Almost four years ago there was the last Big Balance Beta wich brought the Huntsman’s rework
Anyway Fatshark didn’t like that rework so they cancelled it with the promise to bring it back soon with a better balance
@FatsharkStrawHat @FatsharkJulia @FatsharkCatfish since Huntsman hasn’t been included in this balance patch, please, could we have any info about him?
To me Huntsman is the epitome of balanced but boring.
Not sure what they can do to make him more interesting, his career skill is very useful but very super bland. So… 
Yeah exactly this. HS is pretty flexible and might be the only? ranged class to have pretty equally competitive builds with literally every one of his ranged weapons. Good melee options to support whatever ranged weapon. Great survivability with any blunt/shield weapon and THP on stagger…Most builds have good DPS against all armour types.
I dunno what people really want from him. Actually that’s kind of a lie pretty sure what a lot of people want is to lower his skill floor/ceiling and give him more broad appeal but not everything has to be for everyone. I’ve QPd with some real wizard HS and it’s always a pleasure to play alongside.
Skill floor is “barrier of entry”. Skill ceilling is "maximmum potential.
I have not seen any common notion about “lowering his skill ceilling”.
The thing people are complaining about is skill FLOOR.
Huntsman requires a lot of work ot get the same result other careers get two or three times easier.
He has great potential, yes, but the way to reach said potential is unreasonable when compared to all other careers.
This is why the notion of “not everything has to appeal to everyone” fails to convince many people. For some reason other careers don’t seem to obey this idea and actually tend to appeal to more than a select few, who mastered something unreasonably hard and now don’t want anything to change about it, regardless of how positive said changes can be.
I think that’s probably true of longbow build but do you really think that’s true for the other 3 ranged weapons?
In my experience (which is somewhat limited, I will not lie):
Handgun Huntsman is probably one of the easiest builds to get value out of; it’s a one shot tool.
Tbh, all his non man-bow options have low skill floors.
I’d say my biggest issue with Huntsman is the must pick nature of certain “feel good” talents, especially in Chaos Wastes.
I’d rather talents be first and foremost a playstyle pick, influenced by weapon choice rather than the other way around.
On a side note, how do you people feel about hybrid/melee options for Huntsman?
I am yet to meet a Handgunsman in the wild. When I do see them use it, it’s usually just a worse example of what I said about Repeater. The guy is just forced to play melee, ocasionally shooting something when Elf/BH/WHC/Ranger/Engi/Pyro isn’t looking. The reload time is just too long to justify prolonged usage, and against monsters (where it potentially could shine), you still get better and more consistent results with melee.
I do want to acknowledge that I might be biased in my take because of my own overwhelmingly underwhelming experience with Handgunsman. But from what I have observed, it feels like a very unfun option to play with. You play can around bodyshots, but it feels discouraged because of anti-synergy (headshot damage, ammo regen). You can use it to dish out damage on large beefy targets, but weird spread tightening cripples quickscope accuracy (which results in having to take more time to land a headshot, reducing DPS and versatility), so oftentimes going melee is just better.
To be honest, I can summarise my experience with Huntsman as such:
Playing Mercenary makes me want to play more Mercenary because it’s easy and reliable.
Playing Footknight makes me want to play more Footknight because it makes me feel tough and helpful.
Playing Grailknight makes me want to play more Grailknight because it feels powerful and rewarding.
Playing Huntsman makes me want to play something else because I need to relax and wind down for a map or two.
Could be nice. Though he does already have some (headshot damage talent works for melee, damage reduction on elite kills). But maybe I misunderstand what you mean by that.
(Edit: fixing typos)
Options to enable more hybrid focused playstyles & support unorthodox melee choices.
Hybrid options might make him appealing to more people & flexible in Chaos Wastes.
One in the Eye & Thick Hide are good examples, more talents that work in both ranged/melee.
Ranger Veteran’s Exuberance or some of Engineer’s talents like Full Head of Steam or Superior Gaskets are also good examples of talents supporting both ranged/melee.
I had an idea in the back of my mind - maybe a talent similar to the secondary effect of Bounty Hunter’s “Salvaged Ammunition” (melee kills reload your gun)?
At one hand, it would solve some of the issues I mentioned about Huntsman (specifically handgun).
But at the other… man, is it going to be busted with a blunderbuss…
I’ve already tried it with mods.
It felt okay, very strong but not quite busted assuming it’s competing with Keep it Coming & you can’t run both simultaneously.
Felt more like a playstyle pick “Do I want to ranged spam to my hearts content? or do I want to weave in & out of melee?”
Some random ideas:
Stacking ranged damage buff that grows over time while you are holding your melee out and decays while your ranged is out (similar to “Ride the Fire Wind” on Pyro). Yes, it’s more of a ranged talent, but does require switching back and forth
Heavy attacks apply poison in targets. Poisoning targets buffs your damage by 5% and stacks up to N times. Yeah, I know that Poison is Kerillian’s thing, but I thought Imperial huntsmen can do that.
Alternative
Deal more damage to enemies affected by DoT effects. Heavy attacks apply poison. Has a risk of insane synergy with other characters, granting nearly permanent damage buff to Kruber, but maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I think
Killing enemies grants an aura buff that increases damage against specific armor type. Which would play into Fatshark’s idea of always trying to give Kruber some Support mechanics
I tried messing around with debuffs & stackable damage mechanics to play around & reward headshots (e.g Deadeye) but it’s unnecessary.
His damage is already respectable in regular mode, the only areas it helps with is Chaos Wastes & boss killing, the latter we don’t need more of.
Well, what other things could he get then? (I still think the Aura idea could work, because it is intended to affect the rest of the team)
Health? That’s something the THP talents are supposed to deal with.
Damage reduction? He has Tough Hide.
Ammo management? That’s not exactly a Hybrid thing.
Dodge distance maybe?
Or some really obscure utility?
Exactly this, in my opinion, is the point
Longbow Huntsman needs high skill to achieve what others careers can do easier. High risk but non high reward
There are more reason but the most important, again imo, and I’ll die on this hill, is that Human Bow is a weaker version of Elf Bow
From the other hand, we have Handgun*, Repgun and Blunder. They don’t need skill… but a new problem borns: they all have terrible synergies with most Huntsman’s talents (mostly based on headshot) and his main passive (free bullet/arrow on headshot)
Plus you’re forced to rely on the “free shot every three” talent… wich is something very, very boring and dull… and lore breaking too
Then we could talk about his main passive, the free arrow/bullet on headshot… wich is: boring and flat; useless with any weapon that’s not the Bow; overshadowed by “ammo regen on special killed” talent
Or we could talk about his ultimate… ok, it’s useful because in this game the invisibility is useful… but we have something really clunky. The crouch animation, the slower movenents, the darker screen. Long cooldown, short duration. “Invisibility kept after firing” talent almost mandatory otherwise on Cataclysm you can shoot only once before to be forced to swap back to melee
Anyway I “exloited” your two messages to do a more general speech… thanks, mates! And thanks to @James too. You all have kept this thread alive!
That’s sadly false. Only Elf Bow has the auto reload, aka the bow is always ready to fire
Human Bow needs some time to reload. If you swap to melee too much soon, when you will use the Bow again, it will not be ready to shoot
Burst of Enthusiasm , Longshanks , Make em Bleed need rework
True
BoE forces you to use a weapon ables to scores headshots and anyway Huntsman has better ways to gain temp health
Longshanks is just a flat, dull bonus, wich anyway can’t compete with Shot Crafter
Make em Bleed, honestly, I really like the idea… but it gets cancelled/overwritten by too many other bonus from items/careers
Anyway, imo, the talens wich need a rework are many others too