Hey guys, Nev posted the balance blog that everyone’s been waiting for (which I can’t link bc I’m a new forum noob lol), and it seems pretty clear to me that us DH’s are gonna get a decent class buff, hopefully for 2.6.8 patch (Necros as well).
Using their new “balance to GR130 solo @ 5k para” methodology, we can see that our class should expect ~5GR buff as a whole soon. Understanding that this could imply some sets will be buffed more than that amount while others might be buffed less.
For myself personally, given that I’m an S6 main, I’m hoping to see a nice buff to Impale to allow me to be RGK in group settings, maybe not meta (although it seems pretty clear AoV Sader is getting nerfed) but at least off-meta?
The most important thing however is to maintain a good intra-class BALANCE for DH’s as a whole. I don’t want to see one build be super OP and then the rest lag way behind. Hopefully PTR will flesh this out so we don’t go into S20 with 1 broken build and everything else eating dust…
There was also an interesting section regarding animation canceling and “creative gameplay mechanics”
There have been a handful of problematic gameplay styles that have emerged over time, largely due to creative use of snapshotting or taking advantage of the ability to cancel skill animations. This impedes our efforts at overall game balance, and it makes it very difficult for us to change skills or items without overly punishing the whole class when these tactics aren’t used. (We’re looking at you, Bazooka Wizard and Stutter Steppers.)
Yep, DH buff, necro buff, sader nerf. I think DH has the most interesting skill choices for a buff. Chakram, strafe, spiketraps, EA, lots of good options.
Stutter Stepping is the main skill that separates the elite UE DH’s from us common folk. I’m not sure what animations which skill animations are being canceled by a Stutter Stepping UE, other than when using Hunters Wrath. It will be interesting to see which mechanics they dink around with.
The Rapid Fire snapshot will likely get patched so as to eliminate Pain Enhancer as a viable gem for LoD RF builds. Also, stutter stepping isn’t really a problem if you don’t get a direct buff from moving (e.g. Hexing Pants).
Animation cancelling on the other hand, can lead to some undesired effects, most notably macro-enabled bazooka wizard. There aren’t really any useful animation cancelling tricks for DH that come to mind except for Evasive Fire. If I recall, you can fire more rapidly than normal if you backflip into a wall repeatedly. But since Evasive Fire isn’t a major source of damage (and you can’t use Focus or Hardened runes), it isn’t an issue.
You could essentially double your attack speed with evasive fire using the TA passive. Didn’t need a wall though, just to be close enough to a mob to backflip.
The wall trick was good for the grenade rune on EF. It was great damage for a generator, but only usefull before a complete build is made.
Unless of course, I’m thinking of something else, I haven’t DH’d for a while.
Haha, I’ve read it earlier. Some key points to note:
We want to be able to address the balance issues these builds pose, but we also don’t want these classes to fall behind as a result of these changes. So how are we handling this? It’s admittedly going to be a game of whack-a-mole as we make fixes and other issues arise through player experimentation. Our first area of concern will be disablinganimation cancellation on certain skills . The Crusader class is the most subject to this (though not alone) and we’ll ensure no class falls behind as a result of losing this “trick.”
This leads me to believe they are talking about animation canceling that allows you to bypass several break points, shotgun crusader being the most blatant example.
Stutter stepping only allows you to move and shoot at your current attack speed, which was intended by Vanilla D3 devs (Wyatt Cheng mainly, but there’s a whole podcast of him talking about this). Anything past that though is technically “unintended” and moreso what Nev was talking about.
My hunters wrath “trick” only allowed you to somewhat bypass 2 break points, using any generator with MS. I’m sure that’ll stay under the radar since no one used it to push and 2 break points is still only roughly 1 GR level of a “damage increase” as well as CC3 taking up the belt slot lol
But seriously I’d be ok if Hexing didn’t work with Stutter stepping. It technically shouldn’t anyways, it just happens the game currently doesn’t detect “stillness” fast enough for the buff to fall off after a stutter step animation and some people have “abused” this for years
Thing is though, is that would it be worth them fixing? How many people actually use hexing for stutter stepping? That would be an inefficient use of resources lol.
If all builds except Rapid Fire gained 5GRs, would we be balanced?
The top of the solo boards would probably have a mix of builds: 135-140. Great.
Would Impale be performant enough in a 4-man group? Possibly on single target bosses.
Would multishot, cluster arrow (M6/N6M4), or FoK be competitive enough as trash clearer? No.
I think that the trash clearing spot is the most interesting in the absence of bazooka. But I know with certainty that 5GRs (2x damage) isn’t going to cut it in group, something else needs to happen, otherwise our solo and group trash kill clears will be comparable…m
I am not getting too excited until those PTR notes show up, but I’m hoping for this:
A synergy that becomes very potent because of a new legendary item, something that can be fueled by zNec would be interesting. Ie. Polarizing your hatred and discipline for a big DPS boost.
Or just a simple update to an existing legendary effect: Wojhanni is no longer DIBS.
Or the new set does something incredible for trash clearing.
FoK with LGF seems optimal as a nuke build if buffed/supported somehow so you don’t just sit around waiting for Barb to pull mobs…or is that what the trash killer does (I don’t play meta so…)???
It is a nuke build for sure, here’s how it stacks up:
N6 FoK crits are like 400-500T in solo density, every 32 sec.
PoJ Tempest Rush crits are like 1500T in solo density, every 32 sec
LoD Poison Nova crits are like 50T x 8-9 hits in succession, every 12 sec
LoD Bazooka crits are over 35Q+, every 32 sec.
Numbers are not absolute: gear dependent with paragon around 4-5k. Density also matters. These are realistic figures in solo without oculus rings.
FoK needs about 3x more damage to be competitive.
Ways to do this:
S2 -> 12000%
LGF -> 1200% per sec
HPS (holy point shoot) -> Affects FoK knives too, increasing radius. Overlapping circular patterns causes damage to become more potent on elites directly in front of the player. Picture a 3-circle venn diagram.
If they only give us damage buffs and no defensive buffs I am going to pull my hair out.
It seems they think it is ok to clear GR 146 @10K Paragons. That should be our goal.
DHs are know for stomping lower level GRs until they hit a wall. Part of the reason is the fact we can’t take advantage of pylons as much as some other classes.
If we are able to clear 146 @ 10K Paragons that would most probably mean we are above GR130 @ Paragon 5000. Only than we can hope for spot as trash killer in 4 man’s.
This is my fear too, especially after reading this:
The intended design and in-practice functionality of each class set
What does this set do best? Does it clear a lot of smaller monsters, or is it a good Rift Guardian killer? Does it serve a support role? Is it better in group play over solo? Does it need to be doing something different?
I did not like the way it was worded because it could actually mean: high frequency (2APS+) builds without big multipliers on cooldown, will not be damaging enough for groups (to prevent lag, or whatever other reason). For example, this statement can be made to justify the whole UE6 set, and its many builds being intentionally capped for speeds or solo play, which is a philosophy that I completely disagree with.
And to your comment about paragon equaling survival, I found this to be especially true with N6 Rapid Fire, as well as swapping Elusive Ring w/ RoRG to make S6 Impale Aughild or CC3 work in solo situations.
Like i said earlier, 5GRs isn’t enough to make the 4-man end game better for DH, except for 1 RGK build.
I agree 100%. I don’t expect them to change their approach all off a sudden and we can see what that approach ment for DH do far. Next PTR we must make sure they hear us.
Tbh that part of stutter step canceling scares me, i use stutter step when i play multishot dh, if they remove ability to stutter step it will criple the build a bit.
The good part is that DH is going to get damage buffs which i think it’s pretty positive for the class.
The bad part is the esoteric formula they use for balance, based on what they posted barbarian ,wizards and wd are balanced and they are going to bring other clases to that level…
If DH wins the lottery they will bring it to barbarian level, if DH gets screwed they will buff it to WD level only (which clearly is way weaker than barbarian or wizards ).
I hope i’m wrong and DHs don’t get screwed again in the balance patches.
Iunno, I dont have faith. They’ve gone back on these “once intended and/or okay” mechanics before (grim sever, V1.0 Non-MS UE, Hybrid M#'s, etc) like $hit, our clan is basically responsible for them introducing unavoidable damage.
I don’t even play the game anymore, but this “issue” they’ve said they want to address just wreaks of something awful coming down the pipeline. I smell Spike Trap’s clunky BS all over again but with every skill. Any changes to the gameplay engine sounds really scary IMO, It’s one of the few very well polished things in this game that I personally wouldn’t mess with. Just my useless two cents
A number of people aren’t aware, but everyone in every class uses the mechanic in some way shape of form, just not in rapid succession in which a ranged DH (or in the problematic case, crusaders) would utilize it. Locking a player in an entire animation would effect everybody’s game play and all players would notice quickly how clunky the game play has become.
It’s something that many games, especially competitive games, implement. I can’t imagine playing a fighting game or any blizzard RTS without it. Even PoE and Wolcen has implemented this mechanic because of the popularity of fluid combat.
I can understand them preventing the mechanic from “bypassing” break point restrictions on certain skills in which was not intended, but it would be a disaster if they applied this universally to all skills. Here’s to hoping you are wrong
).
