Thread: Warden to Hunter

Hi all!

I have just recently made a hunter, levelling that to the level of my Warden and seeing which I prefer. On my hunter so far, I have solo'd Skirmishes (mostly Tuckborough), done all of my quests alone, so it's safe to say I am used to a class which can solo a lot of stuff.
I am worried I might find the transition to a hunter a bit more difficult. I.e, how well does a hunter solo? Will I be able to do most quests alone?
I've heard that Herbalist is a good choice for a hunter soloing skirms, which I will hopefully be doing as soon as I hit 20 for fast xp. Do you have any advice for skirmish soloing for a hunter?

Thanks so much everyone.

i have got 75 warden and hunter. Warden can do solo smallfellowship quest, hunter cannot. Warden is Best solo game play. My 75 hunter has herbalest for skirmish. I can do tier2 skirmish but warden is soo easy for any quest or instance. On the other hand, hunter has perfect dps, so u can lvl up with hunter easier than warden.

Spare yourself some time and delete your hunter and focus on your warden.

Warden is solo God. You will find life as a hunter much more of a challenge.

I have 75 hunter (main), burg (principal alt), minnie and warden and am levelling a champ. So far, hunter was the hardest to level.

The difference is huge. Hunters are quicker to lvl, but harder. The hard aspect makes it more of a challenge to gear yourself up along the way. If you have any incentive to eventually do group instances, I would say warden. If you have any incentive to solo for as long as you want, I'd still say warden.

Quick =/= fun, but rounding up 14 mobs and killing them with ease? Yeah, I'd say that's fun.

I'd work on your warden if I were you and forget about hunter.

Hunter represents a huge challenge for any part of the game that involves actually being hit by a mob.

If the mob is dead before it gets to you, not a problem of course as your have a very high DPS output and long range.

Warden = easymode. Is it possible to actually die?

As a Hunter most of your survivability relies on the use of Crowd Control, e.g. slowing mobs with Quick Shot or Barbed Arrow, use Traps to root the target you're not slowing and later on make use of Distracting Shot and Bards Arrow to CC even more.

As a Warden your survivability relies on superb BPE, self heals and morale leeches.

For most Hunters it's either a nightmare or very easy, and relies a lot on how well you gear your Hunter. If stuff dies before it can reach you, you will find Hunter to be extremely fast for soloing, where a Warden is a bit more steady and slower.

As a skilled Warden you can solo pretty much all fellowship quests on-level until you reach Angmar (and even there you can solo many of them until you reach Carn Dum and Urugarth), a Hunter cannot do that apart from a very few of them as you can only CC so much.

Warden can dance with 20 mob on lvl easily. 4 or more mobs are hard for hunter but, many quests are easy for hunter.

My main was always my hunter, followed by my warden and rest of the company.
Hunter is very easy becouse he got really good DPS and long range + enough utilities once you get in melee range. As other said you wont be able to solo small FS instances as you can do with your warden, but I wouldnt give up on the hunter. The only boss who has ever been a problem for my hunter was an Uruk Elite in Lothlorien, 17k immune to daze... but he died too after a few attempts.

Lately I soloed with my hunter a big Rare Arch-Nemesis 130k+ (if I remember right) in Moria... surely warden could do it too, but will took 4-5 times longer and definitely not that funny.

AS for the scirms, this was never my focus but then again never had any issues soloing them. Last week I used to farm t3 lvl68 for Star-lit crystals... easy and borring.

I have both a Warden and Hunter at lvl 75 and i enjoy both the classes. Warden can yes, survive pretty much anything. I can solo 3-man instances with my warden on tier 2 and finish the challenges and my hunter could never touch it. Yes when my warden was poorly geared i could still solo the 154k trees int the great river area with ease where my hunter could never handle the 54k ones. and yes i can hold against 15 mobs with ease without having to really even worry and not having my morale drop a tiny bit. but hunter is insanely fast to level and can be very fun and survive more things than what many may think. Just depends on how you know your class. Example there is a 24k or something rare elite in Mirkwood lvl 64. My hunter at lvl 61 could solo him even though this elite has a high damage output. The hunter can get a single target with ease even if it comes within melee, its the number of targets that can get the hunter in a tight spot. 2 or three mobs is till manageable but when you start getting 4 you may want to try and be really tactical or start running. One thing I also want to note about hunter, yes you do have a number of melee skills to work with but its still always best to use ranged skills even when the mob is stepping on you. kills them much faster from the higher dps meaning you can survive more. this does change some though at higher lvls with the skill upgrades.

Thanks everyone for your informative replies! I will level the hunter till 30, and see what's happening. As for the Skirms, I'll likely use a herbalist although its not hard getting groups so I could always do that too.Or just try a protector. I find it weirdly more difficult even though its a basic class, than the warden. Warden obviously can solo most, the only hard bit for me was remembering gambits, which wasn't all that difficult.
Thanks again

I think you better choose a protector... so you'll never need a heal.

Thanks, I will go for a protector first and see how it fares

I have a protector on my hunter just because in instances i find that if a mob attacks the healer i can just tell him to attack that mob and he will pull it off the healer and many times will pull off the tank from force taunts giving them some relief. but herbalists are still more favored in groups for a number of reasons and can act just like a protector when soloing as well. example, a protectors job as to take all the mobs and keep them off of you while you dps them down one at a time. herbalists do the same by giving a heal making agro on all targets while you dps them down not having to take on more than one target at a time. easy enough?

Basically:

Warden is slower levelling but will survive a lot of stuff,
Hunter is faster levelling but may die with a lot of stuff.

For both classes you can trait for a balance between dps and survivability, with the Warden having the ability to go far into the survivability spectrum, and the Hunter being able to go deep into the dps realm.

My Warden is at 75 and never had any issues (of course)
My Hunter is at 64ish and so far only the old witch at her hut in Enedwaith has been a problem (and by problem I mean I had to try twice).

As many others have eluded to, I think that leveling on a hunter is among the easiest of all the classes simply because everything dies so fast, and as a hunter, you should have no problems leveling by yourself without a skirmish soldier unless you are just doing something wrong. If you want to discuss Soloing then I'd just say to be very careful and not pull more than you can manage, which is a lot less than on your warden, but you really should be fine unless you get the sudden urge to go solo grand stair or something.

However



A warden is able to, if they want, have decent damage at 40m range ON THE MOVE while still being able to switch in combat to a solid survival. (so they can ether trait for less 40m damage and be able to hop into survival OR trait for good 40m DPS and have less, but still solid, survival when needed)

overall wardens can, when traited dps, have 1-1.5k 40m ranged dps while still maintaining a very hardy survival (Far far far more than hunters) and can switch stances into determination stance and become very hardy indeed.

Hunter, on the other hand, is very limited in what they can do no matter how they trait. hunter is stuck with ether traiting DPS and killing stuff fast with little survival, or traiting Crowd control and still having the same low survival, but with a pathetic bit more of stuns/mezzes.

No matter how much a hunter wants... they will never be able to get close to the survival of even the most damage centric warden. To be an effective hunter, you must trait DPS, or nothing. survival barely counts (only counts in PVMP).

Hunters have been abused by the devs since Mines of Moria so i dont reccomend playing this class. drop it like an egg cause you will not be happy with what hunter becomes once its 75.... warden will be far more effective in almost everything.

If I had known that my hunter, currently my only level-capped character, would be turned into a super-squishy glass cannon, I would have focused my limited game time on a warden or a champion. Survivability is just as important to the fun-factor as the ability to chew through mobs at a brisk pace. In my opinion, the current state of the hunter makes baby Legolas cry.