Hi! I've been a hunter since D1. Not anymore. I am a warlock now, started as a hunter and transferred. Why? Because I feel the hunter is incredibly underpowered in comparison to other classes in the current game state. okay, but WHY is it underpowered IMO? Because the class doesn't DO anything, and not only that but when I play it I can feel myself NOT. DOING. ANYTHING. Now let me give more detail because that's still ambiguous. When I play a class in destiny, or any RPG for that matter, I like to look at the pros and cons and what the class offers me, or my party, as I'm sure any seasoned player of the genre does. So that is what I base my rating of the hunter class on, the question of: "What does this class do for me, and or with it what can I offer to my fireteam?" To start here are my destiny qualifications for my opinion. D1: Max light level completed all expansions and raids on the hunter, hit 300 light on both warlock and titan as well. Tried out all subclasses on all classes. D2: completed raid on my hunter, as well as hit 290 or higher with all 3 classes, with my warlock being 304, (just crap duplicate rng on the powerful gear for my last few pieces to get 305) . Tried out all subclasses on all classes. So... What does gunslinger offer me and or my team? GUNSLINGER: --golden gun "gg", 3 shot, 6 shot, or celestial option -note: golden gun is probably the most standard pvp option, it provides good damage, is applied easily, and is fairly forgiving if not executed to perfection (unless for some reason you're running celestial in pvp). It provides the team with reliable boss damage and veteran mob control and in PVP reliable wiping of the enemy team, as shooting 3-6 shots of golden gun for a 1 hit is not difficult as long as the enemy is somewhere near your location when active. --incendiary grenades provide dot effect, seeker grenade does seeking things, and tripmine allows a flank ward in pvp, and provides essentially a standard blast in PVE. - note: most hunter grenades are not very strong. tripmine usually doesnt kill because nobody walks into the point blank proximity when setting it off, it is not hard to see, seeker usually doesnt kill because in PVP it seeks which is balanced with low damage and PVE the seeks split between enemies damaging all and killing nothing, and incendiary grenade explosion is weak and is only supplimented by a small dot, which is only more useful for preventing rapidly healing enemies from healing, which there are really none of. Path Options: --Throwing knife melee ability a reset on precision kills or explosive damage equivalent to guns with explosive rounds. -note: the reset is just not reliable, in both PVE or PVP, and the explosive damage bonus for how long the knife is on cooldown is not rewarding based on cooldown length and taking up a perk slot. --precision kills grant you increased reload speed, stacks 3 times. -note: great if you're killing a crap ton of tier 1 mobs. Nothing noticeable occurs vs veteran mobs because the ttk is longer than the timer of the stacking effect unless you are performing a very low level task in comparison to your light. --increased precision damage on golden gun. -note: all around just a good bonus, applicable to most everything in the game, and is a noticeable damage bonus. --precision damage increases duration on golden gun -note: Not good. The 6 shooter would benefit from this but its not in the same path, and with 3 shots theres no way you don't shoot off 3 shots within the given timer, let alone it is not hard to headshot big slow bosses meaning the extra time to pull off additional headshots is irrelevant, and celestial benefits 0 from this perk, which is relevant because bonus precision damage on GG means this is the tree you should be running for celestial. Class abilities: --marksman dodge reloads your gun as you dodge. -note: limited applicability, while reloading is essential to a shooter, in PVP getting a dodge off to reload an engage another opponent is not as great as it may appear, as everyone is running similar loadouts right now due to meta, if I engage somebody with Uriels and they fire back, if I win the trade i am injured, getting an instant reload off i am now faced against another Uriels with less than full health on my end. I am dead unless the guardian across from me is playing with 1 hand. ALso as a side note, teamshotting is a thing in trials so 1 v 1 is never going to happen. In PVE this is somewhat useful, as the dodge is quick enough to escape most mob bullets and you most certainly can take down a lot of tier 1 mobs from an injured state with a full clip on the right gun, however, comparative to the titans duck shield, as in you duck behind it an it reloads your weapon, this ability is severely lacking, the titan can provide both cover AND unlimited reloads for the duration, while the hunter can only displace and save himself and only offers one immediate reload. --Gamblers dodge refills melee energy IF next to an enemy while dodging. -note: for golden gun (and we will get to the other subclasses) this does next to nothing. Reloading a disregardable melee ability in PVP gives you two disregardable melee abilities, not to mention you risk reloading it by standing near enemies. Mobility: YEEEEAAAAAAH this is what the hunter was made for I'm going to jump up-- oh wait there's a barrier there--.... HOW ABOUT OVER --NOPE, good thing I have really good in air accura-- I missed every shot as I fell. High jump: double jump focused on jumping higher strafe jump: double jumping focused on directional control or triple jump: which is a little of both in the form of 3 jumps. Overall solid, valid choice between 3 jumps although I always take triple it is easy to validate any jump over the others. However once again what does this get me? Nothing more than any other class, which some would say is not a bad thing but when a class, like the hunter, is created with mobility in mind, and yet gains no advantage from mobility, then we have a negative viewpoint of the outcome, not a neutral one. Why give hunters advantageous jumps if they are not allowed to jump into advantageous positions on the map? Why can't I jump way up on that pillar and snipe down on people? Well the easy answer is map balance in crucible, and maybe it is a valid point, and in PVE the AI's have no way of dealing with players who can reach them but they cant reach the player, "think icebreaker sniping in D1 nightfall," again another valid point, however you have now given a class an "advantage" which is then balanced with other disadvantages, and then removed access for that class to use its advantage, thus leaving it with only the disadvantages for having increased mobility. The sunbringer (is that what its called I main voidwalker and they changed the names of these classes) has the ability, actually buffed from D1, to float in the air without an accuracy penalty and shoot down on enemies whether in PVE or PVP, a class that has nothing to do with mobility, has better aerial precision than the mobility class, and even has an exotic to enhance that ability. ( exotics will mostly be left out of this because that topic, which also infuriates me as a hunter, is simply too much to go over within this massive thread I'm writing.) Point being the hunters mobility is really just lacking, and if there is any actual movespeed increase, its hardly noticeable, and not nearly anymore relevant when it comes to living through the raid or pvp, as bungie has ensured no part of the raid has to be accompanied by a particular class. Not to mention I've never made it or not made it behind cover and thought "if i was/nt my hunter I wouldve/nt have lived/died there," because as I mentioned the movespeed bonus is minor at best. Now.. this was only the gunslinger, FORTUNATELY I do not need to cover class abilities (except glancing at melee recharge) or jumping again. It will only be Supers, grenades, and Paths. EDIT **** SORRY GUYS there's a max word limit and I hit in during arcstrider discussion so I'll comment in this thread the rest of my opinion on the subclasses. Okay, so I usually get most of my information from youtube, patch notes, etc. I've basically heard that the community doesn't treat bungie fair because all they do is complain. I've heard that bungie doesn't treat the community fair because they don't share info well and wont fix things. I try to stay away from that on both ends, but we as a community SHOULD give valid responses to issues we see in the game, not just "THIS SUCKS ASS BUNGIE I HATE YOU." If you want bungie to respond more often I'm sure they'd do so if we as a community give them something valid to respond to. So... On this post if you choose to contribute should be based on the following: if you do not like something that is okay, HOWEVER; provide why you think it is not good with some sort of evidence if not an explanation, and then follow through with, I would rather see _________ instead. If you do like something please state why you like it and why you wouldn't change it.