A philosophy by a lone hunter.

If one looks at what Beastcraft offers, there is just no reason to bring it higher then 16.

Take a look at what you get in the line.
50 points give you 75 d/q.
43 points give you a +95% speed burst.
42 points give you 52 af (charge is 23 points higher).
41 points give you 42 pet s/c (that doesn't work).
40 points give you 63 d/q (charge only differ by three points).
35 points allow you to charm the mighty torcs!
32 points give you a blue pet that doesn't decrease evade, and would die fighting a brachycera!
30 points give you nothing since Call of the Hounds doesn't exist.


So what is actually useful in that line?

50 spec gives you a higher then charge dex/qui buff, but at what cost?
With 50 beastcraft you will either have no bow, or no weapon-spec, and for what?
You get a slight increase in either of the two kinds of damage you choose, but are useless in the other.
If you go for bow, and they get into melee range, you are dead. No ranger or scout r5 to save you.
If they cut the LoS, you can only use volley, and maybe land 1-2 hits if you are lucky and have 45 bow (custom bug), and you are not a hybrid with 35 bow (if you are hybrid with 35 bow, you will have no stun as well).

The pet is useful to interrupt, and only that. So a lower level one is as useful.
A high-level pet will still die to one viper, be nullified by minstrel's r5, stun, mez, or simply does nothing good except help reproc the enemies lifetap/hp reprocs.

The speed burst is useful, but the top one is just overkill.
You need at max 15 seconds to escape an enemy, so the duration and speed is not an issue.
There is one problem though. What you fight are mostly dual-wielders or shield users. Dual-wielders have easy access to bleed that nullifies your speed (reported bug). While the shield tanks are often light tanks, with charge, or some hybrid with range spells that breaks your speed.


16 points into Beastcraft will give you everything you really need.
High enough speed to escape an enemy, if it is possible, and a pet to interrupt.
What low beastcraft gives you access to instead is the ability to go 50 weapon, and 45 bow (5 arrow volley).

How is that useful, you might ask.
Well 50 weapon allows you to either get access to Ragnarok, or Odin's Madness.
Odin's Madness opens with Perforate (side with haste debuff, bugged, reported), and ends with 11 damage 40 sec bleed (illustrates DW and CD bugged values). This bleed allows you to use your own speed without the other using theirs, or prevents them from re-stealthing(reported bug). It also gives you the 44 spear style that is off the stun (extremely useful because of its .93 GR).
If you time it, the stun-style combined with r5 is a 100% escape guarantee if you face something that is alone without charge.

Now why is 45 bow any better than 35 bow on a hunter?
The simple answer is volley. Unlike a scout that have shield for defense, or a ranger that have dual wield for offense, we hunters can see 14+ evade/block/parry in a row when in close combat (mega bugged).
Let's say you open with critshot on an enemy. What is the first instinct for them to do?
(i) Remove your LoS.
(ii) Go in to close combat.
If they choose to go for (i), you can volley them and actually win the fight without receiving any damage yourself.
If they choose to go for (ii), you have two options.
Pray on RNG, or kite.
If you pray, you might get lucky and land stun, and win, or more likely, die because you can not land hits.
If you kite, you have the options to simply sprint, and turn with rapidfire 2 (less end use, helpful when you kite). Or to use r5.
Now here is the problem with r5. It is a 50% breakable snare. You can not use it on a target that is taking any damage from bleeds, dots or other enemies. (Here is also the issue with people who are foolish enough to put a bunch of dot proc/reprocs on a hunter.)
A ranger can also just speed over it, and catch you.


Uthgard is a strange place!

Fjott wrote:...

Uthgard is a strange place!

Strange compared to what? Real life?

fiskgrodan wrote:

Fjott wrote:...

Uthgard is a strange place!

Strange compared to what? Real life?

strange compared to Narnia.

Imo you can play hunter like a Ranger.
But with the new 75 charges I gonna go down from 40 path to 21 path as well.
With Ranger you have to kite till IP is down and the enemy is at 30% for a safe win. Same goes for Hunter, for the last 30% it doesnt really matter if you have 2h or dual wield, i still prefer CD + Ranger RR5 is way better.
If you can not kill him in the first run just come back 1min later and repeat.

Celteen wrote:Imo you can play hunter like a Ranger.
But with the new 75 charges I gonna go down from 40 path to 21 path as well.
With Ranger you have to kite till IP is down and the enemy is at 30% for a safe win. Same goes for Hunter, for the last 30% it doesnt really matter if you have 2h or dual wield, i still prefer CD + Ranger RR5 is way better.
If you can not kill him in the first run just come back 1min later and repeat.

As a ranger you still have benefits of going pathfinding.
Base str, and dmg add, adds more damage than uping weapons, especially after the CD growthrate fix.
You also have the option that if your melee does not make it, your r5 will deal the remaining damage you need. (Free 'woc' with stun )

Lately it have been a bit hard to 'return after kite', because you and seven other rangers have a habit of ganging up on a single target in emain, using speed and r5 to help ensure that atleast one of you get the kill, while you all survive.

That 30% rule does not work on a hunter I am afraid. Two reasons for it is no free woc, and no dual wield.
I have lost the count of how many times I have gone into melee with the enemy at ~10% hp, and me with ip2 up. Only to die.
My most annoying fights is where I go into melee when the enemy is 1-3% hp (ip, and pot timer down), only to loose after I myself use ip2, health potion and purge.

Btw, my r5 does not guarantee an escape, because they can break my speed with a range spell, or the r5 itself is broken by a bleed or dot on the enemy.

With ur pet u ve 2 attackers and should ve the same benefits as a DW class imo.
And its no secret that Ranger > Hunter

Hunter pet should halve blockrate? ^^

each attacker should half the defense, at least afaik

pweet wrote:each attacker should half the defense, at least afaik

It should help vs defense, but it really doesn't.

And look up the real effect of evade vs multiple attackers, to see even greater deficit for the hunter.

I would agree with almost everything Fjott says, except a couple minor things. I do believe having the yellow SoS is important which I think you get that at like 32 in beastcraft. Also, the buff's for d/q and af are not the listed values. You do realise that you will actually have less d/q with the 75 value charge then you would with the lvl 40 beastcraft d/q buff right? I know it lists it as 63 or whatever, but it actually gives you 78. I was told they give a bonus to self buff classes to encourage them to spec that line. The same applies to the AF buff.

All that being said I agree Fjott. I think I will be lowering my beastcraft to 32 or 33 (whichever gives me the the high end pet and 2nd best SoS) then I will put the rest into Spear for the followup to the rear stun. I dont think this is a bad thing though since it can give hunters another option for spec'ing. For people that dont want to pay and deal with charges the 40 beastcraft spec is still viable, but for those that want maximum utility in their class they can now throw an extra charge or 2 in and lower beastcraft to raise other areas.

40 Path or high beastcraft wont be viable anymore.
Gonna split into even bigger charge wars^^
Viper3 assasin with 20 more con wont help to make them easier.

I'm keeping 40 path on my ranger. No reason not to. you will see 3 more d/q on ur your self buff, you use one less charge, and I would be at 36 path even if not at 40 for the dmg add, and I dont really have anything to put those extra points into at this point. At lower RR I would have.

I think it makes a much bigger impact on hunter since as Fjott pointed out, you dont have the Str and Dmg Add buffs for beastcraft that we do in pathfinding. I agree though Celteen, this will have us seeing alot more low pathfinding and low beastcraft rangers/hunters. I know I have both, ranger I am keeping the same (40 path), but my hunter I will be lowering it so I can get the 44 spear style.

Remember, its all relative on the s/c charge change. Yes, some assasins will have the higher s/c charge, but so will you.

pweet wrote:each attacker should half the defense, at least afaik

It (should?) reduces defense, but not by half. Penaly is too low to be compared to the one from dual wield .

Very good reasoning, Fjott. Rangers have access to so many more toys. Desperate bowman is such a cheap "get out of jail free" card. Physical Defense (why hasn't this been removed from rangers?), Dmg Add.. etc.. too many toys.

Scouts get a shield slam and a RR5 ability with a shield slam + root.. and Hunters get a broken RR5.

Why have there been no efforts to correct these imbalances? Could it be that 1.69 is a flawed version?

thursa wrote:Very good reasoning, Fjott. Rangers have access to so many more toys. Desperate bowman is such a cheap "get out of jail free" card. Physical Defense (why hasn't this been removed from rangers?), Dmg Add.. etc.. too many toys.

Scouts get a shield slam and a RR5 ability with a shield slam + root.. and Hunters get a broken RR5.

Why have there been no efforts to correct these imbalances? Could it be that 1.69 is a flawed version?

Make a bugreport if you think something is buggy.
Physical defense gonna be taken away from Ranger at some point, same goes for Hunter and Scout.
I dont see any use in PD anyway so I run without it, why would I buy melee RA's with a Range Dps.