[octopus]

I don't hate hunters (most anyway), but I hate the class because I feel they are significantly overpowered compared to all other classes. They have many advantages, but these are not balanced out by many disadvantages.

Speed: Hunters have by far the greatest speed of any class, and can sustain this speed without spells (no casting time, no mana cost). Their pets are also faster than other classes.

Evasion: In my experience, hunters have by FAR the best evasion. ALL of the items my warlocks uses are +Concentration, for the sole purpose of not having spells evaded. Both rings, amulet, hat, etc. are all +Concentration. Even with Metabolic Control (another +10 Conc), I still see 2/3 of my spells being evaded by hunter. I see hunters run into a crowd of 5 or 6 enemies, do some attacking, then run off with over half their HP left, even with all those people hammering on them. They have as good or better defenses than even a knight.

Ranged weapons: They have ranged weapons, an advantage they share with marksmen and mages.

Pets: They have very powerful pets that cost no mana to sustain. A conjurer's summon must be re-cast every 4 minutes, at cost of 550 to 600 mana. A warlock who gets lucky enough to capture a summon won't have it long, since he can't heal it, and loses it on logout. Hunters can revive their pet if it dies, and their pets become invisible now with the improvements in Camo. With their speed higher than most other classes, the hunter only needs to send his pet after the person. I see "very easy" pets doing 250+ damage, and level 50 pets doing around 400.

Strong attacks at no mana cost and no casting time: Hunters tell me they can't hit hard, but I see them hitting for 200 to 250 with standard arrows, plus 350 to 400 for their pet. That's 550 to 650, over and over. No mana cost, no casting time. My warlock's most powerful spell might do 1000 to a hunter if I'm lucky... but in that time, he can attack twice, along with his pet, dealing up to 1200 to 1300 damage. Again, no mana cost, no cool-down.

Escape: When a hunter attacks, he faces very little risk of dying. If he gets very unlucky and doesn't evade everything, no biggie. He can simply run away if he gets hurt too bad. Let his pet keep hammering on the enemy, but who cares? It's easy enough to run off, revive pet, regain mana and HP, and go back again. I often "beat" a hunter until they leave, but I almost never actually kill them. I see this even when I'm in a group attacking lone hunter.

Area attack: Though hunters are considered a "defensive" class, they have a nice area of attack spell. I see this all the time... walk in invisible to center of enemy army, cast their AoE attack, then run off with rarely a scratch.

Mana: I hear hunters say they don't have much mana. But who cares, when their attacks do not depend on it? Most of the damage I see done by hunters is from their normal attacks and pet. Also their spells cost less than the equivalent spell from mages. Example: knockdown spell. Mages have Will Domain, which at level 5 knocks down for 8 seconds, has a 2 second casting time, and costs 300 mana. Hunters have Ambush, which at level also knocks down for 8 seconds, but only takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and only costs 130 mana! That's less than half the mana of Will Domain!

Confuse: This one spell, I believe, is the reason there are so few support conjurers anymore. This one spell is fast to cast, low mana cost, low cool-down, is about the only mental-type spell that is not hindered by Mind Blank, and has a duration of 35 to 40 seconds! Cast this on a conjurer in a small party, and there's not much they can do except shoot their staff for 100 damage, or a level 1 ivy (this is all the offense most support conjurers have).

Son of the Wind: This spell protects like the conjurer's Sanctuary... except the hunter and his pet can continue to attack. Sanctuary, on the other hand, will instantly cancel all buffs, all area spells, and their summon the moment it's cast, leaving the conjurer very vulnerable the moment it wears off. By the time a hunter's SoW wears off, he's out of range of all enemies and quite safe.

Canceling spells by moving through people: Any class can do this "tactic" but I believe it is far more effective for hunters, for two reasons. First, they don't need to cast any spells to do their damage, because they do very good damage with their normal bow shots plus pet. Secondly, with their higher movement speed, they can much more easily do this tactic to the other, slower classes.

So, in every aspect of the game, I see that hunters have advantages. Speed, damage, low mana cost, high attack speed, invisibility, pets, range attacks, incredible evasion, powerful area attack, SoW. Where are their disadvantages to balance these out?

Hunters are perceived as cowards. Enemy hunters run away if they start to lose, leaving their pet to do their dirty work. Also I often see hunters scattering when their fort door is about to break, zipping off unharmed, leaving their remaining teammates in a very weakened state. Of course not all are cowards, but the class itself encourages this behavior.

I hope this explains my point of view. Though I'm sure many will disagree with me, I attempted to quantify my reasons as well as I could.

What attracted me to Regnum was the idea of classes and balance. Every class had strengths and weaknesses. However with each update, I see multiple new benefits added to hunters, and little if any given to other classes. I believe that the unbalance of the hunter class is degrading the game in general. I see more and more hunters, and far less knights and almost no support conjurers in comparison. With other bugs factored in, such as bugged castle guards, I see less fort battles with good teamwork, with a significant increase in the number of level 50 hunters running around as unstoppable killing machines.