🏹 DH Balance Proposal - Come Look

[anon88344807]

Personally wish there was an Impale/FoK sort of melee/ish build for the DH

Might combine it with the Spike Trap. Just to make things feel a bit different, albeit not as much the power

[Gilthas-1277]

Pretty much the only DH build I use is the rocket based M6/ClusterArrow so my contributions are going to be laser-focused on that.

Blackfeather:

I like the new Rocket multiplier on it, it’s basically a second Ballistics passive. That would be great to have. The only issue I have with this, is that people who like to use Rockets with M6/ClusterArrow like me, will have to use the RoRG to be able to get both Blackfeather and Cloak of the Garwulf affixes.

As for the Ranged Attack Damage reduction part, maybe it should be moved to the item itself, as a permanent affix, to give people an additional reason to wear it instead of cubing it? Or is the rocket-damage boost by itself not strong enough to justify using Blackfeather?

Marauder set:

I know that with M6, sentries are there to boost your direct DH damage, and most of your damage will come from your own shots, not the sentries. While N6/M4 basically does the opposite, boosting Senty damage and your own damage is far lower. But given that Marauder is basically the sentry set, it would be nice if Sentry damage got a further boost from the M6 piece.

[Kikaha-2290]

@DiEoxidE-1987

Builds that take that long to do damage is a turn off for a lot of players. If your burst FoK doesn’t crit, you wasted 30 seconds and so on. A minute plus is a lot of time to just be gathering around, hoping for RNG crits to be in your favor.

I mean, you can still go for 15s even if the max is 30. Also, if you don’t like the gameplay you don’t have to play it, which is why I think it’s nice to leave it as a possibility, if you do like it.

[Saidosha-1136]

My Chaotic Evil reply:

Break the DH. Make us stupid OP. Let us solo 150s with p2000 or something and let everyone else catch up to use for the next 2 years of sluggish patch cycles. Because that’s the eventuality. The goal may be 140 or whatever now, but soon it’ll be 145, and so on. Probably solely through set tweaks from here on out. Just cut the BS and go all in. Yes, it’s a petty take, but this is the end result of years of neglect, imbalance, and quite possibly some dev scorn if you analyze the class’ history enough.

My more pragmatic stance is we’re not actually going to get the attention we truly need. The finer details I’ve brought up in other older DH threads, some folks even reiterating them here already. We’ll get a week of PTR with largely ignored feedback where even potentially egregious bugs still get through. We might meet some expectations on existing builds. We’ll probably fall short on most everything else. I frankly do not say this with any sort of levity when I feel we need every skill, rune, passive, and legendary in our arsenal examined, tweaked, and dramatically overhauled if needed. Having one or two builds be meta means nothing if you hate how they play. Hell, I’ll continue to argue the current iteration of GR meta composition is a cancer to the game in its own right, where it’s guaranteed we’ll never hold the ZDPS slot and partially why I push just making us stupid broken in the DPS department. There’s never really been equality, just a constantly shifting goal post where we’ve turned it over on the 4th most of the time instead of making the TD.

If someone wants to math out my salt, feel free, but I doubt I’m alone here.

[Apache222-1831]

One really fun build / playstyle that isn’t really viable past T16 that I used to LOVE to play, is the loN / LoD strafe grenades. It’s very chill like tempest rush or whirlwind. Relaxed, spin to win, every class needs one!

[MicroRNA-1507]

@Rage-13139

I’m both kind of pleased and kind of sad that you went this route

I agree.

dmkt,

@dmkt-1267

Passives Abilities

Blizzard has not shown in recent history that they are going to update passive skills. Therefore, the numbers need to be reworked.

I would focus on number changes on sets. For example, a build might need a 4X damage modifier. One could buff the set bonus 4X, a supporting legendary 4X, or set bonus 2X/support legendary 2X. It is my opinion that the set bonus is the way to go as these tend to buff a range of skills even if 1 is stronger. If you buff supporting legendaries, many would need to be changed to bring each skill that a set supports up. As we have seen, this has worked rather poorly for another class.

Also, there are far too many item requests. I would focus on key items.

In the grand scheme of things, Blizzard seemed to be more actively engaged in the forum when the barbarian buff proposal came out as evidenced by how often they were “seen” even if not posting. With Nevalistis departure and Matthew here less often, I worry that posts like this will not be considered deeply by the Blizzard folks who matter.

[DiEoxidE-1987]

@Kikaha-2290

I mean, you can still go for 15s even if the max is 30. Also, if you don’t like the gameplay you don’t have to play it, which is why I think it’s nice to leave it as a possibility, if you do like it.

It doesn’t change the game play, it just lessens the amount of RNG associated with the build and opens up opportunities outside of shi mizu/macros. Sure, one can use it at 15 seconds instead of 30, but no one is going to do that when you’re trying to get the best bang for your buck. See monks atm.

I personally see no reason to make something less intuitive just for the sake of it. What is there to gain in doing so. It’s already extremely unpopular as it is, as in not a single DH is using it in seasons currently even though you “can” get relatively high on LB’s with it.

[DiEoxidE-1987]

@MicroRNA-1507

I agree. Blizzard has not shown in recent history that they are going to update passive skills. Therefore, the numbers need to be reworked.

I would focus on number changes on sets. For example, a build might need a 4X damage modifier. One could buff the set bonus 4X, a supporting legendary 4X, or set bonus 2X/support legendary 2X.

Also, there are far too many item requests. I would focus on key items.

In the grand scheme of things, Blizzard seemed to be more actively engaged in the forum when the barbarian buff proposal came out as evidenced by how often they were “seen” even if not posting. With Nevalistis departure and Matthew here less often, I worry that posts like this will not be seen by the Blizzard folks who matter.

It’s more of a “throw out everything and see what happens” approach, touching as many areas of the class as possible. We’re not expecting most of this to make it through to blizzard, but at least it gives an idea of what players are rallying behind in terms of what they want to see from DH’s. If, by some means of a miracle blizz happens to look through this for feedback, they have the option to pick and choose what they would like to implement down the road, if at all.

The end result is that no one (including blizz) can say there was no consolidated feedback given for them to work with.

[Rage-13139]

@DiEoxidE-1987

We’re not expecting most of this to make it through to blizzard

Pitch it to streamers. This can be very helpful.

[MicroRNA-1507]

dmkt desrves praise for putting this together. I think we need to ask for a few simple changes (3-4) that addresses the greatest number of needs at once.

@DiEoxidE-1987

It’s more of a “throw out everything and see what happens” approach,

Using history as an example, what happens with this approach?

My preference is to buff 3 or 4 existing sets and move forward. Is it perfect? No, but it is better than some alternatives.

@DiEoxidE-1987

The end result is that no one (including blizz) can say there was no consolidated feedback given for them to work with.

Blizzard is the only entity that matters. Currently, WD and crusaders are the top 2 solo classes right now and both are part of the 4 man meta.

[Dunstan-1721]

I would like to have a set focused on bombs (bolas and grenades) and traps (spike trap and caltrops).

[WittyGem-1417]

@Dunstan-1721

a set focused on bombs (bolas and grenades)

Grenades suck gameplay-wise. No thanks. Every time we get a challenge rift that uses that crappy Rapid grenades rune I facepalm into oblivion and skip it completely.

Bolas I don’t mind.

[DiEoxidE-1987]

@MicroRNA-1507

dmkt desrves praise for putting this together. I think we need to ask for a few simple changes (3-4) that addresses the greatest number of needs at once.

@MicroRNA-1507

Using history as an example, what happens with this approach?

My preference is to buff 3 or 4 existing sets and move forward. Is it perfect? No, but it is better than some alternatives.

Haha, well dmkt literally did this before, tinkering just numbers with the 4 sets. Know what happened? We were told to make a proposal.

Crazy how that works

[dmkt-1267]

@MicroRNA-1507

I would focus on number changes on sets. For example, a build might need a 4X damage modifier. One could buff the set bonus 4X, a supporting legendary 4X, or set bonus 2X/support legendary 2X.

We did exactly that, we proposed these types of fixes before 2.6.8, but nobody got excited, maybe they were too weak, or bland? We ended up with 600+ posts about fundamental issues with the class in general and an IOU.

There’s a lot of item requests because we are trying to address nearly every skill. We don’t go into this thinking we’re going to get everything requested. Instead, we hope they will see a long term strategy for DH buffs. Maybe they circle a few, and implement them with the new set in patch 2.6.9, then return later to include more in 2.7.0?

[naksiloth-1354]

Some level headed discussion going on here. It makes me happy that I’m seeing something sincere and piling every idea. Too tired to come up with further discussion but really; keep it up.
Even though Nev has left, we still have a CM (from WoW team) also it won’t be too long until we get a new one. So let it loose and criticize ideas, we’re going somewhere.

[Decipher-1948]

@DiEoxidE-1987

Haha, well dmkt literally did this before, tinkering just numbers with the 4 sets. Know what happened? We were told to make a proposal.

@dmkt-1267

We did exactly that, we proposed these types of fixes before 2.6.8, but nobody got excited, maybe they were too weak, or bland? We ended up with 600+ posts about fundamental issues with the class in general and an IOU.

Did Blizzard state that you needed to make a proposal? Blizzard indicted that DH were coming in this patch and then postponed it to patch 2.6.9. Presumably, Blizzard saw the prior feedback.

@dmkt-1267

Maybe they circle a few, and implement them with the new set in patch 2.6.9, then return later to include more in 2.7.0?

I hope so. My suspicion is that the balancing patch will be similar to patch 2.6.4.

[Gilthas-1277]

@Decipher-1948

Blizzard indicted that DH were coming in this patch and then postponed it to patch 2.6.9. Presumably, Blizzard saw the prior feedback.

Blizzard never indicated that. People just assumed that DH and Necro would be getting attention in this patch because Blizzard acknowledged that they were the two weakest classes for solo GR.

[Gegeforce-2680]

Wow, that’s the first time I feels a suggestion is so well thought of. Just amazing what you did here. All of it sounds incredible. Hope this stays up and gets attention. Because there is no actual CM around this time. Especially how you made sure that nothing is overbuffed as a side effect. I played a N6/UE4 Anathema Grenade build with Fan of Knives. This will be now much more fun in T16 and GRs. If your Ideas come true I’M totally playing DH that season. It was the seaons of RoRG.

[dmkt-1267]

@Kikaha-2290

Across the board, I think your passives buff are way too strong. Custom engineering does way too much with 50% cooldown

Hello Kika, Custom Engineering passive revision is only reducing Sentry and Spike Trap cooldown. (two problematic skills)

On M6 Cluster Bombs starting from 0 charges of Sentry, the total time to roll out all 5 sentries is roughly 14.4 seconds (assuming 36% CDR).

With this change, i’d like to bring that time down to ~7 seconds.

When you open a new GR, you normally start with 3 Sentry charges, but those sentries are used to proc slow. We deploy them all at once ahead of the entrance and then begin the pull. Many complain about M6 feeling… sluggish… waiting for your M6 bonus to reach full power is the common complaint, after death, changing floors, etc.

@Kikaha-2290

Across the board, I think your passives buff are way too strong.

I tried to keep each one under 20% damage, matching something likes Cull of the Weak and Steady Aim which are 20% multiplicative – why do we always equip these passives?

In comparison to Wizard’s Conflagration – that is a group buff, all of ours are self buffs with the exception of Numbing Traps.

I clocked the updated buff as:

• Archery (most weapon types should be giving ~18% in solo)
• Ambush clocked in at 19%
• Brooding is meant to help remove Dawn (you stand still right before you re-cast Vengeance), but it could be around 12.5% damage with Captain Crimson.
• Sharpshooter without sitting around waiting for max CHC is 12% + 4% CHC, which is like 18%
• Nightstalker is restricted to primary skills, so it’s for the generators, which are on the weaker side of things.
• Perfectionist is meant for Squirts, it could mean a lot of damage but it’s a synergy.

Cool concept with Garwulf btw – time to take the dogs out for a walk right?

[Decipher-1948]

@dmkt-1267

I clocked the updated buff as:

• Archery (most weapon types should be giving ~18% in solo)
• Ambush clocked in at 19%
• Brooding is meant to help remove Dawn (you stand still right before you re-cast Vengeance), but it could be around 12.5% damage with Captain Crimson.
• Sharpshooter without sitting around waiting for max CHC is 12% + 4% CHC, which is like 18%
• Nightstalker is restricted to primary skills, so it’s for the generators, which are on the weaker side of things.
• Perfectionist is meant for Squirts, it could mean a lot of damage but it’s a synergy.

When was the last time that Blizzard improved a passive skill? In patch 2.6.1 in 2017, I recall some active skills being buffed/changed. I can not recall any recent passive skill changes. If it has been years and before the classic games team took over, this type of change may not be viable. I would modify other places instead. FYI the barbarian buff proposal had 8 suggested changes to their passive skills and none were adopted.

These DPS/mitigation buffs need to be incorporated into item/set bonuses.