Jiggy's hunter feedback thread.

Ok I promised Naes to do this so here it finally is. The big bad hunter feedback thread. This will be the last time I leave feedback about hunter since I will no longer play this class in coming seasons for the following reasons.

I will start off the thread by sharing my reaction to paladin, because thatโ€™s when it really hit me whatโ€™s wrong with hunter. Paladin looks like he has a ton of abilities and mix up. Smooth animations and transitions like half heavys to jump attacks, etc. And then I think about my longbow hunter that just feels ancient in design by comparison.

Longbow is just too stiff and clunky right now. Medium is in a better spot but itโ€™s damage is maybe a little bit too low. (You have to work overtime to kill someone with a thousand needles)
Swiftbow I canโ€™t speak on much, I never use that bow because of its aiming nature. Not my style.
โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”
TLDR: My opinion is Hunter needs to be brought back to the drawing board and reworked. The game has matured but hunter didnโ€™t. Especially longbow. Too stiff, special arrow inputs too clunky. Bad mobility. Toxic by design (long range sniper)
โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”
I am going to keep my feedback Longbow Solo mode focused since thatโ€™s what I mainly play.

First here are a few facts that you need to be aware of when discussing longbow:

  • Right now it takes 6-7 full drawn arrows to reach max swiftness, so swiftness generation is too low/unrewarding for landing shots.

  • it takes 4 seconds to draw a full heavy, with the weapon perk.

  • Cyclone canโ€™t be jumped instantly after being placed. + warrior hitboxes are so crazy that cyclone is basically never safe to jump.

  • We have 4 dodges and no block

  • Every class has ways to break your bear trap

After the bhop nerf and ultimately a giant nerf to our general in combat mobility, I think right now hunter is just way too dependent on a defensive playstyle with traps, being reactive instead of engaging. itโ€™s very hard to โ€œrun and gunโ€ effectively, especially on longbow. (And yes it is necessary to confirm kills that even longbow is capable of running and gunning a little)

I also would love to see the longbow weapon perks reworked. Get rid of the draw speed perk and just make that the default speed, because the other longbows are so slow they arenโ€™t viable at all in pvp. I think unstoppable fits on a longbow, a full drawn arrow takes 4 seconds to load, getting staggered out of it is devastating. So why not give us a bow which gives u unstoppable on a full draw? Just like the medium bow.

The interaction of special arrows needs a complete rework, the input latency on these things are crazy. Especially for wind arrow with all the extra steps you need to take, sheathing your weapon and then gradually easing into a slow jog to a full wind sprint. Youโ€™re halfway through the tunnel before you start getting any kind of value out of this arrow.

-Frost is very buggy, dodging in and out of the frost field makes you no longer take affliction buildup from the frost field rendering it nearly useless in some situations.
- Fire arrow can be dodged after it hits you, almost every good players know how to count to 4 and dodge the explosion so its hard to get good value out of this arrow too.
- Poison arrow is an actual joke. this thing just needs a buff overall.

Cyclone also needs some love, it has this delay on it right now from when you place it down to when you are actually allowed to jump it. This delay made sense in s0 when cyclone had no cooldown and you could have many of them at once. But it no longer makes sense in the current state. That cyclone is the difference between life and death when fighting a warrior. They already have planet sized hitboxes on every attack that can hit us 30 meters up in the air, I dont think letting us instantly jump the cyclone will break the balance.


But overall I think longbow specifically just needs a complete rework. I donโ€™t think itโ€™s a healthy choice to have a true long range sniper in this game. Itโ€™s toxic to get hit from render distance for 70% of your health (or more.) But its annoying for the hunter who cant followup on that damage in any meaningful way. So the long range sniper design really falls apart here, the only way it could work is if they could oneshot people, like a real sniper. But I definitely do not recommend this direction at all.

Instead I would just make the longbow a competent mid-long range fighter that is weak in melee range. But make it more like a run and gun quickscope sniper, you get one good shot but then a slow recover/reload period. So Itโ€™s still designed around precision, meaning if your aim is bad you get no value. Thunder arrow should be reworked to be a direct impact ability with no aoe at all. Currently it is a cheesy crutch ability that degrades the weapon as a whole.

making these changes would still keep a clear different playstyle between medium and longbow. Medium is all about your toolkit and not just about the bows damage but using your bombs, shooting them, sending out quick special arrows etc.

With longbow your BOW is the main damage, not your tools. And that is how it should remain. It is the one bow for the people who play hunter for the bow gameplay and nothing else. Landing juicy shots and seeing big numbers. It doesnโ€™t HAVE to be a long range sniper for this to still be true.


there are many other niche things I could bring up but Iโ€™m fatigued on hunter by now and I have kind of given up on this class. Seeing how crazy and wild all these new classes are I really doubt hunter will ever match that, so I am just leaving this class behind personally. But if you still want to save hunter, and especially longbow. Here are still my final inputs on it.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk, hope you have a nice day!







Please authenticate to join the conversation.

Upvoters
Status

In Review

Board
โœจ

Feature Requests

Date

6 months ago

Author

jiggyspice

Subscribe to post

Get notified by email when there are changes.