Hunter Q&A with your host, Zombie Columbus

[Aestiliat]

First of all,thanks for opening this thread ZC.
(...)

D)Mobility.For too long now have we been restrained by long inductions and "stay still to fire that skill" restrictions.Lotro has evolved since SoA and so have its raids that many times require constant movement.For a hunter,as it is now,movement=no DPS(loss of focus,no inductions).Make the hunter more flexible:All focus skills fire-able on the move and needful haste cutting focus conts to half.
(...)

This IS my primary concern:
Back to the launch of Lotro, mmo instances or quests didn't need too much movement (it was more the trick to know and the good setup to have).
Nowadays, you must be more "dynamic" (especially when you look at the new raids and, of course, pvmp).
Whats' the point of keeping this "stay still" stance/nerf/punishment ?
We're hunter who are based on Legolas. Make them like him ! We need to be able to fire on the move.

[Highcyde]

I wouldn't expect too much in that regard EU OrcBane.

1. The developers are trying to pass off a major and unpopular transformation in the class (that wasn't asked for and was not needed) as a few minor modifications around the edges made necessary by the "ambition" of the "systemic" update.

2. There are a number of just weird changes that don't appear to have been thought through very well. Many things hunters have wanted changed for a long time will probably not be addressed (like the lame LI legs). Many successful changes from the last update are being rolled back (imp. fleetness). Implementation on things that should make the update successful, like IQS, are highly problematic, or at the least still up in the air.

3. Most of the changes are probably written in stone at this point.

The above combined with ZC's take on how to be "transparent" means we probably aren't going to get much. My bet is for some lotro version of management doublespeak like: "do more with less!" That sort of thing usually does the trick in situations like this.

[the_bursk]

It's been mentioned previously, but I would like to draw attention again to the bug with ISotE. Back in March, I (along with several other hunters) wrote the following on the forums:

'I've just done a test on Eldar (EU server) and got 'Bursk applied a heal with Improved Strength of the Earth to Bursk restoring 179 points to Power' four times, for a total of 716 Power.'

So despite the fact that it's a 5s duration and we're supposed to get a burst of power every 1s (i.e. 5 bursts total) we only get 4 bursts. Please tell me that you've fixed this for RoI. Losing much-needed power because of a bug is really annoying

[Kannos1600]

Well well well. The Zombie makes a comeback :P

Anyhoozers. Ill fire off some of my questions in turn.

Will Blindside be given an update to its tooltip to mention it will interrupt inductions? Trying to teach some new gamers this is like pulling teeth because the tooltip doesnt openly state this. Not a big issue but kinda wondered this over the past year.

With the upcoming changes to the class as a whole what is the overall look to class roll as a Hunter being aimed at by the DEVs from this point on? Yes we arnt the king of DPS anymore but our CC looks nicer than it did when we were first out of the pocket.

Since the stats are changing and I read into some of the alterations to Captains on stats will we see a large revamp to our gear use in stats or will be primarily remain the same in this essence?

The cut on DPS in Trapper of Foes....Will this go away at some point at all?

Ive always wondered why the team felt the need for a bear helmet at lvl 15 and beyond. Why the bear? Why?!

Set Snare has remained untouched since release in the use of its DoT being I believe around 50 common damage. Will this be updated and scaled as our other skills are? I know our Campfire has recently been updated but I am a firm user of Set Snare in combat for extra DoT but the 50 common damage is not highly useful later in the game. I honestly wouldnt expect a huge difference if it was scaled but something more than what it does after 5 years would be nice I suppose.

EDIT: If the DoT is not looked to be increased at all could this at least be setup to become stackable with other Hunter Set Snares as other DoT skills on other classes are able to be stacked? Much like our Barbed Arrow bleeds stack.

Could I have my skills renamed on my Hunter? Pretty please?
Heartseeker-Haduken, Uppercut-Shoryuken and Burn Hot-Kao Ken x100

1 luv yo. 1 luv.

[Fin.]

The cut on DPS in Trapper of Foes....Will this go away at some point at all?

Quote from ZC

The Trapper line is finally having it's damage penalty fully removed, and is being given a few new ways to debuff enemies.

Also I see many people are asking about scaling our bleeds/campire/dmg of skills(like HS). At first I thought "unscalability" of these is just a bug, later on I thought devs are lazy to fix them, but now I am not really sure why such simple and basic skills are not scaled properly. So I would like to have answer on this issue too.

[Oldin]

Methinks this Q&A needs more A. So far, it's just a Q.

Come on, 2 posts in 4 months is pretty exhausting. Time for another 4 month vacation.

[Valkyrielady]

Guys/Gals


Seriously, don't put alot of effort into your posts here. There is an exact copy of this first post on the Runekeeper forums. The only word changed is "runekeeper" to "hunter." ZC can't even take 5 minutes to type up a unique and appropriate post for either the hunters or the runekeepers. Both classes are seriously upset with changes, and for good reason. But, don't kid yourselves. We won't see any substantive input from any dev. They don't care, come on. Stop wishing, hoping, and venting. Trust me, you're only talking to yourself and friends in the community.

Runekeeper Thread

Notice any similarities?

[DorianFalkenmond]

thx, valkyrielady

he has said to ignore anyways what he wants.. a funny statement in a post where you talk about transparency and ask for questions. telling.

[Whart]

One simple question: Are you going to make any adjustments based on the input from the hunters who have taken the time to help you with beta testing and posted their feedback, or are you expecting us to accept this as basically final? If raising concerns (as the testers have been doing since day one) isn't going to generate any concrete improvements, then I don't quite see the point in asking us for our thoughts.

[Eldrandir]

Well most if not all of this has already been said but I am going to say it anyway.

Foremost, you said you want to add AoE. Why can't we just have more single target dps? I don't want to hit multiple targets, I want to kill a single target faster then any other class in the game can and last longer power wise while doing so (provided I am skilled and geared). Champs = AoE. Hunters = Single Target. What is your problem with that? Orion spends a ton of work upgrading champs AoE and single target dps while you lower ours in favor of some fake AoE? That makes no sense at all. To put it in other words, more AoE is fine, but IF and ONLY if we are the top or at least equal to the top single target dps, if we are not then all our little AoEs are useless since we cannot even preform our main job as effectively as others.

1. Why did you nerf Strong Draw? Of all the traits that could use a change why did you change one of our few perfect traits?

2. Since you nerfed Strong Draw, can we please have more focus gen from skills..NOT new focus gen skills? ISB should be 3 focus at all times for example (2 arrows = 2 focus, 3 arrows = 3 focus makes sense to me). Perhaps Swift and True could make ISB give one more focus.

3. Why is barb not scaling properly? Is this a bug or intentional?

4. Heightened Senses. Instead of making this innate and removing the stupid trait, you add power usage bonus to a trait that is NEVER used where extra power is needed. Why could you not make it innate and put the power stuff on a new and useful trait?

5. SS. No matter what you do this skill is useless (unless you make it inductionless and give it an interrupt), AoE is not our purpose and we have better things to fire, it's just stupid. Why can't we get something that boosts our single target dps?

6. Immediate Skill Que canceling skills. Stances, Needful Haste, Blindside, and IF should cancel the que and fire immediately, why has this been ignored? The request has been stated since the skills existed.

7. Aftercasts.....why? CDs work much better, the current barb aftercast is bad enough and you add more.

8. IF. We have even less inductions now, so the most important part of that skill is the -10% attack duration and you remove it. Again, why? You keep making changes no one wants and ignoring changes that are needed.

9. RoA trait change is good, but we can't use the skill 3/4s of the time anyway. More AoE is really useless when we have so many problems with our "new" single target status.

10. Parry in S:E......Does not compute.



That's enough for the moment. There is more though.

[SungXe]

Big yellow numbers aint all. Sustainability is much better.

And this update don't contain much nerfs.

• Theres the Strong Draw nerf which will lead in a focus problem.
• Theres Fleetness which got nerfed but also buffed at the same time, still, its not
  legendary at all (the -10% attack duration dont weight that much).
• And theres Needfull Haste which will get buffed not nerfed.
  At the moment you can keep it up 37,5% of the fight, after the update you will be able to keep it up 50% of the time.

I'm more concernd about the changes which are necessary and will not happen.

That's the problem, you guys don't think. NH requires FOCUS, giving a shorter duration and a shorter cooldown is a nerf. :wink:

Pull up a chair, friend.

Hunter_Players: You know why we are here.

ZC: Hmph... I am a trafficker of information, I know everything I can. The question is, do you know why you are here?

Hunter_Players: We are looking for the Focus.

ZC: Oh yes, it is true. The Focus, of course. But this is not a reason, this is not a `why.' The Focusr itself, his very nature, is means, it is not an end, and so, to look for him is to be looking for a means to do... what?

Hunter_Players: You know the answer to that question.

ZC: But do you? You think you do but you do not. You are here because you were sent here, you were told to come here and you obeyed. It is, of course, the way of all things. You see, there is only one constant, one universal, it is the only real truth: DPS. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect.

Hunter_Players: Everything begins with a Trait-Line-Choice.

ZC: No. Wrong. Trait-Line-Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without. Look there, at that Burglar. My God, just look at her. Affecting everyone around her, so obvious, so burgeois, so boring. But wait... Watch - you see, I have sent her a DPS upgrade, a very special upgrade. I wrote it myself. It starts so simply, each attack out of stealth creating critical hit, just like poetry.


ZC: First, a rush... heat... her Crit out of stealth. You can see it, yes? She does not understand why - is it the whine of PVMS? No. What is it then, what is the reason? And soon it does not matter, soon the why and the reason are gone, and all that matters is the feeling itself. This is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it, we fight to deny it, but it is of course pretense, it is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely out of control. DPS. There is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the `why.' `Why' is what separates us from them, you from me. `Why' is the only real social power, without it you are powerless. And this is how you come to me, without `why,' without power. Another link in the chain. But fear not, since I have seen how good you are at following orders, I will tell you what to do next. Run back, and give the Forums this message: Hunters time is almost up. Now I have some real business to do, I will say adieu and goodbye.

Hunter_Players: This isn't over.

ZC: Oh yes, it is. The Focus is mine and I see no reason why I should give it up. No reason at all.

RK_Players: Where are you going?

ZC: Please, ma chérie, I've told you, we are all victims of DPS. You owned too much in PVM last year, I must take a break. Cause and effect. Au revoir (translation: Goodbye).

[Defense1977]

Well, I can't promise you the sun and stars, but I have been and will always try to be transparent. [snip] ... Ask anything you wish, but be ignored at your own peril! I'll be on and off over the weekend, chatting when I can.

At my previous job I would sometimes give talks or participate in panel discussions on various topics outside of normal business hours. I wasn't paid for them, but did them because I wanted to. While sometimes I didn't formally represent my organization, I was always mindful that my conduct impacted the audience's view of not just me, but my parent employer.

@ZC: As others have stated on this and the RK thread, we understand that you're not required to do these Q&A things. However, if you choose to do them, please follow through because, like it or not, they do reflect on you and your employer.

As someone else already mentioned, I'm hoping to see some 'As' to the really thoughtful 'Qs' listed in ths and the RK thread.

[Daeloth07]

That's the problem, you guys don't think. NH requires FOCUS, giving a shorter duration and a shorter cooldown is a nerf. :wink:

It would be awesome if you actually read the quoted text before making such statements.
My first point stated that we will have a focus problems. If Strong Draw remain unchanged there will be no problem do bring up the needed focus... well at least in precision. And if you count a shorter CD as a nerf only because you have to pay the cost more often, then you should rethink some of your opinions.

Foremost, you said you want to add AoE. Why can't we just have more single target dps? I don't want to hit multiple targets, I want to kill a single target faster then any other class in the game can and last longer power wise while doing so (provided I am skilled and geared). Champs = AoE. Hunters = Single Target. What is your problem with that? Orion spends a ton of work upgrading champs AoE and single target dps while you lower ours in favor of some fake AoE? That makes no sense at all. To put it in other words, more AoE is fine, but IF and ONLY if we are the top or at least equal to the top single target dps, if we are not then all our little AoEs are useless since we cannot even preform our main job as effectively as others.

In one point i have to agree: Hunters should be a single target class as champions should be an AoE class.
BUT... since you cant simply take away their single target dps capability, im fine with adding more AoE skills for hunters. Everything would be okay by doing so. We would not suffer any dps loss on one target if strong draw stays the same.

I hope ZC respond in time to the questions... If the patchnotes stay unchanged there will be still many things to do...
Not only by the class itself, rather in fellowship enviroment. The Minstrels Song of Aid only gives us a parry respond, not very usefull. Then theres Ballad of Composure which gives a 5% lesser damage boost to ranged attacks then the equivalent does to tactical and melee.

[Darkzodiac]

Hmmmmmmmmmm?

[Fudoshin]

Lets face it guys, he might want to comment, but they are 30-ish days from the unleashing of the awesome Rise of Isenguard, it my be more trouble than it's worth..get ready to suck it up for 6+ months.

They probably feel like I did the other day handing in an assignment. (should have done more work earlier)

[Fudoshin]

Forgot to mention,

AGAIN.

[VincentVanPort]

I hope ZC respond in time to the questions... If the patchnotes stay unchanged there will be still many things to do...
Not only by the class itself, rather in fellowship enviroment. The Minstrels Song of Aid only gives us a parry respond, not very usefull. Then theres Ballad of Composure which gives a 5% lesser damage boost to ranged attacks then the equivalent does to tactical and melee.

I believe fellowshipwise we will be ok, maybe even more than that. Buffed into oblivion and with the counterdefence change we will probably have more focus than before. It is just the solo capability especially that might suffer greatly and where we are forced into such changes that work so differently from everything in the las 4 years.

This is not a minor adjustment at all. These are major changes, way more impactful than Mirkwood and our great revamp combined.

People just do not see the point in traiting red where you will suffer from focus loss greatly and do not see the point in traiting blue either since it is reducing induction times only while the only induction that is still useful (focuswise) will be ISB and maybe BA when NH is up. Yeah SS might have its uses but so would improved campfire (scaled properly) or a purge poison that does not root you to the place for 3+ seconds. I just don get what kind of twisted mind is working on the hunter and what is thbe intended way of the class.

[CharlesRollinsWare]

Here you go, slightly modified from the post in the other thread:

1. Where have you been? Just a tip, but being silent for 4 months is not an effective way to be transparent. It is not the fault of players that they are exasperated with a.) many of your bizarre changes, b.) your total lack of communication about them, so the sarcasm in your op here is a bit wide of the mark.

2. How do you justify nuking focus burn by removing strong draw?

3. Or: why after all those awesome improvements to the flexibility of the class in the last update, which you justifiably congratulate yourself for, are you taking a bunch of flexibility away by again tying traits, stances, and playstyle, right after you made them all so interchangable?

4. ...snipped ...
.
.
.
8. ...snipped...

I am quoting the above because it basically says it all. My main is a Hunter that raids all the time. The changes you made last update were universally received in an immensely positive fashion.

You posted up your new concepts four months ago, the chief of which was that you envisioned hunters as a bow & blade specialists with three viable trait lines, and here is what I want to do. To say that the response from the community was less than positive would be an understatement. Universally the community rejected the concept of a massive new update barely six months after a prior massive update that the vast majority loved.

You responded in a fashion that convinced me that perhaps the bow and blade concept my be worth seeing. At no point did you imply that your envisioned goal of making all three trait lines viable would be by dramatic negative changes to the few good traits that had existed for some time.

I was not chosen to be in beta, and thanks to your choice to absolutely ignore the Hunter community for the last four months, I have had exactly zero idea of what changes you were implementing. Since the NDA, nothing that I have read has implied that any of the changes are positive.

I have a fully raid equipped Hunter that I have traited blue line almost exclusively since I reached L50 before MW. With the last update I have worked my blue line traited hunter up to a point that I can participate in any raid content because I can maintain high focus while delivering high DPS and can handle any ranged tanking assignment. I also can (although I hate doing it), swap to Yellow line and handle a poison clearing/mezzing role.

Pardon my less than exuberant response to your sarcastic comments above, but thanks to your choice to refuse to communicate with the hunter community for four months, including the entire period since the NDA lifted and during which I have not seen one single positive post about your changes to the class I play the most, exactly why would you expect me to believe anything you say about your changes???

In fact, exactly why should I be positive about anything to do with ROI period? Lets see, because of the new level 75 cap, when it comes out my raid ready main will find herself:

1. In need of replacing every single piece of gear she spent years getting
2. Trying to do it with skills and traits that, based on what I hear form the only folks I know that have actually played under your changes entirely nullifies my entire experience and build concept.

...and your first official word about all of this is, and I quote:

"Hunter changes in Rise of Isengard. Philosophies of the class you know and love. Intentions for the future. Regrets of the past. My shoe size. Ask anything you wish, but be ignored at your own peril! ..."

followed by...

"I'll be on and off over the weekend, chatting when I can. "

Well, at the time I write this, the weekend is half over and, other than the knowledge that I can ask you about your shoe size (say what?) you still have not provided one iota of factual information about why, after I had a class and character that I loved, you have, apparently, entirely wrecked my carefully honed build and you think enough about me to fill your minuscule post with half-baked comments about how "funny" it all is.

BTW, my other raid-ready character is a Burglar. It the same four months that you have chosen to entirely ignore your community, one of your peers has chosen to be far more informative and interactive with that one. Believe me when I say, you, sir, have come off decidedly worse in the comparison.

At least for a bit longer, I am

Luinmiriel-Magellin
Elven Huntress of Lorien
Honoured Warrior of the White LAdy
Defender of Lothlorien

[spiralsatori]

At least for a bit longer, I am

Luinmiriel-Magellin
Elven Huntress of Lorien
Honoured Warrior of the White LAdy
Defender of Lothlorien

While I agree with a lot of what you said, since this is the hunter forum, I can only dispense advice in convenient image form.

You're not an elven huntress. You're a dissatisfied customer, in fact a member of a rather large and seemingly homogeneous group of dissatisfied customers. What's happening here is akin in my mind to Coke II/The New Coke. When The Power(s) That Be(Are?) decide after release that oh, hey, our beta testers were right and we haven't heard one positive thing about The New Hunter, then the re-release of Hunter-Cola Classic will spark some new interest in the class, perhaps.

Fortunately for me at least, I'm going to be busy with school until about Update 5 territory, so perhaps we'll see some changes trickling through the testing cycle by then

[Eldrandir]

BUT... since you cant simply take away their single target dps capability,

Actually you can, ZC has showed us that with RoI, however you should not do so. I have no problem with that. What can be done however is give hunters more single target dps. If champs can preform 100% in 3 (single, AoE, and tank) roles when compared to other classes, we should at least be able to be the best at what used (Is it now?) to be our main role, single target dps. I don't want any more of this useless AoE (Like SS) until we are the top single target dps. Also, with the new RoA trait we don't need ANY new AoE at all since we can continuously spam RoA if we have a decent number of mobs in front of us. No cap crit + trait crit + Deadly Precision + 5 or 6 targets = never ending AoE spam.

[EU_Orc_Bane]

Who else thinks some smug Champion has hacked ZC's forum account and posted these Q&A threads in the Hunter and Runekeeper forums as a wind-up?

[VincentVanPort]

ZCs sarcastic Q&A reminds me of the implementation of Forochel where you could receive a hunter's trap with the nice little description "A little nerf won't hurt much." That was just after our first month of the hunter that brought to us such glorious things as craftable traps, heartseeker and the port to guruth.

The outcry was insane. People were really insulted by a single object in the world. Sarcasm is not taken well at all to the person that feels put off by it.

[Stoutbearded]

First you decide not to show up for a couple of months. Then you do show up, apologize and promise to be transparent and communicative. Then in less than two days you already prove otherwise. What makes you think I can trust you any longer?

[Brave.Sir.Robin]

Dear ZC,

It seems like a lot have already responded and thus I think there is little chance for a proper respond on my question but here goes anyhow. To me, when I created my hunter, I wanted a high single target dps'er. When I think back to the SOA days I see a hunter that felt rather clunky and was slow. The focus burn changed this and your recent update changed it even more. You created a faster and less clunky hunter that is more fun to play. While with the current update you seem to be preserving the focus build a bit but only if you fully trait blue. You talk about flexiblity but flexibility shouldn't mean that the main role of the hunter (single target dps) suffers because of it and these secondary roles should really be viable. This little wall of text brings me to my questions:

-Is single target dps the main role of the hunter and why does the update not focus on our main role? On the beta forum one of the devs said that champs were the best single target dps with RKs behind them. Burgs nowadays have incredible dps aswell plus bringing major buffs and debuffs to the grp even while traited dps. Why is flexibility needed if we can't even perform our main role properly? I feel like you are going to try to make the red line do more AOE and I ask you to focus on making the hunter flexible in the sense of improving movement and making it feel less clunky. The hunters are feeling that they cannot and arent allowed to perform their main role properly and you keep talking about other uses/flexibility of hunters; this is not what the hunter community is asking you to do.

-What is the use of the red traitline of the hunter? Red traitline won't be able to keep focus up at all in the current state and thus will feel like a slow and boring hunter. I feel like you are going to add more AOE to this line; why not ask the hunter community what kind of secondary role they would like for red instead of making the decision for us. I think in general the hunters are not interested in an AOE traitline.

-How is the yellow traitline's debuffs supposed to compete with debuffs from Lms/burgs: a little less parry/evade is nothing compared to -20% inc tact damage or +10% damage for the whole grp. Many bosses don't need CC and the debuffing of this line is rather dull.

-Nerfing the most important trait (strong draw) of the hunters and replacing it with a +3% damage trait on PS and BA is something that hurts me a lot. You talk about making the class more interesting but the new trait is a boring and bad as they get. Why did the trait need to be nerfed so badly and how is 3% supposed to be a worthwhile replacement?

-Why is the communication so limited? There is so much talk about flexibility and giving the hunters melee and the newest is that we are given AOE. Why not ask what we want? I feel like many hunters would like red to be our spike dps and blue sustained. We never asked for AOE. I really hope you take some time in finding out what your customers would like to have. Why not make a thread with poll options on what the possibilities would be. The hunter community may not always respond kindly to change but that is mainly because nobody explains anything and slowly people get more and more irritated by the lack of communication. Explain, listen and allow time for feedback that can be implemented in time.


Aliendha

[Vilost]

They pulled the worthless root from PS when traited ToF. Technically that means less CC, but that's a good thing as it never worked and destroyed PS in the process.

Thanks! (and yeah it did, one of the reason I'd dropped it originally.)