GOD advice (Yes, I'm trying it again...)

Demon Hunter
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So, after already trying the build twice in the past and giving up on it, I am trying it again. I am at a loss at how others are getting this build to perform to the levels that they do. It feels underpowered and fragile to me…

I tried a GR105 today - a few primals, an ancient and the rest non ancient gear, no augments, lgems all above rank 115 from memory. p2750. I went with toughness over outright DPS. My typical experience is that with augments, I tend to end up about 10 GRs higher than without them - so, if I’m struggling to do a GR105 @ p2700, I’d be struggling to do a GR115 given the same testing conditions. I can go 10 GRs higher with s6 impale as a comparison. I hit GR115 in similar conditions as to my GOD test with mundunugu without too many issues…I hit GR122 without any augments with DMO twister in s22 (HC).

For what it is worth, I was never able to get the barb WW rend build to work for me either - similar issues to the GOD HA build…

I was able to do multiple GR100 clears with around 7 minutes to spare today before jumping to GR105…

Here’s a video of One of my GR105 attempts today - I note that the momentum stacks don’t seem to be keeping up at the max stacking of 20, and this is despite me manually firing HA every second or so. Interestingly, the icon for the HA skill isn’t showing me activating it in the video below. I can assure you that I am activating HA manually, every second. I made a mistake at the start of the GR and didn’t build my stacks up to 20 before engaging the first mob btw. Just mentioning that before some people on here jump on the video and attack me.

Anyway, onto the video:

I’m seriously trying to understand why the build is underperforming for me. I will level up a fresh character to clvl 70 and try a similar run with s6 impale later on tonight and if I get time, upload a test video to my YouTube channel to compare. I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to do a GR105 without too much difficulty with s6 impale (from memory, I did a GR114 in s21 without any augments; SC).

Any advice appreciated.

PS I apologise for the 720p resolution of the video, the PS4 is limited to 720p on exporting play videos :frowning: also, the buff icons are really tiny on the PS4 and difficult to see - I play on a 55" 4k TV (5’ viewing distance or thereabouts) and have no issues with the game in general, but the buff icons are too small for me, and if I wear my reading glasses, the main gameplay is blurry (and they don’t help too much with the buff icons lol!). My distance vision is still good, my normal vision is fine, I only require glasses for reading, and even then, only for smaller print.

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Just a quick look, without the public profile it’s hard to get an overview on your items …

The first thing I would change is: Get rid of Side Cannons with Gunes and use Dark Heart with Depth Diggers in the cube. This should be a nice improvement.

Also, %Damage on weapons is rather weak for DualWield, try area damage instead, which is very important for this build (even after the upcoming patch).

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You can see that I go through my gear and skills from 12 seconds onwards. You may need to pause the video several times though to get a run down of the gear.

I’m also on PS4, so no public profile. We can’t even export to d3planner, it has to be done manually :frowning:

of course, my bad! I haven’t tested the GOD build for quite some time, and didn’t look at a build guide, instead going off my memory. That’s a major faux pas on my end, good pick up!

Got it, will change & test.

Here’s the s6 impale test GR105 run (sorry, I forgot to do a gear run down, but it was pretty similar to the GOD build - 2 ancients, 2 primals, non-optimised rolls, same paragon, lgems @ similar ranks and no augments).

night and day comparison.

I doubt that I’ll be able to get the GOD build to perform at the same level as I can get s6 impale to, even after the changes that you have suggested…which is very frustrating!

note: I’m killing trash with the s6 impale because we need to generate trash kills to generate NG - the NG mechanism on console works very differently to that of the PC version of the game - we do roughly half damage (vs the exact same setup on PC) until AFTER we pick up a NG globe, and then our dmg output tends to closely match the PC version of the game. NG runs for 20 seconds per globe, so we need to kill a fair bit of trash to get NG uptime to the maximum 3 minutes to maintain “full” dmg…frustrating!

As to the primary skill icon - I tested this, on console, the primary skill icon doesn’t show any activation when using it - for any primary skill. I’m not sure if it doesn’t on the PC version of the game, I think it only shows activity if there’s a cooldown linked to the skill. But, I’m definitely manually firing HA every second. I’ve heard other console players say that they hold down the primary skill button and strafe button continuously with the GOD build on console, I tried that as well, but no difference. I cannot see why I am losing momentum stacks!

edit (since I couldn’t add another post to the thread):

OK, changed armour slot in cube to depth diggers and vengeance to dark heart and both weapons from %dmg to AD and bingo, cleared a GR 105 in 11:37.

Still, not great, since my s6 impale clear was done in under 9 mins and felt a lot tougher. GOD HA feels really fragile to me, much more than s6 impale, despite the numbers saying GOD HA should be actually tougher!

As I said, I could probably clear a GR113/114 without augments with s6 impale (would need 5 or 6 more ancients though in all honesty) @ p1000, would be easier @ p2750 (my aforementioned s21 clear in my original post was done around p1000).

I honestly don’t think I could go above a GR115 maximum with GOD HA, even with top gear and 110 augments. I just can’t see how others are easily coaxing mid GR120s or even 130s out of it!!! I can play most builds without issue, and coax reasonably good performance out of them to boot (I managed a GR105 with WD HT garg @ p1000 last season; SC; no augments and we all know that that build is underpowered!).

It seems that I simply cannot get barb WW rend and GOD HA to perform as many other players do and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t care about ranking with it, I much prefer the play style of s6 impale. I don’t have the patience or inclination to farm 500/1000 keys for that “perfect” GR, that’s just plain old silliness to me. I play 'em as I see 'em - I think I’ve had 2 like really good GRs in 5 years of playing the game! Fishing isn’t my cuppa tea. As to stutter stepping with UE MS, that’s impossible to do on consoles. You can pseudo stutter step and it works a bit, but nowhere as good as on PC and it screws your left controller stick. Like with GR fishing, I don’t have the patience to muck around with CoE cycle timing or herding of mobs.

Anyway, thank you for the tip - helped me clear a GR105, which is the best I have ever done with GOD HA. I played it a bit last season as GOD was the starting set and got better at the mechanics, but I still dislike it. Having to activate smoke screen and shadow power on a regular basis really makes my hand and arm hurt (CTS like symptoms in my Right hand and I have issues with tendonitis and bursitis in my Right arm/shoulder). That’s why I prefer “simpler” builds - less painful for me to play the game.

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Irony.

20 characters.

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Not really. As much as I want build diversity and build balancing in the game, I do try other builds (other than s6 impale). I played DMO twister wiz for s22 as an example. I quite like the build and the play style. I managed a GR128 @ p1200, not even fully augmented yet and haven’t pushed for a higher clear cos I’m a lazy bugger lol.

All this talk about GOD HA vis a vis patch 2.7.0/2.7.1 made me want to try it again and see where I’m going wrong. I don’t intend to push with it, now or in the future - I don’t like the play style and it creates a fair bit of physical pain for me. As I said in my original post, I cannot see how others are coaxing such high clears out of the build - I don’t do anywhere near the damage that others are reporting and killing elites is slower than a wet weekend!!! I can see that GOD HA is probably a good idea for T16 farming from a speed perspective, but not if it creates physical pain for me.

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Well you’ve got 5 days, then the playstyle will be completely different (and from my perspective, rubbish).

I’d just wait until 2.7.0 and start with the new set.

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From what I am seeing on the video , it looks to me like you are overcasting HA manually and interrupting the strafing . You spin with the strafe and then stall and then spin again . You need to keep the strafing going smoothly while tapping manual HA button . You have to keep moving and moving smoothly with less stalling . I seen it almost get you killed a few times and it is slowing your clear times . You look to be dealing out a good amount of damage , but the play style looks to be one of the problems to me . Hope this helps some .

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I currently intend to only do the guardian journey in s23…

OK, I’m not sure how to remedy that. AFAIK, I need to activate the HA skill manually, typically around every second or so to keep the momentum stacks at 20. I find it very difficult to keep the strafing going, it’s unnatural to me. I’ll check a few YouTube videos to see if I can figure out the strafing and stalling. Remember, I’m on console, so the controls probably work differently to the PC version of the game I’m guessing (I could and probably am wrong here). Thanks again for the insight.

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On PC I think most people just hold down Strafe and then tap Hungering Arrow periodically (while still holding Strafe). At least that’s what I do. Each time you tap Hungering Arrow you’ll stop briefly to toss out an HA, then immediately start Strafing again since you are still holding down Strafe.

It takes a bit to get used to, but with some repetition you’ll get a steady rhythm down and it just becomes sort of automatic, you don’t have to think about it anymore.

Not sure if it will work the same way on console though. Might be worth talking to some console players who play the build and see what they do.

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I’ll analyse what I’m doing - I could be subconsciously letting go off R2 (my appointed strafe button on the PS4 controller) when I’m firing HA.

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Just play it on PC. That is the best advice I can give you.

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Sorry, but not gonna happen. I much prefer a controller (ergonomically better for me, especially with hand/arm/shoulder issues).

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My experience with the PS4 version is that it seems to prioritize button presses [R1 and R2 seem to be first] and not handle multiple buttons at once. That is, if you’re channeling something (I also use the R2 button for this) and try to hit something else, like X (for a primary skill) it will usually keep the channel. This can be devastating if you need to hit L1 for the potion and it hasn’t quite figured out you stopped using a skill.

It may work better to change Strafe to X and R2 for Primary skill but that’s awkward for me.

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Interesting. I don’t typically play channelling builds, so haven’t noticed any prioritisation of the buttons on the controller, but nothing would surprise me. Now is that a game dev issue, or a hardware issue I wonder!

I too prefer my main attack on R2 and generator/primary skill on the X button. I like to map movement to square, and the least used skill (shadow power for s6 impale as an example) to R1. I’m kinda pedantic that way lol.

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I think that’s exactly what you are doing . You have to keep strafe constantly up and running and then tap HA every second or two . I actually tap HA two or three times in a row really quick if my HA stacks get down below around 16 to pick it back up to 20 . To keep the strafing running smoothly you need to tap quickly so you don’t stall it . You’ll need to get more practice but I think you can work it out . Good Luck

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I manually shoot HA roughly every half a second. I did this with the Natalyas set too back in the day, so it just came naturally to me. Hold down right mouse button always (strafe) and tap left mouse (HA) in a rhythm.

I’m led to believe by the pros that means I keep up momentum at 19/20 and my rhythm is in sync with the GoD 6 piece bonus, so I lose less auto-procs from the internal cooldown.

It’s done wonders for me and I’ve outperformed players with waaaaay more para than me, so I guess I’m doing something right.

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The more I think about it, the more I think you are 100% right. I do lack experience with this build and it’s rather finnicky to play imho. It doesn’t really feel natural to me, but I shall persevere just for the sake of learning another build. Thanks for the ideas and feedback.

I’m probably doing it every second. I tend to keep my stacks up around 19/20 pretty easily, although it is hard for me to see the stack icon on my TV. I wish Blizzard would let players make those buff icons larger on the console ports of the game as a QOL measure. I don’t mind losing a bit of screen in the process.

That is myself typically with s6 impale.

I’m happy that I managed a GR105 - I’ve never managed to do that in my 2 prior tests of the GOD build, so I’m pretty chuffed. I can’t seemingly eke out the performance/damage that others can from the set and I have no idea why, but it’s a win.

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Aside from what you might see as weird interactions with your controller buttons working correctly, definitely some gear issues…you are severely lacking in damage it seems for your Paragon. My sheet dps NS @ 2645 paragon is 4.5mil (and 24k Dex though I have everything augmented at least with 100lvl gem a few 120)

Can you advise (didn’t see this) what your total stats are for:

CHD
CHC
CDR
AD

  • Helm - missing 6% CHC

  • FoT - missing CHD and CHC (drop VIT ASAP for one of these ASAP)

  • wraps and chest are pretty much perfect (jealous of that chest piece)

  • Both weapons you have damage % instead of AD or CDR, neither are great since you only get 1/2 the benefit while dual wielding…also the cooldown on the Dawn is low, you want to be 63-65% ideally or you need more CDR rolls on other pieces to compensate and have vengeance up 100%

  • feel your pain on the restraint missing CHC, i finally got a CHC/CHD one this season with a whopping 5 days left…but also swap BoTP to Taeguk (added damage and defense) BoTP is ok as a starter, but higher you want the Taeguk (IMO).

  • pants missing HA damage (roll off Armor)

  • belt is low on the leg bonus (and should roll to 15% HA), understand if best so far you’ve found, but that’s a pretty big delta from 163->200

  • replace thrill of hunt with archery (crit bonus + hatred regen)

  • smokescreen I use vanishing powder to remove disc cost and only use it when divebombing into a mob, the added movespeed isn’t helping you really

  • i’d swap awareness with numbing traps until you get to point where you are dying during the rift. if you are proccing now, maybe try some these tips/changes and see what happens and if not proccing, swap to numbing for defense…

  • vengeance, as mentioned swap to dark heart, the cannons do squadoosh.

  • I know you mentioned you tend to be defensive, hence boar, but wolf is always a good option until you are really pushing your limits

  • cube depth diggers instead of visage once you swap to dark heart will help a lot

  • finally the debate about elusive v COE…as much as I dislike trying to time with COE, it’s noticeable even when you aren’t trying to time when you see big chunks of health suddenly start dropping on monsters…ties into your defensive posture as well I guess…but give it a go and see how you survive. Remember while a dead DH does no damage, neither do dead monsters :slight_smile:

And TBH, it seems like the bump to 4 pierces and 15k set bonus coming next patch will be better than the original nerf (obviously) and some streamers believe that it won’t be as noticeable for solo speed GR content where you aren’t spending time pulling mobs together.

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That’s awesome advice PMG (thank you!). I’ll report back later today on some of the stats questions that you had.

This was just a quick knock together of gear to see how I could push with GOD - so no augments and mostly non-ancient, non-optimised gear. I was being tight and not wanting to waste too many mats for testing lol.

I already changed the armour slot in the cube to depth diggers and vengeance to dark heart and cleared that 105 that was eluding me. The build still feels rather fragile to me though, certainly more fragile than s6 impale, despite the numbers saying it shouldn’t be.

I pretty much only have a single copy of each item slot - this was meant as a quick test, so I didn’t waste time or mats farming etc to get BIS items. The 2 primals I had in my stash, although the primal chest dropped on the same day that I created this new GOD character lol. Is the game trying to tell me something?

I think the 2.7.1 change from 3 to 4 pierces will mean GOD will probably hit 136 @ 5k para, 500 key fishing limit, with the very best players at the helm, so a nerf of 10 GR probably. It’s still well ahead of my preferred s6 impale though, probably 6 GRs or so. That 6 GR buff to GOD could mean 500 ranks on the LBs lost cos s6 impale is weak vs GOD. I’ve made my thoughts clear on build diversity and balance in the game in other threads, so don’t want to pollute this thread.

I had a good crack at mundunugu back in s20 NS, played DMO twister this season to good effect, so have learned a few new builds outside of the DH range. I’m reasonably adept at UE MS and WD HT garg and quite like invoker thorns cru too. Most of the builds in the game are simply too much button mashing for me and result in pain (and frustration). Not everyone playing the game has perfect health. On PC it’s not so bad cos you can use the numlock cheat (yes, I consider it a cheat, it’s automation, irrespective of whether Blizzard allows it or not) - on console we don’t have that option and it would be good to see as a QOL improvement imho.

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So I watched the GoD video and noticed a few things…first, you should be strafting to move always firing HA to keep up momentum, you did a lot of just running which will drop your stacks and cause you to need to ramp up again. Momentum bonus is a major source of damage and you spent a lot of time missing it…you also spent a ton of time on single target or a few monsters - if you aren’t killing them right off the bat (which you should with that plevel and the gear/skill tweaks), pull them into larger groups to take advantage of the pierces and any AD you have (obviously this changes a bit on higher GR post patch).

To test, I opened my NS DH, swapped out my Valla’s for FB and removed paragon to get to about the same Dex as you showed in video (18.6k for me 18.4k you) and vit (6683 me, 6863 you)…GR 105 - 2:53 (not great first floor)

My gear is overall better

57.5 CHD
608 CHC
132 AD

And even at P1800 equiv (to offset the DEX from augments), my sheet DPS is 3.5m…so I’m guessing it is a combo of gear and playstyle.

EDIT: oops, forgot to swap out Stricken for Trapped which probably would have cut another 30secs plus off the time…

TBH - you are making an unfair comparison as to your clear ability - on one hand is a build you love and nuture and play probably 95% of the time with, so you know the intricacies of how it best works. On the other is a new build with somewhat wonky controller mechanics that you aren’t all that familiar with and pretty minimal experience playing, so you don’t have that same benefit. Just saying that the “gear/gons/gems/augs” are the same for both builds is just a starting point.

I have a NS char decked out in pretty decent primal S6 gear (including rings/ammy - I think only thing on NS that isn’t primal and decently rolled is my HPS, which I got primal in S22)…but I never play it so even though the gear is way better than my GoD DH, I’m not going to be as comfortable playing it and won’t do as well with it. Heck I can’t even remember which gems to use and the overall S6 playstyle for me isn’t all that interesting, might be something to work on NS after getting Guardian in S23.

Just a tip, passive-aggressive comments (“made my thoughts clear about build diversity” and “I consider it a cheat”) should be kept out of a thread asking for help. I’m trying to help and you well know we’ve had forum run ins on that stuff in the past…but that’s not stopping me from trying to help you with this build. As such, I’ll refrain from opining on them other than to say that not all builds are for all players. I tried Bazooka Wiz when it was OPAF and couldn’t do it, not enough hand/eye to get anything close to timing down. Hell I can barely keep track of CoE cycles.

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