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The following has changed since the last revision (v1.54):
The following have been added since the last revision (v1.54):
Table of Contents: 1. What's the best race for a Hunter?
1. What's the best race for a Hunter? Because of the emergence of realm abilities, certain races are better than others in the longer run. The usefulness of Falcon's Eye and Mastery of Pain makes high DEX races less desirable, because the points spent on buying the prerequisite Augmented Dexterity II will be wasted on Kobolds. While Kobolds have an advantage in the beginning game, by level 50 they will have a slight disadvantage due to these wasted attribute points. It is fairly common for Norsemen/Dwarves to be able to reach 300 DEX (the effective maximum) with only +10 into their starting DEX and Augmented Dexterity II (adding another +12). Size is a not an issue in RvR. The way the graphics engine is, most players have no problems seeing kobolds, much less dwarves or Norsemen trying to "hide" in bushes. If you want to get out of sight, you'll have to obstruct with an actual polygon tree, get out of the clipping plane, or stealth. Norsemen: Starting with 70 STR, 70 CON, 50 DEX, and 50 QUI, they are the most balanced of the Hunter races. While Kobolds have a -4% faster drawtime, Norsemen can expect to have ~72 more hit points based upon their starting CON. In addition, the WeapSkill caps for having a lower starting DEX have been removed, and a Norseman with equal DEX will shoot a bow just as hard as a Kobold with equal DEX. A Norseman at level 50 will on average have ~72 hit points more than a Kobold, shoot 0.1-0.2 seconds slower (depends on bow delay), and deal out an estimated 0-4% less damage (depends on AF of the target). Dwarf: Starting with 60 STR, 80 CON, 50 DEX, and 50 QUI, they are much like the Norseman. By emphasizing CON even more, Dwarves make tougher Hunters than any other race. Arguably, Dwarves make an alternate best spear Hunter because the extra hit points let them deal out more damage in the long run because they can live longer in hand to hand. In contrast, Norsemen are better ambush Spear Hunters, where their better offense is better used. By level 50, those 10 points of CON translate into ~36 extra hit points (for a total average of ~98 more than a Kobold). In other aspects, they are identical to Norseman. Kobolds: Starting with 50 STR, 50 CON, 70 DEX, and 70 QUI, they are intially the best Hunters at the lower levels, when the hit point differences are minimal. By the later levels, Kobolds will begin to lag behind Norseman/Dwarves by ~72-100 hit points. The key issue with Kobolds as Hunters is that they trade STR and CON to have high DEX/QUI. It is their DEX that often exceeds the limit of 300 at level 50, making their racial advantages partially wasted. Trolls cannot be Rogues or Hunters.
2. How should I spend my starting points? The first +10 points to a stat cost only 1 character point each. The next +5 afterwards will cost 2 points each, and the last +3 will cost 3 points each. At most, you can raise 1 stat by 18 points by spending 29 out of your starting 30 character points. Because of the changes in the stat system at higher levels, I do not recommend spending your points by putting them all into one stat. You will get the most benefit (even if it is not a lot) by spreading it out. Hunters will gain 1 pt. of DEX every level, they will gain 1 pt. of QUI every 2 levels, and 1 pt. of STR every three levels. When you hit level 6, you will gain 1 point in all three stats. At level 7 you will only gain a point into DEX. At level 8 you gain 1 DEX and 1 QUI. And finally at level 9, you will gain 1 point in DEX and STR. With the 1.44 patch, the caps based upon starting stats appear to have
been removed entirely. In short, the bonus character points purchased at
this point are apparently no different anymore from points gained via items.
In short, CON, DEX, and QUI give the most benefit to your character because
STR has such limited application to your character (only encumbrance, and
partially spear damage). However, since the effective limit for a stat
is 300, it is not worth it to buy DEX if your race has high DEX to begin
with (i.e. Kobold). For a more detailed explanation, see questions #3 and
#4 below. Because values over 50 begin to give bonuses, almost all races
start out with average or higher values.
3. How does the game calculate damage done per hit? How does it calculate my chances to hit, or block/parry/evade? The chance to hit an opponent is approximately based upon your level and class compared to their level and class, as well as the hit bonus of the style the attacker is using, and the defensive modifier of the last style used by the defender. The chance to block/parry/evade however is more complicated. Your WeapSkill rating is a composite of both your stats and your weapon spec. The defender also has a similar equivalent rating composed of his DEX and/or QUI scores and his shield/parry spec or Evade rating. The comparison of these 2 ratings is what determines the base chance to block/parry/evade. If you fight multiple opponents, this gets more complicated. With parry, the base chance is divided by the number of active melee opponents against you (if you had a 60% chance to parry, and are fighting 3 opponents, your chance is now 20% per attack). With a shield, the game will only allow you to block if your shield is rated to handle that number of opponents (small = 1, medium = 2, large = 3). Your chances to block will not be reduced, but if you are fighting more opponents than your shield can handle, it will not block for the excess opponents. While this information is of little use to Hunters, Evade empirically appears to follow the parry mechanics. Fighting multiple opponents does appear to reduce your chances of evading. To calculate damage, the game takes the WeapSkill, WeapDam, and the target's AF stats to determine how much damage you do. Being higher level than an opponent grants increased damage and vice versa. Your character will hit very hard against grey/green opponents, and hit for very little against red/purple opponents. The mechanics for this are two derived stats known as WeapDam and weapSkill. WeapSkill is basically compared to AF to find out how much of a multiplicative bonus/penalty you receive for hitting something different from your level (it appears to govern the grey to purple damage reduction we see). WeapDam is the effective DPS of your weapon capped by your level. It is important to note that with the 1.44 patch, WeapSkill was not
updated to display correctly. Although higher is better, the way it is
calculated for your character sheet is no longer the same as how the game
uses it. Therefore, it is not a completely accurate measurement anymore,
and it is a now an approximation (so far, it is accurate within 5%). Before
the actual theory is presented, a few more complex terms need to be defined:
WeapDam (i.e. your effective DPS) = capped base DPS for your level x quality x condition Base Damage (per hit) = WeapDam (as a DPS) x unmodified delay Damage Multiplier = (WeapSkill / target's AF) Max Damage (per hit, 100% mark in damage variance equations) = WeapDam (as a DPS) x delay x quality x condition x (WeapSkill / target's AF) Damage Cap (per hit) = unknown function of DPS, delay, and style used
(this is the absolute most dmg a single hit can do)
As you can see, the maximum damage per hit is really just the Base Damage multiplied by the Damage Multipliter. This is the 100% mark referred by the weapon specialization section. If you are completely unspecced, then the damage variance of your weapon will fall between 25-125% of this 100% mark. If you are fully specced (or overspecced), then the damage variance will be 100-150% of this mark. As you can see, "Max Damage" is really a misnomer, as you can still go over this. The damage variance is not something that appears on your character sheet, it is an intangible benefit to speccing in weapons. The actual variance in damage itself (not the range you fall within from speccing) is not linear. See question #17 for more details. There are several other unknown factors involved in this equation, but their effects are small enough that it does not ruin the approximation. These include: condition of the armor worn on the location hit, the CON of the target, and potentially other factors. The following factors will affect your WeapSkill (and hence your character's damage multiplier): 1. Character levels will raise the cap and the actual WeapSkill value by 10 to 50 points, depending on the type of weapon and the character level. Also, the bow appears to have a greater gain in cap per level than the spear. The gains are quite random, despite the constant DEX gain, suggesting that the display is inaccurate. After going through other systems in the game, I doubt they are random. 2. Weapon Specialization raises the benefit you receive from your stats. As you spec in a weapon, you can expect to gain anywhere from 7-9 points of WeapSkill as it raises the benefits gained from your stats. It is possible with extreme specialization (such as 50 base spec, plus another +11 with items/realm ranks) to reach up to 1700 WeapSKill from buffed stats, but this is a very expensive route to take. 3. Stats for weapons will raise your WeapSkill (but not the cap) based upon the type of weapon. The amount you gain depends upon your spec level. In the 30's, Hunters gain around 1.5 pts of WeapSkill per pt. of DEX for bow, and around 0.75 WeapSkill per pt. of DEX or STR for spear. By level 44, these values change to around 3+ pts. of WeapSkill per pt. of DEX for bow, and 1 pt. of WeapSkill per Pt. of DEX/STR for spear. The gains to WeapSkill is a function of level, class, weapon type, and weapon specialization. A comparison with other classes is available in question #19. With the 1.44 patch, WeapSkill is apparently no longer capped by starting stats. Your WeapDam is the effective DPS of your character with a certain weapon. If you are fully able to utilize a weapon, then the clamped DPS displayed in its delve info will equal the DPS listed in the weapon's stats. Every time your character gains a level, your DPS cap goes up by 0.2-0.4 DPS. Gathered information has been used to construct the following chart for levels 40-50. For more details, see question #18 below. 40 - 13.3 DPS
* To get this cap, your character must be level 50 and have reached
realm rank 5.
4. What do the different stats do? How do they affect weapon damage? Which weapons use what stats? There are 4 attributes which affect Hunters: STR: A secondary attribute because its only large effect is spear damage and the Hunter's power pool. Because arrows have had their weight reduced in 1.53, and they are stackable in 100's instead of 40's, STR is even less important except for melee ability. By level 50, with gear and levels, a Kobold starting with 50 STR can easily break 120+ STR, making encumbrance a non-issue. However, if desired, +10 STR can be purchased at character creation to make the early levels easier. STR has very little impact in the end-game because it only improves spear damage in the same manner DEX does (and because spears operate on the average of the 2 stats, this is basically half-effect). However, because DEX is so easily maxed out at 300, STR is often a worthwhile purchase after QUI. See question #29 for an explanation of how STR gives a Hunter his power pool. CON: This adds a lot hit points on paper, but it does help in some subtle ways. Because the stat system has changed, the only known data is that 1 point of CON at level 50 gives a Hunter 3.57 hit points on average. By level 50, a healer buff for +~40 CON gives ~143 extra hit points, which is enough to absorb 1 or 2 extra hits. CON gear helps a lot in RvR, especially if one has a lot of it. It will add up, significantly adding to the durability of the Hunter in RvR. However, because Hunters can achieve up to 26% resists via items, it is easier to increase durability vs. 1 damage type via resists rather than the general approach of hit points and CON. DEX: This increases your weapon damage for bow and for spear. Because the caps based upon starting stat values were removed in the 1.44 path, raising DEX at character creation is a permanent slight boost to damage with both bow and spear. DEX gives a half bonus to spears (which rely upon the average of your DEX and STR) and gives full bonus to bows, which are DEX only weapons. Most non-kobold Hunters put +10 into DEX at character creation because a Hunter relies upon a high offense to compensate for the classes's extreme lack of defense. Kobold Hunters may wish to put their stat points into something else due to the ease at which they will hit the 300 DEX cap at level 50. QUI: This does reduce your melee/ranged weapon delay by a proportional amount. QUI does not reduce the damage per hit, this has been disproved repeatedly with precise testing. It is a tremendous benefit to melee and ranged combat, complementing a high DEX. Again, most Hunters also stick +10 into QUI to further increase their damage output. Because the 1.44 patch removed the caps based upon starting stats, Norsemen and Dwarves can benefit from high QUI beyond the 180 point. For more details, see question #5 below. Hunters who want to choose a weapon (and as a reference with other classes) should base it upon what stats they will gain as they level. The following list details which weapon types use which stats. Note that this is entirboth are dependent on the same stats. Note: 1 point of STR gives as much bonus to a sword/axe/hammer as 2 points of STR/DEX gives to spear because Spear operates on the average of the two stats. Swords, Axes, Hammers: 100% STR
5. What does QUI do to my damage? Does it reduce my damage? The game calculates your total damage per hit from 2 sources: your base damage, and your style bonus. The base damage is determined by the weapon's effective DPS, and the base unmodified delay. Being hasted, debuffed, or having a high QUI will not change your damage per hit, although it will change the frequency of how often you hit. Because the frequency can change, but the dmg per hit does not, hastes and debuffs can either increase or decrease your damage per unit time. Therefore, having a high QUI will help you do more base damage per unit time. The second source is style damage, which is a DPS add. Because it is a Damage per Second add, being debuffed or hasted will not alter hot much damage you get over time, even though the per hit bonus changes with the modified delay. Therefore, having a high QUI will not help or hurt your style damage per unit time. Because your damage is the total of the 2 (base damage plus style bonus), it is good overall to have a high QUI. Because most of the damage dealt by Hunters is base damage (at least 75%, if not more), having a low QUI to get a bigger first hit with a style is not practical. You will sacrifice too much DPS for too little of a gain in front-loaded damage. Based upon exhaustive tests on the effects of QUI upon weapon speed and damage, QUI greatly increases the amount of damage dealt over time. Subsequent investigation and postings by the developers have confirmed these test results. Because Hunters have a DEX/QUI buff and access to Swords, the tests were considered fairly definitive. The following conclusions were reached: 1. QUI affects both melee and ranged weapons in the same manner.
I logged the draw times of bows for every value of QUI from 83 to 206 and found that QUI does indeed reduce draw times proportionally in a very non-smooth step function. Using a 4.8 and 3.9 delay bow with the 1.45 patch, a weapon requires (50 / delay) QUI for each 0.1 second reduction in draw time. This number is rounded up or down to the nearest even integer, and then, it does keep track of fractions in the long run. As those fractions add up, the weapon will require (50 / delay) + 2 QUI for the 0.1 second reduction. In other words, it takes 5 points of QUI above 50 for an exactly 1% reduction off the weapon's delay. Previously, in the 1.44 patch, this was only 4 points of QUI. Because Critical Shot is a multiplier off the normal shot time, those fractions can also cause the Critical Shot time to reduce by 0.1 seconds when the normal shot has not changed. Percentage reduction off weapon base delay:
Example: 150 QUI means the player has a -20% reduction off this base weapon delay. The conclusions reached were that QUI is of immense importance for combat,
especially for Hunters. It will not reduce your damage per hit while raising
the rate at which you hit. If this were true, Hunters would be able to
hit twice as fast, for half as much damage. Test Hunters have QUI scores
and spears where this would be possible, but it has not happened. Because
Hunters have the second worst defensive skill set in the entire game (second
only to robed casters), utilizing all methods of increasing damage is important.
See questions #3, #4, #18, #19, and #30 for more details.
6. Should I use a spear or a sword? If you want your Hunter to be able to fight efficiently in melee combat
(as opposed to cosmetic looks), then the short answer is spear above all
else, there is no substitute. The short reasons are that spears do more
damage with a Hunter's stats, have access to two damage types, do slightly
more damage via styles, and have usable debuff styles in RvR. The most
important reasons are the dual damage types and stuns. The ability to use
the most optimal damage type means the Hunter will always be hitting for
100% or 110% of normal damage against any given armor type under the new
1.52 armor rules.
The long answer is: A. Two damage types: One of the greatest benefit to a spear user is
access to two damage types. Because the armor tables were balanced out
in 1.52, this flexibility always ensures the Hunter can stack the odds
in his favor. Albion studded armor suffers a +10% bonus to dmg from thrusting,
much like Albion chainmail. Unlike Albion/Hibernia, the Hunter is not forced
to choose which type of armor he wishes to be better against. The Spear
allows the Hunter to use the right tool for the job, ensuring he always
has a 0-10% bonus to damage.
B. Style damage: Spear styles are easier to use for damage in solo or in RvR. You will do more damage with a spear because your styles are more accessible, while swords are based upon events you have no control over. Style damage is no longer dependent on the skill level required for that style, so if you can use a higher level style, you may do less damage than a lower level style. The damage bonus from a style is dependent upon three things: type (anytime, positional, or opening requirement), chain (how many styles are required before it), spec level of the weapon. Empirically, the most damaging styles/chains are: Engage (6) -> Wounding Thrust (15), Lancer (10) -> Lunging Thrust (25), and Whirling Spear (34). However, Engage -> Wounding Thrust suffers from to hit problems, and Whirling Spear uses up an extremely large and inefficient amount of endurance, leaving Lancer -> Lunging Thrust as the most useful anytime damage chain. Below an actual delving of all spear styles: 2 - Dazzling Spear - Use any time, high fatigue cost, high damage bonus,
no to hit bonus.
Remember, although the dmg dealt by styles is about the same between
Sword and Spear, the Spear styles are more easily accesible because they
are based upon evades or positionals, unlike swords (which are based upon
block/parry, which Hunters will never do).
C. Stats: Also mentioned, swords are pure STR, which Hunters only get
1 pt. every 3 levels. Spears are based upon the average of STR/DEX and
Hunters get an average rate of 1 pt. every 2 levels. Throw in the DEX/QUI
buff; by level 40, you'll be looking at least +100 DEX over your base stats
through levels and buffs, vs. only +11 STR through levels. At level 50,
you can expect the higher DEX to give at least 120 more WeapSkill than
a Hunter would have with a sword, giving a higher multiplicative effect
on damage (i.e. estimated 10-20% more damage than a sword Hunter depending
on how much STR gear is used).
D. Stuns, Debuffs, and Snares: Damage is not the factor that decides victory in one on one fights. It is the proportional rate of damage both combatants take that decides victory. He who hits zero hit points first loses, the goal is not to be that person. Doing more damage faster, or slowing/reducing the damage you take are the two ways to win. The following tactics are available to Hunters: Spear style tactics usable:
Sword style tactics available:
In order to maximize the amount of damage a Hunter will do over time,
a high spec in Beastcraft is also essential. WeapSkill gains are fairly
low for Hunters because spears use the average of two stats. This means
the only way to deal lots of damage is by hitting faster, game mechanics
prevent Hunters from hitting harder. 1H swords benefit equally from QUI
as 2H weapons, but do not receive the 2H damage bonus. 2H swords do not
benefit from the buffs that beastcraft provides. The optimal damage path
for Hunters is via spear with high beastcraft to further enhance the pet
damage.
7. Do skills over 50 do anything? What template should I follow? What about skill caps and realm ranks? Stealth is a special skill, going over 50 spec improves nothing compared to 50 spec. The game only takes into account your modified spec, up to a maximum of 50. Beastcraft likewise has no benefit for going over 50 spec, since the spell line has no spells which deal damage or heal (these are the only 2 abilities which are influenced by spec level). Weapon skills however, give the following benefits: 1. Improved damage variance
The key feature is that benefits #1 and #4 are no longer gained when you overspec. You will not gain any new styles, nor will your damage variance improve beyond the 50 spec levels for 50 character levels rate. Characters who overspec beyond 50 skill via items will be expending spec points for only the #2 and #3 benefits. The weapon spec level does determine how much a character will benefit from his stats. Overspeccing allows a character to benefit more from stats and buffs than a character with a lower spec. For comparison purposes, consider two characters, one with 39+11 spec, and another with 50+11 spec. When fully buffed and optimized with Shaman DEX/QUI and DEX buffs, the character with 39+11 spec will have approximately 1600 WeapSkill, while the character with 50+11 spec will have almost 1700 WeapSkill. The difference in WeapSkill (see question #3 for more details) is ~5% more if you are fully and maximally buffed for having spent 495 more spec points for 11 spec levels. If you are not buffed, the then the differences are even smaller, as low as 1-3%. Differences in Spear with 160 STR and 232 DEX:
Differences in Composite Bow with 300+ DEX:
Secondly, realm ranks give bonuses to all skills. Mythic has clarified their position, although the realm ranks act like items do (i.e. they give no new spells or styles), this is a totally seperate cap. The realm ranks stacking with items has been intended all along, and is functioning correctly. Your character may only benefit a certain amount from skill items (although realm ranks are not limited in this manner and stack with items). The current formula is your character level divided by 5, rounded down, plus one. This means that at level 50, your character can get at most, +11 to any one skill from items. Any bonuses from realm ranks are added on top of this, and are displayed in your spec sheet. If you do not have enough items to get the skill bonuses needed to reach a desired level, realm rankings can substitute. However, it is exponentially difficult to get more and more bonuses to your skills via realm ranks. An example follows: Realm Rank 1: --------- (+0 to all skills) [Stiltvakten]
The following are common template starting points after the 1.56 Hunter patch went live. Note that several old templates are now obsolete due to game mechanics changes (number in parentheses indicate end level equipment and +1 bonus from realm points): - Bow/Spear Hunter I
- Bow/Spear Hunter II
- Spear Hunter
Now that Camoflage has been added into the game with the 1.52 patch (countering to an extent the See Hidden ability from the 1.50 patch), stealth regains some of its functionality. It allows the Hunter to move faster, be detected less often, and remained stealthed up until the actual moment of firing. See question #8 below. Specializing in a weapon makes a huge difference. Your weapon specialization raises your WeapSkill, which in turn raises your potential multiplier in damage against an opponent. At just 7-9 points of WeapSkill cap per spec level, this adds up. Just a 100 extra WeapSkill guarentees some extra small damage looking at the formula in question #3 (this is not exact, it just provides an order of magnitude): (WeapSkill / enemy AF) * WeapDam (as a DPS) * quality * condition *
delay
In addition, weapon speccing raises your maximum damage and minimum
damage. See question #17 for more details. In general, the most benefit
from skill points comes from a balanced Hunter that does not swing too
far into extreme speccing in any one skill.
8. What does stealth do? What is Camouflage? Do Hunters get stealth abilities? Why do I keep appearing when I nock an arrow/critical shot? First off, a few terms need to be explained (note that Stealth spec is the enhanced level of stealth from items and realm points, NOT the base spec). The "clipping plane" is the distance at which character models disappear. This is the farthest you can see in the game, because beyond this distance, the software does not render or draw anything. There are two clipping planes, one for scenary and landscapes, and the other is for monster/player models. For stealth, we are only concerned with the player/monster clipping plane. This defines how far a player can see, and is farther than any bow range. Conservative estimates of this distance are anywhere from 3000 to 3300 loc units. The "bubble" (of detection, stealth, etc.) is the distance at which an observer's client begins to download location data for the stealthed player. Within latency times of entering this radius, players will begin seeing a transparent outline, and are then able to target and attack that stealthed character. This bubble is different for each observer of the stealthed character, and its radius is determined by the observer's level, the stealther's spec level, and the class of the observer (but NOT the character level of the stealther). Note: Stealth is purely deterministic, there is absolutely no randomness involved in stealth detection. In addition, the calculations for FINDING a stealthed character are not influenced in any way by the observer's class, or stealth spec level. Camouflage was introduced in the 1.52 patch and is for archers only.
It functions identically to normal Stealth, with 2 exceptions. You cannot
Camouflage unless you have been out of combat for 10 minutes. In addition,
while Camouflaged, you are immune to detection from See Hidden (the realm
ability). However, you can still be detected by Detect Hidden (which increases
the detection range for an assassin to see an archer), or by True Sight
(which is an archer realm ability).
The benefits of speccing in Stealth appear to be as follows: 1. Faster movement rate while stealthed. However, this will never approach
running speed, at best, a max stealth specced player can approach is a
fraction of running speed. This speed appears to continue to improve up
until 50 spec (including item bonuses).
It has been observed that players who just stealth are totally undectable for as much as several seconds. The current theory is that the game client must wait for the server to process whether the observer is close enough to observe the stealther, and then begin to download the locational data. As the observer leaves this radius, the client will still receive locational data while the server calculates that this is not allowed, and then shuts off the stream. This explains why there is a delay when finding a stealther, and why you see stealthers for a short bit even though you move far away. The formula for calculating this radius using /loc has been shown to be as follows (Treat this as the minimum distance between the observer and the stealther to spot the stealther): Note: If the stealther's spec is higher than the observer's level, this
becomes a constant of 125 or 250 units.
See Hidden is a special case. If the observer has See Hidden, and the stealther does not have Detect Hidden, then the stealther is observable from a range of 3000 loc units unless the stealther is also camoflaged. Being camoflaged negates See Hidden, and the above rules once again apply as normal. The largest change from the 1.45 system of stealth is that there is a minimum detection radius for all characters. Regardless of observer's level and the stealther's spec, the stealther will be spotted if the observer enters within 125 units using /loc. Roughly, 25 units is equal to one walk step animation. This is an imprecise measurement because the walk animations are difficult to judge completeness. The other component of this change is that assassins have a much greater chance to detect archer classes now. Instead of using a base 125 units to detect any other stealthed class, assassins use a base of 250 units. The end result is that Hunter stealth is largely ineffective against an equally specced Nightshade/Infiltrator. If an assassin were to attempt to detect a non-archer class, then the minimum distance is changed to 125 as normal, but the assassin keeps the 50 multiplier instead of the 20 multiplier (due to Detect Hidden). There are two other warnings about stealth. The first is that pets always see through stealth. The latest change from Mythic is that this feature will remain as it due to technical reasons. This is both a Hunter's friend and foe, your pet will allow you to track down enemy archers, minstrels, etc. However, enemy Druids, and other Cabalists will be able to do likewise. The second is about guild cloaks, while stealthed, they will not be transparent. With the 1.50 patch, the assassin class is able to buy the See Hidden realm ability. As noted in the previous chart, See Hidden lets an assassin IGNORE your stealth completely. A guild cloak will be completely obvious to any assassin instantly and this is highly not reccomended. The most important use of stealth is that it breaks targetting. If you are far enough away that hitting stealth causes the enemy player to be out of your bubble, they cannot target you, and any targetting they had before is gone. This is invaluable when going alone to grief in the frontier, although See Hidden has made it so that archers have a more difficult time surviving solo. It is also useful when fighting in large groups, and you want to get an archer off you from across the battlefield. You simply stop shooting, wait 10 seconds, and stealth and then move and unstealth. Be warned however, that being attacked counts as being in combat. You will be unable to stealth for 10 seconds after being shot at by an arrow. The other benefits of high stealth include being able to stay stealthed when nocking an arrow. Currently, the ratio of your stealth level to character level is the percentage chance you will stay stealthed when nocking a normal shot. If you have 20 stealth at level 40, you have a 50% chance of staying stealthed when firing. Critical shots are like normal shots, only the chance is reduced by 20%. The same character would only have a 30% chance of staying stealthed if he tried to fire a Critical Shot. There are only 6 known stealth abilities from speccing in Stealth, and
Hunters receive only 1. Distract only works on NPC's and is used to rotate
their facing. Danger Sense tells the assassin whether a scout NPC has spotted
them and is running to get help (this only applies to NPC's). Detect Hidden
simply changes the multiplier (and raises base radius) of the difference
between stealth spec and level of observer, as detailed above. Safe Fall
reduces the damage done by falling off high objects. Lastly, climb allows
assassins to scale walls of keeps to get inside.
9. What about Volley and Longshot? Aren't those high level bow styles? And where did Critical Shot X go? Volley and Longshot are now implemented in the game, although they are
realm abilities and not part of the Composite Bow skill line. You can buy
Longshot for 10 realm spec points, and you can buy Volley for 14. Volley
requires Longshot as a prerequisite. Critical Shot X has never existed,
and is a rumor. Mythic has confirmed this ability has never, nor will ever
exist. The last bow ability currently in game, is Critical Shot IX, received
at 27 bow skill.
10. What about Shapeshifting and Tracking? Shapeshifting for Heroes and Berserkers has already entered the game.
However, the Hunter's advertised shape-shifting is unknown in status. Tracking
likewise is in limbo and unknown in status.
11. What do Hunters do in RvR? There are three things you can do to other players: grief, scout, and fight If you want to grief, it probably means you'll be alone or with other stealthed parties. Stealth is useful, as well as bow. Typically griefing involves sneaking up on lower level players, and then killing them with impunity from stealth. Particularly killing them while they are fighting monsters to cause the loss of experience. Mythic has explicitly explained that this is intentional because it introduces an element of risk into the frontier, and removes an exploit to avoid experience loss when exp'ing. It is up to the player to decide if they will exercise this tactic. Because vigilante posses are formed quickly to rid the frontier of said griefer, high stealth is important as well as a high bow skill to pick players off from a distance while hidden. However, the introduction of See Hidden makes this activity extremely difficult. The Hunter is under constant threat of detection from assassins and must have a high melee skill and hit points to fight back. Scouting is looking for enemy players while a larger group sieges a keep or some such. Usually the Hunter or Shadowblade warns his group/guild/rampaging mob of large groups of enemies (with appropriate level cons) so that they can be prepared for the fight. In this case, high stealth is necessary. It also means you won't be fighting, which is particularly boring for many people. Hunters who scout should use Camoflage to reduce their chances of detection. However, Camoflage is only usable if the Hunter has not fought in the last 10 minutes. Otherwise, assassins can trivially find the Hunter without cover using the See Hidden realm ability, and other archers can also achieve this via the True Sight realm ability. Even if Camoflage is up, the Hunter is vulnerable to the Detect Hidden innate ability that assassins have, doubling the radius at which the Hunter is detected. Scouting in all cases is a larger risk for a Hunter than an assassin. Lastly, Hunters can fight in large scale battles between two huge forces.
With max spear, a Hunter spear is an effective weapon. Despite hitting
poorly compared to most combatants, the Hunter has access to many useful
positional styles, making him extremely useful in large pitched battles
where openings are rare to come by and exploit. However, in 1 on 1 combat,
the Hunter fares poorly because most of the useful styles (attack debuff,
stun, etc.) are all based off positionals. With a bow, the Hunter fares
much better. It is possible to effectively kill or suppress enemy casters,
and fight off other archers at near-equal footing. Because the bow's WeapSkill
cap is the same as most Warriors, you will do significant damage with the
bow against other players, greatly helping your melee fighters in whatever
engagements they are in. Most Hunters who do not extreme specialize in
stealth do so for this reason: They can contribute meaningful amounts of
damage in close combat or ranged combat provided they can be healed or
do not fight multiple opponents at once. Hunter pets are also useful in
RvR either as an ambush option to remove bladeturn on a target, deter and
hunt down stealth classes who have been attacked, or to simply add to the
Hunter's melee damage. The Feral Spirit line of spells is useful in enhancing
the pet at no cost of a realm mate's concentration points.
12. Where does all this good equipment come from? Why aren't my skills getting all the bonuses from these items? First of all, the amount of skill you can gain from items is character level based only. The formula appears to be character level / 5, rounded down, plus one. Note that realm ranks give bonuses to all skills. Mythic has clarified their position, although the realm ranks act like items do (i.e. they give no new spells or styles), this is a totally seperate cap. The realm ranks stacking with items has been intended all along, and is functioning correctly. Currently known and confirmed: Composite Bow items:
Spear items:
Stealth items:
Slash resist:
* Note: there are 2 versions of this bracer, one gives slash resist,
the other gives crush resist. They always drop in pairs, one slash and
one crush.
Thrust resist:
Crush resist:
Body resist:
Spirit resist:
Armor sets: Latticed Shadow armor, 92 AF, 89% quality, 25% bonus (From Spindelhalla,
level 37+ groups to obtain):
Bloodwolf armor, 94-98 AF, 89-90% quality, 25% bonus (From Malmohus,
level 45+ groups to obtain, AF/quality based upon level of monster killed):
Supple Serpent-Hide armor, 98 AF, 90% quality, 25% bonus (From Vanern
Swamp, level 42+ groups to obtain):
Studded Fur Lined armor, 98 AF, 90% quality, 25% bonus (From Raumarik,
level 45+ groups to obtain):
Soulbinder's armor, 98 AF, 91% quality, 25% bonus (From Malmohus, 2
level 45+ groups to obtain off Drakulv Soultrappers):
Fuliginous armor, 98 AF, 91% quality, 25% bonus (from Iono in Darkness
Falls, level 45+ groups to obtain diamond seals):
Call of the Hunt armor, 100 AF, 100% quality, 35% bonus (from level
50 Hunter epic quest, speak with Masrim in Ft. Atla)
Other accessories that are considered useful are: Chest: Vest of Vile Dominion (AF 102, 100% quality, 35% bonus, +18 DEX/STR,
+10% thrust/cold) in Darkness Falls from Legion the level 83+ demon
* Note: Many, if not all, Horned/Crafted Silksteel items have random stats. Always SHIFT-I these items to check if they have the stats you want. I have several Horned Silksteel Rings that give +7 PIE instead of CON. Hunters ostensibly do not want these. 13. How do I use a bow? How do I use Critical Shot? In order to easily switch between weapons, you will need to put both your bow and the critical shot ability into your hot bar. Left click on any weapon, and drop that icon into an empty slot of a hot bar. It will not drop the weapon on the floor or otherwise move it. Now you can click on that button in the hotbar to equip that weapon. Most Hunters put their spear button (and styles) in one set of 8, and put their bow (and crit shot with other macro buttons such as /face) in a second set of 8. To fire a bow: 1. Target the monster/player.
To fire a critical shot, you must drag your critical shot icon from
the abilities page into a hotbar slot. Instead of clicking on your bow
to nock an arrow, click on critical shot to nock an arrow. If you click
on critical shot again, you will switch to a normal shot. To auto-release
and auto-reload, click on your bow (not critical shot) icon instead. Aside
from nocking, critical shot is just like normally using a bow.
14. How does Critical Shot work? Why is my critical shot not working? Critical Shot is an ability Hunters receive as they spec in Composite Bows. Effectively, Critical Shot doubles your damage if you hit something that is not engaged in melee combat, running, or aggro'd onto something. In return, your draw time for that arrow is increased. Critical Shot I multiplies the draw time by 2.0, and each version afterwards reduces this multiplier by 0.1. Thus, Critical Shot II multiplies draw time by 1.9, Critical Shot III by 1.8, etc. all the way up to Critical Shot IX, which multiplies it by 1.2. This last ability, Critical Shot IX, is received at 27 Composite Bow skill. With the 1.45 patch, players can no longer deal out 300% normal damage to green and grey con targets. The cap has been changed to at most be 200% for anything up to a "yellow" con player/monster. Currently, the formula for your maximum Critical Shot damage is purely based upon character level vs. target's level, and has nothing to do with bow spec level. For every 1% the target's level is above your character's level, Critical Shot's max damage is reduced by 3% from the max of 200%. For example, a monster that is 10% higher in level than your character (i.e. level 55 to a level 50) can be Critical Shot for 170% normal damage. You also cannot critical shot an NPC who has aggroed (which obviously includes hand to hand fighting). You must fire the shot before it aggros on someone. If it aggros before the shot lands, this does not affect the damage. You also cannot critical shot any players who are engaged in melee combat, or at running speed. You can however, critical shot players who are holding still, and in combat mode, but not swinging their weapons. In other words, the only ways to render yourself immune to the extra damage of a crtical shot is to be swinging a weapon in melee combat, or running at normal speeds or higher. It is also important to note that any player who has "engaged" you has a good chance (95%) of blocking your arrows. The extreme consequence of this is that critical shot will be used less and less in RvR as players become aware that they immunize themselves to critical shot simply by running. It costs them nothing, and always works. For this reason, I do not recommend using critical shot unless you are at Critical Shot IX, where the extra fraction of a second is negligible if wasted, but the payoff is worthwhile if it works. Typically, critical shots are only guarenteed against other archers
shooting, and casters casting a spell as these two situations are both
against stationary non-combat mode players.
15. Why can't I charm animals? How does charming work? The release of the updated Prima strategy guide actually gives a surprisingly simple (and accurate) theory on how the Beastcraft charm spells work. All but the last version allow a Hunter to charm up to 80% of his chararacter level, rounded down. However, the last versions of each animal/insect charm spell (at 32 and 35 spec respectively) are not 80%, but 82%, explaining the jump when higher level Hunters are able to charm 1 level higher than they expected. Confirmed data to support this includes: Level 11, Beastcraft 6, level 8 insect (level 7 animal due to outdated
charm spell)
There is a limit to how high a level each version of the charm spell can charm. However, the limits are not easily confirmable because most Hunters spec relatively high in beastcraft. Note that these spells work in rather odd ways. I have found that the
Call of Gleipnir will work on anything using a bear, wolf, cat, frog, badger,
horse, or rat model, but will not work on humanoids or snakes (although
Squabblers in Hibernia work). In addition, Call of Gleipnir has been known
to work on Torpor Worms in Uppland/Yggdra forest, but not anything else
with a worm model. I have also found the Compel Insect spell to work on
ants, crabs, spiders, and even arachites.
16. Can my Hunter solo? How can I do it? The answer is yes (and quite well once a Hunter hits level 40+), there are several spots (I have been shown more than I can mention) in the game where monsters are: 1. Casters/archers
Otherwise, if not available, you will have to solo "normally". In order of experience gain rate, it is probably better to group until your late 30's. Then it is better to find a camp with pathing bugs and/or casters than group. Grouping is second best after that (but gives good equipment). Solo'ing normally with non-optimal monsters is a distand third, as it is dangerous and very slow. Shooting normal yellow or blue monsters with arrows and then melee'ing them to death is viable, but as you gain levels, you will spend more and more time healing because even a near dead yellow can kill a hunter at levels 30 to 40. The key is yellow or higher equipment, and picking your targets. Slow moving monsters, archers, casters, or anything weak to slash/thrust damage are the best targets, letting you get the most arrows into it before it closes in for melee. You should avoid anything that is fast, roots, casts a DD, is resistant to slash/thrust or calls for help. Typically, this means avoiding Arachites, drakes, etc., etc. It is difficult to find the optimal target (i.e. a caster with low hit points, it is weak to slashing, and it has a pathing bug) until you are in the 40's. They are rare, and at any given level, you may not have such a spot. These places are incredibly fast experience (better than a group), and incredibly safe (assuming you are fully specced in bow, and almost fully specced in spear and beastcraft). If not, you may die due to a randomly high level spawn. Otherwise, you may have to hunt like most other players. Usually a solo'ing hunter will find the max range of his bow (using the longest range arrows and heaviest damaging arrows he can afford easily) and pelt the target with arrows. Inbetween shots, he can click on the "attack" button for his pet to try to get the pet to input some extra damage. If the monster closes, the hunter/pet team tries to melee the monster to death as quickly as possible with detaunt styles to conserve hit points with the high defense bonus. Realm abilities further complicate this, with some being much more useful to exp'ing than others. Dodger, Mastery of Pain, Falcon's Eye, and First Aid/Ignore Pain are all abilities that greatly enhance a Hunter's ability to solo exp. Choose a target carefully and stealth yourself when resting to avoid
being ambushed. Solo'ing appears to be all about being careful.
17. How does Weapon Speccing work? Specializing in a weapon is a necessary step towards raising the damage output of your character. No amount of stat bonuses, gear, or spells will help you without speccing in a weapon because of the way the game works. There are caps on how much each of the previously mentioned methods will benefit your character, caps that are based upon your weapon specs. Speccing in a weapon, aside from raising those caps, gives 2 other benefits (note that this is based off your item and realm point enhanced spec, NOT the base spec level): 1. It raises the minimum damage you will do.
With no specialization, damage variance is from 25-125% of base damage (which is determined by weapon stats and character level). From there to 2/3 spec, the minimum damage is raised linearly up to 75% (i.e. 1/3 of your character level will raise your min. damage by 25%). At 2/3, the damage range is 75-125%. Above 2/3 spec to maximum spec, the minimum AND maximum damage will increase linearly until it is 100-150% at max spec. From personal experience with both spear and non-spear spec Hunters, this makes a huge difference. Non-spec Hunters with 12-16 spear at level 45 can expect to hit yellows in cloth to chain anywhere from 90-120 damage a hit using the Lancer style. Spear-specced Hunters with 39-44 spear at level 45 can expect to hit the same yellows for anywhere from 200-400 damage a hit using the Whirling Spear style. Further testing has shown that your spec level does influence how much
of a bonus a 2H weapon gives beyond a 1H weapon. The exact details have
yet to be worked out.
18. What are my skill/stat/AF caps? Although characters can reach a maximum of level 50, it is possible to get a level 51 cap for DPS and AF. The character must be level 50, and have achieved realm rank 5 (i.e. have 513,500 or more realm points). See the Appendix for a chart of realm ranks and the realm points required to achieve them. Stat caps: Your stat caps are easy to calculate, you need to find out what your "base" stats are counting in the points you gain from leveling. The easiest way to do this is via math, but you can also find out by stripping your character naked. In order to find out how many points you have gained from leveling, do the following: 1. Take your character level and subract 5 (to account for the newbie
levels that did not give stat points).
With the 1.44 patch, your character has three different caps on the bonuses to stats: items, single stat buffs, and double stat buffs. Your character can gain at most, his/her character level to any one stat from a single stat buff (i.e. +40 STR for a level 40 Hunter). However, your character can 1.5 x character level (rounded down) from both items and double stat buffs (i.e. +60 DEX from items, and another addition +60 DEX from a DEX/QUI buff at level 40). With the addition of realm abilities in 1.50, the Augmented series of stats are not affected by any caps. They are effectively straight add ons to your base naked stat. The most a character can raise any stat at level 50 is: base/naked stat + 75 (item cap) + 50 (single stat buff cap) + 75 (double
stat buff cap) + augmented stats
WeapSkill cap per level: WeapSkill does not have an easy formula for,
it appears to be based solely upon your character level & class and
your weapon spec. Having weapon specs above your character limit WILL raise
this, but not by much. I have always had 44 bow skill with items. When
I gained level 41, my bow WeapSkill cap was 946. At level 42, it was 967.
And at 43, it is 996. The uneven gains are not related to my DEX because
I have always gained 1 pt. per level. However, by level 50, Hunters can
expect to push ~1300 WeapSkill with with max bow spec, and ~900 WeapSkill
with max spear spec, using only their self-buffs.
DPS cap per level: The DPS of your wielded weapon is capped BEFORE it is multiplied against the condition and quality of the item. Because of this, you cannot use high quality items to make up for this cap. The game refers to this as the "clamped DPS", and you can see this by right clicking on your weapon and hitting the delve command (SHIFT-I). If you are fully able to utilize a weapon, then your "clamped DPS" will equal the DPS listed on the weapon stats. With the new 1.50 patch, the WeapDam field of your character stat sheet is supposed to display your effective DPS once all factors are calculated in (quality, condition, level caps, etc.). However, this display field is incorrect and needs to be fixed. Delve your items for the actual value. Every time your character gains a level, your WeapDam cap goes up by 0.2-0.4 DPS. The formula for this has been shown to have been changed with recent patches, and so is no longer valid. However, gathered information has been used to construct the following chart for levels 40-50. 40 - 13.3 DPS
* To get this cap, your character must be level 50 and have reached
realm rank 5.
AF cap: According to Camelot Herald, armor factor reduces the damage taken from a hit. Absorbtion therefore must be the chance that a blow is completely negated, even though it actually "hit". The AF cap for any character's level is equal to: Char. level x 10 x (100% + absorb%) rounded down, where absorb is the the absorb% of the highest level armor
that class can wear. For Hunters, this reduces down to char. level x 11.9,
or char. level times 1190%.
40 - 476 AF
* To get this cap, your character must be level 50 and have reached
realm rank 5.
There are several odd things to note about AF. Your character's AF depends upon what is worn in all the armor slots, you will receive a different amount of AF from any piece of armor, depending on what the other slots have. The self-AF buff also follows similar behavior, it will give less AF if you are naked, then if you have armor covering all slots. If all the slots are full, then the following equation appears to be true for calculating the AF from any one piece of armor: AF x quality% x [100% + (absorb% x quality%)]
Also note that the Hunter's Beastcraft AF buff is no longer limited
by these caps, although the display will not show it properly.
Item skill/realm rank bonus cap: Bonuses from skills are capped by your
character level. The formula appears to be character level / 5, rounded
down, plus one. I can confirm the cap jumps from +8 to +9 at level 40,
and +9 to +10 at level 45, as well as all levels below this into the twenties.
Hunters are fairly certain the cap raises to +11 at level 50.
19. How does my Hunter compare to Scouts/Ranger? What about Thanes/Warriors/Beserkers/etc.? There are two main differences between Hunters and the other archers. With the addition of slower and slower bows for Midgard, and the addition of faster and faster bows for Albion/Hibernia, the three realms have almost approached equality in terms of draw speed. Midgard's bows range from 3.9 to 5.0 delay, while Albion/Hibernia ranges from 4.0 to 5.5 delay. Due to the introduction of Spellcrafting and Alchemy, the most common bows in possession of high level archers are all player made. Players have great leeway in determining what damage and draw speed their bow will utilize. Because of the new shouted pets in 1.56, Hunters are no longer as vulnerable to the shield stun and critical shot combos Scouts were able to perform. So long as the Hunter is able to shout a pet before he is stunned, there is a high chance the Scout cannot pull the critical shot combination involving the 42 shield spec style, or the 29 shield spec style after the "engage" ability is used. Likewise, beecause of power of the new shouted pets, Hunters are able to slightly outdamage Rangers in melee combat in a straight up fight. When using the advantage of attacking from 2 arcs (front Hunter, rear pet), and the Evade penalties, the Hunter does even better. However, Rangers still possess a much more efficient speccing system, being able to use 3 specs (Pathfinding, Celtic Dual, Piercing/Blades) to increase melee performance, while Hunters have 2 (Beastcraft, Spear/Sword). Therefore, Hunters must spent more spec points than Rangers to achieve melee superiority, making this an all or nothing committment. Committing only mediocre amounts of spec pts. into Beastcraft and Spear will not allow a Hunter to overpowere in weakly melee specced Rangers. Compared to other Midgard classes, Hunters have a slightly lower WeapSkill cap compared to Viking based classes, ensuring that they will always hit for slightly less damage per hit than a viking base. While Hunters can push ~1000 WeapSkill with a spear at level 50 (up to 1400 when overspecced and buffed), most Viking based classes can push 1200 (unbuffed Hybrids) to 1700 (buffed pure-tank). The spear's use of the average of STR/DEX is also not in the Hunter's favor, the spear requires +2 of STR/DEX to add the same amount of WeapSkill as just +1 STR for a Warrior's sword. The same applies to AF. Because the AF cap for level is based upon the absorbtion rating of the highest level armor, Hunters cannot compete with "tank" classes for AF. Their self-AF buff is constrained by the AF cap as well. A level 50 Hunter can at most, have 595 AF, whereas a level 50 chain class can have 635, and a level 50 plate class can have 670 AF. Defensive wise, Hunters are the second worst class in the entire game,
ranking defensively with Bards. All other classes have better armor, higher
evade, parry, or a combination thereof. The only exceptions are "mage"
classes, which are armed with bladeturn, quickcast on a 30 second timer,
and mez/stun spells. Arguably, in some situations, the caster's spell arsenal
with quickcast is a better defense than any armor.
20. Do I need to become a fletcher? Does arrow quality affect damage? The answer is no to both counts. While fletching will appear to save you money, it also takes time. And that time can also be spent making more money. If you do not want to, you do not need to fletch, arrows appropriate for your level are easily bought for insignificant amounts of silver. It it's not petty change, then it's probably not needed for your level. Eventually, monsters drop well over 9 gold in coins a kill and you can easily afford as many footed flight broadheads as you want. The benefits of fletching are typically the ability to make your own bows up to level 35 (when it is better to get dropped bows, this may change later with additional crafted items). The other benefit is that low level broadhead arrows do not require a lathe, and the components weight less than the arrow itself. Many kobolds will carry components and fletch in the field. The rumors of store bought arrows doing less damage than player fletched arrows are false. This has been confirmed in writing by the tradeskills developer. Multiple tests involving thousands of each arrows in the 1.48 live server version have shown that arrows have quality (influencing consignment rewards), but that this has no impact on damage, or range. In addition, the rumors of player repairs taking up less durability are also false, player repairs are identical to NPC repairs. The only benefits to fletching are as follows: ability to repair bows
wherever you wish, cheaper arrows before level 35 where the money becomes
trivial, increased carrying capacity of arrows before STR increases to
the point where this does not matter, and crafting siegecraft parts for
ballistae (fletching is only used to create siege parts for ballistae,
not rams or catapults).
21. How many bonus skill points do I get past level 40? Hunters receive twice their (new) level in skill points when they gain a level. Mythic changed this system to include bonus points for levels 40-49. It is safe to assume that level 50.5 does not exist, based upon interviews with level 50's who have been exp'ing for months straight. When you are half way between levels 40 and above, you will reach what
is termed a "half-level". Your experience and death counters are reset
and you cannot fall below this half-way point. You will also receive skill
points equal to half what you originally received for that level. In this
example, upon reaching level 40.5, you will receive 40 skill points instead
of the original 80 you received for level 40 itself. This brings up the
total number of skill points to 2534 + 445 = 2979 (levels 1 through 5 as
a rogue do not give x2 skill points, but rather x1).
22. Will I be able to respec my skills if I mess up or change my mind? What about my realm abilities? With the 1.52 patch, Mythic has allowed characters to respec their skills and realm abilities. There are 3 methods to respec your character, but there are limitations on all 3. If your character was in existence before the 1.52 patch, that character is eligible for a full respec, but only if he/she has gained 2 or less levels since 1.52 went live. Target the Hunter trainer and type in "/respec ALL" to trigger this. You may do this only once, and it is not reversible. Any characters who reach level 20 or level 40 may do a single respec, but only at level 20 or 40. Once you level beyond these 2 points, you may not respec any skills. Target the Hunter trainer and type in "/respec _____" to trigger this. For example, typing in "/respec spear" will reset a Hunter's spear skill to 1, and give back the appropriate number of spec points. Since this is only doable at level 20 and 40, a character may only reset 2 skills in his/her entire lifetime. Lastly, characters may realm ability respec twice in their entire lifetimes. Target the Hunter trainer and type in "/respec realm" to do so. These are not reversible. With the 1.56 patch, Hunters all receive a full specialization respec,
allowing them to reset all their skills at once. However, be warned that
if you already had a full respec, you will not receive an additional one.
In addition, like all full respecs, they become invalid one level after
they were received. Do not level if you wish to save your full respec.
23. Do Hunters auto-train in anything? The answer is no. Hunters do not auto-train in any skill. While other
classes such as Armsmen and Shadowblades may confirm their auto-training,
Hunters as a class do not.
24. Is going over 50 spec in a weapon worth it? Do realm ranks stack with items? Does this do anything? While you can go over 50 spec in a skill, the gains are much smaller than normal, making it a questionable use of spec pts. Going over 50 skill with a weapon skill does improve WeapSkill. This will increase damage by a very slight amount. Weapon spec levels over character level improve damage by a small amount based upon the current stats of the Hunter. When fully buffed, these amounts are small enough that they rarely go over 5%. Mythic has changed their position, and overspeccing is totally valid. Realm ranks give bonuses to all skills. Mythic has clarified their position, although the realm ranks act like items do (i.e. they give no new spells or styles), this is a totally seperate cap. The realm ranks stacking with items has been intended all along, and is functioning correctly. The main benefits of speccing in a weapon are improving your weapon
variance, and improving your styles. Once you overspec, the only significant
benefit is the improvement of style bonus damage.
25. Why do Hunters have spear styles that trigger off Parry? Can Hunters use those styles? These are mistakes on the web pages that list the style lists. The actual
values of to hit bonuses and damage bonuses have radically changed since
retail, and those web pages are incorrect. All styles listed as triggering
off parry have been confirmed to actually trigger off evade. For a complete
list of the actual benefits of each style, see the appendix below.
26. Why should I train Beastcraft? I have a buff bot, shouldn't I concentrate on my weapon skills instead? First of all, the only way for a Hunter to maximize damage output is to have high weapon and some form of buffs. Hunters are a Rogue based class, and because of this, their WeapSkill caps are fairly low compared to Warriors for the Spear. Even though the bow WeapSkill caps for a Hunter are relatively close to a Warrior, it is still not an exact match. A Shaman buff bot can substitute for the DEX/QUI and AF buffs a Hunter receives, as well as the STR/CON pet only buff. However, there are several functions a Shaman cannot substitute for: pets and speed shouts. The new pet shouts in the 1.56 patch are extremely powerful, even more so than charmed pets when buffed. A Shaman cannot summon these pets, and unless the Shaman buff bot continuously travels with you, he cannot buff them either. The entire purpose of the pet shout was to allow Hunters access to the pet's damage without negating his stealth by having a visible pet on follow. Pets are useful in additional situations. They can be used to track
down casters and stealthers, give a large boost to the melee damage of
a Hunter, and cut in half the opponent's chances of parrying/evading. The
speed shout is also very useful, allowing the Hunter to chase down and
kill more classes than he normally would be able to. Escape is also possible,
and both uses of the shout are only possible if it is upgraded to the full
capacity. In addition, the benefits of raising weapon skills instead of
Beastcraft are very small, due to the increasing costs of raising a skill
into the 40's. The tradeoffs are generally more beneficial to raise Beastcraft
rather than overspec.
The actual spells given by Beastcraft are as follows: - Nimbleness of the Lynx: self DEX/QUI buff. Increases damage multiplier to weapon damage by as much as 20%, as well as providing a significant reduction in weapon delay, making the Hunter swing faster and hit harder. - Lynx's Pelt: self-AF buff. Reduces damage taken by lowering the damage multiplier of the enemy. Benefits depend upon the enemy's WeapSkill, but are more significant as the enemy becomes closer and closer to your character level (i.e. your AF is appropriately scaled for the enemy's level). - Call of Gleipnir/Dominate Insect: 2 seperate charm spells for "animal" or "insect" flagged monsters. Functionally, they are identical, and will charm an animal/insect for 1000 minutes minimum. - Feral Spirit: Pet only STR/CON buff. Increases damage multplier of pet, and reduces damage dealt to the pet. Because monsters use attributes differently, this is effectively a WeapSkill/AF buff for your pet. - Speed of Prey: Self speed shout, usable only every 10 minutes. Increases speed almost as much as appropriate level skald/bard/minstrel speed song (if you sprint combined with the shout, you will outrun a Bard/Minstrel who does not sprint). Will drop if player/pet takes damage, attacks, gains a superior speed song effect, or gains realm points. Used to close distance or escape. - Hunter's Avatar: An additional shout that summons a maximum level
pet for the Hunter, usable every 2 minutes. This pet is more powerful than
buffed charmed monsters, and can be Feral Spirit buffed on top of this.
This is generally the Hunter's most common melee dmg enhancement considering
it's utility.
In order of power, the pets are as follows:
27. Do Evade items actually do anything? The answer is no. This has been the case ever since retail, and has
been reconfirmed with log parsing in 1.45. The most common theory is that
Evade was actually a trainable skill early on in beta, but I am unable
to confirm this. These items are being stripped from the game and actual
usable bonuses put in their place. If you find an item that gives a bonus
to Evade, please appeal it to be fixed.
28. How do you I use the "range-finder" in the game Many players have asked for a built in range-finder to let them see
if their target is within bow range, without the risk of breaking stealth
by nocking an arrow. The ground-targetting feature in game is a close substitute,
although using it is somewhat clumsy. To enter ground-targetting mode,
you must hit the appropriate key. By default, this is F5. Once you have
held down this key, your movement keys will move the yellow crosshairs
instead of your character. In order to determine your maximum range, you
must find a stationary monster (i.e. a guard or a shopkeeper), and continually
back up until you find the maximum range. Then you can ground-target the
target and save the location of the crosshairs. The next time you want
to change range, hit the F5 key (or whatever ground-target is bound to),
and look at the crosshairs.
29. What stat gives Hunter's their power points? Based upon examining the conditions a Hunter can receive the "Your power
has increased" message while equipping items, STR is the only stat that
gives this message. It is unclear however, how much of a benefit Hunters
will receive from having a high STR (and hence, power pool) because many
of the spells Hunters can cast are fixed percentage costs (i.e. 25% charms).
In addition, many other spells have extremely high casting costs, the last
upgrade of each spell costs approximately 68 power points, and the gains
a Hunter makes per level is 2-3 power points. The benefits of a high STR
may be limited to only a few extra power points, making the benefits negligible
in the long run (especially since buffs need only be cast every 10 minutes).
30. How exactly do styles work? Why does QUI lower my style damage? Does overspeccing help with style damage? The game calculates your total damage per hit from 2 sources: your base damage, and your style bonus. The base damage is determined by the weapon's effective DPS, and the base unmodified delay. Being hasted, debuffed, or having a high QUI will not change your damage per hit, although it will change the frequency of how often you hit. Because the frequency can change, but the dmg per hit does not, hastes and debuffs can either increase or decrease your damage per unit time. Therefore, having a high QUI will help you do more base damage per unit time. The second source is style damage, which is a DPS add. Because it is a Damage per Second add, being debuffed or hasted will not alter hot much damage you get over time, even though the per hit bonus changes with the modified delay. Therefore, having a high QUI will not help or hurt your style damage per unit time. Because your damage is the total of the 2 (base damage plus style bonus), it is good overall to have a high QUI. Because most of the damage dealt by Hunters is base damage (at least 75%, if not more), having a low QUI to get a bigger first hit with a style is not practical. You will sacrifice too much DPS for too little of a gain in front-loaded damage. The fatigue costs from a style are proportional to the effective delay of the weapon. The faster you swing the weapon, the less endurance you will use up. In addition, there are caps to how much bonus DPS a style can give to a weapon attack. These caps are unique to each style, and the descriptions of "low", "medium", and "high" bonus damage are virtually meaningless. In addition, as your spec in a weapon line, your style damage bonus will improve. Overspeccing continues to improve your styles as normal. The developers deliberately seperated styles into 3 categories: anytime, positional, and chains. Anytime styles are the opening moves of chains or simply styles that are used alone. They have the least damage bonus and scale the slowest as you spec. Positional styles require you to attack from a side or behind position, and have a higher bonus and scale faster as you spec. Styles that are the second or higher place in a style-chain are the most damaging and scale the fastest as you spec. Sometimes styles are entered wrong, and will be adjusted to fit their role (Doublefrost was a good example of an anytime style that was mistakenly given positional damage status). Currently, there are no known Hunter styles that are entered incorrectly
into the database.
31. What are Realm Abilities? How do I buy them? What Realm Abilities do Hunters have access to? With the introduction of the 1.50 patch, players are now able to further modify their characters by actively RvR'ing. As players kill enemy realm players, they accrue realm points. Much like experience, there is a hierarchy of realm levels that players can advance to by accumulating a certain total of realm points. Every 10 realm levels is equal to 1 realm rank. A player starts at realm rank 1, realm level 0 when his character achieves level 20. The player then will then gain realm levels until his 10th level gained after will push him to realm rank 2, realm level 0 (abbreviated RR2L0). Each level gained gives a player exactly 1 realm spec point. These are similar to skill spec points, but they are only used to buy realm abilities. In order to buy realm abilities, speak with any class trainer in Jordheim or Vindsual Faste by right clicking on him/her. Each class has access to three types of realm abilities. There are universal realm abilities available to all classes and realms, there are type specific abilities available to certain class types (tanks, rogues, casters, or healers), and there are unique class specific abilities. However, due to balancing issues, archers are unique in that they have no class type abilities, instead they all share a common set of 3 abilities among all archers. The list of abilities a Hunter can buy and what effects they have is available from the Camelot Herald at http://www.camelotherald.com/realmabilities/ See the Appendix below for a full list of realm ranks and the realm
point totals needed to reach each rank.
32. What configuration of Spellcrafted gear should I get? How can I get the most out of my crafted weapons/armor? First of all, there is very little difference between 99% and 100% quality weapons and armor. While you can put in "more" in a 100% quality item, it turns out that because Mythic only lets you put in certain fixed bonus levels (i.e. +13 stat, +19 stat, etc.) this makes the advantages of 100% quality gear very small. Because a player tries to maximize everything (hp, stats, skills, resists), these small extra imbue points actually tend to do nothing. The actual formula for calculating the cost of an item is available at the Camelot Herald at http://www.camelotherald.com/documentation/spellcraft.html. In summary, each gem has what we call an "imbue cost" (abbreviated in the docs as mVal or magical value). The total power of the 1-4 gems put into an item depends on what configuration you choose. The "item power" is defined as: Item power equals:
Note: mVal1 is always the highest cost gem in the item. mVal2, mVal3, and mVal4 can be zero is no gem is inserted in their slot. This power must be equal to or less than the "item capacity" or else you risk overcharging (and the explosion). 99% quality items have a capacity of 28 pts. while 100% quality items have a capacity of 32 pts. Because you are paying double for the most expensive gem in the item, maximum efficiency is reached by ensuring the highest gem value is as low as possible. The collary of this is that the gems should be as close to each other in value as possible. The best way to get the most out of your item is to look at the item's capacity (28 pts. for 99% quality, and 32 pts. for 100% quality) and divide by five (this is four gems, plus 1 more for the doubling of the highest gem). Then round down. This number is the absolute highest any gem should be if you want to maintain maximum efficiency. Because you will often need odd gems to completely round out a stat or skill, you will sometimes need to break this rule, but it is a useful guideline. Because of this principle, it turns out 100% quality items are not very useful above 99% quality items. The most efficient use of a 100% quality item is to insert four gems that give +19 stats, which is hardly useful if repeated over and over. Therefore, you must break the efficiency rule and drop down to the level of a 99% quality item, meaning the 100% quality items are only useful in small amounts. Anymore 100% quality items are basically wasted capacity. The most effective gem combinations for an item are composed out of the following: mVal cost - amount and type of bonus
Avoid the use of the 15 or 13 mVal gems if possible. The general strategy
is to find combinations of gems that will allow you to maximize out one
stat or resist or skill. Some combinations include the use of 3x7% + 1x5%
to get 26% to one resist, and 3x+19 + 1x+16 for a total of +73 to one attribute.
Similar combinations occur for hit points and skills. Then sum up the gems
needed and distribute them across the armor and weapon(s) you have available.
When accessories come out, an exact configuration (which gems go into which
items) will be published demonstrating a "perfect" set of armor which can
be obtained, maximizing all hit points, attributes, skills, and resists.
Appendix: Formulas and Misc. Informatio
Arrow ranges (in /loc units):
Endurance usage of bows per bow delay:
Attributes used per weapon type:
Base Damge formula (does not include effects of weapon specialization
and damage range):
Spear style list (compiled from delve information in game, v1.44)
Chart of DEX/QUI buff benefits per spec level of beastcraft:
Chart of AF buff benefits per spec level of beastcraft:
Stealth detection radius against Archer classes (using /loc units):
Maximum charmable pet level (approximation):
Attribute stat caps per level:
WeapSkill caps (unknown):
WeapDam cap (chart for higher levels) per level:
* You must be level 50 with realm rank 5)
AF cap per level:
Effective AF per piece of armor (assuming all other slots filled with
equivalent armor):
Item skill/realm rank bonus cap per level:
Dual wield/Celtic Dual success percentage:
Realm Rank requirements (measure in realm points):
1.45 patch notes on stats:
It gets complicated, because "overkill" on your hit percentage (more than 100% chance to hit) increases your damage. So under some conditions, Bonus can raise damage. --Dave
Addendum: Misc. infobits Sanya's Interview with OfCamelot.com
Sanya's post on archer abilities
Archon's post on max speccing
Dave's post on the effects of quality on armor
Matt Firor's post on volley/longshot
Sanya's post on respeccing
Camelot Herald has many dev postings on game mechanics:
Mahrin Skell on Weapon speccing
Mahrin Skell on the effects of QUI on weapon damage
Sanya on the effects of overspeccing (bottom of page)
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