I think they should have replaced Hit Recovery with a Stagger Mechanic on your character.
Imagine that the XP Bar on your character now moves down to the bottom of the UI and on top of your Skill Bar there now is the Stagger Bar for your character.
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Every hit you take from enemies adds a certain amount of Stagger, depending on the attack. Some attacks can add less Stagger to your char, others more.
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Once the Stagger Bar is full, you get microstunned for x seconds and the Stagger Bar depletes.
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While microstunned, you can not accumulate additional Stagger.
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While microstunned, you eventually can take xx% more damage.
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Stagger also decays on its own over time.
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The ‘Faster Hit Recovery’ Affix would get replaced with “+x maximum Stagger” or “x% increased maximum Stagger”, which would make it so that your Stagger Bar increases and you can take more hits before staggered.
That is basically like Hit Recovery, but you can manage it better and you do not get stun-locked like in D2.
Maybe there can even be skills that remove a certain amount of Stagger, temporarily prevent Stagger from accumulating, etc.