An Update: On Upcoming Changes to Hunters

[drexele]

oh i guess il have to take another look at it (i took it of my dock my back)

[drexele]

okay i just did but it just says it will seek the enemys blood doing a fair amount of dmg on a crit but will drain hunter of resolve andit does the same amount of norm dmg as pen shot maybe what ur talking about is wiht a trait? if not plz explain

[Forgotten_Legend]

okay i just did but it just says it will seek the enemys blood doing a fair amount of dmg on a crit but will drain hunter of resolve andit does the same amount of norm dmg as pen shot maybe what ur talking about is wiht a trait? if not plz explain

pen shot has a normal crit multiplier (it crits for 1.5x normal damage) and devs for 2x

blood arrow crits for 2x and devs for 3x normal damage

[drexele]

aah okay and know i am not sure is this a bug or nerf the heart seeker says it will not miss be blocked and etc but ive seen it miss several times

[Harla]

aah okay and know i am not sure is this a bug or nerf the heart seeker says it will not miss be blocked and etc but ive seen it miss several times

Innate over-level miss chance, calced independant of other factors and strictures. It's always been that way. You shoot at something yellow or orange, and you have a chance to miss automatically, regardless of what the skill is.

[d3sperad0]

I think that's the important stuff. I'm going to be out for two weeks after this, so don't expect any more info any time soon. Please do continue discussing things, talking about what you want and don't want, and focus on examples, not hyperbole

GL, HF!

we need moooore info!
more than 2 weeks passed already, pleeeeeease...

[Divona.]

we need moooore info!
more than 2 weeks passed already, pleeeeeease...

Second that. Still waiting what are the main plans for hunter changes.

[Fin.]

After the whole Minstrel changes discussion with dev, I REALLY hope to see the same here.

ZC 2 weeks passed long time ago.

[Darth_Carl]

Apologies for the late reply Tamiya:

First and foremost you actually seem willing to have a discussion here. The whole reason I’ve been getting blunt about this, besides a natural tendency towards it, is that most of the hunters round here give the impression of not being interested in sitting down engaging their brains and having an actual discussion on this. So a verbal smack up the back of the head seemed in order.

To start going through things:

1. I never said I speak for the devs, only that for various reasons I feel I can confidently predict what at least some of them are thinking. If you’ve ever talked with anyone who’s moved into the Game Dev industry professionally you’ll know that what they say isn’t always what they mean. What they really think of something they often aren’t allowed to say to the customer base for PR reasons. Doesn’t mean they don’t think it though.

2. I would have hoped the answer to this would be obvious. Whilst I can’t claim to know ever class well, (I haven’t played all classes sadly ), I do have a good idea of some and a rough idea of most of the rest. Burgs is probably my poorest class in terms of personal knowledge. That said each brings something unique to the table in mechanics terms. Cappys and mini’s bring good buffs, Burgs are full of debuffs AFAIK, so are LM’s, RK’s and Champs are straight DPS, but the champ can switch to tank, plus he has Fervour mechanics to seperate him outm, and the RK can switch to healing with his attunment mechanics helping furthar seperate im, Wardens still have Gambits i DPs mode, do I really need to go on here?

The underlying issue here is that Hunters are one class, a trait line that totally removes focus from us and replaces it outright is virtually an impossibility. That means you’ve got to create 3 fundamentally different trait lines within one base mechanics set, that is a totally different game design conundrum than designing two totally different ranged DPS classes.

Yes I know I probably was a littlie unclear with my prior comments, I was talking in the context of the hunter as the sole ranged DPS class, (though some wardens claim they can almost match us, not sure if it’s true, doubt it though), so I perhaps used some bad language there. Sorry.

3. Okay going to jump to the end of your post then come back to the middle bit in my next point .

Your really missing the point here, mostly because I don’t think your thinking things through properly. Corruptions aren’t a issue, regardless of the number that needs to be removed, so many other classes bring corruption removal methods that it really isn’t something that’s going to influence trait line choice for hunters under normal circumstances. Your other two points are sounder but miss something important. 99.99% of encounter we have or ever will have will have a certain amount of these present. If Bowmaster is to be the “best” viable DPS trait line in even some encounters, (let alone the preferable even split with HM), it’s going to have to be workable as that with at least a certain level of these in. This means to suddenly make it unfavourable in some situations you have to further emphasise these points in a fight to emphasise these differences. Unfortunately to do so sufficiently when Bowmaster is actually able to function in an environment containing some of these would entail emphasising them to a degree that would inevitably be damaging to entire classes. A fight that focused on lots of mobility for example wouldn’t just mess with Bowmaster hunters, it would mess with every class with a significant number of induction skills, LM’s for example would be left heavily gimped in such a fight. Your no longer just making one trait line more or less viable. Your doing it to entire classes, that isn’t remotely acceptable.

This is what I mean when I say there’s no practical difference, the range of acceptable content mechanics variation means that, (a few content outliers aside), the range of variation in mechanics will not be enough to change whichever one is the most valid from content to content. The only way round this really is to create some kind of arbitrary mechanics specifically for hunters for every bit of content. From a game design Po this is totally unacceptable, it represents too much time and effort solely for one class.

If you want the available range of content mechanics variation to actually change which DPS line is most viable you need much more extreme differences in the underlying trait lines.

4. Okay middle points, a bit of jumping about here.

There’s one simple reason I’m focusing on raids. Raids and PvMP are the only places min-maxing to the degree of difference between BM and HM is ever going to matter. Anywhere else it just isn’t important enough, hell many F2P solo with only 2 traits to quite high levels, I’ve seen Lv50 characters with just 2 traits before now. The game and traits have never been heavily balanced around PvMP, so the only valid environment for comparison here is endgame group instance content, what’s the ultimate group content, that’s right, Raids. That’s why I’m focusing on it, it’s the best comparison by far.

To come back further up, again, perhaps in hindsight the use of the word complexity was a bad choice. What I was talking about was the need to expand on the gap between the current HM and BM trait lines, naturally this does involve adding new aspects to the class, and that in turn means complexity, and adding new aspects to a class does actually involve more fun because it gives you new ways to play, sorry but that’s true no matter how you look at it.

I’m really not sure where your getting the idea I somehow need to take my blinkers off though. Your the ones with the issue with any form of change here, not me.

[Neladhrir]

::cracks knuckles::
...

I think that's the important stuff. I'm going to be out for two weeks after this, so don't expect any more info any time soon. Please do continue discussing things, talking about what you want and don't want, and focus on examples, not hyperbole

GL, HF!

I want:

- At least one way for hunters that focuses on ranged combat, and let us shine within this focus.
f. e. longer ranged attacks, some arrow or new arrow skills with bigger range, a lengendary quiver with ranged legacies instead of what we have now
- New and old skills with some fancy animations. All the arrow skill look nearly the same. How about a skill and animation where I take two arrows at once on my bow and shoot them at one target or at one in focus and a second closest nearby
- how about a trap that silences or disarms or even better, fears enemies
- some new/changed virtues that support the different three traitlines (for all classes)
- a pet (f.e. a Dog) that fetches the loot from monsters I killed 30 m or more away


I know most of the things above would need a lot more work done than all the other changes for the other classes together. But ZC asked for things we want, not for what would be awesome to have, but never expect to see realized... oh wait, thats probably the same.

[drexele]

the only reason id be okay wiht the dog is if he only got loot and was as a result out of combat only and as soon as he lotted he went away and ud hafta resend him for the next loot if u killed two or more

[Thraxz1982]

I'm going to post one more time with a better list.

We desperately need a rework of our legacies:

-Merciful shot CD is -nearly- worthless with needing at least 3 SBs + a class trait slotted to make it worth doing at all and 4 to make it significant, both of which are time spans >30s. I'd suggest instead of a CD benefit have it increase the amount of morale the target must have to make it usable, such as making the maxed legacy capable of us using it at 75% morale.

-Our critical multiplier legacies should NOT be separate legacies for induction/focus. The DPS increase from the B POOL barbed bleed increases our DPS more per TP spent than either crit multi. Alternatively, the crit multi should also increase the dev magnitude as well as just crit magnitude.

-Low cut needs a 100% bleed chance as part of the skill, the legacy should be +%damage to bleed similar to barbed arrow's. This would make hunters WANT to use a melee skill for reasons other than buffs/focus and make a fairly lame legacy worth upgrading.

-If you REALLY want to do your bow and blade hunter PLEASE, leave huntsman alone, and instead apply that change to a real stance: fleet that confers all these buffs. It fits in better IMO with the idea of a swift and agile hunter. I like the idea of a melee/ranged hybrid stance but NOT at the cost of huntsman. I would also think about including some weak but repeatable self-heals in this build. Perhaps removing the Agile rejoinder CD or making it spammable and allowing it to stack to 2 or 3 (depending on how OP this gets you can reduce stack or increase CD) because the current idea of a hunter is not very survivable at present and even with some buffs even worse in melee. It's survivability is lower than every other class IMO. Mini's have bubble/heals. RKs have heals, better CC and RIDICULOUS burst damage. Captains are stacked with morale/heavy (but sadly screwed over by lack of a slow and no ranged). Guards/burgs/wardens are self explanatory. LMs can heal/GREAT CC. Hunters have very lack luster CC for tight situations because it requires: a lot of focus at hand, is single target otherwise and short, requires a pretty long induction, requires traits that ruin our trait line bonuses we need to be competitive. DF is nice and all but being teleported to someplace 2 hours ride away from where I want to be sucks and it also doesn't work in the moors (seriously, ZC, how can you guys sleep at night taking our one legitimate oh #### button away in moors when not only does something like HIPS work, but is on a three times shorter CD.... resetable with ready and able... along with a HOST of other OP survival skills coughFINDFOOTINGcoughknivesout coughTnGcoughriddlecoughExpose throatcoughExploitopenningcoug htripcough) There are reasons I don't PvP much... because hunters are boring zerg huggers... nothing more. /suggestion-turned-rant

- PLEASE, make crafted traps more useful in PvE group play. The CDs are generally too high to be useful.

[Lendas]

COOL IT PEEPS! really this panic reminds me of when WB purchased turbine. everyone thinks its the end of the world.


1: SS no longer tied to bowmaster line

reaction: i have no idea what this will do but it pobly means we will get the bonus dps boost from the line auto granted and they will replace it with other bonuses.

2: huntsman will be bow and blade

reaction: WOOT its about time. we've been #### at melee forever and im sure legolas didnt kite. anyone who dares speak against out melee skills will invoke my anger. this can only mean good for the hunter class as a "wilderness survival" class. i was about to ask turbine to refresh their description of hunter as a keep defender shooting from behind defenses. this will finally make us a viable melee combatant in the moors instead of the kite kite kite useless-in-melee stuff that we've been. obviously a lot of people who are screaming bloody murder here on this change have never been to the moors and never had a warg clawing their face. most all the hunters in the moors stick strictly to the main action because they have 0 melee power. some people just need to let go of WoW definitions

think of it like the wardens jav skills. not dependable and sustained but can do some good burst harm.

this will take us a little bit more to the "ranger" class we where supposed to be and gives me hope that the turbine devs have gotten back to the roots and had a burst of imagination.


3: ToF to be less cc more everything else

reaction: WOOT finally. no one ever uses that trait line anyway and why give up your raid dps (main role) for a little speck more of cc that is nothing compared to cc core classes. i suppose that this will be our survival/special skills (non-dps) trait line. and if all the people who are crying about huntsman changes get their way at least let this be the survival/melee traitline. i'd love to see a true "independent" hunter out there someday. and if turbine wont make hunters independent then its time for a new class


my suggestions for new skills/traits:

1: a buff skill like fleetness that gives a bonus to melee dmg and lets you absorb more inc dmg as well as a boost in parry

2: a legendary trait (or class trait) that lets hunters wear heavy armour at the cost of the following: [find a path disabled, +20% power cost all skills, +3 TR cost to all port skills, pen shot not usable while on the move, camouflage disabled]

[Lendas]

@ 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.



Carl

LOL +rep for being able to guts out what i was to cowardly to say.

melee-ranged hybrid ftw

[Halvaethor]

^
^
Nice one, Lendas. I concur

[socom33]

So I'm sure that ZC has already started work on the hunter changes but personally I would keep the huntsman the way it is but simply alter melee skills/ranged skills when Improved Fleetness is active. You could have melee damage increased by 10% while its active and each use of a melee skill could buff your next ranged attack by 5%, stacking up to a max of 3 times. So basically the huntsman from range would stay the same as he is now, but if caught in melee hunters could use Deep Concetration + Improved fleetness and all theri melee skills would change, below is just an idea for how each skill would change:

With Improved fleetness not active:
Melee and ranged skills remain as is

While Improved fleetness is active:
All the current buffs of IF and +10% melee damage
Melee skills are changed as follows:

• all melee skills generate +1 focus (so blindside will gen 4 focus), generate +5% damage to your next bow skill (stacking up to 3 times), and reduce the induction of QS by 1s (allows QS to be used on the move) for 5s
• Swift stroke gains additional parry and evade
• Scourging blow removes the induction of barbed arrow
• Agile rejoinder heal heals for more with each bow attack by Y% stacking up to 3 times
• Each bow attack increases the snare of low cut by X%, stacking up to 3 times
• Each melee attack reduces the active cooldown of dazing blow by Zs
• Dazing blow reduces the induction of your next swiftbow by 1s (so yes you could have a moving SB with all your -induction buffs active once every few minutes)

X,Y,Z are just variables to be replaced in testing and obviously balance checks would have to be initiated should certain things prove too OP, but overall these shouldnt be too OP. More critical would be making sure that melee damage stays at the point where being in melee would not be preferred due to higher damage (although I'm personally a fan of using melee skills for their functionalities anyway, which is what this trys to accomplish)

This would basically improve the ability of a hunter caught in melee for as long as they can keep IF up, but would obviously be in trouble if their IF fell off and they did not have enough focus to re activate it.

Anyway thats just what I wish would happen (esp since hunters will be getting melee offense from agility now)

[SerowLOTRO]

Another random thought: the trait Sturdy Traps (if it's not getting pruned) should also apply to the crafted traps. And inside the Trapper set bonus, there should also be a bonus to lower crafted trap cooldowns, maybe down to 1 or 2 minutes. *Maybe* that might help the trap economy on the AH a bit.

[Bosancjeros]

Can I please ask what is wrong with current setup?

Bowmaster - solo dps
Huntsman - raid dps
Trapper of Foes - cc

Orion gave the reasons behind upcoming champion changes, but there is no reason why to change recently changed hunter class, which at the moment is perceived by majority of hunters as balanced state.

maybe cause hunters draw more aggro than usual in any stance, and the stances drain a lot of power.... so changes were necessary

[Lucanthanas]

Here go my two cents:

Regarding Melee as a hunter:
I melee A LOT. I don't see it as a problem and I actually like it.
I have the legacy to add bleed to low cut and to add targets to my AOEs so, it usualy can hit up to 8 mobs, putting a bleed on some of them.
I also have the legacy to increase your defenses with quick stroke and it is also quite usefull
Strangely enough, I never got the legacy for Agile Rejoinder to heal, or I would probably carry that one too.
When 1vs1, If I want to land an induction shot I just use Dazing Blow before.
Melee is OK as is.

That said, I don't really think we need to make a trait line focused on melee/range changes, BUT we could use a couple of changes.
One or two class traits could do the trick (or no traits at all and just doing the focus idea "global").
- I specially like the idea of melee skills giving focus. It increases our "melee" dps simply by allowing us to shoot focus skills in the enemies' faces more often.
- I have mixed feelings as for adding damage to melee/ranged after doing the oposite - as was said often enough, our focus is not melee, adding damage to melee with ranged would be useless unless we rush to melee after shooting and that's just strange.
- Removing the induction on Quick Shot is not really something that is needed. I still shoot it often when in melee (even when being hit by several opponents and without Needfull Haste) and if melee skills add focus, you can always shoot your focus skills while moving away (oh, wait, you can't shoot those while moving - you can always change that).


IMPORTANT note: Our melee skills will deal significantly more damage after RoI if you consider that Agility will then be used to calculate our melee dps. We don't need to change any gear to increase melee dps since Agility will be used for both ranged and melee for us.

In conclusion (regarding melee):
- Our melee skills WILL deal more damage after RoI (even if they remain as are) - FACT.
- Melee skills giving focus is an excelent idea (associated to a class trait or just generaly added)
- I don't think melee viability should be trait line dependant.
- Some minor tweeks to the melee skills are welcome (further increasing the damage of Scourging Blow when enemy is bleeding would be nice, for instance).

[Cize]

Please do not make Huntsman into a Meelee/Ranged Hybrid Build! Why?

- Players choose Hunter because it is a ranged DPS class - it is NOT a sign of good game design if all classes can do more or less the same with different traits...

- There's people that are actually enjoying Huntsman as it is and would be not so happy to be forced to use Bowmaster or go meelee...

- Having different means to reach the same goal (ranged DPS) is actually nice. Nothing is more boring than having just one cookie cutter build which is used by everybody.

[Forgotten_Legend]

- Having different means to reach the same goal (ranged DPS) is actually nice. Nothing is more boring than having just one cookie cutter build which is used by everybody.

you mean like right now? all raid hunters go 4-5 huntsman, and all moors/21st hall hunters go 5 bowmaster + cool burn....

okay, that's TWO cookie butter builds, but it's just as bad

[Leonide]

maybe cause hunters draw more aggro than usual in any stance, and the stances drain a lot of power.... so changes were necessary

Here I must disagree. We do draw more aggro, but if the only job of the hunter was ''pew-pew lulz ya'', I wouln't be raiding anymore. Thats jut not fun. The challenge is to 1) Becoming a machine gun 2) Being subtile. 3) Theres a way to do that. Work with your tank and the others members of the group, change your rotation, use the skills you have. You may pull aggro sometimes, but hey, its not always our fault x)

Second and maybe most important, theres not a problem with stance power. Full red will create some power issues, but thats normal. But lets use the full focus-burn build as an exemple. It will use a lot of power but its totally managable. We are a 'semi-caster' class as a like to call it. Theres skills, traits, legacies and stats for power. Not even talking about rotations and teamates help. I did poison t2 last week, 10min intense DPS fight, alays around 500+ DPS 5/2 blue. No power issues. Intent concentration, 3300 power pool, 1300 ICPR. Power pots just in case.

[Legonist]

Melee traiting....k i hear you..... PLEASE ANYTHING BUT THAT!

As everyone seems to point out we choose this class for the bow/crossbow ranged attack. Im fine with you guys messing with the trait lines as long as i can dps from a range. If you could could u please try to find a way for me to dps even when not in SS and not steal aggro from any tank exept the elite and hard core.

I played the rift ranger. Please forgive me in advance but i think that a pet would be a ok idea. The pet can be anything that gives us a little less aggro or a buff. It could help you track like a wolf or tank like someother animal.

Not relating the pet idea ( still cant decide on it myself) but if any of you played the "LOTR the third age" the ranger had some skills like power drain that would be apealing in this game since people seem to have a power problem.

Im open to any new skills and traits since there is always room to choose from the good and bad. I have made a pretty solid hunter the way it is. I would be fine if you guys just added some new stuff, revised some traits, skills and trait lines but the way it is, is pretty good. As i said before the main 3 things that matter is 1. dps from range 2. power 3. and the lore of the hunter that keep alot of us loving the class.

Just some ideas and personal opinions that you guys can pick, choose and concider from.

[Tannus]

Melee traiting....k i hear you..... PLEASE ANYTHING BUT THAT!

As everyone seems to point out we choose this class for the bow/crossbow ranged attack. Im fine with you guys messing with the trait lines as long as i can dps from a range. If you could could u please try to find a way for me to dps even when not in SS and not steal aggro from any tank exept the elite and hard core.

I didn't. I chose this class from the description at the character creation screen. You know, the one saying they can do range and melee damage. I was disappointed with the hunters melee capabilities.

I played the rift ranger. Please forgive me in advance but i think that a pet would be a ok idea. The pet can be anything that gives us a little less aggro or a buff. It could help you track like a wolf or tank like someother animal.

PLEASE ANYTHING BUT THAT! I specifically chose this class because they DON'T have a pet. My initial reaction was to not play a hunter due to the pet class from wow with the same name. Once I realised LOTRO hunters don't have pet I joyfully chose to play one.

Not relating the pet idea ( still cant decide on it myself) but if any of you played the "LOTR the third age" the ranger had some skills like power drain that would be apealing in this game since people seem to have a power problem.

Im open to any new skills and traits since there is always room to choose from the good and bad. I have made a pretty solid hunter the way it is. I would be fine if you guys just added some new stuff, revised some traits, skills and trait lines but the way it is, is pretty good. As i said before the main 3 things that matter is 1. dps from range 2. power 3. and the lore of the hunter that keep alot of us loving the class.

Just some ideas and personal opinions that you guys can pick, choose and concider from.

We would all love to see some new skills and abilities for hunters to choose from. Except for melee skills and abilities apparently. The main thing that matters to YOU is 1. dps from range 2. power 3. and the lore of the hunter that keep alot of us loving the class. And by lore you mean your perception of what a hunter should be; ie ranged damage ONLY. Or a pet.

[Cize]

you mean like right now? all raid hunters go 4-5 huntsman, and all moors/21st hall hunters go 5 bowmaster + cool burn....

okay, that's TWO cookie butter builds, but it's just as bad

Well two is better than one... which we would have after huntsman goes meelee and we can either go meelee too (which means no ranged DPS any more and also might be problematic in some encounters) or go bowmaster (whatever it will look like then).

It would certainly be nice to have more variability with builds but with the system being as it is we have to be glad that there is two ways.

Also the fact that a recently upgraded skill tree is changed again into sth completely different half a year later smells a lot like there's a nerv incoming... guised as cool new features the community wanted...

Too bad, we just regained parity with other DPS classes on single targets at least... not to speak of AOE....