How to nerf DH for real!

General Discussion
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Heyo, I thought I’d take the opportunity to start a fire… discussion on how I think DHs should be nerfed in the next patch. As a lot of posts in the general forum do, I have to say the obligatory: “I know what I’m talking about, listen to me” moniker before I begin: I’m a DH main and I know math (probably more than you) so I know what I’m talking about. :smirk:

Quite simply, after a lot of careful analysis, I believe the best and most fair change to the GoD Hungering Arrow build is the following nerf/buff pair.

Ninth Cirri Satchel:
Hungering Arrow is guaranteed to pierce up to 20 times and also deals 450-600% increased damage.

Gears of Dreadlands (6) set:
Your primary skills deal 10,000%20,000% increased damage.

Now comes the lengthy explanations with some background context Q/As.

  • Firstly, is the GoD set overpowered? Not quite, if you look at non-Hungering Arrow builds, the set is very weak.

  • Okay, how about Hungering Arrow? While Hungering Arrow is strong, the real strength lies within the Devouring Arrow rune.

  • Why is that rune specifically so powerful? There are a couple factors that make HA:DA overpowered, but summed up there are two main issues: (1) area damage and (2) missile dampening.

Let me take a moment to elaborate on each of those two issues:

  1. Area damage — In short, the density scaling for area damage combined with the Devouring Arrow pierce mechanic is of cubic order. No other skill or effect in the game scales damage with the number of targets to the third power! See this post in the DH forums for a derivation of this cubic scaling. What this means in layman’s terms is damage is greatly increased in high density.
  2. Missile Dampening — This elite affix is fairly rare (3-5% of yellow elites) but when it is present, it allows Hungering Arrow to pierce many many more times than normal. While Hungering Arrow has a maximum arrow distance, it can quickly gain dozens of pierces due to the slowed projectile speed. For a more in-depth view of how this works (and how to exploit it), see this video.

Combining these two effects, Devouring Arrow in high density with a missile dampening elite will provide more DPS than ANY other class/build in the game by far. Even in a GR150, packs of things melt very very quickly.

This leads to the natural issue of fishing, since missile dampening elites are basically like mini-conduit pylons for the sake of GR progression, this affix is highly sought-after. Those top GR clears by DH on the leaderboards are done with missile dampening in a very good rift (excluding seasonal clears which rely on the seasonal theme to kill things).

By putting a pierce limit on Hungering Arrow, this eliminates the need for missile dampening or incredible density for high GR clears but this also lowers the upper tail in the GR clearing potential for the build. In exchange for that nerf, buffing the 6 piece set bonus will improve the build to make high GR clears easier while keeping VERY high GR clears out of reach.

In conclusion, this nerf/buff proposal will reduce the variance in the build (the difference in how it performs in the worst/best case scenarios). The people complaining that the build is “OP” will be satisfied since the very very high clears will be harder and other (non-fishing) DH players will be happy with the damage buff to offset the pierce cap in normal situations.

I have fixed your “DH is overpowered” problem with a simple balance change, you may now praise me.

39 Likes
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Good for you and thanks for sharing this. Everyone should know and be prepared for some kind of “nerf” to this build. I’m sure they have their own way of calculating and their own theories but it’s always nice and wise to give another point of view so it can become a “hmm, well I’m not doing that because of this but that point there might work so let’s try it”.

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Beautiful.
I’ll admit you had me worried with this:

But I’m glad to see that I was mistaken.

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I’ve fiddled with the runes of Hungering Arrow, fully geared.

For reference, some clears on comparable GRifts:

  • Unruned: GR129
  • Spray of Teeth: GR132
  • Shatter Shot: GR133
  • Devouring Arrow: GR140 (no missile dampening)

The way you’re approaching the solution is good. I’d take it one step further.

Devouring Arrow Rune: 70% → 20% (~6GR nerf @ 20 pierces)
GoD 6pc: 40,000%

This will help balance Hungering Arrow runes, it will also lead to stronger Bolas and Grenades builds (GR135-139).

If you agree, please proof the suggestions – i’m unsure what the average pierce count is with the uncapped Ninth Cirri Satchel.

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Hmm, never really paid much attention to area damage… I figured it just did normal weapon damage*the percentage without accounting for set and other damage bonuses.

I just tweaked my DH going from 75% area damage to 140ish even while sacrificing some sheet damage and it made a big difference.

Still learning a few things about this game. Thanks for the tip.

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I’m half on board mostly because I want some diversity; being locked into cold for gr’s and lighting for rifts does suck.

I can see a cap put in the satchel similar to how shield of fury was capped. Fishing for Missile Dampening is definitely an unintended side effect from improper testing.

I’m not on board b/c single target damage is severely lacking and i don’t think an extra 10k% is going to change much in regards to fixing how Devouring acts with Satchel.
I’d suggest bringing Entangling/Bola/Grenade much more up to par by changing the runes entirely and changing/adding in more legendary affixes.
Shatter and Devouring on HA are the only 2 runes that make much sense.

I’d like to see Secondary skills added to the GoD set tho.
Mostly b/c elemental arrow is visually pleasing. Nether Tentacles spammed, yes pls.

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no thank you. just take your gems out if you want to nerf yourself

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Let’s be honest: the build is overachieving and will be hit with some sort of nerf. If we want a good nerf and not have it bullied into obscurity after one season like the other new sets, this sort of constructive suggestion is far more useful than your petty, unoriginal one-liner.

Iria et al have put many hours into GoD analysis; OP and the other constructive suggestions on here are worth reading. Maybe take a moment to digest some of it before piping up and adhering to that old adage about opening one’s mouth and confirming…

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That’d be ironical I think but I don’t see any “nerf” (how 20 pierces is a nerf?) nor a requirement calling for it. So you want Missile Dampening elites, which is just 1 affix between 22-or-so others, to melt even faster? I’m losing the reasoning for this thread to be opened.
GoD likely won’t see a damn nerf, nor it will get a buff by doubling its damage by making area damage bolas overwhelm every other option.

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With good density and packing (e.g. vile swarms) you can get 50+ pierces, with missile dampening on top of that it can grow to 100+. The multiplier is insane with that many pierces.

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GoD DH gaining power over ONE elite affix via increased tickrate must be a big ruckus then. So big that an average forum goer like me missed it but it caused you to open this thread.

I still don’t think DH will have doubled damage by nerfing pierces. If there’s a nerf, that would happen at the form of nerfing pierces only and this would be a bad call to name it. That means a drastical drop in highest GR clear. In short; you can’t really throw in an arbitrary number if we’re talking about cubic increases of sorts under the impression of DH player having a perfect GR full of missile damp modifier elites.
Increasing base damage by nerfing HA, will give way for area damage abuse like bolas with immense crowd control. If HA pierces one target at a single attempt, which means it bursts and performance friendly to minimize calculations. Bolas will hit at least 5 other targets around the main one with their pull effect and blast radius of 14 yards; that’s not very performance friendly for servers.
You’ll return back to square one with bolas being overpowering this time and you’ll get swirled into the same discussion with “Dreadlands is overpowered”; nothing will change.

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I don’t have more to add to balance discussion other than this part:

This is something that irks me about the balance of the game in general. I understand having one skill and one rune as the strongest will probably always be the case and I also understand if there is a small variance in skills/runes. But having one that is MUCH better than the rest is just not right balance wise. Also this set is a good example of even bigger problems. It buffs all primaries but nobody who seriously goes for even OK levels of clears uses anything other than Hungering Arrow. Somehow things should be changed so that more runes or more skills are viable or at least comparable. In all sets.

I understand some sets buff one specific skill and that is totally fine but we need a way of at least making more runes good for them. Other than saying “I do not care I will use another rune and play till a lower level but have variance”

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Find a way that doing solo ~GR115 isn’t punished at all (me, p1500).
Lower the loudness of strafe, it is too loud compared to many builds I have played.

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I like the direction and overall idea of this balance proposal.

It would nerf push potential and buff speed potential.

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With this type of change you’ll likely not even need stricken for the boss. You can instead use Zeis and play ranged.

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That is about right. But you can’t do it with any boss.

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Yes but as you said yourself, those packs are quite rare and hard to find. (you wrote sth about 3-5% spawn-rate , and i almost never see them)

50 pierces is an utterly unrealistic szenario. In most cases you can be lucky to get 10 pierces out of a HA before it hits a wall…or flies off into neverland.

The limit to 20 pierces wouldnt affect gameplay in a negative way in 90% of the cases and the other part…is a straight buff, lets be honest.

The reason why people started to complain are also not the rare occasions where an elite pack with a certain affix comes across the map. Its the whole package.

DH is easier to play than WW-Barb and does more Dmg while also being as tough or tougher. Its like an easy to play WW-Barb on Speed.

This is not altered by your suggestion in a negative, but in a positive way, buffing the DH even further. Even reducing the number of pierces to a maximum of 10 wouldnt change much at this. (sure it would stop people from clearing 150 with dh, 99% of the people dont have the time to fish a grift with 5500 keys like wudjo did anyhow)

The doubled Setbonus would DH not only good at killing trash as it is right now, they would all of a sudden be also top elite killers and bosskillers. Sorry, thats a bit much.

And as you main dh, i can feel you and that you dont want a real nerf. Maybe Blizz wont, and will just buff other classes instead to bring them to the same lvl…just realx and wait. But buffing DH any further really does not seem neccesary at this point.

Even if you play DH as a newbie and dont have the luck to find some Elite Pack with Missile Dampening, he is still ahead in solo-clearing of other classes by a few GRs

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I don’t think it is the GoD set that makes Hungering Arrow so powerful. It has to be the quiver. No other primary skill gets such a boost.

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Its not the set alone , its not the quiver alone, its the combination of

HA DA + Quiver + God-Set + Hunters Wrath Belt. Limiting the pierces to 20 wouldnt change that much for casual players and buffing the GoD set further without a change to DA is not the way to go in my eyes.

I do think the other proposal, nerfing the DA rune, is a way better attempt

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This season I have cleared a 123 GR which is my highiest GR ever in D3 RoS and I will never advocate for nerfs, but if with these “change” you propose I still will be able to at least SOLO 120 - 125 GR, maybe max 130 GR with highier paragon, than I’m ok with it…

Anyway, I would also like to propose to BUFF Bolas damage as it’s laughably low honestly compared to the huge boosts that hungering arrow gets…

Depth Diggers should also BUFF skills that generate resource and those that require no resource at all like WDs and Wizards skills…

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