Hunter's Guide

Lately I've been reading really interesting stuff about Captains. Inspired by Mick and Jereliens great stuff I decided to write something about Hunters.

Hunters are often missunderstood and underestimated, but still the fact remains that if some class isn't needed in a fellowship it is hunter. Hunters do NOT have really so much useful skills for other members of the group unlike captains for example. Hunters can't heal other members, they can't give power to other members, they can't stun or riddle, they can't buff other ones.

So why start playing with Hunter?

Usually reason number one for new players is that it is cool character like Legolas in films and so on. Secondly for playing it is maybe the easiest class to play. And now I mean solo play. Ofcourse hunter is also easy to play in groups BUT there is a huge difference between a good hunter and a bad hunter. A good hunter makes fights easier because hunter makes so much damage. But a bad hunter can sabotage the whole fight and get some angry faces. It's easy to make lots of damage but you have to remember that you don't take aggroes. How many times have you seen that there is a hunter running away with 5 mobs behind him and behind enemy mobs theres other fellowship members running and shouting the hunter to stop. Annoying as hell, I know that. And I must admit that at first I was doing that also but that was just because I didn't know how to play. If you happen to take aggro remember NOT to run. Makes life easier for groups tank and minstrel. Tank can't take aggro if mobs are running away behind hunter and in that situation minstrel cannot heal the hunter. So when hunter is running away, he's really running to his death.

But ofcourse hunter can be useful as hell in a fellowship. There's no shadow of a doubt that other fellowship members enjoy hunter the most when he can swift the group from other side of eriador to other in a snap of fingers.
Hunter can take you to 10 different locations guickly:
Michel Delving, Thorin's Hall, Bree, Ost Guruth, Esteldin, Evendim (tinnudir), Rivendell, Aughaire, Gath Forthnir and to his campsite (the RIFT for example or the gates of Carn Dum). Sounds nice, doesn't it unless you enjoy running. But ofcourse the swifting costs you like 10s max from place to place. More than happy to pay that ammount.
Hunter has also other nice skill for travelling and other members of fellowship can also enjoy the benefits of it, find the path. Everyone who is in a fellowship and near hunter when uses that skill can run 15% faster. In a long run it's real nice.
Good hunter also makes nice damage all the time, with every shot I make from 150-250 without any special shots without taking the aggro in a group.
Also making campfire and cureing poison is nice for other fellowship members. You shouldn't also forget tracking possibility, Hunter can track enemies, passage of nature and passage of shadows. Really useful in solo quests but can be real saver of time for fellowship if you have to find certain mob nearby.

Now for more exact knowledge about hunter. How to play and behave in different situations, or what I see is right

Virtues
I think there is no right and no wrong mix of virtues. But here are virtues I use:
Determination (because you get agility from it)
Idealism (for fate = power)
Loyalty (for morale and power)
Tolerance (for more agility)
Valour (for morale)
I've been thinking of changing Tolerance away for something but haven't figured anything good out.

Race Traits
Friend of Man (+20 fate)
Tactics and Conviction bonus (more power and morale from fellowship skills)
Sylvan Shadows (can get to stealth, no good stealth but useful)
Elf Bow-Damage bonus (+2% bow damage)
Eldar's Grace (real useful in tough situations. gives 75% parry chance for 10seconds. it has saved me manymany times)

Class Traits
Don't have the patience to write them and I don't think you are that interested because they're nothing shocking. Just make my ranged skills more accurate and they make more damage.

Legendary Traits
Rain of Thorns (real useful if you can use it well. it traps max 5 mobs so they can't move. real handy in different kind of situations. mainly in soloing)
Bow of the Righteous (can't figure anything better than this, this skill gives hunter power from every succesfull damage dealing shot!)


Attributes
Agility: The most important attribute for hunter is agility. It directly affects
the amount of damage you deal with ranged weapons as well as your
dodge and parry stats. But ofcourse you can't only concentrate on gathering agility. It's important to keep the balance in attributes and every single one of these attributes is important for making a good and solid hunter.
Might: Might isn't so much needed as agility in thoughts of dealing damage. But hunter also has to have quite much might because when you are soloing you can only do couple ranged damage skills and then the mob runs to you and you have to fight with melee. Fortunately if you start shooting as far from the mob as range gives you, the mob is almost dead when it reaches you.
Vitality: Well who wouldn't need vitality? Hunter also really needs it in case mobs attack you by surprise. Hunter is really vulnerable if 3 normal mobs attack melee because then hunter can't really use his ranged skills which do hell of a lot damage. So vitality is needed for longer melee fights.
Fate: Really important. How can a hunter fight if his power is down after one minute of fighting. I prefer getting in-combat power regen from gear because I think it's so important to have big in-combat power regen.
Will: The less important attribute if you can even say that. Ofcourse it makes grinding more faster if you gain power faster outside of fights. But this also increases power maximum so can you really say that this is less important than other attributes?

Gear
Most important about gears to hunter is In-Combat Power Regen. You can't really enjoy your 500 agility if don't enough power to attack. Second most important then is agility from gear, agility increases hunter's bowskills damage. I have 4 items which I use and have In-Combat Power Regen and just because of that I have those items. My melee weapons are two Mirrored Ancient Steel Daggers. That dagger has nice 1,5% ICPR and morale, 15 agility and 15 fate so pretty perfect weapon for a hunter. And then I have two 1,5% ICPR bracelets. Mirechor and Elechor. Notice that neither one of them is Etched Beryl Bracelet which people seem to use, even hunters, don't know why they use them. Maybe they don't have problem with power like I do without in-combat power regen items.

Solo-Playing
Hunter and Champion must be the best classes for soloing and especially grinding. Also Guardian is now real good one after the patches. The most important thing about soloing with hunter is to move carefully without aggroing mobs, hunter must make the first shot.
I'm going to tell you step by step what skills I usually use to take normal mob down:
I usually use strength stance when soloing, because then I don't have to be careful if I aggro the mob or not. Then I go 40m away from the mob I want to take down, I put a trap infront of me. Then I use focus to make my concentration full so I can use any skills I want. I use heart-seeker which makes from 1000-2000 damage at least. The mob starts running towards me. Then I use swift-shot (which is 2 shots quickly) and usually then the mob is down, easy or what?

Grouping
When grouping it's important for hunter to stay away from harms way as I told you before. And in harder places like RIFT for example I use Endurance-stance because it lowers my possibility of aggroing mobs. Sadly it also reduces my damage but I think it is more important to make lower constant damage than to make one Heart-Seeker and start running Important to remember is that only use Heart-Seeker when the mob is almost down already. Quite tricky to get aggro away from you if you decide to shoot with that skill. And in grouping I would really avoid using AoE ranged skills, Rain of Thorns or Rain of Arrows. I think they are only useable against group of boggarts or something like that. Key advice that I'd give hunters, play carefully and keep out of harms way so no harm will come to you.

Hopefully you guys understood something about my mezzy writing. And hopefully you got some information you didn't already know. If you have questions, I'll try to anwser them.

Nice reading.

As i mentioned to Lamaer earlier today in-game, these guides and tips of each class are very interesting reading.

Even if i´m not playing with a certain class myself, it makes me understand the class and their actions, weaknesses an strengths a bit (or a whole lot) better.

To make a well working fellowship, you need to understand the basics of other classes too, it isn´t enough to be a the best player of the universe of your own class, if you don´t know anything about the others.

Naturally you don´t need to know every aspect of every class, but the basics at least is something that I for one am interested in learning.


EDIT: which reminds me; need to update my views on champion.
As it has changed a bit from those early days i´ve written what i have.

How does the poison cureing skill work exactly? range, cooldown, effect..?

Same with the fearing skill of the hunter, any specifics?

The writing was the utter craps by the way, just unreadable jabbing. And Lama isn't that smart either.

Marlon wrote:

EDIT: which reminds me; need to update my views on champion.
As it has changed a bit from those early days i´ve written what i have.

Yea mine too, it was written a year ago. But I just comment on Jer's writing.

Cureing skill is called Purge Poison. With this skill you can remove poison from your fellowship member. It says "Removes up to 3 Poison effects with maximum strength of 55 from the target". This skill can be used with 25m range so suprisingly large range. When you use it just doesn't remove poison, it gives +49,2% Poison resistance for 15 seconds. And the best part is that it only costs 20 power AND it has no cooldown!

Hunter has two fear skills.
1. Bards arrow, legendary skillwhich I don't use. When using it enemy is feared up for 15s. So you have 15 seconds time to make nice damage because for that time the mob runs away.
2. Cry of the Predator. Normal skill where hunter mimics the cry of a predatory animal, causing an enemy BEAST to run in fear for 10s. So it only effect enemies of nature.

That poison skill sounds completely awesome. Too bad it's hard to notice those poison effects in the middle of a fight. But I guess you can train your eye to it. For a captain it's easy to see the fear effects, and almost as easy for LM too see wounds and diseases. The most challenging thing obviously is the hunter having enough discipline not to use damage skills for that 2 seconds.

Truth be told, if the poison effect is minor, it is probably more beneficial to the group that the hunter just does damage to make the fight go quicker. But yes, awesome skill for those rare places with severely venomous baddies.

Does the burglar have something similar or do I recall incorrectly?

I would say that hunters are just lazy and don't care about others, it isn't about discipline wheter you use purge poison or not

Yes, burglar has poison removing skill called 'cure poison'. But it's nothing compared to hunters purge poison. Cure Poison removes only 1 poison effect and Purge Poison removes 3. Cure Poison also has only 3m range and 1m cooldown and it doesn't give poison resistance for fellowship member you use it to.

Most of these debuffs accrue on the tank so it's great if you can get someone lined up to clear debuffs of each type from them. Other people are less critical so AoE effect is not so important. The worst ones are ones with timeclocks - if you don't clear them then when they expire the target gets an even worse debuff.

Lam - couple of questions:

1. I know hunters have a variety of stances (Strength, Precision, Endurance). I have a vague idea of their use but would be interested in a more detailed explanation of each one plus which situation you'd use each one for @ 50th.

2. Attributes - my impression was that Might wasn't much use for Hunters (possibly their lowest stat). My own thinking was that I could see this being a bit useful in solo (might also improves CD mitigation) but not in fs.

Also given a hunters power issues I thought a big power bar ie Will would be helpful? I have a burg alt so I understand how it is to be squishy - you're either killing fast, dying fast or both! On that basis Fate is nice but much more relevant to fs than solo. I guess I saw the order as:

Ag: Defense and Offense in one stat - yes please!
Vi: If you're a bit squishy then hits are good
Wi: Lots of power for those big skills please!
Fa: Regeneration is good in fs but no tactical skills to crit
Mi: Handy in solo but if you're melee-ing in fs you're either doing something wrong or have problems with aggro.

On the last 2 attributes I prioritised fs over solo as most solo content is easier than the fs content anyway.

Ok I'll try to anwser your guestions as well as I can.

1. Here is exact information of the stances:

Strength: Here is the information of strength, I usually use it only on solo. But in a longer solo action I use endurance because that way I don't lose so much power. As you can see, it increases the Treath you generate by 15%. That's quite alot so I never use it on any fellowship playing or raiding. Except like if I'm playing with minstrel and I try to help him by taking the aggro.


Precision: This I usually use on easier fellowship quests. With this stance you don't generate more Treath but still hunter can take the aggro. But in a easier quest it doesn't matter if I take some normal mobs aggro. Other two stances I use more than this one.


Endurance: Actually I realized how good this stance is just like couple of months ago or so. When I was in RIFT on a PUG and I accidentaly aggroed some mob and some wiser hunter told me to use endurance instead of precision. So I use endurance almost always when doing fellowship action. I manage to maintain my powers up more easily and it's hard to even take aggro with this stance from melee guys. Not hard but with this stance I don't have those "whoops" moments.

By the way, I haven't been changing stances in middle of fights or so. Don't know if I should


2. Attributes:
You are absolutely right that might isn't much of a use in fellowship. But I have found it useful when soloing and I don't change gears (except bow) between soloing and fellowshiping Yeah will would be amazingly useful but I've noticed that often Will and Agility for example are not in same piece of gear. And I've been collecting agility (damage) and vitality and some might. And nowadays I have no power problem, cause I've made different sollutions than attributes. I have the legendary skill that I get power with every succesful shot and I use less power using Endurance. I've found this mix really good and it does work with me and my style of playing.

I don't really want (and can't, don't have the knowledge) to prioritise attributes

Thanks for that Lam. Endurance stance looks like a no brainer for most high end fs stuff.

Since the Mines of Moria was released my character's build up has change quite a lot actually. Meaning the virtues and items. And ofcourse I've got some new skills, nothing too great but atleast something.

Build up
Lately I've been talking a lot with Mick about my build up that what is important to hunter and what isn't than important. Just couple of days ago got my virtues done completely and changed some of them. Now I use:

Determination (agility, iCMR, maximum morale)
Valour (maximum morale, nCMR, might)
Honesty (maximum power, armor value, fate)
Loyalty (vitality, maximum power, armor value)
Justice (iCMR, maximum morale, nCMR)

As you can see there are lots of power and morale in there virtues. We've been thinking with Mick that it's important to keep the balance between morale and power. There is a great number of hunters out there who have morale 5500 and power 2200. That doesn't sound right. First you can't have long battles solo or grouping. Second where the hell do you need that ammount of morale as a hunter? If everything goes correctly in an instance hunter should never have the aggro so he should never take damage. But you sure as hell need more power than that to manage a 5 or 10 minute boss battle.
Now that I've changed some of my items and virtues I have 4134/3546 on the vitals. Only things that have gone down are might and agility abit. Sad but you can't have it all. And even after a reducing agility it's still 499 so it's clearly enough. Seriously I don't even need might that much because I use ranged skills on a short distance too and before the mob gets to me it usually has only like 1-2k morale left.

Class traits
Hunter's three categories of class traits are The Bowmaster (damage dealer), The Trapper of Foes (crowd control) and The Huntsman (inductions are smaller and some skills last longer). Crowd control would be nice but the best skill is 20 seconds longer daze and I prefer DPSDPSDPS

Here's a little info about the traits that I use:

True Shot
-8% targets Penetrating shot mitigation
Swift and True
+8% Swift shot damage
Hail of Arrows
+3600 Rain of Arrows critical rating
25% Rain of Arrows critical multiplier
Critical Eye
+480 Ranged critical rating
The Bonus on using 4 traits of The Bowmaster
+10% Bow critical multiplier
+15% Strength stance damage
+15% Strength stance threat
+25% Strenght stance power cost

You must be wondering why I use this. I have now power problems using Stregth stance when I'm soloing. And when I'm on a group I use Endurance.


Deep Concentration
Adds power while concentrating on shot
Graceful Draw
Reduces power cost and threat on Endurance-stance
The bonus when using 2 traits of The Trapper of Foes
+60 in-Combat Power Regen

Strong Draw
Penetrating shot need 1 less Focus

Items
Nothing too special actually tell but now I've concentrated quite alot of getting maximum power/morale and vitality and will to my gear. Now I actually have the items that I wanted so I'm not missing anything too special (atleast that I know of). Actually will get some more power/morale now when I get my second age dagger to lvl 50 and I reforge it. I have some nice relics and runes to put there.

Skills
The greatest improvement is the "improved swift bow". The ranged attack which usually starts my battles. It used to have 2 arrows but now when it's improved it fires 3 arrows swiftly. So damage rose about 400-500 with that strike.

Other great skill is "Distracting shot". It dazes a mob for 10 seconds when you use that. Actually a great skill. Loving that now I have a bit more crowd control. Actually if I use 5 skills of race traits "Distracting shot" would daze the mob for 30seconds. Would be awesome but there isn't anything else that great on those traits.

"Burn hot" skill is useful in a difficult situation when you have one mob on you and you're close to death. It does +50% ranged damage and +200% power cost. With a good luck on you're side you make hell of alot damage for 20seconds. The skills duration is 20 seconds and after that you're power drops to 1 for 5seconds and then it starts to regenerate again. There are certain risks when you use this skill as you can imagine.

The guide to Twenty-first hall is another in the swifting series. A nice thing to have travelwise. The reason hunter's are hated, they can get everywhere with a snapping of fingers

I wonder how other classes have changed since the Mines of Moria, would like the some info of them. (I know there are info about some classes on this forum.)

Lamaerahd wrote:

Since the Mines of Moria was released my character's build up has change quite a lot actually. Meaning the virtues and items. And ofcourse I've got some new skills, nothing too great but atleast something.

Build up
Lately I've been talking a lot with Mick about my build up that what is important to hunter and what isn't than important. Just couple of days ago got my virtues done completely and changed some of them. Now I use:

Determination (agility, iCMR, maximum morale)
Valour (maximum morale, nCMR, might)
Honesty (maximum power, armor value, fate)
Loyalty (vitality, maximum power, armor value)
Justice (iCMR, maximum morale, nCMR)

As you can see there are lots of power and morale in there virtues. We've been thinking with Mick that it's important to keep the balance between morale and power. There is a great number of hunters out there who have morale 5500 and power 2200. That doesn't sound right. First you can't have long battles solo or grouping. Second where the hell do you need that ammount of morale as a hunter? If everything goes correctly in an instance hunter should never have the aggro so he should never take damage. But you sure as hell need more power than that to manage a 5 or 10 minute boss battle.
Now that I've changed some of my items and virtues I have 4134/3546 on the vitals. Only things that have gone down are might and agility abit. Sad but you can't have it all. And even after a reducing agility it's still 499 so it's clearly enough. Seriously I don't even need might that much because I use ranged skills on a short distance too and before the mob gets to me it usually has only like 1-2k morale left.

I´ve been wondering this myself on various occasions.
I mean there are quite a lot hunters out there with a morale/power like that 5500/2200. I´ve never understood that. Hunters if someone are the ones that need power, am I right?

Should they run out, which I´ve seen to happen to some trigger happy "I wanna do über-dps" kind of hunters on many occasions, they are pretty much useless. And based on what i´ve seen they can run out of it relatively fast, if they act like pillocks mentioned above. Again am I even near to truth with this observation?

And like Lamaer said, at least half the work should be already done before (melee) mobs even get´s to hit a hunter. So why would they even need huge amounts of morale?


This is not solely a problem with hunters. ´
I´ve seen Minstrels with same sort of numbers. Morale is 2x power. I mean, minstrels if who are the ones living from their power, right? (and thus the entire fellowship might live via minnies power)

I´ve seen Champions with Power climbing very close to their morale. Like 4200/3500. C´mon!! Champions don´t need power. None of their skills are really a power burner. They have a skill which allows them to increase their power after each kill and fervour (DPS-stance) has +1290 in-combat power regen.
But then again, they don´t need that big Morale either, especially when in a fellowship.

Seen many puzzling numbrs concering Morale/power among other classes aswell. With Lm´s and Captains especially i´ve seen bigger variations. But I´m not that familiar with these 2 classes, so I won´t go anydeeper with my thoughts about them.

Naturally, the stance, traits, solo/fellowship and few other things can have effect on morale/power selection, for example tanking champion might have much more morale than a dps-oriented one or soloing minstrels morale might be bigger than ones in fellowship.

Lamaerahd wrote:

I wonder how other classes have changed since the Mines of Moria, would like the some info of them. (I know there are info about some classes on this forum.)

Been thinking of re-writing my views about champion class based on MoM.
As they have changed quite a bit from the original ones i wrote ages ago

Good stuff Lam. Yea the morale build with hunters is ridiculous, but even more with Lore-masters. And minstrels. I've played 4 classes to high levels, and my principle remains the same with all: solid morale base and then all the power you can get. Some variation with attributes, but Fate seems to be the ignored one on every char. You can get better ICPR with items and I'd take a big power pool rather than the occasional tactical crit.