This is absolutely not what this build should be. All you need to do is lengthen the duration of stacking momentums to 4 or 5 seconds from the 2 seconds it is now, and increase the damage that the 6 pc provides. There are some other bugs reported with the primary’s, and the way strafe is paired with them.
We don’t need a “LAZY” spin to win barb, monk, or necro build. This GoD build is suppose to be more combat oriented with rapid movement with damage applied when strafing.
Go watch slaydra video starting at 6:38 timepoint for his feedback.
When I first played GoD at lower levels I thought the continuous use of strafting might be more entertaining. But after playing high GR’s a lot more you could see relying on simply holding down a button and spinning into and thru demons would make for a boring play style.
Playing DH has mostly been a range play style, shadow of course could do melee more as well as being very tanky. Things get bad, you just tumble to another location.
What GoD needs is range as well as plowing into and though packs. The problem is with rift guardians, you don’t want to get stuck with WW tactics in narrow corridors, with a DH, because it doesn’t have the same toughness as Barbs, Sadors, and Monks. ( 30 % damage reduction)
Yet the fragile Int wiz, who invented GLASS CANON, is toughest of them all…
somehow, those class based DR bonus (or lack therefore) can be circumvented through skill sets. Take the case of Necro, squishiest of all, but with LOTD, it does not matter anymore.
This will certainly work. The problem though is that you can tap another generator skill in the middle of holding down Hungering Arrow… easily get the 2 skill qualifier, or run the following pattern of keystrokes to get full benefits:
2 3 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 1
It only becomes awkward and challenging when you try to match the CoE cycles of each skill. So sadly, this might not be so engaging.
We could always ask for extra Momentum stacks when Primary Skills applies the following effects:
Slow, Pierce, Chill, Immobilize: 1 stack.
Stun, Freeze, Blind, Charm, Knockback: 3 stacks
All of the damage bonuses would need to be reworked. The player would essentially want to apply CC effects before their CoE damage cycle.
Now Iceblink, Zei’s, Wyrdward, Windforce, And more are valuable, and even some of the other skill runes are desirable too.
Love all of the ideas in the original post! I hope they implement them!
–
As far as the spin-to-win goes: I can’t believe that people are saying that spin-to-win isn’t fun to play when the current spin-to-win builds are the most popular and most played builds in the game. They are clearly very fun to play!
The current DH builds all have a pretty high skill level requirements so it would be nice for there to be an easier to play DH build available. Make the new set a spin-to-win build that is equal to WW/Rend and TR in power and let people who want more skill requirements push (and push to higher GR levels) with other builds like shadow impale, Rapid Fire and UE.
Play style is really a secondary concern when compared to the damage output though!
UE/Multishot feels really easy at GR75-80 where it is one-shotting most trash but by GR100-105 it takes a lot longer to kill trash and you need to worry about being one-shotted yourself. In comparison, WW/Rend feels easy at GR100-105 where you are still one-shotting most trash (at Paragon 2k) and finishing the rifts in 2.5 minutes and it starts to feel difficult at GR115-120.
Whatever the playstyle ends up being, I hope they boost the damage enough that it is comparable to other classes. It does not need to be equal to the WD or the Crusader but at least equal to WWRend and TR, ie. in the middle of the pack.
I could argue that we don’t need another build that plays like UE6 grenades either. I’ve logged a lot of time with GoD, it plays too similar UE6 grenades.
You hold down a Primary Skill in density, and use Strafe to reposition. There is no special benefit for activating Strafe other than maintaining your set DR and moving around. In his recommendation, Strafe is a bad skill to use from a damage perspective. And if it rolls out as recommended, you will see all of the how-to-play videos advising players to just hold down their primary skill and tap Strafe only to maintain the 4pc bonus.
It is actually more dangerous in high GRs to use Strafe as a spender because it doesn’t re-up your Wraps of Clarity. Have you ever died in the middle of a large pack with GoD6? Have you ever popped back to life without your Vengeance buff? A recovering player is extremely vulnerable, it can take 1.5 second to reapply your 4pc GoD, Wraps of Clarity and Vengeance buffs back. That’s another reason why Strafe needs to become a generator.
I‘ve watched the video, at around 8:30 he prefaced his opinion about Strafe building Momentum stacks with statements like: ‘in it’s original design’ And ‘what they were trying to go for…’
How can anyone even know what Blizzard devs had in mind? And why would we try to uphold their ‘alleged’ concept if the general impression is… not good, counter-intuitive, redundant within our own class, and evokes thoughts like ‘I thought the continuous use of strafting might be more entertaining?’
Drakiock, it wasn’t entertaining because it didn’t do what you expected, produce sustainable damage. =)
It did the opposite, that’s likely why you had to adapt, and felt more satisfied playing the other way. I did the exact same thing, except I went for UE6/M6 because they were familiar and stronger.
Yes. Last night before my internet cut out, i was able to try H. Arrow with Dieoxide and Iria, we were quickly able to recognize the importance of tight enemy grouping, the density itself is a damage multiplier.
Leonine Hashir Bow creates mob groupings that are too loose. It needs to be improved so the H. Arrow build plays a little bit more like Frozen Orb.
Yes he did. We were up to GR132 with a nice progress cushion before I dropped out. We could confidently match your GR135 clear as 3-man, with room for improvement. I’m not sure if they went on to duo, but I’m willing to try again this evening.
We also determined that Elite % damage affixes and the Ambush passive don’t carry their increased damage modifier onto consecutively pierced enemies.
So if enemy #1 is elite and gets pierced enemy #2 (the non elite) doesn’t receive the elite damage bonus, even though the projectile is part of the same attack.
Nice I am going to watch VOD. My run was first key (back to back battlefields) and that is the only reason I did not record. After run both of us where really surprised.
Edit: Man I wish I played on US servers with you guys. Elon Musk might make it possible for Diablo 4 xD.
I took another minute to think about the whole set… and the concept of Momentum.
Momentum stacks indicate your momentum right? And your movement speed (velocity) is really how you ‘feel’ your momentum. You don’t experience it when you’re manually casting a Primary Skill. That’s the whole problem with the current GoD set. You don’t experience Momentum while dealing damage…
So in the spirit of Spin-to-Win (constant strafing), here’s what I suggest…
Momentum stacks are ONLY generated based on pierces and knockbacks. You gain and feel the momentum when you engage many targets. You have to strategically choose if you should cast Hungering Arrow or Bolas based on how many enemies will be affected by the skill.
In thick density, you’ll strafe at the speed of light and do more damage. (high momentum). You’ll collect more Momentum when you cast Bolas in these situations.
In low density, you’ll move slower, and you may need to shoot Hungering Arrow to gain more pierces per attack. (low momentum)
At the rift guardian, you’ll indefinitely want to use Hungering Arrow because it’s the best single target damage dealer and it’ll yield the most Momentum stacks per attack. If you’re lucky enough to get Hamelin or Saxtris, perhaps you’ll be able to ramp up your stacks by throwing the occasional Bolas.
Considering all of the above, I’d edit the GoD’s 2pc bonus like this:
Gears of Dreadlands: 2-Piece Bonus
Gain a Momentum stack when your Primary Skill pierces or knocks back an enemy. Each Momentum stack lasts 3 seconds at a maximum duration of 300 seconds. Your Primary skills deal 1% more damage per stack of Momentum.
I’d then change the 6pc to be more potent, so that we’re still effective when there’s little density surrounding us:
Gears of Dreadlands: 6-Piece Bonus
Your primary skills deal 30000% more damage.
Moving a body of mass (i.e. a DH) at the speed of light requires infinite energy and the body of mass would carry infinite momentum. In the equation below, p is the momentum vector, m0 is the rest mass, v is the velocity, and c is the speed of light.
Jokes and physics lessons aside, I’m more for a build that builds up angular momentum via Strafe (faster spinning) which then converts to linear momentum (like how a discus thrower spins to throw) when you stop moving either by a huge volley of attacks (e.g. 1 primary fired per stack of momentum when stopping Strafe) or a huge damaging primary that scales with the number of stacks of momentum.
For casual play or speed GRs, strafing indefinitely should be a viable option (just not the optimal option).
Conversion is fine if it’s intentional and rewarding.
Players already are complaining about the herky-jerky feel of stop-and-go with what exists now, and even is not abrupt, it is caused by a gradual degradation of Momentum stacks.
That is why i’m suggesting to let the environment and your own actions dictate your… momentum. If your momentum stacks were plotted out on line graph, the mechanics I’m suggesting would result in a long gradual slopes, maybe even max stacks achieved in extremely good density.
This doesn’t mean that both ideas couldn’t work together, like activating a certain skill could trade half your Momentum stacks for a separate damage buff. (i think we talked about this before).
Gears of Dreadlands: 6-Piece Bonus
Your primary skills deal 30000% more damage. Activating Companion consumes half of your Momentum stacks and increases the damage of your primary skills by an additional 500% per for 4 seconds.
30 stacks = 2pc 15% down | 6pc 9000% up = 391x-> 449x
50 stacks = 2pc 25% down | 6pc 12500% up = 452x-> 533x
100 stacks = 2pc 50% down | 6pc 25000% up = 602x-> 827x
200 stacks = 2pc 100% down | 6pc 50000% up = 903x-> 1602x
300 stacks = 2pc 150% down | 6pc 75000% up = 1204x → 2628x
At max stats it’s more than double damage for 4 seconds. It’s not really worth while when you don’t have much Momentum accumulated.
This would make for some sick group play, as you’d be more likely to stay near max stacks.
Last nigh we tested Marauder and UE with Hungering Arrow and we decided to go for 136 with UE. We cleared it with 2x flavor of time + conduit that killed 7 elites. Had speed for RG that we took a bit late. Before Conduit we had 2% -3% advantage.
Some quotes from Barb for lols:
Oh god can you stay close to the monsters they follow you and jump out all the time.
This is so much work for Barb for so little.
You keep missing IP because you vault around like chicken
I am used to play with WD not this crap
Can you please stay in group that is how this game should be played, that is how every build is played
There is oculus why don’t you go for every oculus. You must go for every oculus.
You need to remove steady aim and use numbing traps and 3K Paragons on vitality than you don’t need to vault around.
I don’t care if you are losing UE4 set bonus that is your problem.
I don’t care we don’t have monk in party
Yes, yes, yes I know you don’t get 30% inherent damage reduction but that is bad game design.
We need better progress during the rift steady aim and single out are useless for that just use oculus.
Omg don’t use your zoo you get from Marauder they block monsters I cant pull anything. Monsters are getting cc immunity.
Marauder is still garbage I hate your spider and this pig.
Please dismiss your pets… You can’t? Remove skill from skill bar.
Are there other defensive options for Marauder or you must use zoo belt?
Come here asap, come, come, I don’t care you died I said come.
We have to work on your game play.
I cleared more than you with DH. Rapid fire is the best build.
I dont care if you don’t play Rapid Fire it is the best DH build Evaaaaar!!
Hahahaha xD
Edit: I must say that I returned to d3 because of that guy. <3. We know each other for long time. He started playing Rapid Fire only to motivate me to play it also.
Sounds like putting up with his feedback is half the battle. A stronger GoD6 set, without the UE4/M2 issues would be more meta friendly.
Ridicule is the burden of… good builds.
Do we know how many pierces/knockbacks can be pumped out within a 3 second window?
3APS is 9 attacks.
Single target HA is probably 36 pierces.
Bolas in thick density is harder to say with CC immunity. But if the Bolas projectile pierces too, I could see it making 200-300 stacks. 120-180 if it doesn’t pierce assuming CC immunity.
We need Bolas to hit like a truck, the multipliers suggested are for concept, they are a guess. Going from the proposed 300T to 1500T is not gamebreaking or OP. Other builds strike even harder.
