Class Overview

Being A Hunter in the moors gives you an interesting set of abilities. Apart from the obvious Ranged DPS capability, the Track skill is one of the best tools for scouting and intelligence gathering in the game.

Hunters also have some good Crowd Control skills to Fear creeps and AOE Root and Trap. Hunters have several skills to Slow creep and a Cure Poison ability.

Ranged DPS is what Hunters are best at and in a defensive situation with good use of RAT Hunters can massacre huge numbers of creeps - use Focus then fire in volleys ie all shoot on command, 8+ Hunters can kill even a signature Warleader or Reaver almost instantly giving no opportunity for healing.

However decent Creep raids will generally not attack a well defended Keep or a good Freep raid in the open unless they catch us by surprise or we bump into each other. Hunters need to be at the back of the balled up Melees ideally in the main hall round the corner from the gate causing creeps to pull lots of NPC aggro and allowing hunters to finish of the Melee fighters targets as they come through.

In Keep fighting its important for Freeps not to get caught on the stairs for long as ranged fighters need LOS and are at a big disadvantage here, so dithering on the stairs either in attack or defence is not good for Hunters or raids containing them.

Camoflage - a few hunters hiding in stealth can ambush and kill creeps in skirmish type situations, a bunch of you in a raid stealthed inside a keep = a deadly welcoming comittee for anything that charges through the melee press

Strengths

Ranged DPS, Crowd Control, Scouting and Intelligence.

Weaknesses

Squishy, Low Melee DPS, need LOS for Ranged DPS.

Common Mistakes

There are a number of common errors made by Hunters which can give you a bad name in the moors and cost your raid dearly.

Breaking Crowd Control

Shooting a Warg out of Stun/Root/Mezz DONT DO IT!!! Let the Melee Surround it and advance to the Wargs position and focus - you will stay in range much longer than if you unthinkingly shoot it at long range. Try low cutting it when its surrounded and shooting it with Barbed Arrow to give it DoT to unstealth it if it stealths after being attacked.

In Pursuit of fleeing Creeps dont shoot anything that has been CCed until it has been surrounded by melee instead advance ahead of the raid and use your Barbed Arrow and Quick Shot in Strength stance as well as Low Cut to Slow the creeps further ahead. You can also select the furthest hittable target and fire the Hail Of Thorns AOE Root to trap a few more creeps to kill when the raid catches up.

Bad Use OF Skills

Not Tracking you should ALLWAYS be tracking OOC and ESPECIALLY if your in position as a Scout/Keep Guard. You should have your track trait slotted in the moors or the range is not long enough to be much help.

Not Curing Poison since Book 13 Spiders have much nastier poison, you should remove it ESPECIALLY timed poison when you can and SPAM the poison cure if your up against one of those rare Spider Raids!

Desperate Flight is something that many Hunters use far too often, if your in a raid battle you should stay in the fight and take your medicine wiping with the others unless otherwise instructed.

Battlefield Roles

Scouting and Intelligence

Track skill can be used to pinpoint targets location, or to check numbers and distance of enemy forces without picking up an individual creep, this means they are not warned you are tracking them maintaining the element of suprise.

If you play a hunter on the moors it is your duty for the group to have the tracking trait slotted and to use track regularly. Without the trait your track range is drastically reduced and theres no point tracking for creeps when you can see them allready

Stealth Camoflage or Racial Stealth improves a Hunters ability to be a fixed or mobile solo scout in dangerous areas, if the hunter is detected and Ganked DF can be used to escape.

Crowd Control

Cry of the Predator can Fear a Warg and put them out of the fight use it often in melee and especially if a warg pack tries to gank your minstrels If you coordinate with voice you can fear many wargs in a larger group as long as they are not attacked with AOE you can single them out 1 by 1 to take them down.

Bards Arrow can Fear ANY creep class and is best used to stop Warleaders Healing during a fight. this should be coordinated with Voice and spammed when changing targets to cut down the creeps healing Zerg when fighting many Warleaders. May also be useful to try Fear on Reavers as they charge in.

These Fear skills can also help your group escape to NPCs or a Keep if chased by a larger force, or used to take a few enemies out of a Skirmish.

Hail of Thorns is an AOE Root skill with offensive and defensive uses, it can be used when chasing down creeps to catch them up, when Wargs Gank you or the minstrels, and when escaping a larger force to stop some of the chasers.

Hail of Thorns is great against wargs and AOE skills like Hail of Arrows will also hit and unstealth nearby wargs

Trap is a useful skill, although the 1 minute expiry on traps limits their value and unless you use single use traps they cannot be laid in combat.

Reavers can run through Traps unimpeded but Snare will cause DoT and this is useful against wargs as it will unstealth them.

Traps can be used very effectively along with LRM Tar as part of keep defence and are also good used with Tar to form a defensive area and killing zone when you are attacking keeps or fighting in the open and gives minstrels somewhere to stand where wargs can be trapped.

Traps and Tar can slow down the charge of enemy reinforcements to give the raid time to turn round and kill the leading attackers.

In open battle traps dropped at the rear and flanks just before the fight can trap and DoT wargs or other foes during melee, in a persuit they can be dropped before you run to give the melees more chance of escaping as they pass over them.

Slow Skills are great in attack and defence. Its important to use your slowing shots to catch fleeing creeps, Barbed Arrow slows by 10% and Quick Shot slows by 40 % in strength stance. The added focus will also allow you two fire off some of your more devastating attacks like penetrating Shot and Merciful Shot.

Low Cut slows the enemy by 40% and so helps you catch them or escape from them.

Ranged DPS

Hunters will often use Strength stance but Endurance is good for long fights or on Tyrants, in Strength stance Quickshot also slows the target. Precision stance reduces the chance of shots missing or being evaded parried or blocked.

When fighting wargs Barbed Arrow should be your first shot as the DoT pulses will unstealth it and the second should be Quickshot in Strenth stance as these two will slow it down.

Heartseeker is A great shot but i am allways bemused why some people choose to fire it at a Tyrant when a last ditch charge by creeps is imminent - dont waste it! It has a 5 minute Cooldown and should be saved for killing a creep, dont waste it on Green or Bluerings either as they will die fast anyway, probably before you get the shot off.

It can also be used to intimidate enemy players - in skirmishes and more messy battles or against star huggers and inexperienced foes just putting the HS target on a creep is often enough to cause them to run away

Penetrating Shot never scores highly when its your first shot, use Barbed Arrow or Swiftbow first and dont forget Merciful Shot this can be as deadly as Heartseeker when it crits.

Needful Haste is great to use just before an enemy raid charges at you to kill a few creeps quicker though of course you will burn power quicker.

Rain of Arrows can be used to pour fire on enemies from keeps or NPCs and unstealths wargs in its area.

Melee DPS

Melee is not the Hunters ideal form of combat but you will often end up in contact with the enemy during battles so a few things to help you survive and help your group to win.

Swiftstroke increases your parry defence so use it regularly when in melee to improve your survivability.

Agile Rejoinder does decent damage, use it when it becomes available.

Scourging Blow does good damage when combined with Barbed Arrow but stops the bleed.

Blindside is good as it builds focus to use a high scoring bow skill.

Cry of the Predator is good to CC Wargs who are Ganking you or the Minstrels.

Bards Arrow Use this to stop Warleaders healing and Reavers killing you.

Low Cut slows the enemy by 40% and so helps you catch them or escape from them.

AOE is allways good in stand up fights and AOE Root can trap a few enemies for at least a couple of seconds which is good when chasing creeps, defending a charge or trying to escape

Buff/Debuff

Cure Poison is a crucial skill now spiders have been given nastier skills and should be used regularly when fighting them especially to remove timed poison and most especially on Minstrels and other crucial team members.

Campfires are another thing that can be overlooked but should allways be used as they give you that extra bit of regen ooc - place them in the rear when defending or skirmishing from NPCs or where you stand if your in the open or fighting in an enemy keep.

They are also nice for setting on fire a buried spider and dancing round it before they come up to die!

Conclusion

Hunter is a great class to play and used properly is really efective, unfortunately many Hunters dont use or understand all their skills, do not Trait or Deed efectively, or are fearful and Star Hugging in the moors.

Hunters are Squishy but if you stay balled up and use RAT you can take anything down if the raid uses its abilities properly and the tactics are sound.

DF - As a Leader and RAT use of this skill is almost allways completely unacceptable - who wants to follow a leader who will press an escape button when things get tough!?!

If im messing about skirmishing id be most likely to use this if ive chased too far and cannot get back to my group/npcs...

This skill is one that I loathe using generally, but it is useful and even unselfish if used correctly. If you become seperated and are being ganked you may use it but you should have moved with the group and not got isolated. TELL THE RAID so they dont waste time trying to save you.

If a Keep Attack/Defence has failed and been called off BY THE LEADER it can be used to save yourself honourably but try to draw off some creeps from your comrades before you do.

For some more about hunters check this linkhttp://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?p=2109232

Connall

A very good post that will help alot of hunters. Thanks Connall.

I will add one thing. One thing we have to work on within the raid. That is the position of the hunters. Even if we dont use 2 RAT:s that often we will have to maybe asign one "leading" hunter in the raid. A person that all the other hunters group up around. A hunter squad with in the raid could be extremely usefull and would assist the raid even better if they were to move as one unit. Repositioning itself more often to make them harder to catch.

This is something i would suggest us to try out. Take time and find a way and a few persons that are willing to and ofcourse has a big knowledge of PvP, to be the leader of the hunters with in the raid.

Nice post Connall.

I consider myself an average (at best) hunter in the Moors largely due to lack of experience, would be interested on advice on the best traits to equip (i.e. Heightened Senses is a given for them pesky wargs).

UPDATE: Connal has updated the original post to reflect my and other peoples suggestions, it is now I think a very good guide to the Hunter role in the Ettens. As for how important the class is, 2/10/2008 I lead a full raid, every class present but no hunters. Was intresting, hunters, you are very much needed in the Ettens. Without you, creeps literally just give us the run around. Pew-pew'ers you might be, but without it, we can barely kill them.
This post is fairly harsh in tone as I am getting sick to death of some hunters giving all hunters a bad name. Hope that the nature of this forum allows for this type of critism.

Nice post but you are making a huntard mistake, you do NOT list you class greatest weakness, the tendency to interrupt crowd control.

It is the reaon the class has such a bad name in raids, sure, you can focus on your capability to DPS at range all you want but if every attempt at CC is interrupted by some hunter who has to attack at maximum range, then you got to wonder whose side you are really on.

I have a hunter myself, Elysia, so I know how tempting it is to just pew-pew without thinking. Hell, that is often the reason I play it, when I just don't want to have to engage my brain.

First rule
A hunter DPS alone is NOT enough to ensure a kill, so do NOT attack a creep, stunned or not, on your own at maximum range as he will just walk away.

Second rule
Watch your target, if a target is rooted or stunned, ALLOW others to get closer, this is ESPECIALLY important for wargs as a freed warg will simply stealth and send a thank you to the huntard. As hunter, you should also close in, you can't chase and use your skills at the same time, so the closer you are to the creep, the more time you have to get your ranged hits in.

Third rule
Do NOT over-commit yourself, you have long induction skills, as tempting as it is to get that last shot in, it tends to result in hunters finding them all alone all of a sudden when the tide turns. Some of the raid will then attempt to heal, leaving them behind and the creeps just roll the freeps up.

Fourth rule
You have got a poision cure, USE IT. The biggest huntards of them all cry for power, heals and cures but never remove poison even at gunpoint.

Fifth rule
Watch where you put your campfire, it interrupts line of sight, so put it to the side NOT in the middle.

Sixth rule
Hail of Arrows shall ONLY be used when you are absolutely 100% sure it is needed. It shall NEVER be used on a single enemy, yes it does have a nice crit change but if you use this logic for an AoE skill you do NOT have it in you to observe CC.

Seventh rule
Watch your power, for a class that is all about DPS, you need power to be of any use and you are VERY low on the list to have it handed to you by lore-masters who got their own needs. Lets put it like this, there are 6 classes in the game that lore-masters can share power with, hunters are 10th on the list.

Eight rule
Always track, whenever you are out of combat. TRACK. CONSTANTLY, ALL THE TIME. Freeps have a tendency to be stuck in PvE mode where the enemy will always be waiting for you to engage them when you feel like it. Doesn't work in the Ettens, creeps don't wait until you are ready. So hunters and burglars are the early warning of the freeps. Ideally, in a raid, you would have six hunters arranged in a triangle around the raid, in healing range, stealthed, each pair tracking for orcs and natures. It would make any ambush impossible. That it a tactic that has never been used says it all about freep efforts in the Ettens.

In closing

Most important of all, if you wish to get rid of the title Huntard, learn to forget about your supposedly good DPS and realize that at least in this game, it is all about TEAMWORK. Nobody cares if you land 3000 damage on a creep if that creep then just walks behind a wall and gets cured. Only with teamwork can you turn the tide in this game and frankly hunters got a bad reputation with this.

The original post is a good, solo guide to the Ettens, perhaps useful to an all hunter raid (with DF that could be a real nuisance), but it is incomplete when it comes to teamwork. That is what freeps lack most at the moment, not DPS and not skills, but having the classes work together. It is easier creep side as the classes are more well-defined in terms of how they work together in PvP as that is what they have been designed for.

But surely if the hunter is following RAT then they will never break CC? AOE skills notwithstanding of course.

Or am I missing something?

Thanks for the post Enat, you make some great points and i will amend the guide to take them into account. I myself have a Loremaster Alt and I soon became sick of Hunters breaking stun with AOE skills, it is a harder class to play to a decent standard in PvE never mind the moors!

This is still very much a work in progress, all feedback and criticism is very much appreciated - i dont in any way consider myself an expert hunter and have plenty to learn from others and perople who play other classes.

The Template I am developing is intended as a way to set out all the class guides in a structured way so it may not seem to be ideal for a hunter guide but hopefully all the guides will be useful to help people understand other classes as well as their own.

The guide is intended to be for raid v raid combat though i mentioned skirmishing in passing, I will tighten up the guide and cut out most of the stuff about my DF adventures as they belong somewhere else really and its not something i want hunters to feel is an everyday occurence.

I hope you read through the whole slightly longwinded thing as i did mention many of the things you bring up - particularly Tracking.

I did mention the poison cure but will emphasise it for clarity.

On the issue of CC and not breaking it i have perhaps been foolish in not making much reference to it and will do this by including a new section on common class mistakes or downsides.

Perhaps I should remember that many hunters knock creeps out of CC over and over and these are the people we want to read this and change their ways!

I have spoken with others about trying to fight with NO AOE as an experiment obviously in a raid with a few Loremasters and Burglars.

When wargs atack or are close AOE can unstealth them and Hunters can use their AOE Root on them when they are trying to gank the Minstrels etc.

CC needs to be agreed for different situations and/or called out by players in an emergency but there will allways be people accidentally breaking it, the point is to minimise this and of course when one huntard shoots a CCed warg at long range its a big schoolboy error!

One problem that can occur is RATers Tabbing for Warleaders during a fight and I have done this as its quicker - but a CCed target that appears in the RAT window is likely to be shot by at least one Hunter so targets need to be manually found and clicked by mouse to avoid this in CC situations which can be trickier so we need to work on this.

I didnt mention much about power management as its something hunters are fairly familiar with although i will go into it more to help them with this aspect.

Please keep looking and add your ideas, and if you could be kind enough to do a Guide for Loremasters id be very greatful.

And I could do with a few Loremaster lessons myself for my Alt!

Cheers, Connall

Could you please add in the trap part that it's also nice to be aware of your minstrels and lay the trap around them if you have the choice please !

Its allready in there!

Nice post Connall and Enat learn some new things ^^ (have been a hunter since the game came out and just start to a new classe)

The thing whit put down a trap near the minstrel is a good idea ^^ I always stay near the minstrel in case of wargs try save them whit fear. Whic I think huters always should can really save the minstrels

For tracking I think the leader should say what hunter track what, natur or orc so not all track the same

Heartseeker I never really use case is slow and is only good if it crit. Penetrating Shot and Merciful Shot is way better and can easy and fast kill a creep there is on the run down.
so hunters should use teamwork and all use Penetrating Shot on a creep running away case of low morale

I like the idea about a stealth tactic and I think we should try it ^^ burglars hide the other classe. Just my crazy idea x)

Well thats all form me for now ^^ see you the 5

Once again. Very nice post Connall. And Enat the rules u posted is common scense. Not to all but it has to become. I realize i take to much for granted in the raids. All these points are so basic stuff. So no poin writeing it as critics. But simply more info

I Mentioned The Psychological effect of Heartseeker to intimidate creeps, its usefull to put the target on them sometimes to get them running!

Alot of good (and pritty common things) that stand in their. BUT, they are only for a raid. What to do if you find a creep solo;

Build up your focus ASAP! Focus is your main goal to have, no focus = no high damage.
Be ready for alot of running, unless you'll find yourself to be fighting a BA. Swift Bow = Death. Unless you have the -25% induction time bonus (3 power cost) but your dead.

Reaver;

Camouflage ASAP, this will allow you to build up your focus OOC. Lay a snare ( wy? If the reaver is R3+ he'll probably have charge + pots thus making your trap useless, snare gives the reaver a -40% move speed + a DOT ). Basic strategie, use Strenght's stance and spam Quick Shot, the -40% debuff from quick shot will be resisted alot, BUT since its CD is nothing you can spam it. Use quick shot + penetrating shot in order to pew the reaver down. Don't forget to move away, your biggest challenge is to keep the reaver at bay. Once the reaver is -50% this is a fast way to get rid of him; Intent Concentration, Bard's Arrow, Heartseeker, Merciful Shot, Penetrating Shot and if he still lives by then use Quick Shot + Swift Bow/Penetrating Shot.

Warg;

Same tactics but be ready to be pounced without! your focus buildup unless your the one ambushing the warg. Use the snare and Barbed Arrow in order to find your prey after he used Disappear.

Weaver;

A tough one I find it, weavers main attack = poison, the poison is used for everything, debuff, the dot, the hatchlings. Cure it ASAP or your dead faster. With a weaver it is MORE essential to keep the distance then with a reaver. The reaver has a slow that can be potted -25% run speed. The weavers slow CANT! Remember that and you'll survive. I've sparred a weaver and I got asskicked into oblivion for I COULD NOT make any distance from the weaver.

Defiler/Warleader;

Nearly impossible with the Warleader but make sure you DONT run out of power before they do. Warleaders strong point is there morale + armour and they need to heal at a certain point aswell, use Bard's Arrow to interupt them and dont use your Swift Bow to much without the -25% induction time or he heals it again.
Defilers are easier, but they're Debuff's can make it really hard for you. Their heals are nothing, to long CD but don't give them the time to use them. A good defiler will be coming in close range using his staff strike and circle around you, same as reaver keep your distance and the defiler is yours. Use your Quick Shot in strenght Stance in order to kill them without getting away.

Blackarrow;

Myself haven't found alot of Blackarrows alone and haven't fought with them 1v1. They are nasty though, they have higher ranged evade and with the 50% evade buff they get another buff into ranged evade, make sure you put a slow on them, run into melee and make sure they don't get into safe ground. Slows are essential. Cure the DoT with a pot and they are not a challenge unless R3+ since they can interrupt your induction skills.