Hunter Class to ROCK AGAIN!

[Palantir]

Fantastic news from the Development team concerning the Hunter class "re-design!" :joy:

First off we (Hunters) now get some shooting skills to use while on the move! :hail: FINALLY!!
Second biggie is, when in the Bow Master trait line (Our most damage dealing line) we now generate ZERO threat!! :surprise:
:vsign:
We can finally do what the class was designed to do (deal damage) even in a Fellowship without being told to, "STOP IT!"

Plus, we also get a Fellowship Poison Removal AOE skill instead of the frontal only 1 at a time poison purge.

And the good news keeps on coming :clap: :they've also removed some useless traits, moved others to different trait lines, made others into "Buffs" instead of traits, dropped power costs, increased our DPS... ! :hurray:

Every Trait Line has had positive and numerous changes so if you're a Hunter read the diary to get the complete lowdown.

The re-designer Brian 'Zombie Columbus' Aloisio gets an A++ for returning the Hunter to its original purpose - doing damage and doing it on the run. :thumup:

I was impressed with the changes coming to the Burglar & Minstrel classes but the changes to the Hunter class are more than just a few adjustments and look to greatly enhance every aspect of playing a hunter.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1031-update-2-hunter-developer-diary

 

[Palantir]

This is from the LotRO Hunter Forum post #45 probably best sums up the new changes.

rawlingsst7:
Some really radical changes coming up! Just reading that diary, my jaw was floored before I was even out of the Bowmaster section. It's really more than I ever expected to be addressed at one time, and I'm pretty excited about putting it all to the test.


-Bowmaster line changes: These really go a long way towards making Bowmaster and Strength Stance viable for DPS without upsetting group dynamics, which has been a top complaint about the line since its introduction. As far as I'm concerned the reduced Power penalty is sweet, sweet icing on a delicious cake.

-Heartseeker: thank you, THANK YOU! for confirming this skill's relative uselessness as anything other than an initial alpha-strike. The reduced cooldown and especially induction time (2.4s @ 4HM and 1.95s with 4HM + Fleetness bonus, yes?) make this viable to use past the first 5 seconds of combat. Will the upped HS legacy (which I admit, I'll still never desire) get the skill damage back to its current un-legacied state?
Also, will the much reduced cooldown make Heart of the Bard an obsolete trait? (considering at max crit rate, you would only have a 20% chance to reset HS before its CD is back up with 4BM, or a 49% chance to reset at 0-3BM.)

-Burn Hot: Like Heartseeker, this was a skill that I never used because of the huge penalties and highly situational nature - honestly the only PvE situation I actually used it was on the BG Fellbeast, at the end of a flyup period, so I could hit Press Onward to recover. Now I have a reason to use it! The 180 on power costs have turned it from a Creep-ganking tool to a self-buff that's useful more often than the very end of a fight!

-Shot Through the Heart: What sort of magnitude are we talking for the bleed-removal bonus damage? Something quite bigger than the Scourging Blow removal damage, yes? Please?

-Swift & True: The bonus damage to ISB shot #3 is in addition to the flat +8% skill damage as it currently exists, correct?

-Fast Draw/Deadly Precision: Part of me rankles at the -induction trait moving away from the line with -20% inductions, but I can accept it. One of the reasons I'm a die-hard Huntsman advocate is that traiting 4-5 BM results in (to me) ponderously long inductions and the inclusion of Fast Draw here should balance that out a little bit.

-Quality of Mercy: I've long derided this trait as useless at worst, PvPeen stroking at best. This change sounds really interesting, as my biggest complaint about Merciful Shot is that it costs 2-3 times the Focus of any other DPS skill. Now, as MS has 2 or 3 times the cooldown of Swift Bow, you can easily cut the Focus cost by 1/3 or 1/2, every time. Can it really get to zero focus cost? Do the buffs applied by Swift Bow have a duration? Do they drop after combat? Considering MS is already a power-efficient skill, slotting this is already looking very attractive.

-Barbed Fury change: I know some folks (mostly PvP) are complaining about this. Considering there's effectively no cooldown to Barbed Arrow, and it's super easy to work into a rotation so the bleed is up 90+% of the time, this trait + BABleed legacy + global bleed change from Common to Weapon type, bleeds are going to be pretty sick for PvE at least.

-PenShot on the Move: Neat. Not a terrible amount of utility for it in PvE, but the moors hunters should appreciate this.


Huntsman Love:

-Bravo on the Fleet Stance changes!! Thanks for recognizing the opportunity cost in trading off damage or accuracy for a bit of speed. The new, vanilla Fleetness skill doesn't have much application outside of PvP, but the Improved version sounds like the best kind of awesome: -35% cumulative inductions? Yes, yes, YES. What's the cooldown going to be like on this skill? Comparable to Needful Haste? Because the synergy there sounds most excellent.

-The Strength of the Earth change sounds like a nerf on the face of it, what with the duration limited to 5 seconds. Not that I enjoyed going swoosh swoosh for half a minute to fill up my power bar, but the option was there when needed. The big question is what the power/sec is going to be, and unless it's something like "doubled" I'm not sure if the skill deserves a 90sec cooldown anymore.

-Good news on finally axing Bow & Blade and rolling it in to the default state.

-The extra QS pip at 4 HM is a nice line bonus, and should help the Focus deficit I've been running since Blood Arrow came out.

-Deep Concentration and Deadly Precision moved to HM are great; DC has long been the only Trapper trait I'd ever bring to a boss fight. All these changes are really pushing me towards 5 Huntsman and I'm glad there's an actual bonus to doing so!

-Press Onward: Of everything listed in this diary, this is flat out the last thing I was expecting. 5 minute cooldown! 3.5 min with legacy! Sounds really promising, but how much of a heal are we talking? At least 2k at level 65, right?.... right?



Trapper Changes: This is probably the most underwhelming part of the update for me, but then there's a lot of momentum built up behind my "Trapper = teh suck" feelings over the years. The damage penalty reduction is a positive step, absolutely. As are the changes to Explosive Arrow. I like the new Barbed Arrow slow trait, though like most slows this is much less effective in PvE than PvP.

I could live with the -15% damage penalty, no questions asked - if the PenShot root was just eliminated (it still doesn't work because it's instantly broken by an auto-attack, or has that changed?) and the PS cooldown is brought down to something reasonable, like 5 seconds. That cooldown probably hinders Trapper DPS far more than an extra 10% penalty.

Truthfully I'd rather see that AOE cure at 2 ToF than the ICPR. Does anybody slot 2 Trapper just for that regen? Plus, There are only a handful of situations where poisons are (1) dangerous enough to justify immediate attention AND (2) applied en masse; so I think requiring such a considerable sacrifice to get there is unwarranted. (Thumbs up on removing the facing requirement of the vanilla skill, however, that is a very low-key but appreciated change.)


My biggest beef with the Trapper line isn't the DPS hit however, it's that it depends so much on Roots which are, easily, the single worst form of CC available in the game. The mob is still awake, still attacking anything in range, or casting, or healing - it's just doing it from over there. If the intention of ToF is to increase CC effectiveness, how about any of these:

-Resistance penetration. The main CC skills, Bard's Arrow and Distracting Shot, are prone to Miss, Block, Evade, and Resist - that's more avoidances than any other CC skills in the game and aside from Precision Stance, a bow-chant, and a legacy for one skill, we don't have a way to counter it.

-Reduce Bard's Arrow cooldown. This is a mainstay CC skill but even with Strong Intimidation we can't keep anything perma-feared. A 10s CD reduction at the 4-Trapper level would be nice.

-Add a 5 second stun to Rain of Thorns OR reduce its cooldown.

-Make Combat Traps apply to the Snare skill.

-Reduce the cooldown on Crafted Traps.

-Please just take the PenShot root out back and give it the Old Yeller treatment.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?381013-New-dev-diary-out-discuss/page3

Apart from the normal players who always see doom & gloom the responses to the changes have been positive. I think they bring better balance and utility to the Hunter class.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Fantastic news from the Development team concerning the Hunter class "re-design!" :joy:

First off we (Hunters) now get some shooting skills to use while on the move! :hail: FINALLY!!
Second biggie is, when in the Bow Master trait line (Our most damage dealing line) we now generate ZERO threat!! :surprise:
:vsign:
We can finally do what the class was designed to do (deal damage) even in a Fellowship without being told to, "STOP IT!"

Plus, we also get a Fellowship Poison Removal AOE skill instead of the frontal only 1 at a time poison purge.

And the good news keeps on coming :clap: :they've also removed some useless traits, moved others to different trait lines, made others into "Buffs" instead of traits, dropped power costs, increased our DPS... ! :hurray:

Every Trait Line has had positive and numerous changes so if you're a Hunter read the diary to get the complete lowdown.

The re-designer Brian 'Zombie Columbus' Aloisio gets an A++ for returning the Hunter to its original purpose - doing damage and doing it on the run. :thumup:

I was impressed with the changes coming to the Burglar & Minstrel classes but the changes to the Hunter class are more than just a few adjustments and look to greatly enhance every aspect of playing a hunter.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1031-update-2-hunter-developer-diary

Since when do hunters do things "on the run", and I hesitate to use this term, "IRL"? Taking the term literally, a hunter as I know it is someone who uses stealth and patience to stalk prey.

You're confusing a 'fighter' class with what a hunter has morphed into.

This is just more dumbing down of the game really, in that it is more nerfing, more easiness, less challenge.

Whatever.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

irst off we (Hunters) now get some shooting skills to use while on the move! :hail: FINALLY!!

This comment is particularly baffling. If it was introducing a mounted shooting ability, I could see cause for celebration. You're cheering the ability to shoot a bow and arrow or crossbow while running? Or am I not understanding your comments correctly?

 

[Palantir]

Correct, Hunters do not currently have a shooting skill they can use on the move.

You could say "Auto attack" but have you actually tried to use AA as a skill to move & shoot?
You're lucky if you can get off 1 shot "moving" before you're no longer facing your target or he's in your face. The odds of hitting a target moving are about nil even in Fleet-Stance plus, 99% of all mobs come at you quickly & you're in melee not ranged attack.

Being able to move and actually shoot aka "Kiting" will be a huge bonus trust me. I had a Hunter in WoW and they were the masters of "Kiting." I loved being able to run away "flip & twist" in the air and land shooting while still backing away to gain distance.

How we do it now in LotRO-
1. "Low cut" target to slow it down (or trap it).
2. Run from your target.
3. You stop & slowly turn around...
4. Start shooting.
5. Target runs up to you.
6. Low cut & repeat 1-6 = having to stop every time you want to shoot till target is dead or you are.

If we can shoot on the run we can:

1. Run in a circle shooting as you go, or backup shooting-
2. "Low-cut" the target (or trap it).
3. Run/walk backwards away from target while shooting the ENTIRE time to gain distance.
5. When target runs towards you keep shootiing, after he gets to you... "Low Cut" it again.
6. Repeat 1-5 until target is dead.

Shootiing on the move is a huge change & bonus in running a Hunter!

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Correct, Hunters do not currently have a shooting skill they can use on the move.

Nor should they.

1. Run in a circle shooting as you go, or backup shooting-
2. "Low-cut" the target (or trap it).
3. Run/walk backwards away from target while shooting the ENTIRE time to gain distance.
5. When target runs towards you keep shootiing, after he gets to you... "Low Cut" it again.
6. Repeat 1-5 until target is dead.

What's the problem?

In Second Life they give you the ability to fly. If you're going to base your criticisms on what you can and can't do in other games, maybe we should start there.

Incidentally, does Tolkien mention any ability to shoot a bow and arrow accurately while running?

It sounds like you're cheering exactly the same thing you used to complain about - the dumbing down of the game and the fact that it is becoming easier and less challenging to accomplish anything.

Like you say - why not just a couple of hot keys. Map key A to "automatically achieve Level 65" and maybe SPACE BAR to "deposit ring in Mount Doom" and then go outside and enjoy the sunshine. :laugh:

Seriously, though, I have no problem with using "hunter" skills in a way consistent with what a "hunter' does - seems like snares and traps are part of that. Running and shooting like an M-1 Abrams with a gyrostabilizer - you need to point out in Tolkien where that occurs.

 

[Palantir]

Nor should they. What's the problem?

Balancing out the game mechanics for each class.

Incidentally, does Tolkien mention any ability to shoot a bow and arrow accurately while running?.

/smackhead

Not going there as we're not talking Tolkien or we'd have to go back and discuss & discount Hobbit's wearing Heavy Armor, Swift Travel, getting hit with dozens of arrows and surviving, Rez'es etc. etc. all over again. Most of which we both agree should not be in the game already and I would be just as happy to dump all that "gamey" stuff and go with more "natural" Tolkien stuff.
{FYI- I removed spell casters etc from my LotR MERP RPG because it screwed up Tolkien’s world!}

But, we've already assumed "gamey changes" are made just to make it a playable game in the first place and are just continuing to do so. Obviously weird things are added just to compete with WoW etc and pull in a lot of players = $$

It sounds like you're cheering exactly the same thing you used to complain about - the dumbing down of the game and the fact that it is becoming easier and less challenging to accomplish anything.?

Don't get me started on making it easier we all know they are. :angry:
But I don't think adding more options = dumbing down, no matter what some of the posters say. I'm happy that Hunters now have combat options instead of just standing there: Healers can heal on the run; RK's have spells on the run, Wardens can throw jav's etc. = balance across the classes. Add in the options available by making all 3 Trait Lines viable for Hunters to use instead of just going heavy with the Bow Master Line and it's more complicated / balanced.

Seriously, though, I have no problem with using "hunter" skills in a way consistent with what a "hunter' does - seems like snares and traps are part of that...

Neither do I but the whole issue is making & giving the Hunter Class "balance" and useful when compared to all the other classes & mobs in the game.

Surely you're aware of Hunters across the board being excluded from Fellowships and raids because they had no purpose anymore. (Not counting the fun groups) Not as good at CC as LM's or DPS as RK's and if they were in one they were told (including me) to NOT do their #1 job- deal damage because of the game mechanics of pulling aggro from Guards when doing so.

The new changes add options to the Hunter not dumb them down. Instead of simply standing there (which is easy) you now have the added a combat option of moving & "kiting" a mob.
Like we've said before on other changes, don't like it don't use it.

 

[Redwolf]

The dumbing down seems to be in the crafting, with transparent intention to make people buy ingredient packs and/or the guild membership with real-world money.

TOO BAD I just leveled up some crafters.

 

[Palantir]

Incidentally, does Tolkien mention any ability to shoot a bow and arrow accurately while running?

:hmmm:
Have to re-read all of his works to check that point out...
But I do vaguely remember seeing Legolas shooting his bow while riding a shield down the stairs and while on the back of a running Oliphaunt does that count?

Sir Peter Jackson wouldn’t have shown those if the weren't true now would he?
:whist:

 

[Palantir]

... in that it is more nerfing, more easiness, less challenge.

You mean like this?

The quest to kill the "Onodrim" used to be way back in the Giant Valley of the Trollshaws and you had to battle elite Worms/Dragons to get to him plus he was an Elite as well with @7000+ morale and it required a small Fellowship.

Now "suddenly" he's at the entrance to the valley and basically alone plus he's non-elite with 2700 morale.
/sigh

View attachment 32497

I just don't have a clue anymore why they KEEP making things easier.


I mentioned with my 65 Warden I was going to finish the current Epic Quests before starting on Book 3 & getting my 2nd Hunter to 65. I did but in the process I did it solo AND easily.

But I remember when it wasn't so.
Doing that last Epic Quest (a skirmish) with my 1st Hunter (main) it required 2 to 3 players to complete. We must have died at least 12 times plus at that time you had to answer "questions" to get past the blocking "creature" (You had to be able to name (type in) certain Fellowship Maneuver’s within 10 seconds or so when prompted) What a nightmare & challenge that was- it really was! You were also attacked by 3 elite mobs per rapidly arriving waves.

Not any more: solo'd with my Warden, no questions (that was dumb anyway) and just 1 elite & a normal to kill per slow arriving wave. I never died & my skirmish soldier (acher) was his usual skirmish-idiot self and failed to shoot 50% of the time. /slap the cr** out of him The final boss was killed without much effort.
Easier yes, and sadly so for the game...