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Ultimate bounty hunter guide (in progress) v0.2

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    Ultimate bounty hunter guide (in progress) v0.2

    Note: with the changes to Demo and Havoc set, those two are now the new meta, and the Stalker/Snipe sections of this guide are outdated.

    Hi folks,

    I'm shamelessly copying the idea of Romme and creating an ultimate guide too. This time for Bounty Hunters.
    It's a WIP, currently based on the existing guide I already posted to the #bounty_hunter channel on Discord. More will get added over time.



    First things first: If you've just started this game, no matter what class, it is critical you do 2 things:

    1) Visit Liana and buy the crafting recipe she has in stock for 50k gold. Every 3 hours you can for free get a new refresh with another recipe, so keep on visiting her regularly! Don't waste gems on this.

    2) Get your crafting Mastery Level to 50. It is absolutely critical for the end-game and you will reap the benefits every step of the way.

    BH strenghts and weaknesses

    BHs are great at dealing loads of damage in a short time, and we rely on Snipe (and especially its Damage over Time - DOT - bleed effect) to do so. There are some other builds around Demo set and Sticky Bombs, but they are definitely not newcomer-friendly (you need a lot of Glory to get started) and difficult to play well. For 95% of the successful BHs, Snipe is the ability you need.

    What we are bad in, is survivability. You will at some point reach trials where you still do enough damage to complete the trial in 10 minutes, but just die too often to actually win. No way around that, the other classes can absorb a lot more, BHs are the real Glass Cannon class.

    Luckily we have a second strength: we're fast. Really fast. That means we're great at farming gold in story mode and it also means we can improve our survivability by running and dodging enemy attacks. The higher your Trial level, the less time you'll spend attacking and the more time you'll spend on the move to stay alive. This is fine, it just requires practice.

    The second weakness we have: we don't have good abilities to damage very large groups of enemies fast and consistently. This means that Mage and Warrior will both be better at farming XP than us, often at almost double or even thrice the pace.

    BH stats

    As said, Snipe's DOT effect is our bread and butter. In high level trials, it outputs 20-30x more damage than all other abilities combined. So everything we do focuses on increasing it to the limit.

    1) You need Critical Damage and Critical Rating on everything. The Snipe bullet gets boosted by it, and afterwards each 0.5 second Snipe's DOT gets boosted a second time by it. So each extra point in CD and CR multiplies your damage quadratically. You can never have enough CD and CR, put it everywhere.

    2) Nature Damage. The DOT is counted as Poison, which gets a boost from Nature Damage. With bracer, belt and trinkets you can add +NaD 4 times, and it almost doubles your damage at max level.

    3) Movement Speed. Since we rely on movement to survive, both boots and pants need movement speed.
    Last edited by UmbraDei; 11-05-2021, 08:07 AM.

    #2
    BH Gear

    1) Stalker set is the way to go. With 6 pieces, you get a second Snipe (which has even higher damage actually) that automatically attacks every 5 seconds without you needing to do anything. Nothing else compares. Stalker gloves even double poison (=DOT) damage as an extra bonus!

    2) Talisman of Storms. Since CD is absolutely vital as a stat, having ToS giving you +3000% for 6 seconds twice a minute is just insane. Any new Snipe DOT stack initiated at that time will have its damage increased anywhere from x2 to x6 depending on how lucky you are with the timing.

    3) Molten Belt. For boss battles, having your Explosive Shot ability and Tracer Ammo generate Molten Armor stacks is what makes the difference. If attacking fast enough you can get those multiplicative +0.5% boosts to stack up to x3 - x6 within a minute or two. And the longer your boss battle takes the higher the damage multiplier gets. It's as if the developers just give you an auto-win feature once boss battles drag on too long. It also means that the higher your attacks-per-second (=Haste), the more damage you do.

    4) Shadow Assassin's pistols (Malice and Ill Will). You need guns anyway, and at a level as high as possible. The fact that one of the sets decreases the cooldown of your Snipe by 3 seconds is great, no discussion.

    5) Charm of Qol or Vial of the Wind Spirit? This depends on your playing style. On mobile most players put Explosive Shot as the secondary attack (so attacking doesn't accidentally run), so there you can use Qol. Otherwise, VoWS has the advantage due to faster attacks from the higher Haste, and putting ES primary means Rapid Fire uses it too.

    Bracers of Mastery don't really matter that much, don't focus on them as a newcomer, since none of them boost Snipe DOT. They also cost a lot of Glory, so you're better of spending that elsewhere...

    BH Abilities

    1) Snipe. Duh.

    2) Tracer Ammo & Explosive Shot. Necessary for the Molten Belt to work, no way around that.

    3) Rapid Fire. This is a special one: remember the second Snipe generated by Stalker gear every 5 seconds? Well, if that one happens in the middle of an RF attack, it also gets the x3.5 damage boost.

    Closing remarks

    As you can read, there are a lot of abilities, procs and stats that multiply your Snipe DOT damage, but usually only for short periods of time. This means that your main goal is to practice the timing of getting as many of these effects to coincide as you possibly can. It's not easy, but if it works out you will be seeing damages in the dozens of billions per second. And that's why, with practice, BHs on the leaderboards clear trials 5-10 levels higher than Mages and Warriors. And why we're a tough and unforgiving class, but also a very rewarding one.

    Good luck!

    Comment


      #3
      Reserving post #3

      Comment


        #4
        Reserving post #4

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          #5
          Reserving post #5

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            #6
            Woah nice umbradei thnk for this link ill steal you some tip?

            Comment


            • UmbraDei
              UmbraDei commented
              Editing a comment
              Steal whatever you want from this ;-)

            #7
            Great tips from one of Eternium's top BH players! I especially like the part where you point out that at higher trials, you will be spending more time dodging mob attacks just to stay alive than you will be attacking. For me, BH is all about movement. You move to round up mobs and keep them engaged, you move to avoid boss attacks, and you move a lot just to stay alive. If your BH isn't moving, he/she is just a sitting duck. The biggest mistake that new BH players make is not moving enough.

            Looking forward to more tips on timing attacks with ToS. When you manage to pull a large mob together just as ToS procs, the damage is amazing. However, it is hard to get that timing down consistently. I usually advise new BH players to use Magnetic Trap for mob control because it is easier to use, but at higher levels your really need to switch to healers for Vortex and use SmokeScreen for extra protection from dodge bonus.

            Comment


              #8
              How about in the arena? PvsAI? what set should be used?

              Comment


              • Turgeon
                Turgeon commented
                Editing a comment
                I dont think its a guide for arena. Were talking about etrnium as the rpg game. Not this arena pvai

              • chessmaster58
                chessmaster58 commented
                Editing a comment
                #ThereIsNoArena :-)

              #9
              Originally posted by UmbraDei View Post
              BHs on the leaderboards clear trials 5-10 levels higher than Mages and Warriors
              it's 20TL by now
              Guide :

              Comment


              • Turgeon
                Turgeon commented
                Editing a comment
                Ya thats insane 181. How they do that?

              • UmbraDei
                UmbraDei commented
                Editing a comment
                If they ever tell me what they do to *legitimately* achieve this, I'll include it in the guide ;-).

              • Turgeon
                Turgeon commented
                Editing a comment
                Haha dunno if well ever know

              #10
              What ist the 3rd Skill and the passives besides tracer ammo?
              Love the rest

              Comment


              • Ozymandius
                Ozymandius commented
                Editing a comment
                The third skill is generally either Magnetic Trap or SmokeScreen. If you have 3 healers, you can get by using their Vortex for mob control, which allows you to use SmokeScreen. The biggest advantage to SmokeScreen is the ability to disappear from enemies and dodge counterattacks from mobs and even bosses. The end game meta build is 3 healers and SmokeScreen, however, some players like UmbraDei can complete high trials using Magnetic Trap. For me, Magnetic Trap is the easiest way to manage the mob phase of trials [especially for a beginning player], but it offers little help in fighting bosses [other than being able to lock down Kara's minions].

                Aside from Tracer Ammo, I like Pathfinder for the move speed and damage boosts, but other players use Nimble Fighter for the move speed and dodge boost. Your third passive should patch any weakness in your build (e.g., Power Infusion or Piercing Ammo for more damage, Intense Training for faster cooldowns, or Endurance for more toughness). FYI, the third passive slot used to be Poisoned Ammo, but a lot of players seem to be moving away from Shadow Assassin's pistol set these days.

              #11
              Thx a Lot! Didn't see it right away. But thx for taking the time
              now i just bought the Shadow Assassin's Pistols o what is the Meta right now? Or why should i shift away from SA?

              Comment


              • Ozymandius
                Ozymandius commented
                Editing a comment
                Shadow Assassins pistols give you Poison Cloud, which is Nature damage; they also reduce the Snipe cooldown. They were indispensable in the old Stalker meta build [along with Nature Damage on all trinkets], and my Stalker BH still uses them. Igniters pistols synergize with Explosive Shot and Tracer Ammo. After the recent upgrades to Explosive Shot's area of effect (AOE) and damage buff to Tracer Ammo, a lot of players switched over to Igniter's Pistol set. Currently 9 of the top 10 BHs are using Igniter's pistol set [along with Fire Damage on all trinkets], but until you get to over 2k CLs and are pushing the top of the leaderboard, you probably will get by just fine with the Shadow Assassins set.

              #12
              UmbraDei How many hits per second is optimal for BH? Used to be 7 a long time ago but that was a different meta...
              DUCI HEXA YIWA 0721

              Comment


              • UmbraDei
                UmbraDei commented
                Editing a comment
                6-7 is still what you want to aim for, as Molten Armor stacks are your main source of damage multiplication, so you want to maximise the number of Explosive Shot explosions per second.

              #13
              So I'm a BH this event, playing between work and studies. From what I understand so far about BH and looking at leaderboards, most are using none of which you suggested. Is it due to recent changes? Now is this guide dedicated to players who are just starting recently or can all, who have been playing for some time but some what mindlessly, can use this too? Sorry, just very confused with this and the current leaderboards.

              Comment


              • Maou
                Maou commented
                Editing a comment
                No kidding, BH for the first time and following the current meta, BH is overwhelming right now..pew pew pew! And I only got 30 min left on it, sigh. :'( Wish I had enough CT to take all ephemeral items out to the main account. XD

              • UmbraDei
                UmbraDei commented
                Editing a comment
                Good point, I added a disclaimer on top the guide is currently outdated.

              • makilahy
                makilahy commented
                Editing a comment
                Any plans to update the guide? I'm thinking about playing BH for the gold round of ANB.
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