Hello.
Load outs affect both merc and weapon balance quite a lot and SD made a lot of crucial mistakes with Hunter.
Augments
I’m going to split augments into 2 groups:
-
Usefull weapon augments
-Quick Eye
-Focus
-Recharge -
Useless weapon augments
-Drilled
-Double time
-Spares
-Chopper
-Quick slash -
Usefull merc augments:
-Tough
-Unshakable
-Bomb Squad
-Quick draw
Drilled,Double time, Spares
Hunter is a specific merc. He is sniper and just like Sparks his main weapon is his ability and his ‘primary’ weapon is actual secondary.
Most of the time you’ll be sniping with Crossbow and use other weapons to finish enemies or fight back in close range. Hunter trying to use MP as main weapon is same nonsence as Vassili doing same thing. Exept that Vassili would use those augments for Sniper rifle. Worth to mention that SD did great job at giving Hunter these augments in pairs: 165(doubletime+spares), 495(doubletime+drilled), 3115(Spares+Drilled)
You want to improve your main weapon, but it doesnt have ammo or reload so Spares, Drilled and Double time become much less desired. We had such experience with Sparks’ gen1 load outs. None of those 4 which made it to gen2. In fact only 383 made it to gen2 unchanged. Quick charge was so usefull for REVIVR that SD had put it on 6/9 gen2 augments (and strike it with nerf bat) to create non-383 load outs.
Worth to mention that MP has one interesting advantage over primary weapons - fast reload. MPs kinda don’t need reload augments. For example Drilled gives you ~0.3 sec faster reload compare to ~0.7 for LMG or ~0.5 for AR. Not sure about utility of Spares for low damage MPs with small mag: You get only 200 dmg per mag for Empire vs ~500 for Hochfir.
All of this is a result of MP overnerf.
Chopper&Quickslash
They aren’t exactly useless. They could be usefull or useless depending on weapon. You get Chopper paired with Ulu on 197 and 367. You get Quickslash paired with Tomahawk on 1116 and 466; and with Ulu on 467. It is kinda OK with Tomahawk. But not with Ulu.
Worth to mention 367 Chopper+Quickslash+Ulu load out. Reminds something right? Red eye’s Gen1 G41 load out. It was epic load out but sadly it ispure fun pub-stomp tool. You don’t get to melee-only play on a competitive level so that’s why it got removed. Why did SD decide to repeat this mistake here?
Worth to mention one critical thing: Ulu isn’t Bechill. Bechill paired with Quickslash let you kill 80, 110, 120, 160, 200 hp mercs faster because you got round 40/80 damage; Bechill paired with Chopper let you kill 90, 130 hp mercs and cloacked bastard in lesser amount of slashes and kill 80, 110, 120, 160, 200 mercs that are near healing station because you get extra damage. Alltogether this was epic load out. Ulu has completely different damage pattern. It just doesn’t work same way.
I honestly hoped Chopper+Quickslash would be with Kukri! Sad, but only load out with melee augment for Kukri was Thunder Gen1 MA95.
Quickeye, Recharge
Same as with every sniper you’d probably go for Quick eye. It is the reason you see Moa Vassili with MP, Fel-Ix Vassili with S&W and Aimee with Stelbstadt.
Atm Recharge only improves utility of EMP. But judging by feedback Hunter is soon to get limited amount of arrows with CD so Recharge will become even more usefull. Just like Sparks’ Extra supplies reduces CD for REVIVR and medpacks.
Load outs
At the end we have 5 inferior load outs:
197: MP400, S&W, ULU; Drilled, Bomb Squad, Chopper;
495: Ryburn, S&W, Kukri; Recharge, Doubletime, Drilled;
367: Empire, Simeon, Ulu; Chopper, Quickslash, Quickdraw;
165: MP400, Simeon, Kukri; Doubletime, Unshakable, Spares;
3115: Empire, Arevarow, Kukri; Spares, Drilled, Focus;
3 good load outs:
1116: MP400, Arevarow, Tomahawk; Focus, Recharge, Quickslash;
4117: Ryburn, Arevarow, Ulu; Bomb Squad, Spares, Though;
466: Ryburn, Simeon, Tomahawk; Quickeye, Focus, Quickslash;
and one clearly superior load out:
396: Empire, S&W, Tomahawk; Tough, Quickeye, Recharge
Sad, but 396 will likely to be “new 383” for Hunter.
I’m surprised SD didn’t give Hunter Guardian angel,Enigma Untrackable and Looter augment because…well he’s hunter right? I imagine he knows how to move to avoid spotting and get unnoticed by turrets/mines and would probably hear incomming airstrike. Even Springy or Flying Pig would work better than some of listed augments. Pretty sure Explodydendron would be nice to as EMP-focussed augment.
Do you think SD could rework him while he’s in just released stage and not wait for gen 3 load outs?