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.

[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.

[Belnavar]

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.

I really like the sound of that, but as part of Option #2. Hunter definitely needs one of those lines to become a passive utility line, and if we are to save Yellow, and give Hunter a true CC role, it needs more skills like this (and the ideas I presented in the Option #2 thread).

-Bel

[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?

[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.

[IanMacLyr]

Agree… this would create more of a Legolas analog.

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.

[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.

[Joedangod]

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.

Bowmaster

Honestly this is a no-go. Right now red can use ranged attacks on the move, it's just strictly only able to do focus skills which is perfectly fine. If you wanna nudge a little more mobility in red then give a 3-5s grace period before focus decay whilst moving. With that alone it can now comfortably move for short stints every now and again, which is all you really want to do there. Everything being cast on the move more or less strips the turret aspect away from the class, there's little-to-no emphasis on being precise with your movement in that scenario.

I feel like the elephant in the room here regarding red does need to be talked about. Induction durations are absurd. Quick Shot is what, 0.3s on average? You have induction skills executing faster than regular skills, which makes it a little confusing why these are induction skills in the first place. Something has to change in that regard, and yes people are going to yell at me but the minimum duration on an induction should be around 0.75s or so (about in line with Brawler setups for execution speed). Either fast draw or quick draw needs to be scrapped there. This can't be done in isolation, you'd need to consider the impact that such a change would then have on the related CDRs, focus generation, and even quick shot damage output but it does need to happen. An induction based spec should have visible inductions.

Huntsman

For blue you're offering a decent start with bumping the melee skills but you would generally need to play around a bit more with the CDs, traceries, and actual base damage of the melee skills for this to work out. You could likely still leave quick shot for generating focus at range but ideally the main abilities for that purpose should be melee. I'd also say ditch the cashout stuff you're floating, totally fine with the damage of various abilities being empowered per bleed on the target or whatever but we don't need to keep cashing out stuff over and over. Cashouts should mostly just be used for longer DoT specs as a way to recoup some of the value of a DoT that would be wasted when the target dies in the next 5s.

I've not got much else to add here, as a general note blue should probably get strength stance increasing melee damage as well (and honestly switching strength stance to be in blue, precision stance traits to be in red makes a whole lotta sense). Heartseeker should not be available to blue or yellow really, it's quintessentially a red skill and if you're in any way serious about maintaining some differences in gameplay between the specs you'd lock that into red alone. Barrage could probably use some boosting, perhaps making it a frontal AoE spender for them so it actually feels a bit more like a barrage and plays into their melee a bit more.

Trapper of Foes

Yellow is messy, even with your tweaks. You absolutely need to nail down which spec you want yHunter to be replacing in your average raid/fellowship. In general it seems to be angled more towards a yLM kinda spec but in that case it's really going to need some yLM equivalent debuffs. You need your lore skill equivalents, you need your mez equivalents (roots are not equivalent to mezzes), you need your constant damage increasing debuff equivalents, and you need your burst enfeeble debuff equivalent. You can substitute personal damage for the power/morale healing parts of LM, they wouldn't really fit all that well on hunter anyway.

I'd also lean towards making traps a bit more consistent in their potential to hit AoE, most likely via having the first mob to trigger it pulse the effect in AoE around itself to tag the other mobs.

Universal

Not strictly related to any trait line but I think you can toy with having Burn Hot be a universally bestowed ability and set up each tree to modify it in some way, blue could merge it with rapid fire, yellow could merge it with whatever survivalist prepper ends up being, red could focus on amping damage/power costs or something. Mostly just fuel for thought.

[SSG_Orion]

I wanted to follow-up on this initial discussion with regard to the Trapper of Foes. The goal with the change toTrapper of Foes is to allow the hunter to use traps and survival skills to control and debuff enemies, and deal damage through, predominantly, ranged skills.

Over the past couple of days, discussion with the team, feedback from here and elsewhere, have given me a fresh perspective that I would like to share.

As before, if a trait is not mentioned then there are no current plans to change it. Thought the orders might change.

Trapper of Foes

Grant the Skill: Pinning Shot
Grant the Skill: Decoy
Traps can be used while moving and have no inductions.

Nimble Fingers
New Trait - 5 Ranks
+ [Level based] Finesse Rating

Deadly Decoy
5 Set Trait Bonus

Decoy becomes Deadly Decoy
Explodes after 15s
If destroyed before the expiration, the decoy explodes and applies a 2s Daze

Combat Traps
5 Ranks

-1s Reduction to trap skills cooldown per rank
+10% trap skill damage per rank

Endurance
Moves to 5-10 Rank
2 Ranks
+1% to parry and evade per rank

Danger Sense
New Trait 10-15 Rank

-5s Cooldown to Dazing Blow
+5s Pinning Shot Root Duration

Elusive
Moves to the 10-15 Rank
5 Ranks
+1% Evade per rank

Imposing Presence
Replaces Strong Intimidation and moves to 15 Rank Set Bonus

Reduce Bard's Arrow Damage by 25%
Increase Bard's Arrow Fear duration by 5s
-10% to target Fear Resistance

Increase Deadly Decoy duration by 5s
Increase Deadly Decoy health by 25%
Increase Damage of Deadly Decoy by 10%

Explosive Powder
Moves to 15-20 Rank
No Other Change

Survival Gear
Moves to 20-25 Rank tier

Advanced Placement
Moves to 20-25 Rank tier
No other changes

Master Trapper
Moves to 20 Rank Set Trait

+10% incoming critical chance from Deadly Decoy damage effect for 10s
+5% bonus to Tripwire to trigger a Fellowship Manoeuvre
+3s to Tripwire Knockdown
-5% mitigation bonus bypass on target struck by Piercing Trap for 10s

Piercing Trap
Gain the Skill: Piercing Trap

Survival Gear
Moves to 20-25 rank tier
No other changes

Armor Penetration
Moves to 25-30 Rank tier

Purge Poison
Moves to 25 Rank Set trait

Wilderness Senses
Replaces Heightened Sense and moves to 30-35 Rank set Bonus

You can now move while Camouflaged
+6 Stealth Detection
+3 Stealth Ranks

Improved Distracting Shot
Moves to 30+ Rank trait
3 Ranks

-50s Distracting Shot Cooldown per rank
-10% to Distracting break Daze Chance per rank

Emergency Preparations
35+ Rank trait

Gain the following Skills: Launch Decoy, Tanglewire Arrow, and Puncturing Arrow

Launch Decoy shoots a Deadly Decoy at your target.
Launch Decoy shares a cooldown with Deadly Decoy and has a 30m base range.
Trap Skill

Tanglewire Arrow shoots a Tripwire Trap at your target.
Tanglewire Arrow shares a cooldown with Tripwire and has a 30m base range.
Trap Skill

Puncturing Arrow shoots a Piercing Trap at your target.
Puncturing Arrow shares a cooldown with Piercing Trap and has a 30m base range.
Trap Skill

Explosive Traps
All trap skills are now AoE and affect up to 4 targets.
This can be modified by the AoE target traceries.


Okay, now that this one is put together a little more cleanly. Any thoughts?

[Hephburz-2]

Bowmaster

I feel like the elephant in the room here regarding red does need to be talked about. Induction durations are absurd. Quick Shot is what, 0.3s on average? You have induction skills executing faster than regular skills, which makes it a little confusing why these are induction skills in the first place. Something has to change in that regard, and yes people are going to yell at me but the minimum duration on an induction should be around 0.75s or so (about in line with Brawler setups for execution speed). Either fast draw or quick draw needs to be scrapped there. This can't be done in isolation, you'd need to consider the impact that such a change would then have on the related CDRs, focus generation, and even quick shot damage output but it does need to happen. An induction based spec should have visible inductions.

I don't mind so much Quick Shot being as it is with the short induction, but as such the damage should be reduced to compensate, it should just be a quick spam filler (and not a bulk of your damage as it is now), but I do unreservedly agree with you about the inductions of the rest of the line.

Huntsman

I've not got much else to add here, as a general note blue should probably get strength stance increasing melee damage as well (and honestly switching strength stance to be in blue, precision stance traits to be in red makes a whole lotta sense). Heartseeker should not be available to blue or yellow really, it's quintessentially a red skill and if you're in any way serious about maintaining some differences in gameplay between the specs you'd lock that into red alone. Barrage could probably use some boosting, perhaps making it a frontal AoE spender for them so it actually feels a bit more like a barrage and plays into their melee a bit more.

Removing Heart Seeker from Blue would require an alternative in its place, or a significant damage increase to compensate for the loss. Like the barrage suggestion & agree with the change of strength and precision.

Universal

Not strictly related to any trait line but I think you can toy with having Burn Hot be a universally bestowed ability and set up each tree to modify it in some way, blue could merge it with rapid fire, yellow could merge it with whatever survivalist prepper ends up being, red could focus on amping damage/power costs or something. Mostly just fuel for thought.

I like this ^

[Michaleo]

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.

Once again, we're considering changes that will make life more difficult, confusing, and inconvenient for noobs, causals, and solo questers in order to do something for group play. Blue hunters accepted the bizarre barrage cooldown, shorter range, and less overall damage so we could survive without a tank or healer by kiting and staying away from mobs.

Being solo in medium armour, melee will only be a last resort if I can't move away and all my (more powerful) ranged skills are on cooldown. Please don't make blue worse for noobs, casuals, and solo players to add a new option for group play.

[Joedangod]

Once again, we're considering changes that will make life more difficult, confusing, and inconvenient for noobs, causals, and solo questers in order to do something for group play. Blue hunters accepted the bizarre barrage cooldown, shorter range, and less overall damage so we could survive without a tank or healer by kiting and staying away from mobs.

Besides the removal of Barrage (something they're still kicking ideas around) these changes are mostly just additive to what is already there. i.e. you could play precisely as you are with basically no difference, but if you wanted to do even more damage than you are currently doing, you could mix in some of the new melee.

Being solo in medium armour, melee will only be a last resort if I can't move away and all my (more powerful) ranged skills are on cooldown. Please don't make blue worse for noobs, casuals, and solo players to add a new option for group play.

Of the 3 medium armour classes Hunter has the highest mits. And some pretty solid self healing. So yeah, Hunter can happily be in melee, squishier specs manage it.

[Forgotten_Legend]

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.

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.

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

for option 1, with more emphasis on being able to melee... i would move to re-add / re-theme the melee skills that were removed way back with the trait tree change. i for one really miss having those melee skills. it also makes we wonder what the point of extra melee damage is when we have so few ways to melee.

Also, huntsman and bowmaster, in my opinion, double up too much on what they provide: (ADDED) focus cost reduction / focus generation, induction reduction/ removal, AoE (with different skills, mind you) those AoE ranged skills feel more appropriate low in the trapper tree to be available to the other specialized trait trees.

i still don't know which i prefer, but i think i'm leaning into option 2

[kalil]

I was initially leaning to the # 2 option but as the blue line get's fleshed out # 1 may be the way to go. If dps will roughly be the same what will be the point of the red line? Since blue will have the heals and excellent movement in it's line.

[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).

[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.

[wispsong]

To be fair, this is an MMORPG.

Blue is nice for landscape, I don' think ever spec needs to be in raid. I love the mobility. Without it my hunter is just boring.

[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.