Upcoming Hunter Changes

[OnnMacMahal]

It’s been a while since we started the conversation about updating the Hunter class, and we appreciate your patience. We haven’t been idle in the meantime, but it’s now time to put Hunter in the spotlight. While Bowmaster Hunters may not be feeling many issues outside of potentially soft Damage output, the Trapper of Foes line in particular is long overdue for some TLC, and we look forward to a vibrant discussion about this new outline.

I’m going to dive straight into an outline of some upcoming potential class changes, so please keep in mind that most of these changes have not been implemented and they are subject to change.

This updated Hunter outline has a few high level goals:

For the Huntsman, the following changes aim to keep the gameplay distinct from Bowmaster. With no inductions and greater access to bleeds and Melee Damage, the Huntsman playstyle would retain its focus on mobility and flexibility with the ability to deal potent burst damage through a combination of bleed cashouts and rapid-fire Focus spender skills.

For the Bowmaster, the following changes aim to maintain the status quo of the resolute long-range archer, releasing a continuous stream of high damage arrows as long as you’re able to manage your Focus and use inductions relatively uninterrupted. You may notice that several passive sources of Induction reduction have been removed from the outline below. Passive induction reduction has crept up so high over the years that many Bowmaster Hunters have grown accustomed to having at least -75-85% Induction durations at all times. In this outline, we’ve pulled back on that a bit in exchange for higher direction damage, slowing down the flow of skill us a little bit in favor of more potent individual arrows.

For the Trapper of Foes, the following changes aim to overhaul this specialization into one capable of matching other true support specializations (yellow-line Lore-master, Burglar, and Mariner). These changes would minimize this specialization’s focus on traps and roots, which are both awkward to use in combat and functionally less useful than the abilities available to other classes. In their place, the yellow-line Hunter would have greater access to more useful CC like stuns, mezzes, and knockdowns delivered with more ranged skills and more interaction with your Focus resource.



Each set of outlined specialization changes is followed by a mock-up of a revised trait tree. Keep in mind, this is just a visual aid meant to help you understand where traits might fit together alongside one another, and that none of this is set in stone. Damage value adjustments in particular will be necessary for many skills, and are not reflected below. As always, the goal in output remains "viability." If a chosen specialization is designed for dealing damage or supporting your allies, this updated specialization should be able to fill that role competently in all areas of the game.

June 3, 2025: Outline updated with revisions marked in purple below.

 

[OnnMacMahal]

General Skills

Quick Shot
Quick Shot Power cost would be removed.
Quick Shot would be usable while moving, even when it has an induction (when specialized in red or yellow line).

Stances
Hunter stances would be removed. Over the years, players have generally landed on either Precision or Strength as being the “best” stance and then stuck to that stance 100% of the time (until a balance patch changed the stances themselves). The stances themselves never meaningfully altered any skills, and they were arguably made obsolete by trait specialization trees. Given that they add very little to active gameplay, these skills would be phased out completely.

Purge Poison
Purge Poison will remove 1 effect of any type, and a second poison.
Purge Poison will no longer have an animation (and will thus be usable while moving).
Cooldown would increase 5s > 10s

Blindside
Blindside would no longer generate Focus by default.

New: Oromë’s Arrow
Hunters would gain a new skill for the purpose of corruption removal: Oromë’s Arrow.
This skill would deal low damage and remove one active corruption on your target.
Cost: 2 focus
7s Cooldown

Blood Arrow
Blood Arrow would no longer cleanse corruptions.
Blood Arrow would no longer have any interaction with Exsanguinate.
Blood Arrow’s Power cost would increase.
Just a note: Power costs will be rebalanced across the class, so while Blood Arrow's power cost is slated to increase, your regular power drain from offensive skills should go down.

Cry of the Hunter
Cry of the Hunter would no longer Daze enemies by default. This daze would become a bonus effect granted by a legendary tracery.
Run speed potency would be increased 10% > 20%. Run speed duration halved 10s > 5s.
Bubble potency would be increased to 15% of your maximum morale. Bubble duration reduced 30s > 7s.

Beneath Notice
Cooldown reduced from 5m to 1m.
Effect changed from -60% threat to -45% (because the baseline value for a DPS spec is now 0.5)

Intent Concentration
Cooldown reduced from 3m to 2m.

Find the Path
Find the Path would increase movement speed by 25% by default.
Note: this is an AoE buff and it only improves your out of combat run speed. It has no impact on combat.

Bright Camp-fire
The fire would last for only 60 seconds but would provide significantly increased regen values.

Focus (Skill)
Focus would no longer become “Improved Focus” at level 66.
The buff conferred by “Improved” Focus has always been a bit awkward. It gives you a big damage boost but only for a few skills in a quick opening burst, and it requires you to channel Focus beforehand. It is arguably too strong in PvP (where an opening burst sometimes begins and ends a fight) too weak in PvE (where your opening 5s burst is often just a tiny fraction of a combat encounter’s total time) and frustrating to use on landscape (where you’re free to channel Focus as much as you want, but stopping to do so before every pull becomes tedious).



Hunter Oils
Hunter oils would last only 15s and would have a much longer (shared) cooldown of 3m. Oil-modified skills would deal improved damage and would once again benefit from effects and traceries that increase your Outgoing Fire or Light Damage.

 

[OnnMacMahal]

Trait Specializations

The Huntsman

The Hunstman would no longer have any skill inductions (this would replace inductions being usable on the move).
Specializing in the Bowmaster would reduce the range of your ranged skills by 5m.
Specializing in the Huntsman would no longer remove the miss chance penalty on movement; this trait would become buyable in the tree.

Scourging Blow
Scourging Blow’s cooldown would increase from 5s to 15s.

Barrage
Barrage 1 & 2 cooldowns reduced to 0.5s

Merciful>Huntsman's Shot
Merciful Shot would become Huntsman’s Shot
Usable regardless of target’s health
Cost: 4 Focus
Cooldown: 20s



Nock on the Move
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Precision
This trait would grant you the effect formerly associated with Precision Stance: passively generating Focus over time.

Lingering Wound
This trait would grant the skill Lingering Wound.
Lingering Wound’s bleed would only tier up to a max rank of 3. This bleed would be a Wound and would tier down upon expiration.

Fleetness
Fleetness would once again be an active skill, granted by this trait.
Fleetness (the skill) would grant you +35% Movement speed, slow and stun and root immunity, and 1 Focus every 3s for 10s.
60s cooldown

Earthborn
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Cutting Wound
Low Cut would tier up Lingering Wound.

Improved Fleetness
As these effects are already part of Fleetness, this trait would be removed and replaced with:

Agile Rejoinder
Agile Rejoinder would heal you a moderate amount for each enemy struck in a frontal arc. (As a note, Agile Rejoinder would not be a parry-response skill)
Cost: 3 Focus
15s cooldown

Intensified Fire
This effect would only be triggered by Focus Spender skills, and its buff would change from +Physical Mastery to +Ranged Damage



Merciful Blades
3 Ranks
Merciful Shot grants you a short buff (10s) increasing your Melee Damage (5% - 15%).

Pathfinder
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

The Chase
You no longer receive a Miss Chance penalty while moving.

Blood Arrow
Each rank of this trait would also increase the Focus cost and Power cost of Blood Arrow.
Rank 2 would no longer reduce the cooldown of Blood Arrow.

Shot Through the Heart
This trait would no longer affect the skill Heart Seeker (limiting it to Huntsman’s Shot or Merciful Shot).

Strong Draw Arm
This trait would lose its 6th rank and the effect from that rank.
Strong Draw max potency would be reduced from 25% to 10%
Note: this trait was bugged and was impacting the wrong set of skills. Its high base value also has a significant skewing impact on the damage of other damage bonuses. As a low-level/general damage trait, this trait was much too potent. That potency would be better found rolled into the base damage of your skills.

Close Quarters
4 Ranks
This trait would increase your Melee Skill Damage (+2.5%-10%) and Bleed Cashout Damage (3%-15%).

Volley
Because blue-line would have no inductions by default, Volley’s effect would be replaced by:
Focus Spenders would give you a +Ranged Damage buff (up to +15%). This effect would stack up to 3 times but would be removed by using a Focus Builder skill.

Strength of the Earth
This trait would be removed. Over the years, Strength of the Earth has gradually become almost the exact same as Press Onward, and there is not a strong reason to have duplicate versions filling this skill niche.

Exsanguinate
Exsanguinate would no longer have any relation to or interaction with Blood Arrow. Instead, Focus Builder Skills would have up to a 15% chance to make Exsanguinate available to use.
Exsanguinate’s Bleed duration would be reduced from 20s to 10s.
Exsanguinate’s cooldown would be reduced from 20s to 5s.
Exsanguinate would cost 2 Focus to use.

Strength of the Earth
Strength of the Earth would return to being a channeled skill, with one key difference:
It would negate 50% of incoming damage while active.
It would also restore Morale, Power, and Focus each half second while channeling.

Moving Target
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Wounded Prey
From the yellow tree, this trait would move to the Huntsman tree along with Lingering Wound itself.
In addition, using Huntsman’s Shot to remove a Lingering Wound would cause your next Scourging Blow to gain +50% Crit Chance.
Likewise, using Scourging Blow to remove a Barbed Arrow bleed would cause your next Huntsman’s Shot to gain +25% Crit Chance.

 

[OnnMacMahal]

The Bowmaster

Specializing in the Bowmaster would no longer grant the Needful Haste proc effect.
Specializing in the Bowmaster would no longer grant the skill Pinning Shot.
Specializing in the Bowmaster would increase the range of your ranged skills by 10m.

Swift Release
This trait would be removed.

Shoot to Kill
Damage bonus would increase from 5% to 10%.

Archer’s Mark
This trait would move to the Trapper line and be replaced by:

Strong Draw
This trait would reduce the Focus cost of Penetrating Shot (from 3 to 2).

Swift Mercy
This trait would not longer change the Merciful Shot health threshold or lower its focus cost progressively over time. Instead, it would give Swift Bow a 15% to reset the cooldown of Merciful Shot and make it usable regardless of your target’s health.

Heart Seeker
This trait would grant the skill Heart Seeker, making it a Bowmaster exclusive.

Burn Hot
Swapping places with Hidden Stalker, this trait would grant you the skill Burn Hot, making it a Bowmaster exclusive.
Burn Hot’s default potency would be increased from 20% > 30% (not increased by any other traits).
Burn Hot’s default cooldown would be reduced from 2m to 1m30s.



True Shot
This trait would no longer grant or improve a Critical Vulnerability debuff. Instead, it would increase Penetrating Shot Damage (3%-15%)

Fast Draw
The Quick Shot buff granted by this trait would have its duration increased from 6s to 12s.

Swift and True
The bonus effect granted by rank 5 of this trait would be removed and changed to:
Each arrow loosed by Swift Bow would gain a 30% chance to generate an additional Focus.

Quick Escape
This trait would move to the yellow trait tree.

Bow of the Righteous
Bow of the Righteous would no longer grant a new skill. This trait would add the effects of Bow of the Righteous to Intent Concentration.

Strength
With stances removed, this trait would change to a passive bonus granting +Ranged Damage.

Mercy Kill
This trait would grant +5-15% Merciful Shot Damage and +2.5-10% Critical Damage. This would reduce your reliance on critical hits for this infrequent and conditional skill.

Bodkin Arrows
In addition to increasing Induction Skill Damage, Bodkin Arrows would increase the Block, Parry, and Evade Penetration of your ranged skills.

Hunter’s Blood
4 Ranks
Each rank would grant:

+15% Blood Arrow Damage​

-2% Heal Potency​

-20% Power Cost​

Hidden Stalker
The potency of this effect would be reduced in PvMP.

Long Shot
2 Ranks
Rank 1 grants the skill Long Shot.

Long Shot would be a moderately damaging skill granting 3 Focus with a 25% chance to grant an additional 3 Focus if it lands.​

1.5s Induction​

10s Cooldown​

Rank 2 would increase Long Shot’s Damage.

In for the Kill
Consolidating the previous Heart Seeker traits, rank 2 would grant Heart Seeker its bleed and Incoming Healing debuff.
Ranks 2 and 3 would increase the potency of both effects.

Upshot
Upshot’s cooldown would be increased 15s > 20s.

Plant Feet
This trait would be reworked slightly:
While standing still, passively gain 1 Focus every 3s and tier up a buff:

+1%-5% Ranged Damage, -2%-10% Induction Duration, and -2-10% Attack Duration​

This effect lasts 8s, and stops reapplying when you move.​

This means the effect now takes 9s to reach maximum potency, and you have a 5-8s grace period when moving before it expires and is removed from you.

 

[OnnMacMahal]

The Trapper of Foes

Lingering Wound would move to the Huntsman specialization.
Traps would no longer become inductionless or usable on the move.
Specializing in this tree would grant the skill Pinning Shot.
Specializing in this tree would grant the skill Explosive Decoy. The regular decoy skill was upgraded almost as soon as you specialized into this tree, so it was a bit of a superfluous upgrade.
Explosive Decoy would have significantly reduced morale, allowing it to detonate almost immediately after it is attacked and without waiting for an arbitrary delay.

Archer’s Mark
Archer’s Mark would become a 100% application chance effect applied by Quick Shot.
Archer’s Mark’s effect potency would be doubled at max tier (+10%) and its max tier would be reduced to 3.
Note: This application is still a little more onerous than Lore-master's. I'm considering possibilities for increasing potential AoE applications for Archer's Mark.

Triple Trap
This trait would move to the trait tree and be replaced with:

Hail of Arrows
Grants the skill Hail of Arrows, which tear through the armour of a large group of enemies, applying Minor Rent Armour (-10% Physical Mitigation, -8% Tactical Mitigation for 20s).
Cost: 3 Focus
20s Cooldown

Master Trapper
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Suppressing Stings
The skill Focus (or Combat Focus) would make your next Focus Spender Skill apply ‘Weakness’ to your target(s).
Weakness would apply x0.9 Outgoing Damage for 30s.

Strong Intimidation
This trait would be removed and replaced with Dazing Blow (making it a yellow-spec exclusive skill).

Heightened Senses
This trait would be removed and replaced with Tripwire (making it a yellow-spec exclusive skill).
Tripwire’s cooldown would increase from 30s to 2m.
In combat, Tripwire would become Tangle-dart, a targeted ranged skill with a 90s cooldown.

Explosive Powder
This trait would reduce the cooldown of Distracting Shot by 60s.
+25% Fire Damage

Sturdy Traps
This trait would be moved into the trait tree and replaced with:

Explosive Arrow
Explosive Arrow applies Major Rent Armour (15% for 15s, then 12.5% for 15s)
Explosive Arrow would become a regular AoE skill, hitting enemies in an area around your target (rather than a ground-targeted skill).




Set Trap
This trait would grant the eponymous skill: Set Trap.

Natural Extracts
This trait would be removed

Hindering Shot
5 Ranks
Rank 1 would add the slow to Barbed Arrow (-10% speed, 5s duration)
Ranks 2-5 would increase the potency of the slow by 5% each.

Combat Focus
1 Rank
Focus would become usable in combat, granting 9 Focus. It would have a 3s induction and a 20s cooldown.
Combat Focus would not grant you the +Damage/Critical buff of Improved Focus.

Endurance
5 Ranks
This trait would no longer interact with the Endurance stance, nor would it grant Parry/Evade. Instead, it would grant:
-5% Power Costs for Focus builder skills per rank.

Distracting Shot
This trait would grant the Distracting Shot skill.
Distracting Shot would not longer have an induction. As your core single-target mez skill, the induction here can feel like a big drawback for a yHunter in practice.

Determination
5 Ranks
+10% Chance for Melee Skills to generate an additional Focus for each enemy hit.
+15% per additional rank

Endurance
This trait would be removed.

Complex Mechanisms
This trait would be removed.

Advanced Placement
This trait would be removed.

Blasting Arrow
4 Ranks
Rank 1 would grant a new skill: Blasting Arrow
Fire an arrow above you which explodes in a shower of sparks, temporarily stunning enemies within 15m for 3s.
90s Cooldown
Cost: 3 Focus
Subsequent ranks would each add 1s to the stun’s duration.

Survival Gear
This trait would drop from 6 ranks to 4 (with a maximum bonus of 5%).

Triple Trap
This trait would grant the skill Triple Trap, which would no longer replace Set Trap.
Triple Trap would have a 3s Induction and a 90s Cooldown.

Rain of Thorns
This trait would grant the skill Rain of Thorns.
Rain of Thorns’ cooldown would be increased from 1m to 2m.
Rain of Thorns’ baseline root duration would be reduced from 30s to 10s.

Armour Rend
This trait would be removed.

Steel (Sturdy) Traps
3 Ranks
Each rank would grant +1s grace period to your trap roots.
This trait would no longer remove Focus loss from movement.

Improved Distracting Shot
4 Ranks
Rank 1: Distracting Shot dazes for 10s longer when it hits a target already suffering from a root*.
Ranks 2-4 would grant +5s daze duration and -15s cooldown each.
*This interaction is subject to removal depending on where the class ends up with roots overall and of course depending on player feedback. The bottom line is that yHunter should be able to maintain a 100% uptime daze on a single target with distracting shot.

Strong Thorns
4 Ranks
Each rank of this trait would add +10s to Rain of Thorns’ root duration.

Bountiful Purge
Purge Poison now affects your fellowship.

Piercing Arrow
Piercing Trap would be converted into a single-target ranged skill. Similar to the trap, this would reduce your target’s movement speed and apply an effect to the Hunter, causing all of your ranged skills to restore morale for 15s.
Cost: 3 Focus
Cooldown: 60s.

The One Trap
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Hunter of Legend
Passively reduces the induction of Combat Focus by 2s and its cooldown by 10s.
This trait would grant an active skill: Horn of Oromë

Instantly gain 9 Focus and gain 1 Focus every second for 15s.​

Increases the range of your ranged skills by 10m for 15s.​

Restores a large amount of Morale and Power to everyone in your fellowship within 60m.​

All affected fellows are cleansed of up to 2 fear effects and become immune to debilitating fears for 10s.​

2m Cooldown

Emergency Preparations
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Hunter of Evil
Oromë’s Arrow would become an AoE targeted skill, removing one corruption from up to 10 enemies in a small area around your target.
+2% Shadow Mitigation

 

[Hoppendi]

Trait Specializations

The Huntsman

Instantly I highly dislike the -5m of range. For context I'm not endgame focused but main the blue hunter on all my accounts as it has proven to be the fastest class mostly due to far range, great mobility, instant burst damage and also multiple targets. I added +max ranged attack on nearly all hunter LI's and really hope the -5m can be changed! Or add a way to regain them maybe through trait points further down.

Nock on the Move
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

Precision
This trait would grant you the effect formerly associated with Precision Stance: passively generating Focus over time.

If this works same or better than current precision that's good news.

Pathfinder
This trait would be removed and replaced with:

The Chase
You no longer receive a Miss Chance penalty while moving.

Oh no! I gladly spent 5 trait points in my groups to always have the +30% group speed... Middle Earth is not only end game raids - for a great majority it's indoor running and a speedy group was the best hunter add-on... If you don't want it in the trait trees please give the 30% as a hunter toggle skill (remembering it's state like current stances would be best) or with an class item or whatever don't just delete it. This makes the game overall slower!

Edit: i totally forgot path finding is still a +15% speed skill. But since speedy movement is my main focus i hope you can just upgrade it to 30% or give us any way to do it.

------

On a side note: i don't see rain of arrows mentioned. Will it stay unchanged and still reachable for blue hunters?

------

FINAL EDIT:
I initially missed that pathfinder will be at 25%, but it's still slower and i really aim for max range so i just added the following suggestion to this thread:

@OnnMacMahal after some reflecting and thinking i want to give a specific suggestion so blue hunters won't lose -5m range and keep at least the current 30% out of combat run speed:

Maybe just make it 30% ? Or further down may be a better suggestion on this run speed topic. (And on a side note i would love if the toggle on state could just always be remembered - i think nearly every hunter player always manually activates this skill)

No more skill inductions could be fun, but will depend on the overall capabilities, can't tell for now.
As mentioned earlier: disliking the -5m of range and wonder in which scenario this is a needed nerf for blue? Maybe just don't take away range.

(...)

Ok now my reworked suggestion to possibly add 1 more trait into blue hunter on the topics of pathfinder losing 5% speed and range losing 5 meters. In the 4th or 5th line you could add another trait with one or multiple ranks, maybe to even improve hunter out of combat speed to 35% or 40% (for reference warden already has 38%). Here a blueprint on how the skill could work:

5th line blue hunter named like "Agility and range":
rank 1: pathfinder speed +4%
rank 2: pathfinder speed +9%
rank 3: pathfinder speed +13% and additional +5 meters of range

Or make it 4 ranks. This trait probably wouldn't get picked for any challenging instanced content and probably also not by non-blue hunters (so they won't reach additional +5m range). Maybe blue hunter pvmp would pick it but currently it's way to unclear if this would be worth it. Besides these scenarios i think majority of blue hunters would trait this to max rank (i certainly would on every account).

 

[Kander]

Instantly I highly dislike the -5m of range. For context I'm not endgame focused but main the blue hunter on all my accounts as it has proven to be the fastest class mostly due to far range, great mobility, instant burst damage and also multiple targets. I added +max ranged attack on nearly all hunter LI's and really hope the -5m can be changed! Or add a way to regain them maybe through trait points further down.



If this works same or better than current precision that's good news.



Oh no! I gladly spent 5 trait points in my groups to always have the +30% group speed... Middle Earth is not only end game raids - for a great majority it's indoor running and a speedy group was the best hunter add-on... If you don't want it in the trait trees please give the 30% as a hunter toggle skill (remembering it's state like current stances would be best) or with an class item or whatever don't just delete it. This makes the game overall slower!

Edit: i totally forgot path finding is still a +15% speed skill. But since speedy movement is my main focus i hope you can just upgrade it to 30% or give us any way to do it.

--
On a side note: i don't see rain of arrows mentioned. Will it stay unchanged and still reachable for blue hunters?z

The skill would have a passive 25% speed, so it's not much difference and you would need no traits spent on it.

 

[Hoppendi]

The skill would have a passive 25% speed, so it's not much difference and you would need no traits spent on it.

Sorry i missed this part in the general section - my bad. Still hoping for 30% (or if you would ask me even more since the more character speed is possible the more fun it is overall to me ) - and since it's the hunter feedback i would like pathfinder toggle on to be remembered after login/defeat with option to toggle off.

 

[Kander]

Its not necessary to increase run speed more, tbh I don't even know why you would need it, it's not gonna be used for travelling as there's teleports or horseback , and it's only out of combat speed so can't be used for kiting anyways. I think the situations in which a run speed bonus out of combat would be "more fun" are extremely limited.

 

[maartena]

Trait Specializations

The Huntsman

The Hunstman would no longer have any skill inductions (this would replace inductions being usable on the move).

So does this mean you still can use skills on the move, or you can no longer but no skills have inductions? The way this is written down seems to indicate you can no longer use skills on the move like you can in blue line now, is that correct?

I mean, one of the powers of the hunter is being able to fire while on the move.... being able to kite backwards if needed, etc.

 

[OnnMacMahal]

So does this mean you still can use skills on the move, or you can no longer but no skills have inductions? The way this is written down seems to indicate you can no longer use skills on the move like you can in blue line now, is that correct?

I mean, one of the powers of the hunter is being able to fire while on the move.... being able to kite backwards if needed, etc.

You would still be able to use skills on the move. You simply wouldn't have any running-inductions.

 

[Ryvick]

Not a fan at all. Huntsman is being gutted to Fanfic Bowmaster? Pass

 

[Mistlos]

Beta when??

 

[Galo]

A sidenote: I hope you made these changes not just by focusing on PvE, but also with PvMP in mind. Moors can't handle another Loremaster disaster. Every class rework keeps breaking the Moors even more.

 

[Dar]

Привет!

Мы наконец-то получаем долгожданное обновление Hunter. Однако позвольте мне поделиться своим мнением по этому поводу.

Мягко говоря, я разочарован выбранной концепцией. До конца верил, что вы откажетесь от полноценного синего дерева, потому что оно имело все шансы стать пассивным, а игроки, выбирающие между красным и желтым, смогут взять талант мобильности из синего. Это хотя бы удовлетворило бы интересы квестеров, которые так любят мобильность, а рейдеры смогли бы раскрыть потенциал красного и желтого, потому что в рейдах приходится много двигаться.
Опять нам придется прыгать между красным и синим в зависимости от того, какой комплект брони вы сделаете в будущих рейдах? Я все еще не понимаю вашу концепцию. Красный - это основной большой лучший дпс? или стиль игры? Какая-то полная неопределенность, которая ни к чему хорошему не приведет. Каждая линия должна выполнять определенную роль. Вы придерживались этой идеи в предыдущих реворках. А что изменилось сейчас? Зачем нам два дерева дпс?

Что касается деревьев, я пока не рассматривал подробно улучшения, которые вы предлагаете в синем, и еще не рассматривал желтый, но как рейдер я ожидал существенных изменений в RED , которые были бы призваны исправить фундаментальные проблемы этой специализации. Проблема с красным деревом в его неспособности адаптироваться к ситуации/рейду, его ужасный геймплей быстрого спама. В вашем тексте об этом не упоминается.

Quick Shot . Основная проблема красного дерева, которая существует уже давно. Она была усугублена до абсурда странным решением в виде бонуса сета Umbar. Увеличение шанса крита + урон от апшота привело к геймплею типа "спамим быстрым выстрелом до потери пульса, нажимаем апшот, потом снова спамим быстрым выстрелом и добавляем сюда дополнительные точки". Это то, что нужно пересмотреть на глубоком уровне.

Rain of Arrows . Странно, что вы даже не упомянули об этом. Никаких изменений? Это плохо. У Hunter очень ограниченный набор навыков AoE, а прок Rain of Arrows настолько плох, что не подойдет для AoE убийства 2-3 боссов. У Hunter нет отдельного дерева для AoE, поэтому там, где требуется много AoE (почти каждый босс), вместо него будет взят другой класс. Orion предложил хорошее решение в предыдущей концепции - добавить DoT к Rain. Это действительно хорошее решение. DoT, и особенно AoE DoT - это ключ к стабильности DPS класса, как в AoE, так и в одиночной цели. Подумайте об этом.

Plant Feet нужно пересмотреть. Во-первых, очередной спам быстрыми выстрелами. Во-вторых, как игрок с большим опытом, я могу открыто сказать, что такие баффы, которые требуют стоять на месте, легко глючат, и игроки легко найдут возможность использовать эксплойты, чтобы не потерять бафф во время движения. Откажитесь от этого и сделайте талант более интересным и минимально подверженным эксплойтам.

А где групповые баффы и льготы для рейда в минусе? Даже метку лучника заменили...

 

[Wisefreelancer]

Having read over previous proposals for Hunter recently, one of the things I liked was an attempt to give Camouflage some use in each tree, and for one tree, make it a permanent out-of-combat stealth like Burglar. Thematically hunter having some kind of usable stealth really fits - bit a shame there's nothing on this ability in the rework so far.

 

[Belechael]

I am going to be brutally honest here:

I couldn't care less what the specifics are, I just want to have ONE trait line that will make my hunter a top tier dps again.

If we get a decent CC trait line in ADDITION to becoming desirable again for top tier pve endgame then I will be doubly happy, but ONLY if we become top tier dps again.

Thank you.

 

[Exogenesis]

Hunter Oils
Hunter oils would last only 15s and would have a much longer (shared) cooldown of 3m. Oil-modified skills would deal improved damage and would once again benefit from effects and traceries that increase your Outgoing Fire or Light Damage.

You've already crossed it out (which is great, class consumables suck) but it could be cool to bake the oils into the DPS CDs of red/blue (with slight tweaks).

For example if Burn Hot applied fire oil for the duration you'd get a neat bit of visual "oomph" that'd make the burst window feel more impactful. I'd also suggest making the oil effects purely additive without any kind of overriding, i.e. fire oil doesn't change the damage type of the skill itself, instead it just adds the fire DoT as an additional effect. This change helps keep damage consistent regardless of group comp/currently applied debuffs.

 

[Estinien]

The Bowmaster


Plant Feet
This trait would be reworked slightly. Rather than its current effect, it would grant you the 6-piece set bonus from the Umbari Armour of the Unshakeable Viper at half potency. This causes Quick Shot to tier up the ‘Planted Draw’ effect, granting +1%-5% Ranged Damage, -2%-10% Induction Duration, and -2-10% Attack Duration. This effect is removed when you move.
The aforementioned armour set bonus would then double the potency of this effect.

Can we please kill this bonus? It's more Quick Shot spam as said above, and it encourages some of the worst habits in the playerbase (standing at range as far away from everyone as possible and just pinging away no matter what's going on). You make skills and content that force more movement, stacking together in melee for DPS, and then you do stuff like this. You're already adding a little less mobility by changing the way Inductions work in Red -- this isn't needed. At least before I could hope that this set bonus that rewards the worst Hunter gameplay was temporary.

Also: Re 'Find the Path' change. Why not just let Hunter retain its 30%? Is it really going to break the game keeping it at 30% when you have Beornings and Wardens running around with Wanderlust and Forced March?

 

[Miri]

For the Trapper of Foes, the following changes aim to overhaul this specialization into one capable of matching other true support specializations (yellow-line Lore-master, Burglar, and Mariner). These changes would minimize this specialization’s focus on traps and roots, which are both awkward to use in combat and functionally less useful than the abilities available to other classes. In their place, the yellow-line Hunter would have greater access to more useful CC like stuns, mezzes, and knockdowns delivered with more ranged skills and more interaction with your Focus resource.

While I have never been a fan of yellow line hunter, these changes sound like a very welcome change indeed!