Update 2.3 – Garden Of The Witch | Hunt: Showdown 1896

Hi guys, rex here! Update 2.3 just went live, and with it we got a new event, a new battle pass as well as a bunch of quality-of-life changes, balance changes and more. Let’s dive into it!

Let’s start with the new event: Garden of The Witch

Number 1: Exclusive sealed scarce traits

This event introduces event exclusive traits, which are selected from previous events and can only be obtained in a mission by spending pledge marks. As with previous events, these scarce traits can spawn in the usual sealed trait locations such as supply points and towers, but there will also be a guaranteed spawn at the new Rare Supply which I’ll cover shortly. The event exclusive traits are Blademancer, Corpse Seer and Gunrunner, all of which should be familiar from previous events and have been covered in my previous update videos. Blademancer allows you to retrieve throwable tool items, arrows and bolts through dark sight, but no longer deals damage when pulling them from live targets. Corpse seer allows you to gain dark sight boost when looting a dead hunter, and gunrunner grants the ability to run two 3 slot weapons at once.

Number 2: The Rare Supply

Rewards that previously appeared at the sealed hoard will now appear on a new type of supply point called the Rare Supply. This supply point is marked on the map with a new icon and should be easy to locate. There is always one rare supply per match, containing the following:

• A master clue, revealing all bosses on the map when unlocked
• A full restoration kit, restoring all your lost health chunks upon use
• An event exclusive sealed scarce trait, as mentioned earlier
• A dark sight boon, granting you dark sight boost upon use
• And finally, a chance for a sealed bounty token

Additionally, you will always find the following sealed rewards at the rare supply, which can also spawn in other locations on the map:

• A four-shot boon, granting you all 4 small shot effects
• An experience boon, granting 2000 hunter EXP
• And a sealed cash register, granting between 200 and 1000 hunt dollars

Number 3: The Battle Pass

The new battle pass features 38 levels, and contains a variety of unique rewards, including 4 new Hunters, 3 new weapon variants, new equipment animations and a variety of skins. Here are the new weapon variants introduced with this update:

3.1: The 1865 Carbine Silencer

The 1865 carbine just got a new silenced variant. This weapon runs regular ammo and FMJ ammo but has now also got subsonic ammo, which reduces the noise made by gunshots at the cost of greatly reduced velocity. This weapon can be purchased for 80 hunt dollars.

3.2 The Mosin Obrez Match

The Mosin Obrez just got a new variant, the match, featuring improved iron sights, barrel and stock and overall better stats compared to the regular Obrez. This weapon can be purchased for 345 hunt dollars.

3.3 The Mosin Obrez Sharpeye

This is another new variant of the Mosin Obrez, featuring an extended barrel & stock as well as a deadeye scope. This weapon can be purchased for 362 hunt dollars.

Number 4: Silencer changes

With this update, silencers are seeing a 10% reduction in damage compared to their non silenced variants. This should have a big impact on the overall effectiveness of most weapons, making silencers more of a trade-off where you must decide between higher damage or stealth. For some weapons such as the Krag silencer, this will have a significant impact, as the damage output will no longer be high enough to one-shot to the torso if a hunter is missing a health chunk. A fantastic update, if you ask me!

Number 5: Revive bolt changes

Hand crossbow revive bolts have effectively been removed from the game, and all instances of purchased revive bolts have been refunded. This change is long overdue in my opinion, but I am very happy that we are finally seeing this change, as revive bolts have been less than ideal for the overall game balance to put it mildly. This change will more than likely help restore balance to the overall PVP experience, especially for those who enjoy playing solo.

Number 6: Weapon balance changes

A variety of weapon balance changes have been made, all covered in the patch notes linked in the description, but here are the ones I find most interesting:

• The officer carbine deadeye now has reduced recoil, which should make it easier to use.
• The spread on most long ammo rifles has been reduced.
• The Berthier now has slightly increased damage and reduced recoil
• The Mosin Obrez now deals 126 damage, down from 133, and has had its velocity slightly reduced.
• The centennial now has a slightly higher cycle time.
• The Vetterli cycle time has been improved both with and without the iron eye trait, and the cyclone variant has had its recoil slightly increased.
• The chu ko nu velocity for normal and incendiary bolts has been increased to 125 meters per second, and the explosive bolts now only come with 5 extra ammo instead of 10.

Number 7: Gameplay:

The hit validation window has been reduced from 800ms to 450ms, which should help decrease occurrence of delayed shots such as getting shot after getting behind cover or similar.

7.1 Traits

This update introduces a variety of high impact changes to traits, including the following:

• The Lightfoot trait no longer causes solo players to crouch quietly
• Surefoot no longer increases crouch speed
• The fast fingers trait now applies to both the Maynard sniper and the Martini Henry families, allowing for faster reloads by readying up bullets between your fingers
• The bolt thrower trait now applies to the bomb launcher and lance, reducing their reload times.
• Conduit now duplicates clue effects for solo players instead of just doubling the map progress, which should make this trait very useful for solo gameplay going forward
• Blast sense now detects shots from silenced weapons, which could make it very useful for locating stealthy players that would otherwise be hard to find, however subsonic ammo will not be detected, making it a viable option for stealthy playstyles.
• Finally, various dark sight interaction speeds have been increased, including serpent, remedy, poltergeist, shadow leap and dark dynamite satchels.

7.2 Equipment

This update introduces a bunch of equipment changes.

• Throwable tool items have been adjusted to have more distinctive roles. For example, throwing knives are now weaker against tougher enemies, axes are better against armoreds, and spears are stronger against larger enemies like armoreds and meatheads.
• Pullout damage from various throwable tools, bolts and arrows has been increased from 14 to 42 to the upper torso, meaning pullout kills are back on the menu!
• Damage reduction for tool items against bosses has been removed, which should make these fights a lot less tedious going forward, and the spawn rate for melee tools around boss lairs has been increased.
• Dark dynamite satchels can now be disarmed and picked up, which opens a new world of opportunity!
• Death traps are back on the menu, as the concertina and poison trap combo is lethal again.
• Bear traps have been nerfed to deal 54 damage, meaning you’ll now need 3 bear traps to kill a player instead of 2.
• All stamina and regeneration shots have had their effect duration reduced. Large shots now last 7 minutes and small shot last 4 minutes.
• Finally, explosives now detonate when in contact with burning hunters and monsters as well as environmental fires such as those caused by lamps or firebombs. I think it will be quite interesting to see how this plays out.

7.3 Other weapon changes

A variety of weapons have had their prices adjusted. Here are the most significant changes:

• The uppercut and Haymaker have had their price reduced by roughly 100 hunt dollars.
• All Krag variants have had their price increased by roughly 100 hunt dollars.
• The throwing spear has had its price cut in half, now costing 80 dollars instead of 150, which might make it worth running again.

• Custom Ammo Scarcity

The following changes have been made to scarce ammo:

• Maynard sniper dumdum and Auto-5 slugs are now scarce.
• The Conversion pistol and Scottfield dumdum ammo types are no longer scarce and can be purchased again.
• On a final note, we now have a guaranteed custom ammo swap box at arsenals and watchtowers, which should make it a bit easier to obtain scarce ammo types.

7.5: Trait changes

New traits have been added to the bloodline progression and can be purchased for trait points, and some traits have had their prices changed:

• Blast sense is now unlocked at rank 1 and can be purchased for 2 trait points.
• Poltergeist is unlocked at rank 62 and can be assigned for 2 points.
• Surefoot now costs 6 points, up from 4.
• Greyhound has had its cost reduced to 2 points, down from 5.
• And finally, Determination has had its cost reduced to 1 trait point, down from 4.

7.6: Hunter changes

Recruited hunters now come with 10 upgrade points instead of the previous 3 random traits. This should save us all a lot of time and make recruited hunters a lot more predictable in terms of possible trait setups. Free hunters still come with one random trait as before.

7.7 Bounty clash

Some changes have been made to the bounty clash mode:

• Maximum teams have been reduced from 5 to 4, which should make spawns less chaotic overall but will also reduce the maximum number of players in a match in a lot of cases. For example, if you load in solo this means the maximum number of players in the match would be 10 instead of 12, which would include yourself and three trios.
• Arden Parish and Darrow livestock have been added to the bounty clash pool. While I am really excited for Arden, I suspect Darrow will be quite chaotic.

7.8 Weekly challenge changes

Weekly challenge sets now unlock in a random order. Players will still unlock all the same challenges but not necessarily at the same time, which hopefully means we’ll see more variety in playstyles and weaponry throughout the event.

Number 8: Wild Target Changes

Wild targets now have a 100% chance of spawning in single boss contracts with no sealed bounty. Additionally, Rotjaw now drops a single bounty token, is not banished and drops a random scarce trait upon death. This should make her a lot more interesting to pursue and put her on par with Hellborn in both rewards and mechanics.

That’s it for this update video! Keep in mind, this update is quite extensive as it covers a significant number of balance changes and fixes, so I’ve done my best to cover what I consider to be the most interesting and impactful changes. I highly recommend you take a look at the patch notes if you want all the details. I’ll leave a link in the description.

What are YOU most excited for with this update? Let me know in the comments, and until next time – I’ll see you in the bayou!