↜ Hunting Mastery by WNG ↝
Introduction
Hello, people. This is a small guide discussing Hunting's skills, giving insights on wich skills are worth investement and wich ones are less important. It's purely based on my opinions and shouldn't be considered like the one and only truth. You are free to share your disagreements below.
Back in my early TQ days, I wasn't a fan of bows and hunting stuff, so I had little interest in this mastery. I was more into melee stuff. That was until I bought AE a few months ago, and decided to try something different for once : Hunting mastery. And I fell in love with it. It remains my favorite mastery at that day, and has a lot of awesome stuff that I think needs to be shared with anyone who wants to use this mastery.
Well, let's get right into it.
The Mastery
Hunting revolves around piercing and bleeding damage, preferably with bows and spears, making it one of the most offensive masteries. It offers a wide variety of skills and passives that allow for impressive damage both on single-targets and large troops of ennemies. With its high damage potential and its handful of buffs, a hunter can be very independant, but also a remarkable team player. When all that is considered at once, Hunting becomes a mastery that can be either principal or complementary, making it able to succeedly combo with any other mastery.
Hunting's skills
Tier 1
Ensnare
(https://i.imgur.com/0e8cKwK.png)
It's a decent skill. On one hand, it offers a defensive ability debuff. Quite nice, but since you can't make critical hits with your bow, this is only useful if you switch for a spear/shield. Also, the strongest ennemies (such as heroes, bosses, etc.) are immuned to the net alltogether. You may also use it to keep regular mobs away from you, but it isn't really worth spending a ton of points, if any.
Take Down
(https://i.imgur.com/xUf9ynf.png)
More often used as a mobility skill rather than a damage dealer, though it can hurt a lot when upgraded. It needs a big investement to become really good, though, and you have many other skills that you will want to boost before this one. You may boost it later on.
Wood Lore
(https://i.imgur.com/scas6RB.png)
This is an amazing passive, and there really isn't any point to not pick it up. Bows have a low attack speed in early levels, and this passive allows you to fix that. Also, you get an appreciable bonus of flat defensive ability. On the top of that, it only requires 6 points to max out! Really, just max this already.
Tier 2
Marksmanship
(https://i.imgur.com/KhwIsum.png)
I assume you will be using bows at some point if you are using Hunting mastery. This thing will make your bow AAs much more deadlier with the piercing bonus it gives. Using Marksmanship will also unlock more powerful upgrades for your bow attacks. This is definetly a skill you will want to max, too.
Art of the Hunt
(https://i.imgur.com/6fhvlDg.png)
This aura will boost your piercing and bleeding damage. It also affects any pets or party members nearby. No debate needed, this is a must.
Herbal Remedy
(https://i.imgur.com/NVsBUqL.png)
This thing will provide a huge boost in poison resistance for your character, so you have less to worry about it when choosing your gear. The flat regeneration bonus is a little cherry on the top, as in it shouldn't be the reason why you're picking this skill in the first place.
Tier 3
Barbed Netting
(https://i.imgur.com/D2ASKKb.png)
If you are using Ensnare, this may be an upgrade you would want to try. Though the bleeding damage isn't that extreme, it will be increased with your skills, gear, etc.
Call of the Hunt
(https://i.imgur.com/uAsSfvF.png)
This buff will make yourself much better at fighting for a brief duration. You will want to upgrade it to enlarge its duration and effectiveness. A common strat is to use gear with -x% recharge to use it more frequently, to the point you have its bonuses permanently. Tracker's Hood is a nice item for that. If you lack -x% recharge gear, you should only use it versus large ennemy groups, heroes you have trouble with and boss fights.
Eviscerate
(https://i.imgur.com/sgHJChE.png)
Putting skills on that depends on your needs. If you are using Take Down for mobility, you can put at most one point on it. The bleeding damage, when maxed out, is very good, but again, it needs a decent amount of points to make it shine.
Monster Lure
(https://i.imgur.com/0hyklyH.png)
This skill can distract ennemies for a while, so you can avoid being hit. I guess it could have some uses, but there are other skills out there that you will want to boost first.
Tier 4
Study Prey
(https://i.imgur.com/vo0aaEy.png)
Perfection incarnate. Applies a buff in an area around the targeted monster, greatly reducing their resistances. Even though it has a great power, the skill's duration is equal to its cooldown. Wich means you can cast it as soon as the effect wears off. There's no good hunter without Study Prey.
Puncture Shot Arrows
(https://i.imgur.com/r8qg8fl.png)
So far, Hunting hasn't offered much options for clearing mass armies of ennemies. This will allow you to turn your strong single-target attacks into strong multiple-targets attacks. It will boost your waveclearing abilities by a lot.
Gouge
(https://i.imgur.com/56XEyp9.png)
With an high dexterity and your currently maxed out auras, you will be dealing a lot of bleeding damage. This allows you to deal even more bleeding with your AAs. Ineffective versus undeads (duh) but still a nice upgrade that costs only 6 points.
Find Cover
(https://i.imgur.com/pWruNUp.png)
Makes your hunter less vunerable to all projectile attacks. You will want to put points into it. Remember though, the cap is set at 80%. If your gear's bonuses make your projectile-avoidance chance go over 80%, consider removing points on this skill (or else they will be sitting there doing nothing) and move them on other skills.
Tier 5
Exploit Weakness
(https://i.imgur.com/kevIal7.png)
This will further boost your damage while Call of the Hunt is active. This should be high in your priorities.
Trail Blazing
(https://i.imgur.com/RYRYbZa.png)
Provides a nice boost in movement speed and entrapment immunity. Leveling this up only provides more movement speed. The movement speed cap being very low (only 166%), odds are your gear will provide sufficient movement speed so that you don't need to max this to reach the limit. Even then, having 150%+ is more than enough.
Detonate
(https://i.imgur.com/VohLls3.png)
It is not worth to invest any points on this skill, in my opinion. It deals a bunch of fire damage, wich might be interesting if you play with Earth along with Hunting, but in other cases, you will probably have nothing to boost its damage. Even then, with the help of all your buffs, your own damage should be sufficient enough to take care of your opponents; if you are using the lure in the first place, it's to distract ennemies, correct? In most cases, you shouldn't bother with this skill at all.
Tier 6
Flush Out
(https://i.imgur.com/mXAgZYw.png)
Makes Study Prey even deadlier, reducing elemental and bleeding resistances, wich makes basically any other skill hit much more harder on the targets. Very useful.
Scatter Shot Arrows
(https://i.imgur.com/80uLBwF.png)
This will enhance even more your waveclearing abilities, allowing you to hit mass of ennemies at once with heavy bleeding damage. People could argue saying that it has been rendered useless because it was heavily nerfed by the AE, but I think it still remains awesome and is worth the investement.
Volley
(https://i.imgur.com/vh2vGNB.png)
Insanely strong passive, making your bow fire three arrows and your spear hit thrice. Only needs 6 points. This should be maxed as soon as possible.
Conclusion
I hope this make you want to build a Hunting toon and shoot every living thing down (was the intended goal.)
Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading through that post. Enjoy the rest of your day ^.^