AE?

Huntsman's identity is mid-range mobile harasser. The intent with this change would be to enable them to move in an out of melee fluidly to maximize their contributions to group DPS, without impeding their landscape/solo efficacy.

Bowmaster is the classic stand and deliver style ranged damage dealer. A bit bland, but definitely efficient.

Trapper of Foes is supposed to be the hybrid AoE/CC unique spec line.

Certainly didn't expect to get warm fuzzies for this first offering on this option. I'm looking to start the discussion on where we, the collective we, want to move Hunter.

Out of the gate, Option #1 is supposed to start carving out identities: Huntsman is the skirmisher, Bowmaster is the backline DPS, and Trapper of Foes is the AoE/CC.

Fire on the run? Is this for other trees to buy into as we should have no penalty? Notch on the move too?

Yes. I want to modernize the class a little. Being able to move while using a ranged weapon is possible, but more difficult. Specialists - like the Huntsman - would ignore those difficulties but the other Hunters could benefit from being able to move. However, the incentive should be to reward the expected playstyle. Hunstman moving, Bowmaster stationary, and Trapper being a little tricksy.

Fleet, Focus and Farse: Why buff our speed and then give us melee bonus, we aren't rushing into melee...

So you can fulfill the role of a skirmisher that can be effective in melee as well as ranged.

Rapid fire: we don't have sufficient focus non induction skills for this trait - still pointless going this deep and loose what we get much better from the red tree.

What is your counter?

[SSG_Orion]

The problem with the hunter is he has one role, and that is single target dps. Whenever another class starts to creep into that role as an equal - RK or champ for example - the hunter loses his spot. The RK can bring heals as an alternate. The Champ has more survivabliity.

Option 1 doesn't seem to address this problem and I think any rework of the hunter has to start with that problem.

Otherwise it looks like Bowmaster will still be the primary role and huntsman and trapper will continue to be niche builds. Even with the changes, they won't compete with bowmaster.

A lot of that would come with the numbers.

While reading back over my initial notes and some of the early feedback here, I am wondering how far I can push the CC aspect on trapper.

Example: Strong Intimidation becomes Bard's Decoy Trap. Bard's Decoy Trap Deploy a fear trap that bears the image of the famed Bard. This image strikes fear into the heart's of enemies and causes them to flee. Trap Duration 20s Fear.

[Tepee]

Interesting thoughts, not sure yellow trait-able is really all that important to keep, but is that +10 to range in Red in addition to the tracery or will the +range tracery be going away? Am I wrong or would that be further range. I'm not in game at the moment.

? Red always had +10 range, at least from Helm's Deep for sure (when I started playing).

[Kaeneth]

Huntsman's identity is mid-range mobile harasser. The intent with this change would be to enable them to move in an out of melee fluidly to maximize their contributions to group DPS, without impeding their landscape/solo efficacy.

......*snip*

So you can fulfill the role of a skirmisher that can be effective in melee as well as ranged.

I really like this idea. I've always wanted a playstyle in Lotro similar to this where I could actually make practical use of both bow and sword, and if it could be made group viable and still keep the practicality of its current landscape ability then even better. It also provides a better contrast to the other two trees' playstyles. So this concept going forward, maybe with one or two more melee skills in blue for filler/focus building, is something I personally am in favor of.

If you guys don't want to do a ranger like class then this sounds about like the closest thing we'll be able to get to it.

[Gnagerwine]

I'm happy to see Yellow and Blue Hunters getting some attention, but like the situation with Yellow LMs, I'm not yet convinced that they'll be anywhere near as desired as Red Hunter in raids.
Sorry I don't have any specific ideas how to correct this, just stating my concern.

[LinkZ.]

Huntsman's identity is mid-range mobile harasser. The intent with this change would be to enable them to move in an out of melee fluidly to maximize their contributions to group DPS, without impeding their landscape/solo efficacy.

Bowmaster is the classic stand and deliver style ranged damage dealer. A bit bland, but definitely efficient.

Trapper of Foes is supposed to be the hybrid AoE/CC unique spec line.

This seems perfectly in line with my understanding of hunter. The problem is in this forum you have a lot of people that think they know hunter a lot better than they do. The only things I would add the following:

Huntsman: on top of the mobility, they get one of the only melee skills for hunter, so that makes perfect sense that you would bump that, but also core to blue is bleeds and bleed dmg.
Bowmaster: High single target burst, strong single target bleeds, mild AOE dmg, a lot of skill rooting like swift bow or roa so extremely stationary
Trapper: Yes this line has good CC, but I want to make sure the buffing/debuffing support aspect isn't overlooked. Trap debuffs are one of the biggest parts of yellow, thats why when they were broken people didn't even trait swap for prebuffs.

Anyway, so far so good i think as long as the numbers hold up I think hunter will be in a good position with the changes that have been mentioned.

[Tralfazz]

My main on Treebeard is a Yellow Hunter and I have enjoyed him a LOT.

One of the Yellow bonus traits is Purge Poison which modifies the skill of the same name. It makes the Purge Poison skill apply to the entire Fellowship but increases the cooldown. According to the OP of this thread, the increased cooldown is planned to be changed to 12 seconds (from the untraited 5 seconds). 12 seconds is better than the current 20 seconds! But it's still an annoyance when not in a group.

Perhaps the traited version of the Purge Poison skill could have an increased cooldown of 12 seconds when in a group but when not in a group remain at 5 seconds.

Alternatively, perhaps the trait could add a new skill which would apply a 12 second shared cooldown to both itself and the base Purge Poison skill. If the base Purge Poison skill is used it would apply a 5 second shared cooldown to both itself and the skill granted by the trait.

[Aeroniel]

I'm a solo, casual player - so landscape and soloable instances are what I'm interested in. I play blue line with some red and yellow thrown in. I hope that any changes to blue line keeps its utility for the way I play

I like the concept of blue line being a skirmisher. I think of Legolas as being the epitome -- awesome on the move with a bow, but also deadly with his two knives. So improved melee skills in blue line would make a lot of sense to me.

My one item on my Wishlist - please make our purge/cure skill mobile! Most other classes I play can apply their cure while on the run. Why in the world can't blue line hunter do that? [if this change has already been suggested, sorry for the duplication]

Thanks!

[DoRonRon]

? Red always had +10 range, at least from Helm's Deep for sure (when I started playing).

But is our means to select target with a tab or a skill key press to soon work at these extended distances or be left untouched?

I'll stick with just setting off auto attack and let the mob come into skill range, mobs on the move ain't doing damage, unlike us Huntsmen. Keep your enemies closer, so to speak. Personally I prefer to work at the mobs own range so I can use it to my advantage; backing out a bit or moving out of LOS for an induction if not interrupting it myself. Only a static numpty needs extra range.

Mine are built with Split Shot and Rain of Arrows for the up front AE to massacre landscape, the crafted traceries for induction speed have blown out dots from my builds now, rather prefer the speed of Swift Bow and the induction skills forced on our once focus burn class. Until we get another Power slot it's range and single damage and critical magnitude for me.

Trouble is we have devs tasked with getting our hunters to play with others but they don't need such dead weight hanging around their necks, thank you.
Rather be using the guile of the wolf over the mindless sheep on a "rotation" someone built for them on a discord.

Some of us don't want to raid any more. We're beyond that trudge.

[SSG_Orion]

Trouble is we have devs tasked with getting our hunters to play with others but they don't need such dead weight hanging around their necks, thank you.

To be fair, this is an MMORPG.

[Hephburz-2]

Orion.. What is your vision for Yellow in a group setting? Because, even with these changes, and those listed in the Option #2 thread, Yellow does not have an "identity", it doesn't fill a role that needs to be filled in group content, it would be much more prudent to make Yellow Line the passive line and adjust trap potency accordingly - it has long been an age since we have needed such extensive cc in group content that couldn't be provided by a LM or Burg which is a staple in all content except for 3mans, and your suggestions for Yellow do not nearly match the strength of what is provided by a yellow burg or yellow LM.

Fearing and Roots are also not always "useful" forms of CC either, given that roots do not prevent ranged mobs from casting unless you entirely out of range said target, and fears (it would be much better if a feared target was rooted in place, rather than running around like a headless chicken) can be messy - and with lotro mechanics a mob that is feared and happens to run into another add pack will awaken said add pack, which is entirely what you don't want to happen.

I LOVE the idea of making Blue into a Skirmisher style spec, sort of a hybrid melee/ranged class in which your melee and ranged skills play off one another, the Scourging Blow > Exsanguinate interaction is a great start, but you should go further and harder with this idea, including other melee skills to impact other ranged skills - Low Cut could effect Heart Seeker etc. etc. you get the idea. I would argue you could even introduce new melee skills, or whilst in Blue, some ranged skills could change and become melee; Penentrating shot could become Penetrating Blow for example, and Ranged skills could likewise buff or interact with your melee skills in turn.

[Pacata]

Please, use your common sense and leave red line just as it is. It's strong enough already, spend your resources and focus on blue and yellow which have been irrelevant for years now.

[Elmagor]

Trouble is we have devs tasked with getting our hunters to play with others but they don't need such dead weight hanging around their necks, thank you.
Rather be using the guile of the wolf over the mindless sheep on a "rotation" someone built for them on a discord.

That's why players who use blue hunter and blue LM have no idea about playing together with other players in instances, and don't understand why their builds don't fit well into pve instances.

[SSG_Orion]

Orion.. What is your vision for Yellow in a group setting? Because, even with these changes, and those listed in the Option #2 thread, Yellow does not have an "identity", it doesn't fill a role that needs to be filled in group content, it would be much more prudent to make Yellow Line the passive line and adjust trap potency accordingly - it has long been an age since we have needed such extensive cc in group content that couldn't be provided by a LM or Burg which is a staple in all content except for 3mans, and your suggestions for Yellow do not nearly match the strength of what is provided by a yellow burg or yellow LM.

Minor Debuff and CC/DPS

[Fealhach]

Prefer Bowmaster over Huntsman and Red is in a great place at the moment. Would still like to see Trapper given a chance in a support slot. Focus on what makes each spec different, there's still room for all 3.

Cheers

[Hephburz-2]

Minor Debuff and CC/DPS

But then, I direct you back to everything else I said, there isn't a need for this, or we don't have content that requires this type of a role, if a dps cannot pull their own weight or offer groundbreaking buffs/debuffs, they are generally not considered.

"Minor debuff and CC" is not enough to make a role, you either need a complete overhaul of the spec, in which Yellow Hunter would perform a role/function on a similar scale to Yellow Burg, or, this is the spec that should be made passive.

[Elmagor]

But then, I direct you back to everything else I said, there isn't a need for this, or we don't have content that requires this type of a role, if a dps cannot pull their own weight or offer groundbreaking buffs/debuffs, they are generally not considered.

"Minor debuff and CC" is not enough to make a role, you either need a complete overhaul of the spec, in which Yellow Hunter would perform a role/function on a similar scale to Yellow Burg, or, this is the spec that should be made passive.

Usually bosses can't be CCed, and minor debuffs from yhunter can't replace debuffs from LM or Burglar.

If devs imagine some classes with that role, why trying put hunter with already existing traits into something where he never belong in first place?

Just create new class with middle range/buffs/debuffs/CC (Corsair?)

[WeirdJedi]

I like a lot of what I see.

I envision red line as a way to stick tight to your position and make it easier to attack your target. Most of what we currently have fulfills that role. The one thing that always felt weird to me was Plant Feet and how it only allowed an evasion buff if you didn't move. So the idea of giving a different kind of bonus like the one you mentioned is good. I originally thought of an idea to have the buff gradually fade away every couple seconds after you move instead of completely, but I like the compromise of the tier system idea better.

I used to play in blueline. It was easy, as dull as it was to spam barrage at the time. I always felt it was meant to be the "Mega Man" run-and-gun. So, the idea to allow Induction based attacks to be used while moving for redline is kind of drastic. That was sort of the whole point in redline - you move, you lose your cast. The recent changes, and the ones you listed, to increase run speed sort of matches what that tree is all about. I also like the idea of making melee more interesting. While redline is all about staying away from enemies as much and far as possible, the idea of engaging with the enemies as blue for perks is an interesting spin. A part of me would maybe like to see more melee engagement, like somehow "tagging" the enemy when you are in melee distance, a buff to dazing blow, or perhaps a slight parry buff. I'm just shooting ideas here.

Yellowline was always a mystery to me. My impression was people went blue for landscape and red for instances. I know some people found enjoyment in the line, but the bare minimum I liked was setting that tripwire. The only time I tried yellow was when I joined in for some Epic Battles with the kinship when I was lower leveled. I felt like my traps helped more in those situations than anywhere else. So, it makes sense to me to throw auxiliary abilities like Split Shot and Quick Escape over there. The thing is that I really want it to be a passive tree. I was still thrown back to the poison removal nerfs back in Update 25.4. So I would at least like to see those improved as traits.