Path of Might/Hunter underpowered/worthless?

[Fredgerd]

So I've played through the whole game and most of new game plus, unlocked all the items and powers etc. I'm now playing through some levels for high scores and speed runs.

My personal feeling is that Path of the Hunter and Path of Might just aren't really useful for anything. Path of Silence and Path of the Mark are the obvious choices for speed runs depending on the level. Path of Nightmares is almost always the best choice for high scores if you are going to kill guards while Path of Silence is best if your not (more distraction points available). I could see potential for Path of the Ninja on some levels for murder runs if the guards are mostly isolated and you can get more points for item and object kills than for terror/friendly fire.

Path of the Hunter mostly exists as a nooby easy mode path, though its pretty worthless if you can actually complete the challenges needed to unlock it. It's just not that hard to get stealth kills right. The two sets of attack items is interesting but I don't see much potential for them without the ability to restock ammo.

Path of Might makes makes some levels a major pain due to its inability to freeze time. Furthermore, it's bonus has no value in NGP since you get instakilled anyways if you're hit with anything. As of now it's just a hard mode for Path of the Ninja with no advantages from my perspective.

Anyone else wish the Dev's would patch to buff these two Paths and/or have any ideas on how that might be done. Or if you think that they are in fact balanced and have some advantage I'm overlooking, please let me know as well.

[Bitt]

I think that Path of Might is very useless too, because this game punishes you SO MUCH for being detected, raising alarms, and calling dogs' attention. So, whats the meaning in giving you the ability to strike stronger and live longer if you loose SO MANY points being detected. And I did not even know that NG+ is one-hit-kill because I never played it with the "Mighty one"

But, I DO think the hunter one is useful, it is very fast to stealth kill with it, I can do kills so fast that I kill guards next to each other and they barely see me. It is cool to have beetles and hisomu dart too.

[Fredgerd]

In NG+, as you likely noticed if you've played it, guards kill you in one hit be it melee or gunfire. This is true with Path of Might as well.

Regarding Path of the Hunter, I don't think it really saves time in speed runs because you shouldn't really be wasting time killing alot guards for the most part anyways. I have been experimenting with the path change check points though and I think you can cheese it so that you switch paths and switch back and it restocks your weapons, so there may be some hope for it there. Still I doubt I'd use it for much of anything though. Path of Nightmares is just so much better on murder runs.

[BeastBox]

I never really tried Path of Nightmares. I used Path of Silence for the speed and stealth achievements and Path of the Mark for EVERYTHING ELSE because teleport is friggin' overpowered. I got %100 achievement pretty much just using that (if Nightmare is better for score runs, that's news to me). Not to mention Path of the Mark flat out *breaks* several challenge rooms ... you should really be forced into certain suits when you zone into one of those ...

[Fredgerd]

Ya Path of the Mark is the best easily for outright level completion easy mode and finishing alot of acheivments. It offers no score bonuses inately though. Path of nightmares you can get combo kills with terror and other bonuses that add up to over 4k points.

[Burger King]

I'm loving Path of the Hunter. I don't have to worry about swiping in a direction and also the restock thing is easy to get around. You just go to a restock flag and switch to another suit and switch back...

[Fredgerd]

Ya I'd discovered that a while back, its useful for some phases if your restocking for max points and there are a few unique combos you can do with it.

I still have found no use for Path of Might though, even with the expansion.

[NotApplicable]

I think everything is fine the way it is, TBH.

"I think that Path of Might is very useless too, because this game punishes you SO MUCH for being detected, raising alarms, and calling dogs' attention." - Well, it IS a stealth game, you ARE a ninja, ninjas like that aren't even supposed to be seen, and it would suck if it was easy. xD I like a challenge, personally. Too many easy games out there, so it's nice to have one that actually makes us work for our rewards. You can just restart from the last checkpoint, which kinda makes the point-loosing thing moot, IMO.

I used the Path of Might, now and again, but mainly because it was more interesting than the default. xD I won't be using it now that I'm on NG+, however, and can't deny that it seems pretty pointless on that. Perhaps they could patch it so that Path of Might adds one extra possible hit, before you die, on NG+?

[Εμεθ]

I always saw Path of the Hunter as an option for people so allergic to QTEs they won't play any games with them, even simple ones. If anything, I saw Path of Might as easy mode for people who get spotted a lot. Useless on NG+ though. Self-imposed challenge at best.

[Fredgerd]

It doesn't make sense as an easy mode though. There's no time freeze which is decidedly harder to deal with.

I see it as either a challenge mode or a mode for people who just feel like trying to hack and slash through levels. More the latter though, since its not really optimized as a challenge mode. Wes from Don't Starve is a challenge mode. He's clearly designed to be difficult to play and his advantages are more along the lines of fun gimmicks to reward players for taking on that challenge. If Klei intended Path of Might as a challenge mode I think we would have seen something more like that. I honestly think the Path was just poorly thought through.

Path of the Hunter I don't really see it as being an effective design as an easy mode as it isn't unlocked until after you've already mastered the stealth kill QTE anyways. Plus in the basic play through you have to use Path of the Mark for some stages of the game anyway. Honestly, since it adds no strategic advantage, I'd have preferred it receive a different advantage (I've always felt some sort of bullet time multikill would be cool) and to just give the no QTE as an option for the first play through (but not NG+).

[Εμεθ]

Path of Might gives you full life for each kill, so if you really wanted to Shank your way through the whole game, you technically could, and wouldn't really need Focus. Maybe not an easy mode, but an "I suck at stealth games" mode. I still agree that it's useless though.

[freefall]

Path of Might is really just for novelty runs, if you like beating your way through the game. I personally feel Path of The Hunter to be pretty pointless as well, though having two attack items can be advantageous in areas where there's a supply cache you can keep returning to. For serious score runs however, I use a combination of the standard path and Path of Nightmares. You get a LOT of points for terrorizing a guard, then stringing up Undetected, Oblivious (where possible), friendly fire or dangling kills, and finally hiding the body.

[RasProCas]

Path of Silence FTW

[Fredgerd]

When going for score I'm mostly using Path of Nightmares (Terror Combos), Path of the Hunter (Multi-Item Kill Combos) and Path of Wisdom (for just having alot of items for racking up distract and stun points). I generally use Wisdom first to get all the non-kill points possible, Nightmares second to maximize terror points (with Hisumo Terror Darts to get terror on the first guard and then using the corpse to apply terror to the later ones), and Hunter to get item based kills on every remaining guard. I also used Path of the Hunter (using caltrops and flash pellets) for the trial section of the last level to get stun and item kill points off all the stalkers in that section (had the #1 score on there for a bit, then the hackers got on there with some stupid cheat score).

When I do speed runs I use Path of the Mark only, with Ravenous insects. I know some people think its good but Path of Silence really doesn't offer anything for speed runs. Path of the Mark is just always faster.

I find now that Path of Wisdom is out, I only consider Path of the Ninja a viable choice for Ink & Shadows (since you need the stealth kills for a good score but also want to have both lethal and non-lethal items). Path of Silence I use once in a blue moon if I need two different types of Distraction Item in a short time space. And as previously mentioned Path of Might just doesn't offer much of anything.

[Madnan123]

I only use path of might for levels that have the poison gas in them, there arent many moments where you would need to stop time in them and i use the path as insurance in those levels, also a point backing up the path of might is that enemies that have stepped on caltrops count as stealth kills and trigger the return halth.

[BOT]

My Opinions

Path of the Ninja: Balanced if you want no buffs or consequences.

Path of the Mark: Removes attack items but gives you a puzzle destroyer teleport

Path of Might: Good for when you get detected, as it increases Health (useless in NG+) and decreases hits it takes to knock enemies down, but as a cost, Focus isn't a thing.

Path of the Hunter: I mainly use it for score gaining, you gain more attack items, yet lose distraction items and the ability to recover items at raven checkpoints

Path of Silence: The Exact opposite of the Hunter, More Distraction items, yet lose attack items, you can sprint without making any noise, yet you have no swords to kill with.

Path of Nightmares: At the cost of a distraction item, Any mangled corpses you leave behind will terrify enemies, causing them to become trigger happy and possibly friendly fire.

Path of Wisdom: Gain more items in general, 2 hisomu terror darts? how about 4? but at a cost, you cannot focus, and at the cost of a sword, you can knock out enemies, they can be revived by other enemies however