Huntsman boss killing too strong?

[Avar]

That would still be garbage science that would only prove that one player was able to perform better than the other in general. The only metric that matters is self vs self with the caveat the player needs to be honest about how their performance with each career stacks up. Ie. If someone is garbage with Zealot, but we know people who always perform extremely well on Zealot without issue, we have to take that into consideration; a good example of this is the “omg (character that’s perfectly fine) is too weak” threads that sometimes pop up and people just sorta politely point out that the general public does very well with that character.

This kind of objective analysis is extremely easy to do and the results should be empirically clear in general with common-sense analytical weight being given to the areas in which each class excels/underperforms. As such, why people are posting these hand-picked scorecards where other classes are performing well below average and even further below what we all know their potential is just makes it seem pretty clear there’s an agenda at play and that they don’t really care about true objective balance or in providing feedback that isn’t “omg plz nerf.” Given the obsession with the supposed “ranged meta,” I’d argue it seems clear what the agenda is. I don’t even like/enjoy Kruber in VT2 but I’ll be the first one to call BS on sloppy methods when it comes to asking for nerfs.

A fair argument on this subject needs to have better reasoning than that which has been employed herein by its proponents. It needs to be: “Here’s what I do on huntsman vs bosses, here’s what I do on other characters vs bosses,” and “full disclosure, this is using a pure boss spec” _ and_ “I feel the character’s weaknesses fail to compensate for this strength because of x, y, z, etc.” So far the whole argument has been “omg hunstman op look at my numbers and handpicked ‘evidence’ while I totally disregard any form of meaningful objective analysis and fail to disclose I’m running an almost pure boss killer spec vs ppl who aren’t.”

Cries for a nerfbat shouldn’t be made so lightly or with such disingenuous carelessness.

[fuzzydwarf]

@Avar

Cries for a nerfbat shouldn’t be made so lightly or with such disingenuous carelessness.

This is a clear open and shut case of unintended boss kill power that was nerfed back in the open beta for the same exact reasons. Fatshark_Hedge has already mentioned tweaks are in progress. There is no “agenda” and you don’t need scientific rigor to come to this conclusion.

I ask you again: what changes to the ult would you like to see to keep Kruber viable?

[Kitten]

I should point out that this testing has been done with the Longbow I don’t think other weapons have this much potential with him

-17% monster killing and still 1shotting every elite, clearing hordes easily too, and having no problem with specials, because of crit if you miss the headshot
-a video that clearly shows him downing a boss in under 10 seconds
-a video that shows him doing 30% hp shots on a chaos troll
-not hand picked score cards. Since picking him up I don’t think I’ve done less damage than anyone once. They also show him topping on every type of kill, while being able to have 0 melee kills
-testimony of many people including me who has experience in V1 and hundreds of hours in V2 testing and trying different careers and builds
-a video that clearly shows him killing elites and specials stupid fast and with ease AS WELL AS showing him use 31 arrows and still finishing with 25 (in a 1 minute time frame)
-streaming to show his absolutely disgusting potential, in which people constantly say wtf and call Huntsman broken after killing bosses

I mean I could compile a hundred hours of me light shotting hordes and clearing them ridiculously easily and gaining ammo rather than losing it. Or clearing any sort of patrol easier than any other class without bombs or potions. Or clearing areas before other people, especially melee focused careers, have had a chance to do anything.

Every time we try to point to fixes and issues such as crit we get arguments about BH, Pyro or WS. Or just some rubbish about how it’s as hard to get headshots on Kerillian as it is a body shot on Huntsman. lol

The issues are:

-crit allowing him to 1shot from body shots
-ammo replenishment because of crit
-ease with which he clears hordes, elites, specials and bosses(under 10 secondslol)
-no real downtime on shooting if you play right
-any decent player on him is just too much of a hard carry
-ALL OF THIS IS DONE FROM RANGE AND IS CONTRIBUTING TO THE RANGED META

He makes the game feel so easy compared to any other career. Even BH has to get melee kills before it’s guaranteed a crit. Huntsman just spam shoots.

[CommanderJ]

@Kitten

-crit allowing him to 1shot from body shots

This is completely normal. WS, BH etc all kill specials if they crit on bodyshot. This is not OP, this is perfectly normal, intended behaviour across a range of careers. (BH kill on all bodyshots with xbow btw) To suggest otherwise is to blatantly push your hatred for ranged meta, and to list this as a ‘problem’ unique to huntsman, is to be inherently dishonest about the discussion at hand. The only real discussion that can be had, is how HS performs to other, similar careers. Not to how you wish other careers performed.

@Kitten

-ammo replenishment because of crit

Again, this works exactly the same across a wide variety of careers, and huntsman is in no way unique in this respect. You’re once again holding HS up against standards of some wishful melee-centric game, not up against the other ranged careers we actually have in the game.

@Kitten

-ease with which he clears hordes, elites, specials and bosses

This is true for Pyro, Unchained, WS, Shade, BH, WHC and even all melee centric careers clear hordes with ease, as well as elites and specials. Boss killing potential vary from career to career and their setup. HS has stronger boss killing than others, yes. But he DOES NOT have stronger horde clear or elite clear. Once again holding him up to imaginary standards, not up against the game we actually have.

@Kitten

-no real downtime on shooting if you play right

Once again, this is true in the extreeme for BH, and to a certain extent WS, and certainly for Pyro “if played right.”

@Kitten

any decent player on him is just too much of a hard carry

This is true for pretty much any career in the game. I’ve seen someone carry on WHC. Good players are good. Yet another non-argument.

@Kitten

ALL OF THIS IS DONE FROM RANGE AND IS CONTRIBUTING TO THE RANGED META

And here it is, your agenda is to completely change the game. You don’t want to balance Huntsman in accordance with the other ranged careers in the game, you want to balance him in accordance to your preferred melee-centric game. As such, your list is just chock full of non-arguments, as HS performs similar to other careers on all points except boss killing.

Quite frankly it is incredible the way you push for a complete rework of HS with complete disregard for the current normal state of all other careers, in your agenda to turn the game more into a game you would like more.

It is completely possible to play with a four man melee team, and I enourage you to do so, and I encourage you to allow other players to enjoy the game in their preferred way.

For instance, I personally think having careers with 50% damage reduction is quite insane, but I understand that people enjoy playing that way, and I am not trying to change the game or have those melee classes removed, or reworked until uselessness.

If someone has a problem with HS boss damage, OK yeah I get that. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I get it. To have all these problems you list, which in no way are unique to HS in the slightest…you’re just pushing your agenda, and it is incredibly transparent.

[bootyman]

i hope they buff melee against bosses than i will really miss easy mode huntsman its a great meme seeing him gun down enemy’s in a flash.

[NikKotovski]

I am not sure, if reload speed affects bows. Actually, I think it doesn’t

[Kitten]

Of course I’m against the ranged meta. As I mentioned before it’s ridiculous in a game like this, where at the minute ranged is strong enough to carry games to the point of doing the majority of damage to every enemy with some careers. Ranged is safer and easier than melee and shouldn’t also benefit from being stronger than it.

I do want Huntsman to work as a ranged, just not as strongly as he does now. If you can’t see how he benefits most from crit shots compared to other careers, just think about his firing uptime and rate of fire in line with his talent to take him to 45% with no cooldown. The talent with which he resets the crit by shooting some more. Even Pyro’s shooting uptime has been nerfed.

He is stronger than BH, Pyro and WS as range. He can clearly deal with any type of enemy better than all of them. The only exceptions would be; Pyro/WS ult vs specials, and Pyro vs ambushes. Other than that, you can refer back to the list for what else he’s better at.

Yes, people should enjoy the game, and people should be able to play melee careers in a more fair setting than every horde, elite, boss or patrol getting mowed down by the same career and from range. When one careers strength sacrifices the fun of others on the team, I think it’s for the greater good it gets nerfed. As I’ve shown (if you watched any of my stream), you can just push ahead and clear anything you want to before your team even gets chance. It’s not hard because you’re ranged.

You can clearly see from the video where I kill the patrol:

1. how much damage the bow does
2. how quickly it’s capable of doing it
3. the amount shooting I do
4. the amount of ammo I have left

It’s not rocket science to think that with a melee weapon it would take much longer, be harder, be more dangerous and could most likely end up with you dead. If you think it’s balanced that he can do that it’s crazy.

IMO the best fix they could do is crit reduction solely for the Longbow. It would reduce the spam shooting kill power, amount of ammo generated and still keep him at a useful enough point at which he can kill things.

[Kitten]

You’re right. I tried to Hangun last night. Oops.

[NikKotovski]

@Sasa

I feel like your point is slightly hurt by playing on righteous stand, it’s a map with lots of small entry points for hordes, frequent guaranteed ammo crates and plenty open spaces for boss encounters.

What makes your think so? I played 3-4 games yesterday on different maps, including Athel Yenlui ranged only no ammo pickup mode, and I always topped the scoreboard. Let me emphasize - Bow only. So ammo crates argument is irrelevant, please never bring it back again, I don’t think Athel Yenlui has narrow passages, except for a couple in the end, and one in the beginning, and open spaces for boss encounters… how’s that even an argument? What is it supposed to prove?

[Sasa]

I wasn’t making an argument, i was simply pointing out how one might not be swayed by watching someone play on righteous stand.

[Kitten]

I think the only benefit is that it’s more obvious where the spawn points and choke points are imo. I see your point though.

[NikKotovski]

@Sasa

I wasn’t making an argument, i was simply pointing out how one might not be swayed by watching someone play on righteous stand.

And I am just saying, that Kitten probably tested other maps, before posting, and his experience can be backed by mine.

[CommanderJ]

And what about the experience of everyone who beats HS and performs better than HS on other careers?

Anecdotal ‘evidence’ is anecdotal, and opinions are opinions. Stop trying to prove something you can’t.

[NikKotovski]

@Avar

But that’s bs, because you’re comparing yourself, on the boss-killer character, while being spec’d almost entirely for boss-killing, versus garbo randoms. You don’t seem to understand how disingenuous that is.

The problem is, this character, while being spec’d to boss killing, STILL TOPS the scoreboard on every other aspect. He’s still crazy effective at killing everything, but can also 8 sec. bosses. Idk how you don’t see that.

@Avar

Cool cuz every scorecard I’ve ever had I utterly, embarrassingly dominate the huntsman in every category no matter what character in on, so by your logic that “proves” he’s not OP, supposedly.

You can get bad results on a good character, especially if they’re skill-dependent, but you can’t get good results on a bad character, at least consistently.

@Avar

So run up and melee it… Jfc… Why are you sitting at the back as a frontline job?

Such behaviour would break team positioning and likely lead to wipe sooner or later. This game is about covering each other’s back, not hunting for kills. Also friendly fire.

@Avar

You don’t need to do that. It’s one of two cases. Either a) the current position isn’t good for the current horde and it’s friendlies-mixed-with-badguys anyways, so you have lots to melee , or b) you’re in an ideal position wherein you’re defending 1-2 clearly defined fronts and the ranged are totally safe regardless.

It’s either a or b, black or white, life or death. Like really?

[Kitten]

I’ve proved most of what I just said in videos. The only thing I don’t have videos of are me running around clearing before anyone gets a chance and me spamming light shots into hordes. Anyone can test that, or just imagine being ranged with an almost unlimited ammo and long range bow that kills most things in 1 hit and entering an area with a few enemies knocking about.

[CommanderJ]

I’m not sure I understand. You claim that HS can delete non-ambush hordes better than Sienna? How, exactly, would he do that? Have you never tried anything other than beam and flameweave on Sienna?

A fireball Sienna can delete any horde, at any range. She can nuke and stagger clusters of armored, zerkers, maulers, shielders and anything else at any range. Her LMB staggers anything that isn’t a boss. Her charged projectile literally has infinite cleave and stops only on shields. With heatsink, you can make the projectile pass through enough enemies that it almost always procs a crit.

With a speedspot, she can take a roger to half health with spamming uncharged RMB. Boss DPS is often very close to HS, and surpasses him if he mistimes his ult or misses a few shots. Exceptions being certain armored lords, for which AP is of course required.

I get that you dislike the ranged meta, but don’t make stuff up just to support your opinion. HS has a bow, there are many careers with arrow/bolt weapons, and they all delete hordes in more or less the same way (some with more cleave than others.) NONE of them can even touch what a Sienna can do against a horde.

Huntsmen, BH and WS alike stand there twiddling their thumbs and killing scraps when I go all out to get all the kills with Sienna.

So yeah, push your agenda and your opinions, but don’t make completely bonkers claims about what HS can do and what other careers can’t do.

[NikKotovski]

@fuzzydwarf

I ask you again: what changes to the ult would you like to see to keep Kruber viable?

I think that removing damage bonus from Huntsman ult will make him balanced.

But that will look dumb, so my idea is that his ult should stand to its name - ambush. I think its main purpose must be repositioning.

So the idea is - remove FOV decrease, remove movespeed reduction, remove damage bonus, allow moving through units, increase duration to 5-10 seconds, reduce cd. When leaving stealth, the first shot or hit should always be critical (and might have smth like 1.5x multiplier too) and for 3-5 seconds after leaving stealth Huntsman receives a reload speed buff and wastes no ammo when shooting.

That looks just like ambush to me. Damage buff and stealth are separated and it’s mostly used to repositioning. It also doesn’t buff Bow’s damage, that’s already crazy, but helps dealing consistent damage with slower weapons, that need reload.

[CommanderJ]

What a totally inane idea. Remove all boss killing from the boss killer. Yep, that sounds super reasonable.
In fact, you’re also removing CW killing as well. Good job, there.

[NikKotovski]

@CommanderJ

And what about the experience of everyone who beats HS and performs better than HS on other careers?

@NikKotovski

You can get bad results on a good character, especially if they’re skill-dependent, but you can’t get good results on a bad character, at least consistently.

That being said, bad HS players prove nothing. Only good results can prove anything. They can’t prove, that the career is OP by themselves, because of different skill levels, but they at least show that it’s top tier.

Also which career can top the scoreboard like that except HS again?

[Kitten]

Sec.