The Basics As a Hunter playing in a group or fellowship setting, you are pretty much as DPS machine. Sometimes, players will get frustrated with being “demoted” from a jack-of-all-trades to simply the DPS machine, but it is nothing personal and it is something that you should expect as a hunter. Your main skills are ranged DPS, not tanking or healing, so you being the ranged person is only natural. While many groups do not want to wait for hunters to set traps, but they are still useful and a lot of groups do not want to wait for our focus to build up before we can start shooting. But, they find that the hunter's ability to create campfires for healing and morale are great to have, plus the ability to teleport all over the map is something that most groups can not live without. Keep in mind though that the primary goal of a hunter in any group or fellowship is as the hammer of the group. We can see into the mobs, swap out targets with ease, and drop the adds before the tanks have a problem with them. Hunters pretty much pull from the healer in the group so they can continue to heal the group or party and then continue to play the

Basic Hunter Information Just like with any MMO game, the most important attribute for any Hunter in LOTR is it's agility. The hunter's agility affects the amount of damage that you can do with ranged weapons, as well as your ability to dodge attacks. For players who are familiar with World of Warcraft hunters, this is an easy concept to grasp as different races will naturally be more fit to play a hunter than others. Different racial abilities, such as agility and stamina will always help hunter players. For this reason, the Elven race in LOTR make some of the best hunters due to their natural agility. They also are a great choice for a hunter toon since around level 20, they are able to work with a racial trait that will give them an extra boost to their bow damage. Of course, this is not to say that the other races do not make good hunters either. Elves overall are a bit more fragile than the other races, the have lower Morale (or hit points) and lower Fate (or regeneration in combat). While these factors might not be that important to you, they can make a monster difference when you are out soloing with no one to tank for you. So, if you are more of a solo player, you might consider

When You Hit Level 30 Once you reach level 30, you gain the ability to use Light Oil on your arrows that will allow you to deal more Light damage over time to a mob. This is another passive skill, such as with Fire Oil, that you will have to learn from the hunter trainer and another oil that you will have to purchase, or learn to make. When you add this to your arrows, you will find that the damage that they deal increases greatly and will help you stop mobs before the reach you. This is a great ability to have, as you'll find that in most battles, you will be able to take out mobs before they can do much damage to you or your group and you will be able to fight in larger battles as well, especially in PvP areas. Also, the ability to use these oils will allow you to fight longer, as you won't be wearing down your strength or your your armor as the mobs will already be extremely low in heath before they hit you.

Basic Hunter Stances
You will also start to refine your stances that will allow you to improve your attributes. There are three different Hunter Stances: strength, precision, and endurance. Each time you improve one stance, you will lower your abilities in the other two. Here is a short break down of the three stances:

Strength – this increased the damage that you can do as well as your Threat factor, which makes you noticeable to an enemy. This can actually be useful while soloing because you want to be able to do the most damage possible. As you start out, this is the only stance that is available to you from level 4 though 17.

Hunters Are Special Too...
Another great aspect of playing a hunter in LOTR is that you have the ability to track enemies. For those who are used to playing other hunters with tracking abilities on other MMO games, this will be a nice change. Instead of lighting up your map with a specific type of mob, (such as animals, humanoids, and so on), the LOTR hunter's tracking allows you to examine the ground for different tracks and choose one to follow. Then, this track is shown on your map. You only gain your tracking skill at level 12, when you get Passage of Nature that will allow you to track beasts.

Hunters are also a great class to play as you gain several different travel buffs to help you. For example, hunters have a buff that allows their group to run faster, which is great in these eariler levels before you can ride horses. This buff is called Find the Path and increases your group's running speed by 15%. You will gain this skill at level 14.

There are a couple of extra skills that hunters can get after level 10 that can be a great asset to themselves and their friends. One of these is Cry of the Predator, which you gain at level 12. This makes beasts run in fear from you or your group when used. Another helpful skill is Purge Poison, which will pull a poison from a friend, and you gain this skill at level 16.

Special Skills
For those who choose to play a Hunter toon, you will find that the special skills and abilities will only enhance your game play. Hunters are almost invaluable when it comes to group play due to some of their special buffs (such as those listed above) that roll out to their group to help them as well. When you roll an hunter and start playing, you won't have access to many of these. But, the further that you level up in the game, the better you will become at offering special items to your friends and other group members who need them.

In the next part of this series, we'll go through level 20 and above as this is the time when your Hunter will really come into it's own and you will gain some major skills and abilities that will only make you even more valuable to your group.

From: http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/mmo/articles/17968.aspx

When You Hit Level 30 Once you reach level 30, you gain the ability to use Light Oil on your arrows that will allow you to deal more Light damage over time to a mob. This is another passive skill, such as with Fire Oil, that you will have to learn from the hunter trainer and another oil that you will have to purchase, or learn to make. When you add this to your arrows, you will find that the damage that they deal increases greatly and will help you stop mobs before the reach you. This is a great ability to have, as you'll find that in most battles, you will be able to take out mobs before they can do much damage to you or your group and you will be able to fight in larger battles as well, especially in PvP areas. Also, the ability to use