Feedback: New Player Tips for Hunters

[Frelorn]

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the classes in our Tell the Community Team threads. In keeping with that theme, we want your help. If you could give one tip to a new player about playing the Hunter class, what would it be?

[Snoman73]

While leveling, Desperate Flight can be your best friend, not only to get out of bad situations, but as a shortcut back to camp to turn in quests

[Ayrolen]

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the classes in our Tell the Community Team threads. In keeping with that theme, we want your help. If you could give one tip to a new player about playing the Hunter class, what would it be?

It's a tie between:

1. Let the heavy classes do the mob pulls.
2. Don't break CC -aka- do not use Rain of Arrows unless specifically told to do so.

[Doronlas]

Keep your port and Desperate Flight skills away from your damage skills so you don't click them by accident.

2nd tip: If you have a problem with dragging skills off the quickslots by accident, there is a hot key to lock/unlock your quickslots to keep that from happening. (I think "Y" is the default)

[seyahat]

1. Start learning to work with a group early. Practice with a tank friend, learning to target through them and moderating your damage output to allow them to keep aggro. It may not be "necessary" on the trash pulls, but developing these skills early will make you much beloved in groups.

2. Stand by the main healer in groups and be ready to grab aggro from him if loose mobs start attacking him.

[Kannos1600]

The difference to using Set Snare and Set Trap. Some things areimmune to rooting so it's pointless to place a set trap down. Use Set Snare instead.

Purge Poison an be used on your fellowmates as well as yourself. Don't be self centered.

[Snowlock]

Endurance stance is your friend in groups. It will help you manage your power and your aggro while at the same time still providing plenty of dps. Remember, for the hunter class, you're not looking for those big sexy crit numbers. They're nice, but dps is damage per second, meaning a steady stream of damage coming into your foe.

Trait four into the huntsman line for quick inductions.

Use Strength of the Earth alot to regain power.

Be a historian! Hunters rely on consumables. Be able to make your own traps, oils and chants.

Get the barbed arrow legacy and trait barbed fury for lots of additional damage.

For PVP always be in strength stance, quickshot applies a slow. Also always trait heightened senses.

Mitigate melee damage! You want to nearly always have Innocence traited and relics that add melee defense. Brass Anvil is as much a plus for hunters as any other class.

Follow raid assist targets if your not the raid assist target yourself. Hunter damage is most effective when added to the dps of others.

[henry316]

1. When soloing multiple mobs, try to grab them in sets of two if you can and always drop a trap.

If it's two melee mobs: quickshot the furthest one away from you. He will be slowed getting to you and the closer one will fall into the trap while you finish his friend.

If it's a melee and ranged, shoot the ranged. Let the melee fall into the trap. Finish the ranged guy, rinse, repeat.

2. When fighting melee mobs, always keep your swift stroke parry buff up. Keep an eye on it by your character panel and make sure to keep throwing it into rotation when the action is thick.

3. Rain of thorns can be used as a get out of jail free card. Try saving it for emergencies and it you get overwhelmed attack the nearest for with it to trap foes, escape to ranged advantage, then pick them off or run.

4. Use Bard's Arrow to break up triplets. Send one running, trap the closer / melee, and kill the remainder.

5. Cautionary note about Bard's Arrow. Do not fear enemies in such a way as to drive them towards their friends. When they get over the fear, they will be upset and bring their friends back with them.

6. Use low cut to slow enemies for escape or kite them about. But instead of trying to back up, run THROUGH them to behind. Frontal attacks and forward arc AOEs will miss you and you get to a clear distance faster than if you retreated.

7. Advanced: learn to manage aggro (no matter what fellowships tell you about always running in endurance stance) If you healer is getting creamed and the tank is off in his own little world, switch to strength stance and attack his aggressors to get them off of him. (Side note: You are the backup protector of the healer. You should be as concerned about him as the tank should be) Learn to turn aggo up and down in small fellowships to give other fellows a chance to heal or recoup cool downs while you take a little beating or kite as best you can. There are quite a few aggro management tools in your kit. They are there for a reason. Use them.

8. Wanna hit that guy you can see just up over a ledge ahead of you but can't quite get line of sight for your character from where you are? Jump up into the air and hit auto-attack. Auto attack works while moving, even in the air!

9. Keep a few poison pots on you. Regardless of the fact that you can cure your own poison, sometimes under heavy duress you just can't take a break from the killing to heal yourself. The pot won't interrupt your attacks like curing poison will.

10. Keep a positive attitude. Maybe someday Turbine will let us finish our Hlifheror Armour sets that they removed from the Moors. (+50% lowcut duration was awesome, would love to get my helm and gloves someday... *sigh*)

[Angadan]

Never give a port to anyone who calls for the "taxi service," or join any group leader who is looking for [the word hunters with ards on the end instead of ers...the language filter wouldn't show this word if I typed it in directly].

p.s. Henry and Snowlock, he said one hint, not a page! lol I know everyone above you gave two, but you guys just blew the directions off entirely!

[henry316]

p.s. Henry and Snowlock, he said 1. lol I know everyone above you gave two, but you guys just blew the directions off entirely!

Two hours of sleep in two days, coffee and proper Thai Red Bull... I read that afterwards and then though, oh well. I'm tired and that's some good advice.

[Kannos1600]

I dont think any of us can really count

2 was the average but I was just going to copy and paste my sig in full then opted against it

[ScrappyTheGreat]

Threat management (as posted above) cannot be stressed enough.

In a group, what separates a good hunter from an average hunter is the timely use of [SKILL]Purge Poison[/SKILL] on your allies when necessary
.

[Analog-Man]

When fellowing with a CC class, don't try to solo ranged mobs while the rest of the group is assisting the tank or main assist. More than likely the CC class could have taken the ranged mob out the picture for the duration of the fight while you help burn down the assist target that much faster.

As a CC class, it is nearly impossilbe to keep melee mobs mezzed due to AoE attacks from almost all classes, and even if you can pull it off it is less effective then everybody using their AOE attacks, LM included. By selecting a ranged target, you are effectively stopping the CC classes from being able to mez them, and are lowering the group DPS on the assist target.

So, in short stick to the assist target unless asked to do otherwise. Sometimes it helps to work out these details before starting the run so everybody knows what to do to work together more effectively.

[anwar]

Although I have always played a hunter-type, I'd advise another class at this time because:

1) As in all PvE fantasy MMOs, there are lots and lots of hunters in LotRO, the difference is that Turbine seems to judge who needs a buff or a nerf by how many of a class there are, forgetting that there would be a lot of them regardless of how powerful they are. Hunter-types are simply popular globally.

2) The classes' abilities are being slowly marginalized because of the opening up of instant travel, summoning, porting, stables, and run speed and finding objectives ...... for everybody....this is a good thing for the game, but makes having a generic hunter along not all that important, so grouping when you need to may be a bit tough.

Getting in a raid may even be difficult wthin your kin since only so many spots for hunters and 5 times that many in the kin.

...........

Ok, perhaps you are like me and just plain feel more comfortable as a hunter and choose to be one regardless...the main complaint anyone has about hunters is that they tend to steal agro when grouped.

This is mainly because they, like everybody, solo almost all the time and never get a good sense of agro control and, since the game is set up for solo, they rarely get instant death when they mess up since they couldn't solo if that happened...thus the lesson just doesn't seem to take hold in many hunters.

Remember that whether you will die if you grab agro is not the whole reason to avoid doing so...it also means no melee damage from the rest of the fellowship for a few seconds and probably loss of spells due to losing line of sight when the mob runs to you and the rest of the team has to adjust and aoe considerations and that the healer has to keep multiple members up, rather than just worry about the tank. Often it is only irritating rather than critical, but you have just made it a tiny bit more difficult for your fellow hunters to get a group.

[laughterkillsme]

In PvE Hunters are about doing high damage over time. If you set yourself up for high crits, you're hurting your overall damage output.

[BerenTelcontar]

Use Cry of the Predator and Bard's Arrow. Use them till you appreciate how they work.

Get used to setting traps and, when grouping, making campfires.

[duvelmoortgat]

Best way to manage your purge poison on fellowship in timely manner (Great for fights like Spider boss in Helegrod) is to target another fellow and queue up the purse poison while your character is animating the purge poison on the fellow you targeted previously. This way you get to purge all 6 players (and yourself) within 7 seconds. No need to wait for animation and the delay between animation finishing and casting purge poison on next target is zero!

[azandermod]

Use your common sense, you are not a heavy nor are you adept at taking on a larger number of multiple mobs. If in a group don't break the crowd control and for goodness sake do not use Rain of arrows unless it is needed. There is no better way to get flamed and kicked from a group than getting them wiped because you pulled the whole room. As with all classes use as many of your skills as often as possible (rain of arrows when soloing) so that you can get your traits done by the time you really need them.

[kerryak]

read the forums, don't be afraid to ask questions in them. we don't bite.



OK, well, everyone except SaintBass doesn't bite.

[Ayrolen]

read the forums, don't be afraid to ask questions in them. we don't bite.



OK, well, everyone except SaintBass doesn't bite.

truth.

wordz.

[geoboy]

1.) Go into your options and enable skill target forwarding and show the vitals of my target's selection. These will both assist you. Attacking through a champ or other target assist will ensure you are focus firing, and showing the vitals of your target's target will let you know right away when you've gone too far.

2) The first job of anyone in a group should be to protect the healer. If your healer is getting hit, then either apply crowd control to it, or get it to hit you instead.

[0987654321]

above advice is very good, especially all the advice about aggro control in groups.

one thing i would like to add is that when fighting signature and above mobs, especially if there immune to roots, is to start the fight at maximum range, 40m. many people dont realize this and end up having to desperate fligh or die. this dont really apply to normal mobs as they generally die very quickly anyway. doing this will allow you to take on much tought melee opponents(this obviously doesnt help as much against ranged mobs)

[Alfrodul]

Ok, so it's two areas rather than one:

1) Quickslots:

Wayfaring (Ports).: Ports don't take up quickslots! Just like housing ports, they can be activated from your skills list (spell book) and never need to be taking up a quickslot. Ever. Reading the Talk to the Community Team thread about Hunters, it would appear that a lot of us don't realize this. They had to be on your bar when the game was released but this was changed when the mounts became skills. I will often keep my current areas port on a quickslot just for ease of use but most of them were pulled off ages ago. Now, if only the same could be said of my maps.

Camouflage: Wonderful skill. Put it on a quickslot where you can punch it easily. I have mine bound to“shift+f”. Sneak into an area, camouflage while the patrols are in range, move to the next area, rinse and repeat. I've soloed a lot of tough content this way.

2) Options:

Show Directional Indicator: Check this box under Combat Options. It gives you a dotted red line pointing from you to your target.

Skill Target Forwarding: Check this box under Combat Options too. This lets you target your tank, off-tank, raid-target-assist, etc. and target through them so you never have to worry about hitting the wrong thing. This also lets you pay more attention to the overall battlefield and watch for patrols, summoned monsters (adds), or any other problems your fellowship might run into.

Show Raid Assist Window: Another box to check. This will show you whoever your Fellowship Leader has designated as “Raid Assist” and who their target is. You'll often have the Main Tank and Main DPS being added. And when you are the fellowship leader, remember to designate yourself or your fellows as the Raid Assist(s), it's good practice.

Show Dispellable Effects Only: Since we can't really buff our fellows we only need to worry about them when they're poisoned. This makes it much easier to see.

[Macgregor1821]

In PvMP, remember to use all your CC skills! A lot of hunters make the mistake of only using one CC skill at a time: One Bard's Arrow, one Cry of the Predator, one trap, etc. If a creep gets in close, use low cut and then Bard's Arrow/Cry of the Predator, so that the creep is even slower in their fear, or if they pot out of it, they still have reduced run speed. Remember to have combat traps and crafted Quick traps, they can save your life!

Use strength stance as well, since power is usually not an issue in the moors, and the slow from quick shot while in strength stance is a good CC bonus.

Hunters also tend to panic when, for instance, a warg pounces them, which is a mistake. Keep your head about you, remember your CC skills, and keep the creep at a distance. If another creep shows up, then divide up the skills, a trap for each, a bard's arrow and rain of thorns, etc. Don't blame yourself if a warg pack or a large group of creeps shows up and ganks you. There's really nothing you or any other freep can do in that kind of situation (I usually just try to keep them occupied and hope some other freeps will notice and help).

[Trybal24]

First off I'm not an expert hunter (currently 54); Second if any of this has already been covered please disregard (I'm at work and have only read the first page).

1) If you are still having aggro issues in a group and are in endurance stance try weaving quick shot in every other or every third shot; In endurance stance quick shot reduces your aggro by 10%.

2) Hunters are a high offensive class by design, with class traits they can become much more offensive. So use your virtues to slap on some defense, Innocence adds 5% melee mitigation as well as some shadow def, Tolerance adds 5% tactical mitigation as well as 15 agility, Compassion adds 5% ranged mitigation as well as more tactical, Justice is the virtue of choice for more morale, and Determination is nice for the +30 agility, extra morale and in combat morale regen.

3) When fighting signature or elite mobs; Take your time, Hunters do much better if you set up before the fight. Setting traps/snares, gathering focus, Eat regen food (this goes for all classes), and getting max distance can make or break a otherwise tough fight.

4) Use Strength of earth and set campfire often while soloing, This can really speed up the leveling process.

5) If you chose any race other than elf then it may pay off the slot the normally useless skills (Headbutt-Dwarf, Uppercut-Man, or Stoop for stone-Hobbit). The 3 sec daze can help if you get forced into melee. Theres another melee CC skill hunters get later on; forget the name.
I use these short melee daze/stuns to get off an easy swift bow followed by a (traited: strong draw) penetrating shot.

6) As said before Historian is overall the best craft vocation for a hunter; I decided to add why. Scholars can make healing, power and cure potions (for all classes), hunter books, hunter scrolls, battle/defense scrolls as well as light and fire oils to enhance your arrows with. Weaponsmith (you will need an alt or kinship to help gathering minerals) can make melee weapons while leveling as well as all the special hunter traps (which come in real handy).Basically everything a hunter needs aside from armour can be made with the Historian vocation.