Best Hunting Specialisation

Eoka

What is the best specialisation for hunting? No PvP, so just the fastest clear with the least risk of death would be fantastic

Antonius

How artied are you/will you be? That's probably going to make a pretty substantial difference.

Eoka

I have 0 arties right now because I'm broke but I will eventually be buying some

Illyose

I think the first thing to be said for any hunting, is that they all do pretty decently. I'll admit that I haven't hunted as dual cut since the changes to specs, but it was pretty good, and from what I hear they kept it pretty similar. I focus on the other three, because I HATED dual cut with rapiers, and I find the other specs a lot more fun conceptually. I started as 2H, and they do Massive damage. They are a little less defensive than the other specs, but that can be evened out a little with artie armour now. I hunt with warhammer most of the time, but Bastard isn't too much slower. Dual blunt I found to be a middle ground. Flails did a chunk more damage than stars, but stars where faster, so I liked to mix it up depending on what I was fighting. My only complaint with the spec was that I couldn't switch in my SoA and single whirl at targets, which I suppose is as designed, but makes me feel like the singlewhirl skill is kind of a waste. Lastly is SnB, which was AMAZING before the propper nerfs were given to it. Now it has REALLY little damage, but can take a beating like no ones business. Very much a slow and steady choice, that gives a wide range of places you can survive, and eventually work through. I'll admit that all this is based on having a fair amount of defensive arties, and no artie weapons. All in all, I don't think it will matter too much on what spec you want, just how you prefer to feel when bashing. 

Ada

If you have rainbow criticals then dual wield anything would make hunting a lot more colourful for you: https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/bU2-xzaN

Kenway

Believe it's generally agreed that 2h is the best until you're artied up and then DwC takes the crown.

Dochitha

After the recent changes, 2h talked the crown artied too.

Darktalon

Still 2 hander? Been sword and shield and it's just so slow. Have a few artifacts, but none at level 3.

Mathilda

Still 2H!

Minifie

I found DWB, 2h and DWC at full arties to be so close together it was a wash, take your pick and have fun.

S+B still miles behind, but I believe slice and rend both do same damage at different speeds, which may be causing an issue.

Cailin

Someone has told me that the double crits of DWB make it better at higher levels. It's not something I've tested though, just hearsay.

Nazihk

IIRC, 2h dominates at all artifact levels right now.

Cooper

We should commit, as a community, to figuring out a way to do the math on all this with respectto crits/attack speed.

Kiet

Sena did a simulation using an attack A and B, where attack B hits 80% as hard as attack A but over 4 hits instead of 1 in the same time frame, and attack B was better. Something like that, anyway! Someone just has to convince her to model other data points!

Leffe

I can't weigh in on what is the best spec, as I have only tried 2H.
I can say that in many years of playing IRE muds, 2H runewarden is by far the best bashing class I have ever experienced, by far - and I've been some of the more ridiculously good bashing classes over the years (example: a wardancer bashing with dual shields of protection (absorption here) artefacts in early imperian).

Survivability?
I'm level 80 and have died once only while bashing (trying to solo Belladonna somewhere around level 70 - don't do it). I haven't been only grinding the safe areas either - always pushing for harder areas and better XP, so while that is anecdotal evidence, it's still pretty compelling results.

Artefact-wise, don't even bother with a weapon for bashing. Just bash with a forged warhammer. There's a thread detailing why.


My advice: go 2H, pick a race that lets you evenly raise strength and con (dwarf for me), and instead of buying artefacts, get avoidance/minis. If you do save up for artefacts, buy +crit or increase your tankiness more if/when you think it is lacking.

If you're bashing you don't need a high investment in chivalry (just the various defs that buff your char, like resistance and weathering), and to be honest, not that much in runelore either. Rune armour is an extra 5/5 to your armour stats. Everything helps but avoidance will help more so after jera/algiz I'd focus on avoidance before returning to get berkana and then the rune armour/blade as a lower priority.

Edit: the lesson cost to switch specs is quite low, so you could use 2H until you think the crit advantage of a dual wielding spec makes it worth switching specs.

Kriex

2h by far is the best hunting spec for Runewarden.  It hits hard and with x16 crits (at level 95, about 15%-18% of my total crits are x16) you can one shot most things (Sidhe in Annwyn, Elite and Knights in Mog etc).  Your already tanky with runic armour and by speccing +con (I am a dwarf miner, and trait specced for +con). You only really need to hit 16 strength without fury for pvp (anything more is great but a broken torso dsb at 18 strength (16 base plus 2 with fury) is 92%+ health on someone).  If your going only for hunting and not looking to get into pvp then get an artefact hammer. Speed on hammer is a little faster.  If your planning on getting into combat get an artefact bastard sword.  I have a level 2 and with the nimble trait my hunting balance is around 2.9 seconds a hit.

While DWC is faster and has the ability to crit more, your still needing 3-4 dsls (at around 1.9-2.1 seconds of balance per hit) to match 1 slaughter attack from a 2h. 2h crits are worth more in damage too.  From my testing (16 str, lvl 1 scims for dwc, lvl 2 bastard for 2h, lvl 2 crit pendant) it takes a dsl with a double x2 crit proc to match my normal base hit for 2h. So any crits I get as a 2h (roughly a 36% chance at 95) means my DWC counter part has that many more dsls to do to catch up.

2h allows you to tank mobs easier because you hit harder and can potentially one shot mobs with smaller crits.  Meaning you are hitting and running less.  

I will always tell others 2h is greater

Solnir

Kriex said:

2h by far is the best hunting spec for Runewarden.  It hits hard and with x16 crits (at level 95, about 15%-18% of my total crits are x16) you can one shot most things (Sidhe in Annwyn, Elite and Knights in Mog etc).  Your already tanky with runic armour and by speccing +con (I am a dwarf miner, and trait specced for +con). You only really need to hit 16 strength without fury for pvp (anything more is great but a broken torso dsb at 18 strength (16 base plus 2 with fury) is 92%+ health on someone).  If your going only for hunting and not looking to get into pvp then get an artefact hammer. Speed on hammer is a little faster.  If your planning on getting into combat get an artefact bastard sword.  I have a level 2 and with the nimble trait my hunting balance is around 2.9 seconds a hit.

While DWC is faster and has the ability to crit more, your still needing 3-4 dsls (at around 1.9-2.1 seconds of balance per hit) to match 1 slaughter attack from a 2h. 2h crits are worth more in damage too.  From my testing (16 str, lvl 1 scims for dwc, lvl 2 bastard for 2h, lvl 2 crit pendant) it takes a dsl with a double x2 crit proc to match my normal base hit for 2h. So any crits I get as a 2h (roughly a 36% chance at 95) means my DWC counter part has that many more dsls to do to catch up.

2h allows you to tank mobs easier because you hit harder and can potentially one shot mobs with smaller crits.  Meaning you are hitting and running less.  

I will always tell others 2h is greater

You're*

Kriex

Solnir said:

Kriex said:

Stuff

You're*

That is @Ayja's job. #goneguardian

Caled

Kriex said:

 If your going only for hunting and not looking to get into pvp then get an artefact hammer. Speed on hammer is a little faster.  If your planning on getting into combat get an artefact bastard sword.  I have a level 2 and with the nimble trait my hunting balance is around 2.9 seconds a hit.

Hammer is naturally faster than bastard, so definitely use for hunting. 
However, don't bother with an artefact hammer for hunting. There is no measurable speed increase, and no measurable damage increase.

In fact, weapon damage does almost no extra damage to denizens, for 2h. Against a target I was doing about 70% damage to per hit (stirges in great rock being my test mob), jumping from forged to L2 bastard only netted 1% extra damage.

A L2 hammer might be nice. I don't have one, but I'd expect a 0.2 second speed increase. Totally not worth it for hunting though.

If you want to hunt with a bastard, a L1 is definitely good, with a nice speed increase. L2 is slightly less return but also good. However, I still bash with warhammer mostly, so: 

Hunt with a forged hammer and get +crit instead.

If you really want that weapon, for the cool factor or whatever, apparently you can borrow one for evaluation if you contact admin.

Kriex

More speed and damage is always nice. All artefact weapons for 2h are mainly used for pvp. Even the hammers so having them is always a plus.  Just depends on how much you value the speed and damage increase.

Caled

Agreed. Just pointing out that the damage for pve isn't there, and the L1 hammer speed isn't there, so there are better pve arties. The OP isn't interested in PVP.

Because I made the mistake myself (though I don't regret it as it still has pvp impact).

Kriex

He asked for fastest clearing speed.  2h is faster with artefact weapons. A speed increase even if it is .1 is still an increase.

Caled

As I said, no measurable speed increase with L1 hammer. Makes sense given the stats (the stat diff between forged->L1 hammer is not on par with forged->L1 bastard). L2 hammer probably noticeable, BUT at the cost he will get better return (in his case clearing speed) spending those credits on +crit. 

I'm not saying there is NO benefit with a L2 hammer. I'm offering advice on value for money, and pointing out that he will see no benefit with a L1 hammer.

Cooper

I have a feeling that you either tested inaccurately, or the weapons are bugged. There should be a noticable difference in both damage and speed.

Caled

I'm willing to admit that maybe my weapon speed tests have a mistake. Although the testing, using the same parameters, were able to show differences between forged sword, L1 sword, L2 sword and hammer - just no diff between forged and L1 hammer.

More likely, is that the stat difference of 3 is just a such a small increase that I'd need a larger pool of repetitions before I could claim to measure that accurately (I used 100 reps).

The damage tests though - pretty hard to mess them up, and I did a quick repeat now:

Also remember - this is only the pve attack, not the various pvp abilities.

It is a two-handed weapon.

Damage: 186  To-hit: 170  Speed: 149

It has the following mystical runes sketched upon it:

A rune like a ball of ice has been sketched onto it.

A Stonesmith's Maul has the following venoms or magical effects on it:

Empowered

4683|3765|65 [eb cdb] TarH: 100%

Drawing back a Stonesmith's Maul, you unleash a flesh-mincing blow at a bat-winged stirge.

4683|3765|65 [e cdb] TarH: 36%

It is a two-handed weapon.

Damage: 183  To-hit: 165  Speed: 146

A rustic, Eleusian warhammer has no venoms or magical effects on it.

4683|3765|65 [eb cdb] TarH: 100%

Drawing back a rustic, Eleusian warhammer, you unleash a flesh-mincing blow at a bat-winged stirge.

4683|3765|65 [e cdb] TarH: 36%

Kresslack

Worth mentioning that Focus for 2h lets you increase the speed of each attack via BATTLEFURY FOCUS SPEED. I have a L1 greatsword (Dawnrender) and L1 crit pendant and I go through things pretty quickly, along with consistently crits. If you're Human, your crit chance is going to be even slightly higher as a racial attribute.

Reyson

I'm not sure how you're testing speed without timestamps. Also, I'd personally use the health on probe thing, since I've noticed a few iffy health values for mobs at times (though admittedly those were specific instances of things with healthsteal and stuff).