Tips for new HR, especially while levelling

grumblesmorf

Just as the title says, I'm looking for some tips on how to play the class properly, especially while leveling. I just made my first HR and now that I'm level 23 I'm still not really comfortable with this at all.

- At-wills - I feel like I have a choice between one at-will that's too weak to be useful, and another than I can almost never use anyway because it takes too long to charge and is easily wasted if you get hit while casting, so I just always use the scatter shot one instead of anything else. It can sometimes clear an entire trash pack while soloing but it feels clunky that I'm charging things all the time.

- Encounter powers - I also feel like none of my encounter powers do very much damage and the ones that do are hard to hit with; looking at you, Rain of Arrows.

-Trying to figure out when it's best to change stances in which situations confuses me too. And none of the melee powers seem to do enough damage either so I almost always just stay at range, spamming split shot.

At least I've figured out to use Forest Ghost a lot since then I can get off at least 2 aimed shots without being interrupted. And using the Cleric artifact helps me get more of those more often. I really wish that at-will was better though. It takes way too long to cast for it to just be interrupted by basic attacks. Very frustrating. And I'd just switch back in Rapid Shot, but it feels way too weak.

I'm currently using Aimed shot and scatter shot as my at-wills, aspect of the pack and aspect of the lone wolf as my features, and thorn ward, rain of arrows, and constricting arrow as my encounters. I feel like I can survive just fine but it feels like I'm killing things a lot more slowly than I did even when I was leveling my cleric.

In PvE I feel like I'm at least performing my role properly, though not particularly effectively. In PvP I feel completely useless. Nothing hits hard enough, especially with PvP resistances and the reduction of CC times.

alkemist80

Playing a HR is pretty linear until you start to be able to pick a specific tree, so level 30.

I don't recommend using aimed shot for leveling, it's just way to slow, not to mention when you get hit, it cancels the charge. Rapid shot and split shot should be your bread and butter at-wills until you pick a paragon and even after depending on situation. You don't necessarily need to hold down split shot, the first second charge should be sufficient enough, spam if you need aoe.

Depending on if you have a tank companion or not, if you end up face tanking anything, just drop rain of arrows on yourself. Thorn ward is a good one, it takes care of itself. From what I recall, I used marauder's escape for a while during leveling, then constricting, then boar charge and finally fox shift.

For a basic HR, you will want to swap to melee when the enemies come into melee range. Depending on which tree you pick, this will vary (as archery still performs better in ranged even at point blank). Either way, you have to learn and anticipate your cooldowns for both melee and ranged. As an archer, you don't depend on melee encounters as much, but as combat, which I play, I always pop all my ranged skills during my rotation. Trapper uses both ranged and melee as well.

HR doesn't seem to shine until the 50's +

aulduron

IMO, the HR is the hardest class to play. I'm not particularly good at it and I haven't been playing mine lately.

As a combat, I pulled with archery then meleed. I'd drop a Split the Sky, then Rain of Arrows at my feet and whichever 3rd encounter. pull with Split Shot until they got close, then switch to melee, using Rapid Strike. When my encounters cooled down, I'd reapply the archery DoTs.

dreamhuntressx

Leveling as an HR can be quite frustrating, esp if u tend to focus on the ranged aspect only. One should know that the HR is a class to wave between both styles, range and melee, to get the better of it. At ur level, I recommend the Encounters Hindering Shot, Thorn Ward and Rain of Arrows. Rapid Strike and Split Shot as at-will and both Aspects of the Lone Wolf and Pack for a bit more survivability.

Encounter example: Approach a group of mobs, Thorn Ward (close, not on em), call their attention with a single Split Shot, use Rain of Arrows inside the Thorn Ward area, switch to melee stance, Hindering Strike on em (preff under the Rain of Arrows), strike em with Rain of Swords, Thorn Strike and finish em with Rapid Strike.

This way, u can pretty much kill everything as fast as possible, with confidence, til u reach level 60. The Paragon Path is a personal choice (Im a Pathfinder Trapper currently), that suits ur play style, but know that a pure Archery spec has a somewhat hard time against tough crowds.

Hope it helps and GL in ur adventures.

avengingangel93

dreamhuntressx wrote: »

Leveling as an HR can be quite frustrating, esp if u tend to focus on the ranged aspect only. One should know that the HR is a class to wave between both styles, range and melee, to get the better of it. At ur level, I recommend the Encounters Hindering Shot, Thorn Ward and Rain of Arrows. Rapid Strike and Split Shot as at-will and both Aspects of the Lone Wolf and Pack for a bit more survivability.

Encounter example: Approach a group of mobs, Thorn Ward (close, not on em), call their attention with a single Split Shot, use Rain of Arrows inside the Thorn Ward area, switch to melee stance, Hindering Strike on em (preff under the Rain of Arrows), strike em with Rain of Swords, Thorn Strike and finish em with Rapid Strike.

This is what I did.

Though I also believe Constricting Arrow, Thorn Ward and Rain of Arrows is a good one too. Constricting binds your foes around the target for a few seconds, it's more than just a single target skill, albeit it does not have charges. I know some people will probably shout at you for it, especially in a group, but kiting around a Thorn Ward or Rain of Arrows area is not a bad idea either. I personally think Aimed Shot is useless for all but bosses, and even then, I dislike it. If you plan on PvE only, the stormwarden is a good paragon for all the AoE capabilities, and whilst I'm personally Pathfinder (Archery Spec), I think Electric Shot is an amazing AoE at-will that deals lots of damage to all foes around your chosen target. It casts much quicker than split shot, and I think it's more effective. Combined with Rapid Shot, Split the Sky, Thorn Ward and Rain of Arrows, you can become quite a deadly AoE attacker. Pathfinder does not have as much AoE, but what it loses in this, it gains in single-target capability. My build is specifically burst AoE from Rain of Arrows, combined with some single-target DPS from Hindering and Constricting Shot/Arrow, chaining Hunter's Teamwork with all attacks afterwards, Disrupting Shot and Rapid Shot. I prefer speed, survivability and plentiful damage over sustained and steadier AoE.