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[TheThirdRace]

Here's my suggestions for reworking the Hunter's skill trees:



The "names" I've given to each line in the trees are self explanatory, but I'll still explain my reasoning.

Basically, I've tried to keep in mind these things while I made the changes:

• Each line on the skill trees must have a theme
• The central line should be filled with passives that you would want all for all builds
• Get access to abilities earlier, you don't want to be level 16 when that happens
• Replace as much as possible the passives or skills that have no use whatsoever for the character

So here's the explanation for each tree lines:

Trapping

#1 Stalker
Being defined like a close range Rogue with a bow, the Hunter benefits a lot from Stealth and its associated passives. It allows him to move "freely" on the battlefield and position himself right for his next attack. He can quickly pick out and enemy and return to the shadows where he came from.

#2 Traps
This is the first "specialization" line of the Trapping tree. Elemental Mines and Spike Trap are defining abilities of the Hunter. I mixed in Tricks of the Trade to show the Hunter is more about controlling the battlefield and helping his teammates.

#3 Dancing Around Death
Razor's Edge is what makes a Hunter a Hunter, besides traps. He's supposed to be close range so this passive is now mandatory. Bloodthirst and Easy to Miss allow the Hunter to move freely on the battlefield, perfect fit for close range combat. Bloodthirst is especially handy since it's not easy to move after firing with a bow, it should give you a little extra boost to avoid some potential hurtful consequences.

#4 Opportunist
This line is gone become the "core" line of the Hunter. Opportunity Knocks allows the Hunter to use traps much more often, playing exactly on the strengths of the character. Looks Like It Hurt also provides the Stamina necessary to continue using those traps. Without those 2 passives, I don't see the Hunter being able to fully realize its trap potential, they gave him a lot of powerful options. The lower cooldowns and better Stamina regeneration should compensate for the clunky animations from firing with a box and mixing non-archery abilities.

Fighting Dirty has been added to this line since it could fit with the "Opportunist" theme. It's not an amazing fit, but it's still a very good passive and it needed a place.

#5 Poison
If you've been following my other "skill tree reworked" thread, you might ask yourself why I've put the remaining abilities on the 5th line instead of the usual 4th. While I agree it's nice to have an earlier access to your abilities, in this case nothing would fit as a follow up for Poison. I didn't want to put Explosive Toxin behind either poison abilities to avoid nudging your choice toward one of the choices. The good thing about making it the last line of the tree is that it allows the Hunter to specialize in poison only he if really wants to. Putting poison on the last line also gives a nudge toward the use of the more accessible traps on line #2 while casting poison abilities as secondary in your arsenal. It's really all about making the Hunter geared toward traps and then adding extra damage on top of those.

As for the abilities, Poison Weapons could be a very powerful combo with traps. Not only this ability gives you more damage overall with the upgrade, but it synergizes very well with auto-attacks in-between traps. As for Toxic Cloud, it's a good AOE to complement your traps. It won't do as much damage to single target as Poison Weapons, but it will outshine it on a group of enemies. Explosive Toxin complement both of those skills very well, it's like a bit of gravy on top of gravy on top of gravy. Those abilities aren't as deadly as the trap ones, but they're really there as a secondary source of damage and control.

Survival

#1 Starting Skill
Explosive Shot is out, Throwing Blades is in. Throwing Blades is a unique ability of the Hunter and I think it's fair to give him access as early as possible. It gives him a bit more personality from the get go and I felt like Explosive Shot was making the Hunter just an Archer clone, a bad one at that...

#2 Marksman
This line all about Archery abilities. Leaping Shot is an excellent ability that works better at close range while Full Draw can be very attractive at long range. I took careful consideration before putting Death From Above and First Blood locked behind those abilities. They both complement their respective abilities while they wouldn't make as much sense without them. Second Wind gives you a good starting option for Stamina regeneration. I think it's good for the Hunter to only have access to Leaping Shot and Full Draw as it distinguish him from the Archer. It's makes the Hunter more limited in its marksman skills and nudge him toward other type of abilities to complement his arsenal.

#3 Growing Threat
Gaps in the Armor is the core passive on this line, it's especially good on higher difficulties (Perilous+). Cheap Shot is also available for additional temporary Armor Penetration. The combination of Gaps in the Armor and Cheap Shot can be devastating on higher difficulties (Perilous+). The Seasoned passive is the normal "stats" passive we find on line #3 of other skill trees.

#4 In And Out
Hook and Tackle isn't the most amazing ability, but it makes playing the Hunter a ton of fun. It's an great ability to combine with Leaping Shot or to simply close the gap with an enemy (it's your "in"). The reason I've put Throatcutter behind Hook and Tackle is because it synergize well it. It's not written in the tooltip, but using Hook and Tackle alone actually damage the enemy when you kick him on arrival. Combine a good bow (damage wise) with Troatcutter and It Beats Walking (Hook and Tackle upgrade) and you can outright kill some enemies just by using Hook and Tackle alone.

Fallback Plan is also an ability shun by the majority of players, but on Nightmare it is simply amazing. It allows you to recoup your health and get out of danger (it's your "out"). The kicker here is that with Opportunity Knocks, you can actually use it with almost no cooldown if you time it right. That means, no need for a Barrier bot, you can take care of yourself even if you're not cloaked. I've paired Sadism as a passive locked behind Fallback Plan because it capitalizes on the fact you regain stamina when you lose health then Fallback Plan can recoup that health so it's a win/win situation. Since Sadism isn't your best Stamina regeneration passive, it doesn't suffer from being locked behind an ability.

The final passive on this line is Evasion. While it does fit the theme for the line, it's far from great at 5% chance only. If it was possible, I would replace it with Salty Sea Dog from Isabella. That passive would fit the theme very well and reinforce the hybrid close and long range style of the Hunter.

#5 Deadly Arrows
While it might appear this line is geared toward a marksman playstyle, I'd advocate it reinforce a mix of traps and auto-attack playstyle even more. Flanking Fire and Strafing Shots are amazing for auto-attacking between the traps you cast. You're already thick in the fray, moving around and flanking are a great way to kill time before setting your next trap. As for Pincushion, it's really about what your weapon is. If you have the Griphon or the Hakkon bows, you'll be amazed how much damage they can deal at very close range. And since they fire 3 shots for each auto-attack, Pincushion capitalizes on that big time when the 3 shots connect on the same target. Of course, you need to be very close to the enemy for that, but that's exactly the playstyle that suits the Hunter.

#6 Evasion
Nothing amazing on that line, Evade is simply there so the standard Rogue "evasion" move is present. It gives you another option and the upgrade can be very fun combined with Stealth.

Additional Notes
As I said earlier, Evasion should be replaced by "Salty Sea Dog" if possible. It would suit the Hunter playstyle much better than Evasion ever will. On the other hand, if Evasion was boosted to 25%, that would be another story.

Ability wise, the Survival tree is weaker on purpose. It's been done so you're encouraged to play the Hunter as a trapper and not as an Archer. You can still mimic an Archer, but you'll be more limited in what you can do. The redeeming quality of the Survival tree is its passives. Most of the passives are very strong for both tree, Trapping and Survival. Again, this has been done to nudge the Hunter toward a trapping playstyle, but it's not like those passives are any worst if you play the Hunter like an Archer.

Opportunity Knocks and Looked like it Hurt are key to making the Hunter a strong character. Traps are clunky to use and they're hard to target. Once cast, it's easy for them to become totally useless if are killed before reaching them or if they simply take another path. It's also important to remember that traps have between 16 to 24 seconds cooldowns, it's pretty long between uses, especially when fights last less than that... Having better cooldowns and Stamina regeneration than normal would help tremendously to negate those problems. Without those 2 passives, I don't think anything can be done to salvage the Hunter, at least by playing him with a strong emphasis on traps.

Yes, I said I wouldn't make another skill tree rework thread for the time being, but I had nothing to do this morning and I had the Hunter in mind...

I've seen Dieb attempt at reworking the Hunter skill trees, I think my attempt is different enough to justify its existence. Thanks Dieb for inspiring me with your thread.

[Domiel Angelus]

I like this one very much, but I have the same gripes about this one as I had with Dieb's. 

 

From his thread: 

I like the trees you've built, but if they're re-doing his powers then I'd like to see both the Hunter and the Assassin acquire their own version of Gangway! to replace Hook and Tackle. Their version is now so very inferior because it only gets you into trouble but not out of it. It would free up a slot that means you can pick up something instead of needing H+T plus Leaping Shot if you're creating your build around that. 

 

You'd just have to rebuild it in such a way that its not overpowered:

 

It would still grant you the ability to get in and out of combat, it would do damage on the way in or out and the upgraded version could eliminate the stamina cost and reduce the cool-down time by 6 seconds. If it had the original upgrade that allows you to eliminate cost and cool-down it would become far too overpowered, but if it only reduced it to 6 seconds you'd still have to time it properly. 

 

Side Note: On that same token I would work in a version of Flow of Battle instead of Opportunity Knocks: That would mean you'd still have to work on your own critical strikes instead of leeching from the Archer's tree. It could grant either Constitution or Dexterity instead of Cunning as its bonus. 

[TheThirdRace]

I like this one very much, but I have the same gripes about this one as I had with Dieb's. 
 
From his thread: 
I like the trees you've built, but if they're re-doing his powers then I'd like to see both the Hunter and the Assassin acquire their own version of Gangway! to replace Hook and Tackle. Their version is now so very inferior because it only gets you into trouble but not out of it. It would free up a slot that means you can pick up something instead of needing H+T plus Leaping Shot if you're creating your build around that. 
 
You'd just have to rebuild it in such a way that its not overpowered:
 
It would still grant you the ability to get in and out of combat, it would do damage on the way in or out and the upgraded version could eliminate the stamina cost and reduce the cool-down time by 6 seconds. If it had the original upgrade that allows you to eliminate cost and cool-down it would become far too overpowered, but if it only reduced it to 6 seconds you'd still have to time it properly. 
 
Side Note: On that same token I would work in a version of Flow of Battle instead of Opportunity Knocks: That would mean you'd still have to work on your own critical strikes instead of leeching from the Archer's tree. It could grant either Constitution or Dexterity instead of Cunning as its bonus.

I think you're missing the point on both accounts.

First, we're not redoing his powers, we're simply rehashing what we already have. At no point this kind of work will integrate completely new abilities or new passives. The devs won't touch that kind of thing because it would actually require a lot of work. So while a special version of Gangway! could work, it's sadly not in the cards and thus your point is moot. Same principle applies to your special version of Flow of Battle.

On a side note, Hook and Tackle mechanic is fine as it is. It does have a learning curve and it will never be amazing, but it's perfectly possible to use it without getting you in trouble. It's not made to get you out of trouble, at least not easily, but a Rogue should never charge in without calculating its escape route beforehand. As for the Hook and Tackle being required for Leaping Shot, all I can say is that it makes it easier but it's far from being required. I hate having to say that, but that would be a "get more experience using it" issue on your part. Finally, my personal opinion is Hook and Tackle should have either better damage on the kick or add a small stun so you don't get hit immediately after touching the ground.

For your second point, Flow of Battle (or any version of it) wouldn't work. Opportunity Knocks is essential in giving the Hunter the tools necessary to negate the bad trap placement. Even if you're a God at positioning your traps, most of the time your allies will change their path or kill them before they reach your traps. Having others contributing to your cooldowns negate that problem almost completely. Using any form of Flow of Battle would make the exercise completely useless. Imagine yourself setting a trap, then the enemies don't go on it so you auto-attack for 5 to 10 seconds before you can setup another one? Totally useless. I play with people that have between 50 to 100% Critical Chance and my Archer still has cooldowns of 1 second, 2 seconds when they're slacking off, and that's for abilities with 8 seconds cooldowns. Imagine now with 16 or 24 seconds cooldowns like traps usually have... As I said, it can't work without Opportunity Knocks.

[ThatBruhYouDK]

Here's my suggestions for reworking the Hunter's skill trees:



The "names" I've given to each line in the trees are self explanatory, but I'll still explain my reasoning.

Basically, I've tried to keep in mind these things while I made the changes:

• Each line on the skill trees must have a theme
• The central line should be filled with passives that you would want all for all builds
• Get access to abilities earlier, you don't want to be level 16 when that happens
• Replace as much as possible the passives or skills that have no use whatsoever for the character

So here's the explanation for each tree lines:

Trapping

#1 Stalker
Being defined like a close range Rogue with a bow, the Hunter benefits a lot from Stealth and its associated passives. It allows him to move "freely" on the battlefield and position himself right for his next attack. He can quickly pick out and enemy and return to the shadows where he came from.

#2 Traps
This is the first "specialization" line of the Trapping tree. Elemental Mines and Spike Trap are defining abilities of the Hunter. I mixed in Tricks of the Trade to show the Hunter is more about controlling the battlefield and helping his teammates.

#3 Dancing Around Death
Razor's Edge is what makes a Hunter a Hunter, besides traps. He's supposed to be close range so this passive is now mandatory. Bloodthirst and Easy to Miss allow the Hunter to move freely on the battlefield, perfect fit for close range combat. Bloodthirst is especially handy since it's not easy to move after firing with a bow, it should give you a little extra boost to avoid some potential hurtful consequences.

#4 Opportunist
This line is gone become the "core" line of the Hunter. Opportunity Knocks allows the Hunter to use traps much more often, playing exactly on the strengths of the character. Looks Like It Hurt also provides the Stamina necessary to continue using those traps. Without those 2 passives, I don't see the Hunter being able to fully realize its trap potential, they gave him a lot of powerful options. The lower cooldowns and better Stamina regeneration should compensate for the clunky animations from firing with a box and mixing non-archery abilities.

Fighting Dirty has been added to this line since it could fit with the "Opportunist" theme. It's not an amazing fit, but it's still a very good passive and it needed a place.

#5 Poison
If you've been following my other "skill tree reworked" thread, you might ask yourself why I've put the remaining abilities on the 5th line instead of the usual 4th. While I agree it's nice to have an earlier access to your abilities, in this case nothing would fit as a follow up for Poison. I didn't want to put Explosive Toxin behind either poison abilities to avoid nudging your choice toward one of the choices. The good thing about making it the last line of the tree is that it allows the Hunter to specialize in poison only he if really wants to. Putting poison on the last line also gives a nudge toward the use of the more accessible traps on line #2 while casting poison abilities as secondary in your arsenal. It's really all about making the Hunter geared toward traps and then adding extra damage on top of those.

As for the abilities, Poison Weapons could be a very powerful combo with traps. Not only this ability gives you more damage overall with the upgrade, but it synergizes very well with auto-attacks in-between traps. As for Toxic Cloud, it's a good AOE to complement your traps. It won't do as much damage to single target as Poison Weapons, but it will outshine it on a group of enemies. Explosive Toxin complement both of those skills very well, it's like a bit of gravy on top of gravy on top of gravy. Those abilities aren't as deadly as the trap ones, but they're really there as a secondary source of damage and control.

Survival

#1 Starting Skill
Explosive Shot is out, Throwing Blades is in. Throwing Blades is a unique ability of the Hunter and I think it's fair to give him access as early as possible. It gives him a bit more personality from the get go and I felt like Explosive Shot was making the Hunter just an Archer clone, a bad one at that...

#2 Marksman
This line all about Archery abilities. Leaping Shot is an excellent ability that works better at close range while Full Draw can be very attractive at long range. I took careful consideration before putting Death From Above and First Blood locked behind those abilities. They both complement their respective abilities while they wouldn't make as much sense without them. Second Wind gives you a good starting option for Stamina regeneration. I think it's good for the Hunter to only have access to Leaping Shot and Full Draw as it distinguish him from the Archer. It's makes the Hunter more limited in its marksman skills and nudge him toward other type of abilities to complement his arsenal.

#3 Growing Threat
Gaps in the Armor is the core passive on this line, it's especially good on higher difficulties (Perilous+). Cheap Shot is also available for additional temporary Armor Penetration. The combination of Gaps in the Armor and Cheap Shot can be devastating on higher difficulties (Perilous+). The Seasoned passive is the normal "stats" passive we find on line #3 of other skill trees.

#4 In And Out
Hook and Tackle isn't the most amazing ability, but it makes playing the Hunter a ton of fun. It's an great ability to combine with Leaping Shot or to simply close the gap with an enemy (it's your "in"). The reason I've put Throatcutter behind Hook and Tackle is because it synergize well it. It's not written in the tooltip, but using Hook and Tackle alone actually damage the enemy when you kick him on arrival. Combine a good bow (damage wise) with Troatcutter and It Beats Walking (Hook and Tackle upgrade) and you can outright kill some enemies just by using Hook and Tackle alone.

Fallback Plan is also an ability shun by the majority of players, but on Nightmare it is simply amazing. It allows you to recoup your health and get out of danger (it's your "out"). The kicker here is that with Opportunity Knocks, you can actually use it with almost no cooldown if you time it right. That means, no need for a Barrier bot, you can take care of yourself even if you're not cloaked. I've paired Sadism as a passive locked behind Fallback Plan because it capitalizes on the fact you regain stamina when you lose health then Fallback Plan can recoup that health so it's a win/win situation. Since Sadism isn't your best Stamina regeneration passive, it doesn't suffer from being locked behind an ability.

The final passive on this line is Evasion. While it does fit the theme for the line, it's far from great at 5% chance only. If it was possible, I would replace it with Salty Sea Dog from Isabella. That passive would fit the theme very well and reinforce the hybrid close and long range style of the Hunter.

#5 Deadly Arrows
While it might appear this line is geared toward a marksman playstyle, I'd advocate it reinforce a mix of traps and auto-attack playstyle even more. Flanking Fire and Strafing Shots are amazing for auto-attacking between the traps you cast. You're already thick in the fray, moving around and flanking are a great way to kill time before setting your next trap. As for Pincushion, it's really about what your weapon is. If you have the Griphon or the Hakkon bows, you'll be amazed how much damage they can deal at very close range. And since they fire 3 shots for each auto-attack, Pincushion capitalizes on that big time when the 3 shots connect on the same target. Of course, you need to be very close to the enemy for that, but that's exactly the playstyle that suits the Hunter.

#6 Evasion
Nothing amazing on that line, Evade is simply there so the standard Rogue "evasion" move is present. It gives you another option and the upgrade can be very fun combined with Stealth.

Additional Notes
As I said earlier, Evasion should be replaced by "Salty Sea Dog" if possible. It would suit the Hunter playstyle much better than Evasion ever will. On the other hand, if Evasion was boosted to 25%, that would be another story.

Ability wise, the Survival tree is weaker on purpose. It's been done so you're encouraged to play the Hunter as a trapper and not as an Archer. You can still mimic an Archer, but you'll be more limited in what you can do. The redeeming quality of the Survival tree is its passives. Most of the passives are very strong for both tree, Trapping and Survival. Again, this has been done to nudge the Hunter toward a trapping playstyle, but it's not like those passives are any worst if you play the Hunter like an Archer.

Opportunity Knocks and Looked like it Hurt are key to making the Hunter a strong character. Traps are clunky to use and they're hard to target. Once cast, it's easy for them to become totally useless if the enemies don't reach them or avoid them on their way to you. Having better cooldowns and Stamina regeneration than normal would help tremendously to negate those problems. Without those 2 passives, I don't think anything can be done to salvage the Hunter, at least by playing him with a strong emphasis on traps.

Yes, I said I wouldn't make another skill tree rework thread for the time being, but I had nothing to do this morning and I had the Hunter in mind...

I've seen Dieb attempt at reworking the Hunter skill trees, I think my attempt is different enough to justify its existence. Thanks Dieb for inspiring me with your thread.

 

I very much approve of this. Hunter is weak compared to Archer and this, I think, would make him more doable, easier to play

[Samahl na Revas]

In ten points I could play nightmare with this set up. I like it but it's OP and I can't tell if this is a good or bad thing.  From the trapping side I go down 3 then left 1 for Looked like it hurts. Then down one more time and left again for poison. I have stealth and throwing knives as a freebie which I keep. On the survival tree I go down one and right for Full draw/ left, player choice. My build is finish all that is left is passives but I am ready for nightmare.

 

With opportunity knocks I am going to walk up behind an enemy in stealth and unleash both arrows and throwing knives (All day everyday without the upgrade because if you are close all hits land on a single target) which has a 6.8sec cooldown with amulet.

 

Gameover. This one is OP, (sigh) but a part of me would love to use this in game.

[SCHBLRTZ]

You justify removing Explosive Shot by saying that it makes the Hunter a clone of the Archer but then you give him abilities such as Opportunity Knocks and Looked Like It Hurt which are the two essential passives that make the archer work. Something like Flow of Battle from the warrior class might work just as well for Hunter without making him a clone of the Archer.

 

The Survival tree is quite poor. Lots of passives are locked behind abilities. I would swap Stealth (and the other passives working with it) with Throwing Knives. I would also bring back Explosive Shot since it was the best ability that the Hunter had.

 

Overall I feel these are easily better than the current Hunter but there are some issues that could be solved.

[Dieb]

You clearly have a wholly different approach (i.e. playstyle) than I do - which is absolutely fine.

 

Yet I do think the tree kind of "imposes" the Stealth approach onto a player, which is IMO not necessary. I would miss Fallback Plan as a "signature skill" of sorts, as well as Strafing Shots being still as tediously far away, given the necessary amount of mobility.

 

But it all makes sense, if one did base their style all around stealth.

[starrks]

Do any of the classes with stealth have Opportunity Knocks? Like Dirthamen points out, that plus knife in the shadows would be insane.

[TheThirdRace]

In ten points I could play nightmare with this set up. I like it but it's OP and I can't tell if this is a good or bad thing.  From the trapping side I go down 3 then left 1 for Looked like it hurts. Then down one more time and left again for poison. I have stealth and throwing knives as a freebie which I keep. On the survival tree I go down one and right for Full draw/ left, player choice. My build is finish all that is left is passives but I am ready for nightmare.
 
With opportunity knocks I am going to walk up behind an enemy in stealth and unleash both arrows and throwing knives (All day everyday without the upgrade because if you are close all hits land on a single target) which has a 6.8sec cooldown with amulet.
 
Gameover. This one is OP, (sigh) but a part of me would love to use this in game.

In 10 points, the Archer and the Reaver are ready for Nightmare and they'll be more efficient. Let's not forget, the goal is to avoid being level 15+ before your build comes together. The game is designed toward promoting at level 20 so the faster your build comes together, the better your experience in the long run.

As for Opportunity Knocks, yes it will allow you to use Throwing Knives a lot, but on the other hand, you can Dragon Rage or Leaping Shot all day with far more damage. Have you ever tried Deathblow from the Assassin? With the right conditions, it will decimate whole groups in less than 2 seconds and have absolutely no cooldown. My point is, the Hunter wouldn't be better than the Archer, the Assassin and the Reaver. It would be very strong, but nothing that isn't already possible with other characters.

Let's not forget that Throwing Knives does require great positioning if you want all knives to hit the same target. This will create downtimes, downtimes you will use to position yourself so you don't spread your damage.

In reality, what will happen in-game is not as OP as you might think. The Hunter isn't gonna stay in place simply casting his abilities like an Archer would. He needs to move around just like the Assassin or the Reaver do. Both the Assassin and Reaver can lay waste to a whole group in less than 3 seconds, animation time included. The Hunter won't be able to match that amount of power, but will still be strong. At any rate, it would be considerably better than what he is now...
 
 

You justify removing Explosive Shot by saying that it makes the Hunter a clone of the Archer but then you give him abilities such as Opportunity Knocks and Looked Like It Hurt which are the two essential passives that make the archer work. Something like Flow of Battle from the warrior class might work just as well for Hunter without making him a clone of the Archer.
 
The Survival tree is quite poor. Lots of passives are locked behind abilities. I would swap Stealth (and the other passives working with it) with Throwing Knives. I would also bring back Explosive Shot since it was the best ability that the Hunter had.
 
Overall I feel these are easily better than the current Hunter but there are some issues that could be solved.

Sigh... Flow of Battle, or any version of it, will not work (also, I can see you didn't read at all...). Traps have 16 to 24 seconds cooldowns. They're clunky to lay out and can become useless from a multitudes of factors like enemies changing paths or being killed before reaching them. You need Opportunity Knocks to lower those trap cooldowns. Flow of Battle would force your to auto-attacking 10+ seconds, it's not conceivable if you want to make the Hunter remotely useful. That's the exact problem he's suffering right now. What you want is to make him suck a tiny bit less, what I want is to make him viable without 100 promotions.
 

You clearly have a wholly different approach (i.e. playstyle) than I do - which is absolutely fine.
 
Yet I do think the tree kind of "imposes" the Stealth approach onto a player, which is IMO not necessary. I would miss Fallback Plan as a "signature skill" of sorts, as well as Strafing Shots being still as tediously far away, given the necessary amount of mobility.
 
But it all makes sense, if one did base their style all around stealth.

I could argue you're not forced to use Stealth, but I can see what you mean. I do kind of see the Hunter as a mix between an Archer and an Assassin. I think Stealth is making his job easier to close in on his targets and position himself correctly, be it for traps or for other abilities.

Furthermore, all Stealth Rogues are amongst the less played characters. I think it has a lot to do with how hard they are to play. They do require excellent positioning and timing to be played right, the Hunter is no exception. If you're supposed to be close range and are squishy, Stealth seems to me a logical option to stay relatively safe.

As for Strafing Shots, I agree it's a bit far. On one hand, putting it on the fifth line is nudging you more toward a trap gameplay, but on the other hand I agree it's annoying when you auto-attack in-between. Do you think swapping the fifth line (Deadly Arrows) with the third (Growing Threat) would be ok?

[TheThirdRace]

Do any of the classes with stealth have Opportunity Knocks? Like Dirthamen points out, that plus knife in the shadows would be insane.

No, but I'll answer this the same way I answered Wavebend about my reworked skill trees for the Assassin: Killing a single target fast doesn't make you OP.

Even if you put out 10K damage on a target with 2000 HP, dead is dead, that damage is wasted. The Assassin, the Archer and the Reaver can put out more than 10K damage on whole groups in less than 3 seconds. Not 10K total, 10K on each and every target. Killing a single target fast doesn't make you OP.

You also have to account for the time required to move around. The Hunter is close range and need excellent positioning and timing to be efficient, this takes time. So while you're taking your sweet time preparing yourself, your teammates are simply attacking relentlessly which in turn reduce considerably your efficiency at killing targets.

Let's just put it this way. The only people I've seen playing the Hunter efficiently have twice my amount of promotions. I'm about middle position in the leaderboard so we're talking about top 25 players. How about we give the Hunter some love so other players can actually make use of him in higher difficulties?

[Cirvante]

Upgraded Elemental Mines with Stamina Amulet, LLIH, OK and Pincushion?

 

I can see nothing wrong with this.

[TheThirdRace]

Upgraded Elemental Mines with Stamina Amulet, LLIH, OK and Pincushion?
 
I can see nothing wrong with this.

More seriously, what you suggest is situational at best. Let's not forget the 24 seconds cooldown of Elemental Mines.

Be honest:

• How many times do you camp at 1 specific place in a match?
• How many players have you seen leveraging Elemental Mines remotely well?

 

The first question, I can see from our few games together that it's not very often. We move around quite a lot and enemies rarely get to us before they're killed. This undermines a lot stationary traps...

For the second question, I can only relate to my personal experience, but I've only seen 4 people able to use Elemental Mines reliably. Those 4 people are top 50 on the Leaderboard... How many players does that affect for the whole community? (4%?!?! that's a joke )

You made a point definitely worth keeping in mind, but I don't think it will affect that many players to begin with. Hell, Opportunity Knocks is amazing with a private team, but you can see a gigantic difference when you play a PUG. It ain't the same game at all... It's surely possible to make a killer combo with the best equipment available, but I don't think balancing according to that is the right way to go either. Players able to pull that off are very few and far between...

And before anyone accuses me of trying to hog the power for the "Elite", let's just say I was absolutely against the spawn camping "fix". The "fix" of reducing the spawn blocking area made it almost impossible for casual players to use that trick. On the other hand, it didn't change anything for elite players, we're still doing runs between 8 and 12 minutes. The only thing the "fix" accomplished was to make sure that people using the trick were the only ones that could... Way to go Bioware   I'd much prefer the "fix" to never have existed than the version we have now. I do think about the good of everyone, not just for those that have tons of promotions. I kept that in mind when I designed my suggestions.

[SCHBLRTZ]

Stamina will be a bottleneck without a passive like Dance of Death so you'll still be spamming auto attack to generate stamina even if you have a passive like Opportunity Knocks. Looked Like It Hurt might work with Elemental Mines but it's unreliable at best. Does Knife In The Shadows even work with Elemental Mines? I haven't used Elemental Mines in a long time. Would I even use Elemental Mines instead of Leaping Shot with the auto-critical? Probably not.

 

Spamming Spike Trap and Elemental Mines trap sounds fun but no one is going to try it more than once since spamming any other damage dealing ability Hunter has is much more efficient. Opportunity Knocks won't fix traps, it will just make him a copy of the Archer and that's something you said you wanted to avoid. Flow of Battle (and Cheap Shot, Disable) already energizes well enough with Knife In The Shadows so it is worth considering at least.

 

Tailoring a whole skill tree around 2 bad abilities is just wrong but I do hope they are worth using in the future.

[Cirvante]

More seriously, what you suggest is situational at best. Let's not forget the 24 seconds cooldown of Elemental Mines.

 

Put a few Leaping Shots in between Elemental Mines.

[TheThirdRace]

Bu then you'll have moved considerably farther

[Cirvante]

Bu then you'll have moved considerably farther

 

Not with a wall behind you.

[MGW7]

So, you just have to drag enemies to a wall, hit them with more than like 10 mines, and preform multiple crit leaping shots into that wall, without your allies being drawn to and murdering this group of enemies you are trying to corral precisely into a very easy disrupted position.

 

And if you do that you are rewarded with maybe a nice burst of damage, or the reaver running around murdering everything as fast as possible has already killed the majority of the level.

 

Even a combo like that wouldn't be that effective compared to all the ways other kits can already do things.

[Cirvante]

So, you just have to drag enemies to a wall, hit them with more than like 10 mines, and preform multiple crit leaping shots into that wall, without your allies being drawn to and murdering this group of enemies you are trying to corral precisely into a very easy disrupted position.

 

And if you do that you are rewarded with maybe a nice burst of damage, or the reaver running around murdering everything as fast as possible has already killed the majority of the level.

 

Even a combo like that wouldn't be that effective compared to all the ways other kits can already do things.

 

You are overlooking the potential of three other teammates with >70% crit chance each. Think four Hunters nuking everything with Elemental Mines while reducing each other's cooldowns. It's like four Archers spamming Long Shot without cooldown, incredibly powerful in the right hands.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea. I just don't have any illusions about how powerful it could be.

[Wavebend]

No, but I'll answer this the same way I answered Wavebend about my reworked skill trees for the Assassin: Killing a single target fast doesn't make you OP.

 

Yes it does, especially against commanders/bosses or the dragon. But again, we agreed to disagree, so I won't debate more on that.

 

You also omitted the possibility of MoD reducing the cooldown of stealth to 0 on trigger. Stealth is already getting a buff soon, so before you decide to re-design any more character imo it'd be wise to wait before you buff everything with a NM soloing perspective in mind.

[MGW7]

4 anything with 70% or higher crit rate is powerful.

If you have these 4 hunter players playing as reavers they are just as capable of trivializing the same level.

 

It is a very large aoe burst, but does not hit one person particularly hard, and thus is only particularly powerful against large crowds unless you pull everything into a choke point, and even if you can get the cooldown to ~1 second you are still limited by stamina, that you are either not upgrading mines, or only throwing 1 large burst, and then have 0 stamina for any moves.

 

Having the hunter able to drop a large aoe nuke, but then limited in the ability to follow up is perfect. It gives him a niche in high level, a crowd controller, who makes sure all the weaker units get ruined while the snipers and dps deal with the tanks.

[Cirvante]

It is a very large aoe burst, but does not hit one person particularly hard, and thus is only particularly powerful against large crowds unless you pull everything into a choke point, and even if you can get the cooldown to ~1 second you are still limited by stamina, that you are either not upgrading mines, or only throwing 1 large burst, and then have 0 stamina for any moves.

 

Having the hunter able to drop a large aoe nuke, but then limited in the ability to follow up is perfect. It gives him a niche in high level, a crowd controller, who makes sure all the weaker units get ruined while the snipers and dps deal with the tanks.

 

ThirdRace's skill tree has LLIH.

[MGW7]

Right, lets pretend I don't know the game by heart.

LLIH means...

 

If it is the thing that makes the whole thing too good then use a different passive, but I am pretty sure it still is reliant on getting most of the mines on target, and/or having a high critical chance. Which tends to break almost every kit.

[TheThirdRace]

A lot of people seems to have a problem with the use of Opportunity Knocks and Looked Like It Hurt.

 

I do understand the concern, but you must all realize traps are bad because they're stationary. No normal player can actually use them efficiently so there need to be a fail safe to allow the Hunter to use them more often to negate the big disadvantage.

 

All the people I've seen disagree with what I suggested are highly skilled players, players that have the best equipment and a Critical Chance higher than 60% as a Rogue. Guys, no normal player have those stats, wake up! Furthermore, everything is already OP in your hands, wake up!

 

In any case, there are only 2 solutions to make traps worthwhile.

 

The first solution is to use Opportunity Knocks and Looked Like It Hurt to give the Hunter a fighting chance with his traps. The first one relies heavily on the Criticals of the whole team while the latter relies only on yours. You do have to actually Critical Hit to be able to get back that Stamina so either you're good at traps or you're in problems.

 

The second solution is to completely ignore those passives but adjust cooldowns and costs of traps abilities.

• Elemental Mines (can easily miss so need to be more spammable)
  • Cooldown: 12 seconds (from 24 seconds)
  • Cost: 35 Stamina (from 50 Stamina)
• Poisoned Weapons (can't miss, but need to be worth something)
  • Cooldown: 12 seconds (from 24 seconds)
  • Cost: 20 Stamina (same as before)
• Spike Trap (easier to use, but need to be usable)
  • Cooldown: 8 seconds (from 16 seconds)
  • Cost: 35 Stamina (same as before)
• Toxic Cloud (can't miss, but need to be usable since the damage scale very badly in higher difficulties)
  • Cooldown: 8 seconds (from 24 seconds)
  • Cost: 35 Stamina (from 50 Stamina)

 

Is there another way to make those traps worthwhile, a way normal user will be able to use, not just elite players?

[TheThirdRace]

LLIH means...

Looked Like It Hurt: Regenerate 10 Stamina on a Critical Hit.

That means with high enough Critical Chance, you could never run out of Stamina. This is what happens with an Archer or a Reaver, you never run out of Stamina.

The caveat is that applied to a Hunter, most of his abilities will have trouble to hit something so that regen is far from being as good as others make it look like. The Archer and the Reaver have the good fortune of never missing their target with their abilities.

So what it boils down to is whether players are ready to accept the Hunter could be just as strong as the current 6 best Nightmare characters: Arcane-Warrior (defense), Archer (offense), Assassin (offense), Legionnaire (defense), Reaver (offense) and Templar (mix of defense/offense). Anything else dies too easily or doesn't output enough damage to be efficient unless you have over 300 promotions.

[Zorinho20_CRO]

Wow,I'll just say,you are putting lots of effort in this, OP