DH: 2.6.8 Proposals for Balance and Fun

Demon Hunter
1

I played DH for almost half of my ~2k hrs D3 - which is not too long I believe, but I still want to draft some proposals for the potentially incoming patch.

I also have a good process (in the end of the post) to balance all sets and LoD Rapid Fire of DH.

What we want the class to be

I think these are people’s common request to all classes, and DH is not more special than others here:

  • Cool and Smooth
    I put this above everything else. Although people hardly talk about it (and make it a joke when devs talk about it :rofl: ), this is the most important of all. D3 was never a competitive game although some of us, including myself, want to be high on leaderboard. The experience of playing the game is more important than any stats.
  • Versatility
    The class should have builds that are capable of doing different things smoothly (basically 3 things: Boss killing, trash killing, moving fast while having enough damage).
  • In-class build balance
    More builds should be able to get their places on leaderboard. Leaderboard is a good place for new players to learn how to make a build so it will be important to keep its diversity.
  • Cross-class balance
    Max tier the class can achieve should be on par with other classes. There is always a lowest amoung 7 classes, but make the gap smaller will make the fans of a specific class feel better.
  • 4p meta
    The class should be capable of a role in 4p meta to level up gems instead of having to create a charater of another class.

What DH is doing well

(Cool and Smooth) DH has one of the best large area trash killing skill: Multishot, and unlike some skills of other classes, it is powerful enough to be widely used in build.

(Cool and Smooth) DH has one of the best Boss-killer builds, Shadow Impale. Unlike some of the other boss-killing builds, it moves fast between elites to kill which ensures good playing experience.

(Versatility) In addition to GR, both the two builds above move fast and are very suitable for bounties, speed farming, and some conquests.

(In-class build balance) DH is doing both good and bad in balance. DH build balance is above average as even in the top 20 or even 10 of leaderboard we can see at least 2 builds (Impale and Rapid Fire), which has completely different playstyle. The case is much worse for Wiz(Chantodo rules all if we don’t consider bug-ish Bazooka), Monk (WoL rules all for mutiple seasons), and WD (Dart rules all). However we do want to see more different builds on leaderboard, better if they can all be in top 100.

What DH is doing poorly

(In-class build balance) As mentioned above, 2 builds on leaderboard is still too few.

(Cross-class balance) DH max GR tier is lower than average of other classes for season and non-season.

(4p meta) DH has not been in the best 4p meta for a long time.

Lessons from other classes

Buff can be a bad thing when out of controll.

Long ago a buff to Monk’s WoL made it the best skill of Monk and seasons after seasons there is no other build can match its power (until this S19, maybe). People played SWK/Inna/LoN/LoD but every build was WoL. Before that, Monk was actually a very balanced class and every set can be seen on the leaderboard, using different skills.

We don’t want to see similar thing on DH. Buffing one skill too much and make it dominate leaderboard is worse than no buff at all.

Recently similar things happened on Chantodo’s and AoV but I think devs has learned some lessons from them.

How to improve in a balanced manner

Every DH set and N6M4 (the only viable 6+4 of DH) has an exclusive damage knob so it should be easy to get an actual balance of sets, although not necassarily for all skills. LoD is harder because we shouldn’t tune LoD damage buff for a specific class, but we can do this:

  • Shadow/UE/Marauder damage are exclusively tuned by their 6-piece bonus, tune them to make everyone on par.
  • LoD is now binded to Rapid Fire so we can adjust Sin Seeker instead to make LoD Rapid Fire on par with the 3 above.
  • This will affact Nat6 Rapid Fire. Tune the number of Nat6 to make it on par.
  • This will impact N6M4. Tune M4 damage buff so that N6M4 is on par with them. We’re lucky here without N6 we don’t worry about M4 damage itself.

With this tuning process there will be no problam at all for in-class and cross-class build balance. The only problem is to find a role in 4p meta.

As the Zdps support roles are always Barb and Monk, DH can only choose between RGK and trash killer. I think RGK is the choice here because:

  • currently in S18~S19, LoD Rapid Fire is on par with Shadow Impale on solo GR
  • LoD Rapid Fire is far away from a good trash killer in 4p meta but Shadow Impale can sometimes be a non-optimal RGK in S18
  • If we buff any trash killer build to be capable of 4p meta it will be much more stronger than Shadow Impale in solo, and we lose in-class balance.

Therefore before the process above, just adjust Shadow Impale to make it on par with current 4p meta RGK. All problem solved!

4 Likes
2

I agree with most of your points, i will comment some of the things that i think are interesting.

Long ago a buff to Monk’s WoL made it the best skill of Monk and seasons after seasons there is no other build can match its power (until this S19, maybe). People played SWK/Inna/LoN/LoD but every build was WoL. Before that, Monk was actually a very balanced class and every set can be seen on the leaderboard, using different skills.

This is one of the things that i’m afraid that will happen if they buff UE6, multishot could be the WoL of DH making every single other build irrelevant.

If we buff any trash killer build to be capable of 4p meta it will be much more stronger than Shadow Impale in solo, and we lose in-class balance.

I think our only option for this is just do math, we have to do very specific math in order to determine how big should have to be the buffs to keep balance between sets, and for sure the buffs have to be smaller for some sets to keep the balance.

Therefore before the process above, just adjust Shadow set to make it on par with current 4p meta RGK. All problem solved!

I think they could change the 4 piece bonus of shadow impale to something like this :

“Shadow power gains the effect of every rune, last forever and you deal 100% increased damage against bosses and rift guardians”

This way you improve the RGK role of shadow impale without make massive impacts in solo perfomance.

We need to define what means average paragon in this proposal, because we have to consider the scenario of top ladderboards and mid players too in order to avoid things like rapidfire only playable with high paragon.

Good thing is we have a lot of time to collect the ideas and do the math, next ptr will be probably during february.

3

The math is not complicated:

Currently, Rapid Fire = Impale (in solo, roughly, and RF is actually stronger). If we want them on par after buff, they need to receive the same damage bonus.

The damage bonus RF needs to be trash killer is larger than Impale to be RGK.

Make RF trash killer and you’ll either get an overwelming RGK, or Impale will be worse than RF in solo.

5

A change to the passive preparation with invigoration.
when active instantly restore and adds 10 discipline which last for 5 seconds
passive permanently adds 30 discipline.

6

Interesting, but I didn’t get you point on this change. What does it do, except buffing UE a bit?

7

At a moment UE need around 15 GR buff and Impale around 10GR. I am not sure about Marauder did not play it for ages but is it probably closer to what UE need.

8

Marauder need some changes more than numbers, at least it needs the ability to move faster. IMO every build should be able to move fast in its own way.

9

A super easy change they could do to boost DH would be make wujanni assaulter multiplicative instead of DIBS.

If I’m really dreaming I’d make sinseekers and taeguk compatible.

10

That would be a nice change since then the helm/boots/quiver can be rolled with 15% RF for a sizable +45% boost each instead of the paltry +1.5%. Overall this is 2-3 GRs worth so nothing game-breaking.

As for the Taeguk, unfortunately, LoD RF needs both Stricken and Pain Enhancer (and of course the LoD) gem so there is no space for the Taeguk (or even the Trapped gem). If they were to patch the Pain Enhancer attack speed snapshotting effect, then while Trapped or Taeguk (provided the Sin Seekers were patched too) could be used instead of Pain Enhancer, the net nerf would hurt the build’s highest potential a lot.

I am not opposed to patching the snapshotting effect in exchange for some other buffs to the build. Perhaps something to make other runes of RF viable? Currently, only the bombardment rune is viable but the other runes are fun to use (well at least fun with a fresh character before you get some supporting legendaries).

11

Huh, I would have guessed that taeguk would beat out PE, but I also know how important that IAS is. I’m not personally a fan of the snapshotting playstyle, and would rather have something more reliable.

12

one thing i would love to see would be extra options open up for the UE build. Add some extra skills such as Elemental arrow, Chakram, and Cluster Arrow to the 6p bonus. there are already legendary weapons and quivers that support these skills.

1 Like
13

I would even be happy if EA and chakram just got their supporting legendaries buffed. I think CA is fine as a M6 and N6M4 exclusive.

My dream would be that UE MS stays king of speeds, but is edged out when pushing by slowball.

14

Double wield daggers, and move HPS’ power to “Sash of Knives”.

15

A build that doesn’t use sentries that combines elemental arrow damage with Chakram. Picture this, you hit packs with freezing Chakram damage (yes improve what can be done with Chakram), then have something that will cause a cascade effect of destruction to all frozen demons and bosses.

1 Like
16

I would just like to see some ways to improve shuriken cloud on chakram, right now theirs just no way to give it enough damage to output anywhere. i made a pretty fun melee style shuriken cloud build that can do about torment 10 fair.

luckily legacy of dreams is a nice gem for damage, but even that only gets me to t10 right now, maybe theirs some way i could get more damage though; i know theirs also M6, but i forgot to test if the turrets even get a shuriken cloud. that would be interesting but then would lose the aspect of melee with turrets.

no bow, no quiver, a nice sword and shield, plenty of other ways to deal damage too, but having chakram as my focus in damage makes it hard to really dps with shuriken cloud rune.

my question, what are you guys ideas on how to improve chakram: shuriken cloud rune, or sword of ill will to be good in say a gr 100.
theirs also spines of seething hatred, but that quiver doesn’t help at all right now with shuriken cloud rune since you don’t spend hatred at all really, since you only use chakram once every 10 minutes.

17

I ran a similar build, I’m guessing, when I was using Sword of Ill Will in the cube and wielded. Found that just going back to Chakram Twin Chakrams dealt more damage with almost 2500 paragon.

At the time, I was switching between the FoK LoD build and Chakram LoD.

But to answer your question, the quickest and easiest way in my estimation would be a buff to Sword of Ill Will of maybe 2,3, or 4 times. Or giving it a smaller buff and adding an affix onto Spines of Seething Hatred.

Those would be my suggestions but I admit they’re not very creative.

I hope someone else answers your question in a more creative way.

18

that is a nice idea, more damage bonus on the sword would indeed help its main problem.
what sort of affix would you think would be good on spines that would help shuriken cloud? my only thought would be maybe, after hitting an enemy with chakram gain a damage bonus or maybe damage reduction.

considering spines of seething hatred allows chakram to generate resources, this is pretty useful for all the chakram runes except shuriken cloud since that rune makes chakram a 1 minute buff and a 10 second cooldown.

options: sword
A) more damage bonus per hatred, 1-1.4% per hatred right now
i agree with triple or quadruple the damage, but it would have to be tested

option: spines
A) xx% damage
maybe a solid 25% damage bonus
B) gain damage for hitting enemies buff with stack limit
stacks last 5 seconds, each stack worth maybe 2% maxing at 15
C) gain damage reduction for each enemy hit buff with stack limit
same as above, but also want to note both would have to be tested in some way so it doesn’t overperform.

i would also like a new demon hunter legendary to enter the game if possible, an actually shield that would help melee style builds, in case a demon hunter wants to play something off the wall and different then the general quiver.
like gain damage and damage reduction when you have a melee weapon equipped.

options: Shuriken cloud rune of chakram
A) increase radius slightly, currently 10 yards
maybe 15 yards, 20 seems too big
B) increase proc rate, currently once per second
maybe like every half second
C) increase cooldown, currently 10 seconds
30 second cooldown since this last 10 minutes, and i love that it lasts 10 minutes, makes it super unique among any other abilities in the game

in truth i don’t want shuriken cloud to reach near the high tiers other builds meet, i think its fine as an underperformer, but to have trouble even getting it to gr 70 means it should still get a buff that would allow it to perform a bit better.

i think if i really tried on damage alone for chakram: shuriken cloud, i could probably solo a torment 13 decently, if i focused only on damage, but then it would be to squishy and its not a very mobile build really since its got a small radius.
sorry this turned out really wordy.

19

This. M6 is the set that needs the biggest boost, but since it is the least popular it seems like most players and devs don’t give a f.uck about it. It has been lagging behind for some time now. It needs both toughness and dmg boost.

20

Because it’s only useful for one thing, Cluster Bombs, which is a very clunky build based around the hellcat belt. Rapid fire houses a somewhat similar play-style with a little less RNG, but both aren’t really “fun” for the masses it appears.

If you just buff M6 just straight up, you essentially are only buffing Cluster Bombs. because the belt multiplier much stronger than the others we have while N6/M4 basically does what M6 does, but far better.

The problem for DH’s is a bit deeper than number tuning, with many things overlapping/overshadowing others and sets that don’t have an “identity”. However, even-though buffing specific legendary’s is a band-aid route to take, it is the most pain free efficient way to put some umph into the DH for now.

EDIT: For some reason, I thought i was posting in a different thread lol. Ah well.

1 Like
21

Then perhaps Hellcat should be buffed? The most important is toughness though, it worked well during RORG season because you could use Visage Of Gunes. All M6 players I saw that season used Visage Of Gunes, while other builds used dmg items instead.

I haven’t played much Rapid Fire because the build doesn’t use Vault, my favourite DH skill, but maybe it will grow on me.