The problem is the mindset of players. There are times to simply team shoot from mid distances. If everyone pushes in to get the close shot, then of course apes are gonna shit on everyone. Stay back more. Camp with your team at mid distance lanes and team shoot the apes. They’ll remain in cover while you reap their souls with explosive payload and symmetry, which too is awesome for flinching snipers.

Players in legend comp dont care what class you are, I've met people that will run 10 mobility against my 100 mobility hunter and still bend me over and -blam!- me in the ass. It's not a class issue, it's the issue that you are just bad at the game and cant rely on a crutch anymore.

No one apes more than Titans

hunters are only broken on console due to the capped sensitivity and them just jumping over your head for an easy kill, their jump is also the easiest to use just for movement alone warlocks are faster if you use them right, warlocks can hover in air for an extended period of time and you can move while doing so and alot of the time people dont expect you to be flying above them and titans can also "hover" for a while using lion ramparts

Oh no my crutch is getting nerfed :(( looks like I'll go on the forums and complain about another class instead of contesting the nerf itself,

Just use Astrocyte it’s literally stompees

Hunters ape because that's the play style that's encouraged by their kit. They have an aggressive class ability that's actually useful in a gun fight, naturally high mobility, and a snappier jump that gives them superior vertical height and directional control. The jump in particular is probably the strongest part of the Hunter's kit. Being able to instantly jump above somebody in a fight, without any sacrifice to handling or weapon ready speed, gives a massive advantage, especially in a shotgun fight. It may just be a fraction of a second, but when the current average TTK is also less than a second, losing sight of an opponent who doesn't lose sight of you can easily determine who wins in a gun fight. The overall snappiness of the jump makes dodging in midair a lot easier as well, compared to a Warlock's jump that is floaty and has a predictable path that's easily read. That's all before you even consider subclass perks. One of the particularly strong ones being invisibility, which again, encourages running people down and shotgunning them before they even see you (or a cheesy sniper or fusion rifle hit). Then factor in other perks and abilities that can slow and disorient enemies, or improve reload speed, or stability and handling, or improve sprint speed, these are all extremely strong abilities in PvP. This is why Hunters don't have as flashy abilities as other classes (ex. Weighted Knife vs. Shoulder Charge vs. HHSN), because a lot of their power lies in how well their kit complements neutral game gun play. Also consider that both Spectral Blades and Arc Staff encourage aping. Spam left clicking with little to no impact on super energy and mobility, while still being able to instantly lock on to any target in range. Another off-topic consideration is the comparison of each class' "support" abilities. Shadowshot can shut down supers, which easily denies that player multiple kills. Well of Radiance and Ward of Dawn can't even deny a player base weapon kills, let alone super kills. You can walk through a titan bubble and two tap them with a shotgun, and you can easily do the same against a warlock's well (along with rockets, grenade launchers, snipers, and other supers).

Snipers are far more annoying. At least shotguns are fairly easy to counter.

Honestly, shotguns require a RoF nerf across the board. The range right now is fine. But aping and not killing with their first shot should be as near guaranteed death. Primaries don’t kill fast enough to get the job done before they can fire a second shot and kill you. Being killed by the second shot before you can kill them with a primary, is broken.

Just saying this to give perspective. It’s the same view from most hunters too, or at the very least my perspective, about the other classes. I can’t begin to count how many times I was aped by a skull fort titan or a contraverse holds warlock. This is just to give a perspective that it’s not just one class but all classes that have issues in their own rights with the concepts of aping in crucible.

Here is a different take on it. TLDR Hunter neutral game supports gun skills. Titans are easy mode punchy punch bois. Warlocks are in the middle for skill (with the changes to dawnblade this is changing). Titans are easy mode, beginner class. Jump is easy, punch things, shoulder charge, excellent grenades and roaming supers make it all simple for people to pick up. Very few of their abilities reward gun skill. Fastest class by far. Extremely fast run speed for roaming supers. Warlocks, quite excellent movement skills in dawnblade and blink. Excellent grenades for the Arc class. Roaming supers are amazing for dawnblade and stormtrance. Excellent support skills in rifts. HHSN is pretty OP with the current state of contraverse hold and discipline stat affecting recharge of grenades. Class stat is amazing and useful, and worth putting 100 points in. Fastest roaming supers. Excellent shut down super in both Nova bombs. Hunters. Very mediocre grenades. Worst melee abilities of all 3 classes. Slowest of all 3 classes. Slowest roaming supers. Excellent agility and neutral game that supports gun play. Excellent shut down super in blade barrage. As you can see above, hunters will favor those who are more skilled at gun play and who rely less on the melees, grenades and super kills. Pretty much what you see from those people who win at crucible, and who have good KD. They don't get 50 kills with grenades, or their super. Probably 70% of those kills are from gunplay.

Every serious d2 player cringed when they saw “titans mobility is limited” You can do some nutty stuff with a titan, and honestly because of the ability to Jump cancel on a titan they are one of the best shotty aping classes

Hunters are statistically the most used, most effective (KD-wise), and most efficient (Winning-wise) class in Competitive = a mode in which people abuse the cheesiest loadouts in order to win. https://guardian.gg/2/class-stats?platform=console&mode=37&start=2018-10-01&end=2020-03-01 Those stats correspond to a 1-year + period starting off at the time Special Weapons became relevant (Forsaken) and all the way until today... in a mode where winning matters the most (Competitive). Just by looking at the relative density (concentration) of the points at the top of the graphs, it's clear that Hunters are the Crutch Class. The Red Points (Arcstrider) and Orange Points (Nightstalker) are consistently at the top of each graph, and there was even a brief period (few months after Forsaken) in which all 3 Hunter Subclasses were at the top (Light Blue Points correspond to Gunslingers). That was most likely due to the Nova Warp nerf that resulted in the sharp decline to Voidwalkers (Purple Points). Regardless of Stormcaller (Green Points) generally being neck to neck with Nightstalkers, the fact is that at least 2 Hunter Subclasses have remained in the Top 3 best Classes (in terms of KDA and Win Rate), while only 1 Warlock Sublcass has done so in the same time period (either Voidwalker - pre warp nerf or Stormcaller - post warp nerf).... and the same can be said for Titans. Hunters have always been statistically the easy-mode character of D2, and if Bungie is willing to adjust multiple other things based on stats, Hunters need some adjustments too.

As a Hunter main working on playing new characters, I agree that it's EZ mode. The other classes are much more difficult to master. You learn a lot about the game, and develop valuable game sense by playing all 3. People don't like things that are hard tho, ex: losing in comp; just switch to Erentil. People will always default to what the easiest most attainable method of getting what they want. There's no honor in the crucible

Hot take: Dragon’s shadow is better than stompees