Again it’s time to talk about the class that everybody fears playing, Hunters. I’ve been playing as Hunter since the EA started (and also just a little at iCBT) and i feel that the class itself is quite good but it got some bugs and annoying limitations that makes it lackluster, that happens in such a way that you either need a guide to play it or spend time enough to figure out how to play with it.
As a Hunter fellow I would like to point some problems and ideas to make it better, the main point here is to give some insight on what the class need to operate at a minimum level of efficiency (some quality of life) and not making it overpower.
So far these are the main problems that the class have along with some ideas to make them less painfull.
Major Problems
1 – Almost useless against Bosses and at Missions, only Rush Dog can be used on Bosses without restrictions
2 - Two skills that anchor the Companion (bug) for quite some time thus disabling all Hunter skills for that duration
3 – Impossible to disable the Companion actions/behaviors once used, not even the rest mode will disable them
4 – Rush Dog breaks all rules and got almost no damage scale
5 – The AI isn’t reliable and cannot be controled
Minor Problems
6 – Praise isn’t significant enough
7 – Pointing isn’t significant enough and presents the worst interaction with problem 3 since is the only skill that can be detrimental while active
Suggestions
• Make Coursing/Retrieve work against Bosses even if that means reducing its duration/damage/DoT delay, it’s better to have them underpowered than don’t have them at all and this will help a lot with problem 1
• Add a dispell skill (level 1 only) that removes all Hunter’s effects aside Praise, it’s not the best way to deal with problems 2 and 3 but it will solve then quickly while these bugs aren’t fixed
• Change the buff target from the Companion to the Hunter so they can be disabled as any regular buff, I think it’s the best way to solve 3 but might be annoying to implement
• Add Hunter’s stats to Rush Dog damage formula, it’s a cheap way to make it scale well and it shouldn’t make it overpower, if needed it can have the base damage reduced and also allow it to be evaded or blocked
• Change Praise to a “link” skill that gives some of the Hunter’s stats to the Companion (and also removing Hunter’s stats from the offensive skills) along with the flat stats, that would be an interesting change to the skill since it would be able to empower in general and not only when they’re using skills, this could fix problem 4 and help both problems 1 and 6
• Add Attack Speed to Praise that scales with level, it’s a tiny change that can be quite interesting to have (of course it can’t affect Coursing, Retrieve and Snatching) in order to make the skill more attractive
• Add attribute(s) that allows the Hunter to command their party Companions to use some few skills (Coursing, Pointing, Praise, Rush Dog, Snatching), that’s an interesting way to add some party value to the class under specific conditions, it can help with problems 1, 7 and 4 (if stay at it is). For balancing purposes it can have effects reduced to party Companions and limited to specific circles.
These ideas are only suggestions to make the class more interesting to play and fixing the 4 major problems would be enough, I don’t think any of those changes would make it a must have nor make it better than others at their current state if tuned properly