No real explanation needed. DH is the only class completely locked down by being required to cube or wield a single item no matter what build they are running.
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Ummm Witch Doctor too. Sacred harvester / Lakumbas ornament is pretty much a staple for the class
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At that point they really just need to reduce the cooldown of the skill itself.
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DH is forced to use Ess of Johan - no Flavor of Time for us.
DH gets instagibbed by Spinners from Pylon spawns - no Nemesis for us.
The only benefit I saw for DH was homing pads. (For when we have to leave a GR because a Spinner spawn just ended the push)
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IDK what builds you play but Iām using FoT and nems on all my followers as a DH. I used them on my character/cube since the dawn of time, sure as hell going to use them for āfreeā now.
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Blockquote DH is forced to use Ess of Johan - no Flavor of Time for us.
With the pierce nerf Ess is pretty useless now. Flavor is much more added value if you can setup the proper scenario. Also I am pretty sure Vallaās is now useless too after the limiting of max pierces. Now we pretty much HAVE to dual wield Dawn and Fortress, two of the hardest weapons to get a viable roll on much less optimal.
These GoD nerfs didnt just wreck the top clear potential but they killed a lot of itemization viability as well and effected builds outside GoD. Good job Blizzard. Couldnt just do the intelligent thing and remove missle dampener. Guess when it comes to being lazy as usual or screwing over DH itās worth it to spend a little more effort than normal to make sure DH players are miserable. DH back to being the lowest overall clear on the leaderboards.
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GoD DH Merlinā¦ cleared every GR from 140-149 this seasonā¦ Iām not a pro, at all, just persistent, but I donāt think anyone could argue that I donāt have experience to back up my concerns!!
GoD DH in PTR still needs to pull mobs (ess of johan required on player or follower for this) - which means anyone pushing with GoD DH is forced to either wear FoT or EoJ and put the other on the follower. We get nothing free here.
The build is still completely reliant on Area Damage for pushingā¦ in fact, even more so now we donāt pierceā¦big packs are horrific for us now and I still needed the Ess of J to hit the dizzy heights of 133 in PTR, or AD canāt do itās job 
It was the infinite pierces that allowed it to generate the super high area damage with Ess of Johan. They just flat out killed it. With 3 pierces its likw there will essentually be no reason for more than 3 mobs to be close to each other anymore so whats the point? Blizzard completely cut the arms off the build.
ācut the arms offā is a little dramatic as thereās plenty of damage in the build still, even if the solution to the problem was hilariously misguided and solvable via any number of ways to directly address it.
It was going to get nerfed. That was unavoidable, and it happened, and they took a little too much off the top going about it the way they did, but itās not like you have to go play Marauders now.
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Before: Each Arrow can pierce, I can hit every monster in the pack with my attack. This build rocks and area dmg is a MASSIVE bonus. Iād better give my follower EOJ.
Now: Each Arrow has 3 pierces, so I can only hit 3 monsters in that same pack now. Iām actually forced into needing AD and having EoJ or I canāt actually dmg more than 3 monsters per arrow.
AD was a bonus before, now itās a necessity. EoJ was/is always a necessity.
Iām only talking about pushing here thoā¦ you probably wouldnāt notice this at 120 or below.
The purpose for using Vallaās is not affected by the pierce cap. The purpose of using Vallaās was never to get Hungering Arrow pierces, it was to get Strafe projectile pierces. That remains unchanged.
The purpose of Vallaās is to better match up Strafe hits to the ICD of GoD4 generator shots. With Vallaās piercing Strafe projectiles, you are more likely to have a Strafe projectile hit right when the ICD ends, so you get a smaller frame gaps between GoD4 generator shots. Itās limiting the desync between the Strafe projectile breakpoints and GoD4 ICD. With other weapons sometimes you wonāt have a Strafe projectile hit right when the ICD ends, you have to wait a few frames. Vallaās helps to limit that. Piercing Strafe projectiles hit more frequently in density and close the gap with the ICD.
Adding a pierce cap to Hungering Arrows has no effect on this Strafe projectile and GoD4 on-hit ICD for generator shots.
Vallaās will still have the same effect it did before, and will still probably be the preferred weapon for the majority of GoD DHs.
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They cannot add single weapons, especially not class specific weapons.
You would have to make ALL weapons emenate and let followers be able to wear EVERY weapon type. I tried to show this in this thread:
Oh but you do. Have you ever tried to get a GOOD roll on FoT? itās damn near impossible with so many mods on it. EoJ on the other hand is easy. So putting the FoT on the follower is now a no brainer, leaving you the ability to potentially have a much better rolled amulet.
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I respectfully disagree sir. I donāt think Iāve ever seen a cold crit crit EoJ in 8000 hours 
And youāll never see Cold/CHC/CHD on EoJ because that amulet always rolls with main stat and CDR.
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AD is still mandatory, but no need EoJ. I have tested 150+ keys on GR137 on PTR (my clear is second best on PTR and first one has 14k paragon) and best combination is FoT + Squirt (much better results than with FoT + EoJ).
Squirt = second power pylon (with shield pylon and it is even a bit bettet than power pylon) and very good uptime on RG (due too low dmg I had to play with trapped and Squirt on RG was very big help).
Nemesis is good too. It is not true, that spinners end the push. On many attemps I have killed spinners even with power pylon (with conduit and shield without any problem). And with speed and channeling I am skipping spinners.
Problem is GoD over nerf. I hope that in final patch will Bliz. a bit raise pierce limit to at least 5.
Second iteration PTR I have cleaned GR137 NS (and GR138-GR139 will be possible) vs GR148 NS on live (and with much more fishing GR150 is possible).
Sure, of course you can kill them, you can kill a 6 pack of wallers too, eventually, They both change my play style and slow things down tho and Iām just not a good enough player to have those pop up when Iāve got the whole map bunched up already AND rank with it. I can copeā¦ but not beat someone who got the same map without a spinner anywayā¦ Experience or the timer will eventually force me to end the majority of those pushes, one way or another.
This statement intrigues me. What you say goes against my understanding of maths and how AD work However, I am sometimes wrong haha, so thanks for the tip, Iāll give it a shot
With 3 pierce limit it is not problem to make good density for AD. EoJ helps a bit (but much less than on live without pierce limit), but Squirt much more (2 min shield pylon with squirt is really nice).
Spinners are around 1/4-1/3 of pylon spam. And you have free follower cheat death.
On live spinners mostly ends push for me too. On PTR with all changes it is different.
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