Gears of the Dreadlands. The problem is not the set. The problem is Strafe

Demon Hunter
1

I think a lot of the problem that folks are having with the set is they’re trying to do damage with strafe. That’s not how it plays. Strafe is there just to proc BoW. Just like you would use strafe to make UE Generator proc BoW with out it feeling clunky as all get out.

Strafe firing your generators is basically so you don’t lose too much damage while moving, making it fit better with CoE than any other build we have.

Now, there are some bugs that need to be worked out like strafe’s hungering arrows with NCS not piercing as often as it’s supposed to or if you use bolas, the one’s fired while strafing don’t scale with attack speed and what not.

But honestly, I don’t think it’s Blizzard intent that strafe is supposed to be the damage dealer. Strafe is so subpar as a skill second only to spike traps as far as being the worst skill in the game thanks to the movement speed loss while strafe and the low proc co-efficient of the skill, that just doing what folks want as in all the ideas that have been brought up to make Strafe the damage dealer in the set would not work.

If I could offer a suggestion…

Quit asking for Gear to be the new Whirlwind. I don’t know what patch did it but a long long long time ago, they did something to Whirlwind, the skill itself, before adding any set or anything, that they didn’t do to Strafe. Many folks on these forums asked them to do the same thing to Strafe but Blizzard never did.

So, as Blizzard isn’t willing to re-work the skill itself, as in doing to it what they did to Whirlwind (sorry I can’t remember what that was but I’m thinking it had to do with the proc rate, could be wrong, but it was basically done to make the tornadoes of the set do damage back before buffs made the tornadoes irrelevant).

So, even if they did do what you folks want as in making Strafe the damage dealer, it would never be as good Whirlwind.

So basically it’s not a problem with the set but a problem with the skill and so start asking for the right thing which isn’t “Make Strafe the damage dealer” but is “Re-work Strafe itself.”

After that, then they can build a set where Strafe is the damage dealer.

JMO.

4 Likes
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I agree with you. And thank you for this posting, trying to cool down the kinda heated discussion a bit.

I also do like the concept of the new set. In the discussion in the other thread Pe3eWe3e wrote, that you could play UE-HA, if you like the playstyle. I tried yesterday. Yes, UE-HA is stronger (for now), and it is similar to play. But the difference between Vault and the “Momentum-buffed” Strafe is huge, imho. Compared to GoD, the transition between attacking with HA and Vault feels rather clunky. Alternating every few seconds between Strafe and Primary attacks feels much smoother, imho.

There are also several postings claiming that the current implementation of “Momentum” doesn’t make sense - it should be the other way round (= Strafe builds up Momentum, standing still firing Primaries consumes it). I think, this wouldn’t make sense - the current way just fits better into the overall fantasy of the set, which is obviously kinda Steampunk inspired. Well - not powered by actual steam, but more by something lika a spiral spring, which you wind up by casting primary attacks.

If you want a silly analogy: Think of toys like wind up cars. A little darker: Think of all the automatas in “Syberia” (a rather old point&click adventure game).

I think the current set mechanics do make sense. It needs a little bit (or a lot of) more damge, and it could be a fine new set.

I would like to see some bugfixes (HA not piercing and not proccing AD is one of the most important ones, imho), so that the damage during strafing is not lower than in the “wind up” phase. After that, damage during strafe could be actually higher, as you can strafe right through a large group of monster, dealing a huge amount of damage caused by a lot of consecutive pierces.

I do like the set because it is not “one button spin to win”, and it also does not require high frequenzy stutter-step (like the old Natalya).

4 Likes
3

Agree. I made a similar statement earlier on other thread:

The problem is on the crazy power creep of existing items/sets.
Without power creep all sets/builds are craps too.
So, either increase the multiplier of this set, or nerf all other sets. But sure the latter won’t be accepted by most of the players.

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Quit telling people to not have their opinions, if that is what they want.

This is not true either.
With some tweaks to numbers etc. It could be as good or better.

This new set is a mixture of Nat strafe (mostly) and Ue grenade build. Hence why many are disappointed about it.
Strafe, stop and shoot, strafe, stop and shoot. = Nat.
Why make strafe shoot primaries when it’s mostly used to keep up toughness and mobility. Why lose stacks so quickly.
If, as you wrote yourself, it’s played like seeing strafe being the spirit walk like Wd, why even having it shoot primaries? You need to stop and shoot anyway to deal real damage. Kinda contradicting to the written set bonus.

If I could downvote, I would. I hate seeing posts like these, trying to put down others opinions and thinking you speak on behalf of everyone.

1 Like
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I don’t see any resemblance to both of the builds you mention there.

To be honest, I am not exactly sure what you mean by “Nat strafe”. Is it mostly strafe with Grenades and Hellcat? Or do you mean the old stutter-step EF/Strafe builds with highly complicated cooldown stuff? In both cases, the new set has nothing to do with it, imho.

You don’t need stutter-step here, and you don’t have the annoying randomness of Hellcat grenades. The same goes for UE grenades. That’s another build that only works on high mob density - and it’s completely annoying to play on lower density or tunnel maps.

HA does work on lower density (of course, more density is better), and it works on more different kind of maps.

I don’t see why you equate these builds that way.

Because you can keep dealing damage while moving? Otherwise than in UE or S6, where you don’t deal damage during Vault? Sure, stacks are falling too quickly, I would agree on that. A few seconds more “full damage buff” would be nice.

But as Idolis said, GoD is not a Strafe set - it is a generator set, which uses Strafe as an alternat movement skill.

I do understand that many DH players wanted a strafe set (I personally am not sure about it). But I think it’s unfair to say that the set is stupid just because it’s not a strafe set.

2 Likes
6

It’s the same thing. Ue grenades you stop to spam primaries, what do you do with the new set? Exactly the same.
Nat strafe, you strafe a bit around, need to stop to shoot primary, just like the new set.
Oh there is stutterstepping here as well. That’s the entire gameplay.
They play the same, the only difference is the primary skills being used and strafe twirling a bit faster around, with the new set.

And how much damage do you do exactly? Less than standing still for sure. There is no real benefit for the strafe primary damage. You will do much more by spamming and standing still.

And people got their opinions. This boils down to = they do not listen and every new set, looks like something was thrown into a debate and just picked out randomly.
Only one being decent was the crusader and wd set.

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With this kind of argument everything not using strafe is just the same.

S6? You stop to spam Impale. UE-MS? You stop to spam Multishot. M6? You stop to spam CA. (With CC3, at least UE-MS doesn’t need a gnerator that often, so it basically IS spamming MS. For M6, it is a little bit different, I’ll give you that.)

If you really think that UE Grenades and GoD-HA is the same playstyle, then you’re playing a different game than me. UE-Grenades is a pure facetank build. GoD-HA is not.

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Listen up. I got my opinions and you got yours. The majority does not like the current playstyle of the new set.
It is very similar to the nat strafe build. If you cannot see the resemblence then it’s on you , not me.
You think they are not similar cause Ue uses another skill. It’s just like Savage set for barbarian, it’s the same as hota. But with an annoying mechanic where you need to fear the enemy, running away from you.
At least Wd set and Crusader set brought something else to them.
New Dh set you use strafe, just like Nat. You use primaries to spam , just like Ue. No matter what skill. It’s the same. Both clunky to play and underperforming.

Why not listen to the Dh community where they asked for maybe a trap build and / or elemental arrow or chakram even.

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Whether the DH community likes it or not it’s another question. I won’t argue against it.

But you claim that UE-Grenades and GoD-HA is just the same. I gave at least two arguments why it is not (facetank vs. not facetank and the RNG aspect of grenades).

And your only reply to that is “But that’s my opinion”? Where are your actual arguments that it feels the same? Or are we here discussing based on -erm- alternate facts, like it’s sadly common today in US?

@Idolis: Sorry the topic went down that way. I’m out of here now. The sun is shining on a beautiful afternoon, and I will get some fresh air now. :wink:

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Why are Rat runs so OP in 120 GR speeds?
Because damage dealing skill is auto targeting all monsters on screen.

Many people hope for GoD 4P set buff so they can run speed GRs in 4 man. Strafe and Projectiles fired by Strafe could kill full screens of monsters if it had enough damage.

For health of DH community it is much more important for DH to have a spot in 4 man groups that what exact build we are going to use for solo push.

I don’t really care if it is going to be UE Generator build for solo push or GoD Primary skill build. For me play styles are pretty close.

2 Likes
11

Us? Who says I am from the Us and why is this even a thing?
I have stated several examples to why I think they play the same. How about you read the entire thing instead of taking something out of context cause you are so eager to win a debate.
Let me rewrite things for you or do I need to continue to repeat myself??

Ue : you spam primaries. GoD you spam primaries to do the same just worse.
Nat strafe, you stutterstep between strafe and firing primary. God you stutterstep to strafe for toughness and primary firing to deal damage.

Strafe could be used to lay down traps and traps will be buffed to deal enough damage. I would rather have a ww Dh set than what it is now. You still stand still to do things, just like Ue. Your argument “but you can facetank as ue you can’t as God” = GoD is weaker. But how much you can facetank is NOTHING against the arugment about how the playstyle is working.

Want to play fancy and be condescending? At least make an efford.

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Exactly. Dh have been out of group play for far too long. New set does nothing of what they promised to people. Weak, clunky.

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I believe the elephant in the room is the way blizzard worded the set before PTR went live. The hype and expectation of how the set was going to play made many people feel that they were going to be able to strafe and shoot primaries as the play style, switching between primaries depending on scenario, etc.

When the set went live, we found out that your stacks drop as you’re strafing, essentially punishing you whenever you decide to strafe. Using a different primary skill resets the stacks of the previous one and you have to start all over again, essentially discouraging the use of multiple primaries and the only way to get your momentum stacks up again is to not strafe.

Reading the set before playing it, no one expected the above interaction, causing frustration and a rift in the community. Whether this is how the set is suppose to play can be and has been debated, but where blizzard got in trouble is knowing a portion of the player base has been wanting to “strafe”, and then designing a set where strafe itself has little to no value outside of movement and a toughness bonus. Even the primaries shot from strafing are uninteresting because the primaries gain strafe’s proc coef which is awful. With all of this said, why even have strafe fire primaries at all? I called it back in another thread where I said there’s a reason why the toughness buff last for 5 seconds after you stop strafing, and well… we now know why :slight_smile:

One can agree with how the set works and still understand peoples disappointment and why some are angry with how it works. For some, the wording of set to PTR live feels like Diablo Blizzcon 2018. That’s an exaggeration, but you get the point.

At the casual level, you can’t spin to win and clear most content because the set won’t let you. At the top level, you can’t “generator-strafe-weave-stutter step” while switching generators to gather then stop and unload on CoE cycles because generator’s projectiles don’t count towards momentum stacks if you strafe before the projectile hits the target, which would be the most efficient way to take advantage of the set. Whether you’re someone who prefers simplicity or someone that prefers a technically challenging approach, both camps lose out on something significant.

If I could just make one change, IMO I would just allow strafe primaries to stack momentum. This way, the spin to win crowd can strafe to their hearts content while being able to clear most content, while also allowing the players who enjoy technically challenging mechanics to get the most out of the set, clearing higher GR’s than the spin to win camp because they’ll be taking advantage of AD and weaving. If you don’t want to do either (strafe every now and then, fire yourself every now and then), that is also possible.

An idea floated around by Hebalon and others is to make each stack last quite a bit longer. I think this will also achieve the same effect. You give players options. Everyone can play the way they want to, so would be a win-win for both camps while the “in between” camp won’t be effected at all. I don’t think it’s fair to leave out one camp or another when there’s an option that can satisfy both sides.

P.S. The set needs a huge damage boost, but that’s obvious so I didn’t mention it in my write up.

4 Likes
14

See, I have this problem yesterday too. Folks reading what I wrote and then like they didn’t actually read it, starting saying I said or did something I mostly certainly did not say or do…

Here let me quote the relevant things in my post that make this state absolutely 100% false…

So please, next time read what I said and don’t assume things I didn’t say.

Thank you.

1 Like
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When you write stuff like this :

You are kinda doing that yourself. You literally write “quit it”. Why? Let people ask for whatever they want or like and then let Blizzard decide what to do.

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For crying out loud!

The “If I could offer a suggestion…” is saying just what everything after it was. Thank you.

Then I also stated why I offered the suggestion. And what to do instead. Now, if I had just stopped at “Quit asking…” and didn’t say anything after it, then you might but not really have a frickin’ point.

But even then the “If I could offer a suggestion…” makes it just that, a suggestion. I wasn’t telling anyone what to do. I was telling folks what “I’d like” them to do, but not “Do it or else…”

Thank you.

2 Likes
17

You wrote that people should quit asking for another ww set. And then wrote about what happened to ww set some time ago.
You might have had a different opinion when you wrote it. But you literally wrote that people should quit asking for it.
Then you proceed to write about what Blizzard is willing to or not.
You need to understand, people thought it would be a strafe damage dealing set, just like PoJ monk or wwrend Barb.

It is sorta like those but you need to stand still and deal damage. People are asking for strafe to be the big skill to use to dish out damage. You tell them to quit.
Again, you might not have wanted to sound like someone whom don’t want people to have an opinion, but this right there, sounds a lot like you are against people asking for something.

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No, I’m not against people asking for things. I am sort of against asking for things that wouldn’t happen even if their asks were answered the way they want them to be.

My post was about why, even if they made strafe the damage dealer in the set, it wouldn’t be as good as Whirlwind because the devs did something close to the time that RoS came out oh so many years ago, that they didn’t do to strafe that essentially makes Whirlwind do what it does today.

Strafe on a “as a skill level” isn’t as good as Whrilwind because of what the devs did to Whirlwind. So making Strafe the damage dealer wouldn’t all of a sudden make Gears as good as WotW. Because the skills act differently on a fundamental level.

That’s what I said, but I didn’t say at any time that they can’t offer their suggestions. They can go ahead and do that, but what they’re asking for isn’t the “fix all” they think it is.

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This might be happening. Everyone thought Blizzard wanted it to be “strafe around letting the primaries deal damage while doing so”. And it was nothing like it. No one knows what they will do. However, I don’t think they will do much. But you never know. And I still hope for some major changes.

It’s not about making strafe the damage dealer. It is about making strafe usable to fire out primaries that both benefits the set bonuses and the damage output you get from various support items.
It’s like ww does nothing, it is used to power up rend.
And I get it, “why get another ww set”.
But it’s a lot better than what we got right now. Ue outperforms the new set by A LOT.
There is nothing to gain from strafe dishing out primaries. People use it now to get toughness. Sure, it can deal enough damage on a t16. But what if you want to push, then you need to use it like spirit walk, cast it and forget about it for some seconds while you stand still and shoot. That’s exactly what both nat strafe and ue generator build does. Just better.
They could have made either a trap strafe build where you gain stacks and pump out overpowered traps every 5-10 seconds. “Every second gain a stack to traps dealing xxx amount of damage”. “While strafing gain x amount of damage reduction”
6 p = “when at max stacks, you drop traps dealing xxx damage and lure in all mobs in the area”.
This is just something I thought about right now.
Or an elemental arrow strafe set. Letting it shoot out 2-5 elemental arrows that is buffed by strafing.

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DiE,

Making the generators fired from Strafe stack Momentum would be a start, but another thing they’d have to do is make the generators fired by Strafe also generate hatred, which I don’t think they do. I could test it real quick, but I won’t do that right now. I’m pretty certain they don’t though.

But someone can and probably will correct me if I’m wrong.

But if Strafe’s generators don’t generate hatred (like I think) then they’d still have to stop to fire generators to re-build hatred.