Class Update - Hunters

[siipperi]

Perhaps this is already mentioned in another form earlier in this topic, but today I logged in at Bullroarer with my longtime Hunter toon, on which I never stopped playing the Red line. I did not do extensive test or calculations, just making sure that the changed traits were optimized again. All other things were exactly the same as on live (I also had just one base damage rune), and unfortunately one thing really stood out as a not-so-pleasant difference:

Improved penetrating shot tiptool minimum damage on live: around 20K
Improved penetrating shot tiptool minimum damage on Bullroarer: around 15K

That is quite a nerf I'd say. Am i missing something here? Swift Bow Damage is upped a little bit, that's good, but does not compensate for base damage change in Penetrating shot this big.

My penshot has 3% higher tooltip with freshly transferred character on bullroarer from 25,375 -> 26,142 max range. It must be related to how they changed LIs.

[Ghost_Archer]

Yeah...I think there might be a problem with that Character 1: Basic Barrage value...

Please explain what is wrong with my numbers. Everything is taken right off the tool tips in the game.

Crickhollow -
Level 20 Hunter
Basic Barrage: 633 - 667
Penetrating Shot: 633 - 667

Level 23 Hunter
Basic Barrage: 748 - 789
Penetrating Shot: 748 -789

Gladden
Level 21 Hunter
Basic Barrage: 671 - 704
Penetrating Shot: 671 704

So, what's wrong with my numbers?

[Ghost_Archer]

Then neither of you get it, changes like this cause player dissatisfaction. Making it take longer to level up isn't going to help the game sustain its player base.

Low level game play isn't about shooting mobs on the landscape, its about learning mechanics and fundamentals, which doesn't take very long. Its already boring as some people say.
Making it take longer isn't a move in the right direction.

This! SSG is missing the boat if they want it to take longer to reach end-game where all the big money is grinding through your LIs and stuff. Or this just a ploy to get me to buy more XP boosters so I can reach end-game to buy more scrolls and junk at 115? It is sad if you start frustrating new, or older, players at the very beginning by slowing things down and making it a grind on BOTH ends.

[Joedangod]

So, what's wrong with my numbers?

They are larger than on-level mob morale pools.

[Ghost_Archer]

They are larger than on-level mob morale pools.

So, cut them by 10% or 20% or whatever, but 50% and more? Come on ...

[Joedangod]

So, cut them by 10% or 20% or whatever, but 50% and more? Come on ...

10% doesn't stop the 1 shotting. 20% barely puts you under. I feel like you know the problem but don't want it addressed properly here.

[keztryl]

In general terms of dps I do feel blue should be a bit below the red line, as blue does have it's movement advantage!

Wow. You walk away from this forum for a few days and there are ton of comments.

I never seriously considered the advantages of blue line movement because I mostly do t2c PVE raiding. These raids have largely been designed to accommodate red line hunters and RKs (i.e., there are no mechanics that require nuking classes to move as fast as a blue hunter can; even RKs can DPS Fingar), with the speed and damage of bosses/mobs largely nullifying any movement advantages blue line hunters may have. But seeing all of the PvP comments, and having chatted with my friends who PvP, I'm inclined to agree that in these environments blue line hunters have become too OP.

What I would suggest, though, is that instead of removing the tiering system of barrage, why not add a movement debuff that would increase with each tier? A debuff that increases at a rate of -10% movement speed per tier, would mean that when a hunter reaches tier 6 of barrage their movement speed would be reduced by half. This would make tiering up barrage a strategic choice. Do you press the attack or do you keep yourself free to kite? In the moors and in 3/6 man instances this would make blue line hunters more vulnerable if they choose to push the offensive, but still allow them to complete with other nuking classes when DPSing in raids. In my mind, this mechanic would be more dynamic, especially if barrage was not as powerful initially. -50% movement speed might be too high (it would depend on what type of damage the top tier would do), but the principle of potential benefit to risk should be in this direction. I also think this change would make intuitive sense. As you attempt to keep up an "endless" barrage of attacks, you cannot sustain the energy needed to move. If blue line hunters are still too OP, a reduction in defensive stats (parry/evade) could also be added.

[Altair6]

Lvl 59 Hunter, Red Line, Precision stance

Pen shot Live 1,923-2037
Pen shot BR 545-834

Upshot live 3,898-4,069
Upshot BR 969-1483

and etc.

Parked.

[Joedangod]

Lvl 59 Hunter, Red Line, Precision stance

Pen shot Live 1,923-2037
Pen shot BR 545-834

Took the silly hunter I made for earlier in this thread up to level 58 to check out how this tooltip damage increase plays out:



I was pretty lazy with actually setting it up (try not to look at the toolbars). All in all it seems to be a pretty good change, mobs are taking anywhere between 4-12 hits to take down. Feels like rotation might actually matter here. Will say that the barrage cooldown does come off as being a little weird in practice although I kinda like that it pushes you into using a more varied selection of skills. At least it does until you get improved penshot, will probably end up spamming that when I get it here.

There does seem to be a general problem of mob DPS being too low though. In an area where I had 3.5k morale the mobs were barely doing 50DPS to me. Whilst I wasn't nuking through them like you do on live they still didn't feel like a threat at all.

[Snowlock]

Vastin is a numbers guy. All he is taking into consideration here is algorithms and numbers output.

What he is not considering here is what this will do to the community of hunters in this game that play this class regardless of the ebbs and flows of the flavors of the month classes as they cycle in and out of the spotlight throughout the life of the game.

Nerfing hunter damage is not nerfing all damage. And what I mean by that is, all this is going to do is create a vacuum at the position of top DPS'ers among the classes to be filled by another class. Hunters, the players that actually love playing their hunter, will go back to being not wanted in groups and food for creeps in PVP. Meanwhile the hunter players that only play hunter because they are the FOTM class, will just switch to whatever the FOTM class becomes. And the complaints from the creeps and from the raiders complaining about how easy endgame content is will continue. Why? Because this phenomenon is not reflected in a number!! This isn't math, this is sociology, psychology. This isn't going to change anything, fix anything, or make anyone happy. It's simply going to shift the complaints, in equal volume, over to a different class.

And meanwhile it completely F's over the players that actually play the class because they love it.

[Joedangod]

Nerfing hunter damage is not nerfing all damage. And what I mean by that is, all this is going to do is create a vacuum at the position of top DPS'ers among the classes to be filled by another class.

Hunter DPS is still ostensibly at the top. Would really like it if some hunters could go run parses on the tavern dummies and display screenshots here so we can get an accurate glimpse of where each class stands.

[Wolf2x]

Hunter DPS is still ostensibly at the top. Would really like it if some hunters could go run parses on the tavern dummies and display screenshots here so we can get an accurate glimpse of where each class stands.

It seems to be even better than how it is on live servers, but they will remove HS reset gear and add a couple of new focus consuming skills so who knows how it will look like after U23.

[Joedangod]

It seems to be even better than how it is on live servers, but they will remove HS reset gear and add a couple of new focus consuming skills so who knows how it will look like after U23.

Really need the 3m parses without HS reset gear though. Closest we have on forums at the moment is a half finished 45k parse from earlier in this thread.

[Snowlock]

It seems to be even better than how it is on live servers, but they will remove HS reset gear and add a couple of new focus consuming skills so who knows how it will look like after U23.

They're adding new skills? I hadn't read that. WHere's that info?

[Wolf2x]

Really need the 3m parses without HS reset gear though. Closest we have on forums at the moment is a half finished 45k parse from earlier in this thread.

Too lazy to continue parsing on a class rotation as boring as hunters, even more boring without HS

They're adding new skills? I hadn't read that. WHere's that info?

I think I heard Cordovan mention it on lotro stream but I could be wrong.

[Caanwick]

Hunter DPS is still ostensibly at the top. Would really like it if some hunters could go run parses on the tavern dummies and display screenshots here so we can get an accurate glimpse of where each class stands.

True. In groups, with buffs from Cappies, etc....our DPS should still be at the top. But RKs and Burgs haven't had their moment under the Devs microscopes yet, and I'm sure RKs will be recouping some of that nerf they took from the loss of the Tac runes.

I did run a bunch of parses on the tavern dummies, as you guys suggested in that other BR thread.....or at least I tried to. I couldn't get a single clean parse on any of the dummies. Every one I tried I'd have about 1/3 of my shots not fire and have to re-key the skill, then they would never give a read on DPS and I'd be locked in combat until I relogged. Not sure if there is just some mechanic I missed, that is different on these dummies, or if it was lag or whatever. After a couple hours of trying, finally got sick of it and went and tried the summer instances with Bludborn.

[Giliodor]

True. In groups, with buffs from Cappies, etc....our DPS should still be at the top. But RKs and Burgs haven't had their moment under the Devs microscopes yet, and I'm sure RKs will be recouping some of that nerf they took from the loss of the Tac runes.

I did run a bunch of parses on the tavern dummies, as you guys suggested in that other BR thread.....or at least I tried to. I couldn't get a single clean parse on any of the dummies. Every one I tried I'd have about 1/3 of my shots not fire and have to re-key the skill, then they would never give a read on DPS and I'd be locked in combat until I relogged. Not sure if there is just some mechanic I missed, that is different on these dummies, or if it was lag or whatever. After a couple hours of trying, finally got sick of it and went and tried the summer instances with Bludborn.

Try a dummy with a yellow health bar. The red ones (which are already missing health) reset at random.

[Caanwick]

Try a dummy with a yellow health bar. The red ones (which are already missing health) reset at random.

Ahhh....Will do. Hopefully it will still be up tonight. Thx for the info!!!

[Silmelin]

Ahhh....Will do. Hopefully it will still be up tonight. Thx for the info!!!

This message appeared a lil while ago ingame:
World broadcast: 'The server will be shutting down in approximately one hour! Please post your feedback on the forums!'

EDIT: 30 minutes left now

[Caanwick]

This message appeared a lil while ago ingame:
World broadcast: 'The server will be shutting down in approximately one hour! Please post your feedback on the forums!'

EDIT: 30 minutes left now

ROFL!!! OK, I guess next week then. Thx!!

[keztryl]

What is not considering here is what this will do to the community of hunters in this game that play this class regardless of the ebbs and flows of the flavors of the month classes as they cycle in and out of the spotlight throughout the life of the game.

Nerfing hunter damage is not nerfing all damage. And what I mean by that is, all this is going to do is create a vacuum at the position of top DPS'ers among the classes to be filled by another class. Hunters, the players that actually love playing their hunter, will go back to being not wanted in groups and food for creeps in PVP. Meanwhile the hunter players that only play hunter because they are the FOTM class, will just switch to whatever the FOTM class becomes. And the complaints from the creeps and from the raiders complaining about how easy endgame content is will continue. Why? Because this phenomenon is not reflected in a number!! This isn't math, this is sociology, psychology. This isn't going to change anything, fix anything, or make anyone happy. It's simply going to shift the complaints, in equal volume, over to a different class.

I agree. I feel like there are very different definitions of "class balance" at play. I think for some Devs/Players, class balance maybe meant something like each DPS class being able to do the same amount of DPS. On the other hand, I think a lot of players believed that class balance would improve parity between lines (tank lines, dps lines, and support lines) allowing them to enjoy parts of the game (and their class) that they feel have never reached their full potential or were once great but have now been lost. Of course some classes are in such a bad spot that having a least 1 working line would come as a welcome improvement (i.e., Beorning). But what we got with with this first round of changes is a statement that blue line hunter isn't intended for "end game" (with a reduction in blue mechanics), meaning that instead of getting two distinct DPS lines, hunters are still only going to have one that is really effective, and not necessarily the one they enjoy. I think this a problem (as you say, from a psychological perspective) because even if red line is improved to compensate, a lot of players are still going to feel like they have lost out. There have been no gain in choices or possible ways of playing the class. If you want to play end game content, you will have to learn to crank out those high DPS numbers in the same optimal way as everyone else (but of course, you are still going to have to work this out for yourself!). I think the only way for this to work is if they make the new red line really fun. Like no standing around with your hands in your quiver. There needs to be something dynamic, like HS reset.

I don't blame the Devs (or think there is much value in doing so). The implementation of trait lines, which from a programming perspective was likely intended to curtail the interaction of endless capstone trait combos (and thus reduce the complexity of introducing future class changes), has effectively resulted in 30 distinct sub classes from what use to be 10. To make things worse... classes that use to have the same skills (to my recollection, champions's challenge used to work exactly the same as captain's threatening shout) have had those skills individualized to create even more distinct paths that need to be compared. At the same time, classes like hunter, which were purposefully intended to be simple, had to have entirely new mechanics built that are still not working as intended despite becoming very popular over the past few years (barrage, anthem stacking, etc.). I'm sure there are a lot of people at SSG who have thought about how they might try to bring some order back to this chaos, but the devil is in the details and there are a lot of variables at play. Best we can do is give them some room, and provide honest feedback.

I think some players want "objective" (and definitive) evidence, but objectivity in this sense requires that I am able to independently create the same numbers as you (i.e., the result is independent of the person making the claim) using a procedure we both agree would answer a question of mutual interest. The numbers posted on the forums are just peoples' experiences. They can provide support for one's opinion but other people need to agree to with the premise of what you are testing before they can assess the claim that is being made. Demonstrating that red line is now able to do high dps is irrelevant if you no longer want to play either because of the change. I think unless something is added to make either line fun again, I'll be parking my hunter for now.

[Seodric]

Here's a parse with no hs-reset, no BB-set, no DA set, no pot:



Did quite many parses before reaching this, i'd say average high parse with no setbonuses on BR patch 2 was around 47-49k. With BB-set+DA set before combat i got 53k-56k. Didn't try hs-reset.

Also tried a few blue hunter parses both without BB-set, and with BB-set and DA set, no screenshots of these. Traited 10% bodkin in blue:
BB-set + DA set before combat was 45-47k
no setbonus blue hunter 41-44k

[Mithlanros]

OK so just went through my previous posts and I was right! I have been asking for yellow line fixes for YEARS haha. I enjoy the yellow playstyle, its tactical. It just doesn't work at high levels because it doesn't scale. Can we please make it scale? i don't need to be top dps, I just want to be viable.

[Madmanthief]

I've been thinking about this, what do you all think about changing barrage to a very high damage 1 shot aoe attack that would cost 9 focus ? the definition of a barrage is:

A concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area: Synonyms: bombardment · gunfire · cannonade · battery · blast · broadside · salvo · volley · fusillade · storm · hail · shower · cascade · rain · stream · blitz · shelling · wall/curtain/barrier of fire

[Vastin]

I've been working on the hunter quite a bit over the last several days, and I have to admit, it's been tricky.

I'm trying to get more skills into the viable rotation for both blue and red, and at the same time, I'm trying to get the focus generation mechanic to be a little more meaningful.

For some time now, precision stance has been the go-to due to its focus generation being massive, allowing you to pretty much spam focus skills like barrage or pen shot with little consequence. I'm adjusting two things regarding focus generation - the precision trait is being weakened somewhat, and the Deadly Precision trait is moving much further up the red tree, making it difficult or impossible to get both.

I've been playing with the pacing and damage of the focus building shots, such as making quick shot a non-inducted skill so you always have a quick go-to to grab another point or two of focus, and speeding up swift bow a bit. I've also experiemented with the re-introduction of penetrating shot as a target debuff, increasing the target's vulnerability to ranged crits and physical damage.

I've been running a lot of damage parses to try and get Barrage and Upshot respectively into respectable portions of each build's DPS output. Upshot is a little tricky as it could end up being a really nasty one-shot skill if I don't manage it correctly. I may have to redesign it a bit - full one shot focus dumps may just not work out well when focus is a more valuable resource.

Anyway, not quite where I want it yet, but some of the rotations are starting to feel interesting.

-Vastin