An Update: On Upcoming Changes to Hunters

[Beldacar]

Ya i think this would be an awsome basis for a Dunedain Ranger class. have a ranged DPS trait line, a melee DPS trait line and a hybrid between the two traitline. would be AWSOME and quickly, if done right, become one of my favorite classes.

Doesn't even have to be Dunedain: the Rangers of Ithilien were simple Men of Gondor; some may have had Dunedain blood, but even then it would have been greatly diluted by intermarriage with the "lesser" Men whose forefathers were not of the Edain.

PS: Don't blame me for the idea of "greater" and "lesser" Men. It's one of the key concepts of Tolkien's work: some Elves saw the light of Aman, the "lesser" ones never did; some Men helped the Elves in the War of the Silmarils and were rewarded with long lives and the island of Numenor, the "lesser" ones didn't side with the winners and got jack. Remember, Tolkien himself lived in an earlier time when "political correctness" didn't exist....

PPS: As someone who has actually done some hunting in real life, I can tell you, with absolutely no doubt, that a "hunter" wants to avoid melee at all costs. Even animals as "harmless" as deer have natural weapons that are far superior to ours. And the vast majority of animals are far quicker than we are. No one in his right mind goes after a bear or a boar (or a deer) with any melee weapon other than a spear. And most hunters aren't too sure about the mental stability of the guys who choose spears ;^)

[Gretolas]

I take pride in putting out some rockin' DPS single-target, but I have a half-glass RK that I can out do my hunter with. I try to push the limits, but hunter just can't match an RK. I'm sure there are times where a champ can match or surpass a hunter, but I don't have one, so I won't state that they can't. I've tried everything in the book to make my hunter tops, sacrificing morale for ICPR to sustain, trying all trait lines, etc... Hunter's just not #1. Its ok though since imo they are more survivable than RKs. Don't tell me they're #1 unless you can back it up with repeatable solid parsed numbers. If you show them or provide those numbers, then I'd like to talk about what I'm doing wrong. Best of luck showing the parses.

If you really do more DPS with your RK than with your hunter, drop your main and start playing RK.

[Artanisul]

If you really do more DPS with your RK than with your hunter, drop your main and start playing RK.

Anyone with both knows the RK does more, those that don't? They are in denial or also know it....

[VincentVanPort]

Anyone with both knows the RK does more, those that don't? They are in denial or also know it....

Honestly, no they do not. Many do not even come close. They have the ability to be on par but they won't because of the attunement system and their reduced range, which makes hunters the best DD-choice still. I would say even the traiting, whether blue or red doesn't matter. See the bigger numbers are does not mean it deals the biggest dmg. Never done any parsing on the topic, at least not since enedwaith but I have yet to see a RK (by feeling or actual aggro switching) dealing more DMG than a hunter, regardless of player-skill or traits.

[rewrando5]

All I know is, I have never had an RK pull aggro off of me on my hunter. That may be because of some aggro reduction skill that I under-use (and thus forget) on my 43 RK, but I still feel more damage coming from my hunter than other RKs I run with.

PPS: As someone who has actually done some hunting in real life, I can tell you, with absolutely no doubt, that a "hunter" wants to avoid melee at all costs. Even animals as "harmless" as deer have natural weapons that are far superior to ours. And the vast majority of animals are far quicker than we are. No one in his right mind goes after a bear or a boar (or a deer) with any melee weapon other than a spear. And most hunters aren't too sure about the mental stability of the guys who choose spears ;^)

This is true, hunters should want to stay out of melee. I guess it depends on how literal we want to be about the name. I agree with the last sentence too lol, especially since swords are so awesome...

I am VERY annoyed that the Improved Pen Auto-break bug has STILL, after All This Time, STILL not been rectified

Definitely agree with this. If they hope to make the yellow line at all worth traiting, they need to make it so we don't break our own CC.

[WardGaze]

Seems pretty good

[trollhardorgohome]

I dont save parses but... I'd like to see where your getting this, I've never seen even the best DPS RK out DPS me CONSISTENTLY. RK's have potential to output major burst DPS. But this doesn't always happen. However the best champion will probably output the most single target DPS, there arn't many champions this decent however that I've noticed.

Quite sure burgs are still > all. If not in strait DPS, the damage they contribute with RW and CD combined with their own dps is DEFINETLY bigger than any other class, no question. Have a look at the 6 man Poison wing t2 CM parses if any1 would like to disagree. (compare burg to the hunters).

As for champs, im talking about single target dps here. Ill out parse any champ on the Lt, but while parsing the 'zombies' before him they will double-tripple my dps (group parse programs are great for seeing who does how much dps in certain situations)... Similarly for wound t2 CM, they probably double a burgs dps.

Currently you dont bring a hunter to a raid if you want dps, you bring a hunter to a raid if you specifically need ranged dps. Hunters got lucky that there are a few needs for ranged dps in the new raid (range tanking Disease, mammoth tanks wound, less puddles ontop of ivar, ranged in poison is nice (less running back n forth)), if ranged dps wasn't needed you would pick an RK/champ/burg..well anything appart from a hunter

[Ixinix]

Honestly, no they do not. Many do not even come close. They have the ability to be on par but they won't because of the attunement system and their reduced range, which makes hunters the best DD-choice still. I would say even the traiting, whether blue or red doesn't matter. See the bigger numbers are does not mean it deals the biggest dmg. Never done any parsing on the topic, at least not since enedwaith but I have yet to see a RK (by feeling or actual aggro switching) dealing more DMG than a hunter, regardless of player-skill or traits.

yes and no
Aggro is a very poor measurement of who is doing more DPS. A RK should have calming verse up all the time which means he is doing 10% more damage at -20% threat. There were times (Barad Guldur era) where I could pull aggro over strength hunters with calming verse up and S:S still being +30% threat. Just imagine what gap to cross in DPS terms to be able to pull aggro.

Then came.... the "fix" to tactical resistances.
This is THE biggest nerf for RKs in ages. We've had corruption removals resist 3x in a row on the LT of DG and when doing Stoneheight I get frustrated with my RK when I resist 3 attacks in a row or seeing that a Chill of Winter attack on 3 mobs only hits 1 of them and 2 mobs resist the attack. I can honestly say that I like my RK a little less because of this where I always used to be proud and laugh at hunters.

RK can still do amazing damage but you are more relying on lucky crit strings. There are still times where you crit 3 hits in a row for 1,5k to 2k damage per hit and finishing off with a 7/8k EC.

I levelled my hunter as 5th char (RK 2nd) and at first was bored by the mechanic. As RK I could plunge myself into battle and starting off with good DPS immediately. I was used to this fast action so the repetitive mechanic of gaining focus before every fight felt dull for a while. Still, I gave it a shot (pun intended) and levelled up my lean elf to be a serious DPS dealer. Part of the reason I levelled up a hunter was to see if the class really sucked (pardon my french) as so many hunters were complaining about RKs.

For a hunter a good skill rotation is extremely important and in my view much more important than a RK. Storm skills on a RK can all crit pretty high and it's easy to pop the higher damage ones whenever they are off cd.
Once I learned the trick to playing a hunter my DPS increased. Then I got the 6/6 Helegrod set and tried the huntsman line as I was never a fan of Strength stance because of the extreme penalties.

Next I got a good bow and was starting to notice I was pulling aggro of that champ that always pulls aggro off our tanks and not much later I was tanking the tentacles of the watcher.... in Precision.

If I look at my RK and Hunter now (both have a good lvl65 FA weapon) I like the hunter because I rarely seem to miss or b/p/e an attack while in precision and the DPS output is always at a minimum level and even very good when you get some nice crits. The RK is still a fun class to play, with lots of utility and at times sick DPS but as soon as I start resisting so many attacks I long for my hunter. I do have the penetrate resistance legacy AND the class trait but they don't seem to help that much.

My conclusion is that a RK can out-DPS hunters if they get a bit of luck in critting but as soon as resists and too many non-crits in a row kick in a good hunter can out-DPS a RK. Champs are obviously AoE kings by far and can be best single target DPS with the right buffs (ballad of war, counter defense etc.)

my 2 cents

[Ixinix]

Heh I wanted to reply to that but honestly, there is so much nonsense there I wouldn't know where to start.

[Scotius]

Five melee classes, three caster classes, one ranged class - oh no, melee is not favoured in LOTRO at all :P And now they want to make this one ranged class into ranged/melee hybrid. Oh well, i guess i can live with it as long as it doesnt mean a nerf to our ranged abilities, only tweaks to our survivability when we pull aggro or pull more than one mob. And it will happen, even to the best of us. There is also some bosses that demand from the players to be in melee range at all times (Thadur in NCF for one) - being able to still dish respectable dps will be really beneficial to us. Overall im cautiously optimistic.

[Pepperdyne]

Hunters with melee skills?, that certainly made me cough on my morning coffee.

we don't need them we don't want them!.

[Ayrolen]

Hunters with melee skills?, that certainly made me cough on my morning coffee.

I don't need them I don't want them!.

FTFY.

I'm still waiting to hear back from ZC because I'm intrigued with what he has in store. I think maybe his brain is still on vacation somewhere, though. Can't really blame him. I could use a major vacation myself!

[Darth_Carl]

@ My Fellow Hunters: All I can say is what a bunch of whining ninnies, and that’s from the few sections I’ve been able to stomach skimming through before giving up on you.

@Devs: all I can say is that you DO need to differentiate the Bowmaster and Huntsmen lines. Having them both as ranged DPS is guaranteed to lead to issues with one trait line always being favoured over another. Either huntsman or bowmaster HAVE to do something besides simple ranged DPS. Leaving things as they isn't an option, it would be bad game design and a failure on your part as a game developer not to change things. I don’t think despite some strange decisions your actually bad at your jobs though.

The thing is no matter what you change, the hunter community is going to hate it because tada, it's change, they don’t want to see their awesomeness potentially nerfed. People want tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today, well known amateur psychology. As such given the way things are I’d go for it even with the objections. Sometimes you have to take a dose of flak to get your job done.

My advice however is to focus on fleshing your idea's out. I've actually been having the exact same thoughts as you on this and was preparing a big pos on the matter, since you've beaten me to the punch, (yes it's taken me over a month to spot this thread, EU customer, sorry), I’ll outline a couple of idea's:

1. Tie the buffs to melee and ranged damage to critical from the other type, rather than basic buffs.

2. Make our current focus generating skills cost focus instead and remove all our ranged inductions, (capstone effect maybe), you also might want to consider making our barbed bleed stackable to aid this.

3. Make our melee skills generate focus base, (4 set bonus), with critical generating an extra point, (2 set). 3-set could be increased % based ranged and melee crit chance.

4.Our traits would thus focus on improving our current focus generating skills and fleetness stance as well as base melee damage and all crit chance, (ideally we should be able to run fleetness continuously for a big attack speed reduction by the time where fully traited).

5. IMHO the current situation with penetrating shot is an issue, it’s such a large part of our DPS it’s dominating above every other skill for usability and has transformed the –focus cost trait into a far too valuable trait, a hunter literally can’t afford to skip it. Whilst I’m unsure where it would be best to re-distribute the DPS, adding an increased cooldown to the ability should downgrade the current excessive utility.


Regards

Carl

[MorphenAvari]

2. Make our current focus generating skills cost focus instead and remove all our ranged inductions, (capstone effect maybe), you also might want to consider making our barbed bleed stackable to aid this.

3. Make our melee skills generate focus base, (4 set bonus), with critical generating an extra point, (2 set). 3-set could be increased % based ranged and melee crit chance.

What is this... it would make us just another melee class. How could we fire off 'ranged' skills that cost focus without a way to generate focus rapidly outside melee range? It'd be a disaster for us; we'd have to stay in melee range to generate enough focus, and we are supposed be the ranged damage guys, esp in groups.

[Darth_Carl]

I should have thought the pre-face woul;d have clued you in. Huntmaster cannot STAY a ranged DPS trait line, we allready have one for that. As such it has to change how we function. Get over it and stop whining please.

ToF is already support.

So the whole idea here is that yes, we stay in melee range and hack away with our melee skills to generate focus for our ranged skills.

[Aestiliat]

I should have thought the pre-face woul;d have clued you in. Huntmaster cannot STAY a ranged DPS trait line, we allready have one for that. As such it has to change how we function. Get over it and stop whining please.

ToF is already support.

So the whole idea here is that yes, we stay in melee range and hack away with our melee skills to generate focus for our ranged skills.

This+ more fire skills ont the move

[Darth_Carl]

This+ more fire skills ont the move

This is why i suggested the capstone should make our focus generating skills cost focus instead, but remove ALL our inductions, (traps aside).

[Tamiya]

Yes because the only ranged class in the game needs to be further distilled down to just one style of ranged attacks. There can only ever be one kind of ranged DPS.

Think about what you are saying before making personal attacks on other posters.

Huntsman and Bowmaster are already different and distinct. Let me know again when a Bowmaster can move and generate focus or a Hunstman can fire off a series of big one-hitters in rapid succession. The fact is that they are already designed for different purposes.

[Darth_Carl]

They're both ranged DPS though, the fact that they do it in such minorly dissimilar ways is pretty irrelevant. It’s the same thing as afflicts Warden and Guardian trait lines. They both have what amounts to 2 tanking lines. One is always considered sub par and nothing will ever change that.

Bownmaster is already considered utterly sub par in raids and even if the changes fix that, all it will do is leave Huntmaster sub par. Either way one will be sub par and heavily under used if at all.

If you want them to both be viable and both be DPS lines they have to do DPS in fundamentally different ways, not minorly different ones. Switching to a melee hybrid achieves this as being in melee range actually has some disadvantages over long ranged strikes. Conversely in some situations it can be helpful, or be sufficiently lacking in downsides as to present opportunities. With good future content design you can take this further and make which is best totally encounter mechanics dependant.

[edited]

I'm being forceful and blunt and telling you exactly what you need to hear. That your [edited] not looking at what the class and the game needs to enhance it's viable range of trait lines and add extra complexity, and thus long term intrest playability to the class and to the game as a whole.

[edited]

And that’s the final thing, as a modder myself, and more so as someone who's watched many more experienced modders build their own mods, there are always arguments like this. Invariably in the name of changing an aspect of the mod you've created to correct a flaw and add to the gameplay experience you have to hack off a portion of your fan base, you can't please everyone, and sooner or later you just have to say: to hell with it, lets change it on something.

I honestly believe that this is one of those situations.

[Halvaethor]

There is also some bosses that demand from the players to be in melee range at all times (Thadur in NCF for one) - being able to still dish respectable dps will be really beneficial to us.

^
^My case in point, sometimes we are forced to use melee. To all those hunters out there that are saying that they don't want nor need melee skills, then don't use them. Heck, don't even put them on your toolbars; don't equip the necessary traits for them. No one is forcing you to use them but leave it to us hunters who would like or need to use those skills.

They're both ranged DPS though, the fact that they do it in such minorly dissimilar ways is pretty irrelevant. It’s the same thing as afflicts Warden and Guardian trait lines. They both have what amounts to 2 tanking lines. One is always considered sub par and nothing will ever change that.

I agree with Darth_Carl 100%. I rolled a couple of characters like Champ, Minny, LM and Guardian but my fave is still the hunter. I remember the first time I checked the traits for the hunter, I was confused regarding the 2 traitlines, namely Bowmaster and Huntsman. ToF was pretty much crystal clear, but the 2 traits were just both for range DPS; they might have different approach in doing so but the end result is the same: RANGE DPS (single target). At least the Champ's DPS traits are clearly different, one for AOE and the other for ST. Before someone suggests that hunters should have an AOE line, please remember that AOE isn't our specialty. Hunters were not designed for that and if we suddenly become a ranged AOE/ST class, a lot of players that play other classes will complain that we will be too OP. Now, the problem with having 2 range DPS traitline is that one will always be favored over the other just like what is happening now, Huntsman is favored by most hunters over the Bowmaster. I believe we need diversity. I believe we need change. ZC, do your thing.

[Tamiya]

No. That's just your opinion. You don't actually speak on behalf of the dev either.

They're both ranged DPS though

So? Are all the melee DPS in this game the same? Are all the tactical DPS in this game the same?

I'm being forceful and blunt and telling you exactly what you need to hear. That your too caught up in your own agenda's and needs and not looking at what the class and the game needs to enhance it's viable range of trait lines and add extra complexity, and thus long term intrest playability to the class and to the game as a whole.

Read that out loud, and you might be able to see how that applies to yourself.

You seem to think that complexity means fundamentally different mechanics. That's certainly a valid of point of view, but not necessarily the only correct one.

IMO, fundamental differences warrant an entire new class.

IMO, the complexity already exists. It exists in the subtlety that you've been trying lump up into one crude category of "ranged DPS". You cited raids, but raids are not the only content type in this game, and even then, raids do not necessarily favour Huntsman.

(Likewise, the Guardian's Yellow and Blue lines already do different things. One favours survivability and the other favours threat generation.)

That you don't see the practical differences between these lines tells me that you are either so good that differences are inconsequential and you can bulldoze through everything regardless of how you trait, or simply doing it wrong. I hope it's the former.



EDIT:

ToF was pretty much crystal clear, but the 2 traits were just both for range DPS; they might have different approach in doing so but the end result is the same: RANGE DPS (single target).

Nope.

They are "the same" if:
i. you get to stand still permanently and shoot,
ii. corruptions are not a factor, and
iii. your target is always a valid target for DPS (no phase changes, no threat management, etc)

Even in raids alone, we know that that does not happen. And then we have to consider other content type like solo and PVP. It's not so clear-cut that one is always better than the other.

[SerowLOTRO]

Just another random idea after reading some more posts: since we only have 2 DOTs right now (Barbed Arrow and Fire-oil), maybe one of the two DPS lines could be a new DOT-based line, sorta like the Fire line of the RK. Maybe one of our existing stances could be modified to let Quick Shot proc a DOT, or Heartseeker adds a DOT, or Blood Arrow adds a DOT, or something like that.

[drexele]

wait since blood arrow takes hp away y would i use it rather than pen shot since they do the same dmg i think blood arrow should get a bleed toan dsince t costs focus and hp let it keep its same initial dmg and ad a bleed

[SerowLOTRO]

wait since blood arrow takes hp away y would i use it rather than pen shot since they do the same dmg i think blood arrow should get a bleed toan dsince t costs focus and hp let it keep its same initial dmg and ad a bleed

There are other advantages to Blood Arrow. It doesn't cost power, crits as hard as Merciful Shot, and the same trait that gives -1 focus cost to Penetrating Shot also applies to Blood Arrow. If Blood Arrow weren't around, Hunters would have to fire off Rain of Arrows instead... which costs another trait to get it to the same 2 focus cost, costs power and isn't cheap, as well as potentially break CC or unnecessarily aggro other mobs that the tank might not have gotten a solid hold on.

But, it would be nice if Blood Arrow could extend the bleed duration of Barbed Arrow. After all, Blood... Bleed...

[Forgotten_Legend]

wait since blood arrow takes hp away y would i use it rather than pen shot since they do the same dmg i think blood arrow should get a bleed toan dsince t costs focus and hp let it keep its same initial dmg and ad a bleed

because blood arrow crits for more than pen shot and devs for roughly double what pen shot devs for... AND "ambient healing" (ie group heals, say from captains) in a fellowship easily overcome the morale lost by using blood arrow. AND because it uses ZERO power. AND because pen shot is on cooldown.