Book 7 Initial Impressions

[MéLAnoR]

My initial observations from LOS runs and some orc kills around lorien. level 59- 60 orcs.

* Improved Swift Bow, third shot has been adjusted to be a bit more in line with a two-second induction skill. Well some on us forums claim that old SB + AA is better powerwise than new improved swift bow ; if it is so lol this is ridicilous.The naimation seems better or at elast same with non-oiled xbow but oils ruins it so bad.

* Quality of Mercy's multiplier has been reduced.The %100 crit multipler is reduced to half and im not gonna bother to equip this trait ; cause i regularly hit around 700 and its a poker skill i can hit more PS and if crits it hits more than a noncritted MS thus no need to equip it.I hit 1600 to a los 60 level orc non traited MS normal crit.So no need to get that trait imo but keep PS old RoA focus burn.

* The overall effectiveness of trait set bonuses for "The Bowmaster" has been reduced, but the Threat aspects and power consumptions havent gone down.Imo its not big deal but at least they should have drop the power requirement which im suffering atm.

* Barbed Arrow trait now has tooltip text that specifies the DoT pulse increase. tooltip change that we already see ; nothing changed.

* Strength Quick Shot Slow Legacy now properly updates the tooltip of Quickshot while Strength Stance is active.tooltip fixbut the new tooltip -0.6 or stg looks confusing why change?

* Improved Strength of Earth Morale Regen tooltip has been corrected so that it shows the proper morale regen increase.tooltip change ; nothing i see wrong.

* Legacy Quick Shot Threat Down tooltip has been updated to reflect that this only works while in Endurance Stance. this might be good for focus burn builds under enduring precision.I need to test EP still.

* Bow of the Righteous growth at 50+ has been slowed. Im suffering a lot power issues if i go moria preb7 dps build and BoTR seems nerfed badly :( currently have around 850 icpr on a dps build but can go up to 900 easily ; still each fight of one mob leaves me below %50 power on a 4 bowsman build.weird bpe and misses also makes it worse which ill mention below.

* Quick Shot has been slightly reduced at 51+ to take into account the larger weapon contributions of post-Moria.didnt see much change but sometimes there is a delay between rotations just before QS.

* The Super Critical Magnitude of Merciful Shot has been reduced to allow for stacking modifiers.Again im not bothering with MS anymore ; PS + ROA is better and ROA hits so fast with an xbow that its beneficial.

* Legendary Fleet stance now adds a 10% attack speed buff. Havent tested this one but unless they makes us on the move hunters with skills im not gonna use these legendary setup.


other than these :
- lots of misses even totems ; grims being misses and other bpe issues.2 orcs resisted my RoT at the same time but havent tested it so cant say much over it.
- The ISB animation still buggy.
- Slight delay from time to time before a QS ??
- Mobs do very noticable less damage that you can suvive 2 co lvl mobs easliy in melee range for a long time.
- Tooltip changes over snares is confusing.
- old SoA bow chants dont stack with class items ? ( need to test this one will edit)

I tried LOS with 4 huntsman 3 bowsman with induction build ( no focus burn) its not that beneficial and dps loss is very noticable and still you suffer power cause mobs dont die that fast.

Then tried a 4bowsman 4 hm non focus burn MS traited and dps is decent but i had to wait between fights or regen with SoE which takes time or use power pot every time its up.MS is not very beneficial imo its a poker skill now ; on last boss of los i critted 3.7k normal crit through burn hot with HS ; MS non crit hit 1k.

Last tried a focus burn 4HM 3 bowsman (Res aim,Swft rec,Roa focus trait , PS focus trait / Criteye, Swiftbow dmg trait , deadly precision )
this setup worked pretty well ; even though i suffered power again the dps is more stable.I might try without SS instead with enduring precision under precision stance for a full focus burn setup.this might reduce the bpe miss issues and QS crit legact might help.

pvmp update :
ok have some 1v1 opportunities and also tested some creep skills in moors here is the pvmp part :
Since in small fights power is not an issue you want all the burst dps you can get.I ran 4 hm 3 bm for better inductions but the dmg loss maybe too much that i might return to 4 bowsman which is not my style.
The old easy one shot days are over ( i one shotted 2 greendots with BH HS in moria so far so it wasnt a big deal for me) however in a certain setup of 5 Bm and coolburn trait with captain buff and burg debuff a greendot maybe one shotted on a very very luck dev crit but i doubt we will see it.
I fought against a rank 2 warleader 4hm 3 bowsman with my 2nd age lvl 59 xbow the damage loss is much more noticable in pvmp ; your target is constantly moving and do you do that also drops your dps as usual.We fought 2 times and each fight take around 7-10 min due to lots of healing by wl and running around breaking line of sight but if pre book 7 hunterwas there im sure the fight would only take 30-45 secs.I didnt use burn hot of course but the hunter is not burst dps any more in pvmp imo cause creeps especially defillers have ranged/tactical/melee crit protection.Since hunter needs focus or insane inductions to burst dps you need to CC your target and kite it which is harder after book7.
Creeps have snare pots ( yes all of your snares can be potted by wound pots every 30 secs which are 10 silver vendor pots)
You fear can be potted by 30 esc fear pots again 10 silver vendor ones)
Stun and mezzes are already pottable.
Reaver has their DS skill insanely buffed which they deserved imo now hitting 700-800 on a non crit and crits go over 1400 -2k up to several factors like mitigation their dps stats etc.
Kamikazee with dying range and some other buffes has seen 2250 DS on Art in dying rage mod.Imo it should have hit more like 2.5 or over and the normal crit which is around 1400-1800 for a dps reaver should be lower.
for notice a dying rage orc dies in 15 secs with %50 melee damage buff and other buffes for protection during that term.
So if your fighting a reaver you can forget standing in face to face ; more than 15 secs and you die.You have to kite them as much as possble as always but pots hinder that.
Also ISB hits like a joke so thats not a i win button any more.
The hunter has gone back to SOA days in pvmp where as creeps are tougher ; more dpser and better healers now.
We tried to test the crit protection corruption but seeing there is no stat we cant be sure how much it negates a freeps crit rate??
The defillers crit prot buff is very usefull there (%5)
If you were running a TOF build in pvmp which was already a very low dps build you can say goodbye to that set.
imo 5 huntsman for 1v1 is not very effective against certain classes especially defillers and warleaders cause they can outheal you if your not dps.Maybe you can try your chance against a reaver but by the time to drop to half morale imo if you havent droped the reaver by half its over ; you need a very lucky evade to DS and kite the reaver to hell.
Sometimes you have to perma kite with QS which is a very risky and imo boring fight.
Apart from spiders most of the creep wound effects are not curable and also stacking.You might die to a low rank greendot ba if you think your uber ; cause a good ba can just firedot you and kite you around trees you need heal pots and carefull chsing against such fights.So dont be fool and jump on every target in ettenmoors ; the greendot might be an alt of a veteran creep who knows what he is doing. ^^
the snares not potable and our snares potable makes the 1v1 fights very interesting and hard; seeing the dps loss some fights have become impossible due to power requirements to bring down a target in certain time.
If you check lews data in pve he said the dps loss is around %27 ; however in pvp department its much over than that i suspect around %40 or more due to creep buffes which they deserved it and some crit protection.
Seeing the changes in pvmp i can assure you that freepside is perma raid to survive and get kill ; and you job is to track and do supportive dps and interrupt heals with bards arrow ; mezz.
You might not wanna solo anymore on your own ( not talking about peww peww around TA thats farming ) cause the time you get 2 targets on you if you dont have any nearby supportive element as npc or freeps your rot and in combat traps are your poker skills cause snares are killers now also dots dots dots.
and btw long 1v1 fights against orcs you will see yourself suiciding with your won skills ; i was talking to fed last night and i think he is a more huntsmen hunter so fought with less dps?? he wa hitting ISB lower than 200 per hit sometimes and you can imagine the 3rd attack lower that a AA so around 150 which he got 36 damage repelled back to him with each hit.Sorry i coudlnt check my combat log but when you make maths in a long fight iff your not critting pretty well against such hi rank orc your inductional skills are being repelled in %10- 20 magnitude average which is imo insane.And imagine a non crit autoattack with a 3rd age bow ( me and fed both has 2nd ages maxxed)
the screen is not very bad we ll have raid fights and have fun so no matter what happens dont cut yourway to moors and bring along your bow whether it hits like a muffin or not ^^
meanwhile you can read this thread over pvmp impressions : http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=344742
cheers and good hunting

..to be continued ..

[nightbyday]

Early this morning i took some screens of skills, dps on weapons and 'what knots', then did a run of Libary of steel at 'max speed' (completed in about 5.5mins) i will see how a fair with my hunter then.

[Silmahad]

Downloading the patch is like sitting in the waiting room of a dentist...

[fletcher057]

Nah its worst :/

[Esteledain]

My initial tests on Pulpums in FoS concur with around 25-30% loss of DPS. Sucks, but we'll have to live with it for a while.

And yes, I noticed there seems to be some weird sort of delay sometimes when using QS. No idea what that's about, will do some more testing today.

On the plus side, mobs seem to hit like wet noodles now, so survivability isn't an issue, everything just takes much longer. Yay.

[aop]

My Hunters survivability went down the toilet. 2 normal lvl60 mobs can do 3k damage on me before I can kill them. 3 normals and I'm dead (they seem to resist traps and fear pretty often). Now this is with a Hunter build with 4852 morale (some radiance gear, maxed virtue traits), so I can only imagine how lvl60 hunters with 3-4k morale are doing.

In short:
My DPS went down by atleast 30% if not more, while enemies hit just as hard and have just as much morale as they did before.

Was fun in Moria before b7, now it sucks. Who ever made these decisions at Turbine should be shot.

[OMWiener]

Thing is you need a decent first or second age now to some damage now. Not the crappy lvl60 second ages though. People with third ages and crappy second ages are now royally screwed. Need at least 2.4 or higher speed.

[Scappydog]

I've not had much chance to try things out yet thanks to crappy download speed for update. I ran LoS and 2 of the Crafting Instances. Using a 3rd Age 59 Xbow, 3 Bow/4 Hunt.

So far I've not noticed a huge change in resist rates for traps/fears.

Killing is slower for sure.

Inductions seem to be more easily interupted.

I've renamed ISB to Impoverished Swift Bow. That 3rd shot really does suck now. Please Turbine if you do nothing else at least either let us buy the old 2 shot skill again or up the damage on that 3rd arrow to something respectable.

Power in S:S does drop faster even with only 3 Bow traits, but still have enough power left after 3 mobs.

Not had a chance to try out any Fellowship play yet.

[Arrgur]

Well my 57 hunter with his 3rd age 55 crossbow got spanked hard (but survived) against a couple orcs last night (he just dinged from lvl 56 with the XP redistribution).

They removed the god-mode for sure, but that was well justified as it was plain silly how fast we mowed everything down. I was almost shocked that they managed to actually land more than 2 hits on me, in fact they landed quite a few more this time.

God mode is gone, welcome to the world of the other classes!

[aethelhelm]

i'm using a 2nd age 60 xbow with good block/evade resistance lowering traits and whereas before b7 i had very few misses, now i definitely get more. did a library of steel run and it seems that general damage is down around 20-25%, a string of uncritted swift bow shots would previously come in at around 400-420 each, now am getting around 320-340 each.

as some others have noticed, power does seem to be an issue again (my scholar is going to be busy!), even with bow of the righteous slotted. Generally first impression is that it feels like having my pre-MoM hunter back again, which i'm not massively displeased about as i think the pre-b7 hunter was too overpowered. hunter should be a class that needs a little planning and thought to take down a target, not just the dps-fest it had become - if i want that, i just play my champ

[OMWiener]

Well my 57 hunter with his 3rd age 55 crossbow got spanked hard (but survived) against a couple orcs last night (he just dinged from lvl 56 with the XP redistribution).

They removed the god-mode for sure, but that was well justified as it was plain silly how fast we mowed everything down. I was almost shocked that they managed to actually land more than 2 hits on me, in fact they landed quite a few more this time.

God mode is gone, welcome to the world of the other classes!


And now it's silly how slow we mow down things compared to other classes. Bah they should just remove dps classes from MMOs in the future and make everyone able to do dps :P

[Scappydog]

It's the never ending problem of trying to balance solo play with what your class is meant to do in Fellowship. Balance one and you screw the other. Add new classes and you make it even harder.

[Flambergius]

Seems mostly alright: weaker than before of course but still powerful.

Didn't have time to do much, bit light soloing north-west of Lorien, couple crafting instances. Plays smoothly, mobs still go down much faster than on my warden (though over-all Wardens probably did the best out of Book 7). Had to use a control option (RoT) mid-fight once where I don't think I would have had to use it before, but it was a bad pull and I personally like it better that I couldn't just go blast myself out of it.

[Imbavince]

So let me post my impressions as well:

First thing I did was retraiting to 4 huntsman 3BM...Using Rot again instead of Cool Burn.
Then went out to do Book 7 and the Lorien quests:

ISB: Garbage, what was wrong with SB to nerf it in this way? IT really is less than an auto attack and the animations are still screwed when using a bow or a xbow with oils.
QS: Seems to do way less dmg as well. My guess is that they toned down the crit magnitude or something similar.
MS: Hat a bit of luck here, let it go off 3 times and was hitting for 1.6k-2.1k. Useless skill now since it is a real gmable that uses 6 Focus. You are better off using other skills.
Power consumption: Yeah noticing more problems, when in Strength Stance otherwise it is okay, not good but I can deal with it.
Overall Dmg: Sucks, really sucks. I can only guess that it is about 30% or more...probably more.
Traps: About a third are resisted, when they hit though (they also deal about 200dmg now, more than my auto-attack I believe;-) ) they are really har to break.
RoT had about 20% resists so far I Guess.


On the other hand though I had no prblems whatsoever with doing any of the quests in Lorien that involved killing, or the book instances. In Book 7 Kap 8 I accidentaly pulled 4 Orcs and thought that would have been it, but:
Had a trap layed down, rooting one mob. Three mobs on me, killed the first, accidentally shot another Orc that came straight at me (silly me) so again three mobs to deal with, feared one, beat one at me popped needful haste, the trapped mob came at me, same as the feared one, so I had three in melee range again. Killed them all, used a pot and was at about 700 Morale as well as zero Power. Other than this, no problems at all, didn't even have to use irritating shot or RoT. Heck I could have even popped Grace of Eldar, and let another 1 or two mobs spawn...
The reason for this: I have an awesome 2.6 59 2nd age Crossbow hitting for a lot of dmg and quite decent legacies on it.
Mobs can't do **** now. Hitting for 115 devastating is really not bothering me at all. These mobs are just total pushovers for god's sakes...Really ridicoulous and unchallenging to me. Whoever doesn't have goor equip like myself, will have a lot of problems in situations like these.
So this doesn't sound too bad, does it? But wait:


Went to the Moors where I wanted two duels with my kinnies: A rank 5 BA and a rank 5 Defiler. In the US forums I heard this crazy talk that a Hunter couldnÄt get through a defilers healing, so I wanted to test this out.

1.So we started dueling at 40m range, with him approaching me and running around like in typical 1on1 Situations therefore cutting my dmg in half. He used everything he could to get me down.
2. Afterwards we did a test with Hot Burn. He was doing nothing but healing with his big heal.
3. Then a test with Strength Stance
4. A test with endurance Stance

Result: I could not get through his healing, this is true. With Burn Hot I couldn't even get him to half-morale before my power went out. In Strength Stance my power went out after about a minute, with him at 4k health and still having 600 power left. With Endurance stance it went a bit better; battling about for 2 Minutes before my power went out, I could stil spam QS, couldn't deal a lot of dmg though. He was only healing with his 30sec 2.5k heal and one hot when necessary. I could not down him. Remember this was at 40m range, where i can deal all my dmg to him. Even if I could interrupt his big heal every 30 secs with Bards Arrow I could not have downed him. The only way it coudl have worked is. Burn hot> HS devcrit> MS Dev Crit. A HS might still crit for 6k in Pve don't know about PvP.
On the other hand though, while using his combat skills he ran out of power faster, but even then the heal would be better than my dmg if he stops using combat skills. When using Auto-Attack he probably would not get through my ICMR (900) in 5 Minutes or so. If any of you runs into a r5 defiler my advice is: Fear and walk away...There is no good coming out of this for you or the Defiler.

Well afterwards i duelled the R5 BA. Started strong with Bard's and Heartseeker. He popped Evade and I got hit with his wound, doing about 1,9k dmg all in all. Hid like a chicken that my hunter is behind a rock and running through him until his evade ran out. Popped NH, got hit with another Flaming Arrow. I was down at 400 Morale he was at 600, critted an Auto-Attack on him while I evaded his Flaming Arrow. QS and he was done. Would have killed both of us If I hadn't evaded his wound. So all in all not too bad, could have used more cooldowns. If you cannot hide or run around him while he has his evad up you are toast though, a r5+ who knows how to use his melee skills would have had killed me though.
Would have liked to do more testing, bit at this time I was suddenly attacked by a 12-man Warg-Pack. Well done...

Went two 21st Hall and decided to battle a minstrel of my kin, after having seen how a minstrel killed a trashmob faster than me, and having seen a bard soloing an Elite. I thought he did it faster than I would have done...
He was equipped for all out DMG. Didn't use heartseeker or Irritating shot otherwise i would have downed him. Well after the 30 seconds the duel took I could say that he was hitting with about the same DPS as I did, maybe 10% less, since I was stunned twice and therefore could not deal dmg for 4 secs or so. This minstrel wasn't really used to dpsing though so he might not have found the right rotation yet. He also did use more power than I did.

All in all, I am really disappointed not how the Hunterclass performs in solo now, but how this nerf effects our overall usability, when minstrels deal the same amount of dmg, with less B/P/E effects. I will do a bit of fooling around with my LM today and it wouldn't surprise me, if he could deal DMG on ar with my hunter.
The PvP is more balanced, well not being bale to get through a defiler's healing is neither cool nor balanced. Him not beng able to down me through my ICMR is not cool either. This is only 1 on 1s though. Cannot see how we can contribute to a raid any more over LMs, Minstrels, and even Champions (deadly to defilers when up close ;-) ) But this is just after day one and after a bit of biased testing. But somehow I do not believe

I am really sad. I know this is a long post but maybe someone bothers to read the whole thing and can contribute.

Yes a hunter can kill paper-made mobs in solo play fast still. He is a DMG-Dealer. The problem is: Everybody else is too.

[European]

I did book 7 yesterday. It was all solo. Went all right. Still could solo three-four mobs with the use of cc, but it took a lot longer than before. I did notice that the RoA in combination with the trait for higher crits on it worked very good, almost as good as before book 7. I'll be using more of it from now on.

[MéLAnoR]

update :
ok have some 1v1 opportunities and also tested some creep skills in moors here is the pvmp part :
Since in small fights power is not an issue you want all the burst dps you can get.I ran 4 hm 3 bm for better inductions but the dmg loss maybe too much that i might return to 4 bowsman which is not my style.
The old easy one shot days are over ( i one shotted 2 greendots with BH HS in moria so far so it wasnt a big deal for me) however in a certain setup of 5 Bm and coolburn trait with captain buff and burg debuff a greendot maybe one shotted on a very very luck dev crit but i doubt we will see it.
I fought against a rank 2 warleader 4hm 3 bowsman with my 2nd age lvl 59 xbow the damage loss is much more noticable in pvmp ; your target is constantly moving and do you do that also drops your dps as usual.We fought 2 times and each fight take around 7-10 min due to lots of healing by wl and running around breaking line of sight but if pre book 7 hunterwas there im sure the fight would only take 30-45 secs.I didnt use burn hot of course but the hunter is not burst dps any more in pvmp imo cause creeps especially defillers have ranged/tactical/melee crit protection.Since hunter needs focus or insane inductions to burst dps you need to CC your target and kite it which is harder after book7.
Creeps have snare pots ( yes all of your snares can be potted by wound pots every 30 secs which are 10 silver vendor pots)
You fear can be potted by 30 esc fear pots again 10 silver vendor ones)
Stun and mezzes are already pottable.
Reaver has their DS skill insanely buffed which they deserved imo now hitting 700-800 on a non crit and crits go over 1400 -2k up to several factors like mitigation their dps stats etc.
Kamikazee with dying range and some other buffes has seen 2250 DS on Art in dying rage mod.Imo it should have hit more like 2.5 or over and the normal crit which is around 1400-1800 for a dps reaver should be lower.
for notice a dying rage orc dies in 15 secs with %50 melee damage buff and other buffes for protection during that term.
So if your fighting a reaver you can forget standing in face to face ; more than 15 secs and you die.You have to kite them as much as possble as always but pots hinder that.
Also ISB hits like a joke so thats not a i win button any more.
The hunter has gone back to SOA days in pvmp where as creeps are tougher ; more dpser and better healers now.
We tried to test the crit protection corruption but seeing there is no stat we cant be sure how much it negates a freeps crit rate??
The defillers crit prot buff is very usefull there (%5)
If you were running a TOF build in pvmp which was already a very low dps build you can say goodbye to that set.
imo 5 huntsman for 1v1 is not very effective against certain classes especially defillers and warleaders cause they can outheal you if your not dps.Maybe you can try your chance against a reaver but by the time to drop to half morale imo if you havent droped the reaver by half its over ; you need a very lucky evade to DS and kite the reaver to hell.
Sometimes you have to perma kite with QS which is a very risky and imo boring fight.
Apart from spiders most of the creep wound effects are not curable and also stacking.You might die to a low rank greendot ba if you think your uber ; cause a good ba can just firedot you and kite you around trees you need heal pots and carefull chsing against such fights.So dont be fool and jump on every target in ettenmoors ; the greendot might be an alt of a veteran creep who knows what he is doing. ^^
the snares not potable and our snares potable makes the 1v1 fights very interesting and hard; seeing the dps loss some fights have become impossible due to power requirements to bring down a target in certain time.
If you check lews data in pve he said the dps loss is around %27 ; however in pvp department its much over than that i suspect around %40 or more due to creep buffes which they deserved it and some crit protection.
and btw long 1v1 fights against orcs you will see yourself suiciding with your own skills ; i was talking to fed last night and i think he is a more huntsmen hunter so fought with less dps?? he was hitting ISB lower than 200 per hit sometimes and you can imagine the 3rd attack lower that a AA so around 150 which he got 36 damage repelled back to him with each hit.Sorry i coudlnt check my combat log but when you make maths in a long fight iff your not critting pretty well against such hi rank orc your inductional skills are being repelled in %10- 20 magnitude average which is imo insane.And imagine a non crit autoattack with a 3rd age bow ( me and fed both has 2nd ages maxxed)
Seeing the changes in pvmp i can assure you that freepside is perma raid to survive and get kill ; and you job is to track and do supportive dps and interrupt heals with bards arrow ; mezz.
You might not wanna solo anymore on your own ( not talking about peww peww around TA thats farming ) cause the time you get 2 targets on you if you dont have any nearby supportive element as npc or freeps your rot and in combat traps are your poker skills cause snares are killers now also dots dots dots.
the screen is not very bad we ll have raid fights and have fun so no matter what happens dont cut yourway to moors and bring along your bow whether it hits like a muffin or not ^^
meanwhile you can read this thread over pvmp impressions : http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=344742
cheers and good hunting

[varg_quiron]

well, my impression is... i like the changes xD

i don't fell a very great change in dps. did a 380 380 280 to a lvl 61 mob in lothlorien with a ISB. nearly a 30% as other says.

but thanks to the changes i was able to pass from 5'1k morale 2'7 pow to 5'5k and 2'1pow, keeping the same ranged critical, evade, parry, icmr and only losing a little vitality.

plus, i have changed from 403 to 304. no problems with power pool. and can kill the mobs more or less in the same time.

at least that's me. only work with what u have at ur disposal to find ur place and with what u are ok

[Benzyriel]

I am really sad.

Superb post!

[Flambergius]

did a 380 380 280 to a lvl 61 mob in lothlorien with a ISB.

That's actually the only thing that really bothers me: why cant all the slots be equal? This "2 good shots, 1 bad/hurried shot" is just ugly. Rather put -15% to all three shots, not -45% to the last shot (or whatever the numbers are).

(Only nerf that bothers me, there's other stuff that angers me: unfixed bugs, number of quickslots lost to travel skills etc.)

[Manc Pete]

Foundation of stone looks like Disney world!! Mobs in foundation of stone don't seem to have changed that much, it's touch and go killing trolls there now.. I can definitely feel difference in damage. Rune-keepers have similar damage now to hunters, it's a shame really I really enjoyed playing hunter quite a nice change from playing my captain which at the minute feels about as useful as a wet fart, ah well will carry on and see how it pans out.

[Sidamos]

That's actually the only thing that really bothers me: why cant all the slots be equal? This "2 good shots, 1 bad/hurried shot" is just ugly. Rather put -15% to all three shots, not -45% to the last shot (or whatever the numbers are).

(Only nerf that bothers me, there's other stuff that angers me: unfixed bugs, number of quickslots lost to travel skills etc.)

It's probably so that ISB is just an addition to SB. So they would need to
adjust the skill for L54-.

[BinabikErebor]

Played all evening on my hunter.. not a shred of difference..

It takes the same amount of time to take down an enemy -- no clue about the Moors.

The only think I'm totally ****ed off about is the fact that my Hunter gained 1 level, LM gained 2 levels, my burg gained 2 levels and my warden gained 3 levels while not playing.

Binabik

[erei]

i have 2 problems with the hunter in pve solo play (along with the shameful dps):
-QS (i hope it's the correct name in english, the one with 3arrows) which doesn't make a correct amount of damage for the casting time (around 4-5seconds for about 10% of the mobs life, i do the same with 1s skill on my menestrel)
-i run OOM in 2mobs, because i need more skills to kill them. Why didn't they decrease the mana required for hunter skills, along with the decrease of dps ?

[Scatha the Worm]

i have 2 problems with the hunter in pve solo play (along with the shameful dps):
-QS (i hope it's the correct name in english, the one with 3arrows) which doesn't make a correct amount of damage for the casting time (around 4-5seconds for about 10% of the mobs life, i do the same with 1s skill on my menestrel)
-i run OOM in 2mobs, because i need more skills to kill them. Why didn't they decrease the mana required for hunter skills, along with the decrease of dps ?

That really can't be right, Improved Swift Bow is nerfed but it still has 2s induction (and most hunters have it around 1.5s-1.8s induction). For the other part, you are right. Call to Fate is doing more damage, specially on crit... makes me suspect the "nuker" part of our role got mistaken for tactical classes' descriptions.

[MéLAnoR]

That really can't be right, Improved Swift Bow is nerfed but it still has 2s induction (and most hunters have it around 1.5s-1.8s induction). For the other part, you are right. Call to Fate is doing more damage, specially on crit... makes me suspect the "nuker" part of our role got mistaken for tactical classes' descriptions.id not call hunter a nuker anymore especially with the focus requrement mechanic.
We're supportive dps class which is understandable but if you give others too much nuking ability it might be imba in certain fields like pvmp.

[ReijMan]

Did a rift run today (post book7) and had irritating power-strugle issues..
had 1135ICPR! HOW ANNOYING!

[Scatha the Worm]

Did a rift run today (post book7) and had irritating power-strugle issues..
had 1135ICPR! HOW ANNOYING!

Based on some calculations, we lost about 120-150 ICPR with BotR nerf. Welcome to the jamaican reggae ;)

[ValgrenDaar]

Found a change that I couldn't see noted in patch notes Greater Breach Finder has gone from a -1100 armour reduction to a -0.1 ranged skill damage mitigation modifier.

[Scatha the Worm]

Found a change that I couldn't see noted in patch notes Greater Breach Finder has gone from a -1100 armour reduction to a -0.1 ranged skill damage mitigation modifier.

That seems to be part of a overall tooltip review regarding normalization. Many things are now expressed as fractional numbers normalized to 1. The problem is it seems to be rounded to the first non-integer digit, so -0.11 becomes -0.1 when rounded. That is also why all flavours of breach-finder are -0.1 in the tooltip: The -900 mitigation is -0.09 so it is rounded to -0.1, The -1000 mitigation is -0.1, and the -1100 is -0.11 so it also is rounded to -0.1.

Still... this is all happy guessing albeit it makes sense to me. It would really be nice if they left the tooltip as they were (or used a clearer system), I think we were all finally starting to get along with the rating system, and the tooltips suddenly become dark-ages stuff.

[erei]

That really can't be right, Improved Swift Bow is nerfed but it still has 2s induction (and most hunters have it around 1.5s-1.8s induction). For the other part, you are right. Call to Fate is doing more damage, specially on crit... makes me suspect the "nuker" part of our role got mistaken for tactical classes' descriptions.
i was talking about animation + casting, the animation itself is around 2s. With book 7 all minstrels skill have faster animation and post animation (while you do nothing, but also can't do nothing).

[MéLAnoR]

i was talking about animation + casting, the animation itself is around 2s. With book 7 all minstrels skill have faster animation and post animation (while you do nothing, but also can't do nothing).
Captains also have their basic shout skill immediately working but the animation lagging which is better than before imo.

[Eorthor]

I dont mind the changes, I actually enjoy my hunter now, it's not the whole:
"Oh look 5 normal level 60 mobs"
*Focus*
*Rain of Thorns*
*roflstomp all of them in 30s*

It actually takes some thinking to play your hunter now, as a kinnie said to me:

"Book 7 will seperate the good hunters from the bad ones."

[Scappydog]

It actually takes some thinking to play your hunter now, as a kinnie said to me:

"Book 7 will seperate the good hunters from the bad ones."

I think I disagree with that. I think that people who have been playing Hunter recently because of the dps will move to the current "flavour of the month" class that dishes out dps. Does that mean they have played their Hunter badly? Not neccesarily.

What it will do is seperate out those that play the Hunter class for what it is from those who only played it because of the dps. Good and bad players in both camps.

Thats my take on it anyway.

[Gilrob]

creep whiners got what they want again, and here we are thinking it's not a pvp game :/

[Scatha the Worm]

creep whiners got what they want again, and here we are thinking it's not a pvp game :/

PvMP get so little attention I wouldn't ever risk saying that is the main reason for the nerf. And it is a PvP game, just not it's main focus. This is mainly because of poor content design and very poor intercommunication with the different dev teams.

[Andarne]

In my case, Hunters have been nerfed bad. We cant, could not, and probably will not take about 3-4 lvl 60 mobs at a time. Or at least, I couldnt. But the HNT dps nerf added with the legendary DPS nerf has us down by about 40%.

C'mon! This isnt fare! Hunters are complete jackasses now thanks to book 7 :mad:

[Bregventiel]

Must admitt, i miss my DPS.. can take down 2 mobs now, compared to 3,4 at a time. And there is the power struggle, where did it go??
I had a blast playing my hunter in Moria. and i realy enjoyed it while it lasted.
But i do think that hunters can be good to play again, but it takes a bit of thinking and alot of silver/gold ov retraiting untill we find a trait line that works. I am atm going with 3 BM, 2 Huntsmen and 2 trapper. and i find it usefull, compared to going 5 BM and 2 other.
I still have hope.... (i think ;) )

[Lenin_]

Well from my point of view, solo play is more variable now. I find myself using bard's arrow, RoT, strenght of morale and distracting shot during regular grinding much more often then before. This is a nice change imho.

But.... what is with the b/p/e ??? Damn I hate it. I shoot ISB and what happens? block/evade/190dmg. Mob comes in melee, 4 out of 5 my melee attacks are blocked/parried. It is not like it happens on every mob, but after some time of grinding it starts to irritate me so much.

Concerning group play I have not been in proper instance or at watcher after book 7, just did the battle of lorien instance quest. The normal mobs were ok, killed them pretty fast. But the elites, the orc chief or something with 40-50k morale... I felt like I was contributing the least to the group (I would swap myself with RK asap) and we struggled with the time limit. I don't need to see 4k+ crits floating from my hits, but when I will be killing watcher with kinmates for 60min because of lack of dps, damn I would feel bad.

[Scatha the Worm]

In my case, Hunters have been nerfed bad. We cant, could not, and probably will not take about 3-4 lvl 60 mobs at a time. Or at least, I couldnt. But the HNT dps nerf added with the legendary DPS nerf has us down by about 40%.

From the testing I conducted myself on solo stuff, the nerf stands at about 33-35% with 4/3 bowmaster/huntsmen. Anyway, our burst DPS in itself sounds about right to me. I scored 390 through several LoS runs (There's another post with the results here (http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=344921)), which is still above all other parses I've seen with a respectable margin.

The power issues, however, are greatly increased for all scenarios. The course of action to go with should have been to greatly increase threat and reduce power cost instead.

The problem is the gap in damage when dropping strength stance, and hence, to the DPS we deliver outside solo experience. We're the only class with such a penalty to damage when grouping (or bonus when soloing, the effect is the same). It seems to me the OPness of the hunter was measured from 4/5 bowmaster damage as the standard, which is obviously wrong for anything but a specific trait setup for soloing (the 4/5 Strength hunter in a group was a content design problem mixed with severe aggro issues for tanks).

This whole overpowering of Strength Stance has really messed up the class. It was doomed to fail as soon as they placed a 30% damage bonus on it. The trait lines themselves aren't clear on their intended function.

Some changes I am just now thinking of:

Huntsman: I would love this one to truly prove functional.
* Set 2 bonus should also add +200 ICMR.
* Set 3 bonus already looks fine, but ICMR and related legacy for ISotE should be converted to "morale per second". It should also add +50% heal proc to Agile Rejoinder (making the legacy useful, and legacy should cap at +20% for first agers. The heal needs some help, boosting to a total of 280 instead of the current ~190 would be ok IMO).
* Set 4 bonus is also ok, but Press Onwards should be on 20 minute cd, and induction needs reduction (2.5s). Normal Press Onwards should be on 45 min cd and 5s induction (easily interruptable) in combat.
* Fleet Stance should be as current improved version. Improved Fleet Stance should allow QS on the move and applying any one of when critical: 5% slow, -5% damage, or 24 common damage every 3 seconds for 6 seconds (2 ticks).

Bowmaster: This one suffers from lack of creativity the most. The bonuses lack the changes to mechanics that make trait sets interesting.
* Set 2 bonus should be +5% critical multipliers, -300 target block and evade ratings.
* Set 3 bonus should be +5% Str damage +5% critical multipliers +5% power cost +25% generated threat, and +10% crit chance on merciful shot.
* Set 4 bonus should be +5% Str damage +5% power cost +25% generated threat +15% perceived threat. Skills while using Camouflage gain +10% crit chance. The Hunter's BPE is reduced to ranged evade only while in S:S.
* Burn Hot should only be +100% power cost, but also carry 0 ICMR/ICPR and -50% incoming healing for 45 seconds. The other effects are ok. Legendary is ok (+50% damage +50% power costs, -240s cd).

Trapper of Foes:
* Set 2 bonus should be +120 ICPR.
* Set 3 bonus is ok. Combat Traps should also allow Set Snare in combat. -5% damage penalty.
* Set 4 bonus should add a 35% CJ proc on MS crits and get rid of the PS root and cd modification. -10% damage penalty.
* Explosive arrow should allow chain mezz: 30s duration, 30s cd on Distracting Shot. (Distracting Shot cd reduction legacy should be completely discarded)

[mersch]

I only rolled a hunter about 3 days before the release of book 7, so I can't give any comment on the high lvl changes and I don't have experience with that. (Well, my poor spider was often at the receiving end of it, but that is a different story ;) )
But I can say from my little lvl 21 experience that I still have a good deal of damage, usually the mob dies just before it reaches me, otherwise a swift stroke will do the trick. Perhaps at high lvls the insane dps of full bowmaster (which it was) has been brought back to more middle-earthy levels, but hunters can still dish out excellent damage. (My spider can prove it)
I think I will play my hunter for a long time, I like the combination of both doing damage and having a bit of cc too (slows, traps and later roots and fear).

I agree that the trapper set needs a bit reviewing, the decrease in damage is a bit too big to justify the gained cc abilities at first sight. But I am sure I will try this when I get the right level and traits :) Also a bit more love for fleet stance will be nice, as I am thinking of going for this traitline, but don't really see the advantage from fleet, except for the last bit of attackspeed.

[erei]

actullay hunter suffer the comparison with pvp and low lvl. This is totally different. And actually hunter was mostly nerfed due to pvp whine (oh noes i have been killed by a hunter again ! plz nerf it !). The most funny is that the hunter keep makes insane killing in pvp, but is badly nerfed for pve.
Remember kids, this is a pve game.

[Sidamos]

The damage reduction is ok overall. It still plays smooth but no god-mode anymore.
I'm pleased so far.

-the minstrel is now a damage class
-the rune keeper is now the most powerful single target damage dealer

those 2 are wrong

I have a perfectly equipped RK in my kin with 1st age weapon, the right settings,
chisel etc. He doesn't come close to the time I need to clean LoS on my hunter using
a 3rd age weapon. I'm still around 1min faster than he is. My Minstrel is abit slower
than the RK but I ran into power problems and so on. Unfortunetaly I can't compare
to a Champion on my own. These dps tests in the US-forums are mostly garbage.

[Kheld]

To those Hunters who say there is no change, you are sadly mistaken.

Ive played Hunter since closed beta - been there done that.

The dps nerf is noticeable, it takes longer to kill stuff & im finding quite a bit of melee is needed at times.

But worse is the power problems.

I am currently 4 BM / 3 Hnts, after 2/3 mobs im empty, thats with a ICPR of 827 soloing - in a fast moving group in Grand Stairs im using a stack of pots per run.

That is going all out dps with a Focus Burn build - I suppose I could *not* dps & save some power I guess, stand there...firing autoattacks....watching the paint dry....

Im not happy at all.

[Wethrindir]

My first impression was what i expected. it takes longer to kill mobs.
I'm not having any soloing issues though.

The thing that bothers me is that from my experience RK's now do more single target dps then hunters. which is totally wrong, this just cant be "working as intended".

[Telaron70]

Well - here are my impressions after 4 full days of Bk7.

Beautiful scenery, trivial questing. Epic done in 3hrs. Don't think I can hack delivering arrows & picking flowers for the next few months.

Some background: maxed 2A 60 bow with both +crit legacies. T7/8 relics 586 agi, 3800+ ranged crit. Full rad gear etc. Been playing hunter & only hunter since end of 2007. So somewhere in the top division (gear wise) I guess you'd say - and maybe more so if i am sober ;) I have at least got all the tools to hand to be able to live up to that "Nuker" tag.

Except somehow I just don't anymore!!

I decided to test out how my Hunter shapes up. The nerfs look pretty bad on paper & I must say my toon feels pretty lacklustre now. I'm not one for parsing data, but I don't need to to know that I am well down on dps. It's not completely broken, I get by, but like many I believe they went a step too far. Everything gets into melee at about half health & I end up auto attacking with my puny daggers (built for looks & stats only i'm afraid - can't be doing with a giant sized neon zebra striped monstrosity of an axe even if it does hit harder. What were they thinking when they gave us this cartoon gear?) Yeah, I know I should focus & use all my traps, roots, NH etc but honestly when ur burning through 240 trash mobs for a deed u just want to get it over with - not prepare for every fight as if it were the Balrog himself. So soloing is a bit slow & a bit boring (welcome to my world a Burg kinny told me).

Never normally in much danger but I found out the hard way that when I suddenly need to step up a gear,like when I stumbled on a 17k elite lynx, there's nothing in the tank - RoT failed & the damn cat was immune to stun & fear WTF!!! By the time I'd picked my jaw back up off the floor I was dead, but meh. Like others I notice many more evades & blocks, but maybe I'm hyper-sensitive to it - cos every shot really does count now.

In a group (16th hall) I expected to absolutely suck, but it wasn't quite that bad. My yellow figures were around the same or slightly higher then most of the grey ones (I was in endurance). Yet again lacklustre describes it. I could pull aggro if I switched to strength but my power bar dropped like a stone. Fortunately there were plenty of pauses for Bio's etc. I just feel that now we are a little below par. Been said by many before but whatever - DPS scaling is fine, Hunter specific nerfs are a bit too much. At least give me back my swift bow 3rd shot & my BotR & I reckon I'd be in the right ballpark.

I gotta say I liked what they did with hunters in MoM, for the first time since I've been playing we had a certain flexibility in our builds. In SoA we had to tease out every last scrap of agi/icpr/morale in order to be viable & this resulted in the cookie cutter builds we all know about. There really were only 1 or 2 ways to build an effective hunter.

MoM changed this, new skills, trait lines & an abundance of good hunter gear meant that we had loads of options for builds that all had some merit. Whether you opted to go fully bowmaster/cool burn with high base morale & power & a chance for mega nukes, or maybe go like me who's always preferred the faster 3BM/4HM build for consistent high damage & trait for high mitigations/avoidances. Whatever, it meant no 2 hunters were identical and it was all good. Except fleet stance obviously :)

We had good enough cc to be able get our ducks in a row ready for burning down when running solo & our sheer amount of dps meant we were wanted in groups. Hell they even wanted my RoT on occasion...Wow!!! "Looking for hunter" in LFF was a nice novelty. Don't remember that in SoA. Not saying we weren't wanted at all back then, I always got groups, just that we were never "required".

So all in all a happy time to be a hunter.

Were we overpowered? Compared to other dps classes I think not. I reckon we were exactly where we always should have been - sitting right at the top of the dps tree jostling with the Champs for space.

Was the sheer scale of dps available out of whack with the game as a whole? Well obviously! Even I gotta admit that a group of hunters burning through what is supposed to be endgame content with just a mini for backup is a bit ermm...wrong. Funny but wrong! But hey! WE didn't design the content! Actually I don't think that sort of thing happened that often but it only takes a forum post or two to get that particular snowball rolling. Just like it takes only one or two OMFG-10kHS wootipwn!! shouts in OOC to make people think we were ALL doing that ALL the time. (RK's take note - keep those crits to yourselves dudes, to be spoken about in secret places known only unto the fraternity).

Were other classes broken... hell yeah! check the guard, mini, RK forums etc ..they all had justifiable concerns, exacerbated by the sheer dps we (& others) could do. But the thing is it was widely acknowledged that it was not "working as intended" and they were always gonna get fixed & I honestly hope that with book 7 they have been.

So I guess something needed to be done, but of course they went and used a sledgehammer to crack a nut!

Back to picking flowers I guess

and sorry for writing a book :p

[Scatha the Worm]

Yeah, I know I should focus & use all my traps, roots, NH etc but honestly when ur burning through 240 trash mobs for a deed u just want to get it over with - not prepare for every fight as if it were the Balrog himself. So soloing is a bit slow & a bit boring (welcome to my world a Burg kinny told me).

In general I agree with your post, same impressions here, but that above made me laugh, it's what always happens to me when I read about the soloing tactics of people... Trap, Focus, Fear, etc... I'm just not that patient... Taking so much time in preparation to grind stuff I can go and pull mindlessly with almost any other toon...

[Calladan]

Till 9/4/2009
Leaving the nerf aside Book 7 was a bit underachieving. Design of Lorien is really nice but that's all. Epic story was not so epic at all (storyline was cool but last chapter at least could be a hard fellowship quest) , not a single fs quest, nothing that could proved a challenge. Quests in Lorien are a failure.I did everyone of them once, some of them twice, but I cant deliver arrows and supplies or collect flowers, speak to drunken elves and meditate 2-3 times a day for 2-3 different quests and then repeat them the next day. I log my creeps and boredom is still there. Freeps r rarely shown at the Ettens (at least at Snowbourne), and when they do after the first wipe the log or leave. Maybe when Lorien grinding stops, players still farming rep and tokens, more ppl will come to pvp.

[Jaldorian]

Lorien is great finally my hunter is home but with a bitter taste in my mouth after 2 years playing hunter the constant nerfs, and the biggest whine ever in any forum had to be the creeps v hunter our tracking, DF & dps all got the chop because of that i made my decision not to go back to moors after the free infamy my hunter became.
I can live with these changes but now my pve is suffering because of that now, that we are finally clear of the NUKER tag & not no 1 priority for whinest lobbyist's in here, maybe it will be your class next? or maybe that pve rep rewards give freeps unfair advantage in moors ive seen that before in WOW not comparing these games but they both have a problem of hunter hate and devs reading into what should be player feedback.

Flame on!