After playing the DH for a while and getting the play style down I like the idea though I feel the execution was flawed. If the goal was for a stop and go style of gameplay while making it feel fast and smooth I would make the following changes.
(2) Set: Gain a Momentum stack each second that you are strafing. Each Momentum stack lasts 2 seconds at a maximum duration of 10 seconds. Your Primary skills deal 1000% more damage and you gain 10% movement speed per stack of Momentum.
(4) Set: Casting Strafe against enemies will automatically shoot your last used primary skill but loses the damage bonus from Momentum stacks, and also give 60% damage reduction while strafing and for 5 seconds after.
(6) Set: Your primary skills deal 10000% more damage. This bonus is doubled when standing still.
Let me explain the changes and the reasoning behind them. If the goal of the set was to create a mobile build around generators but not just turn it into a Whirlwind build for the DH and more of a strafe from pack to pack then stop use the generator then move again these changes support this play style while making feel less clunky.
The reason the set feels clunky is because we are generating momentum while doing the DPS and then quickly losing momentum while moving. The changes flip this so we generate momentum while moving then having a limited amount of time to DPS a pack. By removing the damage bonus while strafing it forces the build at higher GR tiers to stop and DPS the pack down while at low tiers enjoy non stop strafing to quickly gather GR keystones to continue pushing high end content. Overall I like the set and think it would be really smooth out the play style by making these changes while giving it the damage boost it needs.
LISTEN TO THIS GUY. THIS ACTUALLY SOUNDS AWESOME. Allthough the 1000% dmg increase in the 2 set would make the 6’th set in theory 10 times stronger cause 1000% times 10000% is 100k dmg boost. otherwise this is awesome, and would actally make it alot more fun
Well I was think it was additive to each out so the total damage increase to primary skills while stand still would be 30000% more. Numbers can always be changed so the damage is at the proper scale. Just right now the damage feels really weak.
I’ve read your post and I need to point it out some problems with it:
1 - Blizzard will never up the first set bonus to 1000% because then that gives a huge chance for Hybrid builds with other sets. Just think about it. Like Natalya’s set last bonus is 14000% for any skill so that alone would be bigger than the last set bonus for GoD set making the set again not viable if considered the last bonus as is now. But there are other possible hybrids still. Which makes it more than unlikely for them to buff this first set bonus.
2 - Movement speed within the game has a cap so that bonus would be totally unecessary.
The 1000% buff is only for primary skills. I up the final set bonus to 20000% when not strafing. While you can set up hybrids builds why would I want to get the Natalyas bonus which is for any skill and is small than the final bonus from the current set? There are more powerful skills I would use to get use of the damage bonus than using a primary skill. Also think of the build, I would need to strafe for 10 secs then drop rain for 10 secs of bonus damage to primary skill. That is a lot of conditions for a smaller bonus and then you are losing damage mitigation and gearing is different. All in all hybrid builds are possible but weaker than straight up going to the final bonus. Movement speed can be adjusted.
That’s exactly my point like the Natalya’s bonus right now is bigger than the last bonus of GoD at this moment and since it’s a global bonus it also applies to primaries or any other skill you want. Casting RoV in between wouldn’t be a problem because there was a nat’s build before on the previous seasons that was exactly like that you’d use strafe and primary to proc Focus and Restrait and then RoV the mobs. So let’s say that they do the most unlikely thing which would be change the first set bonus and then leave the last bonus the same as it is currently. You bet hands down that people will go hybrid.
So lets gear out this hybrid build. We would need at least 2 pieces of the new set and because we probably want a convention of the elements in the cube for more damage we wont use a RoRG. That means we are using the ring slot for Natalya’s and dropping Focus and Restraint or we can drop CotE in the cube and slap in a RoRG either way this is a loss of damage to skills other than primary which have some of the lowest damage for DH. Either way you go you are going to have to using the weapon slot for Nat’s now we have the option to go with a quiver or another hand crossbow. This will most likely be filled with a dawn as it gives more options in the cube. At this point we have a belt slot and neck slot, but what are we even aiming for? Are we aiming to do damage with primary skills or some other skill? If we are aiming for primary skills we have cut our damage by losing my 6 set bonus of 20000% and losing option for adding more legendaries to boost primary damage. Are we aiming for boosting other skill damage? Well we are losing a jewelry slot and a weapon slot that could be used to boost its damage or give better toughness. The best idea for a hybrid build would be to go for the 4 set of mine and the 6 set of nats for two 60% damage reductions which would be giving up massive amounts of damage for the toughness.
There are opportunity cost for using a hybrid build for any class, those costs have to be out weighed by what you are getting. If the changes are made as I have laid them out a pure GoD build is going to have higher damage for primary skills and other skills while not gaining any real advantage in pushing GR tier. I am sure people will use the hybrid version like you predict but it will either fade away because you lose to much damage for it to be worth it or it will stick around because it is fun way to play not because to is OP. If it is fun enough to stick around as a build great people are having fun with and that is a win for the D3 community. If it fades away then it wasnt good enough to be around and no harm done.
So all you gotta do is pressing down M2 and buff yourself. I guess we already have Barbarians for a reason but that’s me. You’re removing half of the active combat while doing that.
I have no idea how developers would response to that mess but I reckon they realized something is wrong, I just ask them to not water down or homogenize the gameplay between classes.
We got Ue playstyle. It’s better than GoD right now. So why play GoD? To have to strafe sometimes and then mainly fire primaries, when Ue does it better?
I’d rather have a Dh ww set than what it is right now. That’s just my opinion. But if they don’t change anything to the mechanics, at least make the new set more powerful so it is the true generator set and not overshined by Ue
Of course it would be primary but you are kind of undermining the power of Natalya’s set Hybrid potential. If you go and look on season leaderboards right now you’re going to see a clear of 125 with N6M4 from a DH that is roughly 2k paragon. So basically he’s using marauder’s set because of a low bonus of 400% to sentries and then you get the 100% bonus from rucksack. Ok now picture that the hybrid is basically based on these 2 small dmg bonuses. Now compare to your proposed bonus of 1000%. That would be already almost twice of the bonus that it was sawed after on N6M4. Of course playstyles would be much different depending on the primary you use but that could happen.
The bonus of 20.000% for the 4th bonus of the set if you take in count the highest clear with GoD6 now that (I don’t know what it is) but I feel safe to say that for higher GR’s still would be a low bonus in order to be par with other classes in clearing high GR’s doubling that bonus I dare to say would get you roughly 4 GR’s total if we’re taking in count only that bonus. If they change some other mechanics it could go a bit higher depending on what they do.
I like the idea of cycling through skills in general, but the timings on this set are just so frenetic that it boils down to beating on keyboard keys or mouse buttons.
Monk Uliana has to alternate generator with a trigger skill and the alternation has a flow and rhythm to it and the trigger is rewarding.
F/R builds have to alternate, but it doesn’t feel like trying to keep a vase full of holes filled with water.
It would be nice if there was some sort of strategy or tactile reward to alternating here.
Otherwise it feels like playing Dance Dance Revolution by sitting on the floor next to the mat and smashing the pads with your fists.
And some way to keep at least the momentum speed buff going between mobs. Even if it is “speed buff is kept until strafe ends”.
This idea might require a bit of work to balance, but it might give a unique playstyle.
Basically, focus on Strafe, get rid of or greatly slow the countdowns but have the generators change its behavior. You stop to shoot a generator (perhaps a few times) in a way that feels more like switching weapons or ammo cartridges.
Strafe shoots the primaries, but each primary has a different benefit. The primaries themselves already have different actions and those would carry forth making some better in some situations naturally, but the set could also have a similar effect to Augustine’s Panacea in that it would boost the various skills in unique ways.
For white mobs you might want to load an AoE primary like bolas or grenades and have it mop them up quickly. The set might boost their radius and/or explosion delays.
For RGs you might want to load an assassination primary such as HA and then have it bear down on the single target. The set might award it some sort of single target bonus.
For elite groups you might want a 2/3-target high damage primary such as Evasive Fire. Set bonus…? Maybe have it auto-target the strongest opponents even if they are standing in a crowd of white trash? The “Evasive” nature of it leaves you free to move around while still being able to snipe the elites.
The play style would be a more active hybrid of the various spin to win builds. You move around by just strafing, but you select the impact of the strafe by switching generators.
Different dmg boots might apply to the various primary skills so that the AoE doesn’t become the all-around single skill to use including being an RG killer.
Some related ideas:
Strafe will cycle through the last 3(?) primary skills. This would help while farming as you can have a mix of primaries loaded and it would be fast for a mix of opponents without having to stop to change “gears”. This also means that when you encounter the RG you need to stack all of the best RG killer primaries before engaging.
Seem to be thinking there is not a huge difference in base damage between the skills you are looking at. A N6M4 hybrid is yes gaining a small 500% percent bonus to cluster arrow. Cluster arrow has a base damge of 650% weapon damage while the highest generator damage is 270% weapon damge and that doesn’t include the 4 secondary explosions that do 250% damage or the fact you are shooting 4 of them so that small bonus is multipled by 8 to be a actual bonus of 4500% percent in effective dps on just the main explosion of the cluster arrow then you have 16 secondary explosions that are basically like a generator attack. That is still another 8 times damage if you take into account that they are getting half the damage bonus off of the set. That is an effectively a bonus damage with cluster arrow of 26000% over the damage we are talking about from the bonus from my set changes and not that is a cluster arrow without a rune. Loaded for bear makes it much worse. Look at the numbers and how they stack an multiple. You have a single generator attack VS 5 cluster arrows.
You’re not taking in count the downtime because if you consider the hatred cost vs hatred regen. Let’s say you do burst your 5 cluster arrows at once, what’s going to happen? You’re out of hatred, how long does it take for you to regen your entire hatred pool? That’s downtime, meaning it’s time you’re not dealing any dps to anything so all in all it you have 26000% CA and you unload that in 5 seconds and it takes you 5 seconds to refill your hatred pool, you’re total dmg within 10 sec is 13000% only. While with a generator you’re dealing constant dmg because it has no cost at all so just by that I can already see how you do your math.