Just had to share

mercedesman

In the midst of all the grinding fun for the illusive/impossible legendary mount of summer fest, I wanted to share my frustration. After leveling several characters to 70, four of which I took to 3K and another two to 4.1k, I decided to level a HR with my son to have a little fun outside of the "dear God this change is going to cost a ton" world. I go through all of that to say that the HR is simply the worst class I have ever tried to level. I have provided both my son and I with mulhorand main and off pieces, we both have the same enchants, weapon enchants, pets, and at the same level. He is going with a high dps build and I am following Sume's build. At this point, he can FAR out dps me and I am using the "recommended" powers. I am so squishy that even with nearly 20% life steal, I don't do enough raw damage to counter the damage I am taking. Just spawning into the map kills me.. i feel that if i inspect him and turn him around that the action of me rotating him will cause him to die (lol).Did Cryptic forget about the HR somewhere a while back or am I just missing something?

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midnightflares

HR tends to have a harder time leveling, it will get easier once you hit 55 and have the capstone and thorned roots. Not to mention that cordon/plant growth are the best AoE we have, and are not unlocked until level 65.

mercedesman

on one hand it is pretty cool that my son is beating the snot out of me in fights and he is clearly controlling the battle, but on the other, it is very frustrating to have to depend on a CW to carry/tank me through leveling. We just turned 50 so I hope things will indeed be better for me soon. I have always hated TR's and then one day I decided to take an open slot and create a huge (everything scaled up on character features) dragonborn TR... he is now 4.1K and is by far the most fun character I have. Who knows, maybe I will get this guy up around 3.5K and he will be the next best thing for me.. until then.. please be careful in-game as you might walk past me too fast and I will die from the wind.

demonmonger

Lol

lirithiel

IMO HRs should get Cordon/Plant Growth at a lower level to help us against mob packs. Split Shot is our only real option up until Cordon unlocks but once we get that, things become a lot easier. Split the Sky is an option but its slow animation puts me off.

ghoulz66

I have never heard of complaints that the HR is hard to level up....

Seriously, WHAT!? The HR gets some really good powers early on to carry it through leveling.

lirithiel

ghoulz66 said:

I have never heard of complaints that the HR is hard to level up....

Seriously, WHAT!? The HR gets some really good powers early on to carry it through leveling.

Maybe as Trapper, never tried to level one up. But for Archery especially life before Cordon can be tough. I guess once he gets the Trapper capstone things will become EZ mode.

durugudesu

Once you get trapper feats everything is easy. 20% lifesteal is already big enough. You have a TR so im guessing you also move and jump around a lot, so i cant really tell how come you are having troubles.

durynte

Funny. But, I do wonder how you manage to have such difficulties. I love the ranger class, trapper or melee. Even with loot just from questing and a white tank or healer companion, the first time I happened to have (interesting) trouble was the alpha wolf lair(?) in Icepire. Rain of arrows, constricting, and third power at pleasure, to me this made leveling fun and quite quick.

greywynd

My HR is an Archer. Had no problem running solo to 70.

mercedesman

Ok.. to sum up, the problem is me and not the class.. I can accept that.

durynte

Pardon. I wasn't trying to suggest so, just that I was wondering. Thinking about it, I guess the impression of squishiness may origin in what one is accustomed to. Most of the time I personally enjoy hunter, that's what I am accustomed to. Hunter, similar to rogue, is: "The mobs won't hit me, I hit them." (or barely hit me). That is the opposite of mail and plate classes: "The mobs will hit me, but I hit harder." (or heal or buff or). The only thing I ever bother to somehow plan on for consuming a resource in encounters, as in "don't waste it", is the dodge timing. So: movement.

Movement benefits hunters more than other classes, something I found out about one and a half year after my first hunter. Well, it is actually quite obvious, for hunter is in and out of melee, as downright suggested by some of its encounter powers. I remember to have read about movement benefits for hunters, but I just didn't bother to put any points there prefering other stats. Once my huntress had +2000 movements points from a mount insignia, it is a breeze in PvE (also, using some self heal armor and weapons). I don't PvP and rarely visit epic dungeons, where other properties of the class may be of more use (or abuse).

In my opinion the hunter class of NWO is quite unique and nothing similar is to be found elsewhere. Some instead prefer the more common classes across MMOs as their mains, e.g. for faster advancement in character stats or currency.

Anyway. You sounded like you enjoyed your time on the hunter! And that is all it is about, isn't it?

mercedesman

I could image that the HR will be more fun at a point. It is different switching between modes and that takes some practice. The real joy of the HR right now is leveling with my son. My observation Is that the CW at this level (51) can do more damage with "recommended" powers/feats than can my HR with the recommended powers/feats. I got on a DC of mine last night, level 39, with no SH boons and no special equipment and could destroy mobs from a distance and have them dead way before they got into melee range. So in this case, to me, it seems that the DC has more damage capability than the HR... Again, it may be my play style that is causing my survivability issues but when looking at gross damage done, the DC and CW seem to do more given the same level and same "basic" equipment/enchantment loadout.

gabrieldourden

It's not really you. Even if you play trapper. The HR is really coming together in the last 20 levels. Switness of the Fox, Thorned roots, Ancient Roots, Cordon and Crushing roots all come quite late. Once you have that, the HR becomes one of the easiest classes when soloing content. I recently leveled a second HR and was able to do Cult Prison right after finishing Spinward (even tough it costed me a few deaths) with the leveling equipment, the free Battlerager with nothing on him and a few rank 7 enchants I bought with the invoking/Maze Engine ad.

mightyeriksson

Swiftness of the Fox can be a lifesaver when running solo, Crushing Roots help out as well until you can take more of a beating.

Would be nice if those were available 10 levels earlier though.

silverkelt

I prefer trapper as its more akin to the best made path in this entire game of all time, the combat HR back in mod 2 (oh the days. )

Sadly you will never see that again...

Im afraid the rework will strip that away as well.. leaving nothing but a pew pew range class.. oh wells, such is life.

silence1x

mightyeriksson said:

Swiftness of the Fox can be a lifesaver when running solo, Crushing Roots help out as well until you can take more of a beating.

Would be nice if those were available 10 levels earlier though.

Agreed 100% - those are both great to have earlier in your progression.

tripsofthrymr

lirithiel said:

IMO HRs should get Cordon/Plant Growth at a lower level to help us against mob packs. Split Shot is our only real option up until Cordon unlocks but once we get that, things become a lot easier. Split the Sky is an option but its slow animation puts me off.

For leveling, Rain of Arrows always worked great for me. Mobs in leveling areas have such poor AI that I could provoke them, fire off Rain and dance around the tiny circle where my arrows rained down (shift-move for the dodge).

I leveled an HR about 2 months ago and this tactic still worked out fine for me.

It is cheesy to rely on mobs following me through that tiny circle of death and I do agree that the HR should have more realistic techniques earlier on to deal with groups of mobs.

beckylunatic

tripsofthrymr said:

lirithiel said:

IMO HRs should get Cordon/Plant Growth at a lower level to help us against mob packs. Split Shot is our only real option up until Cordon unlocks but once we get that, things become a lot easier. Split the Sky is an option but its slow animation puts me off.

For leveling, Rain of Arrows always worked great for me. Mobs in leveling areas have such poor AI that I could provoke them, fire off Rain and dance around the tiny circle where my arrows rained down (shift-move for the dodge).

I leveled an HR about 2 months ago and this tactic still worked out fine for me.

It is cheesy to rely on mobs following me through that tiny circle of death and I do agree that the HR should have more realistic techniques earlier on to deal with groups of mobs.

I levelled my only ranger when the class was brand new, but that was about the size of it. Rain of Arrows on the meatiest thing standing, and dance around it in a circle, using my Hindering charges to help keep the thing penned in. Smaller targets would die to the AoE. Throw down Thorn Ward once you can access it, and sort of flail around trying to get used to the melee stance stuff. Most difficulty would come from careless use of Split Shot, tagging something I wasn't ready to bring into a fight.

Level 70 trapper play is massively different because you get so much from the new encounter powers.

mercedesman

update.. now level 61 and if it weren't for my son I would delete this character in a very dramatic and satisfying way. During this same time I have also been leveling a pure DPS cleric build through the same content. I had no issues doing the first 3 quests of the maze engine with the cleric, but as I type this I am waiting for my son to finish the 3 quest as I died 2 times in the first two battles and cannot rejoin him.

I have stacked defense and then tried stacking deflect, I have spent about $20 on this guy in hopes that some magic will happen and the sky will clear and he will not die at the drop of the hat. I am going pure trapper build (big surprise there) and I have to say to those people who had no issues leveling their HR... you are a much, much better player than I am!!!

I know that there are changes on the way (although I am not sure they will help my health issues) and I cannot wait until my son makes it to lvl 70 so that I might then change over to one of my other characters to play with him. This is now more comical than frustrating. lol..

thanks to all who have contributed to this

lirithiel

What companion are you using @mercedesman? Perhaps look at getting a good defender to help you out. It's the only thing I can think of if you are struggling as Trapper. Perhaps invest in some more Lifesteal? I actually found 60-70 a breeze on my Combat HR so Trappers should have no issues.