Hunter Q&A with your host, Zombie Columbus

[Eldrandir]

During one test I had 1850 ICPR and still needed Intent Concentration.
Critical eye adds about 1% crit chance for me, which is worth the focus.

Thank You

1600ish when in presence of the dummy, 1300ish without.

It's only necessary because there is no captain around throwing a bunch of rally's to supplement your power to be honest. It works as far as I can tell. It's +600 and you're main focus gain that you can really influence is from deadly precision now. There isn't even a reason to think about what % it gives so long as it's 'more'. I've tried crit relics and it did increase my dps significantly, but none have ICPR on them so it's not sustainable. There is no such trade off with crit eye.

Thank You. I only wanted the % for Crit Eye to compare with live %.

[Forgotten_Legend]

Until a few weeks after launch, try not to put too much faith proclamations made on these forums about how much or little damage one class or another does (exhibit A: claims that 65 RK's out damage 75 Hunters.) RoI has a lot of deep level changes to the whole game. While we have our own internal testing as well as beta, you all will be the ones who really figure out how to make these classes run optimally. If after that, Hunters are getting out dpsed by Burglars (or any other non-dps class) then we will make appropriate changes.

in all fairness... that exhibit A claim stemmed from an early beta build before weapon and implement damage tweaks, where a sole RK parsed 1700 damage on a level 65 copied-character traited fire for roughly 20 minutes non-stop. that also was before all the changes to fire were coded as well, which some who claimed exhibit A hadn't realized. also, with later beta builds, that Rk and others were never able to repeat that high of a parse, on either level 65 OR 75 RKs.

my own experience with the latest beta build, is that all three DPS classes are pretty close in terms of DPS. based on comparing my own parses with those of others.

on to my question:
is there any plans to vary the cost/cooldown of (existing or future) focus skills? ie... instead of every focus skill costing 3 focus on a 10 second cooldown (except I/PS of course) is there any chance of 2-focus, or 4-focus, or maybe even something more complicated like a skill that requires at least 1 (or x) focus, but consumes all focus, that does extra damage per pip of focus consumed? and possibly even varied cooldowns? like 5 seconds cooldown or 15 seconds cooldown on various focus skills?

part of the reason PS is the go-to focus skill is that all the others have long cooldowns (blood arrow=10s, RoA=10s , hunter's art = 10s, merciful shot = 30s) or are situational (blood arrow costs morale, RoA easily breaks CC on off targets, merciful shot only usable under 50% target morale and removes corruptions, so is unusable for DPS in some fights, like Lt of Dol Guldor or Ivar challenge mode)

hunters can store 9 focus, but all of our focus skills cost 3 or 6 focus, while a champ can store 5 fervour, and has a fervour consuming skill at all 5 steps. for example clobber costs 1, savage/feral strike costs 2, brutal strike and bracing attack cost 3, bladestorm cost 4, raging blade and ferocious strike cost 5

[MurkyMajare]

It might be (and I honestly doubt it) that hunters are equal to champs and RKs in sustainable dps.

But a champ can quickly change to being an AOE-dpers in the middle of a fight.
RK can change to healing without much penalty (yes, dps traited go less healing than a healing traited healer, but they still heal).

So both our "matches" have secondary roles they can jump right into.

So why pick a hunter?

If you pick a champ, you get the *same* single dps *and* aoe
If you pick a runekeeper, you get the *same* single dps *and* healing.

Just leaving us approx. equals is not good enough... especially when we are *3rd* on the list.

ZC wrote that the bonus was removed because it was a trait we "all used"... well, there are many such traits in the other classes that "everyone" use... am I to understand that those traits will be removed as well?

I suppose our QS and PS are the next skills to go then, since every hunter use them all the time too?

If you do not like traits being used by too many people, ZC, then why not (as suggested) set the cost permanently to 2?
By essentially increasing the cost by 50% to 3, we can fire it 33% less, and making much less damage with it.

Without any compensation in increased damage.

So it might be faster to use? Who cares? Firing one might be better, but few fights rarely need only one shot. I still cannot use it often enough to take advantage of faster turn around.

[Spiriel]

Because the trait was essentially mandatory, and with it Penetrating Shot was always the correct way to spend Focus. Bringing the cost up to 3 allows us to buff Penetrating Shot and makes other Focus gated skills worth using.
Strong Draws former glory was that every Hunter, regardless of traitline or role, had to use it if they wanted to be efficient. It will never be returned to that level of potency, nor will any trait remain that potent if I can help it.

Thanks for the reply. I don't really follow your logic (essentially "Everyone uses it so we nerfed it"... may as well remove Deadly Precision becuase every hunter uses that too) but since you seem firm in your stance that it won't change back, it doesn't really matter. Instead I'll reframe the question: What do we have to recover the focus lost by removing Strong Draw?

A standard rotation saves a minimum of 4-5 focus every 10 seconds with Strong Draw traited. So it follows that changing Strong Draw effictively increases focus consumption by 4-5/10s. From what I have seen, there does not seem to be a way to generate that much extra focus come RoI. IQS would seem to be 1.5 focus/10s. Precision Stance will add less than 1 above the current Enduring Precision trait. Does removing the crit cap really generate 2-3 focus/10s via Deadly Precision? If yes then the problem is mostly solved (Focus costs are a problem beyond just PS and BlA). If no, then perhaps you can look at adding in some focus uppers.

[SungXe]

Deadly Precision should work (generate) focus with Auto Attack crits and devestating crits....too.

But might as well scrap that trait too. It must have escaped ZC that this trait should be as mandatory as Strong Draw right now for DPS. Why only destroy half of it? Come on, it's more fun to completely let us rework our Builds and Playstyles. After all this evil Trait had roughly 20% of our Skills to gernerate focus(!)

Why not create two legacies instead on our melee weapon, Pool B only. One increases the chance to generate one PiP from Focus Crits but not Dev crits by 0.2% up to 1%! And the other would increase the chance to Generate one PiP from Induction Crits but not Dev crits by 0.2% up to 1% too!

This would so much fit into our LI itemization and utterly destroy that evil Deadly Precision omnipotent trait. I think hunter will be much more fun that way......


Just imagine. Standing there all day sapming I-QS. And once in a lifetime fire of a "special" focus skill. Now they mean something. How awesome, since it does not matter which we use, we can even let our Cat faceroll over the Keys 1/2/3. Focus gated Shots are finally "Special". So hunters have something to look forward to. What great gameplay change this could be, no more complex focus rotations - Hunters are finally straight forward. (Choices are bad).

[VincentVanPort]

Because the trait was essentially mandatory, and with it Penetrating Shot was always the correct way to spend Focus. Bringing the cost up to 3 allows us to buff Penetrating Shot and makes other Focus gated skills worth using.
Strong Draws former glory was that every Hunter, regardless of traitline or role, had to use it if they wanted to be efficient. It will never be returned to that level of potency, nor will any trait remain that potent if I can help it.

What kind of thinking is this? The new mandatory trait is Deadly precision now. Have you thought of that? Or are you breaking this trait in 6 months as well? Everybody will slot this trait now to be able to generate as much focus as possible. What is the logic behind this change?
What about swift and true or fast draw? Probably 80% are equipping htese traits as well. Are you going to do something about that as well? Every class has some traits that are found in most builds, not depending on the favored traitline, but effectiveness. If you do not want people equipping certain traits than you should let go of traits altogether.

[Thraxz1982]

Criminy guys. You realize you just took my (and likely your) second favorite trait and put it on the chopping block by talking about it?

[Daeloth07]

What kind of thinking is this? The new mandatory trait is Deadly precision now. Have you thought of that? Or are you breaking this trait in 6 months as well? Everybody will slot this trait now to be able to generate as much focus as possible. What is the logic behind this change?
What about swift and true or fast draw? Probably 80% are equipping htese traits as well. Are you going to do something about that as well? Every class has some traits that are found in most builds, not depending on the favored traitline, but effectiveness. If you do not want people equipping certain traits than you should let go of traits altogether.

+rep, this are the real questions!

Maybe they remove moral potions too, because everybody use them.
So we have to buy the HoT potions from the Shop, which evil plan.

At the bottom linie, removing such essential traits, cuts our flexability down.
Hard to believe that hunters do stance dance in RoI, but we will see.

[SungXe]

There are two different concerns with this update. Unfortunately ZC did not cover them well.

• DPS and Top End DPS/DMG
• Gameplay Changes to the Hunter Class

For advanced Hunter Class players, Focus is a mean to do DPS.

This update changes Focus management significantly and so the "feel" and "gameplay" of the Hunter Class.

This does not mean we will fail in TOP DPS, due the possibilities in Endgame itemization.
The Question remains IF playing a Hunter with ~80% Crit chance and 2039% Offence Rating Spaming IQS and occasiionaly a "Special" Shoot is as fun as playing a dynamic Focus mechanic Hunter.

The IQS Spam has ZERO potential for deepening the experience and so let advanced players perform "better". No Potential.

(This is of course completely off) but that's what basically the changes might bring. A simplification of the hunter. And yet even a nerf to DPS since the basic skills might not implicate their true strength with the lack of Gear stacking during beta right now.

While i agree it's far to early (as already stated) to talk about DPS. I for once do certainly do not like the changes to Focus related Gameplay.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

Strong Draw

Penetrating Shot was almost always the go to use for Focus for multiple reasons.

1) Lowest power cost of Focus skills
2) Shortest cool down of Focus skills
3) Single target - sometimes you can't touch adds

Pre-Blood Arrow it was almost a no brainer. At least now there's a choice....sometimes.

• If Blood Arrow was off cool down (10sec vs. 3sec) and you could use it (no risk from Morale cost) you used it over PS every time. No Power cost and harder hits made it a much better choice for your Focus. There's disclaimers though, and the CD is a lot longer (esp. true with 6 Helegrod set) so PS gets used more.
• If you didn't have more than one target to hit RoA is a waste of power; if you can't clip adds you can[t use RoA at all so PS gets used more. Also 10sec vs. 3sec (1.5sec) CD.
• If the mob is above 50% life you can't use MS, and below 50% it's still a high opportunity cost for Focus so PS gets used way more.

PS always got used more for several reasons. Trashing the trait that made it better just because it got used more, therefore improving it was always a good idea, is poor logic. Provide better ways to use Focus skills besides PS and [current] Strong Draw becomes much less attractive by default. It might be a less vital skill in my rotation if there were more times I had to make a "PS or X Skill" decision.

Even worse logic is improving PS to be usable on the move (now) AND creating Improved PS with zero CD (soon). I will still slot Strong Draw simply because the skill it improves is such a large part of my rotation...it's just no where near as good of a trait. Continuing to make PS a more and more vital part of our rotation then trashing the related trait because it's always a "must have" is pretty silly.

With RoI I might actually have had more reason to retrait and rethink thanks to Split Shot. With two Focus using AoE skills I would actually get to decide between Strong Draw and Arrow Storm. Am I going to be in an AoE heavy environment and spend a lot of time and Focus on RoA and Split Shot? Great! Now I finally have a real decision point in my build and could have good reason to remove Strong Draw. OOPS, DOESN'T MATTER! Now Arrow Storm has also been changed so that it doesn't reduce Focus costs either.

What was the real reasoning behind changing both Strong Draw and Arrow Storm at the same time ZC? The previously used "It was too good" logic doesn't apply to Arrow Storm. Strange that both traits that reduce Focus consumption should both be removed at the same time, don't you think? Come on, you can be honest with us.

PS: Agreed that you should destroy Deadly Precision as well. It was more important than Strong Draw, always has been. Or did your testing reveal that modifying DP would leave us too Focus starved?

[Zetsubousensei]

Some more thoughts on strong draw, perhaps they're not worth much. I can get behind the people who say that pre-nerfed strong draw should be made into a class feature. Here's why: if it happens that through 4 years of gameplay, 99.5% of hunter players end up slotting the same trait, it suggests the ability is so essential to the class that turning it into a class feature should be seriously considered. It also suggests that there is a crippling flaw in the class design (I'll even spell it out: focus generation) since the trait is so popular. So the question is, what steps are being taken to fix this flaw, now that strong draw can no longer patch it?

Agreed that you should destroy Deadly Precision as well. It was more important than Strong Draw, always has been. Or did your testing reveal that modifying DP would leave us too Focus starved?

No such thing it seems. I'm willing to accept an explanation that forgetting to nerf deadly precision was an honest mistake and will be rectified in a future update.

[jmez]

Ok .... conspiracy theory time! Cause I really can't/dont wanna believe that they would take basically the best/most essential trait we have and junk it cause it's "too good"

*afterhours meeting inside turbine one night*

Lead Dev: Ok guys champ and lm changes look awsome, and capies lookin pretty good too. Last 2 classes we'll cover for today will be rks and hunters. hit me wit it gentlemen!

Dev1: ok well rks are pretty crazy right now so lets just beef up the tact. resists of things and call it a day, besides I had too much quach. on my barrito this afternoon and couldn't really think too good on the jon.

Lead Dev: ok, sounds good .... how bout hunters?

Dev5: Excuse me sir, i'd like to interject and propose we really put some hard time and effort into a new map for the PvMP players, they've waited 4 years and it's about time we actually gave them what we promised with the Moria launch.

*laughter subsides after 5 mins or so*

Lead Dev: Oh johnson, you kill me wit that one everytime.

Dev5: I know, it never gets old does it.

Lead Dev: seriously though, lets focus on the hunters ... what are we going to do for them?

Dev2: Ok sir, heres what I got. Basically everyone seems happen with the class the way it is now. So if we just scale things up for 10 new lvls, add on the few new skills i've laid out for you and fix the 3 bugs we hit wit our darts as we throw em at the board of bugs, we'll be all set.

Lead Dev: you sure stevens, that sounds awfully easy.

Dev2: NAH! I like what happened to the minis and having them totally re-learn and re-work the class. Lets do it here too! So lets buff up some stuff that hardly any hunter will ever use, maybe throw ina new port @ lvl 67. But what else? I've got to be missing something.

Dev7: How bout u mess wit their focus, thats a big part of being a hunter right?

Dev2: YES! ok, lets see ... looks like every hunter in game uses this one trait ... lets just get rid of that and see how well they do! That'll fix em.

Lead Dev: I dunno Stevens, your gonna hear an awful lot of backlash over this.

Dev2: Welp sir, if not this then I dont really have much else to offer the hunters for this xpac. Its going to seem pretty lame compared to what Wilson did for the champs.

Lead Dev: How bout this, you impliment your plan in beta and see what happens. When you get your expected uproar, make up a few lame answers to kind of provoke them on. Once everyone thinks the worst is a for gone conclusion. You ride in and say that you've actually listened to those bozos and your gonna keep things the way they are. Now you look like the golden boy, the hunters are so happy they didnt get that huge nerf they dont really care we arent giving them much of anything wit this update, and we dont really have to upgrade squat on the class the a few minor things, saving us $$$. Everyone wins!

A perfect example is what your intern, Davis, did with quick shot. Look how that turned out for him. He's the king around here now! Paid cash! I even hear he's taking mary from accounting out. Thats how you need to act and think Stevens!

Dev2: And thats why your the boss sir! Excellent (wit mr. burns fingers going of course)

Dev5: You think this would be a good time to tell the hunters they're going to have to start buying their arrows from the lotro store?

Lead Dev: Nah, we'll save that one for the update. Meeting adjurned!

******************events depicted may or may not have actually occured, and are most likely the result of 1 persons bored at work day dreams ***************************

sorry for the length but it sounds good to me lol.

./cheers

[nolins12]

wow, lmao (thats what happens!)

[ppspankalot]

What happened to the Q & A ZC? Seems you have a different definition to "Weekend".

[Vilost]

What happened to the Q & A ZC? Seems you have a different definition to "Weekend".

She Who Must Be Obeyed musta put her foot down and demanded family time :P And it was probably hard to concentrate on Hunter arguments with little zombies under foot, pew pewing each other (maybe *that's* why hunters are getting nerfed!) ok joking pretty much, but ZC stated a bit ago in the thread that it was family time during labor day weekend.

Prolly shouldn't have said he'd be about on and off but stuff happens <shrugs> at least the thread's kinda getting some answers now.

[zalladi]

Have you ever given to thought about hunters going further into usage of stealth skills? I know we are not to be in any relation to any other classes, but being determined and defining the word, 'Hunter' is basically, a being whom seeks other beings or objects. It would be nice for us to be in the ever-so-slightly deeper path for stealth. If you want to be a good hunter (real-life), you have to be quiet, and move silently...

[Lestache]

What happened to the Q & A ZC? Seems you have a different definition to "Weekend".

She Who Must Be Obeyed musta put her foot down and demanded family time :P And it was probably hard to concentrate on Hunter arguments with little zombies under foot, pew pewing each other (maybe *that's* why hunters are getting nerfed!) ok joking pretty much, but ZC stated a bit ago in the thread that it was family time during labor day weekend.

Prolly shouldn't have said he'd be about on and off but stuff happens <shrugs> at least the thread's kinda getting some answers now.

ZC's been updating the OP with his answers since late Sunday night, which I believe he mentioned somewhere in this thread. Anyway, just check out his original post for his responses so far.

[bastiat1]

I note your comment on the animation on Fleetness being improved. It helps, but I really don't understand why you removed the one thing that made Improved Fleetness a **Legendary** trait- -Attack Duration%. With just the Induction / Focus benefit, even with the cast time improvement it doesn't seem like enough to justify going deep to trait it.

With the changes to Needful Haste you can keep it up more often at substantially higher Focus cost. There is a Fleetness-like problem here though. The old NH was able to amortize the animation over a longer buff, now the animation time / buff time is basically doubling, making it less effective.

I'm not in beta so I can't comment on Hunter's Art except to say unless it is a very fast animation, it will likely face the same problem. Others have already mentioned that the animation is so long it decreases rather than increases DPS.

In an ideal world our short-term buffs like Improved Fleetness, Needful Haste, Hunter's Art, and our Stances all have very fast animations and no after-cast delays, and Blindside is Immediate. If not, why? If not now, when?

[ppspankalot]

Sincerest apology for my last comment. Was not expecting questions to be answered in OP. I guess my noob badge is shining bright today.,

[VincentVanPort]

THanks to the server migration I am now able to rep up NATs posts. He just has a way with words to put my thoughts down in clear, authoritive English. He might be the best there is in our class forum.

It is just how je said: There are reasons why we use PS so whenever CD is up. But that is not going to change when everything else is getting made unattractive as well. Who is going to use BA if the only benefit is the higher critmultiplier? The +10% crit make up for that when traited red, and the reduced power costs in blue might do the same. With no cooldown PS will alsways be available. Now we are using PS and BA on CD, because we can, since focus is not a scarce resource.
Who is going to use RoA over PS if there is only one mob to be hit and if there are more if we can not use it immedeatly again, because while the trait resets the CD on a crit it still has a second delay where the average hunter will stand bewildered with nothing to do.
Who is going to use SS or LolBA, if the induction is so long you can fire off two quick shots and deal more damage while even creating more focus.

So we were all traiting Strong draw and probably Deadly precision all the time. So what? That still left enough room for individualism. Trapper was nonsense, so it didn't matter. We could trait 5/2/0, 2/5/0, 4/3/0 or 3/4/0. That is quite a wider variety of playstyle for such a simple class. If you left strong draw alone there would have been even more freedom, since the trapper line now is at least comparable in terms of rotation.

What do we have now? Nobody is going to slot trapper now either, because the only CC we get from it is a perma mezz, while we still deal such underaverage dmg that it is a pain to watch. What are we going to do if there is a large group of mobs to control?

"Behold, fellowship I will legendarily root these creatures to the ground for thirty seconds, if their B/P/A AND their resistances are not too high! If everything fails I will lay down my infamous crafted traps to lock down at least three of them, at the costs of 300s each, doantions are always welcome!"

We all know it. Whenever hitting Rain of Thorns you will have to bypass the B/P/A AND their resistance. I still have a screenshot of the Moors where my 7 target RoT was confronted with three blocks, two evades and two resists. Heck we cannot even fear everything, yet every loremaster can mezz any genus now. When confronted with insects we are helpless. When confronted with beasts we will be stuck with a 10 second fear, since they are not evil per se, as if trying to kill us is not evil enough.

LMs and Burglars will always outshine our abilities to CC and debuff, as they should be. I am even fine with burglars being in the top 4 DPS. I am also fine with the fact that every class but the hunter has a skill that let's him live longer or that will make them last longer in a fight sicne we got the range.

Here are the changes every hunter would have applauded you for, ZC:

Improved Campfire: Scaled appropriately. Removed induction. Now added +3000 OOC reg.
Improved Blindise: Changed to immediate.
Improved Purge Poison: Now fast skill Animation and animation root reduced to 0.5 seconds.
Improved Desperate Flight: +50% runspeed for 5 seconds. CD 2 mins.
Improved Burn Hot and Needful Haste: Animation time reduced and useable while moving.
Improved Bards Arrow: Now not depending on genus.
Improved Irritating shot: Fast skill, removed induction.
Improved Heartseeker. +1 focus
Improved Botr: Scaled appropriately
Improved Rain of Thorns: Reduced focus costs to zero.

These are the things that spring to my mind when I think about what the hunter might need. Note that there are no game breakers, nor any of the skills you changed. We were in such a good shape all we needed and wanted was a bit of finetuning. People should just start to listen to our humble requests, we are not demanding laser rifles.

Hmm I hope we will not get a second DangerDan Desaster here.

[Eldrandir]

Improved Campfire: Scaled appropriately. Removed induction. Now added +3000 OOC reg.
Improved Blindise: Changed to immediate.
Improved Purge Poison: Now fast skill Animation and animation root reduced to 0.5 seconds.
Improved Desperate Flight: +50% runspeed for 5 seconds. CD 2 mins.
Improved Burn Hot and Needful Haste: Animation time reduced and useable while moving.
Improved Bards Arrow: Now not depending on genus.
Improved Irritating shot: Fast skill, removed induction.
Improved Heartseeker. +1 focus
Improved Botr: Scaled appropriately
Improved Rain of Thorns: Reduced focus costs to zero.

You forgot:
Heightened Senses becomes innate. (Replace it with the RoT trait I suggested!)
Track skills are consolidated with menus for navigation.
Stance changes are immediate.
A ranged non stun dependent interrupt other then RoT.

I kinda like the current DF, your idea should be a new skill.
Improved HS should be +crit chance for HS (and an equivalent MS upgrade)
RoT with 0 focus is way to OP. Traiting 4 deep or a specific ToF trait should give it -3 focus cost.
No idea what irritating shot is, I am assuming you mean distracting/explosive shot, if so I like the idea.

./signed for the rest.

we are not demanding laser rifles.

Perhaps we should?

[Fin.]

(lvl 77)Improved Campfire: Scaled appropriately. Removed induction. Now added +3000 OOC reg.
(lvl 79)Improved Blindise: Changed to immediate.
(lvl 81)Improved Purge Poison: Now fast skill Animation and animation root reduced to 0.5 seconds.
(lvl 83)Improved Desperate Flight: +50% runspeed for 5 seconds. CD 2 mins.
(lvl 85)Improved Burn Hot and Needful Haste: Animation time reduced and useable while moving.
(lvl 87)Improved Bards Arrow: Now not depending on genus.
(lvl 89)Improved Distracting shot: Fast skill, removed induction.
(lvl 91)Improved Heartseeker. +1 focus
(lvl 93)Improved Botr: Scaled appropriately
(lvl 95)Improved Rain of Thorns: Reduced focus costs to zero.

Phew, that should do for next 3 years

[LadyDena]

The Hunter is primarily a DPS class. This means he should be, when properly geared and played, on par with the Champion and RK.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read that.

On par?

ZC, if a heavy armor damage dealer and a healer-damage dealer's DPS is 'on par' with a straight damage dealer, WHY would any team want to include that last character when they can get a champ or a rk with far more versatility and flexibility?

Sorry, if you can get an on par damage output and still get the benefit of being able to wear heavy armor, have awesome aoe dps and off tank, or be able to kite and dps, lightning dps without induction, or the choice to swap to healing, then a hunter joining a team is nothing but a Pity Invite. And sorry, I don't buy the 'secondary role' as CC. All other classes have some cc abilities and hunter's are at least roughly equal to others, and yet you don't claim that a RK's ability to stun/daze as qualifying them as a CC secondary role.

Why not just be honest and admit that HUNTERS CURRENTLY HAVE NO SECONDARY ROLE. Not unless 'team poison curer' or 'campfire maker' or 'plz port me sir' qualify us for that. As soon as you guys admit (or realize) that you have desinged Hunter with no REAL secondary role (real as in RK having a REAL duo role of heal-dps, or REAL role to off-tank and aoe-dps like a champ), the sooner you would realize that if others can do 'on par' dps as a hunter, then who the heck would want a hunter in their raids? No thanks, I don't want to take Pity Invites from teams.

[Lowj]

Some excellent posts there... +rep to NAT and Vincent!

What kind of thinking is this? The new mandatory trait is Deadly precision now. Have you thought of that? Or are you breaking this trait in 6 months as well? Everybody will slot this trait now to be able to generate as much focus as possible. What is the logic behind this change?
What about swift and true or fast draw? Probably 80% are equipping htese traits as well. Are you going to do something about that as well? Every class has some traits that are found in most builds, not depending on the favored traitline, but effectiveness. If you do not want people equipping certain traits than you should let go of traits altogether.

You forgot the FOUR (major!) legacies that every Hunter has on his bow, or at least on his main DPS bow. Following this logic, those should also be removed from the game.

I'm not in beta so I can't comment on Hunter's Art except to say unless it is a very fast animation, it will likely face the same problem. Others have already mentioned that the animation is so long it decreases rather than increases DPS.

This seems to be the case, yes.

In an ideal world our short-term buffs like Improved Fleetness, Needful Haste, Hunter's Art, and our Stances all have very fast animations and no after-cast delays, and Blindside is Immediate. If not, why? If not now, when?

Completely agree. And then some. Don't hold your breath though.

Here are the changes every hunter would have applauded you for, ZC:

Improved Campfire: Scaled appropriately. Removed induction. Now added +3000 OOC reg.
Improved Blindise: Changed to immediate.
Improved Purge Poison: Now fast skill Animation and animation root reduced to 0.5 seconds.
Improved Burn Hot and Needful Haste: Animation time reduced and useable while moving.
Improved Bards Arrow: Now not depending on genus.
Improved Botr: Scaled appropriately
Improved Rain of Thorns: Reduced focus costs to zero.

I couldn't agree more!
Campfire? I only *ever* use it for cooking... /whippitydo.
Blindside? Great, but takes too long and it should cancel any skill in queue - and honestly... Hunter is still the only ranged class without a ranged interrupt! Why???
Needful Haste: from what I hear, the animation time no longer affects your other skill use, but I can't confirm this 100%.
Burn Hot: great skill, especially with capstone trait equipped, but it has to be faster to avoid gimping it so horribly.
Bard's Arrow: great skill, but needs to be upgraded as well. Wouldn't mind having a trait to make it usable on every genus and reducing/removing the induction.
Bow of the Righteous: well since it's such a popular trait, it might just be that they're not scaling it so less people will use it. After all, it seems that a trait that's too popular should not be allowed to remain as it is.
Rain of Thorns: I'd say 0 focus is asking too much, but a significant reduction would be warranted imo. And also a guaranteed or almost guaranteed hit (i.e. either just like HS or simply give it a very high chance of bypassing BPE and resistance).

All great improvements on an already splendid class. No such luck though. Oh well.

[Kongas]

Until a few weeks after launch, try not to put too much faith proclamations made on these forums about how much or little damage one class or another does (exhibit A: claims that 65 RK's out damage 75 Hunters.) RoI has a lot of deep level changes to the whole game. While we have our own internal testing as well as beta, you all will be the ones who really figure out how to make these classes run optimally. If after that, Hunters are getting out dpsed by Burglars (or any other non-dps class) then we will make appropriate changes.


I'll add more when I can! <3

So basically you're launching a bunch of changes to us in the context of a deliberate strategy of narrowing the advantage of our solitary role, while nerfing focus and crippling an 'over-used skill' and you have no real idea what the impact is going to be. You're letting us find out and maybe somewhere down the line someone might get around to maybe doing something about it.

No wonder you haven't published a Dev Diary or engaged with us until it's too late to change anything significantly.