The hell is wrong with Hunters?

[DokEnkephalin]

I revisted my bonemage build, and at lvl 35 now, it's so effective and powerful that it feels broken. That's how I felt about my summoner and blademaster as well, which cleared the True and Final Dungeon without much effort. But I rarely got that sense from my engineer or marksman except at much earlier levels, and in fact my marksman, overlevelled at 42 in its current progression, has been such a struggle that I've all but abandoned it.

Why do Hunters have such a power deficit? Maybe it's too soon to make this judgement since my Evoker is still clearing gates and only briefly attempted The Wilds. But the +skill to build skills, this build is nearly complete, and I'm confident that it'll overcome the remainder of the game.

[RomaMartin]

Do you use mods? And what dungeon are you talking about?

[DokEnkephalin]

I was just referring to the endgame in a spoiler-free way. Every game has a True and Final Dungeon, the climactic challenge before the plot wraps.

[RomaMartin]

I don’t quite understand what you mean, and what version of the game you’re talking about, well, you know better, I thought it was related to the mod I’m working on

[DokEnkephalin]

I haven't really used that yet. It looks great, but after a little testing I realized that it would be a tough adjustment to make mid-run. I'll start a new character to give it another try.

I did get my Marksman and Engineer the +attribute ring on sale, and it helped my Engineer equip his class set, but didn't do much for the Marksman's effectiveness.

[RomaMartin]

I haven't really used that yet. It looks great, but after a little testing I realized that it would be a tough adjustment to make mid-run. I'll start a new character to give it another try.

I did get my Marksman and Engineer the +attribute ring on sale, and it helped my Engineer equip his class set, but didn't do much for the Marksman's effectiveness.

If you put together the right build and upgrade your weapon to the maximum, then there will be no problems, use everything, skills, ranks and nanogorn augmentrix everything that the game gives, and you also need to level up your character in Stonehenge, for this the quest has been changed so that you may have been transferred earlier from Charing Cross station

[RomaMartin]

I strengthened the skill Beacon several times, which gives an advantage, and also brought in a strike like an engineer, you can try, the most difficult location is the dungeons not in Abis but in Tokyo, but to get there you need go through the quest at Holborn station and craft a talisman to enter, and don’t forget to take quests along the way

[DokEnkephalin]

you also need to level up your character in Stonehenge, for this the quest has been changed so that you may have been transferred earlier from Charing Cross station

Yeah, both Engineer and Marksman needed to grind Wake Hollow; that's why I said my Marksman was overleveled, yet still struggling. Engineer is already at lvl55 rank 5, but not nearly as effective as my Summoner, Blademaster or Evoker, none of whom needed to grind Stonehenge to clear the main quest at a steady rate.

The Marksman already has max skill in a Rapid Fire build plan and dual +6 Tattersmarks. His damage output should have compensated for his relatively light armor, but it's just not sufficient.

[Bryan]

I won't ever defend any Global/Steam imbalances in and of themselves, *but* I understand Hunters are extremely easy to break so they likely overdid it in the opposite direction. Case in point, by memory, an endgame Evoker was massively better than a comparably endgame MM.
Curiously, which might help here, they did buff Strikes to be affected by guns. If you look through guides of the time, the two best choices for Strike sets were Bolters (for slots) and Cannonades (for damage and interrupt). So if you could get a good set enchanted to, say +7, you'd likely have a far easier time.

(I understand that being boxed into Strike builds with specific guns is not great or really logical - ideally it should be mods to the kits and guns that fix such imbalances. But in the meantime, this could offer *some* direction.)

[Bryan]

This just underscores my point.

But I'm no arguing against your point. I did say that

I won't ever defend any Global/Steam imbalances in and of themselves

and that

I understand that being boxed into Strike builds with specific guns is not great or really logical - ideally it should be mods to the kits and guns that fix such imbalances.

So I'm not, by any means, arguing that this state of affairs is fine. I agree that

If level 18-38 weapons served the other classes just fine

they should also be sufficient for Hunters. And if they're not, I believe it should be a priority of balance-centered mods to rectify the issue.

All I'm saying here is there may be a way for you to enjoy Hunters more, or to have ones perform better, if you rely on what Global Hunters did to great effect. Case in point, Striker Engineers with such sets were essential toward making any progress in Base Defense when all others failed - so there must be some value there, despite the otherwise unfortunate circumstances.
(I did not remember that these guns are not available pre-38, and I could've sworn some lesser variants of both were - but if so, that's definitely another issue for mods to ideally look into.)

[DokEnkephalin]

Sorry, I didn't see your reply before I deleted my last past. That wasn't to undercut any of your rebuttal. But in any case neither of my Hunter builds were intended to be Strikers. If those are the only viable builds for Hunters, then I may revisit them afresh, but probably not until after playing a game with more rewarding and fun gun builds. I'm pretty much soured on Hunters in this game.

[Bryan]

No worries, happens.
Entirely understandable, I'd also be far from happy with being "forced" into Strike builds while wanting to play gun-focused Hunters. And while Steam is not for me, I do wish such issues could be rectified by modders since the developers could not polish it properly.