HUNTSMAN - bad synergy with his weapons

IMPORTANT: there are already tons of huntsman balance thread (one of them is mine: look linked thread), in fact, today, I’m NOT here to ask buff… this is another story. The problem I will try to explain, it would rimain also with a super buff.

LINKED THREAD: http://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/after-1-0-5-huntsman-has-lost-his-role/21306/1

There are two big points:

  • half of huntsman’s passive/talents, are about headshot… but, his weapons, are not thinked to accuracy aim:
    • coach gun: obv reasons, simply you can’t aim to headshot;
    • rep gun: same thing; too much recoil/spread, it is thinked to rapid fire;
    • handgun: it’s a fire gun but, to max accuracy, it needs too much time as a bow! Even, max accuracy, isn’t 100%;
    • longbow: it loses accuracy. I KNOW, you have full damage also without full charge, but in this way we have less time to aim… Kerillian’s bow hasn’t this problem. “BUT HUNTSMAN BOW HAS MORE BODY DAMAGE”, very well, I agree, so give us another talents… and leave headshot to Keri, it’s her style.

An important huntsman’s role is boss killer, so 25% crit chance after headshot, could be nice… but the only way to make huntsman just viable is to give him four bonus “pover vs X”, so we can’t use that talent for crit power/chance build!

We have the problem “ranged career with infinite bullets”… so they should make only Waystalker with recover bullets (this would need some balance to Bounty Hunter/Pyromancer, but it is another story) and they should give more appropriate talents to Huntsman… they could resolve two problems with one only fix!

  • Huntsman only has the bow:
    A ranged career with one only weapon… so sad, but true.
    • coach gun: decent weapon, but it doesn’t nothing against bosses (also it can not to kill packmaster)… so bad for a ranged/boss killer career. Also its spread is bugged (it doesn’t hit the “center of the screen”); killing a simple SV is so unsure;
    • rep gun: a dull weapon; low penetration, so it’s bad against crowd… too many hits to kill specials/elites… low damage against bosses (and you are uncovered during rapin fire);
    • handgun: garbage weapon for previous reasons (read above: slow weapons, etc etc), and also it has NOT more efficient breakpoints in comparison with bow

Thanks for reading, greetings and… and as my profile picture says, sorry for bad english.

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No, it doesn’t. If you test it in the Keep, yes, the target marker widens as you zoom - by the same amount the zoom affects your view. So the accuracy stays the same, you just see the target better. It is a shocking difference to Kerillian, who gains more accuracy with full draw, and the widening reticule feels like losing accuracy.

Also, it’s quite easy to in theory headshot with the Blunderbuss, but there seems to be something wonky with the recognition ability-wise, as you still have to aim at the head and it doesn’t always seem to work. Possibly the game assigns the closest pellet to the middle of spread to be the “significant” one for determining ability proc, but I don’t know for sure.

Your other points still stand, in my opinion.

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the differences between kruber’s longbow and elf’s longbow is quite distinct.

krubers bow staggers and does a lot of damage to chaos warriors from the shoulders and up, but elf bow only does a little damage to the head without stagger.

kruber full draw has more power (i think) but less accuracy. elf’s damage and accuracy is consistent on full draw.

kruber’s bow can 1 shot SV on legend with good property rolls. elf’s need headshots. it makes a huge difference being able to one shot a gatling or firerat or sv.

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Kruber bow also has a significant amount of armorpierce opposed to elf longbow

Huntsman is fine, in regards to his bow at least. However, his other options vary from lackluster to terrible, with the repeater handgun being the worst offender.

As everyone has already pointed out Kruber doesn’t need as much prescision as Kerillian. That being said, I really don’t have problems getting headshots when it matters. If you followed @Positron’s build there are only a few mobs you really NEED headshots on: chaos knights, hookrats, storm sorcerers, and bosses.

With “On Target” slotted I have no problems doing this, it’s simply a matter of learning the attack animations and movement patterns of each. Any headshots you get besides those are free ammo and crit buffs.

I really can’t believe you’re complaining about getting 25% free crit chance. You don’t need to build items around this for it to work. Kruber’s native crit is around 10%, add a 5% crit trinket and get one headshot to be critting 40% of the time. This is incredibly good. It allows you to kill chaos knights in legend with a few headshots and no career skill; it allows you to punch through more enemies in the horde and get more ammo back; it allows you to body shot enemies you normally need headshots on.

honestly it’s one of the best feelings to kill a chaos knight from afar.

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Sorry, but this is off topic… I know that Kruber’s bow is different, I agree.

The points are, as I have said:

  • huntsman has talents about headshotting, but his weapons have low accuracy… and this is ok, accuracy shots are Kerillian’s style, but so Fatshark should give to huntsman more appropriate talents;
  • hunts has only the bow… others weapons are bad.

Yes, I know, but this is off topic… the point is: we have only bow as decent weapon and, also, we have talents to headshot but low accuracy weapons.

This is thread’s point: others weapons are so bad… anyway bow is viable, but no one weapons have great accuracy, huntsman’s talents are wasted.

Might have gone a bit off topic, but i agree something has to change. His weapons and talents seem like a weird mix.

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Perhaps he indeed, needs talent options that are better suited to his other weapons. Talents that would make said weapons useful only in the hands of the Huntsman. If the weapons themselves are changed, then Mercenary and Foot Knight will be buffed as well, which should not be the point; they are melee-oriented classes after all. So the answer is to modify talent options. So perhaps we should make some concrete suggestions as to what options should be replaced/reworked in order to work in synergy with his other ranged weapons?

Although the handgun needs to become the oneshot railgun it used to be in Vermintide 1 (all rat specials with one bodyshot and Stormvermin with a headshot on the highest difficulty, with good piercing). That means a straight damage buff. Some other properties of the Vermintide 1 handgun can be left buried (fast reload with the proper trait & excellent hip-fire accuracy, good ammo cap).

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Only played huntsman a few times but yeah anything beside his bow felt a bit out of place. (in the same way, it’s silly to skip using the twin axes with the slayer) It could be by design but make the class a bit limited.

Both handguns (Kruber’s and Goreksonn’s) should get some love, especially since I really like the feeling of this slow weapon that really feels like the big deal to swap too and fire in anger. Unfortunately the damage doesn’t make it viable atm.

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I know and I agree… huntsman doesn’t need more accuracy, so Fatshark should give to huntsman more appropriate talents then “headshot based” ones. And I know, 25% crit chance talent, is great… in fact I’m not here to ask a bare buff, just a change. If, with next patch, they will buff this talent to (just a stupid example) 100% chance… I still would ask a change.

Yes, four nearly perfect bonus to shot some specials, while BH and Pyro can kill everythings… but, I repeat myself, this is off topic… I have just said as every weapons (except bow) are bad… and also that they are not thinked to accuracy aim.

Thanks for feedback; I have tested it against a wall and, with zoom, arrows have more spread… they “cover” a bigger area, so it seems to have less accuracy. Anyway it isn’t so important… the point is that to aim become more harder.

Yes, blunderbuss can make headshots, but it is so rng.

a weird mix

Exactly!

I agree… even if I think that handgun and rep gun are so garbage weapons, that also with some buff they don’t “make op” merch and foot.
Anyway yeah, the first step should be a change to huntsman’s talents.

Well let’s do some preliminary suggestions. I suggest utilizing Verminbuilds so anyone can easily see the whole talent tree. Of all the talents ones that really help or affect Huntsman’s powder-based weapons are the following:

1st tier: “Keep 'em coming” and "On target"
Of these, On target doesn’t really affect the handgun, since it’s very accurate already.

2nd tier: “Scavenger” and "Make 'em bleed"
Scavenger only helps if you’ve actually had time to spend that ammunition. With handgun that may not be the case (nor would you really want to use it in a boss fight due to current low damage).

Make 'em bleed is also difficult, since we’ve no idea how long the duration of the damage bonus is

3rd tier: All of them help powder-based weapons perform.
All of them give bonuses with headshots, which is great since it rewards skilled shooting. Thrill of the hunt combined with 1st tier talent Keep 'em coming would probably let you spend your ammo pretty fast with any weapon. I would recommend no changes to this tier at all, since all of them help, and let the player vary their build’s focus.

4th tier: The tier is much the same as every other class. For slow firing weapons like the handgun, For the Empire would not be very useful.

5th tier: All decent buffs for the Hunter’s Prowl

I would focus reworking the early 1-2 tier talents.

On target really only helps the Longbow a bit, and the Repeater a bit more. It could do with some buffing I think. Maybe even for 50% spread recuction (as was a weapon trait in Vermintide 1, was not OP at all, but a reasonable improvement). That would bring Repeater slightly back into the game, and would help with Longbow far shots as well.

Outdoorsman is a questionable talent overall with a very ranged-focused class. I argue it should be replaced with something else entirely. My suggestion is plainly a talent that would give damage bonus or hero power with powder-based weapons; enough damage bonus so the Handgun and Repeater would become viable options when it comes to damage. Sounds simple, what do you guys think?

Hands off is a very situational talent. Only use is against packmasters, since gutter runners are squishy enough already. An odd talent. I imagine one usually plays Huntsman in a position pretty far away from Packmasters anyway. Also a talent that only pays itself when something’s gone wrong, and maybe not even then. I don’t see it making that huge a difference with this class. More useful with a melee class to be sure, (frontline sometimes gets grabbed). So in my opinion this is a talent that we could do without. It ought to be replaced with something more related to the class role; better zoom, reduced projectile drop off, increased headshot damage, damage to armoured, better penetration or something the like. Thoughts anyone?

And again: a general damage bonus for the handgun plz.

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It feels like huntsman was tweaked around handgun, all his skills make sense then. But scoring headshots with every other weapon is really difficult, his longbow vs keri’s longbow could be an example. I always felt like “what were they thinking?” creating such a miss match? It is actually frustraiting, when you try to aim for the head on most enemies, but end up missing all these shots no matter how hard you try. So you better of ignoring his passive most of the time.

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I understand you’re making a more nuanced complaint in this thread than the others but I still disagree. People here saying the longbow can’t get headshots because it isn’t Kerillian’s bow just need a bit more practice.

I don’t think it’s bad design that a more difficult bow is also more rewarding when used well.

Also I’m not against diversifying his play with more weapons but 1 class 1 weapon is sort of the norm now.