S52 Proposal - Demon Hunter - Shuriken Cloud - Fan of Knives

General Discussion
1

4K Poster

https://i.ibb.co/ZzYgJN1/s52-demon-hunter-blade-shield-shuriken-cloud-fan-of-knives.jpg

D3 Planner

https://maxroll.gg/d3/d3planner/7281880

TLDR

Fan of Knives as a movement skill

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Blade Shield

Legendary Shield
Attack speed and damage reduction are increased by 20%. While wielding a melee weapon, every thrown knife reduces your damage taken by 1% and adds a blade to your Shuriken Cloud for 5 seconds. Max 50 stacks.
[15 - 30]% (Demon Hunter Only)

Lord Greenstone’s Fan

Legendary Dagger
Every blade of your Shuriken Cloud increases Fan of Knives’ damage by 375%, which is now a movement skill that no longer consumes Hatred.
[350 - 400]% (Demon Hunter Only)

Steady Strikers

Legendary Bracers
Every thrown knife grants 5% False Life to enemies hit, and increases the speed of your Shuriken Cloud by 7% for 10 seconds, up to 100%.
[5 - 10]% (Demon Hunter Only)

Death Watch Mantle

Legendary Shoulders
Cast a free Fan of Knives at enemy when yours hits, or when you’re hit. Fan of Knives and Marked for Death gain the effects of all their runes. [2 - 4]% (Demon Hunter Only)

Board Walkers

Legendary Boots Marked for Death is an aura, and every blade of your Shuriken Cloud increases Fan of Knives’s attack speed and movement speed by 2%.
(Demon Hunter Only)

Sash of Knives

Legendary Belt
While your Shuriken Cloud has over 3 blades, it deals 450% the damage of your equipped Fan of Knives per tick, and you gain immunity to crowd control effects.
[400 - 500]% (Demon Hunter Only)

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Explainer

  • Fantasy: Fireworks of Fan of Knives + Diablo 2’s Blade Shield with tons of blades Best attributes: Knives, Area Damage, Fire damage
  • Gameplay: Cast Shuriken Cloud, Maintain FoK to attack & move, Smoke Screen to speed up
  • Blade Shield: Every trigger of thrown knife adds 1 blade to Shuriken Cloud for 5s
  • Greenstone: 20,000% FoK Damage. FoK moves and no longer consumes Hatred
  • Steady Strikers: False Life synergizes with Ambush. Reduce the tick of Blade Shield
  • Death Watch Mantle: More knives = More blades. Full runes for FoK and Marked fo Death. Free FoK if your FoK hits or when hit. Cast at enemy: Rift Guardian friendly
  • Board Walkers: Mark of Death as an Aura, +100% FoK Attack Speed & FoK Movement Speed
  • Sash of Knives: Adds a FoK-based tick damage to Shuriken Cloud (additive = no interaction). Buriza-Do Kyanon: FoK projectiles pierce 2 additional targets

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NB: As I am not an expert of Demon Hunter, I’d like to hear your suggestions (incompatibilities, optimizations, simplifications, fantasy, …etc.)

2

Hmmm, you’d probably need to change the wording of Lord Greenstone’s Fan “generates 2 resource” to “2 Hatred”. I know you’re looking for a way to keep movement speed up through Smoke Screen but that can be accomplished through giving Smoke Screen either Displacement rune or Vanishing Powder rune. Vanishing Powder removes the discipline cost of Smoke Screen and adds a cool down of six seconds. With being able to use both Displacement and Vanishing Powder with every cast there’s no threat of running out of Discipline.

Using the 2 Hatred wording means it’ll activate Wraps of Clarity. Any build that doesn’t use Dawn to get full uptime on Vengeance for Dark Heart needs more defense than other builds so Wraps are a requirement.

Edit:

As an aside, not being able to use Vengeance means the build is vulnerable to cc effects like knockback and fear, frozen and frozen pulse. That being said, staying close to enemies would be a no-no because of elites and minions with those affixes.

Edit #2:

Smoke Screen can break cc effects but six seconds can be a long time if your hit at an inopportune time. Just wanted to mention that.

1 Like
3

Fixed.
Vanishing Powder, here we go.

Lord of Greenstone’s Fan now offers 50% damage reduction.
I know it is uncommon on a dagger, but why not ? :slight_smile:

Fixed:

Sash of Knives

Legendary Belt
With every attack, you throw a dagger at a nearby enemy While your Shuriken Cloud has over 50 blades, it deals 450% the damage of your equipped Fan of Knives per tick and Strafe gets the ShapeShift property.

First, player need to ramp up its number of blades, and then, when it is over 50 blades, it can switch to close combat to maximize damage.

4

What’s “ShapeShift” do?

Also, Smoke Screen gives invulnerability to damage for a second or two. It’s why they changed Smoke Screen a while back so that the cooldown doesn’t begin until after the effect ends to ensure DH’s couldn’t get full invulnerability by getting enough cooldown reduction to make the effect go off again as soon as it ended.

Edit:

Also, some of these effects would be more appropriate as 2 piece, 4 piece and 6 piece effects of a new set instead of on one item. That’s not good. One, creating another strafe set is just bad because it steals GoD’s thunder and two, I’m not poopooing your ideas but this is just starting to get out of hand.

Know what I mean?

5

It thought it was breaking CC effects.

But apparently it does not.

Land of the Dead gives the Necromancer unlimited corpses for its duration. However, unlike other Shapeshift skills of other classes, it DOES NOT liberate or protect the character from Crowd Control effects.

https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Land_of_the_Dead

Indeed, “Breaks crowd control effects” and “Can be used under crowd control effects” are different stats.

Other Stats : Shapeshift; Can be cast on the move; Does not interrupt casting; Breaks crowd control effects; Can be used under crowd control effects

https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Vengeance_(Diablo_III)

I need to fix this.

So now you want a set ? :smiley:
Why ?

Are there undesired interactions ?

Just because two builds include the same skill doesn’t means they are equal.

This proposal is completely different, in many ways:

Hungering Arrow is not used
Strafe applies FoK at target, which is new.
Being hit applies FoK at target, which is new.
Shuriken Cloud deals FoK damage, which is new.

Seems balanced to me.

If Strafe is a problem, it is possible to define FoK as a movement skill.
No Strafe, no GoD interaction.

6

No, I don’t want another set. And though, I know you’re looking for balance and damage and defense modifiers are part of that, when we start adding new mechanics to two or three items, they become more appropriate to be part of sets and not individual items.

I doubt we’d ever get a new set in this game and I don’t really want one, at least not until interclass and intraclass sets we have currently get balanced.

I mean, a new mechanic on one item can be neat and all, but when you start mixing new mechanics and two or three pieces of equipment to get a desired effect you’re basically making a three piece set with the equivalent mechanics of a six piece sets and that’s not good.

Edit:

An example of this would be Hellcat’s Waisguard. It gives grenades a new mechanic of adding bounces to your grenade attacks and increased damage for each bounce.

That’s cool! Great!

But getting it to do special things like fire with strafe (GoD) requires set.

What I’m saying is…giving an item the property of “such and such skill procs this other skill” might work on one item. That’s neat.

But then giving other items abilities with 2 or three effects to make that neat mechanic better don’t belong on individual items but as properties of sets.

Edit #2: …unless those items are something included in a season theme or what not. Like soul shards and sanctified items and what not like that.

I guess what I’m saying is. Is if you want Shuriken Cloud to be a thing, That’s cool. If you want auto procing FoK to be a thing, that’s cool too. But mixing the two is a set mechanic not individual items.

7

LoD Mages strongly disagrees. :ghost:

Updated !

The main modifications are:

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Adds 50 stacks, every stack lasts 5 seconds and grants 1% Damage Reduction + 1 blade for Shuriken Cloud (acts as a visual representation of the stacks) :

Blade Shield

every thrown knife reduces your damage taken by 1% (…) Max 50 stacks

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FoK as a free movement skill:

Lord Greenstone’s Fan

Every blade of your Shuriken Cloud increases Fan of Knives’ damage by 375%, which is now a movement skill that no longer consumes Hatred.

–

Your FoK casts a free FoK (not recursive because it is not yours):

Death Watch Mantle

Cast a free Fan of Knives at enemy when yours hits, or when you’re hit.

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Over 3 blades (so 4 or more), immunity to CC:

Sash of Knives

While your Shuriken Cloud has over 3 blades (…) you gain immunity to crowd control effects