Witch Hunter's Current Place in the Meta?

[TenTonHammer]

Well, just to name one reason, the kiss mechanic is really superior to bullets.

Debateable

Its a trade off, WH has consistent procs, WE has to rely on RNG for procs

[Aurandilaz]

IMO WH bullets better than WE kisses... I would rather have one bullet that I know will have the desired effect, than a random chance to get the effect. Sometimes you get the healdebuff with first AA stab, sometimes you might have 6-10 attacks with no procs.
WH gets the bullets effect just when it is wanted, not sooner, nor later.

[Jaycub]

There are a lot of things you could do to make WE/WH better in group and not effect their solo play at all if anyone finds that to already be very strong.

Nicelook suggested making HD core, I am assuming to open up more spec line possibilities as stated right now WH at least is locked locked into 1 core spec with 2 options (EW/BaL). And a cooldown increaser would be a contender against those 2 option but not if you had to give up things like HD.

I think if we look at unused tactics/abilities for both classes and looks for ways to add group utility to them that would be the best way to make the classes more appealing to groups.

just pissing in the wind here and don't want this to turn into a full blown balance discssion but things like:

>"next flanking attack made by anyone in your group for the next 10 seconds will ignore armor/resist"
>Giving some form of leading shots type tactic to them (a tactic that boosts everyone but you on a conditional)
>10% increased effectiveness of all debuffs placed on target for the next 5 seconds

are what I'm thinking of as examples, but I guess once the patcher is out the skies are the limit?

[kryss]

IMO WH bullets better than WE kisses... I would rather have one bullet that I know will have the desired effect, than a random chance to get the effect. Sometimes you get the healdebuff with first AA stab, sometimes you might have 6-10 attacks with no procs.
WH gets the bullets effect just when it is wanted, not sooner, nor later.

The potential dmg of a streak of kisses (still 25% on a DW class) is far more than the single bullet applied to the WH's finisher with a controlled skill, unless you wish to absospam (still with 50% chances on the FA tactic).

Krima you got a PM

[Stmichael1989]

On a dual wield class with finishers that count as multiple rapid hits, kisses statistically deal more damage than bullets. What's more, if you're using the outgoing heal debuff or AP drain kisses, the multiple procs yield superior uptime (WH outgoing heal debuff only lasts 5 seconds, not enough time to build up another full finisher) and AP drained.

Then there's things like fleet footed, whirling blades, pierce armor, etc. It's not a glaring superiority, but I would say WE is a bit better than WH.

Also, I posted a proposed revamp of the two classes in the balance board.

[Panzerkasper]

25% chance to proc, you people highly underestimate the uptime of kisses.

[Cimba]

A simple thing to improve the WH group utility would be to change the Encourage Confession tactic so that it works with every bullet proc and not only the one that is useless most of the time (inc HD). Not sure if the devs want to do it since order already has means of stacking crit. Then again the crit tactic nerfs didn't destroy the balance so I guess this change wouldn't either.

Overall I think too few people give WH a chance in group. Which strikes me as odd since e.g. KappaPride had very good results with one in T3.

[peterthepan3]

Any class that can offer and/or capitalise on this broken proc system is current meta. WH works very well in a proc setup with 2 ranged, ask kraut. Most WHs are just bad.

[Jaycub]

Any class that can offer and/or capitalise on this broken proc system is current meta. WH works very well in a proc setup with 2 ranged, ask kraut. Most WHs are just bad.

I still think inserting a WL in place of WH in that setup is just plain better. You are gonna modify the SW's damage by a ton with the armor debuff, using armor debuff on SW is a pain in the ass and it's not near as good. WL also much more tanky and has morale root/fetch on top of best mobility of any MDPS. It might not take as much advanatage of proc setup because it's 2H, but it still has AA haste and either the aoe whirlwid which is amazing for procs or the outgoing HD.

Even SM is a better or at least alternative option

Spoiler:

However in the future in think we will gravitate towards a mdps SM instead of a WH. Because SM has some really good group utility while have comparble damage (over time) to a WH. We trade some burst damage and the surprise element of WH for more stability. Which is overall a decent trade because, honestly, triple dd setups can be very stressful to play.

[Cimba]

I still think inserting a WL in place of WH in that setup is just plain better. You are gonna modify the SW's damage by a ton with the armor debuff, using armor debuff on SW is a pain in the ass and it's not near as good. WL also much more tanky and has morale root/fetch on top of best mobility of any MDPS. It might not take as much advanatage of proc setup because it's 2H, but it still has AA haste and either the aoe whirlwid which is amazing for procs or the outgoing HD.

Even SM is a better or at least alternative option

Spoiler:

However in the future in think we will gravitate towards a mdps SM instead of a WH. Because SM has some really good group utility while have comparble damage (over time) to a WH. We trade some burst damage and the surprise element of WH for more stability. Which is overall a decent trade because, honestly, triple dd setups can be very stressful to play.

The mobility/morale root is only really usefull if you have targets to use it on. If you're facing a melee train and the healers know how to position these skill are almost never useable. Additionally the burst damage of the WL is highly dependent on the pet making it rather easy to shut down.
Shutting down a WH in the same manner is much harder. Furthermore with RR60 the WH gets the I-Win-Button for 6on6 with Excommunicate. Also the patch situation was different when we chose to go with WH as main mdps.
We chose WH when the WP/DoK experimental changes we're still in place. One of the few ways to counter melee heal was running massiv AP drain. Something the WH can contribute to without gimping his damage.

I'm not saying WL is bad in that setup. We ran it a couple of times and it works for sure. But WH is not as bad as a lot of people might think.