Hello fellow Guardians :)
Before you start reading my opinions I believe it's important to say I've been a solo Hunter main since I started playing Destiny as a whole and therefore some of my opinions may come of as biased.
Anyways my current stand on Prismatic Hunter is I believe the subclass is waaay to strong in certain areas and to weak in others.
Before you grab the pitchforks let me explain... I will first start out with what I believe is to strong and then go over what I believe to be weak.
Currently I believe Prismatic Hunter has some major balancing issues due to him being overly centralized around combination blow which in itself probably should've been an aspect on Arc instead of a melee.
But also the fact Prismatic Hunter does a better job as a Solar Hunter than the actual Solar Hunter when it comes to raids with golden gun.
As for PvP having access to multiple ways of radar manipulation which in my opinion should've mainly been a Void and Strand Hunter's job has proven itself to be quite an issue.
When it comes to the weak part of the subclass I think if you try to make a build that doesn't involve combination blow a lot of the Prismatic Hunters kit suddenly becomes very mediocre... not necessarily bad but just mediocre due to lack of synergy and survivability.
This mostly comes from the aspects being lackluster there is a reason why Stylish + Winter's shroud is more and less the only aspects used since it synergizes with combination blow to a point where there is no reason to run anything else especially paired up with Caliban + Liar's.
As it currently stands I believe the Prismatic Hunter needs a complete rework just to be put in line and don't take over the most important roles from the other subclasses and even classes has to offer (I'm so sorry Titans mains)
If we start with what I believe to be the biggest issue it would be combination blow I think it's necessary to change this melee ASAP.
Here I have 2 options:
1) Change combination blow into an aspect on Arc and make tempest strike a melee instead (this would require some balancing on Arc hunter to compensate)
2) Change combination blow out with Distorting blow.
Second change would be to change some of the supers and aspects.
What I would change is the Golden Gun into Blade Barrage and Deadfall into Moebius Quiver.
my reasoning is it would allow Prismatic Hunter to actually use the Star-eater scales on the exotic Class item where currently there really isn't any point.
But this would also allow the Solar Hunter to stay the strongest when it comes to Golden Gun + Celestial.
As for the aspects I would only change 2 of them being:
Gunpowder gamble into Knock 'Em Down and Threaded specter into Whirling maelstrom.
My reasoning here is with Knock 'Em Down is it would allow Hunters to play around with melee build similar to how it is right now, and this would be a good compensation for losing out on something so powerful as combination blow. This would also allow the Arc Hunter's to keep his job as the powerhouse when it comes to melee build.
Keep in mind I believe combination blow is currently stronger than most Aspects in the game and I think its very close to be the same as what Roaring Flames is for Titans... and you get all that from just a powered melee.
As for the Whirling maelstrom it's mainly because Threaded specter has proven itself to just be to strong on prismatic due to constant refresh with Combination blow but also completely messing up controller players in PvP to a point where they can't really do anything.
What I believe is Whirling maelstrom would allow it to play more into Stylish executioner and our grapple grenade therefore allowing for more build crafting and not just be forced into the same 2 aspects.
Sorry for making it such a long post and seriously thanks for reading through it.
I would love to hear some feedback.
What do you agree with and what do you disagree with.
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I like gunpowder gamble on prism because it's really bot worth picking on solar due to the 1 less fragment slot and personally ( much like with most of prism hunter) I would have preferred if they didn't use the most popular and strongest parts of each subclass. I would much rather they replace knife trick with lightweight or the proximity knife and combination blow with disorienting blow. I think emphasizing abilities that inflict debuffs to synergize with stylish executioner and gunpowder gamble would be really fun. Any longtime hunter like myself has probably crutched arc hunter assassin's cowl to death, and I think would agree that it didn't need a 2.0 version in the form of prism. If it's worse, why use it and if it's better, it's stupid op. And frankly, I'm being a little selfish here in that I'm very much bored with the dodge punch playstyle. Despite using decoy abilities in most games where they have one I never cared for threaded specter in pvp because it was such a lame take on it compared to better iterations like in halo reach or titan fall 2. I did like using it in pve, but it feels like it got a nerf to how well it grabs enemy attention. I also came to the conclusion i would prefer they replace specter with the bayblades since it adds way more utility and synergizes with stylish executioner and gunpowder gamble.(more fun to me) Tldr, as you say, prismatic hunter is way overturned in its best builds, but those builds are all just better or very minor variations of Builds that already exist. Which is a letdown for those of us who were hoping for new/unique playstyles.