Hello guys, I started to play the class and was thinking about something like this
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RVvoAGzZ.
My idea is strong range AA character with elemental damage and some damage absorption plus physical resistance due to aura of conviction. But I noticed that in build compendium nobody used anything like this. So does the build sucks so much for real and can I get short idea why exactly?
Yes…and yes you can.
Low:
OA
DA
Health
% damage
Flat damage
Resistance reduction
Also negative energy regen but that’s honestly the smallest problem
Thanks. What’re OA and DA tho? And does Purifier not have these problems?
Offensive and Defensive Ability
Purifier can get OA from Flame Touched and DA shred from Flashbang (works as you would incraese your own OA). Also OA from Deadly aim (but you need to crit first to activate it) and also aura of Conviction (but Aura of Cencure is better for resistance reduction). Finally u have DA from Word of renewal.
For a mage hunter, you want Word of Renewal and Inner Focus.
btw remember that if a skill has say 15% to cast on attack and you bind it to a skill that has say 20% to activate, like what u did with fissure, you will only have chance to cast that skill 0.15 * 0.2 = 0.03 = 3% of your attacks…
You basically did something that looked very offensive, but you have very little OA to crit and very little resistance reductions. And you also have almost 0 defenses (no insquisitor seal, no word of renewal and no Mirror of erectoes)
You could make an aether panetti or callidor tempest build, should be easy to make a decent one with just a few core items.
So basically for mage hunter AA builds are not so good and the most effective way to go into caster, but if I want to play as AA it’s a way better to take Purifier, right? Thanks, I will check builds in the compendium for both then 
What? Low OA with Deadly Aim and Innter Focus?
With Maiven and WoR Mage Hunter is very tanky.
Energy problem? Lol hell no.
Well all sets designed for MH are caster-based, so if you want a hitter, try 2handed Mythical Vortex of Soul. Arcanist heavily supports Aether, and Inquisitor has WoP - Aether RR too.
Ahh forgot, try Inskadran set too, after nerfed its not ideal for caster now but still good for hitter as they dont need much CDR.
The build posted in the OP was this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/RVvoAGzZ
no Inner Focus, no MoE, no …
Thats why I suggest him an aether-based. When it comes to ranger and elemental dmg vindicator or purifier dominated.
As I got it’s not just this, but Mage Hunter itself as AA is not effective even if I replace Sphere of Protection with Inner Focus and Word of Renewal for example, so there was no suggestion how to make it effective with using ranged, because casters are more effective and fun to play anyway.
The arcanist/inquis mix is not great for autoattack, but this might work for the campaign and was the best I could scramble together: Grimtools MageHunter AA
Since the intent seemed to be fire-focused, I figured I’d try to see if OFF could be worked into it and the best pistols for that would be a pair of the fire Degallions. For OFF’s freeze to have any chance to work on tougher mobs, you need the Mageslayer’s set for the freeze resist reduction.
It could have some fun potential with Resist Reduction:
-35%(AoC) - 23% (Eldritch Fire) x Viper(if negative previous) - 32 (Elemental Storm) ~90+RR before accounting for resists
If OFF works, then the potential is (-35-23-120)x (1.2 viper, for the negative portion) -32 (ES) …so 130 to 230-ish RR after accounting for resists, depending on where the fire resist sits between 18%-95%; Effectively this is a 130-230% damage boost.
However, OA still is still a bit low- but workable. Further, Mageslayer set and Degallions are lvl 94, so it is all very end-game in application.
The bigger problem is that even if you do get enough in terms of stats for OA, DA, more flat damage etc., a lack of a strong auto attack replacer and attack speed hurts Arcanist in comparison to Demolitionist, Shaman or Soldier which all enjoy these.
You could probably get Beronath’s Fury Mage Hunter to work in some capacity for campaign but it will largely be outperformed compared to if you swapped Arcanist out for one of the 3 masteries I mentioned in the above paragraph. Runic Bolts is the only way I can think of to make Mage Hunter work for a solid ranged attacker.