Why is HM considered a great unit?

[Lord Oink]

I think I see his positives. You can place him in almost any position. His camp abilities are the best in the game. Other than that... I don't see the hype. I'm a noob though. His damage isn't that good and sure he can give bleed, but his bleed damage is so low it hardly matters. His stress healing is also mediocre and relies on luck. I'd prefer high bursts of stress heal on one target instead of low stress heal on sometimes the whole team any day. His dodge protect seems like his best in combat ability. Just strikes me as an okay unit not great.

[Purple]

I think people like to use him as a dodge tank that can guard heroes near death, he also fits well into a bleed party. But I only let him see the light of day when going into the CC, paired with a BH, Hellion, Flag or Musketeer (depending on either mark/bleed). I think he's a decent class, I just don't use him that much \0/

[Butt Goblin]

- Hound Rush deals excellent damage in a mark party, reaching Leper's level when the skill is maxed out. Even outside of mark parties, it's a better attack than what most support units get (even if a little below average overall) and it can hit all ranks--the weak Bleed isn't a problem because it's a good enough raw damage attack.

- Target Whistle is the best anti-PROT skill in the game when fighting generic enemies, allowing your whole party of raw damage dealers to hit for nearly their full strength while also allowing any mark users to increase their damage all while requiring no trinket investment. (Competitors, like Shieldbreaker's Pierce and DoTs, only work for the user and take a long time to kick in in the case of DoTs. These are superior in some circumstances however.)

- While Cry Havoc isn't an amazing stress heal, it still restores the most stress on average out of any stress heal in the game and is good enough if your party has decent stress prevention. RNG stress heals aren't nearly as dangerous as RNG health heals, since stress isn't as volatile as HP can be and there's almost never a situation where a stress heal failing would be devastating to a party.

- He has one of two guards in the game, and although it isn't as good as MaA's guard, you can still use it to dodge tank on some builds and it can save nearly dead heroes from taking too much damage as long as you don't spam it if you haven't invested into Dodge.

- He has a self-heal, which allows him to function well in parties without Vestal as he'll take some of the pressure off of your off-healers--this can help make up for his low upfront damage by allowing you to create a party that has more damage overall (although he obviously isn't nearly as good as off-healers for doing this).

- Blackjack is a long-range that can be made highly reliable with Cudgel Weight.

- He's quite fast, so you can usually have him do what he needs to before enemies get to act.

- He has an ambush prevention camping skill and has good disarm chance, although not Graverobber level.

Basically, although he isn't the best at much he's very good at a lot of highly sought-after abilities all while being a very good damage dealer if your party has an Occultist in it.

[Geist]

That move that bleeds all enemies. But vs Skeletons eh. His camp skills are also pretty damn good.

[Katty Nat]

Camping skills.
Capable of disarming traps.
Hound's Harry versus Warrens/Weald (especially with a snack, lol).
Blackjack to be a stunbot if in Position 2 (has a strong trinket for this).
One of the better classes to bring to the Crimson Court.
Dodge guard combined with high speed makes a great emergency defense (MaA is too slow).

[grraf]

Its because he augments any strategy u may wish to focus on:
DPS-->hes great in mark parties&also can lower enemys prot
Dots-->he can stack the bleeds and allow other clases to do extra dmg against them(either as derived from an ability or trinket)
Regenerator's party
Stress free crew starring Arb,Jess,HM,Cruss
Also lets not forget him havin one of the best scouting trinkets&top notch disarm skills along with excelent camping skills...

[CrackerjackTiming]

I also asked this question, here's the thread with some other folks' input.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/262060/discussions/0/3020122487786277248/

[melta]

I love HWM, you can throw him into so many party comps and deal dmg from any position. Very versatile DPS as others have pointed out.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Lord Ponut:

I think I see his positives. You can place him in almost any position. His camp abilities are the best in the game. Other than that... I don't see the hype. I'm a noob though. His damage isn't that good and sure he can give bleed, but his bleed damage is so low it hardly matters. His stress healing is also mediocre and relies on luck. I'd prefer high bursts of stress heal on one target instead of low stress heal on sometimes the whole team any day. His dodge protect seems like his best in combat ability. Just strikes me as an okay unit not great.

He isn't. Also MAA's camp skills are better.

He's good in a marking party, great against some bosses, god-tier specifically against the Flesh, is the only AoE stress healer (although it is a mediocre stress heal), has good burst damage for two battles with the dog treats, a good stunner if you put him up front (and lose his self-heal and stress heal), and a weak bleeder. MAA's guard is much better.

[No One]

The houndmaster hits row 4 harder than anyone except a hellion. Row 4 is usually a kill-ASAP target.

Don't say his bleed is insignificant. It's 20% of his base damage - more if things aren't dying on schedule. A strong damage-dealer has 14 base average damage, +2 on that is still well over 10%.

His mark is the best in the game by far. A high-prot enemy will usually die before the HM's turn comes around again, even if he's the only marker.

Certainly his stress heal is the worst. However, it's better than a HWM's stress heal, or a GR's stress heal, or a BH's stress heal, or an ARB's stress heal...

HM's have stun, reach, speed, stress heal, prot strip, burst damage if needed, and can heal. Four HM's is not only a viable party, but actually a good party. The HM is a jack of all trades yet still master of two.

Notably, stress heals in particular gain massive amounts of power by levelling up. Stress damage doesn't go up (much), stress caps don't go up, but his stress heal more than triples in power.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by No One:

The houndmaster hits row 4 harder than anyone except a hellion. Row 4 is usually a kill-ASAP target.

Arbalest hits harder, is more accurate, and gets more bonus from a mark.

[Meat Man (Alfons)]

Great capability to aid Mark, apply bleed, but the selling point is that you can reach really high Dodge with his Guard skill, which in contrast makes him more viable when guarding against targets who apply Stress, disease or DoT

[CrackerjackTiming]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

Originally posted by No One:

The houndmaster hits row 4 harder than anyone except a hellion. Row 4 is usually a kill-ASAP target.

Arbalest hits harder, is more accurate, and gets more bonus from a mark.

Yeah, but the Arbalest can't stress heal (you guys saying the Houndmaster's stress heal is the worst in the game are forgetting that technically the Arbalest's flare is a godawful stress heal), her mark isn't as good, she doesn't have Hound's Harry, she's slow, she can't guard anyone... Unless I want the Arbalest's heal, or I'm just using her for the sake of variety, I would never take an Arbalest over a Houndmaster in rank 3 or 4.

That being said, if only the Arbalest's AoE abilities weren't so awful, it'd be a different story. She needs something like the Skiver's Cripple Them attack.

[RopeDrink]

Houndmaster was for a large portion of time the undisputed champion of the game. He's been downplayed since then, yet he still remains one of the best catch-all (versatile) heroes you could ask for.

He has great projection, a great stun, has the best mark in the game and thus compliments mark groups, compliments bleed groups, has self-sustain, has one of the very few Guard abilities in the game, has on-demand burst damage, can function as a stress-healer, and also has solid speed, scouting and camping skills. He may not be as godly as before but, like it or not, he'll remain pretty high on the proverbial tier list of useful heroes so long as his kit remains so good.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by CrackerjackTiming:

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

Arbalest hits harder, is more accurate, and gets more bonus from a mark.

Yeah, but the Arbalest can't stress heal (you guys saying the Houndmaster's stress heal is the worst in the game are forgetting that technically the Arbalest's flare is a godawful stress heal), her mark isn't as good, she doesn't have Hound's Harry, she's slow, she can't guard anyone... Unless I want the Arbalest's heal, or I'm just using her for the sake of variety, I would never take an Arbalest over a Houndmaster in rank 3 or 4.

Tbh I don't even consider Rallying Flare a stress heal. It is so utterly pitiful it is essentially useless for that. I usually don't have it on the bar, but when I do, it's for mark clearing or de-stealthing.

AoE stress heals were only practical before recent patches. Your major stress problem is now that enemies focus on already stressed heroes preferentially, so you're almost always going to need targeted stress heals rather than spewing useless stress heal on heroes who don't need it and, seemingly invariably, with no effect whatsoever on the one who does.

(This is incidentally why I like even the Crusader's Inspiring Cry by comparison. A stress heal with a nominal heal thrown in. The nominal heal itself barely matters but its slight chance of critting means you get the occasional Jester-tier stress heal from him.)

[RopeDrink]

It's worth noting that while the amount of stress-healed by ARB/MUS is smaller (x1) than a HM's, the system works differently than that of the HM's version.

A HM stress-heal has X chance to stress-heal 'each individual' (ie. it can stress heal 0-4 people), whereas the ARB/MUS has a chance to stress-heal 'the entire group', meaning if you succeed, 4 people get it guaranteed, and if it fails, nobody gets it. Both are sporadic and unreliable - and certainly less desirable than a potent single-target stress-heal - but the ARB/MUS is at least a full heal whenever it succeeds, even if for a lower amount.

I certainly DO treat it as a stress-heal - and it is also handy in that it clears stuns and marks - marks being one of the things that can cause stress-nukers to have a field-day as evidenced here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSbHMNKAqDQ

While I wouldn't recommend trinketing for it, I recall (memory) that a max untrinketed Flare would heal 4x5 with average consistency (60%), which (when it works) is more potent than a non-crit CRU, FLA's and about equal to a JES or crit-CRU, but dice rolls and spread make it less desirable.

I've had plenty of success with double-MUS groups given they compliment eachother (damage / mark wise), can pump out semi-decent stress heals given enough time, and most definitely compliment eachother in terms of the stacking bandage/healing -- but no, an ARB/MUS by themselves can't rightly be hailed as a main stress-healer by any stretch unless you are in a position to do it for many rounds on end during recovery.

Stress Heals are 'something like' this (ie. memory, not accurate).

Jester, big single-target SHEAL + anti-stress buff.
Crusader, moderate single-target SHEAL + minor (crittable) heal.
Flagellant, moderate single-target SHEAL, +7 stress on the Flag.
Hound Master, 66%x4 check for 0-4 low/moderate SHEAL.
Arb/Mus - 60% chance for a full-party low/moderate SHEAL.

I'm sure if you're a mathmatical type you could argue that an ARB/MU is overall more consistent than a HM, even if it has less potency, but neither are ideal in the most common circumstance of one person needing stress-healing above everyone else. It also doesn't help that the HM is drastically faster than an ARB/MUS, making such scenarios easier for them to get out sneaky stress-heals before someone else finishes fights, whereas ARB/MUS would typically go last.