I heard that there is possible Huntsman rework in uncertain future, and decided to write some thoughts about some of his talents.
5lvl
Talents of this line doesn’t suite huntsman as I see him. At all.
THP from stagger is more suitable for tanks, and elites enemies that gives the highest THP amounts will be most likely killed with ranged weapon.
It will be much more reasonable to change THP talents to THP from critical strikes/headshots and damaging multiple enemies.
EDIT: After some testing on Foot Knight I has concluded that THP from stagger gives you more THP than THP from hitting multiple enemies, so that may probably should remain the same .
I suggest to rework Thrill of the hunt talent, so it will be more convenient in use:
Ranged headshots have reload speed increased by 20%. Ranged headshot gives 1 stack of fast reload. Fast reload increases reload speed of next non-headshot shot by 20%, and consumes 1 stack. Stacks 5 times.
That will smoothen reload speed, sometimes you have no time for aiming (specials), sometimes it is pointless (to headshot maulers).
To be honest though, it feels stupid to headshot enemies with handgun, that will die from the bodyshot… Also, missing headshot with this talent feels like punishment. Not spending ammo for headshot feel like reward, green health will be the same, but that reload speed bonus is like unending race for fast reload that spoiling the taste of the Huntsman gameplay. I would prefer if faster reload speed was a passive of this character like other ranged character have a similar passive, and this talent would be replaced with something that will be useful in the in the long way, and not immediately, so it would not feel like punishing if you was not good enough to score headshot.
Burst of enthusiasm should give 1 green health. Effect can only trigger once every 4 seconds (it is not 5 as natural bond, because I think it will be impossible to reach the same level of regeneration as with natural bond, because you need targets to trigger that effect).
That is the right type of reward for scoring headshots. Since THP was reworked to come from melee,
then let it be that way.
Looks like a downgrade to me. I think it will have the opposite effect for struggling players.
A simple duration buff should be enough to make Thrill of the Hunt more forgiving.
I don’t think we understood the same thing then.
The way I understand the proposed change is this : Thrill of the Hunt remains the same, but also grants a stack on headshot, up to 5 stacks.
When you bodyshot, you consume a stack and still get the 20% extra reload speed.
This is mainly thought out for handgun I believe (since the bow doesn’t really benefit from reload time, blunderbuss doesn’t headshot and repeater doesn’t reload after each shot and would most likely consume the stacks it would generate over the course of its 8-shot clip) ; but for the specific use of the handgun I do like the idea.
Whether it is a good one remains to be discussed, I do not play Huntsman and wouldn’t know.
I interpreted as:
Ranged headshots increase the speed of the next reload by 20% and grants a stack of “Fast Reload”
Fast reload increases speed of Kruber’s reload after non-ranged headshots and consumes 1 stack.
(Can build up to 5)
If a player struggles to score ranged headshots, it’s not realistic for them to get consecutive headshots and build up multiple stacks.
A duration buff & slight buff to the reload speed increase would make it more forgiving and squeeze more quick reloads out of 1 headshot. It plays a little better with Prowl too.
I’d rather not see see other weapons shafted out of a talent anyway, i.e Blunderbuss, Repeater & Manbow. (Once it gets some QoL tweaks)
I don’t know about other people but I personally just find headshots to be ridiculously hard in this game apart from roaming enemies, and that’s only when my allies aren’t running up to them and triggering god knows what erratic motion.
Having a career so heavily based around headshots just seems like a recipe for being pretty mediocre most of the time unless you are really good at aiming at the wildly swinging heads of acrobats and tumblers. If you can consistently hit headshots he seems immensely powerful but it just seems like the skill floor is super low, the ceiling super high, and the curve in between super steep. No other hero requires that kind of mechanical precision.
I usually use a build with as few headshot talents as possible but it’s like one build and I still miss out on some perks + passives.
That’s the point. If you get to score a couple of easy headshots on idle enemies, you then don’t have to headshot that special in the middle of a horde to get the 20% reload speed.
They wouldn’t synergize any less with Thrill of the Hunt than they already do (or don’t for longbow and blunderbuss).
Aye sure, but once those stacks deplete?
Unless you’re telling me Thrill of the Hunt 5 seconds of increased reload speed remains intact, it’s essentially a downgrade for everywhere outside of idle enemies.
Blunderbuss works okay with Thrill of the Hunt.
Longbow benefits from reload speed, just majority of the animation is tied to fire rate / attack speed.
Shift some of Longbows animation around & give Blunderbuss an accurate centre pellet and both would work fine.
I disagree. Take WHC as an example. The difference from headshotting and not headshotting is huge on that career as well, but WHC is still strong. Huntsmen isn’t too headshot reliant either. I have a run on YouTube with bots where I just spam Handgun bodyshots on Cata. Great ammo sustain without headshots. Thrill of the Hunt is 1 headshot then 2 bodyshots then headshot and repeat for Handgun.
275 headshots. Would still work with less. Note that the bots are comparable and one of them got more. I end up bodyshotting quite a bit with the Handgun when aiming for headshots and do fine. It’s completely fine for a career to have a high skill ceiling. I don’t think the skill floor is too high. Huntsman can spam ranged in a way Merc can’t without headshots, it’s just dependent on talents and build which is normal. Repeater Handgun Huntsman when built for full ammo sustain with Scrounger never runs out.
Huntsman can do ranged spam constantly without having to melee and be fine ammo-wise without headshots. If BH tries to do that they actually do run out. Huntsman is also better at running Hunter trait builds, because Huntsman’s talent tree has multiple talents for ammo sustain to support that as well as the built in Conservative Shooter passive and ammo on ult, while BH has just Prized Bounty (pretty meh) and Salvaged Ammunition.
I’m not against Huntsman changes but I don’t think the career currently requires a crazy level of technical skill to perform adequately on Official Cata and contribute to the team with higher than average ranged uptime.
The only thing Huntsman has that requires headshots and is built-in is the CS passive, and effectively speaking the talents on the level 20 row. Those level 20 talents don’t require constant headshotting to be effective. The Repeater Handgun can average out fairly well simply due to its magazine size and fire speed in this regard.
@Velsix Thank you, a lot of that I couldn’t have said better myself.
The one thing I noticed with a lot of Huntsman feedback & suggestions is they undermine the need for headshots or outright circumvent it e.g Sure Shot. (I’m a little guilty of it with the crit idea too)
I’d rather see ideas that assist in scoring headshots like spread reduction/negation, CC effects etc.
I think Repeater + Burst of Enthusiasm is pretty underrated tbh.
Preventing THP decay is a solid boon for ranged careers. Headshots aren’t even necessary due to repeaters sheer mag size & fire rate + pseudo random distribution.
See, I might just not be communicating my position very well. I LOVE melee headshot gameplay and I’m all about rapier on WHC and spear on elfyelf.
Maybe it’s just the spinning / strafing / pathing on enemies that makes me feel ranged headshot averse. I find that if I go for ranged headshots I usually miss completely and my accuracy is absolute bogga. Monsters are particularly bad, their heads are just crazy erratic.
I have been learning about the slot system lately and I wonder if the issue is ai changing slots rapidly making them neo all over. That would maybe explain why melee headshot gameplay feels so much better.
Edit: also don’t want to derail the conversation so we can just move on from my anti headshot sentiment.
Currently, removing tHP on stagger, would just be a nerf… but you’ve noticed that too, so let’s move on (and anyway it synergizes well with his weapons too: Spear, 1h Mace, Shields, etc etc).
For the rest, I agree. Thrill of the Hunt looks cool, in reality has a lot of problems. Too much RNG with Blunder. Useless with Rep Gun. Useless with Bow… good with Handgun, but that weapon is now meant for scoring bodyshots! It’s a waste force me to aim to heads.
I’m not sure how, but the talent should be reworked (and above all I’d like reload speed to have a greater effect on bows).
About Burst of Enthusiasm… uhm, honestly never liked it, I would directly replace it with something else… but, if it has to stay, yours seems like a good idea.
Okay then. What if Thrill of the Hunt will remain the same and will have additional functionality:
Scoring headshot gives you 2 stacks of Fast Reload (maximum 4 stacks). Shooting without scoring headshot consumes 1 stack and increases your reload speed. Shooting while Thrill of the Hunt is active does not consume Fast Reload stacks.
Convoluted and unnecessary. Thrill of the hunt is already excellent with handgun, and solid with rep handgun (the only reason it’s not great is that rep handgun already reloads pretty damn quick). As @James suggested, giving the BB a more accurate centre pellet, and transferring a bunch of longbow’s animation to reload time would be a simple, elegant solution to make the talent at least a solid pick for all his ranged weapons.
I do agree that last proposition is convoluted. But I disagree that Thrill of the Hunt is exellent.
The purpose of stacks was to make reload speed faster when Thrill of the Hunt effect was depleted (when you switched to melee, for example), but you needed to kill enemy with body shot to kill them faster. As I wrote in the first post, it would be much better just to make passive reload speed bonus (that RV and BH have for free) and replace Thrill of the Hunt with something other.
I don’t know what to tell you other than that I find TotH very impactful on handgun, and it would be very impactful on BB if I could proc it consistently. HS already has reduced ranged drop-off as a passive instead of reload speed so I don’t really think he should have both to be honest.
Again, the only reason it’s not great on Rep Handgun is it already reloading fast, and for longbow because there’s very little time that technically counts as a reload in its animation. Fiddling with a perfectly good talent wouldn’t change any of that.
I like the Burst of Enthusiasm change. I feel like it’s sole purpose was to prevent THP decay with ranged headshots and my only answer to that is stagger a couple mooks with your melee and you’re golden.
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