Nightstalker used to be an essential class in D1 raids.
Why did Bungie make hunters so useless in PvE in D2?
Titans have rally baracade. Warlocks have empowering/healing rifts.
Hunters have a no team oriented ability all they can do is wombo.
Will Bungie respond to all the ”no hunters plz" posts on LFG?
I wouldn't go so far as to say Hunters are
useless in PvE, as a Celestial Nighthawk combined with Way of the Sharpshooter results in the highest burst damage in the game when you Golden Gun a crit location... but Hunters do have the least amount of support of all the classes. The most support they bring lay in The Way of the Outlaw tree, with Chains of Woe improving nearby allies reload speed or in Nightstalker's Way of the Pathfinder, with Heart of the Pack causing killed tethered enemies to create orbs while increasing Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery for nearby allies.
Both of those support abilities, however, lay in specific trees within specific elements and that definitely feels like Hunters were left behind when both Warlocks and Titans had their support placed in non-spec reliant class wide skills.
I've said it since beta. While the reload on dodge is very valuable individually, it would be great to see Hunter get some kind of group support as a class-wide ability. Barring that, there should be buff to their Dodge (short CD perhaps?) to offset the lack of support. My logic there being that if Hunters really are to be lone wolves, make them noticeably stronger at it.
It's also unfortunate to see Hunter's main stat be the one with the least effectiveness in PvE (Mobility only increases walking/strafing speed) while the most beneficial stat in the game for both PvE and PvP (Recovery) is essentially soft capped for them.
The result really is that in the hardest PvE content Hunters are more vulnerable and only provide utility in specific restrictive specs that excel at one thing (either trash mob cleanup in Arcstrider or Nightstalker; or burst damage against bosses in Gunslinger's Way of the Sharpshooter).
While I understand that the goal was likely to provide a tangible difference in the classes in terms of their roles within a group, in it's current state, Hunter doesn't so much feel different as it does basic. Like Hunter has no specialization
as a class as it's utility is limited by needing specific subclass, tree, AND exotics to shine. I hope we see some adjustments eventually.
if it's OK i can join you.