Hunter Guide

learntoplay · 02-25-2013, 04:17 AM

I didn't quite know where to put this, but I was asked to make a hunter guide; here is what I have so far (bare in mind that I have not had any in depth suggestions just yet, so this is fairly basic and feedback is appreciated). Final product will include video links.

Hunter

Class Strengths:
Stealth
Speed
High range
Burst damage
Ability to pick fights
Confuse

Class Weaknesses:
Low sustained damage
Less range than marksman
Less defense than marksman
Limited CC options

Important Skills:
Ensnaring Arrow
Camouflage
Distraction shot
Mobility (If petless)
Cold Blood
Son of the Wind
Confuse

Hunter is the best solo class (in my opinion) because you can track down enemies and pick who you fight, and when you fight them. As a hunter, you're strongest 1v1 when you catch your enemy unbuffed or fighting another player/mob. When you catch them unbuffed, you can come out of camo on them and use confuse to keep them unbuffed (and cut off some of their ccs – such as silence, ambush, distraction shot, defeaning roar etc etc), usually for long enough to kill them using cold blood.

General fighting suggestions:
Track before you uncamo and know if there are other enemies likely to interrupt the fight
Know your surroundings – If you uncamo on someone they will typically go for the nearest rock or tree, leaving more time to others to interrupt the fight
If you decide to use a pet: be wary of pet hp and likelyhood that enemies will kill your pet; use buffs to keep it alive and debuffs to increase the damage it does.
When fighting more than one player, distraction shot one and kill the other AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, then pace the next fight, play smart to stay alive.
When fighting more than one player, use proper target priority first: Conj > Warlock > Marks > Hunter > Barb > Knight *

*This is in MOST cases my target priority; eliminate the classes that will take longest to kill with distraction shot first then kill the others. Use this fight as an example: Marksman + Hunter vs Me. Distraction shot hunter, confuse marks and take his hp down as much as possible (you MIGHT manage to kill him before the hunter gets out of distraction shot), finish off the marksman then kill the hunter. I would do this because the hunter would die at the same time as the marksman, but marksman will do more damage to me with his normals and take longer to kill than the hunter would, making the 2nd fight harder than if I would have done the opposite. Generally, take out healer first, but after that you would kill the class that would do most damage first.

Fighting specific classes: I am going on the assumption that you start from camo without pet

Warlocks:
A typical combo I would use on a warlock would be uncamo with normal hit (always do this, you get high damage from your first normal out of camo and it doesn't appear in their log) then confuse, rapid shot and son of the wind (you need to avoid these spells mainly: beetle swarm, frozen storm, soulkeeper, vampirism, sultars terror – These will waste the timer on confuse). In the duration of son of the wind, use cold blood – this will take down the hp of the warlock by a significant amount. When your son of the wind is about to end, maybe 1 second left, use distraction shot on the warlock (if he is above 20% hp – if he is not, use ambush and finish him off in the duration: if they don't die in the duration use distraction shot then, or stunning fist) and rest for mana. Before your distraction shot ends, you should buff rapid shot (if its off c/d) and dirty fighting, then ambush; if by the end of ambush the opponent doesn't die, use stunning fist from here. I would personally get to some range at this point and and ensnare should do to finish the job. You should buff acrobatic at some stage in this fight, preferably during distraction shot.

If you do this fight without camo (a pvp for example): Start with some range and use this range to break barrier, and the possible rebuffing of barrier, then rapid shot and son of the wind (at 30m), move in close and cold blood. After the cold blood, follow the guide.
Support conjurer:
Assuming you find a support conjurer running around alone, if you need help killing them, please stop reading.

In war the best thing to do is keep the conjs under pressure and distract them from healing their allies. Conjs without DI are asking to be confused.
Warju:
I wouldn't suggest fighting them petless, but if you do, catch them with confuse when they don't have pet or steel skin/karma mirror up, then son of the wind and follow the guide to how to kill warlock. You really need to think fast, you can't rely on mind blank to fail. If mind blank does run out in the duration of confuse, use distraction shot on them, rest for mana then ambush. You should be able to kill them in this duration, if not, go to range after stunning fist and try to nuke from there. Warju really is the toughest class to kill. You will need to buff acrobatic at some stage in this fight.

If you do this fight without camo, you want to keep range until you can break barrier and take the warju down some hp, or until they neglect to rebuff mind blank (or you think it's about to end), son of the wind and go into range, confuse, cold blood, follow the guide from there.
Hunter:
If you start from camo, the easiest way to control the fight would be to normal hit, confuse, rapid shot, cold blood; when cold blood ends, use a dot then either distraction shot as the confuse duration runs out (if they don't use their son of the wind) or son of the wind and continue to add damage on to them, then if needed use ambush or distraction shot at the end of their son of the wind. You will want to avoid stunning fist during your confuse duration, so if they start running towards you, strafe away as you are using your cold blood damage, or if you're not confident, use ambush and then use your cold blood.

If the hunter is not petless, you have the option to distraction shot the hunter and kill his pet, then ambush the hunter, and confuse before they get up again (during the ambush time you may use normal hits, a DOT or sudden strike etc; I prefer 1 normal > sudden strike > 1 normal > confuse)

If you start the fight without camo, you will want to use break apart from range, buff defense and use retaliation. You will generally want to look for distraction shot before the other hunter gets it, take the fight from there; as the other hunter likely buffed defense at this point, you will want to debuff using sudden strike and use your distraction shot time to wear away a chunk of their buff duration, then confuse will stop them from further buffing. If you fight this way, an option would be to use confuse out of distraction shot, then do damage and cold blood in the duration of confuse and ambush or stunning fist from that as confuse ends.

Marksman:
If you start from camo, you may want to use distraction shot first, as this saves you from being instantly winter stroked, wasting confuse. If you choose to skip distraction shot at first, going straight with confuse, should do so within 15-20 range so they don't just keep running away from you. After confuse you will want to use son of the wind to avoid being winter stroked, then use rapid shot, buff some defense (preferably acrobatics, as stacking rapid shot and evasive tactics can lead to a bunch of missed shots), and unload your cold blood. As your confuse is wearing off you should aim to have a DOT on the enemy, and stun them with stunning fist; if you manage to land this before they can buff, feel free to buff evasive tactics and break stunning fist with ensnare – by this stage they should be dead or within 5% hp while you are well above 50-60%.

If you start without camo, you should try to lure the marksman within your range using trees or other objects – marksman hit higher than you and you won't hit them for much unbuffed at all. You can pop out from a tree and distraction shot them while they're still moving, but this will require a lack of concentration on the marksmans part and fast movements on yours, or you can force them the whole way to the tree and stunning fist (if you choose to bring them to the tree, you'll want to have defense buffed), then it's all tree hugging from there. If you choose the distraction shot option, read above.

Fighting a marksman who has buffed, you will want to stand as close as possible to them to negate their strategic positioning buff.

General rule of thumb versus archers: do not spam stuff through son of the wind, you have very few cc's to use and you will just be wasting mana or relying on luck.

Barbarian:

You'll want to learn how to strafe for fighting barbarians (unless you're Drew.). Fighting barbarians can be a tedious process, if they lose interest they will instantly run to a tree, so you'll need to manage your distance to around 20-25m. You will not be able to kill them in a cold blood duration, but if you uncamo on them, use your normal then either use a dot or confuse them and try to get some damage on them before they're aware of your exact position. Do some damage and make sure you keep ensnare on them as much as possible. Mobility is mainly used for barbs so you'll want to use it when they use spring – combined with ensnare and passive movement speed it will keep you ahead of barbs if you've used your distance right; if you feel a barb is too close (within 5m, roar range-ish), then don't be scared of using your son of the wind to avoid this, and use retaliation – if UM ends, use stunning fist or ambush and continue to keep the damage going while maintaining safe distance. There is no real “way” of killing barbs, just make sure to keep away from them and keep ensnare ON them. You may choose to use hinder or caltrops on a barb, but this will lead to them going to a tree and it is quite cheap to use vs one barb.

Knight:
This is usually a longer version of the barbarian fight, but you will need to use your DOTs a lot more. If you can catch the knight without defensive stance, confuse him. This should take off a fair amount of his HP with cold blood. If the knight isn't using defensive support (1 v 1 he won't touch you if he has it), then you can lure him out of defensive stance by letting him catch you, then using stunning fist when he leaves it, then confuse from there (be aware of the high risk of disable limb from this – you might need to use son of the wind and mobility to get away from him again). It's a long tedious fight that won't always be worth it, but your DOT's (break apart mainly) will contribute greatly to speeding up this fight.

02-25-2013, 04:17 AM	#1
learntoplay Initiate Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 114	Hunter Guide I didn't quite know where to put this, but I was asked to make a hunter guide; here is what I have so far (bare in mind that I have not had any in depth suggestions just yet, so this is fairly basic and feedback is appreciated). Final product will include video links. Hunter Class Strengths: Stealth Speed High range Burst damage Ability to pick fights Confuse Class Weaknesses: Low sustained damage Less range than marksman Less defense than marksman Limited CC options Important Skills: Ensnaring Arrow Camouflage Distraction shot Mobility (If petless) Cold Blood Son of the Wind Confuse Hunter is the best solo class (in my opinion) because you can track down enemies and pick who you fight, and when you fight them. As a hunter, you're strongest 1v1 when you catch your enemy unbuffed or fighting another player/mob. When you catch them unbuffed, you can come out of camo on them and use confuse to keep them unbuffed (and cut off some of their ccs – such as silence, ambush, distraction shot, defeaning roar etc etc), usually for long enough to kill them using cold blood. General fighting suggestions: Track before you uncamo and know if there are other enemies likely to interrupt the fight Know your surroundings – If you uncamo on someone they will typically go for the nearest rock or tree, leaving more time to others to interrupt the fight If you decide to use a pet: be wary of pet hp and likelyhood that enemies will kill your pet; use buffs to keep it alive and debuffs to increase the damage it does. When fighting more than one player, distraction shot one and kill the other AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, then pace the next fight, play smart to stay alive. When fighting more than one player, use proper target priority first: Conj > Warlock > Marks > Hunter > Barb > Knight * This is in MOST cases my target priority; eliminate the classes that will take longest to kill with distraction shot first then kill the others. Use this fight as an example: Marksman + Hunter vs Me. Distraction shot hunter, confuse marks and take his hp down as much as possible (you MIGHT manage to kill him before the hunter gets out of distraction shot), finish off the marksman then kill the hunter. I would do this because the hunter would die at the same time as the marksman, but marksman will do more damage to me with his normals and take longer to kill than the hunter would, making the 2nd fight harder than if I would have done the opposite. Generally, take out healer first, but after that you would kill the class that would do most damage first. Fighting specific classes: I am going on the assumption that you start from camo without pet Warlocks: A typical combo I would use on a warlock would be uncamo with normal hit (always do this, you get high damage from your first normal out of camo and it doesn't appear in their log) then confuse, rapid shot and son of the wind (you need to avoid these spells mainly: beetle swarm, frozen storm, soulkeeper, vampirism, sultars terror – These will waste the timer on confuse). In the duration of son of the wind, use cold blood – this will take down the hp of the warlock by a significant amount. When your son of the wind is about to end, maybe 1 second left, use distraction shot on the warlock (if he is above 20% hp – if he is not, use ambush and finish him off in the duration: if they don't die in the duration use distraction shot then, or stunning fist) and rest for mana. Before your distraction shot ends, you should buff rapid shot (if its off c/d) and dirty fighting, then ambush; if by the end of ambush the opponent doesn't die, use stunning fist from here. I would personally get to some range at this point and and ensnare should do to finish the job. You should buff acrobatic at some stage in this fight, preferably during distraction shot. If you do this fight without camo (a pvp for example): Start with some range and use this range to break barrier, and the possible rebuffing of barrier, then rapid shot and son of the wind (at 30m), move in close and cold blood. After the cold blood, follow the guide. Support conjurer: Assuming you find a support conjurer running around alone, if you need help killing them, please stop reading. In war the best thing to do is keep the conjs under pressure and distract them from healing their allies. Conjs without DI are asking to be confused. Warju: I wouldn't suggest fighting them petless, but if you do, catch them with confuse when they don't have pet or steel skin/karma mirror up, then son of the wind and follow the guide to how to kill warlock. You really need to think fast, you can't rely on mind blank to fail. If mind blank does run out in the duration of confuse, use distraction shot on them, rest for mana then ambush. You should be able to kill them in this duration, if not, go to range after stunning fist and try to nuke from there. Warju really is the toughest class to kill. You will need to buff acrobatic at some stage in this fight. If you do this fight without camo, you want to keep range until you can break barrier and take the warju down some hp, or until they neglect to rebuff mind blank (or you think it's about to end), son of the wind and go into range, confuse, cold blood, follow the guide from there. Hunter: If you start from camo, the easiest way to control the fight would be to normal hit, confuse, rapid shot, cold blood; when cold blood ends, use a dot then either distraction shot as the confuse duration runs out (if they don't use their son of the wind) or son of the wind and continue to add damage on to them, then if needed use ambush or distraction shot at the end of their son of the wind. You will want to avoid stunning fist during your confuse duration, so if they start running towards you, strafe away as you are using your cold blood damage, or if you're not confident, use ambush and then use your cold blood. If the hunter is not petless, you have the option to distraction shot the hunter and kill his pet, then ambush the hunter, and confuse before they get up again (during the ambush time you may use normal hits, a DOT or sudden strike etc; I prefer 1 normal > sudden strike > 1 normal > confuse) If you start the fight without camo, you will want to use break apart from range, buff defense and use retaliation. You will generally want to look for distraction shot before the other hunter gets it, take the fight from there; as the other hunter likely buffed defense at this point, you will want to debuff using sudden strike and use your distraction shot time to wear away a chunk of their buff duration, then confuse will stop them from further buffing. If you fight this way, an option would be to use confuse out of distraction shot, then do damage and cold blood in the duration of confuse and ambush or stunning fist from that as confuse ends. Marksman: If you start from camo, you may want to use distraction shot first, as this saves you from being instantly winter stroked, wasting confuse. If you choose to skip distraction shot at first, going straight with confuse, should do so within 15-20 range so they don't just keep running away from you. After confuse you will want to use son of the wind to avoid being winter stroked, then use rapid shot, buff some defense (preferably acrobatics, as stacking rapid shot and evasive tactics can lead to a bunch of missed shots), and unload your cold blood. As your confuse is wearing off you should aim to have a DOT on the enemy, and stun them with stunning fist; if you manage to land this before they can buff, feel free to buff evasive tactics and break stunning fist with ensnare – by this stage they should be dead or within 5% hp while you are well above 50-60%. If you start without camo, you should try to lure the marksman within your range using trees or other objects – marksman hit higher than you and you won't hit them for much unbuffed at all. You can pop out from a tree and distraction shot them while they're still moving, but this will require a lack of concentration on the marksmans part and fast movements on yours, or you can force them the whole way to the tree and stunning fist (if you choose to bring them to the tree, you'll want to have defense buffed), then it's all tree hugging from there. If you choose the distraction shot option, read above. Fighting a marksman who has buffed, you will want to stand as close as possible to them to negate their strategic positioning buff. General rule of thumb versus archers: do not spam stuff through son of the wind, you have very few cc's to use and you will just be wasting mana or relying on luck. Barbarian: You'll want to learn how to strafe for fighting barbarians (unless you're Drew.). Fighting barbarians can be a tedious process, if they lose interest they will instantly run to a tree, so you'll need to manage your distance to around 20-25m. You will not be able to kill them in a cold blood duration, but if you uncamo on them, use your normal then either use a dot or confuse them and try to get some damage on them before they're aware of your exact position. Do some damage and make sure you keep ensnare on them as much as possible. Mobility is mainly used for barbs so you'll want to use it when they use spring – combined with ensnare and passive movement speed it will keep you ahead of barbs if you've used your distance right; if you feel a barb is too close (within 5m, roar range-ish), then don't be scared of using your son of the wind to avoid this, and use retaliation – if UM ends, use stunning fist or ambush and continue to keep the damage going while maintaining safe distance. There is no real “way” of killing barbs, just make sure to keep away from them and keep ensnare ON them. You may choose to use hinder or caltrops on a barb, but this will lead to them going to a tree and it is quite cheap to use vs one barb. Knight: This is usually a longer version of the barbarian fight, but you will need to use your DOTs a lot more. If you can catch the knight without defensive stance, confuse him. This should take off a fair amount of his HP with cold blood. If the knight isn't using defensive support (1 v 1 he won't touch you if he has it), then you can lure him out of defensive stance by letting him catch you, then using stunning fist when he leaves it, then confuse from there (be aware of the high risk of disable limb from this – you might need to use son of the wind and mobility to get away from him again). It's a long tedious fight that won't always be worth it, but your DOT's (break apart mainly) will contribute greatly to speeding up this fight. __________________ Monday - Midget* Sex Machine Last edited by learntoplay; 02-25-2013 at 07:05 AM.