A nice polite forum

[Sabian49]

I was talking to Jinjaah before they all went on their winter/holiday break and in a way got him to agree to read a hunter forum everyday (which he says he does regardless) and respond (This is new outside of beta) provided the comments remained polite, on point and generally constructive. No repeating questions but Nice concise, to the point questions which could quite easily be answered.
As we all know, Hunter is doing quite well after HD release, but has some rather annoying bugs depending on your play style.
1) For we red traited hunters it is the Rain of Arrows crit reset not applying with light oil.

2) For the Trappers, it is the induction that popped into Tripwire at 12.1 update.

3) And for the Hunter PvPers, it is the lack of Stealth tracking, to name a few off the top of my head.

With this said, those three have gotten general answers to which I post posted the replies I have gotten from Jinjaah. But any further questions, ask them here, Ill be sending him a link to the forum the moment I am done typing this out.
Have a good day all and hopefully this forum turns out well.

[Eldarian_Grace]

sounds great, it would be cool to have polite but interesting conversations with one of those shaping the Hunter class. It came out quite well I believe and certainly huge improvement over beta build 1/2.

Yellow Hunters have been asking about a legacy for them too, precision has a crit mag boost, strength raw damage boost, endurance nada. Not that you have to run endurance in the trapper line of course but they are more natural bed fellows. up to +5% more evade bonus? 10% might push it, unless it's a super expensive one like the +AoE targets.

[Jinjaah]

I was talking to Jinjaah before they all went on their winter/holiday break and in a way got him to agree to read a hunter forum everyday (which he says he does regardless) and respond (This is new outside of beta) provided the comments remained polite, on point and generally constructive. No repeating questions but Nice concise, to the point questions which could quite easily be answered.
As we all know, Hunter is doing quite well after HD release, but has some rather annoying bugs depending on your play style.
1) For we red traited hunters it is the Rain of Arrows crit reset not applying with light oil.

2) For the Trappers, it is the induction that popped into Tripwire at 12.1 update.

3) And for the Hunter PvPers, it is the lack of Stealth tracking, to name a few off the top of my head.

With this said, those three have gotten general answers to which I post posted the replies I have gotten from Jinjaah. But any further questions, ask them here, Ill be sending him a link to the forum the moment I am done typing this out.
Have a good day all and hopefully this forum turns out well.

Hey Everyone!

Hope you all had a great holiday. I will do my best to stop in from time to time and answer any questions you have so let's get this started:

1. This issue has to do with the way we have set up oils for skills. I believe this issue has been resolved for 12.2 but as the answer to number 2 will tell you, double check to make sure this is indeed all set.

2. This bug has been the bane of my existence. I am working on it again, but for some reason it has a nasty habit of popping back up. Hopefully for 12.2, this issue will hopefully go away.

3. The stealth tracking was never intended to disappear and was more of an oversight on our implementation. I will take a look at re-integrating the functionality back, but I doubt you will not see it until update 13.

Finally I just want to re-iterate that I am indeed listening and reading your forum posts. I lurk more often than not due to the other things I am currently working on but I am listening. I will however, do a better job of communicating with you all some ideas as they come down the pipeline.

-Jinjaah

[Jinjaah]

sounds great, it would be cool to have polite but interesting conversations with one of those shaping the Hunter class. It came out quite well I believe and certainly huge improvement over beta build 1/2.

Yellow Hunters have been asking about a legacy for them too, precision has a crit mag boost, strength raw damage boost, endurance nada. Not that you have to run endurance in the trapper line of course but they are more natural bed fellows. up to +5% more evade bonus? 10% might push it, unless it's a super expensive one like the +AoE targets.

I think giving an additional legacy is not a bad idea. I will say that I continue to go back and forth on the hunters stances. We wanted the choice of stances to really drive the concept of hopping back and forth between them depending on the state of the fight, but I do feel that some stances outshine the others.

-Jinjaah

[Patriotp3a]

a shorter cd on exsanguinate would be nice...

we get -cd on crit/dev/evade. Maybe resets cd on proc?

Thx for taking the time to post here btw Jin. I know these forums arent the friendliest places at times..*checks pvp forums*

[Jinjaah]

a shorter cd on exsanguinate would be nice...

we get -cd on crit/dev/evade. Maybe resets cd on proc?

Thx for taking the time to post here btw Jin. I know these forums arent the friendliest places at times..*checks pvp forums*

Good idea. I will say that Exsanguinates bleed I believe is doing untyped damage, similar to some of the wardens bleeds. This was not intended either, so perhaps the potency drop of that no longer being "true damage" combined with a cooldown reduction will balance those two out. Will look into it.

-Jinjaah

[LunisequiouS]

Hey Everyone!

Hope you all had a great holiday. I will do my best to stop in from time to time and answer any questions you have so let's get this started:

1. This issue has to do with the way we have set up oils for skills. I believe this issue has been resolved for 12.2 but as the answer to number 2 will tell you, double check to make sure this is indeed all set.

2. This bug has been the bane of my existence. I am working on it again, but for some reason it has a nasty habit of popping back up. Hopefully for 12.2, this issue will hopefully go away.

3. The stealth tracking was never intended to disappear and was more of an oversight on our implementation. I will take a look at re-integrating the functionality back, but I doubt you will not see it until update 13.

Finally I just want to re-iterate that I am indeed listening and reading your forum posts. I lurk more often than not due to the other things I am currently working on but I am listening. I will however, do a better job of communicating with you all some ideas as they come down the pipeline.

-Jinjaah

It's great to see you around Jinjaah, some of us thought you had gone MIA altogether. Would you kindly also show some love to the Champion forums? We've been expecting to hear from you for quite a while now. Champions need some tweaks and folks have been putting together a nice list of issues and solutions in there, if you could have a look some time and provide some input I'm sure we'd all appreciate: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...hampion-Issues

Good to know you're around! =)

[Jinjaah]

It's great to see you around Jinjaah, some of us thought you had gone MIA altogether. Would you kindly also show some love to the Champion forums? We've been expecting to hear from you for quite a while now. Champions need some tweaks and folks have been putting together a nice list of issues and solutions in there, if you could have a look some time and provide some input I'm sure we'd all appreciate: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...hampion-Issues

Good to know you're around! =)

I do in fact live! I will pop into the champion forums soon and chat with you all about some update 13 things. I have not forgotten you all and I do like a lot of the suggestions forming in that thread.

-Jinjaah

[Peter_Pan]

I do in fact live! I will pop into the champion forums soon and chat with you all about some update 13 things. I have not forgotten you all and I do like a lot of the suggestions forming in that thread.

-Jinjaah

That's great to hear Jinjaah, thanks for your reply! Looking forward to your posts on the Champion forums!

[Valamar]

I will say that I continue to go back and forth on the hunters stances. We wanted the choice of stances to really drive the concept of hopping back and forth between them depending on the state of the fight, but I do feel that some stances outshine the others.

This is an issue I have with ALL stances for ALL classes... you can't switch until you hit Level Cap!!!

A mid-level Hunter (or any class), level 40-60, simply does NOT have sufficient points to trait multiple Specializations. The consequence being that you must adopt a play-style which requires you to confront a MOB and then decide what kind of stance (Specialization) you should be in. (If you are going to adopt the "fight and switch" mode at all.)
It is simply NOT an intuitive play-style. And a play-style which does NOT "build" as a character "levels-up."

A low to mid-level character cannot "optimize" any particular Specialization simply because they have insufficient points. Somewhere between levels 50 and 75 a character has sufficient points to fully complete one Specialization and maybe get the first tier in a second. (The two point penalty is pretty onerous here.)

Most players have only two specializations available to them. Yes, the additional specializations can be purchased, but I doubt that many, especially F2P players will do so.
(One assumes that by now Turbine has the stats to show one way or another, how many purchased Specialization 3. So I could be very wrong.)
* get rid of that 2 point penalty
* provide 3 specializations by default (BTW, I'm talking about save slots here.)

The corollary here is that the Game Mechanic for switching Specializations is HORRENDOUS.
Get out of the fight
open the window
pick a new specialization
accept it
close the window

All that takes time and destroys the flow of the encounter and the game.
* If the intent truly is to have people hop back and forth, provide a game mechanic to allow it -- make it possible to drag the specialization selections to a Quickslot.


BTW, at 85, with Kindred with almost all factions except in East Rohan (i.e. not yet entered into West Rohan), and completed most all Class deeds, except those which were apparently reset with the HD release, my Hunter, Rune-keeper and Minstrel all started out into West Rohan with 51 points. It almost looked like the intent was to "fix" a certain number of deeds (3 or 4) so that a level 85 toon got a Max of 51 points!

[Jinjaah]

This is an issue I have with ALL stances for ALL classes... you can't switch until you hit Level Cap!!!

A mid-level Hunter (or any class), level 40-60, simply does NOT have sufficient points to trait multiple Specializations. The consequence being that you must adopt a play-style which requires you to confront a MOB and then decide what kind of stance (Specialization) you should be in. (If you are going to adopt the "fight and switch" mode at all.)
It is simply NOT an intuitive play-style. And a play-style which does NOT "build" as a character "levels-up."

A low to mid-level character cannot "optimize" any particular Specialization simply because they have insufficient points. Somewhere between levels 50 and 75 a character has sufficient points to fully complete one Specialization and maybe get the first tier in a second. (The two point penalty is pretty onerous here.)

Most players have only two specializations available to them. Yes, the additional specializations can be purchased, but I doubt that many, especially F2P players will do so.
(One assumes that by now Turbine has the stats to show one way or another, how many purchased Specialization 3. So I could be very wrong.)
* get rid of that 2 point penalty
* provide 3 specializations by default (BTW, I'm talking about save slots here.)

The corollary here is that the Game Mechanic for switching Specializations is HORRENDOUS.
Get out of the fight
open the window
pick a new specialization
accept it
close the window

All that takes time and destroys the flow of the encounter and the game.
* If the intent truly is to have people hop back and forth, provide a game mechanic to allow it -- make it possible to drag the specialization selections to a Quickslot.


BTW, at 85, with Kindred with almost all factions except in East Rohan (i.e. not yet entered into West Rohan), and completed most all Class deeds, except those which were apparently reset with the HD release, my Hunter, Rune-keeper and Minstrel all started out into West Rohan with 51 points. It almost looked like the intent was to "fix" a certain number of deeds (3 or 4) so that a level 85 toon got a Max of 51 points!

I was referring to the actual stances like Precison, Strength, and Endurance Stance, not the specializations.

-Jinjaah

[medwulf]

Nice to see you in the hunter forum Jinjah!

A couple things:

I know you addressed it but I'll mention it anyway: Stealth tracking is one of the hunter's natural skills, especially in the Moors. I hope it is simply re-implemented as a passive and not tied to any of the trait lines, and while addressing this, is it possible to combine all 3 tracking skills?

Blue line is the mobile run n gun(a lot of fun) but is quite squishy, I was wondering if there is a way to get the parry buff back (lost after swift stroke), or some other kind of defensive buff.

Not really a hunter issue but switching trait lines takes too long, and causes mini lag spikes(at least for me). Also it would be great if the skill bars 'remember' skill placement for each tree line.

[Jinjaah]

Nice to see you in the hunter forum Jinjah!

A couple things:

I know you addressed it but I'll mention it anyway: Stealth tracking is one of the hunter's natural skills, especially in the Moors. I hope it is simply re-implemented as a passive and not tied to any of the trait lines, and while addressing this, is it possible to combine all 3 tracking skills?

Blue line is the mobile run n gun(a lot of fun) but is quite squishy, I was wondering if there is a way to get the parry buff back (lost after swift stroke), or some other kind of defensive buff.

Not really a hunter issue but switching trait lines takes too long, and causes mini lag spikes(at least for me). Also it would be great if the skill bars 'remember' skill placement for each tree line.

1. That is something we are looking into doing and is mainly why I think moving this fix to u13 makes a lot more sense.

2. Yeah it feels like hunters in general are kind of missing a key defensive cooldown to have in case of emergencies. right now the difficulty of the content is kind of hiding that flaw but as changes are made in that area, it is certainly going to become more apparent.

3. In regards to trait line swapping, we have been discussing some ideas but nothing is concrete. So for that, I might have to decline to comment at this time sadly. To the section about skill bars remembering the location of skills, this is in its final stages of completion and will most likely appear in update 12.2. I can have the engineer in charge of this feature swing through this thread and give a more thorough explanation of this if need be.

-Jinjaah

[DelgonTheWise]

2. Yeah it feels like hunters in general are kind of missing a key defensive cooldown to have in case of emergencies. right now the difficulty of the content is kind of hiding that flaw but as changes are made in that area, it is certainly going to become more apparent.

Very glad to see a dev posting, thanks very much.

I like the general implication of the above, which that the game will get in some way harder in release 12.2! With folks soloing 6 and 12 man content on level, that would seem to be a good idea

[Jinjaah]

Very glad to see a dev posting, thanks very much.

I like the general implication of the above, which that the game will get in some way harder in release 12.2! With folks soloing 6 and 12 man content on level, that would seem to be a good idea

It is something we are actively addressing. I don't think 12.2 will have a huge impact, but good stuff is on the way.

- Jinjaah

[Gremus]

Good idea. I will say that Exsanguinates bleed I believe is doing untyped damage, similar to some of the wardens bleeds. This was not intended either, so perhaps the potency drop of that no longer being "true damage" combined with a cooldown reduction will balance those two out. Will look into it.

-Jinjaah

Thank you for providing feedback! It's definitely reassuring to see developer responses.

Triple / set trap also does untyped damage, and traps as a whole do not check against incoming melee / ranged / tactical defense or level-based miss. When my hunter was 74, I was able to kill lvl 94 landscape mobs using traps.

[Snowlock]

I'm glad to hear stealth tracking is returning, I hope 13 isn't too far away.

Stances... Yeah the buffs still won't make me switch from precision. If Turbine ever changes its stance on power consumption to where it's more of a concern again, I'd say a stance for dps, a stance for power and a stance for survivability (mitigation increase) would be better than what we have now. I don't fight anything that I need a 10% bonus to kill. I'd rather crit. And most of what I fight that's any threat to me would have finesse which eats into the Endurance buffs; so again, I wouldn't use them.

Another thought would be that the buffs from stances also buff my fellowship, working like Minstrel tales.

Another thought on stances would be they become aura debuffs or even buffs. That way we're using them when we're in melee vs when at range, or when we're fellowed or solo.

But honestly? I worry alot of lag is due to too many buffs so if you just made Precision innate and got rid of the other two entirely I really wouldn't care much.

Last thing, I'm sure a dps nerf is coming. When it does, please take that low cut causes a bleed trait and instead make it to low cut removes slows trait. Give us the ability to reestablish range on melee targets the way melee targets use sprint and stealth to reestablish melee on range.

[spelunker]

Last thing, I'm sure a dps nerf is coming. When it does, please take that low cut causes a bleed trait and instead make it to low cut removes slows trait. Give us the ability to reestablish range on melee targets the way melee targets use sprint and stealth to reestablish melee on range.

I was about to post with the almost exact opposite feedback. As it stands, a Blue line hunter can outrun ANYTHING in PVP or PVE at will, and the speed disparity is such that even straight backpedaling is enough to outdistance foes. Hunters absolutely need ways to create space against melee foes, but the the combination or run-speed buffs, the strength of the slow, and the complete lack of cooldown on its application is over the top. Whether its a warg with sprint on cooldown, or Fastitocalon, holding down on the backwards movement key and spamming a single skill should not be a guarantee of victory.

None of this is to say hunters shouldn't have the ability to establish distance on their foes, but imho either the strength of the slow needs to be brought in line with the other slows available to other classes (25-30%), or have its up-time changed to something like 50% of the time, rather than 100%. Please pass the same feedback on to D_E with warden's assailment stance, as well.

P.S. Cry of the Hunter removes slows, doesn't it?

[Snowlock]

I was about to post with the almost exact opposite feedback. As it stands, a Blue line hunter can outrun ANYTHING in PVP or PVE at will, and the speed disparity is such that even straight backpedaling is enough to outdistance foes. Hunters absolutely need ways to create space against melee foes, but the the combination or run-speed buffs, the strength of the slow, and the complete lack of cooldown on its application is over the top. Whether its a warg with sprint on cooldown, or Fastitocalon, holding down on the backwards movement key and spamming a single skill should not be a guarantee of victory.

None of this is to say hunters shouldn't have the ability to establish distance on their foes, but imho either the strength of the slow needs to be brought in line with the other slows available to other classes (25-30%), or have its up-time changed to something like 50% of the time, rather than 100%. Please pass the same feedback on to D_E with warden's assailment stance, as well.

P.S. Cry of the Hunter removes slows, doesn't it?

Slows are potted, sprinted out of, branded against and of course resisted. If a creep is slowed against a hunter he's doing it wrong.

CotH removes slows, but there is no immunity after, the slow is easily immediately reapplied. Low Cut has a short CD to give the hunter a chance to remove the slow again. If runspeed buffs are doing the trick, I'm fine with that.

[spelunker]

Slows are potted, sprinted out of, branded against and of course resisted. If a creep is slowed against a hunter he's doing it wrong.

CotH removes slows, but there is no immunity after, the slow is easily immediately reapplied. Low Cut has a short CD to give the hunter a chance to remove the slow again. If runspeed buffs are doing the trick, I'm fine with that.

whats the cooldown on a wound pot compared to quick shot? Quick shot VS a Brand? Whats a hunters finesse vs a creeps resistance rating? That leaves melee creeps with a single medium to long cooldown (by pvmp fight pacing standards) to overcome the slow, and they MUST kill the hunter before said cooldown's buff expires.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Jinjaah are you going to fix some of the ridiculously long after animations/delays with skills? Cry of the Hunter has a long one.

Also, it'd be nice is the stance-switches wouldn't be part of the command queue. I'd rather they be an immediate sort of thing where it cancels whatever skill was queued and then you can queue up something after it.

I can't count the amount of times where a stance swap didn't go off because I hit a skill that ate it's lunch. (Usually due to server lag...)

It would also be nice if quaffing potions were an immediate thing too. I hate having disease/fear/wound removals being queued up.

[Snowlock]

whats the cooldown on a wound pot compared to quick shot? Quick shot VS a Brand? Whats a hunters finesse vs a creeps resistance rating? That leaves melee creeps with a single medium to long cooldown (by pvmp fight pacing standards) to overcome the slow, and they MUST kill the hunter before said cooldown's buff expires.

I've had this argument hundreds of times over the years. One of the things I've learned as a 7 year hunter pvper is that you always know you're onto a good idea when the non-hunters say its a bad one.

[spelunker]

I've had this argument hundreds of times over the years. One of the things I've learned as a 7 year hunter pvper is that you always know you're onto a good idea when the non-hunters say its a bad one.

An excellent reply. Tell me again why a creep should never have a slow on them from a hunter, I didn't quite understand it the first time.

[Robeauch]

The corollary here is that the Game Mechanic for switching Specializations is HORRENDOUS.
Get out of the fight
open the window
pick a new specialization
accept it
close the window

That takes like five seconds, which is AWESOME. I don't know if you recall, but prior to Helm's Deep, switching specializations required the following steps:

Get out of the fight
Map or port yourself to a town with a Bard NPC
Run to the bard's location in the town
Open the window
Select all of the traits you would like to switch to (no saving your setup -- each of the traits must be re-selected each time you change them up)
Accept it
Close the window
Pay several hundred silver to the bard
Find your way back to your original location

I'd love to be able to retrait by snapping my fingers, but until then, the system we have now is terrific. (They do need to fix the toolbars, so that you can save your skill arrangement when retraiting -- that's the only current issue. But even if you factor in the time to re-arrange your skills after retraiting, it's still much, much faster than the old system.)

[anthonyx]

That takes like five seconds, which is AWESOME. I don't know if you recall, but prior to Helm's Deep, switching specializations required the following steps:

Get out of the fight
Map or port yourself to a town with a Bard NPC
Run to the bard's location in the town
Open the window
Select all of the traits you would like to switch to (no saving your setup -- each of the traits must be re-selected each time you change them up)
Accept it
Close the window
Pay several hundred silver to the bard
Find your way back to your original location

I'd love to be able to retrait by snapping my fingers, but until then, the system we have now is terrific. (They do need to fix the toolbars, so that you can save your skill arrangement when retraiting -- that's the only current issue. But even if you factor in the time to re-arrange your skills after retraiting, it's still much, much faster than the old system.)

While this is certainly true one thing that has changed was the ability to have more of a customized hunter back then. You could trait red/blue and get the advantages that you wanted. You can no longer realistically do that (and won't be able to until more class points are available and more skills). Before I would trait for a certain way that was a nice blend of red and blue. Only on rare occasions would I want to either go full blue or red and even rarer occasions go yellow. So it wasn't as necessary to switch as much

But still it is much easier to switch. The only ridiculous thing is the high price of the third spec space slot. Because of that most people that I know only run 2 lines and many won't even try to respec. Respeccing is a pain in the fact that it never remembers my setup in the toolbar.