What the Consensus on Hunter?

(hawkeyeguy99) #1

I haven’t been on these forums for awhile (since before Hunter’s release) because I took a good break from the game. But recently I’ve gotten a whole lot more into it and am playing a lot. Why? Well it’s 100% because of Hunter for me. He’s exaclty what this game needed: a skill based merc who’s deadly in the right hands and sucks in the wrong ones. No explosives or cheap “hit e” kills, he’s entirely based on skill. DB needs 100% more Hunter type mercs and 100000000% less Javelins. But I haven’t been on the forums so what are the general thoughts on him? Does the community like or hate him? He’s not played often in pubs so that’s either cuz of his high skill ceiling or because people just hate him.

P.S. he has the best voice lines in the game.

(Press E) #2

As he is, he has a few problems. Spammy as hell with no real penalties in cooldown or ammo, ability to insta-kill 80 KP mercs, essentially having 2 secondary weapons when other snipers are forced to pick a pistol or MP, etc.
He’s not that bad, but he needs some tweaks to bring him in line with the other snipers. I’m surprised the devs haven’t even touched him yet, but that’s likely because he isn’t picked very much.

All and all though, my biggest question is just “why?”
I mean, we already have 3 other snipers, a class that is inherently very limited in their playstyles and how varied they can be from one another. Adding in hunter hasn’t filled in any voids that were missing from the base game, he’s really just another sniper with a lower skill ceiling due to his spammy nature.
It’s probably not hard to tell, but I don’t like snipers in DB, and I don’t believe they add anything enjoyable to the game. But I was actually excited for Hunter, because I figured SD wouldn’t do the same thing they did with aimee and add in another redundant vassili with slight variations. I was hoping hunter would fit better in DB’s fast paced setting. Lower damage auto-crossbow, elemental effects perhaps, etc. I just don’t see why SD decided to add in a 4th classic sniper, do very little in terms of setting him apart in gameplay besides a crossbow to pull in the bow fetishists, and the make it so a lot of the restrictions that help limit other snipers don’t apply to him.

TL;DR, he’s a bit OP compared to the other snipers, but I just don’t feel DB needed a 4th sniper, especially one that really isn’t that different gameplay wise. Would have much preferred another engi or even assault, because hunter doesn’t fill any roles that were missing from DB before hand.

(Teflon Love) #3

I still think my Poor hunter thread from back then describes his pointlessness pretty exhaustively. IMHO he’s an utter and complete waste of developer time and doesn’t add anything to the game that would increase the overall fun.

(enigmaplatypus) #4

I think that hunter is ok. For me he’s only someone i’ll use when i want to have fun. I would never take him into a competitive scene at all (i guess with ranked gone that’s not a problem at the moment). I notice that he can be really good in the right hands, but definitely not mine. What I have been noticing in my limited experience with him though is that you really have to have good ping. Because his arrows are so precise and have travel time, i find that high ping makes him useless. At least for me that’s the case. I wish his arrows were a lot faster (more like a real arrow), but that’s probably a balance thing.

(imLegal) #5

I enjoy playing Hunter he’s pretty good, balanced, and his EMP bow has helped me and teammates a ton. I especially enjoy the salt ride by nature that comes with using him, those headshot kills drive people nuts.

(henki000) #6

I would rework crossbow. Make it work like real one, not like sparks revive rifle. It takes time to reload and when you shoot, kinetic energy will rip almost everything on your way. You get only one arrow at time and you cant boost it like it was longbow. EMP bolt should stuck and work like EMP mine, it stays there for longer time. When someone puts sky shield or health station in it’s radius, it will not work and get penalty. You can destroy EMP bolt, but everything affected by penalty, does not work for certain time.

I didnt hit Trump, because I like Ryburn and Arevarov.
Ulu? Not that much, but something like meh tier.

(Szakalot) #7

i dont like the poll. Its asking both about power level and how much fun he is to play.

Hunter is fun to play, but he sucks. He sucks bad. Maybe in a 7v7 you can spam a choke and enjoy your kills on clueless opponents. Against good players scoring a hit at anything but shortest ranges is pure lotto. People move too fast and unpredictably to make any sensible leading. At that point he is just a weaker vassili with a useless EMP ability

(GatoCommodore) #8

@Szakalot said:
i dont like the poll. Its asking both about power level and how much fun he is to play.

Hunter is fun to play, but he sucks. He sucks bad. Maybe in a 7v7 you can spam a choke and enjoy your kills on clueless opponents. Against good players scoring a hit at anything but shortest ranges is pure lotto. People move too fast and unpredictably to make any sensible leading. At that point he is just a weaker vassili with a useless EMP ability

it doesnt feel like hes a long range merc tho
i play him at medium range-short range with playstyle similar to TF2 huntsman, except huntsman doesnt have zoom

(Xerny) #9

Hunter is pretty okay.

Never played him but he looks quite fun and powerful, his EMP is also pretty useful.

(Sorotia) #10

@GatoCommodore said:

@Szakalot said:
i dont like the poll. Its asking both about power level and how much fun he is to play.

Hunter is fun to play, but he sucks. He sucks bad. Maybe in a 7v7 you can spam a choke and enjoy your kills on clueless opponents. Against good players scoring a hit at anything but shortest ranges is pure lotto. People move too fast and unpredictably to make any sensible leading. At that point he is just a weaker vassili with a useless EMP ability

it doesnt feel like hes a long range merc tho
i play him at medium range-short range with playstyle similar to TF2 huntsman, except huntsman doesnt have zoom

But the problem is he s built to be a long range merc…and people play him like a long range merc. There are some people who are actually pretty good with bow at longer ranges but it’s really hard to do.

Which only makes things worse because just like Vasilli, the newbs will buy him, stay in back and spam, and be useless. But often even more useless because of the higher skill level the CB takes than even sniper rifles.

(bgyoshi) #11

Never seen a good Hunter and never will unless he changes

Bow spamming only works on people that run in straight lines and can’t aim, bow-aiming is too slow and loses to every sniper or mid to close range fight, primary is good but doesn’t have enough ammo, secondary is… a secondary, unique melee is worthless

Any class is unbeatably good in the hands of someone with ridiculous aim. Obviously I’ve seen top score Hunters but always in the hands of players that always top score anyway.

“High skill ceiling” is a code phrase for “extremely weak and requires strong aim to use effectively” in pretty much every situation, this one included.

I made a big list of changes when he came out, I stick by them even today. He’s bad, but could be useful some day.

(B_Montiel) #12

I’ve seen a couple of people using him very well, generally people who are generally very good at sparks. Currently he does not add anything to the game.

Caution has to be taken to his bow. With some tweaks improving it, it definitely can become the OP merc Sparks was when she was released. I dont think we need that. The 1 htk ability on most merc when scoped and instagib on 80hp merc is already powerful enough.

The way other clients receives hits and vision of the projectile trajectory has to be improved because its definitely awful right now.

(Szakalot) #13

personally id like his EMP to get some love. It could for example create a 5sec ‚tesla’ sphere that disables anything going through (like stickies) and also does some light disruption damage: e.g. 5hp per tick. Just enough to encourage people to gtfo.

Currently you can push an aura station, EMP disable the bunker, whip out MP and… face a pissed off aura with blishlok that will rek your face as you try to press your advantage.
There is no incentive to move out of the station area, best just wait till the disable wears off. Compare it to stoker’s molotov, bigger AoE, will stripp off half HP of anyone on the station, and push the Aura with 120hp assualt rifle.

(hoyes) #14

Personally like playing hunter, but I agree he is literally worse than other snipers at everything other than him having an emp, which is barely useful.I like the mechanic @Szakalot suggested, could be used to be a Fletcher counter especially. Tbh, I would rather nerf/rework the other snipers rather than buff hunter, as I believe he is stronger than other snipers at mid range multikills as well as recovering better from missing/hitting a bodyshot.

(Mr.Cuddlesworth) #15

He’s mostly fine, although an auto crossbow would be more fun

(Sorotia) #16

@bgyoshi said:
Never seen a good Hunter and never will unless he changes

Bow spamming only works on people that run in straight lines and can’t aim, bow-aiming is too slow and loses to every sniper or mid to close range fight, primary is good but doesn’t have enough ammo, secondary is… a secondary, unique melee is worthless

Any class is unbeatably good in the hands of someone with ridiculous aim. Obviously I’ve seen top score Hunters but always in the hands of players that always top score anyway.

“High skill ceiling” is a code phrase for “extremely weak and requires strong aim to use effectively” in pretty much every situation, this one included.

I made a big list of changes when he came out, I stick by them even today. He’s bad, but could be useful some day.

Makes me wonder if we will see a good merc again, every since Javelin it feels like they’re making the new mercs underwhelming so the masses wont cry nerf the first time they’re killed by one. (Just look at Guardian, people were crying nerf before we even knew the stats)

(Press E) #17

@Sorotia said:

@bgyoshi said:
Never seen a good Hunter and never will unless he changes

Bow spamming only works on people that run in straight lines and can’t aim, bow-aiming is too slow and loses to every sniper or mid to close range fight, primary is good but doesn’t have enough ammo, secondary is… a secondary, unique melee is worthless

Any class is unbeatably good in the hands of someone with ridiculous aim. Obviously I’ve seen top score Hunters but always in the hands of players that always top score anyway.

“High skill ceiling” is a code phrase for “extremely weak and requires strong aim to use effectively” in pretty much every situation, this one included.

I made a big list of changes when he came out, I stick by them even today. He’s bad, but could be useful some day.

Makes me wonder if we will see a good merc again, every since Javelin it feels like they’re making the new mercs underwhelming so the masses wont cry nerf the first time they’re killed by one. (Just look at Guardian, people were crying nerf before we even knew the stats)

Most of the comments I saw on Guardian were that she needed buffs though, besides a couple arty mains.
And well, she’s still a bit iffy in a competitive environment.

I’d much rather underwhelming than overwhelming though. Do you remember how horrible the first week with javelin was? Lol

(HadronZodiac) #18

Hunter has his moments, but tbh he is only good at one thing, emp-ing them deployables. And even then, if you emp a bush turret while it’s still going up it doesn’t emp it which is just stupid. Devs intended him to be a sniper, but more range = more lead, aka worse chance of hitting enemy. Also, his spot is quite honestly the worst recon ability in the game. Any bad player uses him, and no spots or damage. A good player uses him and the enemy just gets killed, no support. A recon is meant for giving the team a strategy, knowing where the enemies are located and disrupting their automatic support (deployables). His crossbow spreads very quickly, so even if you lead perfectly you don’t have a large chance of hitting, so skilled players can’t even survive unscoped. Hunter is quite honestly the most interesting recon (imo) yet he has his flaws. The hitbox of the arrow is just weird, colliding with basically everything except the enemy. Spot as said, is way too short to be useful. His ulus are terrible, they can’t even hit the base of turtle’s shield (it’s been tested). The “fire-rate” of the ulus don’t matter if they can’t hit anything. He gets out sniped by every other sniper, his crossbow takes time to reach their target while others can just pop a shot and find cover, which is just annoying.

He just emps and kills. Basically sniper phantom…

(HadronZodiac) #19

@GatoCommodore said:

@Szakalot said:
i dont like the poll. Its asking both about power level and how much fun he is to play.

Hunter is fun to play, but he sucks. He sucks bad. Maybe in a 7v7 you can spam a choke and enjoy your kills on clueless opponents. Against good players scoring a hit at anything but shortest ranges is pure lotto. People move too fast and unpredictably to make any sensible leading. At that point he is just a weaker vassili with a useless EMP ability

it doesnt feel like hes a long range merc tho
i play him at medium range-short range with playstyle similar to TF2 huntsman, except huntsman doesnt have zoom

Same! He is meant for longer range yet he feels like an Alaskan Redeye. I think if they changed his playstyle to a slightly longer ranged “redeye” i’d play him till I got arthritis and died!

(Teflon Love) #20

@HadronZodiac said:
I think if they changed his playstyle to a slightly longer ranged “redeye” i’d play him till I got arthritis and died!

Is your usage of past tense in the last part of the sentence intentional? :worried: