Pew-pew! What’s that sound? It’s the sound of the Hunter Developer Diary being released! (OK, that was admittedly very corny, but it’s hard to come up with introductions for Developer Diaries all the time.) So what’s coming up for Hunters? Let’s take a look!
New and Improved Skills
- Improved Split Shot
- Level 77?
- Increased area of effect
- Adds 1 Focus pip for every target hit
- Improved Distracting Shot
- Level 80?
- Greatly decreases threat
- Occurs even if the mob is immune to Daze
- Cry of the Hunter
- Level 83?
- New skill
- Affects up to 6 targets close to the Hunter
- Causes a Daze effect for 5 seconds
- Slows their movement for 10 seconds
- Grants the Hunter a +10% movement speed buff
- Grants the Hunter a small morale bubble
- Inductions cannot be set back while the bubble exists
- The Hunter will also be getting two new ports
- Misty Mountains
- Lothlórien
- The ports will be granted at levels corresponding to the content
As someone who plays a Hunter very casually these skills seem to be a pretty good addition to the Hunter’s repertoire. Improved Split Shot can be used to quickly increase Focus, Distracting Shot will be much more useful in instances, and Cry of the Hunter will be great for survivability.
Modified Skills
Several other skills will also be changed “due to popular outcry”.
- Bright Campfire
- Hunter’s Art
- No longer an attack
- Focus cost reduced to 1 Focus pip
- Agile Rejoinder
- Always heals the Hunter
- Associated legacy increases the heal amount
- Quick Shot
- Threat reduction is increased in Endurance stance
- It will always reduce the Hunter’s threat despite any damage it does
- Blindside
- Now useable on the move
There are definitely some nice improvements to the skills listed here, which should help all Hunters out in the journey.
Conclusion
So on the plus side there are some good changes coming to the Hunter class in the Riders of Rohan expansion. However, are these the only changes that Hunters were hoping for with the expansion? I don’t know. In our recent post about the upcoming Guardian changes there were a few Hunters who posted comments that expressed concern that other classes will be able to function in multiple roles while Hunters can only fulfill one. Aside from that while it appears that (un-mounted) they will still be only able to fulfill the DPS role; they are still poised to be one of the best, if not the best DPS class within the game
What do you think?
August 9, 2012 at 4:26 pm
These are some pretty significant changes that Hunters have been looking for. The campfire one is long overdue, and the Agile Rejoinder thing is very nice, as is the Blindside on the move. The new skills are also very nice, and that bubble will undoubtedly become a life-saver.
Makes me want to play my Hunter.
August 9, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Sounds like some nice changes. I know some hunters wanted the yellow trait to bec.ome a useable spec. Otherwise i know for myself, being a blue liner, i already have good ways to build focus fast without running out. Im not going to say much more about the changes until I see the final build. Not worth it getting all ramped up to find out everything changed.
August 9, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Liking the changes too. I do a focus build too (4B, 3R). More focus building!!
Just curious, does anyone trait down the blue and go for the capstone?
Wonder how high our Agile Heal will go? +50%? Think I get about 150 per tick at the moment (lvl 75).
Definitely seems like we’re getting more surivability for solo or if we pull too much aggro. And Yeah! for another interupt that doesn’t require 50% health on the mob
August 9, 2012 at 7:42 pm
I cap the blue line and personally playing without Improved Fleetness makes it feel like my arrows have a ten pound weight tied to them. If you have any questions your can find me, Silvercrow, on the Landroval server.
August 9, 2012 at 7:55 pm
“….personally playing without Improved Fleetness makes it feel like my arrows have a ten pound weight tied to them….”
+1 to that, I completely agree! I use Blue line and Imp. Fleetness in almost every situation I find myself in (raiding, skirmishes, solo, PvMP). Another Landroval hunter here too, mine is Morforys.
The nice thing about all three hunter trait lines is that I think you can have great success with any of them depending on your play style. I’ve experimented with the hunter red and yellow lines, but I always end up coming back to blue line and Imp. Fleetness for the reasons Silvercrow said above.
I’m really liking all the hunter updates from the dev diary. As someone who only plays one toon (hunter obviously), there are some changes like the major ocpr buff to the campfire that I’ve been waiting years for! “Cry of the Hunter” is gonna be an awesome skill from what I can tell just from the description. There are so many situations I’ve been in PvMP and PvE that just having a little bit extra survivability would have carried me through.
August 9, 2012 at 10:12 pm
I’ll have to try that out. What do you do for the other legendaries? BoR and Thorns?
Seems like BoR Legendary needs to be scaled to level.
I’m glad they improved the camp fire. I was asking for it last year. And to include a fluff annimation to have the whole fellowship roast Marshmallow.
I use to be only in strength stance till Dunland came out. The improvement in precision and focus building seems to be getting a lot easier the last couple years.
August 10, 2012 at 1:14 pm
I use BoR and Thorns with the blue cap stone. Im flinging arrows in under a second for each shot with the help for other speed buffs. Two pen shots in under a second is deadly!
August 21, 2012 at 7:01 pm
I know this is a little late, but I tend to use Bard’s and BoR or Press Onward, as my hunter has power problems and is squishy due to his poor gear. I only swap into RoT when it’s needed by a group (I tend to play my RK in groups).
Just my opinion.
Cerridan of Firefoot.
August 9, 2012 at 8:40 pm
I might have to stop playing The Secret World to check this out!
hit me up in either game
Brandywine: barinthir
TheSecretWorld: Evalinda
August 9, 2012 at 11:11 pm
Looking forward to these changes.
Split shot increased AOE, good since it practically has none as it is.
August 10, 2012 at 12:10 am
With Champs (tankk + dd) can get close to a hunter in dps and RKs (heal + dd) are always good dds, i dont know, why they push the red hunter a bit… with my red traitset, I often feels a bit alone.. I really hoped for a strenth-stance buff… the +1 pip and the (legacies) crit multi / + crit dmg fast bow is much better than the 10% base dmg… =/
In all, I am dissatisfied from this dev diary.. good new things, but the necessary core is untouched =/
A bit more taxiplaying and a push for the yellow line / aggro control / survival skills isn’t the improvement i was hope.. Again, yellow line isn’t an option
August 10, 2012 at 11:35 am
Still no changes to Trapper of Foes … was too much to hope for, I guess…
August 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I agree that this won’t bring Trapper of Foes into line with the other two trait lines, but other than that the changes look OK.
To be honest, I have so few complaints with the hunter class as it is and that makes me nervous every time the devs mention they’re looking at hunters in fear of what they’ll do to the class. It still feels “wrong” to have dual-weapons and medium armor starting at level 1 instead of getting them at level 10 (or whatever it was).
August 10, 2012 at 6:52 pm
I think that the new/changed skills are a nice change but they don’t radically improve or damage the class.
Right now, I just wish that the hunter would get more love. Currently, the class just exists and watches as other classes overlap us more on our biggest asset: DPS. We need to make some good changes and not just be glad when we read a Dev Diary and find that hungers haven’t been nerfed.