So tried it out. It’s not bad. My main pet hate is the caltrops. I wish I could throw them like I could in reality. Instead, I have to run in, drop the caltrops, and then run out. Or I have to lure them to the caltrops.
The 4p isn’t always blasting them towards the nearest caltrops. It’s like 1 in 10 chance to blast them (if at all), meaning I have caltrops set, and I’m blasting them, but they aren’t moving.
I want to drop a caltrops, and have it work like a Paranado or Black Hole, or Cyclone Strike when I blast them. And I want to place the caltrops where I want, and then blast them in, and then while they are affected, blast them more. If any start to leave the area, I drop a caltrops beside and blast them all to the new caltrops.
Additionally, I’m not seeing the lightning animation hitting 3 times. Can’t be sure if it is or not. It seems to hit twice and then the spike traps fade away.
Personally, I hate it entirely. I wish it could go back to how it worked on PTR or even back to its original RoV form entirely. The entire change feels broken and half-baked as if it was just thrown together in a couple hours with very little overall thought to how each rune functions in the new arrangement.
The Lightning Rune is broken, so you’re not wrong.
And it appears the playstyle now is similar to old Shadow or LoD Rapid Fire, where you stand in the middle, pull everything on top of you, and then blast away.
I’d like it to be ranged too, but I’m not sure the devs will make that happen.
I mean, the Barbarian and Monk have to be in the middle for their pull effects from Ground Stomp and Cyclone Strike, so that appears to be the code they used for caltrops.
Those classes are built for up close combat tho. DH is specifically designed to not stand right in the middle of the mess, trying to make the DH behave that way is counter to the entire class lore and function. Even the one melee variant of DH is not meant to sit hand to hand with mobs.
They even get bonus protection because they play up close, if they want us to play like Barb and Monks they need to also give us the added bonus defense those classes get which we and the INT classes do not have.
I agree but we’re also the class that’s terrible at holding pulls together. There’s a reason other classes out perform the DH in density. I know why the devs did what they did, doesn’t make it right but it’s the way the game works where area damage is king.
The original form of Natalya (with Rain of Vengeance) and even the Strafe Spike Trap version at least held to the ranged medium which is fundamental to DH. Even our melee variants are still ranged. No reasonable Trapsin would sit in the traps after they set them and end up surrounded in close quarters combat. That is just not true in any way to what a ranged class (which DH absolutely is) should be.
The Lightning rune, I don’t really like it for effect. It doesn’t have that cascade. Boom Boom Boom BOOM BOOOM!
I’d love it to blast like that and 3 arcs of lightning hit the 3 nearest targets for an additional 960 damage. Meaning the blast does 1160% to blast radius, but if it’s just 1 elite, then 3 arcs at 960% each hit doing 4,040% damage in total. Boom! 3 arcs. Another boom and another 3 arcs. That way it would be SUPER powerful for 3 or less enemies, but the other runes would be better for trash. That way people can pick, “Do I want to kill trash and have a longer boss fight? Or take longer with trash but have an easier boss fight?”
And being able to place caltrops and blow enemies where you want them, you can then split up the enemies to keep the trash away from the elites, to get maximum elite damage.
And Caltrops should be thrown too. We need to be able to control groups. If we want the spike trap elite killer rune, we have to be able to separate them from the trash.
Maybe just blast trash to the set caltrops. Then the elites can be left alone to cop all the lightning hits.
I think also, there is too much CC. Slow from caltrops, and cold spike trap, or stun from physical spike trap, and generator isn’t used, and we already have the scatter rune.
Actually, the generator makes sense. If you’re in the middle, Evasive Fire/Hardened gives damage resistance.
Now admittedly, I’ve only ran 125’s but here’s my set up.
Nat’s Helm
Nat’s Cloak
Captain Crimson’s Pants and Belt.
Aughild’s Shoulder’s and Bracers
Nat’s boots
Nat’s Gloves.
Nat’s Ring
Elusive Ring
Dawn and Demon’s Demise
I put Vengeance and Smoke Screen on Numlock so that’s I don’t have to worry about Elusive falling off.
It’s pretty smooth and I’m able to stand in Molten Explosions and so on without dieing.
I am paragon 4255 though. I’ve tried a 130 but have trouble killing fast enough. But 125 is always a success.
Edit:
Want to add, that half my equipment is non ancient or ancient but unaugmented.
I think if ST auto triggered Caltrops where you cast ST, and give the dmg buff to ST, on enemies effected by Caltrops. So you put Clatrop all over the place instead of under your character. Would make the pinball effect and mechanic more sense.
The description on the set is wrong. It says something like “pulled toward a set trap” when it’s actually pulled toward a triggered trap.
I believe that’s where the confusion is. You also don’t want to hit caltrops constantly but when monsters start to break away. You then want to set the traps under the ones getting away and then explode them. That’ll pull them back to you. But remember that pull effects build cc immunity, so you don’t want to do all the time.
I get that. But I don’t see them changing it before season starts. I’m hearing some folks saying, as the set works now, it’s balanced somewhere between Shadow and UE as far as DH sets go. Which for a reworked set is no bueno. People expected Tal Rasha like performance and the set just isn’t in that league like at all. Which just sucks.
Thankfully it is not the gift set this season and I won’t have to play it at all. It’s a shame tho as I really enjoyed the PTR version of it. It was also about the only build that my handicapped friend was able to reach higher GRs with.
Yeah, DiEoxiDe said in his stream tonight that “they decided not to make Nat’s GoD 2.0 so they instead made it the Original Shadow 2.0, so it still doesn’t have an identity.”
There’s things they could do to make it more powerful like activating the lightning rune and some other things, but it’s just not a “casual” friendly set with the way it is now.
