Hunter’s Guide to Being a Hunter
11/15/01 Harkonis HellRazor www.harkonis.com
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Introduction
This guide has been written because I have seen many people, both Hunters and other classes who either want to know how the class works, how to build an effective Hunter, or how the latest changes have affected this class. This guide will also walk you through the advantages of different races for the class, and what I have found to be the most effective RvR template and progressing allowing for an effective character as well as a very usable and fun experience on the way to level 50.
To start off with, let’s examine the three races available as a Hunter. We have the Kobold, the Norseman and the Dwarf. Once you understand how the skill set works for a Hunter, you’ll see that there really is no choice but a Kobold if you want an effective RvR bow Hunter. This is not to say that you cannot be effective with another race, or even that you are gimped, but purely from a statistical standpoint, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The “best” choice for a Hunter, is a Kobold that specs in Bow, Stealth, Beast and Spear in that order. I will demonstrate why to avoid sword, as well as why to choose the Kobold.
A Hunter’s main statistics are Dex, Qui and Str, in that order of importance (for RvR).
Dex will help you hit more with your spear and your bow, do more damage with your spear and your bow, and evade more often.
Qui will allow you to attack more often with your spear, and fire more quickly with your bow.
Str will allow you to hit more often with your spear, do more damage with your spear, and carry more arrows, arrow materials and loot.
Dwarf
The Dwarf is the least likely candidate to make a decent Hunter, the reasons for this are the lower Dex and Qui and Str. The Dwarf’s main advantage is Con, and unless you are going the route of a spear spec Hunter, the advantage of high Con is not as useful.
Norseman
The Norseman is a fairly good choice for a Hunter, however it is still far from the best choice. The reason’s here are a bit more complicated that for the Dwarf. The Norseman does have higher Str, and this allows you to carry more loot and arrows, as well as increase your spear skill/damage. This is a reason that many people pick Norseman for their Hunters. However, I’ll show the reasons why the Kobold is still the better choice.
Since the spear skill/damage is factored equally by Str and Dex, if you look at the Norseman’s advantages versus a Kobold’s, you’ll see that the Norseman starts with 70 Str and 50 Dex, while the Kobold has 50 Str and 70 Dex. When you average these, the bonus towards spear is identical, so both the Kobold and Norseman have equal skill and damage with the spear. The big difference here comes in with the Qui. Since the Kobold’s Qui is higher (20 points higher) the Kobold Hunter swings his spear much faster, thus doing quite a bit more damage over time. Add to this the fact that bow skill/damage is based on Dex, and you can see why a Kobold is the best choice. Some people say that since your Str, Dex and Qui all go up over time, it evens out, but this doesn’t make up for the difference that you have from the start. All things considered even (levels, specs, equipment), a Kobold Hunter will out-damage a Norseman Hunter with either the spear OR the bow. I have tested this many times.
Kobold
Most of the positives of the Kobold have been covered above in the Norseman section, so I’ll go over the con’s here. You will have lower HP than a Hunter of another class. This really isn’t that big of an issue, and considering the positives it is easily overcome, with the right equipment, I have no problem staying in a fight, and am only a slight amount of hit points off from a Norseman Hunter of the same level. The other drawback is the lack of the ability to carry much. This is the big problem with the Kobold race. It can be a nuisance at times, but is far from crippling. Once you hit RvR, it’s a completely moot point, since you aren’t there to grab loot anyway, and you can easily carry hundreds of arrows by that time.
Okay, so now we’ve decided on Kobold, you now have 30 points to distribute. You should put no more than 10 points into any one stat, since once you are over +10, you end up spending more than 1 point for 1 point. To maximize skill and damage on a Kobold Hunter, choose +10 Str +10 Dex and +10 Qui. This will greatly improve both of your main weapon skills/damage as well as help limit your encumbrance issues.
The first 5 levels are fairly challenging with this template, but that will only take you about 2-3 hours of time, and will quickly move on to you being very effective. It will almost feel like you are playing 3 separate characters throughout your character’s “life”. Up to level 5 you’re a fairly weak sword-fighting rogue, then you become a spear wielding powerhouse for a few levels, then you start to flesh out your bow skill and Spear falls to the wayside and you do most of your damage before the enemy can even close to you.
For the first 5 levels, do NOT place any spec points, anywhere. Just suffer through your first five levels with your default sword skill, and kill blues. Try to kill lots of skeletons and ponies until you can get to level 6 or so, they give good money.
Once you hit level 5, the fun starts with this class.
|
Level |
C. Bow |
Spear |
Beastcraft |
Stealth |
|
5 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
|
10 |
7 |
9 |
6 |
1 |
|
15 |
11 |
10 |
12 |
7 |
|
20 |
16 |
12 |
16 |
10 |
|
30 |
26 |
12 |
26 |
16 |
|
40 |
36 |
12 |
35 |
23 |
|
50a |
47 |
13 |
35 |
47 |
|
50b |
50 |
18 |
35 |
42 |
There are a few goals that I should lay out first. You want a Spear spec of 10 quickly, since that is a very usable tech (Lancer). You also want to keep your Beastcraft fairly high, since the advantage that it gives you to damage per hit, accuracy of attacks, and speed of attacks is pretty impressive. Plus Beastcraft allows the pets, pet buff, and speed burst, which are all critical to keeping that hard earned experience and money.
The above progression is to allow you to progress at a smooth pace, and keep your character from radically changing as much as possible over it’s lifespan to 50. It also is to allow you to PvE with ease, and at the same time slowly work your way into being an RvR master.
When you hit level 5, you should pour those points into Spear and Beastcraft, and ignore bow for a bit. You can tank at that level without much worry as long as you keep your armor/spear up to date, or a little higher.
At level 10, you can see that we’ve already begun upping the bow to at least a 2/3 level, this allow the bow to do a fair amount of damage before you finish them off with your spear. The spear will still be your main damage dealer for a few more levels as you develop your bow skill. You can out-damage warrior types with the mighty spear, just be careful with aggro. Also, you get your speed burst at level 6, so that is also an important step to your survival.
Once you get to level 15, the progression becomes pretty stable. At this point you can see that stealth is now an issue. It’s fine if you simply take stealth from 1 to 7 all at level 15, you have almost zero PRACTICAL uses for stealth up to that point anyway, so get the most out of your character up to that point, this will help you level as fast as possible.
At level 20, the pattern is set. From this point on, keep Composite Bow, and Beastcraft both spec’d four (4) levels below your character level. Spear can be ignored after 12, since that’s when you get dismissal. This will be covered more in detail later. Every time you level, you should be able to up Composite Bow by 1, and Beastcraft by 1, always keeping them at Level-4. This will keep those skills always useful, and you will get the bonuses without giving up much effectiveness. Keeping Beastcraft at that level ensures that as you level, you will always have the proper level of Beastcraft to charm pets that are appropriate for your level, you won’t have to play “catch-up” which is a real pain if you mess that up. In addition this keeps you on top of the Dex/Qui buffs, which truly make the Hunter an exceptional bowman, and greatly increase your attack speed, skill and damage. Level progression remains the same until level 39.
At level 39, your Beastcraft should hit spec level 35. This is the end for BC. This gives you the final upgrade for charming pets. The next upgrade is 5 levels higher, and simply not worth the spec points for what it gives you. By this point you have a very nice pet buff, the highest level pets available, a very nice speed burst for emergencies, and your standard armor buff and Dex/qui buffs, which always rock.
The levels between 40-50 are when you have another choice to make…
The reason for these two choices is because we don’t yet know what higher levels of stealth, or higher levels of bow have to offer for Hunters. Since you can up your specs with magic items, and it was confirmed by Mythic that spec’ing over 50 would not do anything at this time, unless we get some special bow skill between 47 and 50, there is no point in raising the spec to 50. It would be better to just find +3 bow equipment to put us at 50. However, you’ll also notice that choice 50b has 18 in spear, this allows you to have the follow up to Lancer, which is very effective as well, but should only need to be used in emergencies, since especially at high level, melee can equal a quick death for you.
Assuming that nothing “magical” and game changing is added to bows after spec 47, choice 50a will create the ultimate, stealthy, quick firing, hard hitting Kobold Hunter from hell. ™
Always try to keep your equipment yellow-orange. I don’t mean when your equipment drops to blue, ditch it though. The progression I’ve found is most effective for armor, is to upgrade to all orange, and wear it until it goes green, then buy what’s orange at that point. Always use quest drops if you can (blue or above) and ALWAYS use player-crafted armor over store bought. Also once you can wear steel or better, enchant every piece or armor and every weapon you use.
For your spear, follow the same progression as with armor. All spears are based off of Dex/Str, regardless of damage type. This was also confirmed, and I have tested it on top of that. Buy orange, sell green. The Great Spear seems to be the best bet in my experience. You’ll have a high enough Qui to attack fairly fast with it, and it does enough damage to drop an enemy pretty quickly right when it reaches you.
For your arrows, use your freebies for the first few levels, up to 8 or 9 or so. Then start using rough bodkins for outdoors and rough clout bodkins for indoors. When you hit level 15, start using rough broadheads for the added damage. Once you get to level 20 or so, you should never use less than standard broadhead, except for RvR, then use flight broadhead. If you prefer range to damage, step down a notch, for example use flight bodkin instead of standard broadhead. This arrow progression will maximize your damage to pocketbook ratio. You may want to fletch your way to about 450 in skill or so. At that point you can make flight broadheads at town, and standard broadheads in the field, and you save 50% on arrows. Since flight broadheads cost almost 16s just to make, imagine paying 32s for them, and you’ll see why either having access to a fletcher, or being one yourself is useful.
Once you hit level 35 up, for RvR, you can use footed flight broadhead, these are almost half a gold per bundle, and that is cost. So they are definitely special occasion arrows.
You bow should never drop below yellow. I have found that the damage I do with a bow when it hits blue, can easily be out done by the next bow up, even with the penalties for using a higher conning weapon. So with bows, buy/craft an orange to you bow, then sell or trade it for another orange when it goes blue. ALWAYS use quest or player crafted (then enchanted) bows. I prefer the slower firing harder hitting bows, since the damage per arrow, and thus the damage per silver spent is better. In large RvR battles, a faster bow is sometimes better though. (see RvR section)
(THIS DOCUMENT IS INCOMPLETE AND STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION)