@anon75893681 I suppose I begrudge HS needing headshots for things other ranged careers get as kindof standard. BH gets crits for… well nothing other than time ticking by, Reload speed is something RV can get just for firing into a horde and so on Keri presses ult and wipes out entire packs of Plague Monks.
I feel HS has to work much harder for similar rewards so you’re right in that I think he needs to get more unique or effective rewards for landing headshots.
Getting a headshot just puts him on the same par as other Ranged Careers yet they need far less effort to get the same results.
I don’t want HS dumbed down to BBB levels though, if he is going to be a high skill career then that’s just fine, but the rewards for the skill need to be greater than something that, say, BH can get for free.
I’d probably remove deep pockets as he has 2 talents that can boost ammo regen in keep it coming and shot crafter. I’m still chewing the cud trying to figure out what to put in it’s place though as I think there should be some way of really rewarding headshots at extreme ranges without making Rep gun and Blunder obsolete.
@alsozara While the reload speed on headshots with handgun does keep up the fire rate, to say it demolishes chaos patrols and bosses with HG during his ult is a bit too much of a stretch for me, although you’re right about multiple special sniping. If they just made HG a bit more of a railgun it’s be great.
Burst of Enthusiasm
Move to tier 2, replace Make 'Em Bleed.
Moving Burst of Enthusiasm to tier 2 allows it to work in tandem with Makin’ it Look Easy, which should boost the overall effectiveness of this talent. I also think we have been looking at this talent wrong, it’s actually quite helpful in preventing THP decay.
Thrill of the Hunt
Increase the reload speed buff or add 1 ammunition back into the “clip” (From ammo reserve)
A fair few people are complaining Huntsman isn’t rewarding enough or Handgun reloads are too slow, I think a buff would be appropriate to really separate Handgun Huntsman from Handgun RV.
Instant reloads is an idea but could lead to power creep, though certainly rewarding.
Tier 4, (Old Burst of Enthusiasm talent spot)
Cooldown reduction on ranged headshot.
Hunter’s Prowl is a fairly powerful career skill, more cooldown reduction is just an overall buff.
Fairly certain it would be competitive with crit chance and reload speed on every weapon but Handgun.
Longshanks
Killing an elite or special with a ranged attack grants stealth for 3 seconds.
Effectively the same as Shade’s Vanish but a different activation method.
I’m worried about power creep but there isn’t much in this game that can compete with damage reduction, stealth is another form of damage mitigation.
Head Down and Hidden
The first shot fired of Hunter’s Prowl deals increased damage and is a guaranteed headshot.
I’m partially against the idea of free headshots, but I think this could be balanced.
Free headshot to proc headshot related talents and deal more damage as a boss opener.
This could be too weak or too strong, who knows.
Blend In
Bottomless mags and increased attack speed during Hunter’s Prowl.
Those that played Vermintide 1 might remember Haste Repeater Handgun memes. This could honestly be grandfathered into Vermintide 2 for Huntsman though balanced much better.
Maybe some other tweaks could be made, like the removal of the dodge range/movement speed penalty during Hunter’s Prowl. Decreased cooldown or a look at “Call out Weakness”
These are just some ideas, I’m mostly worried about power creep as Huntsman is already a strong career. He doesn’t need a rework, just tweaks.
I really think HS’s potential is already much higher than BH. I personally find him significantly easier to play Cata with. HS has significantly better sustained DPS, much safer melee options, and many times better THP generation possibilities. Unlike BH, HS is not reliant on a weapon trait for ammo sustain so can freely take Hunter on handgun or Longbow for extra damage without risk of running out of ammo. Anyway I don’t want to turn this into a HS vs BH thread, but I resent the comparison because frankly I think BH is absurdly overrated. I do agree HS could use a touch more reward for headshots. The reason I like the power headshots talent from the BBB is it’s a straight power increase, which essentially rewards him both at range and in melee for regularly scoring ranged headshots. Seems very fitting and gives extra rewards for consistency.
Apologies, I should have been more clear. I simply meant that he is much more effective against Chaos Pats and bosses with handgun than any other class is also with handgun.
To talk about the topic more generally, my biggest issue with HS is that repeater handgun and blunderbuss just aren’t really headshot weapons so fit weird with a lot of his passives and talents. Which isn’t to say they’re weak on him by any stretch (they’re both very strong), just currently his kit encourages a somewhat unnatural playstyle with them. With a blunderbuss the logical thing is to hit centre mass, yet his kit encourages aiming for the head so half your pellets fly over the enemy. Similarly an automatic repeater with recoil is not something that screams headshot weapon… Free shots seems to me like a very good step in the right direction to giving him more natural synergies with the non precision half of his ranged options. Yes rep handgun and blunder are already very strong with him so adding additional synergies is dangerous, but if this was done I’d be pretty happy with both guns being nerfed a bit to compensate. Rep handgun in particular probably doesn’t need to be as strong as it is on melee careers.
Is the Handgun not usable enough? It’s got shield penetration over the Longbow. It’s slower but it gives more leeway for mistakes due to it’s bodyshot damage, and with the reload speed talent I’ve found it can headshot 1 elite, bodyshot the next and then reload a third time to kill another elite. Combine that with Keep It Coming (One in the Eye is overkill on the Handgun) and it felt flexible to me.
I would like to see it do more damage to a Mauler on headshot with One in the Eye than it does on bodyshot before it’s first damage drop-off point. Just feels wrong to be bodyshotting Maulers with it.
Edit: Added quote since my post was vague. Sorry Mattie.
BH is limited by time or melee kills. Huntsmen is limited by the player’s aim. BH’s crits are overkill on most enemies when headshotting. Huntsmen is better than BH in:
Thp generation. Stagger is great.
Defense. Stagger control and stealth ult.
Horde clear, with all range options including Repeater Handgun (decent horde clear with attack speed, reload speed on headshot and Keep It Coming).
Less boss dps (still pretty good though, and both rely on headshots)
Does not rely on Chaos Warriors coming at him in a conga line or being off-host to double trigger Double-shotted (which is certainly a bug anyway).
Better ammo sustain, enabling better usage of Hunter which is… funny really.
Patrols overall.
Sustained range dps.
For the Repeater Handgun I just hit the occasional headshot. Can happen pretty naturally when spamming at oncoming hordes, and it’s accurate enough at close range. The 2 shot alt-fire trick help with accuracy. Blunderbuss is weird in this regard, but I’ve found occasional headshots helps keep it loaded when I needed with reload speed and ready to melee if necessary. Reload speed on headshot seems underrated in my opinion.
Its not because i want to increase or tweak the reload speed talent a bit that i don’t like how handgun is currently. Its good, but it would make it better in my eyes, but thats purely subjective and we can go back and forth on this for a while if we want.
Not sure on the Bh part? was this directed at me?
edit: the point of this thread, and why i brought up certain talents that need some tweaks (in my eyes), is that i just don’t think huntsman needs an rework or a new passive like sure shot. But more tweaks on certain talents, like most careers require and i hope fatshark doesnt spend too much time on a career which doesnt really need it (again subjective)
Yeah strongly agree with all of that. Quick question though, how does one do the 2 shot alt fire trick with RH? I’ve heard of it but never been completely clear on the method.
Press right-click and release, then press left click a millisecond after Kruber places his hand on the barrel, but not just as he does it, and not too late either. Let me know if my explanation is confusing. I can record it if necessary.
Edit: Actually you can be pretty late with pressing left click. Works until the barrel gets close to not spinning naturally and you aren’t pressing alt-fire.
Agree too. Were discussing minor changrs to existing talents rather than something new. A single tweak (like unchained got with the health to overcharge talent) might be enough to make HS great.
Talking about tweaks, here’s the big one for me. Remove the zoom from the Longbow altogether. Take the toggle zoom he already has access to during Ult and make it accessible at all times. This pairs well with his headshot identity and significantly smooths out the feel of the Longbow with just 2 minor adjustments that ought to be very little work to change.
Talents I still really don’t know what I’d change. Power headshots is cool, and I do like one iteration of sure shot, which was the talent that gave you a sure shot stack every 8 melee attacks. With a maximum of 1 stack and possibly some other tweaking (increase number of melee attacks required perhaps) I don’t think it would be problematic at all and would help achieve the goal of lowering his skill floor, while rewarding dipping into melee. Don’t know what talent it would replace though (longshanks maybe since its still pretty bad?) and not a hill I’d die on, just thought that was a neat talent in concept
they need to do this for so long. But the toggle zoom function needs to be comfortable - i see them not implementing it and going for delay zoom because its simplistic and less buttons to be pressed.
The 2 ways to do it:
current behaviour of toggle: you always start with no zoom, toggle works only when you start to charge, it keeps zoomed while RMB is held, if you go out of charged state, the zoom is reset so that new charged shot will have no zoom.
reworked behaviour of toggle: similar to Verm 1 mod that allowed to switch zoom level whenever you want. Here we’ll have 2 levels: no zoom and full zoom. You can toggle even w/o the charging, so that if you want instant zoom (as Keri longbow) w/o any additional key press - you can have it. It needs an UI element, or text feedback at least - to show what zoom level you have, or changed to.
both approaches have their + and -, both will allow for less keypresses in certain situations.
Thankyou for fleshing out the details more and bringing up more of the technical issues. Personally I’d be fine with either option, but am probably leaning a bit more towards option 1. Main reason being that with Longbow at least, I generally prefer to be unzoomed most of the time, only really wanting the zoom for sniping distant Stormers/Gunners, or maybe ambient elites from time to time, and accidentally leaving zoom on at the wrong moment could be annoying.
