Demon Hunting 101 - Printable Version

After GR2, Demon Hunter fell off the radar for the most part and was progressively seen more and more as a meme class, but not in the good way. Its lack of hit/critical/evade buffs, as well as its overall damage being low in comparison to what most other classes can do just makes it not an appealing choice even for people that want to try and look cool.

Not to mention that while the class allows you to go a bit goofy with Reaver combos, you're not exactly rewarded for doing them- in fact, you're punished for trying to be stylish because your damage takes a nose dive with the way Combination Fighter currently works, and its FP costs can get pretty harsh. Lastly, the class overall just feels like it doesn't have anything that special going on anymore, even if you were trying to pick the class for something like utility rather than the flashiness, the things that (usually) stand out are just Winged Serpent from Cobra Stance and, very rarely, the Nitrogen Drop build.

It's a class described to be a 'chaotic and stylish dance', but it's hard to be stylish when most of your options to try and do so have become lackluster. Doing something like Chaser > Rising Tide > Elemental Rave > Retreating Swipe stops being as cool when you realize that the second move gets a 25% damage penalty, and every other move past that has it at 50% instead while keeping the same FP costs. At max ranks without spirits, the costs of this 1 range combo is the following:

-Chaser is 16 FP
-Rising Tide is 11 FP
-Elemental Rave is 11 FP
-Retreating Swipe is 18 FP

That means you have spent a total of 56 FP and 7 momentum to do nearly the same amount of damage as the basic critical hit of a mage spell Rye's 13 FP cost, assuming the target was in 1 range or you have 1M mobility.

Long story short, you're punished for trying to show off, because you are blowing too many resources for little reward.

The punishment for trying to be cool is what we're trying to get rid of here. Below, you will find ideas for changes to skills, as well as a couple optional new skills to add to DH's repertoire.

Chaser, Rising Tide and Elemental Rave are now 3 ranks max instead of 5.
Chaser starts at 100% SWA, and gets an additional 20% per rank (140% SWA at Rank 3).
Rising Tide starts at 100% SWA, and gets 25% per rank (150% SWA at Rank 3).
Elemental Rave starts at 100% SWA, and gets 20% per rank (140% SWA at Rank 3).
Combination Fighter now reduces the FP cost of Reaver and Soldier skills by the same amount as its damage reduction. Initial damage reduction is now 15% and caps at 75%.
Martial Lawbreaker can now make Weapon Swapping cost 1M if you've used a Reaver or Soldier skill this round (using Reaver Stance counts).

Reasoning: One of the reasons DH is in the lower tiers is because in order to do meaningful damage, the conditions to meet that requirement are too strict. The target must often be in 1 range to be able to do a full combo with the exception of 1M mobility shenanigans, and you blow through way too much FP with the combo to begin with. It's worth noting that trying to do a Reaver combo also risks triggering On Attacked effects such as retaliation damage or Riposte, so overall it's considered suicidal in some circumstances to even try something like this. The rank adjustments are mostly quality of life, to provide a bit more freedom with the skill tree. The Martial Lawbreaker addition is mostly for cool points and some diversity.

[Image: cobra.png]

Winged Serpent now has 3 ranks instead of 5. Can now be used grounded and airborne. It allows you to target an enemy and dash towards them, with a reach equal to the skill's rank (3 tiles at Rank 3). The range is doubled while airborne. Winged Serpent costs 3M to use, however if no movement skills have been used this round or Enemy Climb has been triggered, its first use will cost 0M. The skill is still only usable once per with the exception of triggering Jump Cancel.
Snake Dancer now has a scaled CEL/2% chance to turn any unavoided damage into a Glancing Blow barring DoT (i.e, Poison/Burn/Lingering Damage). It does not work against evasion ignoring moves, and it still has the drawback of not being able to trigger while the character is Blinded, Knocked Down or Immobilized. The skill still has a line of sight requirement, and it still makes you step to the side on activation.
Descending Ouroboros is now only 1 Rank, and restores FP equal to Character LV/2.

Reasoning: Winged Serpent has most often been used as a frustrating kiting tool than anything. The change is meant to keep its mobility but making it more of an approach/combo setup, so that it still retains usefulness without being a constant hit-and-run move. Some DH builds understandably do the Winged Serpent kiting because otherwise they might just die due to a lack of Evade buffs (generally the dodge ones), so hopefully with the passive Stance effect suggestion mentioned prior, this becomes less of a need. As far as Snake Dancer goes, it currently has nothing going on for it, so the suggestion for it is meant to make it be -somewhat- similar to how it used to be but remaining within the context of GR2. Descending Ouroboros is currently too situational to use outside of Skyburn because of its airborne requirement, and DH is a very SP hungry class, so its change is meant to make it look a bit more appealing as an option.

[Image: matador.png]

Know No Pain is now 3 ranks instead of 5. It becomes a parry skill, and the activation chance goes off Scaled SKI%. It reduces damage by 25% or 30%. If the parry successfully triggers, the player gains bonus rage energy based on Rank. Moves that ignore armor or protection cannot trigger the parry.
Know no Pain's bonus rage energy starts at 10, and gains 15 per (40 bonus rage energy per parry at max Rank.)
Crashing Bull is now a 3 range circle (instead of 2.)
Bellowing Stag is now a 3 range circle (instead of 2.)

Reasoning: Matador is one of those "there isn't really much at all going on here" situations. The parry suggestion was brought up by Autumn recently and I tried to edit it a little bit then included it here. I think it's very strange that the current iteration of Matador makes you take more damage when originally the Stance seemed to be something more along the lines of 'raging, difficult to tame bull', and I know the change was made because of the old tank menace, but I feel it ended up making the Stance fairly niche. Specially considering that the range of Crashing Bull and Bellowing Stag is currently very small ouside of Wind/Raging Elemental Impact. I actually haven't seen Crashing Bull get used in maybe a year, and I don't think it's because the damage is low but because the range is actually just so small for something that has an Airborne requirement. Hence the suggestion for increasing its range, and the Bellowing Stag AOE adjustment is to make it match up with Crashing Bull while also making it somewhat more useful (reminder that Bellowing Stag and Crashing Bull don't use weapon accuracy!)

[Image: desperado.png]

Lead Storm now ignores evasion and has a cooldown of 1 or 2 rounds (probably 2.) (NOTE: After discussion, it may be wise to not have it ignore evasion. Trying to figure out a better solution.)
Wild Ride now has 2 range instead of 1.
Clay Pidgeon's damage bonus is now added to base damage (before modifiers, such as critical multiplier.)

Reasoning: Lead Storm is currently a ghost of its former self, changing from a meta skill to a "you don't even see this anymore"! It doesn't need to be a basic attack again, but the only reason people have ever used it is for Sonic Shell or being funny with a mutated Narcus into a gun (with Sonic Shell, again...) so this should idea could make it have more general use. Wild Ride feels too strict on its requirements which is a shame because the move is actually one of the most cool things I've seen in this game. That's in part because most Shotguns knockback your enemy by one tile and Wild Ride is 1 range, so even if you score a knock down with One Punch KO you still can't use Wild Ride outside of more niche setups. The 1 range increase is to make it more generally accesible. Clay Pidgeon's suggestion is mostly meant to be a small buff since that's one of the skills that's rarely invested in because of other things being much better than it is.

[Image: extra_skills.png]

Taunt
6M Cost. Consumes all remaining momentum. Provoke your enemies and make them commit a mistake. When you use this skill, if at least 1 enemy is within X range, you gain a status called Taunt that lasts for 2 rounds once. When this status expires, you will gain 3 momentum, however if you take any damage exceeding a threshold based on Rank while the status is active, the status will be removed and you will instead gain Guard Break LV30 for 2 rounds. Best used with skill quotes.
Rank 1: 4 Range Diamond, Threshold: 50 Damage
Rank 2: 5 Range Diamond, Threshold: 100 Damage
Rank 3: 6 Range Diamond, Threshold: 150 Damage
Demon Breaker
To slay a beast, one becomes a beast. Awaken your inner power and begin a chaotic, stylish dance. Increases all statistics and damage reduction by Rank%, and all Stance changing skills will grant 1 Momentum the first time they're used in a round while the status is active. The skill consumes 10% of the user's FP when first used, and will drain FP by the same amount every subsequent round. Using the skill again ends the effect and refunds 3M.
Rank 1: Bonus Stats: +1, 1% Damage Reduction
Rank 2: Bonus Stats +2, 2% Damage Reduction
Rank 3: Bonus Stats +3, 3% Damage Reduction
Rank 4: Bonus Stats +4, 4% Damage Reduction
Rank 5: Bonus Stats: +5, 5% Damage Reduction

Reasoning: It's cool. Demon Breaker could probably use a recolored Demon Translation start-up animation (like the breaking orb thing but recolored to black, you know which one I mean!) for its first use, and then get the Demon Translation sparks for the duration but made black as well. I considered just naming it Demon Translation but I know Dev probably wouldn't want people asking too many questions about that, so I just changed one word... as far as Taunt goes however, it's just meant to be a for-fun-skill. It's meant to be one of those "you don't really have to do this, it's absolutely not necessary, but you could" moves that lets you show off when it does work. Or die for talking trash if it doesn't. Gotta back up the bark.

That's all, folks. The skill descriptions don't have to be the exact same way I phrased them, they're just the general gist. If these ideas are terrible let me know so I can curl up and cry for a week (except not really, but feel free to discuss!)

The goal isn't to make the class an outrageous wacky-wahoo like its actual inspiration, but more useful and fun!