Hunter Update - Option #2

[SSG_Orion]

Option 2 is a much larger departure.

We move Hunstman to a utility line. This allows the inherent utility of blue to apply to both the Bowmaster and Trapper of Foe lines.

As with the other thread, any trait that is not mentioned is not, currently, slated to be altered.

Hunstman

No longer can be specialized.

0-5 Ranks
Nock on the Move
Induction based attacks can be used while moving.

Quick Shot Focus
5 Ranks
+4% Quick shot focus bonus/rank

Impact Arrows
2 Ranks
+2% Ranged Damage/rank

Scourging Blow
Grants the Skill: Scourging Blow

5-10 Ranks

Fire on the Run
Requires Nock on the Move
2 Ranks
Reduces the induction movement penalty bu 10%/rank

Press Onward
Grants the skill: Press Onward

Split Shot
Grants the Skill: Split Shot

Barrage
Grants the Skill: Barrage

11-15 Ranks
Perseverance

Rank 1: 10% Press Onward Heals
Ranks 2-4: +5% Press Onward Heals

Pathfinder
3 Ranks
+5% Boost to Find the Path Speed/rank

Improved Intent Concentration
-30s Intent Concentration Cooldown

Strong Arm, Sharp Eye
6 Ranks
Ranks 1-6: +2% Bow damage for bow skills that consume focus and +2% Melee damage/rank
Rank 6: Using a skill that costs Focus has a 15% chance to reduce the cost of all skills by 1 for 5s

16-20

Barbed Hindrance
5 Ranks
1-5: +6% Barbed Arrow Damage and +4% Hunter Bleed Damage per rank
Rank 5: Slows the target by 20% for 20s

Rain of Arrows
Grants the Skill: Rain of Arrows

Improved Blood Arrow
3 Ranks
Rank 1-2: +5% Max morale over time heal from Blood Arrow
Rank 3: -5s cooldown of Blood Arrow

21-25

Hunter's Voice
-10s Cooldown to Cry of the Hunter
+10% Movements Speed bonus

Fleet of Foot
(Combines Fleetness and Improved Fleetness)
On every harmful skill, an additional 20% chance to increase run speed by 10% and gain 1 focus

Volley
5 Ranks
Per Rank: Using a skill that costs focus has a 3% chance to remove the induction time of your next skill stacks up to 5 times and expires out-of-combat

Exsanguinate
(Requires 3 ranks in Improved Blood Arrow)
3 Ranks
Rank 1: Grants Skill: Exsanguinate
Rank 2: 66% chance to unlock Exsanguinate after Blood Arrow
Rank 3: 100% chance to unlock Exsanguinate after Blood Arrow

26-30

Strength of the Earth
2 Ranks
Rank 1: Grants the Skill: Strength of the Earth and increases ranged and melee damage by 10% for 5s
Rank 2: Increases ranged and melee damage by 20%

Shot Through the Heart
Heart Seeker and Merciful Shot do more damage to targets with active bleeds

Precision
2 Ranks
Tier 1: Stance: Precision now generates 1 Focus every 4s
Tier 2: Stance: Precision now generates 1 Focus every 3s

31-35
Earthborn
Strength of earth now restores morale and increases 1 focus/second while active.

Rapid
Grants the Skill: Rapid Fire
Bow skills that have a focus cost no longer have a cost
Duration 10s
Cooldown 180s

36+
Intensified Fire
Removes all inductions actions for the duration of Rapid Fire

Bowmaster
Grants the Skill: Pinning Shot
Grants: .8s Swift Bow induction reduction
-25% Attack Duration
+10 Max Range for all ranged skills

Draw Weight
5 Ranks
+3% induction bow damage and +3% induction bow critical damage multiplier/rank

Shoot to Kill
Set Bonus (10 Ranks)
+10 Ranged Damage
+2.5% Critical Magnitude

Deadly Precision
Requires 5 tiers in Critical Eye
2 Ranks
+5% Critical Damage to all Bow Skills/rank

Improved Rain of Arrows
2 Ranks
+1% Rain of Arrows Critical +5% Ran of Arrows Critical Multiplier

Haemorrhaging Shot
20 Rank Trait Set Bonus
+5% chance to Critical and On critical Hit; applies an additional moderate bleed to the target

Focused Precision
Requires 2 Ranks in Deadly Precision
On a critical hit: +2 Focus

Bodkin Arrows
Removed

Plant Feet
Every 1.5s you do not move you earn a rank of Hold Ground
Hold Ground has 5 ranks
Hold Ground grants +2% Evade, Damage, and Critical strike chance at each rank
When you move, all tiers of Hold Ground are dispelled
When you critically strike, reduce the rank of Hold Ground by 1

Trapper of Foes
Grants the Skill: Lingering Wound
Grants the Skill: Decoy
Traps can be used while moving and have no induction.

Rain of Thorns
5 Ranks
+10% Damage to Rain of Thorns per rank

Armour Rend
Requires Piercing Trap
4 Ranks
Penetrating Shot debuffs Target: -4% Physical Mitigation and .75% Parry, Evade, and Block Rating/rank
Piercing Trap debuffs Target: -2.5% mitigation bypass per rank

Harassing Shot
New Skill requries 20 Ranks in Trapper of Foes
Grants the Skill: Harassing Shot
Force taunts the target and forces the target to attack the hunter for 5s
Cooldown 15s

Survival Gear
Requires 25 Ranks in Trapper of Foes
6 Ranks - all remain the same

The One Trap
Now requires Piercing Trap otherwise unchanged

Emergency Preparations
Requires The One Trap
3 Ranks
Rank 1: After evading an attack you place a Set Trap in front of you
Rank 2: After evading an attack you place 3 Set Traps around you (Front, left and right)
Rank 3: Grants the Skill: Survival Preparation
Survival Preparation places a set trap in front of you, a Piercing Trap to your left, and a The One Trap to your right

Okay, with this setup, the movement utility of the Hunstman becomes available to either style of the remaining specialization lines.
Trapper of Foes picks up an ability where it can, with proper execution, keep a target locked down with a root for a longer period of time, and can benefit more from the melee bonuses now offered as part of the Huntsman utility. Bowmaster maintains its core strength as the ranged damage powerhouse it has always been, but can now move when it needs to get out of mechanics without seeing an overly detrimental hit to its rotation.

Let's discuss.

[zipfile]

No taunts in non-tank lines, please.

And remove taunts from other non-tank lines too, like Knives Out.

[DoRonRon]

On a quick glance, if it's to stop the plunder of Huntsman - maybe. So long as I'm not having stop moving, cures and all, with nought penalty. Can see why it was worded this way in Option 1 now.

Still seems like you want to hamper us to allow the puddles to effect us more rather than fix for melee types.

[DoRonRon]

Option 3

Make Bowmaster the utility non spec line and have Huntsmen and Trappers form the core of the two builds? Then we plunder red like we are doing now already.

Too many tears and the stunned shock from the sheep I'd hazard a guess Perhaps too OP!

[Snowlock]

Yes, I vote for Option 2 definitely.

Regarding a force taunt for hunter. That would require some additional survivability. How about instead force the target to attack the target with the most threat? Or change Beneath Notice to a targeted skill offering the aggro drop and power regen to fellowship members?

[Tralfazz]

How about instead force the target to attack the target with the most threat?

Doesn't that happen by default unless some forced-target taunt without a threat match is in effect?

[Antophant]

This looks more promising.
Option 1 left Huntsman in a worse spot so its preferable to just make it a support line to buff the other Specs and focus on 2 proper roles for Hunter instead of a third DPS melee + run&gun role?
that has to perform worse than Bowmaster so we don't have a repeat of 115 Abyss.

I saw no mention of Distracting Shot changes in Trapper section, atm its a 3min cooldown 10sec daze with a trait to get it down to 2min and a tracery for 12-16.5sec cooldown reduction.
For such a long cooldown it's fine in Bowmaster as a quick "oh ####" CC but for a CC spec line that's not reliable enough to keep down mobs that you don't want getting hits/inductions off, worse yet if you require 2 mobs CC'd.
Good luck if the mob can Adapt, Dazing Blow will just break the daze from Distracting Shot so at best you get 15secs from going Dazing > Distracting(if that even works) and Bards Arrow will also break the fear if you could hypothetically get its CD below 15secs.

Even with the changes to Trapper the spec would still just be a debuffer class that can keep a Orc Warrior/sapper or 2 out of the group but can't CC a Frostcaller/Blackarrow for longer than 20-25 secs, Trapper needs more than just a dozen ways to root/snare a mob.

Harassing Shot
New Skill requries 20 Ranks in Trapper of Foes
Grants the Skill: Harassing Shot
Force taunts the target and forces the target to attack the hunter for 5s
Cooldown 15s

Seeing the Hunter discord thread have a meltdown over this was most entertaining, I see no issues with a way for the Hunter to get a specific mob off the tank and into a trap since heaven forbid you use this spec in a 3/6man with 1 tank.....

[Pacata]

Please, use your common sense and leave red line just as it is. It's strong enough already, spend your resources and focus on blue and yellow which have been irrelevant for years now.

[istvana]

As someone that usually runs hunters in blue line I actually prefer the elimination of blue. That way we can have the benefits of specializing in red - and they are many - and more easily add the conveniences of blue and things like barrage for those of us that dislike inductions. Granted we can do exactly the same thing now but eliminating blue as a specialization lets us do it sooner in life and to a larger extent.

Pacata blue is only irrelevant now if the game consists of nothing but raids and higher tier group instances. This just in - that is very far indeed from being all or even most of LOTRO.

[SSG_Orion]

Yes, I vote for Option 2 definitely.

Regarding a force taunt for hunter. That would require some additional survivability. How about instead force the target to attack the target with the most threat? Or change Beneath Notice to a targeted skill offering the aggro drop and power regen to fellowship members?

The point of that would be to move a target to a location where you want it. You could directly pull the target into a trap and hold it at that new location, nearly indefinitely.

[Brinuw]

As much as I like Option 2, I think having a force taunt in a dps line is a bad idea. All I see this doing is letting a hunter move a boss on a whim and screw up positional for everyone else, or cause frontals to the party the tank was already handling. Worst case scenario is some odd combination that lets fights be exploited.

[Snowlock]

The point of that would be to move a target to a location where you want it. You could directly pull the target into a trap and hold it at that new location, nearly indefinitely.

Only melee though, and only those not pre-immune. Pre immune or casters are a significant portion of our instance mobs and instances would be the only place this would be effective.

Unless of course you were going to make it work against monster players and then I'm 1000000000000% in favor of this..

[Elmagor]

The point of that would be to move a target to a location where you want it. You could directly pull the target into a trap and hold it at that new location, nearly indefinitely.

Or any tank can do it

[Antophant]

Or any tank can do it

The point of this taunt is to grab a single mob out of a group of mobs, obviously a tank can just drag a mob into a trap if they're only tanking 1 mob but at that point the trap root + taunt are both redundant.

When you have several or more mobs it becomes almost impossible to trap certain mobs as any one of them can set it off wasting it.

[theultimatekyle]

If we're talking from the stand point of class trait line identity, then option 2 here is the better choice. Blues identity was basically "can move" which doesn't hold up super well, even if practically yellow was the worse line.

Option 2 will also make red hunter a stronger class in this current state of the game.
It's questionable how this will fix yellow though; not really a great departure in traits or playstyle that I can read here for yellow hunter. So it's hard to judge until actual playable builds come out with updated numbers. Adjusted potencies and cooldowns etc.

As far as the taunt in yellow, it sounds fine on paper, fine concept, but I do share everyone else's hesitancy because a worrying number of players don't know what their skills do, and I've been in too many pug runs that were wiped by a red guard thinking engage is part of their dps rotation, or a beorning not understanding they trained a taunt.

[WeirdJedi]

One of the reasons why I don't go red/yellow is because the abilities in blueline are too attractive. So in that sense, this would make it much easier to grab the things that fit my playstyle such as Press Onward and Pathfinder. Perhaps the biggest hurdle is Blood Arrow. Not only does it remove three corruptions, but it heals you as well. Then you have Exsanguinate on top of that. That thing helps me so much in so many avenues.

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to split the bonuses when it come to Rain of Arrows. Seems a bit odd to throw the skill in the passive tree and then have the bonuses in the red tree.

I don't mind the idea of Harassing Shot. I use Threatening Shout for my red captain way more than people might expect. It helps a lot to pull off stragglers and drag them back to the tank or around the field if necessary. So giving a hunter this ability from their point-of-view is rather interesting. It can also help to pull a specific target away from the tank and lure them into an ambush. Honestly, I would rather see this ability require less trait points.

[Elmagor]

The point of this taunt is to grab a single mob out of a group of mobs, obviously a tank can just drag a mob into a trap if they're only tanking 1 mob but at that point the trap root + taunt are both redundant.

When you have several or more mobs it becomes almost impossible to trap certain mobs as any one of them can set it off wasting it.

I agree with that way, but in that suituation such trait must be more early in tree. Why waste 20 trait points for trait what usually give you zero advantage and used in instance once for a year?

[Thunderblast]

No taunts in non-tank lines, please.

And remove taunts from other non-tank lines too, like Knives Out.

Disagree with this.

Knives Out is a truly awesome skill. A (albeit not ideal) 3-man group I play with (blue Warden, blue Captain, red Burglar) has used it countless times for all sorts of stunts with a much smaller than traditional group. We did Dark Delvings challenge mode just the three of us at level 60, I know it's not that hard nowadays, but back then it was pretty difficult because blue Warden (myself) wasn't a great tank (survivability-wise), and the blue Cappy healing wasn't great. This was pre-u35.

The bottom line is, please Orion do not remove taunts from non-tank lines, they are a great niche utility that is really handy in some situations, especially in smaller groups that are at least somewhat coordinated.

Harassing Shot is a new skill anyway. If you don't like it, then don't trait for it.

With Knives Out, I don't know if this is still true, but if you don't want the taunt to take effect but still want the damage reduction, then just face the other way when you use it. I'm not sure if that still works though.

[Kaeneth]

I prefer option #1 because I think the direction of The Huntsman there has potential to be a fun and more unique playstyle that isn't really offered in Lotro currently if it was pulled off well. That said I have a feeling more people are going to prefer option #2.

[Belnavar]

My vote is Option #2.

Firstly, I'm a little surprised this is the second option, as I (and I'm sure many others) expected you to make Yellow a non-spec utility tree, change a few other things, and call it a day. That would've been the simplest approach, given that Red is widely used, Blue is sometimes used (for landscape and deeding), and Yellow is only really used to swap to before a fight (if ever). When I saw you weren't going this route, I was a little apprehensive, but I actually think your proposal (if well-executed) is the better of all available options (i.e. Option #1 being keeping the status quo, with tweaks; Option #2 being this; and Option #3 being making Yellow a utility line instead). After all, Blue is the actual line with much of the utility (heals, extra run speed, etc.), while Yellow doesn't have a lot of that (barring perhaps those early mits).

When it comes to trait lines, I think the ones that really work are those that present an entirely different role. Otherwise, those that share a role will always have the problem of one being the meta and the other being ignored. Captain, for example, is viable in all lines, because each of them presents a very different role (healer, dps, tank). Hunter is one of those unique classes where all multiple lines are damage lines. Blue and Red do present different gameplay styles, but there's only really one king spec, and that's Red (by far). Making Blue a passive spec, where everyone can dip into it for that extra moveability and utility, is a good move. It also hugely addresses the issue where raid Hunters choose to stay in puddles so as not to lose out on their dps (which makes the healers' job harder). Now they will have no excuse and won't be overly penalised for moving.

Now onto Yellow. To make Yellow truly viable, it needs to become a true CC line, and rival LM and Burglar (at least in 3-person and 6-person content). The danger here is that if it is too weak, Yellow continues to never be played (and Hunters will only have one viable line), or, if it becomes too strong, groups will take a Yellow Hunter over a Yellow LM or Burglar. More CC, debuffs, heals, and support are needed to make Yellow truly viable.

My proposals:

1.

Harassing Shot
New Skill requries 20 Ranks in Trapper of Foes
Grants the Skill: Harassing Shot
Force taunts the target and forces the target to attack the hunter for 5s
Cooldown 15s

I don't really see any value in a Hunter having a direct taunt skill. Barring edge-case scenarios, this is just going to be ignored, as it will likely mean the death of the Hunter. Instead, I propose granting a longer Decoy, or maybe even a special Decoy for this, almost like a cross between Rune-keeper's Stones and LM Pets, with this taunt skill. It is much more valuable to taunt a boss or add to a Decoy than to the Hunter. It also plays into the Trapper style a lot more.

2.

Trapper needs a heal skill to give it more group support. LM and Burglar have this, so to make Yellow truly viable, this is my idea:

Healing Decoy.

You plant a healing decoy (carrying signs with inspiring messages, perhaps?) and anyone within its radius receives a Heal over Time. It can also generate threat initially, but with higher ranks drops this threat and then reduces threat for those within its radius.

3.

Trapper could benefit from a group power restore for additional utility. My idea:

Power Decoy

You plant a decoy that gives enhanced ICPR (to make it differ a little from other classes' direct power restores) within a small radius. Additional ranks reduce power costs by 10%, and max rank gives a 10s immunity to power drains. This would make it very useful in certain content where power drains apply.

4.

Make Tripwire grant a Debuff on mobs, reducing their Outgoing Damage by 15%.

I'll have other feedback on other aspects of this, but just wanted to get in those early thoughts.

-Bel

[Belnavar]

The point of that would be to move a target to a location where you want it. You could directly pull the target into a trap and hold it at that new location, nearly indefinitely.

This actually sounds very, very useful for dragging mobs into traps. That said, I think I'd still prefer it on a Decoy than as a direct arrow skill, just for the added flavour of that (plus not having to worry about dying to the mob).

-Bel

[SerowLOTRO]

Making Blue the utility line was my suggested change some time ago so I definitely vote for this. I still prefer Red to be mostly immobile to keep the sniper feel, while leaving Yellow as the tricky skirmisher. But this is already a very promising start.

[wispsong]

As someone that usually runs hunters in blue line I actually prefer the elimination of blue. That way we can have the benefits of specializing in red - and they are many - and more easily add the conveniences of blue and things like barrage for those of us that dislike inductions. Granted we can do exactly the same thing now but eliminating blue as a specialization lets us do it sooner in life and to a larger extent.

Pacata blue is only irrelevant now if the game consists of nothing but raids and higher tier group instances. This just in - that is very far indeed from being all or even most of LOTRO.

Mobility is key for me. So, if that is early (line 1) of blue tree combining red and blue might be the better option if focus skills stay as on blue and regeneration will not be handicapped further.

[Snowlock]

Rather than a trapper line, I'd rather see this become a general support line. I was watching Fellowship of the Ring and thinking about how Strider protected the fellowship. It wasn't all about violence, but a lot of stealth and warding, so skills like that could be interesting...

• Beneath Notice being a targeted skill that reduces aggro and adds power to a target
• Press Onward applies bonus to fellowship wide.
• Cry of the Hunter applies bonus to fellowship wide, and also temporarily increases hope
• Bright Campfire placeable in combat and providing a short radius of stun immunity around it.
• Stances providing bonuses to the fellowship like Precision giving crit , strength mastery and endurance icpr (stackable)
• Direct flight - fellowship wide sprint with slow immunity
• Camo - targetable in combat camo, does not drop combat. Increases ICMR and ICPR while in stealth. Stealth broken on damage or when skills are used.
• Explosive Arrow changed to Weighted Arrow - causes a knockdown and FM.
• Decoy is a mezz like blinding flash when target enters radius
• Strength of the earth is an incombat rez
• Piercing Trap and One Trap also disarm
• Lingering Wound becomes a permanent mark that reduces target armor.

[DoRonRon]

Can we get those crafted triple traps back? So much fun laying sideways in a passage and the reinforcement go doink, doink, doink as we tear down the boss

Nar too much like fun.