Thread: Update 7 -- absolutely NO Hunter changes

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

Because it was just that: "bow & blade" XD


I recall there was a post about mele skills charging ranged skills with higher damage output and the other way around, but that's all I remember - and I remember this because seeing something like that made me both interested and pissed off it wasn't mentioned properly.

But wasnt that post about charging ranged skills a post made by a player and not a dev?

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

Do you know what a hint is? (...) It was mentioned properly.

(...)

But it's bs to blame ZC for anything regarding that initial communication for the ROI hunter.

What was the purpose of such hint, considering all it suggested was a major revamp, melee revamp, and to a line that was buffed and in a very good place? It's no wonder people were freaking out. It shouldn't be so hard to predict. Communication is not just about typing few sentences, it's 2-way process - and this is MMORPG forum, it is nothing surprising some people are freaking out *a lot*. A quick glance over General section during downtime or at some weird topics should be enough to realise that :/

You post on a Bear Forum honey is going to be more like fruit salad. That is just a hint!

Few months later, after bears lay waste to your cities and villages, you explain that the idea was to add vitamins to honey and change its colour. So - not bad, right?

Originally Posted by Elrantiri

But wasnt that post about charging ranged skills a post made by a player and not a dev?

Nope, see above.

Does anyone know if Split Shot's damage is reduced by light-oil only or does fire-oil fall into the same category as well? I haven't been on to check it.

If DPS got dropped because of oil, Split Shot went from being the weakest hitting ranged skill to..... oh just a weaker weakest hitting range skill. At least its not the 3rd slowest induction anymore along with it. Perhaps the skill is actually going to be a useful skill now? Wait its still got a 2m radius, so unless the mobs are giving each other hugs, we won't hit multiple mobs.

Have I mentioned how awesome I think Split Shot is?

Originally Posted by Odin_of_Freyr

Does anyone know if Split Shot's damage is reduced by light-oil only or does fire-oil fall into the same category as well?

Yup, 2,4% drop after applying fire oil - or 839-to-819, for example.

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

Yup, 2,4% drop after applying fire oil - or 839-to-819, for example.

thanks for checking. I cannot imagine that this change is unintended. I wonder if they are so scared of reactions from hunters that they are afraid to even post any changes they plan to make with hunters.

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

What was the purpose of such hint,

What is the purpose of ever giving a hint? To spark interest, to entertain, to interact. Orion was doing it at the same time with Mini's, champs and wardens. I believe there were other devs doing it to for other classes. Remember, he was coming off what was regarded as a very well done hunter revamp. We viewed ZC as the hunter savior after 3 years of nerfs and neglect where it didn't seem like we even had a dev assigned to us.

He really didn't deserve the vitriol he got. But that doesn't excuse the, what, year of neglect since.

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

What is the purpose of ever giving a hint? To spark interest, to entertain, to interact.

Yeah, thats why I added such to hint - bears and honey.

But sure, I am not arguing "4-months / post" schedule is anything comparable, so we are in agreement on this one.

Originally Posted by Odin_of_Freyr

thanks for checking. I cannot imagine that this change is unintended. I wonder if they are so scared of reactions from hunters that they are afraid to even post any changes they plan to make with hunters.

I believe it HAS to be unintended, IE a Bug. When Oil is applied, it's using a different table for damage and induction, which is messing with the Split Shot crit reset.

Someone messed the code for Split Shot when coding it for oil use, that's all. I imagine the non-oil induction and damage will be applied to the oil form, as well as the reset, whenever they get around to fixing it.

Originally Posted by Odin_of_Freyr

thanks for checking. I cannot imagine that this change is unintended. I wonder if they are so scared of reactions from hunters that they are afraid to even post any changes they plan to make with hunters.

Must be an oversight. I reckon Erckenbrand is right, they probably mixed up the damage table with another skill. I do not see why oils should decrease inductions and damage while before it was just changing the name and the DMG-type.

I really wonder why it was not stated in the patch-notes. Now compared to the changes we got in the last updates, these are huge

About the bow&blade thing. When first introduced there was a strong opposition (rightfully so) but it was not like people were overly rude, compared to the last outrages. It was more of a discussion and ZC actually came back with more suggestions (focus building melee skills etc.) And it was never a question of adding a traitline or versatility, but people were not inclined to (as we assumed) to let a fully functional DPS-line go. Needless to say that the idea was obviously completely dropped since we got ranged skills only with the following update.

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

What was the purpose of such hint, considering all it suggested was a major revamp, melee revamp, and to a line that was buffed and in a very good place?

Proposing to force hunters into melee to obtain benefits while at the same time changing mitigations and armour to make them into glass cannons was, and continues to be, licking-the-live-rail stupid. His ideas were deservedly howled down.

Originally Posted by Kongas

Proposing to force hunters into melee to obtain benefits while at the same time changing mitigations and armour to make them into glass cannons was, and continues to be, licking-the-live-rail stupid. His ideas were deservedly howled down.

Force is an assumption, we weren't given that level of detail.

You're also assuming that we wouldn't have been given skills or updates to skills to compensate for our lower mitigations and armor for when we were in melee.

All he said was that bascially he was going to take a suite of skills (melee) that we dont' find very useful and give us a better reason for having them.

Originally Posted by Zombie_Columbus

Huntsman: While I knew that bringing up melee would pique peoples curiosity, I admit to being taken aback by how much negativity it generated. Legolas quickly dispatching enemies at range and in melee is the archtype the class was built on and one that many still identify with. A monthly update was not enough time to make the kind that would bring the Huntsman up to a Legolas standard, but an expansion is. Before I say anymore, yes, I understand that Hunters do not use melee much. I believe that this is more because that there is little reason or benefit, not because it isn't exciting to switch between melee and ranged combat during a fight. However, it seems I did my job too well in the last update, many are rather fond of the state the Huntsman is in and do not want it changed. Such feedback has effected me, and I'm backing off from making the Huntsman a melee/ranged hybrid. Instead, minor edits like Bowmaster will be made, mainly removing traits that effect specific stances.
That said, here are some details for what I was planning for the line: All melee skills grant focus, ranged skills increase melee damage while melee skills increase ranged damage (with applications/removals to encourage switching between ranged and melee at some kind of tempo - 10 seconds ranged buffed, 10 seconds melee buffed), extending Fleetness to buff melee, make quickshot usable while moving (ie: no induction). Basically, allow the class to fluidly swap between melee and ranged and gain benefits for doing so, while giving it even more mobility and induction-less attacks.

The one thing that I would like to see which I have sometimes successfully done is tank with my hunter. I know your not supposed to but sometimes you have too so better armor please.

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

Force is an assumption, we weren't given that level of detail.

You're also assuming that we wouldn't have been given skills or updates to skills to compensate for our lower mitigations and armor for when we were in melee.

All he said was that bascially he was going to take a suite of skills (melee) that we dont' find very useful and give us a better reason for having them.

"That said, here are some details for what I was planning for the line: All melee skills grant focus, ranged skills increase melee damage while melee skills increase ranged damage (with applications/removals to encourage switching between ranged and melee at some kind of tempo - 10 seconds ranged buffed, 10 seconds melee buffed), extending Fleetness to buff melee, make quickshot usable while moving (ie: no induction). Basically, allow the class to fluidly swap between melee and ranged and gain benefits for doing so, while giving it even more mobility and induction-less attacks."

Sounds good to me....

There were two main problems that contributed to the reaction the whole "bow and blade" concept received:

1) MMO players have a very black-and-white view of class roles. "If I wanted to play a champ I would have rolled one" was brought up a lot in opposition to the proposed changes, as if greater melee competency could only happen at the cost of all of our ranged capability.
2) ZC proposed dismantling our (at the time) only viable sustained damage traitline in favor of a new, gimmicky, and likely much less applicable one. If he'd proposed axing ToF to make his melee line, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Hell, we probably would have cheered.

Originally Posted by DRad123

I found a change! They Nerfed the living &$@" out of the crafted great river weapons. Don't recall seeing this in patch notes

They also "nerfed" Great River Rune of Power. 730 phys M down to 584 iirc. Maybe it's just all the GR stuff been screwed up.

Originally Posted by CWood

If he'd proposed axing ToF to make his melee line, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Hell, we probably would have cheered.

Agreed. I think ZC actually believes there is a silent majority who likes trapper. Course it just goes to show you the root of the problem with LOTRO these days: Devs don't play the game.

Btw, great river changes are a confirmed bug, not nerf. Hopefully 7.1 will fix them.

What exactly is wrong with hunters? What more do they need?

Originally Posted by Moejo

What exactly is wrong with hunters? What more do they need?

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...A-guide-for-ZC

Well I wouldn't say "wrong", but some tweaks here and there would really be much appreciated.
However whenever you try and start a discussion about hunter changes on the live servers you usually get flooded with insults like "learn to play, noob" and "Hunta*d" within the first 5 seconds.

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

Agreed. I think ZC actually believes there is a silent majority who likes trapper.

There is. And they ar enot even silent. Heck I never trait anything yellow, still I like the trapper line, generally. I like the fact that there is versatility in this class I play. Theoratically. The hunter is the only ranged-class in Lotro right now, I do not see the point of changing this. But of course I would not want it to change one of the two potent damage lines. I am conservative, make the useless useful and keep the useful things useful without making drastic changes, like this bow&blade nonsense.

I'm not sure that it is from this update.
But if I use a fire oil, split shot also have this fire bonus. (and if I remend me well, it didn't had that in the past)

So maybe they did a few little changes

Originally Posted by Kevin3706

I'm not sure that it is from this update.
But if I use a fire oil, split shot also have this fire bonus. (and if I remend me well, it didn't had that in the past)

So maybe they did a few little changes

I believe this is an un-intended change. Oils have never effected a skill in the manner they are here. Using oils decreases the induction time and damage of Split Shot. Induction time goes from 1.2s to 0.8s. Base damage, on my tooltip, goes from 525-837 to 506-818. There also seem to be an issue with the crit registering with the 3 piece Faron set bonus. When oils are active a crit is not reseting SS or RoA as it should. Without oils though the bonus works fine.

A small test I just done, 15 uses without oil and 15 uses with oil. Without oils I had a 928 avg, 1753 max & 458 min according to combat analysis. A critical hit was reseting SS & RoA, as it should. Now with oils active I had a 682 avg, 1722 max & 436 min. A critical hit was not reseting SS & RoA like it should be with the 3 pieces of the Faron set.

Originally Posted by Zombielord

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...A-guide-for-ZC

Well I wouldn't say "wrong", but some tweaks here and there would really be much appreciated.
However whenever you try and start a discussion about hunter changes on the live servers you usually get flooded with insults like "learn to play, noob" and "Hunta*d" within the first 5 seconds.

Ah, I see. Hunters need more utility to make them more desirable in a raid setting, is what I mostly got from that. As far as the L2P noob and hunta*d, comments, those are just uncalled for, and should be reported. I thought our community was above that sort of behavior, I guess I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying hunter's don't need tweaks, I just didn't know what they were lacking. It seems they need more utility, as pure nasty DPS just isn't enough anymore. Maybe a few "Burn it down before it explodes and kills everybody" type fights would land hunters more raid spots.

I agree that hunters need more utility in raids, but as it stands now, more "burn it down before it explodes" instances would just increase demand for Burgs. Synergy for the win. Hunters need to be able to either provide undesputed single dps mastery over every other class, or they need to provide some synergy to a group like Burgs do with stacking dps buffs. Right now they provide neither. The class is not broken, but without one of the two options I mentioned, other classes just are often much better choices right now.

Originally Posted by CWood

1) MMO players have a very black-and-white view of class roles. "If I wanted to play a champ I would have rolled one" was brought up a lot in opposition to the proposed changes, as if greater melee competency could only happen at the cost of all of our ranged capability.

I think that is too simplified a view. Generally, there would have been one of two possibe outcomes:

a) These changes make it so that the hunter's melee dps, but is still inferior to his ranged damage.
b) These changes make it so that staying in melee range and alternating between melee and ranged skills with the resulting buffs will result in superior dps to staying at range and using ranged skills only.

If the outcome were a), the changes would have been pointless, since what keeps you from resorting purely to ranged skills even when in melee range? Except for the case when you are whaled on.

Which leaves b). And then meleeis not just an option, that would make trying to get into melee whenever possible mandatory for hunters, at least for those that try to play their class to the optimum. Which factually would turn us into yet another melee class, with better dps in raged only situations, but a melee class nevertheless. And that is understandably not what many players were looking for when they chose hunter. Therefore I can understand the outrage at the suggestion.

Originally Posted by Sagit

I think that is too simplified a view. Generally, there would have been one of two possibe outcomes:

a) These changes make it so that the hunter's melee dps, but is still inferior to his ranged damage.
b) These changes make it so that staying in melee range and alternating between melee and ranged skills with the resulting buffs will result in superior dps to staying at range and using ranged skills only.

If the outcome were a), the changes would have been pointless, since what keeps you from resorting purely to ranged skills even when in melee range? Except for the case when you are whaled on.

Which leaves b). And then meleeis not just an option, that would make trying to get into melee whenever possible mandatory for hunters, at least for those that try to play their class to the optimum. Which factually would turn us into yet another melee class, with better dps in raged only situations, but a melee class nevertheless. And that is understandably not what many players were looking for when they chose hunter. Therefore I can understand the outrage at the suggestion.

Where was it suggest that you would have to go into melee to gain maximum dps I assume thats what your suggesting? also plenty of end game raids have you in melee as well as moors and plain and simple pve content... if you could gain focus and dps from some melee skills, low cut get distance and use qs on the move it sure sounds like survivabilty and a more well rounded fun class to me..

I liked huntsman alot at the time but for sure if this was a yellow line I'd be all over it.

Originally Posted by Djasi

I agree that hunters need more utility in raids, but as it stands now, more "burn it down before it explodes" instances would just increase demand for Burgs. Synergy for the win. Hunters need to be able to either provide undesputed single dps mastery over every other class, or they need to provide some synergy to a group like Burgs do with stacking dps buffs. Right now they provide neither. The class is not broken, but without one of the two options I mentioned, other classes just are often much better choices right now.

Well they can if they use gonathradir and light oil (the +10% miss chance seems to be cumulative)...

Originally Posted by xadoor

If they make it as strong as it should be there would be even more draw to them and it would throw off the games balance.

LOL that's just an odd reason to give. I know how my server is populated with champs more than any other class and while that may be annoying in terms of trying to recruit a balance of classes into kins or when putting together balanced groups for raids/instances... it's no big deal. Devs don't seem to think the class needs attention, that's all there is to it.

Originally Posted by rannion

Well they can if they use gonathradir and light oil (the +10% miss chance seems to be cumulative)...

You mean I can (See: Have a small chance) to debuff a mob to take more incoming (See: Roughly 3-4%) damage and I just have to get another entire armor set?! Gee golly gosh, sign me up!

And no, the Miss Chance from the Light-Oil debuff is not cumulative at all, at BEST it refreshes, and I don't even think it does that. If the Light-Oil Miss Chance WAS cumulative, there would either be plenty of bosses (not even raid bosses) out there that would be made immune to +Miss Chance, or Light-Oil would be nerfed (again) into oblivion.

GIVE US A THREAT DROP AND CLASS IS FIXED problem with hnt dps is u cant go all out even if the boss is at 1/2 morale and uve been spamming QS and barbed arrow for that

Originally Posted by Eckenbrand

If the Light-Oil Miss Chance WAS cumulative

As I understand it, it is when multiple hunters apply light oil..

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

Force is an assumption, we weren't given that level of detail.

You're also assuming that we wouldn't have been given skills or updates to skills to compensate for our lower mitigations and armor for when we were in melee.

All he said was that bascially he was going to take a suite of skills (melee) that we dont' find very useful and give us a better reason for having them.

Has this dev done anything to suggest he has any understanding of the class let alone the in-depth experience and understanding to make massive changes?

Split Shot and Hunters Art argues not. And my point concerning our new glass cannon status stands. If they want hunters in melee they have to restore our robustness.

Originally Posted by rannion

As I understand it, it is when multiple hunters apply light oil..

The next time I'm in an instance with another Hunter in our kin, I'll make sure we're both using light-oil. I have to see this for myself.