Hello fellow ARKS,

I've been playing since the official NA release on PC and I've been having a hard time trying to figure out a good end game build for HU/FI. I know HU is usually not preferred as a main since they don't offer as much in terms of damage or support like the other classes (save for Perfect Guard healing but it's minute, with healing only 5% of your health and other nearby player's health when you perform Perfect Guard). I've been doing a lot of research but certain build options make no sense to me. For example, a lot of people recommend putting some points in Crazy Beat and Crazy Heart, but unless you're purposefully trying to get hit by attacks that debuff you, you're generally not gonna have a debuff on you.

Another thing I notice is people placing a few points in Halfline and Deadline Slayer, which is fine, but then want you to also max out Auto-Mate Self which makes you use a -mate item once you're hit below 50% of your maximum health, meaning that you're generally never going to get that sweet damage bonus that Hafline or Deadline Slayer will give you unless you run out of -mate items, which as a Hunter, you're generally not going to run out of. I also see people recommending a few points into Chaser Damage, which from my understanding, is not that great because debuffs are usually a waste of time, as many bosses, especially Urgent Mission bosses, are immune to most, if not all, debuffs.

So I'm curious as to why this is as the only thing I've been able to come up with as to why this is is because only certain skills matter and the rest are filler, which would make a lot of sense, honestly, since we're given a lot of points, more so than almost any other MMO I've played.

The only worthwhile slayer on Fighter tree for Hu/Fi is Photon Slayer for bossing/general tree. Deadline is kinda in the way and you're putting 3 SP there just to grab Photon Slayer. Similarly Crazy Heart is nice because 1.5 bonus to PP regeneration is big, even if you need to be luckily hit by some benign status like burn, but costs 3SP together with 2 levels in Halfline Slayer. I generally prefer putting points into Crazy after we get some more SP with level cap increases.

Chaser is really nice to put a few points into because a status on weapon costs you nothing but something like 30 attack maybe. It doesn't work on all bosses though (large minimap icon), but some minibosses (smaller icon) can be affected by certain statuses like poison for Cathedrans. Chaser's usability mostly relies on mob HP, and it's nice in Ultimate Quests when you're solo or other people have problems well killing things, but in EP6 we will get Free Fields with massive HP pools where Chaser is just about the best mobbing skill, and otherwise for a lot of content that damage does come into play and is really nice. If you want to have a Hu/Fi mobbing tree full chaser + brave stance only is also a good choice.

In general your Fighter skill must have maxed Brave Stance with optional crit (now not worth it), and maxed Tech Arts together with save. Rest is generally content specific where as I said Chaser is mobbing skill good in high HP content, Photon Slayer is all around small damage bonus of 5% or less but easy to trigger, and Wise Stance is for specific bosses only.

I would also like to add that Hunter is a strong main class, just too many people, especially JP veterans who forget to say they've not touched the game in some years, are stuck in outdated balance. Hunter is a great all around and solo class not only because you have some defensive skills available to other classes like automated halfline, but because of the moveset. Blaze Parry is basically gonna spank some hyper aggressive bosses harder than nearly every other other class. If you want to cover some more docile bosses there are also Partizan and WL with their own special mechanics that let you do big boy DPS.