Having come across enough material to try out the Hunter, I dove in over the weekend. I'd been looking for something a little more dynamic, and after playing around with some of the skills in my campaign, I decided to try this "skirmisher" approach archer. I have to say, the mobility is amazing. Using Hook&Tackle, Leaping Shot, Evade, and Exploding Shot, you become a close quarters madman.
But what really struck me was the effectiveness of Evade. I found that it saved me many times from teleporting enemies, or just about anything that gives you the bum rush when you aren't ready for it. Then, I got into a scrap with a Revenant. He does his little move where the BIG GREEN EVIL CLAW thrusts out the enclose you, and I figured, what the hell, try dodging like it's Dark Souls. It worked...allowed me to dive out of his reach and tear that claw away. Not only that, but just prior, I was able to Evade so I could get to a teammate in need of rez, and the Revenant was distracted by the shadow image I left behind, swinging at it instead of coming after me.
The Hunter may not be good for DPS or a lot of support roles, but it certainly is a ton of fun to play, and has great survivability.
I like taking Revenants down with my Archer. Mark him, Full Draw, Long Shot if he hasn't clawed me, Leaping Shot if he has. If I have even somewhat of a competent team alongside me, he's usually ready for a manual Mark pop by then.
I like taking Revenants down with my Archer. Mark him, Full Draw, Long Shot if he hasn't clawed me, Leaping Shot if he has. If I have even somewhat of a competent team alongside me, he's usually ready for a manual Mark pop by then.
I've never used the "mark" skill. How does it work?
I've never used the "mark" skill. How does it work?
Mark of Death. You cast it on an enemy, and for its duration (8 or 10 seconds, I think?), it will keep track of how much damage you do to the marked enemy, and at the end of its duration it will inflict that much damage on the enemy. That means if you Mark and then use Full Draw on an enemy at full health, he will take 3200% weapon damage total. If you get the enemy down to half health or less before the duration of the Mark is up, you can also manually end its effect and get it to deal its damage sooner.
Since The mark stores the damage done and gives it out after 8 secs, you want to use your best skills in order to do the most damge while the mark is active.
Stealth gives you 50 % bonus damage, razor edge gives you 15% bonus damage when close, your first shot is critical damage always after stealth, attacking from the back has a passive damage boost, trick of the trades adds 10% damage to all your skills
0. (Boss only) Apply offensive tonic for direct DPS boost
1. Mark target
2. Stealth leap shot from the back close range = 600% + 50% + 15% + 10% + shot from back extra damage and it all criticals = massive damage
3. Again from the back use Full draw. The first shot after leap shot adds 200% damage to the 800% damage from full draw and since you are from the back and close another 15% + 10% +flaking damage
4. Throwing knifes : 15% + 10%+ 500% damge + flanking damage + You get another 10% from low stamina here
5 As the mark ends you have store a massive amount of damage that is deducted to the enemy health pool.
If you do it right you can easily kill the revenant with simply leap shot from stealth close range + 1 or 2 regular atk. If periouls add full draw
The only time when revenant is hard is when you atk him from the front which as hunter you should never.
Mark of Death. You cast it on an enemy, and for its duration (8 or 10 seconds, I think?), it will keep track of how much damage you do to the marked enemy, and at the end of its duration it will inflict that much damage on the enemy. That means if you Mark and then use Full Draw on an enemy at full health, he will take 3200% weapon damage total. If you get the enemy down to half health or less before the duration of the Mark is up, you can also manually end its effect and get it to deal its damage sooner.
So, does this essentially mean you double-down on your damage inflicted for that period of time? I.e....if you hit for 3000 damage in 10 seconds, when mark of death is up, it then hits him with that damage again? Or is this just a way of piling up damage on an enemy without drawing aggro, so you can bring him/her down all at once with a massive strike that built up during that time?
So, does this essentially mean you double-down on your damage inflicted for that period of time? I.e....if you hit for 3000 damage in 10 seconds, when mark of death is up, it then hits him with that damage again? Or is this just a way of piling up damage on an enemy without drawing aggro, so you can bring him/her down all at once with a massive strike that built up during that time?
The former. It is doubling down on your damage. It's great.
The former. It is doubling down on your damage. It's great.
Oh, man, I need to try this out. Sounds like this class would make a great boss killer (or lieutenants). Although at this point, my build might be all wrong for the stealth modifiers...I'm missing a lot of essential skills. Maybe I will do this when I roll it over at level 20.
Since The mark stores the damage done and gives it out after 8 secs, you want to use your best skills in order to do the most damge while the mark is active.
Stealth gives you 50 % bonus damage, razor edge gives you 15% bonus damage when close, your first shot is critical damage always after stealth, attacking from the back has a passive damage boost, trick of the trades adds 10% damage to all your skills
0. (Boss only) Apply offensive tonic for direct DPS boost
1. Mark target
2. Stealth leap shot from the back close range = 600% + 50% + 15% + 10% + shot from back extra damage and it all criticals = massive damage
3. Again from the back use Full draw. The first shot after leap shot adds 200% damage to the 1600% damage from full draw and since you are from the back and close another 15% + 10% +flaking damage
4. Throwing knifes : 15% + 10%+ 500% damge + flanking damage + You get another 10% from low stamina here
5 As the mark ends you have store a massive amount of damage that is deducted to the enemy health pool.
If you do it right you can easily kill the revenant with simply leap shot from stealth close range + 1 or 2 regular atk. If periouls add full draw
The only time when revenant is hard is when you atk him from the front which as hunter you should never.
The only thing wrong about this is if you use Full Draw after you've Leap Shotted, it will only do 800% weapon damage. It only does 1600% if the target is at full health.
So, does this essentially mean you double-down on your damage inflicted for that period of time? I.e....if you hit for 3000 damage in 10 seconds, when mark of death is up, it then hits him with that damage again? Or is this just a way of piling up damage on an enemy without drawing aggro, so you can bring him/her down all at once with a massive strike that built up during that time?
I often spec this on my Archer. It makes Revnants and them witchy things in chest rooms go down much faster. In general, great against all enemies, but kinda wasted on mooks. Use for boss types to great effect.
The Hunter may not be good for DPS or a lot of support roles, but it certainly is a ton of fun to play, and has great survivability.
I blinked at this, I don't play on perlilous often, but one time me using my hunter and a keeper went through peri without a problem. Try a leaping shot from stealth with longbow of the griffon, basically you're a shotgun, add in toxic cloud for a little extra flavor and you do plenty of damage. Full draw from stealth is also pretty awesome, though I definately prefer the shotgun approach.
I know this is a Hunter thread but archer has been mentioned, so I'd like to share the best archer build I've used by far. It works like this:
1) Get long shot with upgrade, then leaping shot w/ upgrade. Use explosive shot aswell, as its your starter skill but also quite effective. Upgrading it is optional.
2) After that, get dance of death in the other three.
3) Beeline towards mark of death, but dont get the upgrade. It's really not needed.
4) Get Opportunity knocks, then disable and And take them down, then tricks of the trade.
Point 3 and 4 can be swapped, but mark is a usefull skill if you learn how to connect with it, as it is quite bugged in that sense. On large minions, bosses etc, start with mark, take them to half health and then use it. On bosses you have to use it a few times (unless it's routine or threatening). If the mark times out, my experience is that it will do no damage, so I my book, you have to manually trigger it.
As for playstyle, your main skill is longshot. Watch out for minions that are on a line. They dont have to be exactly on line but just a little bit, as the arrow will actually bend its path quite alot. Spam long shot, use explosive shot if lots of enemies are clumped up or if you need a knockdown/stun, and use leaping shot to evade danger (revenants or ANYthing on perilous) or get in some extra damage - also with knockdown. With dance of death you will never be out of stamina, and you can basically spam it with opportunity knocks and cooldown amulet. The CD of longshot is ridicoulusly short.
Full draw is a waste in this build and in general. It looks nice but it isnt. I dont even use it on my hunter. You only get the bonus damage if the minion has not been damaged, and in total long shot with archers lane does WAY more sustained damage than full draw, and you use mark to down larger enemies anyway. You need leaping shot for evading, and explosive shot is a nice extra damage to clumped up mobs AND a knockdown/stun.
For equipment I use Longbow of griffon, 30% damage to longshot-ring, 10% HoK ring and 15% CD amulet (totally optional).
Do remember to bring that mighty offence potion as it will make your damage insane on stage 5!
It is really rare to not score more than twice as many points as the rest of the team, with this build (unless you play with Drascas Katari). Not that that is important, but you are doing a good job for your team.
yeah evade is great, got a nice amount of skill requirement in timing it so you can laugh at archers and melee. once you combine it with hook& tackle and leaping shot spam, it's a lot of fun compared to the button mashing of pretty much every other character.
I've tried out using the Mark of Death and Full Draw combo, and while it's devastating, I find that it's quite situational. Most mobs are long dead before I even get my shot away, so I'm basically preserving it for use on a boss or sub-boss. I suspect that, working with a group of friends who would allow you to take the first shot would be a big help. That way the team gets to start the show with a huge chunk being taken out of the boss.
But this combo of H&T, LS, and Evade is an absolute blast. Once you learn to start playing it more like Dark Souls and let mobility work for you, not only do you find yourself surviving nasty situations, but you create mayhem as far as aggro goes, opening up some breathing room for teammates.
I also got fortunate in that I found a much better bow yesterday. My DPS jumped by 100 points. It's only a common, but hits for around 155 damage. HUGE difference.
Out of curiosity, what is the best bow you folks have come across for the multiplayer? I found some of the rare and ultra-rare ones like Silent Jenny and Farslayer, but they were both lower level versions that didn't hit as hard as the high level common. Is the weapon level governed by RNG as well?
Evade is great, but I've found it to be highly dependent on how good your connection to the host is. I've had my fair share of deaths because the host's system didn't register my Evade in time to Dodge the DancerTM.
Out of curiosity, what is the best bow you folks have come across for the multiplayer? I found some of the rare and ultra-rare ones like Silent Jenny and Farslayer, but they were both lower level versions that didn't hit as hard as the high level common. Is the weapon level governed by RNG as well?
I got the cruel redemption recently. gives 1% heal on hit.
is immensely useful in this play style since it means I get like around 10% heal for every leaping shot and so helps me out a bit if I get hit between my flipping about. I find I have the same survivability as I did with stealth & evade abuse (used to play hunter as more of a support reviver with traps)
as far as the available bows go, I'd only replace it with the griffon bow due to the dps. ideally would get a HoK ring at some point to work with it, to make up for losing the heal on hit with cruel redemption.
Out of curiosity, what is the best bow you folks have come across for the multiplayer? I found some of the rare and ultra-rare ones like Silent Jenny and Farslayer, but they were both lower level versions that didn't hit as hard as the high level common. Is the weapon level governed by RNG as well?
Griffin with it's triple shot and excellent damage is the top bow, makes any Hunter or Archer excel.
Punched by the Maker is a good second choice.
both are Purple Uniques.
Weapon level is not RNG, it is pre-set for the weapon you find and every time you find that weapon, the level will be the same.
Weapon level is not RNG, it is pre-set for the weapon you find and every time you find that weapon, the level will be the same.
So, if you had a choice between a common bow at 175 DPS and a unique like the Farslayer at 105, which do you take? I've always been using the one that does the most damage....is that the best strategy, or is there something I'm missing?
I agree, actually with both archer types they are the best against both the horror and the revanant (especially the revy for obvious reasons.)
Revenants are definitely easier prey for a hunter than the the Horrors. Horrors have this amazing ability:
When you stealth in behind them and Leaping Shot from point-blank range, they often teleport before the shot hits them. It's incredibly frustrating when they do it.
So, if you had a choice between a common bow at 175 DPS and a unique like the Farslayer at 105, which do you take? I've always been using the one that does the most damage....is that the best strategy, or is there something I'm missing?
Highest damage is generally always better - Griffon does more damage than Punched by the Maker for both Hunters and Archers.
If you can get your +attack% high enough through a lot of Willpower promotions, so a Bow Like Trepanner's Requital or Grunnsmans can is doing huge damage - we're talking 3-4k crits in Perilous from something like Full Draw - the 75% damage explosion on kill will push their damage up a lot.
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