Helm’s Deep Hunter Dev Diary Released

Today Turbine released the developer diary that details Helms Deep changes to the Hunter class. Although we’ve had previous hints about the three trait trees and what they entail, the diary provided some new information about skills within each of these of which we were not previously aware. Below are some of the highlights that I picked out:

• The Bowmaster line is a stationary, high damage, long range line. Those traited heavy in the bowmaster line will be dependent on induction skills to deal maximum damage from a long-range position. Moving from your stance will cause you to lose focus and subsequently require re-focus once you’ve again established your position. Bowmaster is the current “red line” of today, and my assumption (from the description in the diary) is that this line is the one that will change the least.
• The Huntsman line is a movement-based, medium range, medium damage stance. While those traited huntsman will not have the heavy burst damage of the bowmaster, the ability to move and get off quick shots should still provide an ample amount of damage over the course of battle. Huntsmen will not only be able to fire on the move, they will not be penalized focus points for doing so.
• The line that is likely to see the most changes is the Trapper of Foes. Several things are eluded to within the diary that might make this line much more interesting than it is today. While trapper of foes has always been focused on crowd control, the diary also mentions AoE and ally buffs as new key components to this line. Specifically, a new twist to the “low cut” skill is mentioned:

…as well as adding a root to Low Cut to lock an enemy in their traps to ensure a trap hits or deals all its damage to them.

• a few other tidbits about trapper of foes can be pulled from the last paragraph:
  • Traps usable in combat
  • Little or no induction time for trap usage
  • Stronger traps
  • Ground targeting traps (like the Wildermore fish-net throw?)
  • Buffs and debuffs based on trap use

I’m glad we finally made it to “H” in the dev diary roundup. Reading about the changes to the huntsman and trapper of foes lines makes me excited to try out some of the new hunter skills! Let’s hunt some orc!

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