I want to preface with a "This is too much".



TL;DR
Red: A high damage ranged nuker. Able to debuff and support a little, but prirotiy is your damage.
Blue: Mobile hydrid melee/ ranged dps, many debuffs and utlity added on to help any group.
Yellow: Support spec no longer spec able, Lots of QoL traits. traps, bleeds, survival, support.




The purpose of this is to hopefully give you idea's of what could happen instead of just thinking "Buff these numbers". Reinventing much of the rotations but keeping the main function. Giving hunters more mechanics to play with.

The hunter has 4 playstyle in my opinion
1. Turret Dps
2. Mobile nuker
3. Trapper
4. Ranger

1. The Turret DPS meta is still there. Red will be your focus, you will likely then dip into yellow for bleeds, survival, and then finish in blue for more damage

2. Mobile nuker is there. you can trait blue and focus on ranged dps. Focusing on bleeds in yellow and then heavy into red for highest mobile ranged dps you can do

3. Trapper is still there. But it's split up depending how you want it to main work. Do you want to run in and trap, or stay at range. You choose B/y or R/y and focus traps. There is more support going blue, more damage in red.

4. The ranger is the hybrid melee/range class. You can now do that by going blue and picking what you want to maximise your fantasy.


The core premise of these 2 specs being viable endgame are as follows

Hunstman

A capable Melee and Ranged combated. Debuffing the targets damage and increasing incoming damage. With mobility and added survival the Huntsman will excel solo, but able to add more utility in group combat.

Bowmaster

The ranged DPS role. Still able to solo fine by killing fast. With abilities to AoE and do high ST damage, the bowmaster will be unable to replaced by the blue hunter is damage persistence, but has less support.



Other Goals

- Reduce the effectiveness of stacking hunters in a group
In the recent year hunters are stacked 2-3 in most groups, even 6 man content it's not uncommon to see 2-3. There needs to be somthing to reduce that effectiveness. Making sure more debuffs don't stack and promoting a second line at least elevates that somewhat. The red and bue hunter still comflicts, but not as much as stacking red hunters.

- Give both specs the QOL improvements
Damage from starting combat is a hunters thing. And find the path. These are now added to yellow line to ensure both lines don't feel left out of opening fights. This promotes, while leveling, players to freely try out one without one way clearly being the best because of one skill giving so much burst it's hard to even need to think of needing to be mobile or use CC

- Spec =/= Group size
The blue and yellow lines should not be seen as the "solo" spec or the "3man" spec. Both specs should be viable in all content. You may just have to play differently, or built differently.

- Reduce the amount of CC and soft CC
The hunter is so bloated with CC, separating these out into traits that you opt into makes them less default and more impactful on your damage. You can choose to be a glass canon, but you will lose some QOL.



Base Hunter

Before judging these. Please be aware most skills are just put into the lines and made unique for them.

Changes:
- Blood arrow is no longer a base skill
- Blindside is no longer a base skill
- Find the Path is no longer a base skill
- Passage of ... are no longer base skills
- Bard's Arrow is no longer a base skill
- Dazing Blow no longer stuns
- Distracting Shot is no longer a base skill
- Cry of the Hunter is replaces with "Breakfree" from stun, removing other elements
- Low Cut is no longer a base skill
- Stance Strength and Stance Precision are no longer base skills
- Barrage is now a base skill
- Barbed Arrow is now a 7 second cooldown
- Beneath Notice is now 2m cooldown
- Stances now have a shared 10 second cooldown.

Some skills will be given earlier to accommodate gap. Non of these skills are fully gone for some, many have red or blue versions, or in the support spec for options.
- Trap is given at level 3
- Merciful Shot is now given at level 4
- Camouflage is now given at level 30
- Intent Concentration is given at level 40, removed animation, and give 1 focus every 1 second for 10 seconds, 3m cooldown
- Barrage is given at level 20



Hunstman

The focus of this spec is just jump between melee and ranged because of the cooldowns you have. Generally, melee will do more damage as well as apply utility, but support your ranged damage after it.

Passive:
- Stance Precision: Gain focus every 5 seconds and Quick shot deals more damage and has 50% chance to generate 2 focus.
- Gains ability to use 2handed Sword
- Induction based attacks can be used while moving
- No Focus Loss on Movement.
- No Miss Chance Penalty for Movement.
- Scourging Blow:[Cashout Barded arrow for higher damage and increasing incoming crit chance by 1% for 20 secconds, 10s cooldown]

Set Bonus:
1. Kick Flip (Skill): Costs 3 focus: Long animation skill (2seconds) in which it forced the hunter backwards 5m (The animation will be of a backflip after a kick, but functionally the player character will just be in a forced walk backwards for that duration). This will do moderate damage but buffs ranged attacks for the next 5seconds for +20%. 2min cooldown.
2. Blindside(melee): Adds 3 focus, Immediate Interrupt, 10s cooldown
3. Low Cut:[Good AoE damage, Costs 3 focus, 15s cooldown, Increase targets incoming melee damage by 5%]
4. Desperate Strike: (Melee Blood Arrow) Heals the hunter while dealing low damage, single target, 20s cooldown, Costs 3 focus
5. Fleetness (skill):Gain 50% run speed for 5 seconds.
6. Weakening Pray: Each melee or ranged attack build stacks of there respective type. Melee reduces Melee damage, ranged reduces ranges and tactical damage. These are 1% per stack. The debuff lasts 12 seconds but is reapplied the highest tier if hit by another skill of that type. These effects can stack up to 10 times.
7. Rapid Fire:[Removes the focus cost of all skills]

Traits:
1-10:
- Melee Damage & Melee Crit
- Strong Draw
- Quick Shot Focus, Improved Intent Concentration (Reduce cooldown 15/30/45/60/75)
- Focus (This is Precision, but will buff both Precision Stance and give Strength Stance focus per second)
- Strength of Earth
- Volley
- Ankle Biter: Low cut increases incoming melee damage by 1/2/3/4/5%
- Sweeping Cut: Requires Ankle Biter: Using Low Cut run speed and induction length (5/10/15/20/25%) The 6th rank will make Low Cut an AoE intterupt

11-20:
- Precision Stance Critical Magnitude
- Low Cut damage->Low Cut Slow & Remove corruption chance
- Shot Through The Heart
- Dazing Blow buffs ranged damage crit chance for 10 seconds.
- Pen Shot makes the next Scourging Blow crit
- Removing a Barbed Arrow bleed will apply a debuff the target so the next hit of Merciful Shot to have 10/20/30/40/50% additional chance to critical hit
- Desperate Strike will heal the fellowship 10% morale

21:30:
- Moving Target
- Strength of Earth
- Clairvoyance: Able to use skill "Focus" in combat with a 10second -> Each tick of skill "Focus" gives a stack of +0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5% ranged crit chance for 10 seconds.
- Hunter's Voice: Reduce the cooldown of "Breakfree" by 50%
- Purge Poison is now a fellowship wide skill and heals a small amount of power
- Kick Flip increases the targets incoming critical Chance of Tactical and Ranged skills by 10% for 10seconds.
- Improved Barbed Arrow (This will allow barbed arrow to cashout a previous hit barbed arrow to deal it's remaining damage while reapplying the bleed).
- Agile: When swapping to Endurance Stance, gain +20% melee damage for 20seconds, when swapping to Precision stance, gain +20% range damage for 20seconds.



Bowmaster

The bow master is a master of the bow. Focusing on both ranged damage above all else, however, it has to get out tools if need be.

Passive:
Strength Stance: +Ranged Damage, Barbed Arrow now slows
Pinning Shot:[Roots the target without escape for 5seconds, costs 3 focus, 30s cooldown]
+10meter range on ranged skills

Set Bonuses:
1. Shoot to kill: Merciful Shot increases incoming ranged damage by 5%
2. Blideside(ranged): adds 3 focus, Ranged intterupt, 18s cooldown
3. Archers Mark: Penetrating Shot marks the target, increasing incoming damage by 0.25%, stacks 10 times, 10s duration.
4. Blood Arrow
5. Full on: When above 3 focus, gain 2% crit, when above 6 focus, gain 5% crit chance
6. Hidden Stalker (New skill):[Breif in-combat stealth. Players will be unable to see or target you (unless in fellowship/raid) for the 5s duration but still able to hit with non target skills. This will reduce your target by 100% when used. If using an attack to exit stealth, gain +20% crit chance for that skill]
7. Marksmen:[Barrage reduces the cooldown of Heart seeker and Upshot]

Traits:
1-10:
- Nock Arrow: Each use of QuickShot builds one stack of "Nocked Arrow". Maximum 20 stacks. Rank 2-5 gives a 5/10/15/20% chance of nocking a 2nd arrow.
- Arrow Stream (Skill): 5 ranks with +2/4/6/8/10% damage each rank: Requires Nock Arrow:[High damage channelled skill (gets benefit from induction damage). 30s cooldown. Requires one stack of "Nocked Arrow". The skill will use up one arrow every 0.25s to a maximum of 5seconds)
- Arrow Stream: Requires 5th rank of Arrow Stream: will now hit all targets in a line of sight from the hunter at a 40m distance and 5m each side.
- Swift Mercy
- Stregth:[Adds extra ranged damage from both Precision Stance and Strengh Stance]
- Critical Eye
- Swift and True
11-20:
- Heart Seeker
- Split Shot: Requires Nock Arrow:Rank 1 gives skill, rank 2-5 give:[Spend 1,2,3,4 nocked arrows to hit additional 1,2,3,4 targets (Maximum 6)]
- Rain of Arrows: Requires Split Shot:Rank 1 gives skill[AoE 10 targets], Rank 4-5 gives [10/20/30/40% crit chance for each but requires 5/10/15/20 nocked arrows
- Draw Weight
- Quick Escape: Dazing Blow now stuns the target
- In For The Kill
21-30:
- Burn Hot
- Quick Draw
- Bow of the Righteous
- Deadly Precision
- Bodkins Arrow(Skill): 3 focus cost, 3s cooldown, This skill by passes the targets mitigations and can not miss.
- Pushed to the limit: Strength Stance now gives 20seconds of +5% crit chance, once expired, gives -2.5% crit chance for 5seconds. Swapping to endurance stance will remove the debuff
- Feel the Burn: Requires Pushed to the limit: Endurance Stance reduces the focus cost by 1 of Penetrating Shot, Blood arrow, Barrage, and Bodkins Arrow for 10seconds
- Upshot
- Plant Feet: Requires Rain of Arrows: For every 2 seconds not moving, you gain 1 nocked arrow


Trapper of Foes

This will support Huntsmen and Bowmasters decide how they want to play. It will contain many bleeds, traps, support, survival.

This is now a support line and has no passives.

Traits:
1-10:
- Find the Path: Provide the hunter and fellowship with +10/15/20/25/30% run speed
- Cry of the Hunter(Skill): Provides the hunter with a short term bubble roughly equal to 20% of there maximum moral (fixed number, does not scale, at end game say it gives 200k)
- Safe Travels: Requires Rank 5 of Find the path: When out of combat, gain 20% mitigations. This effectively only a bonus on first hit, or odd things that hit out of combat.
- Lingering Shot: Costs 2 points: Can apply 5 stacks of a bleed, 20s duration, Costs 3 focus, 10s cooldown
- Increase dot damage
- Fast Trapper: Traps can now be placed while on the move: Costs 2 points
- Combat Traps
- Track Reader: Rank 1 gives Passage of Nature, Rank 2 gives Passage of Foes, Rank 3 gives Passage of Shadow
11-20:
- Master Tracker: Requires Track Reader: Targets that are tracked receive a "Tracked", if tracked, the hunters next attack will be a critical. This is only the hunter and not other players.
- Decoy: Rank 1 unlocks the skill (2 points), Rank 2 will unlock the ability to fire the decoy at the enemy instead of placing the decoy
- Armour Rend: Penetrating Show now gains 1/2/3/4/5% mitigation debuff
- Distracting Shot: Costs 2 points: Stuns the target for 15seconds, 2min cooldown
- Piercing Trap: Once activated, for each 1 second inside the trap (lasts 5seconds) applies 1 stack of Lingering Wound, 1min cooldown
- Natural Extracts
- Endurance: Endurance Stance Increases your mitigations by 2/4/6/8/10% when activated for 10seconds
- Survival Gear: Requires Endurance: Increases the hunters mitigations by 1/2/3/4/5%
21-30:
- Tripwire: Rank 1 gives skill (costs 2 points), rank 2-5 increase the number of targets that get tripped by 1/2/3/4 (maximum 5 target). This skill will knock down enemies for 5seconds (2min cooldown)
- Advance Placement: Rank 1 gives the ability to setup traps where you place them, Rank 2 extends range from 15m to 30m, Rank 3 allows the hunter to place traps at there target. (This applies to Trap, Piercing Trap, And Tripwire).
- Wounded Prey: Merciful Shot deals 1/2/3/4/5% more damage per stack of Lingering Wound on the target
- Explosive Arrow: Rank 1 gives skills (2 points), Rank 2 will unlock the ability to fire Explosive Arrow directly at your target
- Explosive Powder: Required rank 1 of Explosive Arrow: Rank 1-5 give +4/8/12/16/20% explosive arrow damage, Rank 6 gives: If explosive arrow is used near the decoy, the decoy will explode, dealing additional damage and stunning them.
- Rain of Thorns: Roots 10 targets around the main target: Costs 2 points, 2min cooldown
- Improved Focus: Gain Critical Chance when in use for 9seconds.
- Bards Arrow: 1min cooldown: Knocks out target and fears for 15seconds.
- Improved Campfire: Campfire gives allies within 30m +5% light and fire damage