I Have Questions About Hunting Mastery

[dwaynegand]

Now that I've mastered melee combat on my previous character, I feel that my next character should focus on ranged combat, so Hunting seems the next mastery to focus on.

This is one mastery that Kerplunk Gaming had no idea with what he was doing. He mainly focused on spears using Take Down and Ensnare with Barbed Hook. I think a better idea would be to use Marksmanship and its synergies as a powerful spammable attack together with Volley for an occasional triple attack. Wood Lore for increased attack speed and defensive ability when using bows, spears, and throwing weapons. Study Prey for reduced piercing and physical resistances. Maybe a point in Herbal Remedy for ultility. For more piercing and bleeding damage, Art of the Hunt would be useful.

Here is a list of skills from other masteries to go with the choices above:

Defense: Since spears are the only weapons that can be used with the shield attacks, the Marksmanship tree can be respeced into the shield attacks, both passive and active. Spear Dance and Takedown can be taken for more attacks to utilize the spear. Defensive Reaction and Colossus Form give more physical damage.

Dream: Lucid Dream for more damage. Trance of either Convalescence or Empathy for defense. If using Spears, Psionic Touch with Psionic Beam and Phantom Strike with Dream Stealer can be good to use instead of bows. Temporal Flux gives more total speed, which affects increased attack speed.

Earth: Earth Enchantment and Brimstone can be used to imbue your weapons with elemental damage. Volativity can give more damage. Heat Shield, Stone Form, and Molten Rock are good for defense with a point each. Eruption makes a powerful ranged attack. Add Flush Out from Hunting for reducing resistances to elemental damage.

Nature: The Plague tree can be used for further debuffs. Heart of the Oak and Permeance of Stone give more life, speed, and resistances. A point in Refresh can reduce cooldowns. Later, after you get the Call of the Wild tree, can you get Finesse and Earthbind.

Neidan: Consequences and Mutual Suffering reduce resistances with weapons, while Weakest Chakra also reduces resistances and damage. If using spears, Huangdi's Favor with Spreading Influence can be used instead of Marksmanship. Inner Equilibrium increases speed when not under the influence of a potion. Smoke Cloud can be good for defense.

Rogue: Blade Honing can be taken if using throwing weapons instead of bows. Calculated Strike with Lucky Hit can be used with spears instead of Marksmanship. Lethal Strike is another powerful piercing damage attack. Mortal Wound gives more bleeding damage as does Anatomy. The Envenom Weapon tree can add poison damage to your attacks. Flash Power is good for defensive purposes. The Lay Trap tree is also affected by buffs to increased Piercing Damage from Hunting. if using spears, take Flush Out for reduced defensive ability. Flush Out also reduces bleeding resistance.

Rune: Respec Marksmanship tree for Rune Weapon, Seal of Fate, Aftershock, for increasing and inflicting damage, as well as debuffs. Take Flush Out for reduced elemental resistances. Reckless Offense allows dual wielding throwing weapons. Menhir Wall is good for holding enemies back. Rune of Life for increased buffs. Runeword: Feather for increased offensive ability and reduced strength requirements. Runeword: Explode for occasional extra damage.

Spirit: Deathchill Aura and its synergies for debuffs. Unearthly Power for more bleeding damage. Circle of Power for more buffs. Life Drain and Cascade are good for healing and the Liche King provides a distraction and more damage. Flush Out for more reduced bleeding resistances with Necrosis.

Storm: Storm Nimbus and its synergies allow you to inflict elemental damage with your weapons. Squall and Obscured Visibility for reducing resistances and damage, as well as inflicting damage. Eye of the Storm for more elemental damage.

Warfare: Weapon Training gives a further attack speed bonus to throwing weapons and a point in Dual Wield increases efficiency when using them. Battle Standard, Battle Rage, Crushing Blow, and Triumph to help increase damage. War Horn for utility. If using spears, the Onslaught tree and Warwind can be used as well. Flush Out reduces defensive ability if going melee.

What other skills are recommended from Hunting and other masteries? Should I focus on bows or throwing weapons at the start? How do I know whether or not to switch between ranged or melee with spear combat?

[chris.ferrantegerard]

Diposting pertama kali oleh dwaynegand:

Now that I've mastered melee combat on my previous character, I feel that my next character should focus on ranged combat, so Hunting seems the next mastery to focus on.

Hunting is generally paired with spear, bow or throwing weapon. Has a lot of skills with those weapon types and piercing damage buffs. Of course, other weapons can also be used with Hunting depending on second mastery or if you want to try out non-standard builds.

Defense: Since spears are the only weapons that can be used with the shield attacks, the Marksmanship tree can be respeced into the shield attacks, both passive and active. Spear Dance and Takedown can be taken for more attacks to utilize the spear. Defensive Reaction and Colossus Form give more physical damage.

Spear is the obvious way to go for Warden. Bow and throwing weapon out - bows require two hands so no shield and shield skills don't work with throwing weapon so if you want to play a ranged Hunting build it would be better to play other combos.

Pretty standard Hunting buffs from (Wood Lore, Herbal Remedy, Art of the Hunt, Call of the Hunt) and Study Prey for debuff. Defence provides shield offensive and defensive skills and a number of other defensive and regeneration skills. Two charge skills in Take Down (which is meh, one point for charge) and Shield Charge (which is good). Spear Dance for extra AOE.

Main negative I have about build is there's no LMB alternative. I like swapping out basic attack for LMB on my builds so while the build is very tanky I do miss my LMB.

Dream: Lucid Dream for more damage. Trance of either Convalescence or Empathy for defense. If using Spears, Psionic Touch with Psionic Beam and Phantom Strike with Dream Stealer can be good to use instead of bows. Temporal Flux gives more total speed, which affects increased attack speed.

Can be run with all three weapons. Haruspex is a good all-rounder, good mix of offense and defense and not as much of a glass cannon as many other Hunting builds. Along with the standard Hunting skills you've got your choice of Aura (Convalescence is maybe best option but Empathy is nice as well) and Lucid Dream provides some nice offensive and defensive passives. Distort Reality can provide a bit of CC.

Spear would go Psionic Touch LMB + Phantom Strike and Spear Dance as AOE. Strike is a great AOE with Dream Stealer synergy but slow nature of skill makes it weaker as a 'charge' skill (enemies will reset when you activate it so it's best to use as a close ranged nuke I feel). You can use Take Down as a one point wonder skill for fast intercepts. For ranged, Markmanship will be used instead. Scattershot + Volley is your AOE.

Earth: Earth Enchantment and Brimstone can be used to imbue your weapons with elemental damage. Volativity can give more damage. Heat Shield, Stone Form, and Molten Rock are good for defense with a point each. Eruption makes a powerful ranged attack. Add Flush Out from Hunting for reducing resistances to elemental damage.

Many of Earth's skills have a physical damage component along with fire so can use it with other skills and some skills can buff your physical damage. Eruption is pretty good spell, just need to fire and forget about it. Ring of Flame, Earth Enchantment aura, Stone Form is useful emergency button and Heat Shield is a nice buff (if requiring you to recast if fairly often).

Hybrid chars are generally trickier to build and play than many others. No LMB if you go spear, if you go bow/throwing then you can use Markmanship. In a lower tier probably than other combos.

Nature: The Plague tree can be used for further debuffs. Heart of the Oak and Permeance of Stone give more life, speed, and resistances. A point in Refresh can reduce cooldowns. Later, after you get the Call of the Wild tree, can you get Finesse and Earthbind.

Extra health and pet support. If ranged, hide inside Briar Ward for protection and use Earthbind to immobilize while pets tank for you. Plague is nice extra debuff. Refresh is good skill in general, Hunting doesn't have too much with long cooldowns but can use it on Call of the Hunt I guess (if you get decent CDR you can keep Call up 100% without it through I think). Decent combo, don't think it's as good as Haruspex or Brigand but still good.

Spear won't have LMB. Extra health + wolves supporting with Strength of the Pack should help with staying alive at least.

Neidan: Consequences and Mutual Suffering reduce resistances with weapons, while Weakest Chakra also reduces resistances and damage. If using spears, Huangdi's Favor with Spreading Influence can be used instead of Marksmanship. Inner Equilibrium increases speed when not under the influence of a potion. Smoke Cloud can be good for defense.

Haven't played Neidan too much but Huangdi's Favor can be LMB for spear (ranged can use it as well if you don't want to do Markmanship which is the more standard pick I guess). Potion and other passive buffs, Consequences and synergy. Aura of Tranquility + high DA should make build very tanky as long as you have the energy to support the skill.

Rogue: Blade Honing can be taken if using throwing weapons instead of bows. Calculated Strike with Lucky Hit can be used with spears instead of Marksmanship. Lethal Strike is another powerful piercing damage attack. Mortal Wound gives more bleeding damage as does Anatomy. The Envenom Weapon tree can add poison damage to your attacks. Flash Power is good for defensive purposes. The Lay Trap tree is also affected by buffs to increased Piercing Damage from Hunting. if using spears, take Flush Out for reduced defensive ability. Flush Out also reduces bleeding resistance.

Very strong but also a bit of an absolute glass cannon. Insane pierce damage and high damage potential in general. Spears have Calculated Strike for LMB, ranged should go Markmanship imo as I think that's better. Traps are one of the best pets in the game but you can generally burn things down extremely quickly from ranged with Study Prey + Markmanship spam.

Spear Brigand is easily one of the highest max damage builds in game. With it's sky high Offensive Ability, they can crit on basically every attack. Combine this with Lethal Strike and you can put out insane numbers on single target and use Spear Dance to clear packs. It's best with capped (80%) CDR so you can use these skills with little cooldown. ~1-2 Lethal Strikes can take down most bosses, you can do over 250k damage with his build in the right conditions (100k+ hits are pretty normal lol)

Rune: Respec Marksmanship tree for Rune Weapon, Seal of Fate, Aftershock, for increasing and inflicting damage, as well as debuffs. Take Flush Out for reduced elemental resistances. Reckless Offense allows dual wielding throwing weapons. Menhir Wall is good for holding enemies back. Rune of Life for increased buffs. Runeword: Feather for increased offensive ability and reduced strength requirements. Runeword: Explode for occasional extra damage.

Marksmanship or Rune Weapon can be used for ranged. Markmanship for more of a standard (Str/Dex) build or Rune Weapon with Transmutation for an elemental (int/Dex) attack build. Menhrir Wall can protect you (get decent CDR so you can resummon it more often) while you pew-pew. Throwing weapons can be played as 1h+shield or dual wielded with Reckless Offense and are bonkers when dual wielded with Thunder Strike.

Spear would go Rune Weapon if they want LMB so would go Int/Dex build. Runeword: Feather helps lower str% requirement on weapon + shield but you'd have to wear Int/Dex armour so would be squishier in melee I'd expect.

Sacred Rage and synergy, Rune of Life for buffs, Seal of Fate for debuffs, Runeword: Explode and Energy Armour (a bit of extra padding but it costs insane energy at high levels through so would be need some serious energy cost reduction to be practical then)

Spirit: Deathchill Aura and its synergies for debuffs. Unearthly Power for more bleeding damage. Circle of Power for more buffs. Life Drain and Cascade are good for healing and the Liche King provides a distraction and more damage. Flush Out for more reduced bleeding resistances with Necrosis.

Largely expect to go for support skills. Deathchill Aura tree, Spirit Ward, Circle of Power, Dark Convenant and Death Ward all good skills for every build. Liche King is a good pet and Outsider can be a 1 point wonder for boss fights.

Ranged has Markmanship, spear has no LMB. You could also say screw it to normal Hunting weapons and go Ternion lol.

Storm: Storm Nimbus and its synergies allow you to inflict elemental damage with your weapons. Squall and Obscured Visibility for reducing resistances and damage, as well as inflicting damage. Eye of the Storm for more elemental damage.

I did a lighting themed elemental conversion Sage archer through xMax. Used gear to get 100% conversion and spammed Marksmanship while tossing down Squall, Lighting Strike and Thunderball. Wisp and aura provided additional. Was a lot of fun but a total glass cannon.

Warfare: Weapon Training gives a further attack speed bonus to throwing weapons and a point in Dual Wield increases efficiency when using them. Battle Standard, Battle Rage, Crushing Blow, and Triumph to help increase damage. War Horn for utility. If using spears, the Onslaught tree and Warwind can be used as well. Flush Out reduces defensive ability if going melee.

Spears have Onslaught for LMB, War Horn for CC, War Wind for a charge (not sure how good this is for AOE, mostly used as charge). If you go Dual Wield you'd drop Spear for something that can be dual wielded and take Weapon Training. A point in Battle Rage and synergy okay as well.

Dual wield can be used with throwing weapons but only the initial skill in tree works. Synergies only work with melee. So Rune is superior option for dual wielding throwing weapons with Reckless Offense and Thunder Strike. Still possible through with Warfare. Onslaught can also be used with ranged if you don't want to use standard Markmanship tree.

All builds want the best skill in the game (Battle Standard), Dodge Attacks, Ancestral Horn as 1 point wonder for bosses.

[dwaynegand]

The closest Defense has to having a spammable left click attack is Batter with Rend Armor.

[dwaynegand]

Currently, I've maxed Marskmanship, Wood Lore, Study Prey, and Volley. I put a point each into Puncture Arrows and Scattershot Arrows, but found both of them to be underwhelming early in the game.